178 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



fered it to rot on the ground, to make a clearing as it is called, when 

 they already had double the cleared land they can cultivate properly. 



The second precaution recommended is that all use dry wood in- 

 stead of green. It is a fact well known, that two cords of dry wood, 

 on an average, in aL domestic purposes, are better than three cords of 

 green. What makes green heavier than dry wood ? The water or 

 sap in the former. There is nothing else to make it. Hence, if a 

 cord of dry wood weighs a ton, and a cord of green wood weighs 

 thirty hundred, there is in the latter ten hundred weight of water or 

 sap to be evaporated during the process of its combustion. It passes 

 off in the form of hot steam and vapor, carrying with it of course so 

 much of the caloric or heat, which, had it been confined, as it might 

 have been, in the uses of dry wood, would go to the promotion of its 

 legitimate purpose. The effect is precisely the same that it would be, 

 if in the combustion of ten pounds of dry wood in a stove or fireplace, 

 there should be a continual filtration upon it of five pounds of water, 

 which would render necessary a constant current of air to effect com- 

 bustion, and this air on being heated, would pass off with the evapo- 

 rated fluid through the stove pipe or chimney. What would be thought 

 of the sanity or the common sense of the person who should do this ? 

 He would have as much title to sanity and common sense, as the per- 

 son who habitually or unnecessarily uses green wood instead of dry. 



The third precaution recommended is, to have stoves of the best 

 devise for saving fuel, instead of using it in large and open fireplaces, 

 where, as Count Rumford says, four fifths of the heat pass up the 

 chimney without any good ; and, also to construct houses in a manner 

 best calculated to save fuel. A little additional expenditure in the 

 construction of houses having reference to this subject, and in the use 

 of first quality stove's, will save more than one-half the fuel other- 

 wise required. Suppose in a family fifty dollars a year only is thus 

 saved, which is a moderate calculation, the amount, it will be per- 

 ceived, in forty years, a period families hope to continue, reaches two 

 thousand dollars without any interest more than the cost of ordinary 

 dwelling houses in the country for that time. And, if the fifty dol- 

 lars thus saved were at the end of each year to be put at six per cent, 

 interest, and then the whole from year to year be compounded, the 

 whole will amount in the forty years to about eight thousand dollars. 

 No wonder that so many persons continue poor. No wonder that so 

 many agriculturists complain no money can be made by farming. 

 The fourth precaution recommended, to prevent future scarcity of fuel, 

 is that all farmers on their waste lands .turn their attention to the 

 raising of wood. This to their grand-children would be better than 

 money invested at ten per cent, interest. 



FULLER'S EARTH. In Natural History, a soft, grayish, 

 brown, dense, and heavy marl. When dry it is of a grayish, ash- 

 colored brown, in all degrees from very pale to almost black ; and 



