THE FARMER AT HOME. 1(J7 



1 gether, whether .'for diversion or in search of food, it is not easy to be - 

 1 3termined. 



These animals are of an oblong slender form, their heads are fur- 

 i ished with a kind of trunk, or oblong hollow tube, by means of which 

 t icy take in their food, and their body is composed of several rings. 

 r . 'hey do vast mischief among the magazines of flour, laid up for 

 { rmies and other public uses ; when they have once taken possession 

 c f a parcel of this valuable commodity, it is impossible to drive them 

 < ut, and they increase so fast, that the only method of preventing the 

 1otal loss of the parcel, is to make it up into bread as soon as can be. 

 The way to prevent their breeding in the flour is, to preserve it from 

 <lamp ; nothing gets more injury by being put up damp than flour, 

 ;ind yet nothing is so often put up so. It should be always carefully 

 and thoroughly dried before it is put up, and the barrels also dried 

 Jito which it is to be put ; then if they are kept in a room tolerably 

 warm and dry, they will preserve it well. Too dry a place never 

 loes any hurt, though one too moist always spoils it. 



FLOWER. In physiological and systematical Botany, compre- 

 hends all those organs of a plant which are preparatory and necessary 

 to the impregnation and perfection of the fruit or seed. Flowers are 

 usually the most\>rnamental part of vegetables, but the most fleeting 

 and transitory. After their production, the vegetation of the plant, 

 however rapid and luxuriant before, is checked, at least for a time, 

 even in perennial plants and trees ; and annual ones survive flowering 

 only till they can ripen their seed. The same species which will 

 endure for several winters without blossoming, after this event loses its 

 vigor and yields to the first attacks of frost. Pliny observes that 

 "blossoms are the joy of trees, in bearing which they assume a new 

 aspect, vieing with each other in the luxuriance and variety of their 

 colors." M. Dutena, a traveller in Holland, says, " I was witness to 

 a circumstance I could not otherwise have believed, respecting the 

 price of flowers in Holland. I saw 475 guineas offered and refused 

 for a hyacinth. It was to be sure the most charming flower I had 

 ever seen. It belonged to a- florist, at Hague, and another florist 

 offered this price for it." 



FLUID. In physiology, an appellation given to all bodies whose 

 particles easily yield to the least partial pressure, or force impressed. 

 The nature of a fluid, as distinguished from that of a solid or hard 

 body, consists in this, that its particles are so loosely connected to- 

 gether, that they readily move out of their places, when pressed with 

 the least force one way more than another ; whence philosophers 

 have concluded that these particles are exceedingly minute, smooth, 

 and round ; it being otherwise impossible they should move with such 

 freedom, upon the least inequality of pressure. Those particles, con- 

 sidered separately, are endowed with all the common properties of 

 matter, and are subject to the same laws of motion and gravitation 



