188 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



commencement, and this is the first time I have 

 troubled you with the readintr of a letter. Wish- 

 ing you afl success in your truly useliil effort io 

 raise the character oC our agricultural interests, 1 

 must now bid you farewell, with the assurance 

 that I remain, &c.'' 



We are unable to give any information as to the 

 Italian rye grass ; or as lo the Guinea grass, ex- 

 cept that we have not heard contradicted the liigh 

 character which was given lo it by several of our 

 correspondents in some of the early parts of the 

 Farmers' Register. The Gama grass seems to 

 have been lost eitrht of latterly; and we have 

 never known any person lo turn its growth to pro- 

 fit. We will thank any one better inlbrmed to 

 answer any of these inquiries. 



If our respected correspondent owed us any 

 apology in regard to his letter, it was not for writ- 

 ing it, but because of not having written before, 

 and for publication. — Ed. F. R. 



A SIMPLE AND CHEAP SILK REEL. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Kegister. 



Brunswick, March 19, 1840. 



You will please accept of the reel I have order- 

 ed you ; it is such as I use in reeling f-ilk. I have 

 never been able to see any advantage the Pied- 

 montese, or any other kind, has over it. The mo- 

 del I purchased in Hartford, Connecticut, f)r $5, 

 and it is there called Dale's reel. I made it more 

 eimple by dispensinij with two whirls which served 

 10 give it additional moiion, which was not neces- 

 Rarj\ 1 claim no credit .'(>r any ininrovement, and 

 my neighbor, Hartwell Hili, and a faithful me- 

 chanic, is the maker of the one sent to you. You 

 can readily' see it is simple and cheap. J\ly only 

 object is to let the public know that silk reels can 

 be made for a mere trifle, which I bplieve to be 

 equal to any now in use, and no patent right on 

 them. 



If you think the public can be benefited in any 

 way by iftsertinff the above in the Rptrisier, you 

 can do so. I expect to draw upon me the censure 

 of some who hold patents of other reels; but I 

 don't leaf a comparison of this reel wiih any I 

 have s^en ; not meaniufr in appearance, but as to 

 performance. Any common carpenter can make 

 the reel, and there bein>r no patent right on them 

 to pufl' them otf, has kept them in the back ground. 

 You can see frotn the numbers how to put the 

 parts together. The band must be put on so as 

 not to rub on any thing but the two whirls. 



Thomas Hicks. 



The above letter was received just in time to be 

 included in the last sheet of this number, and two 

 late for us to see the reel put together. We value 

 the present the more as coming from one of the 

 earliest, and now one of the most experienced of all 

 the new silk-culturists of Virginia, and who has 

 had enough praclice to succeed well in reeling 

 fiilk, as well as in feeding worms, even with such 

 humble machinery, and with mechanics and reel- 



ers totally ignorant when first employed. The 

 opinions of Mr. Hicks, being derived from prac- 

 tice, are especially entitled to respect, and his com- 

 munications for this journal will always be very 

 acceptable. 



We shall best second the liberal and public-spi- 

 rited intentions of Mr. Hicks, by having the reel, 

 which lie has sent lo us, put together and kept (or 

 some months for examination in this town. It is 

 proper to state that it agrees with the Piedmontese 

 reel in one respect (as all reels ought) that of making 

 the hanks ol'the same, or standard size.-E.D. F. R. 



FURTHER REMARKS ON THE ERRORS OF THE 

 TRANSLATORS OF DANDOLO. 



Our advertisement on the cover of the January- 

 No., inquiring for a copy of the original work of 

 Count Dandolo, C' DelV Artedi govemareiBachi 

 da Scia,') has served to obtain it ; an end which 

 all of our sundry previous attempts, made both 

 in this country and in Europe, had failed to reach. 

 The copy obtained is of the fourth Milan edition, 

 which is later than any we had seen referred to, 

 or heard of, before. For the gift of this long 

 sought and much valued volume, we are indebted 

 IO the kindne?s of Robert Chisholm, esq., of 

 South Carolina. Before obtaining this, we had 

 received the Florentine abridgment of Dandolo'e 

 first edition, which was acknowledged on a pre- 

 vious page; and we had also been oiFered by Pe- 

 ter Hulme and John Vaughan, esqs., of Phila- 

 delphia, a copy of one of the early and therefore 

 less perfecteditions, the loan of which is now ren- 

 dered unnecessary. To all of these gentlemen, 

 we feel as much obliged lor the kindness of iheir 

 inlentions and iheir oliers, as if ihry had been 

 fully availed of 



A very slight examination of this volume, and 

 comparing it wiih iheEnalish iranslalion, (which, 

 however, is of an earlier and less (ijll edition,) 

 served to confirm our previous o[>inion, that ail our 

 known translations, and the American treatises 

 drawn from them, are grossly incorrect in the sta- 

 tistics and ariihmetical statements — and that such 

 errors arc even more generally pervading than we 

 had before suspected. As to the particular error 

 which we had ventured to expose in the last num- 

 ber, (at p. 102,) even before seeing the original 

 work, it appears that we have not presumed too 

 much. The spaces are expressly stated by Dan- 

 dolo in sqvarebraccia, which his French translator 

 foolishly changed to feet, (according lo the sup- 

 posed equality of lineal rheasures,) and thereby re- 

 duced the true spaces nearly one-half We only 

 erred slightly in one respect, (by paying too much 

 respect to Murray's authority,) which was in 



