70 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. B. has patented a machine for dressing hemp and flax, with which, he 

 says, " seven men will dress in one day six hundred pounds of flax, and so much 

 less tow is made by it that it saves twenty per cent, of the flax by my operation ; 

 and the same process answers for hemp." 



If farther trials should well sustain the pretensions of these improvements by 

 Mr. Billings, the result of several years of devoted attention to the subject, they 

 will give him higher claim to public consideration than if he had invented some 

 "infernal machine" for burning a ship or a town, and all in it, at the safe dis- 

 tance of ten miles. But we doubt if his improvements, any more than Fulton's 

 or Whitney's, would draw him one-thousandth part as much applause as would 

 be awarded to the commander in the use of such a gun ; or if they will, any 

 more than Fulton's, or Whitney's, or Fisk's, or Rumsey's, draw him one cent out 

 of the -public treasury! 



Banfield, in his minute and valuable notes on the Industry of the Rhine, 

 speaks of a machine for heckling and scutching flax. As it is new in that 

 country, and possible that it may be thought worthy of being introduced in ours, 

 we extract what he says : 



" A machine of simple construction, and demanding little outlay, has been in- 

 vented by M. Kuthe, of Lippe Detmold. Its utility in heckling and scutching 

 flax has been carefully tested, and may be estimated from the accompanying 

 table. 



" The improved instrument affords a gain of fifty per cent., which, as in the 

 case of the threshing-machine, is of no importance on a single morgen (about 

 three-fourths of an acre), and would not even be realized on so small a scale ; but 

 on 500 morgens the saving amounts to no less than £1,000. 



CRICKETS. 



" Far from all resort of mirth 

 Save the cricket on the hearth." 



It is a common superstition in some parts of tlie country, haiidod down among many things, 

 good and bad, from our Eiifjli.^h ancestors, that 11" tlie ciickets forsake a house whicli they 

 have long inhabited, some evil will befall the family. In like maimer, tlie presence or return 

 of this cheerfid little insect is thought to be lucky, and to portend some good to the family. 



When, however, they increiise to a great degree, they become troublesome pests, flying 

 into the cimdles, and dashing into people's faces. In families in such time* they may be lik- 

 ened to Pharaoh's plague of frogs, getting into " their bed-chambers and U]>on their beds, and 

 ill their ovens, and in their kneading-troughs." They may be destroyed by gunpowiler dis- 

 charged into their crevices and crannies, or, a.s wasps are, by vials half tilled with beer, or 

 any liquid, set in their haunta ; for, being always eager to drink, they will crowd in till tlie 



bottles are full. 

 (166) 



