396 



FARMERS' R E (J ! S 1 E R 



LNu. 7 



past week was pasture, with a basket of grass 

 morning and evening, cut from a head-land of a 

 grain field, except on the evenings oftlie last tliree 

 days, when a handful of chopped oats and corn, with 

 shorts frona the hay-inow, was added. 



The above yield i? perhaps unprecedented by 

 any young cow in this country under the circum- 

 stances, being in the fourth month from calving, 

 and the calf having been with her till within a 

 tiiw days of the trial. The milking at noon was 

 adopted on account of the cow having been brought 

 from the field to her calf, daily, at that time. - 



Dairy Maid is a beautiful roan, of the improved 

 ehort-horn Durham stock, bred by Mr. VVhitaker, 

 of Yorkshire — imported last fall, and in point and 

 proportions is said to have no superior. Her pe- 

 digree, which may be found in the third volume 

 ofthe "Herd Book," is inferior to no cow on re- 

 ford. 



OlS BRICKS AND BRICK MAKING. 



From Millington's Civil Enginei'iiiig. 



Next in order to natural stone comes brick, 

 which is an artificial or manufactured kind of 

 stone, most extensively used in vast building ope- 

 rations, 'I'he brick oiiers pome advantage over 

 stone, arising chiefly from the expedition and ease 

 with which the work may be conducted. No stone 

 can be obtained from the quarry of a shape fit for 

 use in close jointed work, without the tedious 

 process of sawing or cutting it to a fair face ; and 

 as stones are large and heavy, there is great loss 

 of time in transporting them, and raising them to 

 their positions in the wall. Stone cannot always 

 be procured, owing to local circumstances, but 

 there are few positions in which brick-earth cannot 

 be obtained within a few miles ; and bricks are 

 very portable, are square and ready formed, and if 

 20od, and used with good mortar, will produce a 

 better and more durable wall than could be produ- 

 ced by small blocks of hard stone. The stability 

 of a stone wall, Vt'ith straight joints, depends more 

 on the weight and magnitude of the stones than 

 on the adhesion of the mortar. For as the harder 

 stones are not absorbent, the mortar will not ad- 

 here to their surfaces and produce union; while, 

 from bricks being of an opposite character, the 

 brick and mortar, after a short lime, become one, 

 and their adhesion is so strong that it is difficult to 

 separate them. 



Bricks have, accordingly, been used by all na- 

 tions from the earliest antiquity. The bricks of 

 Babylon, many of which bear inscriptions, are 

 known at the present day, and many of the ad- 

 mired relics of the ancients, still extant in ruins, ex- 

 hibit the perfection to which the art of brick- 

 making had arrived in these early days. Some 

 of the structures of Egypt and Persia, the walls 

 of Athens, the Pantheon and Temple of Peace at 

 Rome, and many other buildings are constructed 

 of brick. What is surprising, however, is that 

 many of these bricks, which have stood the test of 

 about 2000 years, do not appear to have been 

 burnt or submitted to the action of fire, to produce 

 their hardness and durability, which can alone be 

 attributed to the extreme dryness and heat of the 

 climate in which they were exposed ; for these 

 bricks, on being soaked in water, crumble to pieces, 



and disclose straws, reeds, and other vegetable 

 matter, from the existence of which it is inferred 

 they have never been submitted to any greater 

 heat than that of the sun. At a later period all 

 the bricks of the ancients were burnt, and it is these 

 that chiefly remain at the present day. 



A brick is nothing more than a mass of argil- 

 laceous earth or clay, properly tempered with 

 water and sofiened, so that it can be pressed into 

 a mould to give it form; when it is dried in the 

 sun, and afterwards submitted to such a heat as 

 shall hake or burn it into a hard substance. This 

 method of forming bricks puts a limit to their mag- 

 nitude ; for, as the material of the brick is a bad 

 contliictor of heat, so, if they were made very large, 

 the heal applied externally would never reach the 

 inside so as to bake it properly, without vitrifying 

 and destroying the outside; hence bricks must be 

 confined to such magnitudes as will admit of their 

 being well and equably burnt throughout. In 

 England, the sij;e of bricks is determined by law, 

 and no man can make bricks larger or smaller than 

 the prescribed dimensions. This law is, by many, 

 considered a hardship; but it was established for a 

 two-fold purpose, first, because all bricks made 

 there arc subjected to an excise duty or tax of 

 about a dollar a thousand, which tax could not 

 be equalized, unless a size was fixed for the brick; 

 and secondly, it enables a person building, to know 

 the exact quantity of work he can erect for a cer- 

 tain sum of money, and prevents brick-makers 

 taking advantage, by sending out small bricks, or 

 making them so large that their insides may not 

 be hard and well burnt, a circumstance that would 

 produce unsound work, deficient in durability. 



This law, as far as regards the determination of 

 the size of the brick, the writer is now convinced is 

 good. No regulation appears to exist in the Uni- 

 ted States, beyond the custom of the place and the 

 caprice oi the maker. One man makes a large 

 and fiill brick, and gets a good frice for it, be- 

 cauFC fewer bricks will do a given quantity of 

 work. Another sells cheaper, but he manufactures 

 a smaller article ; and it Irequently happens that 

 when a builder cannot get his whole supply fi'om 

 one maker, he is compelled to go to another, when 

 probably his size will not work in with the first, 

 unless a previous bargain has been made as to 

 dimensions. The writer having occasion to use a 

 large quantity of bricks, and having consumed the 

 first quantity delivered, had occasion to order many 

 thousands more from a stranger, for which a written 

 contract was made, and on their delivery he found 

 each new brick an inch and a half shorter than 

 those previously used. On remonstrating, he was 

 told that no dimensions had been specified in the 

 contract; that those delivered were of the usual 

 size, in that part of the country, and no redress 

 could be had ; notwithstanding it took nearly one- 

 fourth more bricks to do the same quantity of work, 

 as would have been necessary had they been oi 

 the proper, or usual standard size, which, in Lon- 

 don, is eight and three-quarter inches long, lour 

 and three-eighths wide, and three and three-quarter 

 inches thick ; the intention of these dimensions 

 being, that each brick, laid end to end, or every two 

 bricks side to side, with the necessary quantity 

 of mortar between them, shall make exactly nine 

 inches of work ; or that four bricks laid one on an- 

 other, will make a loot perpendicular, or twelve 

 courses to the yard. In Philadelphia, the gene- 



