THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



ago 179,000 cwfs. were shipped ; and this quantity was 

 exported even down to 1843 and 1844. Now, however, 

 the shipments rarely reach 150,000 cwts. 



Many emigrants arriving in Canada with scarcely 

 sufficient means to purchase an ordinary farm, might 

 engage in the manufacture of ashes to great advantage. 

 The ordinary risks of agriculture in such a climate are 

 avoided. The yield is certain, while the price is re- 

 munerative. To show the importance of this branch 

 of Colonial business, we give a few statistics connected 

 therewith. The barrels of ashes average about five 

 cwts. ; and the exports from Canada, in the last ten or 

 twelve years, have averaged about 30,000 barrels, 

 worth about ^250,000. The shipments from New 

 York of both pot and pearl ashes have been as follows : 



1837 29,680 barrels. 



1840 23,966 „ 



1845 56,291 „ 



1850 35,263 „ 



1855 14,287 „ 



There aie inspectors appointed at Montreal, Boston, 

 and New York, to certify the quality of the ashes, pot 

 and pearl, which are each classified into thi*ee grades. 

 About 3,000 barrels are annually inspected at Boston. 

 The heavy hard wood timber chiefly burned on the 

 land in clearing in Canada, is elm, maple, basswood, 

 large birch, and brown ash. The same use can be 

 made of all others that can be got ; but those named 

 produce the best and the largest quantity of ashes. 

 In order to keep it uninjured from wet or damp, when 

 the timber is burned the ashes may be collected in a 

 bin or safe, made of small logs, floored with logs or 

 boards, and covered over-head from the rain. The 

 ashes should not be put in or near a house, lest if put 

 in hot they might burn the building. They have been 

 known also to take fire if vegetable oil be poured on 

 cold ashes. In such a safe or bin they may be pre- 

 served until sold or otherwise disposed of; and if a 

 fair price can be obtained for them in this state, it is 

 better for the new settler to sell them than to boil them 

 himself, if he is not accustomed to the process. The 

 older settlers manufacture their ashes for sale to the 

 country merchants, into what is called the "salts of 

 lye," when there are no purchasers convenient to buy 

 them before taken through auy such process. To effect 

 this, they provide themselves with two or more deep 

 tubs, called " leeches," which hold six or eight bushels 

 of ashes, with a spigot in the bottom. These are placed 

 on a stand a foot or two from the ground, with troughs 

 underneath them, to receive the lye when it runs ofF. 

 A few bricks, stone, or a handful of brushwood are 

 put inside over the spigot, on which is placed a little 

 straw, to prevent the ashes running through or ren- 

 dering muddy the lye. Over this the dry ashes arc 

 placed, nearly filling the leech, and gently pressed 

 down, on which is poured boiling water for the "first 

 run," that is until with it the ashes be perfectly 

 soaked through : cold water may then be used until 

 the strength is taken from the ashes, which is known 

 when the lye running off is weak like water. Two or 

 more kettles or pots are hung over a fire to boil down 



the liquid that has run from the ashes, one boiler being 

 kept filled from the lye running off the aslus, until all 

 gets boiled down to the consistence of tar, which when 

 cold is as hard or harder than pitch. This substance 

 is called salts of Ije, and is the pot or pearl ashes in a 

 crude state. It is readily purchased by all Canadian 

 country merchants, who have works in which it is 

 heated in a furnace until it becomes nearly white, 

 whence its name of pearl ash. The ashes saved from 

 an acre of good hard-wood land will produce three or 

 four, and in some cases five cwt. of salts. A handy 

 man will boil 1 cwt. a day, and about 16 bushels of 

 ashes will produce so much. 



This resource is a great advantage to the new settler, 

 as it affords him some cash for clearing off his land, 

 by producing an article for sale which is always in de- 

 mand, from what would otherwise be thrown away as 

 being of no use to newly-cleared land. 



Sir Wm. Deuison, Governor of Tasmania, in some 

 experiments which he caused to be carried on in that 

 island, found that the proportion of ash obtained from 

 the wood and bark of the trees of that island varied 

 according to the description of timber from 10 to 251bs. 

 per ton. The general yield of potash is about lib. 

 to 101b. of ash. Upon a rough computation the 

 quantity of timber, including leaves and branches, in a 

 heavily-wooded district of that colony, is from 600 to 

 1,200 tons. If, then, the quantity of ash be taken on 

 an average at lOlbs. per ton of wood, the weight of ash 

 will be from 6,000 to 12,0001bs., and the quantity of 

 potash from 600 to l,2001bs. per acre. The value of 

 the potash in the home market is now from £38 to 

 £40 per ton. 



FROST CONDUCTORS.— Mr. J. Bruce Neil, in a letter 

 to a contemporary, states that the blossoms of fruit trees, 

 which are often so fatally cut oflf by early spring frosts, may be 

 protected from them and all their pernicious effects, by the 

 following method : If a thick rope be intermixed among the 

 brandies of a fruit tree in blossom, the end of which is directed 

 downward so as to terminate in a pail of water, should a slight 

 frost take place during the night, it will not in the smallest 

 degree affect the tree ; while the surface of the water in the 

 pail which receives the rope will be covered with a cake of 

 ice of more or less thickness, though water placed in another 

 pail by the side of it, at the same time, by way of experiment, 

 may not, from the slightness of the frost, have auy ice at all 

 on it. The principle in particular, as Mr. Neil justly remarks, 

 is deserving of much cousideratiou, as there is a possibility of 

 its being very beneficially applied in a great variety of obvious 

 ways. In preserving apples, during long and severe winters, 

 the same authority states, that it is only necessary to throw a 

 line)i cloth over them, before the approach of frost (wcolleu 

 cloths would not answer), when they will be found entirely 

 preserved, how severe soever the winter may prove. There 

 seems abundant reason to believe that even potatoes might 

 be protected from frost {after being smoked) by some such 

 similar expedient. This, also, like the above principle, to 

 which it appears so very analogous, merits high consideration ; 

 and for tlie same important reason, its capability of conducing 

 to the universal benefit of mankind, and the numerous animals 

 under our protectiou, 



