FARMERS' REGISTER— AGE OF THE HORSE. 



11 



Binoking at that, time amongst the higlier class ol' 

 societ)^ Arte a time, ho^\'•ever, the practice of 

 smoking tobacco appears to have met with etre- 

 nuoas opposition in high places, both in this coun- 

 try and other parts of Europe. Its principal op- 

 ponenti? were the priests, the physicians, and the 

 sovereign ])riiices; by the lormer its use was de- 

 clared sinful; and, in 1684, Pope Urban VIII. pub- 

 lished a bull, exconununicating all persons found 

 guilty of taking snidi'\\hGn in church. This bull 

 was renewed in 1690, by Pojie Innocent; and, 

 about twenty-nine years afterwards, the Sultan 

 Amurath IV. made smoking a capital oflcnce. 

 For a long time smoking was ibrbidden in Russia, 

 under pain of having the nose cut ofl; and in some 

 parts of Switzerland, it was likewise made a sub- 

 ject of public prosecution — the police regulations 

 of the Canton of Berne, in 1661, placing the pro- 

 hibition of smoking in tlie list of the Ten Com- 

 mandments, immediately imderthat against adul- 

 tery. Na}^, that British Solomon, James I., did 

 not think it beneath the royal dignity to take u}) 

 his pen upon the subject. He accordingly, in 

 1603, published his famous ' Counterblaste to To- 

 bacco,' in which the following remarkable passage 

 occurs: — " It is a custom loathesome to the eye, 

 hateful to the nose,harmfull to the braine, dangerous 

 to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof 

 nearest resembling the horrible St}'gian smoke of 

 the pit that is bottomless." But notwithstanding 

 this regal and priestly Avrath, the use of the plant 

 extended itsell'far and wide; and tobacco is at this 

 moment, perhaps the most general luxuiy in exis- 

 tence. The allui?ion to the practice in the follow- 

 ing lines, taken from the ' Marrow of Compli- 

 ment,' written in 16-54, seems to show the pre\'a- 

 lence of smoking at that period: — } 



" Much meat doth Ghittony procure 



To feed men fat as swine; 

 But he's a frugal man indeed. 



That on a leaf can dine ! 



He needs no napldn for his hands, 



His fingers' ends to wipe, 

 That hath his kitchen in a box. 



His roast meat in a Pipe !" 



[Before meeting with the foregoing article, we had 

 marked several passages from old authors on this sub- 

 ject, which will make a suitable addition. 



King James in his Counterblaste says tobacco "makes 

 a kitchen, also, often in the inward parts of men, soyl- 

 ing and infecting them with an unctious and oily kind 

 of soote, as hath been found in some great tobacco 

 takers, that after their death were opened:" and in his 

 Witty Apothegms, after observing that " a tobacco pipe 

 is a lively image of hell," the royal author specifies 

 the things , which he most abhoiTed, by saying that 

 " were I to invite the devil to dinner, he should have 

 three dishes — 1st a pig; 2d a pole of ling, and mustard; 

 and 3d a pipe of tobacco for digesture." 



Old Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy, says of 

 tobacco — "a good vomit I confesse; a vertuous herbe, 

 if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medi- 

 cinally used; but as it is commonly used by most men, 

 which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mis- 

 chiefe, a violent purger of goods, lands, health; hellish, 

 develish, damned tobacco; the ruin and overthrow of 

 body and soule." — Jlnaioiny of Melancholy. 



The following account of tobacco is from the Latin- 



English Diction;dry of Francis Holy-oke. The copy 

 before us was printed in 1659, the last year of the hfe 

 of Oliver Cromwell; but as it is the seventh edition, it 

 is probable that the whole of this account of " Ta- 

 bacco" is much older than the book itself, and was 

 probably copied without alteration from the first, 

 through every successive edition of the dictionaiy. 



" Tabacco herba ah insula Tabaco, §-c. A kind of herbe 

 called Tabacco, it is like henbane, and may be called 

 the Indian henbane, hot and dry in the third degree 

 (as I take it.) The juyce of the greene leafe is good 

 to cure any greene wound, though it be poysoned, the 

 syrup is good for divers diseases, the smoake of the 

 leai'e dryed and taken in a pipe, is used as in old time 

 Tussilage was, for the cure of the Tissike, the cough 

 of the lungs, distillations of Rheumes, cold, toothach, 

 headach, and in fine whatsoever disease commeth of a 

 cold and moyst cause, and good for all full bodies, that 

 are cold and moyst of constitution, if it be moderately 

 used, and taken upon an empty stomacke, and that it 

 be good Indian, and not sophisticated, Iramoderatly 

 taken, it diyeth the body, inflameth the blood, burteth 

 [burneth?] the braine and intoxicateth, breedeth wind 

 and crudity, and hath a bewitching facultie that when 

 men use it overmuch they cannot leave it. See Week- 

 erus and others; now of the syrupe of Tabacco they 

 make a vomit."] 



Fiom the Library of Useful Knowledge. 

 AGE OF TIIK HORSE. 



The method of judging the age of a horse is by 

 examining the teeth, which amount to ibrty when 

 complete; namely, six nippers, or incisors, as they 

 are sometimes called, two tushes, and .six grinders 

 on each side, in both jaws. A foal, when first 

 born, has in each jaw the first and second grind- 

 ers developed; in about a week the two centre nip- 

 pers make their appearance, and within a month 

 a third grinder. Between the sixth and ninth 

 month the whole of the nippers appear, completing 

 the coWs mouth. At the completion of the first 

 year, a fourth grinder appears, and a fifth by the 

 end of the second year. At this period a new 

 process commences, the front or first grinder giv- 

 ing way, which is succeeded by a larger and per- 

 manent tooth, and between two years and a half 

 and three years the two middle nippers are dis- 

 placed, and succeeded by permanent teeth. At 

 three years old the, sixth grinder has either made, 

 or is about making its appearance. In the fourth 

 year another pair of nippers and the second pair 

 of grinders are shed; and the comer nippers, 

 toward the end of the fifth year, are succeeded by 

 permanent teeth, when the mouth is considered 

 almost perfect, and the colt or filly becomes a 

 horse or a mare. What is called the mark of the 

 teeth by which a judgment of the age of a horse 

 for several years may be formed, consists of a por- 

 tion of the enamel bending over and forming a 

 httle pit in the surface of the nipper, the inside and 

 bottom of which becomes blackened by the food. 

 This soon begins to wear down, and the mark 

 becomes shorter and wider, and fainter. By the 

 end of the first yetu- the mark in the two middle 

 teeth is wide and faint, and becomes stOl wider 

 and fainter till the end of the third year, by which 

 time the centre nippers have been displaced by 



