20 \ W. THE FARMER AT HOME. 



\fi* 



also found in pasmTfMuller conceives that the sea abounds in animal- 

 cules peculiar to itself; and Spallanzani observes that vegetable sub- 

 stances dissolving in sea water produce swarms of animalcules. The 

 minuteness of them surpasses the conception of the human mind. 

 Leeuwenhock calculates that the size of some is to that of a mite, as 

 the size of a bee to that of a horse ; a hundred others will not exceed 

 the thickness of a hair ; and ten thousand of a different species may 

 be contained in the space occupied by a grain of sand. 



ANIMAL MANURES. That of young animals is poorer than 

 that of the aged, for the young and growing animal requires, for its 

 nourishment and increase of size, a greater proportion of the phos- 

 phate of lime, and other solid ingredients of its food, than the more 

 aged animal, because the excrements or refuse matters of the vegeta- 

 bles consumed are proportionately diminished in quantity and in rich- 

 ness. The richer the food, too, the better is the quality of the manure. 

 That from animals fed on oil-cake is the richest, then that of corn- 

 fed animals ; and, lastly, that from straw-fed cattle is the poorest. 



ANIMAL POISONS. Several animals are furnished with liquid 

 juices of a poisonous nature, which, when injected into fresh wounds, 

 occasion the disease or death of the animal wounded. The poison of 

 the viper is a yellow liquid, which lodges in two small vesicles in the 

 animal's mouth. These communicate by a tube with the crooked 

 :'angs, which are hollow, and terminate in a small cavity. When the 

 animal bites, the vesicles are squeezed, and the poison forced through 

 the fangs into the wound. If the vesicles be extracted, or the liquid 

 prevented from flowing into the wound, the bite is harmless. The 

 venom of the bee and the wasp is also a liquid contained in a small 

 vesicle, forced through the hollow tube of the sting into the wound 

 inflicted by the instrument. From the experiments of Fontana we 

 learn that it bears a stiking resemblance to the poison of the viper. 

 The sting of the bee should be immediately extracted ; and the best 

 application is opium and olive oil. 



ANNUAL. This term is applied to plants that arrive at matu- 

 rity in a single year, and then perish. The stem of annuals is gene- 

 rally of rapid growth, porous, and aboun cling in the juices necessary 

 to the perfection of the seeds in a single season. The herbage of 

 some plants is annual, while the roots are perennial, or remain from 

 year to year. Maize, or Indian corn, is a proper example of an an- 

 nual ; the grasses, of perennial roots with annual herbage. 



ANTIMONY. A blackish mineral substance found in different 

 parts of Europe, as Bohemia, Saxony, Transylvania, Hungary, 

 France, and England ; commonly in mines by itself, intermixed with 

 earth and stony matters. Sometimes it is blended with the richer 

 ores of silver, and renders the extraction of that metal difficult, by 

 volatilizing a part of the silver. The name of this metal is usually 

 referred to Basil Valentine ; a German monk, who, as the tradition 



