THE FARMER AT HOME.. 



those for the summer. Nothing can be neater than these caps ; they 

 are frequently sold for eight or ten crowns j but they are so shoit that 

 the ears are exposed. ^^F CA'I> 



CARBON. Charcoal is a word often employed synonymously 

 with carbon : but, although charcoal is the form under which carbon 

 most commonly occurs, yet it is in this form mixed with several 

 extraneous ingredients. The diamond was concluded, by Guy ton 

 Morveau, to be the only form of pure carbon ; but the experiments of 

 Allen and Pepys have tended to show that these hard substances, 

 although so widely different in external character and appearance, 

 are chemically the same; the difference between them seeming to 

 result from the different state of aggregation of their particles. It 

 further seems that the diamond is absolutely free from both water 

 and hydrogen ; and it is in this particular, as well as in the mode by 

 which its particles are aggregated, that the difference seems to obtain 

 between charcoal and the diamond. Diamond converts iron into 

 steel ; which power is likewise characteristic of charcoal. 



Charcoal appears to be the same substance from whatever wood 

 it is procured, but it is usually made upon a large scale from oak, 

 chestnut, elm, beech, or ash wood. Lampblack may be regarded as 

 a very pure carbon, after it has been heated red-hot in a very close 

 vessel. This is prepared by causing the dense smoke, arising from 

 refuse resin burnt in a furnace, to be collected. 



Carbon forms the base of all wood, and consequently of all treea 

 and plants, and is, therefore, one of the most important principles oi 

 nature. To the farmer it is one of peculiar interest. Plants, how- 

 ever, never take up the minutest particle of carbon while in that 

 state, if ever so finely reduced. By a wise provision of Providence, 

 an inexhaustible reservoir of carbonic acid gas, carbon converted into 

 air, is found in the atmosphere, which readily combines with water, 

 and in that state is taken up by the roots for the support of the plant. 

 The leaves of trees also perfb-rm a species of respiration, by which car- 

 bonic acid gas is taken into the plant during one-half of the day, to be 

 decomposed by the solar rays; and, while the carbon is retained, the 

 oxygen is set free, and thrown off by the plant to purify the air. 



CARIOLE. A name given by the Canadians to a sledge, by 

 which they transport themselves over the snow, from place to place, 

 in the most agreeable manner, and with a degree of celerity that ap- 

 pears almost incredible ; for with the same horse, it is possible to go 

 eighty miles in a day, so light is the draught of one of these carnages, 

 and so favorable is the snow to the feet of the horse. This cariole 

 will hold two persons and a driver, and is usually drawn by one horse. 

 Its shape is varied according to the fancy and taste of the owner. 



CARMINE. The most splendid of all red colors is made from 

 the cochineal insect. It is deposited from a decoction of powdered 

 cochineal in water, to which alum, carbonate of soda, or oxyde of tin, 



