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205

steamed food, Ditto of five ditto, on raw food, 176

into profitably, where food is very high in price, and May 1. Live weight of five pigs, on
coal very low. It must, however, be remarked,
that the winter 1832-33 was a remarkably mild one;
on the contrary, had it been very frosty and cold
there can be no doubt the cattle on raw food (with,
every care) would have fallen back; and lastly, June 1. Live weight of five pigs, on
that there cannot be a doubt that in the feeding of
swine prepared food is the best.

[By the accompanying certified statement, it appears that, of the cattle, Lot 1, fed on raw food, the weight was 183 st. 11 lbs. Dutch, while that of Lot 2, fed on steam food, was 179 st. 10 lbs.; but the weight after the experiment is not mentioned, it being only stated in general terms, by Mr. James Williamson, who purchased the cattle, that, on killing them, he "took particular notice of the quality of the beef and weight of tallow in each lot, and found them, to the best of his judgement, to be perfectly alike."

The cost of keeping the five cattle on raw food amounted to £32 2 1, while that of the cattle on prepared food was £34 5 10, there being a balance of £2 3 9 in favor of the raw food.

Difference in favor of steamed food, 30

steamed food, 279 Ditto of five ditto, on raw food, 223

Total difference in favor of steamed food, 56

have increased 173 lbs., being 67 lbs. more than In the three months, the pigs on steamed food double; while those on raw food have only intheir first weight, so that there can be very little creased 115 lbs., being 7 lbs. more than double doubt that steamed food is more profitable for feeding pigs than raw food. In fact, the reporter does not think it possible to make pigs fat on raw potatoes, without other food, when confined to them alone.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LIQUID MANURE IN
HORTICULTURE, AND THE PECULIAR AD-
VANTAGES OF SOOT AS AN INGREDIENT FOR
THAT PURPOSE.

kenny.

With respect to the pigs, it appears that the five put on boiled food weighed at the commencement of the experiment on the 1st December 5 cwt. 2 qrs. 22 lbs., and at its termination on the 1st March 10 cwt. 1 qr. 1 lb.; while the five ted By MR. JOHN ROBERTSON, F. H. S. Nurseryman, Kilon raw food weighed at these different periods 5 cwt. 2 qrs. 22 lbs., and 8 cwt. 1 qr. 15 lbs., leaving a very decided difference in favor of those fed on prepared food. The expense in the case of the latter was £6 19 41, and in that of the pigs fed on raw food £5 8 6, so that the profit was after all inconsiderable.]

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We put up to feed, on the 4th March 1833, five pigs on steamed potatoes, and five on raw potatoes, with an allowance of 24 Ibs, of broken barley each lot, the barley, for the steamed lot, being steamed along with the potatoes, They were allowed the same quantity of potatoes, but, from the circumstance of their being, when put up, only 24 months old, and from the same brood, we were not able to keep so accurate an account of the quantity of potatoes consumed; because as they increased in size, they ate more potatoes.

The following Table will exhibit the improvement in pounds weight. Weight in lbs.

1833

March 4. Live weight of five pigs, on raw food,

108

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From the Gardener's Magazine.

In

Amongst the many advantages which horticulture has derived from Mr. Knight's enlightened application of science to its practice, we may reckon as not the least important, his earnest and repeated recommendation of liquid manures. general, liquid manures have not had that importance attached to them by gardeners which they merit. They may at all times be resorted to with advantage; but, in a number of instances, and particularly where immediate effects is required, no other manure can be so well applied. To enumerate their uses and preparation, however, would demand more consideration than I am enabled to bestow;-my present object being solely to point out a material for the purpose, which I have long availed myself of with success, though it seems to have been overlooked by most gardeners-it is

soot.

Sir H. Davy characterizes soot as "a powerful manure, possessing ammoniacal salt, empyreumatic oil, and charcoal, which is capable of being rendered soluble by the action of oxygen, or pure vital air;" all which component parts rank high as On meadows I nutritious or stimulant manures.

have used soot with great advantage in substance, and though sown by the hand, one dressing gave me always heavy crops of hay for two successive seasons; but this is a wasteful mode of applying it, a great proportion of its ammonia, one of its most active ingredients, being volatilized and dissipated in the atmosphere. When dissolved in water there is no waste:--it is all available, and for horticultural purposes I have mostly used it in that state, mixing it up in the porportion of about six quarts of soot to a hogshead of water. Asparagus, peas, and a variety of other vegetables, I have manured with it with as much effect as if I had used solid dung; but to plants in pots, particularly pines, I have found it admirably well adapted: when watered with it, they assume a deep healthy green, and grow strong and luxuri-`

ant.-I generally use it and clean water alternate- | look in vain for the institutions which should difly, and always overhead in summer; but except for the purpose of cleaning, it might be used constantly with advantage; and though I cannot speak from my own experience, never having had either scale or bug on my pines, (pine apples) yet I think it highly probable, as the ammonia it contains is known to be destructive to these insects in a state of gas or vapor, that in a liquid state, it does not totally destroy them, yet that it will in a great degree check their progress.

Other materials for liquid manures are often difficult to procure, and tedious in their preparation: but soot, sufficient for the gardener's purposes, is almost every where at hand, and in a few minutes prepared.

Were gardeners more generally aware that no manures can be taken up in a state of solidity by plants as food, and that they can only be absorbed by them in a gaseous or liquid state, to which all solid manures applied must be previously reduced, before any benefit can be derived from them, they would in many cases facilitate the process by using them in a liquid state. In houses (green and hot houses) where the rains have not access, it appears to me superior to any other mode of administering manures to trees.

Kilkenny, Aug. 24, 1826.

Quere.-Has any system been adopted for collecting at one or more deposites the soot of this and other large cities? Might it not be easily done through the superintendents of chimney sweepers?

ON PROVIDING SCHOOLS FOR THE INSTRUC

TION OF FARMERS' SONS IN THE PHYSICAL

SCIENCES.

By MR. WILLIAM HAWKINS, Hitchen, Hertfordshire

fuse among practical farmers even that knowledge which already exists. The principles of agriculture may have been explored by the genius of Davy, and its practice reformed by the labors of Young, but discoveries and experiments can be useful only as far as they are known. Mr. Tennant has shown how the farmers in the neighborhood of Doncaster might have told that there was magnesia amongst their lime-stone, and that consequently it would be injurious to the soil; that is to say, he knew these things himself, but of what use were his experiments to the Doncaster farmers, who never heard of them, nor perhaps of him either? It is said that vaccination was known in a district in Gloucestershire before the time of Jenner, but how did that avail those who were dying of the smallpox in London? The barrenness of the hills in Westmoreland will be remedied, when, not the chemists and the vegetable physiologists of London or Paris, but the tenants and occupiers of those very hills shall understand its causes and its cure. At present the means of diffusing scientific knowledge amongst them are extremely limited, and the general establishment of agricultural schools would have for its object the conveyance of knowledge to the place where it is wanted, in a manner perfectly analogous to the ingenious contrivances by which water is conveyed from the reservoir at Islington to the houses

of the inhabitants of London.

philosophers presume to teach farmers how to But, it may be asked, shall chemists and recluse farm? Is it not to be supposed, that men who have passed their whole lives in that pursuit, understand it better than any body else? Most unquestionably they do. Sir Humphrey Davy would, most thousand important considerations connected with likely, have made a bad farmer. There are a farming, of which he was probably ignorant; but still he ascertained, in a manner clearer than had From the [British] Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. been done before, the principles which regulate the application of quicklime as a manure. And it It is the object of this paper to recommend the does so happen, that many of our useful discoveestablishment of schools throughout the kingdom, ries have been owing to men not connected in for teaching farmers' sons the elements of the practice with the art to which their discoveries sciences; such, for example, as Chemistry, Vege- were applicable. Arkwright was a barber, Doltable Physiology, and Mechanics. And, in the lond was a silk-weaver. The compass, the chroprogress of it, I shall endeavor to show, first, the nometer, and the weather-glass, three of the usefulness of such knowledge, and then the me- greatest helps to navigation, were all discovered thod by which it may be generally diffused; and I by landsmen. Gunpowder is supposed to have think I can make out both these points to the sat-been first found out by a monk.* isfaction of any body who will take the trouble of attending.

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Put into another shape, the possibility of progressive improvement in agriculture may be a little more palatable. The farmers in France obtain from a soil at least as fertile as ours, no more than 18 bushels of wheat per acre on an average. Is this because they have less experience or less skill and knowledge than ourselves? And if one of us should undertake the thankless task of pointing out to them their errors, he might count upon being laughed at for his pains, for presuming to know better how to farm their lands than they who had been at it for generations.

Amongst the many helps towards a more perfeet knowledge of external nature which the mind

How came priests and bishops, and please your to trouble their heads so much about gunpowod knows,' said my uncle Toby, his Provigood out of every thing.""

of man has discovered in these latter days, the first place is due, by general consent, to

Chemistry. The efforts of the farmer are chief ly directed towards making land more fertile; and the first step in this process is to inquire in what particulars less fertile land may differ from that which is more so; to compare the two together; to find out the ingredients of each, and the proportions in which they are mixed. The knowledge how to do this is Chemistry. Arguments upon particular cases are commonly more intelligible than abstract reasoning; and it may therefore be advisable to select an instance. The following is from Sir Humphrey Davy's Agricultural Chemistry. He says, "a soil of good apparent texture from Lincolnshire was put into my hands by Sir Joseph. Banks, as remarkable for sterility. On examining it, I found that it contained sulphate of iron, and I offered the obvious remedy of top-dressing with lime, which converts the sulphate into a manure." Now, what is the process by which, as we may suppose, Sir Humphrey Davy arrived at the knowledge that the difference between this barren soil and other soils of the same appearance, consisted in its containing sulphate of iron. By previous instruction, he had made himself acquainted with the nature of soils in general, and with their most usual ingredients, and he proceeded to test for them, one after another, until he threw in the reagent, which forced the latent mischief to show itself.

For the sake of perspicuity, let us suppose that of the many substances in nature, which may not improbably exist in a soil (and the presence of either of which would lessen its fertility,) the four following are supposed to be the most probable. 1. An alkali.

2. An acid.
3. Magnesia.

4. Sulphate of iron.

Any vegetable blue, such as the infusion of violets, would be a test for the first two substances. The infusion would turn green if an alkali, and red if an acid, were present. The presence of magnesia would be indicated by its slightly effervescing when plunged into an acid, and by its rendering diluted nitric acid milky. If, by these applications, it should be decided that neither of the first three ingredients existed in the soil, the next point would be to inquire as to the presence of sulphate of iron. It might be difficult, it might perhaps be impossible, for the eye or the hand to perceive it; but, if it existed, a few drops of the infusion of galls, poured into a wine-glass containing a small portion of the earth dissolved in water, would cause the mixture to turn as black as ink, and it would in fact be ink; for sulphate of iron and galls are the materials of which ink is commonly made. And all this is very easily done; it might be performed by a child. All that is required is, that a few ounces of the soil should be brought home, and, at each experiment, a teaspoonful of it put into a wine-glass, and a table spoonful of the test-liquid poured upon it.

By means as simple as these, a man may tell what ingredients go to the composition of any soil that he may wish to examine, but it requires a little more trouble to ascertain the proportions in which these ingredients exist; and the barrenness of a soil may be owing to the excess or deficiency

of an ingredient not less than to its absence or presence. A chemical analysis of soils, however easy to those who have been regularly taught how to conduct it, could scarcely be performed by those who had not; and few men can be brought to give these things sufficient attention after their school days are over; for which reason it is particularly desirable to have them taught in youth,-"in the morning of our days, when the senses are unworn and tender, and the gloss of novelty is fresh on all the objects which surround us."

"The instruments required for the analysis of soils are few, and but little expensive. They are, a balance capable of containing about a quarter of a pound of common soil, and capable of turning, when loaded, with a grain; a set of weights from a quarter of a pound troy to a grain; a wire-sieve, sufficiently coarse to admit a mustard-seed through its apertures; an argand-lamp and stand; some glass bottles; Hessian crucibles; porcelain or queen's ware; evaporating basins; a Wedgwood pestle and mortar; some filters, made of half a sheet of blotting paper, folded so as to contain a pint of liquid, and greased at the edges; a bone knife, and an apparatus for collecting and measuring aëriform fluids."-Agricultural Chemistry, 146.

And a farmer need not possess all these things himself. If the proposed schools were established in every district, the apparatus, with the necessary reagents, would be kept at each school, and might be used occasionally by any body; and all he wants for most purposes would be a few acid and vegetable infusions,-a test-box, in short,―with the weights, sieves, lamps, and earthenware used for domestic purposes. And many very important results might be come at by these simple methods.

What can be easier to observe, whether an infusion of any kind turns vegetable blues red or not? But if it does, the infusion contains an acid, and therefore lime, or any alkaline substance, is a good dressing for it.

When a piece of paper moistened with muriatic acid, and held over the steam arising from a dunghil, gives out dense fumes, it is a certain proof that the decomposition is going too far, for it indicates that volatile alkali is disengaged.

It requires very little labor to observe, whether a soil effervesces by the action of an acid, or whether it burns when heated, or what weight is lost by heat; and yet these simple indications may convey most valuable information concerning the ingredients of the soil.

If the whole case rested upon these instances, there would be little room to fear refutation, for they surely prove the applicability of Chemistry to Agriculture-they prove that many of the causes of sterility, and consequently the appropriate remedies, may be discovered by its aid.

Not that all these instances would be applicable to all soils, but some would apply to one species and some to another, and happy would he be whose land was so good that he could find no fault in it. And it may be repeated over and over again, in favor of chemical analysis, that all barrenness, as well as every other quality of a soil, must of necessity be owing either to the presence or absence-the excess or deficiency-of some element.

Entomology-The Knowledge of Insects.-The first step in proof of the utility of this science, might be to show that insects do a great deal of

cabbage-moth (Noctua Brassica,) and then bury them-which is just as if they should endeavor to kill a crab by covering it with water-for many of them being full grown, and ready to pass into their next state, which they do under ground, instead of· destroying them by this manœuvre, their appearing again the following year in greater numbers is actually facilitated. Yet this plan, applied to our common cabbage-caterpillar, which does not go under ground, would succeed."

The process of destroying noxious insects by attacking them in their early stages is not new in this country. P. Musgrave collected the chrysalids in the spring, so as to become acquainted with them, and then employed people to catch and kill the moths and butterflies. If you catch 200 in a day, you destroy 10,000 eggs, which would give 120,000 in a fortnight.-Might not boys and girls be well employed in doing this? They have all the organ of Destructiveness.

harm; but I shall probably be allowed to take that for granted. The destruction of the turnip-crop alone is a very serious national evil. Slugs, grubs, and wire-worms eat the seed in the ground, and other creeping things in the granary. Flies torment the domestic animals whilst alive, and blow their flesh when dead. Caterpillars eat cabbages, and moths riddle holes in cloth. Almost every plant has its insect enemy. Clover-seed is destroyed by a small weevil (Apion flavi-femoratum;) Dutch-clover by the Apion flavipes; peas in the pod by the small beetle (Bruchus granarius.) The wire-worm is the grub of the beetle (Elater Segetis.) The turnip-fly is properly a beetle-a little jumping beetle (Haltica nemorum.) The problem of course is how to destroy this legion of enemies. Now, to do this with the greatest effect, we must watch them through all their changes. There may probably be many persons ignorant that most insects pass through four stages of existence, (of which the silk-worm In short, it is abundantly evident, that if we affords a familiar instance;)-1st. The egg-2dly. knew them in all their changes, and know where The caterpillar-3dly. The chrysalis-and, 4thly. they are concealed in autumn, winter, and spring, The butterfly or imago. It is in the second stage we might exterminate those multitudes which are that insects generally do the most mischief. In now as the sands which are upon the sea-shore. the egg and the chrysalis they do none; and in the And if not all the knowledge required be yet in imago, some do and some do not. Though we our possession, a great deal is, and might be easily are all familiar with the insect in the shape in imparted to the young farmer, if we could catch which its ravages compel our attention, we are him in his chrysalis state; and what little is still frequently unconscious of its identity under other wanting would soon be accumulated when we had shapes. Though our last year's crop was destroy-set so many keen and interested eyes to observe: a ed by the wire-worm, we should probably pass by fly could scarcely move but they would be watcha swarm of the parent beetle, the Elater Segetis, ing him. without being aware of the relationship; and in The Diseases of Cattle.-This is an important the same manner we look on the cockchafer, with- subject. There is no individual of many years' out suspecting that its issue is the grub which eats experience in farming, who has not suffered severe the roots of the grass. But however desirable a losses from the death of horses, cows, or sheep. knowledge of entomology may be, no single indi- Diseases amongst sheep are perhaps the most vidual could acquire it all for himself. He would common and the most extensive, and to whom is need the eyes of Argus-the patience of Job- the cure of them entrusted? Generally to a laand the years of Methuselah. The diligence and boring man, who has not the remotest knowledge sagacity of men who have passed their lives in of the several organs which compose the animal this study have at length accumulated a body of frame, or of their functions, and whose education facts of the highest value; being printed, they has not fitted him to reason correctly even upon have become the property of every body who will the few facts which he knows. What should we take the trouble to read them; and thus a school- think of entrusting our friends or relations in sickboy may learn in a few months facts which the ness to a man who had studied no more of anatolabors of his whole life might have been vainly ex- my or medicine than a shepherd? And the miserted in seeking. chief is not confined to their ignorance of the true Messrs Kirby and Spence are the great authori-remedy. Ignorant men are the most irreclaimaties upon this subject, and from their book most of ble theorists. They attribute disorders to the most the facts here stated have been taken. They fanciful cause, and then from their assumed and themselves suggest a similar application to prac- absurd premises, they argue away to a conclusion tice of the truths of their favorite science. "With as hardily as a geometrician. I have heard many respect to noxious caterpillars in general," say they, "farmers and gardeners are not usually aware that the best mode of preventing their attacks is to destroy the female fly before she has laid her eggs; to do which, the moth proceeding from each must be first ascertained; but if their research were carried still farther, so as to enable them to distinguish the pupa, and discover its haunts (and it would not be difficult to detect that of the greatest pest of our gardens, the cabbage butterfly) the work might be still more effectually accomplished."

striking instances of this from a friend of mine, who is himself both a physician and a philosopher. One poor patient laid the blame of his sufferings upon a cause which few would have thought of. Sir," says he, "it is the wind meeting the disgester;" and no doubt his remedy would have been to have put some covering round the disgester, to keep the wind away. Another poor fellow was troubled with "a rising of the lights," and being asked whether he had taken any thing for it, "Yes," he said, "he had swallowed some shot to keep them down." And I beg to assure the incredThe follies committed for want of a little know-ulous, that this is an extremely common disease ledge of entomology, are well illustrated by ano-and remedy in this neighborhood; and these are ther passage of the same authors. "In Germany, the very men who prescribe for our sheep! Forthe gardeners and country people with great in- merly it was the custom to ascribe diseases to the dustry gather whole basketsful of the destructive direct operation of the devil, and of course the

cure

was correlevant to the assigned cause. "Touching the heart and the liver, if a devil or an evil spirit trouble any, we must make a smoke thereof before the man or the woman, and the party shall be no more vexed, and the devil shall smell it and flee away, and never come again any more." And the story goes on to say, that in Tobit's case, the evil spirit fled, when he had smelt it, into the utmost parts of Egypt; but I do not suppose that this kind of fumigation would answer now-a-days. But, revenons à nos moutons, or rather let us proceed to the horses, with which, indeed, the case is not much better. If you send for a farrier, the message not unfrequently is, that he cannot come to see the horse to night, but that he has sent him a drink, and will come and see him in the morning. Now, try this system by the same test: how would you like it yourself? You are suddenly attacked with a violent complaint, and you send for Sir H. Halford. He never saw you perhaps in his life, and knows nothing whatever about what is the matter with you; but he sends his compliments, and desires you to take a dose of Daffy's Elixir; and if your complaint be what is very common with horses, viz. inflammation of some of the viscera, this dose will probably finish you, as out of all doubt it has finished many an unfortunate quadruped. Not that the absence of the farrier signifies much; he probably does not know a bit the less of the disease on that account. The study of horse-medicine and surgery has no doubt made much greater progress than that of cows or sheep, and some of its professors are men of sense and education, as I am personally able to testify; but how few are they compared to those of an opposite character. It was said, with much point and truth, by an old physician, that in all cases of illness there were three things to consider, -the patient, the disease, and the doctor; and that if any two of them pulled well together, they would be able to beat the third. In the case I have been supposing, it is the disease and the doctor against the patient.

mate, there were in the United Kingdom, so long ago as 1812,

1,800,000 Horses. 10,000,000 Horned Cattle.

42,000,000 Sheep and Lambs.

There are no tables published of sickness and mortality amongst quadrupeds; but out of 53,000,000, the deaths occasioned by disease in the course of a year must amount to an enormous total. In Holland, above 500,000 cattle are known to have died of disease within 20 years. At £10 a piece, this would come to £250,000 a year. The tenth part of one year's loss upon this article of cows alone, would be enough to put into operation throughout the whole kingdom schools, which would create ten times as much wealth anIf nually as was ever lost by the death of cows. money laid out in diffusing knowledge produced a return of only one hundred-fold, it would be certainly an eligible investment; but a hundred-fold would be little, compared with its eventual products.

Mechanics-the art of producing a given result with the smallest expense of power.-It is very important to make power go as far as possible, because it is the dead weight upon a farm. Horses eat and drink, but produce neither milk nor wool. Perhaps the best way to show the value of this kind of knowledge, is to point out the losses attendant on its absence. Every body must have seen ploughs so ill constructed as to require three horses to draw them through a soil which might have been worked well enough with two in a plough of the improved pattern. Instead of a sharp edge contrived to cut the ground, and a well formed mould-board to turn it over, you may sometimes see a blunt wedge dragged slowly through the soil, to the intolerable fatigue of the cattle, as well as the rapid destruction of the plough and the harness; but little work is done, and that little in an expensive and slovenly manner.* Carts and wagons, too, are susceptible of great improvement; their more common faults are their weight-the friction at the axle, the dishing of the wheels, and the want of springs: the consequence is, that a horse is jaded and knocked up by what would, under more skilful management, have been an easy day's journey. An acquaintance with mechanics would also induce a man to pay more attention to the state of the roads. But besides carts and ploughs, we are every day inWe thrash, dress, troducing fresh machinery. plant, and sow by its aid, and though of no very intricate construction, these machines are somewhat more so than the old farming implements. The farmer is not to expect his laborers to study

Cows, again, stuff themselves with cabbage, or other succulent food, which by and by ferments and gives out a great deal of carbonic acid gas; the stomach becomes distended, and, if relief be not speedily afforded, the animal dies. Many a valuable creature has perished in this way, whose life might have been saved if the owner had been chemist enough to know what would stop the fermentation, or had been provided with mechanical instruments for drawing off the gas. And these attacks are sudden,-remedies to be useful must be near. There is no time to fetch the doctor, even supposing him to be worth fetching. The owner himself must know what to do, and how to do it. It is not proposed to make every farmer an *By the way, it appears to me that an improvement accomplished surgeon; that would be impossible, might be made upon the best ploughs now in use. but it is not impossible, and it would not be useless, The cutting of the soil appears to be scientifically to teach him at school something of the structure done; but the clod, when cut, presses with force and diseases of the animals on whose health his against the shoulders of the mould-board, and offers fortune depends; something of the symptoms by considerable resistance to its advance. Evidently the which those diseases are indicated, and something force which turns it over should, if possible, be made of the operation of the most important medicines. to act at right angles with the track of the plough, whereas at present it approaches to the same line. Being so constantly slaughtered for domestic pur- Might not an endless chain, or a horizontal wheel of poses, there would never be wanting opportunities small diameter, be inserted just at the point where the of studying their organization. The national clod presses upon the mould-board, so as to ease the gain, by diffusion of this sort of knowledge, would friction? If the pulverization of the clod be the obbe immense. According to Mr. Colquhoun's esti-ject, that would be more economically effected by rolling and harrowing afterwards.

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