254 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 4 



them with what absolute impunity their most solemn 

 and necessary restrictions might be disregarded and 

 contemned. If the question had been to pay as much 

 as this recent expense of extra and iniquitous and des- 

 tructive legislation, for the most undoubted and solid 

 beaefits to agriculture, probably not more than twenty 

 members of the body would have voted for the appro- 

 priation; and in such a case, we incline to believe that 

 ten out of the twenty would have been turned out of 

 their places, for that vote, at the next election, by their 

 former friends and constituents belonging to the agri- 

 cultural interest. 



EXPERIMKA'TS TO TEST THE PROPRIETY OF 

 OATHERING CORN-FODDER RECOMMENDED. 



The fodder gathering season will commence before 

 the issue of the next No., and we beg leave to remind 

 all readers who are doubtful of the propriety, but still 

 continue Ihat practice, of the necessity and great im- 

 portance of making judiciously planned and carefully 

 conducted experiments, to settle the question. 



If removing the green leaves and tops of corn, (as 

 usual) for fodder, is as injurious as we believe it to be, 

 the farmers of Virginia are thereby sustaining an an- 

 nual loss, far exceeding in amountall the taxes paid by 

 them to government. The experiments necessary to 

 remove all doubt from this contested matter, are 

 troublesome and difficult to make, in such manner as to 

 be decisive, and entirely satisfactory; and though many 

 have been commenced, few, if any, have been satisfac- 

 torily conducted and concluded. If the government, 

 (directly or indirectly) had offered a reward of lf^500 

 for such experiments as would be entirely satisfac- 

 tory, and their results should show the practice to be 

 improper, and cause it to be abandoned, then that re- 

 ward, (extravagant as it would be pronounced to be by 

 all demagogue legislators, and grog-pen politicians and 

 court-yard orators,) would be returned to the people, 

 increased more than five hundred fold, and that to be 

 repeated in every future year's crop to be made in Vir- 

 ginia. 



EXPLANATION OF A MISTAKE. 



The last of the two pieces in this number, headed 

 "New method of propagating apple trees," inserted in 

 page 213, was cut out of one of the many newspapers 

 in which we had recently seen it, for the purpose of 

 publishing it, with some comments on the falsehood and 

 folly of the directions, and the very general circulation 

 given by agricultural as well as other papers, to such 

 marvellous and foolish statements. But before our in- 

 tended remarks were written, some were published in 

 the "Yankee Farmer" which were so good, and so well 

 met our views, that they were inserted instead, at page 

 208. The article which was the subject of the piece 

 of ridicule, and of our previously intended remarks, 

 had been laid among the selections for republication; 

 and not being thrown out, when no longer wanting, 

 during our absence it was set up, and printed off. 

 Trivial as the matter may be, it is deemed necessary 



remark, a piece which had been treated, in a previous 

 page, as it deserved, with ridicule and contempt. 



From the Louisville Advertiser. 



TO NATURALISTS. 



thus to explain why this ridiculous blundershouldhave 



been made, of gravely publishing, without dissent or I species of the Cyprinus Carpio, whrch are found 



On Wednesday evening, the 21st of June last, 

 the uncommon heaviness of the cloud.s, the loud 

 peals of thunder, and vivid glares of lightning, 

 portended a storm and drenching rains; and, com- 

 mencing about half past 7 o'clock, it rained inces- 

 santly tor nearl}' an hour. On Thursday morning 

 1 was surprised to see the puddles of water collect- 

 ed in the streets, and the commons, swarming 

 with a species of the piscatory tribe, which I have 

 endeavored to describe, in what follows, from the 

 observations made with the naked eye. 



In size they vary from 10 grs. to 3 dwts., and 

 though it is plain they belong to the order Jibdo- 

 minales, it is difficult to designate rightly the parti- 

 cular class; but I venture, however, to rank ihera 

 with the genus Exocetus, of which they appear to 

 ine to be a species, although the pectoral fins are 

 not united with the sides quite near enough to the 

 spinal membranes to be the true evolans. The 

 pectoral anal, ventral, and caudal fins, whose ra- 

 dinor bands are flexible and elastic, are broad, 

 and elongated, not havinir yet completed their 

 growth. The number of rays in the bronchial 

 membrane are not discoverable. The pharyngeal 

 bones being very ?mall and imperli^ct, I could not 

 ascertain whether the teeth are pointed or flatten- 

 ed; the eyes llill and large; the head triangular 

 when the maxilaries are closed and somewhat 

 scaly on the exterior of the occipital bone; and the 

 skin of the body scaly and viscid. By placing 

 them in a glass jar of wafer between myself and 

 the ray of a taper, I found the body to be transpa- 

 rent and void of veins or arteries, except in the 

 laminae attached to the hyoid bone, and near the 

 connection of the operculum to the upper maxillary, 

 and in the spine, which are the only parts of the 

 body containing blood vessels visible to the naked 

 eye. The membranous sac, containing air, call- 

 ed the air-vessel, which is placed under the spine, 

 and by compressing or dilating which, they are 

 supposed to rise or sink in the wafer, is very large, 

 covering the whole interior of the sides and backs, 

 otherwise in the internal appearances I could dis- 

 cover no remarkable variation from the general 

 anatomical constitution of the Exncetm evolans. 

 Whether they are hermaphroditical oviparous or 

 ova-viviparous fishes, I will not say; but leave it 

 lor those to determine who are older than myself 

 in the abstruse but pleasing science of nature. 



Whether they ascend in the ova or spawn in 

 those mists or vapor that form the nebula, and 

 lived and attained their present magnitude in the 

 dense clouds that float through the elements, or 

 whether they were drawn up as large as their 

 present size, and descended again with the 

 rain, is what I will not attempt to decide. I have 

 frequently, after a heavy rain in a dry season, ob- 

 served the ground covered with myriads of young 

 frogs of the order Batrachia, genus Rana, 

 but never once supposed that the same cause 

 which rained the croakers from the etherial world 

 might also rain fishes. A gentleman of my ac- 

 quaintance observed to me not long ago, that a 



