®l)c jTarmcr's illontl)Itj llisitor. 



141 



want of this, when n large crop is to be secured, 

 ihey must be piled upon each other. In this 

 ^ase, wo wouhl recoiiiinencl their not being 

 plnced more tijaii tiiree or lour deep. If pil- 

 ed together in loo large heaps they gather mois- 

 ture and rot rapidly. When tidzen they may 

 be preserved a long lime ; lint Ihey should be 

 cooked before giving thtMU to the slock, otherwi.se 

 they may do them great iiijmy. On the whole, 

 we (ireler feeding out our pumpkins as fast as 

 |)ossihle after ripening, and before the cold 

 weather sets in. They are of a cold watery 

 nature, and uidess cooked, we doubt whether 

 they are near as benericial to animals in frosty 

 xveather, as they are in milder, or indeed any 

 kind of fruit or rout, though stock of a good 

 breed usnully do well upon them. 



Brick JUsiklng. 



It is (•stimated that (j'O millions of bricks were 

 rjianut'actured last yi.'ar in the town of Somerville, 

 Blass. — Exchange pitjicr. 



Oil llie way to Boston over the Lowell railroad, 

 we were struck with the fact of meeting succes- 

 sive cars loaded with bricks going from the sea- 

 board to the interior — carried from the iimnedi- 

 ate vicinity of iJoston thirty miles iiilo the coun- 

 try to supply the demand which the new con- 

 Blruction of dwellings and factories requires in 

 the city of Lowell. These bricks are taken from 

 the kilns near the Filchburgand West Cambridge 

 railroads in Somerville, Cambridge and West 

 Cand)riilge, and thence conveyed over the one 

 railroad to another. The demand forbuihiing in 

 and about the city of Boston is enormous ; yi't 

 the bricks are there made to supply the interior 

 country likewise. These bricks of the common 

 kind, at the kilns are worth five to five and a half 

 dollars a thousand : they neces.-arily cost more 

 than bricks made in the interior, because the 

 price of fuel and subsistence of workmen must 

 always be higher ill the city than the country. 

 The wood for burning bricks is an important item 

 of the cost. 



Out of Boston, within the distance of seven 

 miles, there are beds of excellent blue clay sidli- 

 cieiit to build many cities. This clay lies gener- 

 ally on fials which leave the excavations subject 

 to be filled willi water that cannot easily be 

 drained, leaving the land waste until somfe mate- 

 rial is brought to supply the place of the clay ta- 

 ken away. All about Fresh pond and the Spy 

 ])Oiids in the towns above named, beds of clay 

 are to be found : a friend of ours at West Cam- 

 bridge, to the most extensive market-farm opera- 

 tions in fruits anil vegetables, has lately added 

 the annual inaiuifacliire of several millions of 

 bricks upon his reclaimed low lands of some 

 hundred and filty acre.s. The clay alone upon 

 this farm, intersected by two or more railroads 

 running out of Boston, will be a fortune to its 

 enterprising owner, to whom Mr. Crocker, who 

 planned and executed the enterprise of the Fitcli- 

 hiirg railroad, has given the appellation of the 

 " best Tuid most successful tarmtr in the United 

 Slates." 



Now if bricks may be made and carried up 

 country to Lowell, worth five dollars at the kilns, 

 in Somerville — what is there to prevent brick 

 making to be pursued to any extent along tlic line 

 of the railroad above Lowell to Connecticut riv- 

 er ? The price of fuel to burn the bricks in all 

 the distance is les.-) than the cost of transport, 

 which is nearly half the value upon an average. 

 There are beds of perl'ect cl.iy, some of them 

 newly opened by excavation of the road, all the 

 way from Connecticut river downward : along 

 side of this clay generally lies the pure sand nec- 

 essary to make the tempered mortar; and at no 

 great distance is the growing wood to be used in 



their burning — wood on rocky or hard poor 

 lands, which ever since the first settlement of the 

 country has been considered of little or no value, 

 except where some stately pine or oak could he 

 selected (or timber. The clay beds along the 

 iMerrimack valley and its branches generally have 

 this advantage, that they lie high and dry in the 

 side-hill, leaving no water-pits: the material is 

 here taken out and [ucpared at a less expense, 

 giving another advantage in the lessened cost of 

 manufacluring the bricks. 



The ipiality and excelliMice of the Merrimack 

 river clay have been tested in the splendid edifi- 

 ces erected in the new city of Manchester. 

 Bricks for the buildings there erecting, made on 

 the river above, are delivered on the canal bank 

 in that city from fmir to five dollars [icr thousand, 

 about 1 ,')0-]00 dollars less than the Somerville 

 bricks can he delivered at Lowell or the new city 

 of Essex. No building in the United States 

 shows belter bricks than those used at Manches- 

 ter. If the prosperity of the towns and villages 

 growing np in the valley of the Menimack should 

 continue, as there seems to be nothing in the way 

 now to prevent, the business of brick making for 

 one hundred miles through the centre of New 

 Hampshire, in the next ten years, may he added 

 to tlie items wliich will hereafter enable the peo- 

 |)le ofHsmall Stale to boast of doing great things. 



Adulteration of Milk. 



The subject of the adulteration of milk, was 

 some time since investigated with great care, by 

 M. Bari-ucI of I'aris. Aliliough his observations 

 were inleiidi'd to apply only to the milk of that 

 city, yel there is little doubt that they will also be 

 found .-ipplicable, in a greater or less degree, lo 

 all large towns and cities. He conmicnces in 

 slating that all inslrumenls for ascertaining the 

 purity of milk, which are designed to attain this 

 end by indicating differences in its density or spe- 

 cific gravity, are inriccurnlc intd useless. For on 

 the one hand, pure milk differs much in its den- 

 sity, according to the liiilder used by the ilaiiy- 

 man lljr bis cows, llie linfyraceous matter which 

 imparts louness of density, being made to pre- 

 ponderati^ by some kinds of food, and ihe caseous 

 part, which increases its density, being made to 

 preponderate by other kinds. And on ihe other 

 hand, although water, the ordinary substance with 

 which milk is ailnlterafed by ihe dealers in Ihe 

 French metropolis, would alone cause a great di- 

 minution of density, the dealers know very well 

 how to prevent that effect, and thereby render the 

 aerometer or lactometer useless. For this pur- 

 pose it is only necessary to ilissnive in the milk 

 a little sugar or sugar-candy, which is reipiired at 

 all events, in order to correct the flat '.aste impart- 

 ed to milk by diluting it wiili water. The result 

 of M. Bairuel's inquiries on the adulteration of 

 milk in Paris, was, that no positively noxious sub- 

 stance was, in any casi-, found in it ; that a com- 

 mon practice was to remove a considerable por- 

 tion of the cream, by allowing the milk lo stand 

 for a limited time, and ihcn lo dilute the remain- 

 der, or skimmed milk, vvilh water, and to give it 

 the apparent qualities of new milk by one or oth- 

 er of the methods now to be mentioned. The 

 opacily of the milk being mucb ilimiiiished by 

 the water, so that it acquired a bluish appearance, 

 it was at one time usual to correct this defect by 

 previously mixing "heat flour vviili the water 

 with wliich the milk was adulterated. But this 

 deception was too obvious to ihe senses. Any 

 person, (;vcii of iiidilierent delicacy of palate, 

 cdiiid detect the altered taste of the milk ; and 

 besides, after two hours' rest, the flour |)recipita- 

 led to the bottom, and the translucent blueness 

 was restored again to the milk. To prevent this 

 inconvenience, the dealers boiled the flour in the 

 water before mixing it with the milk ; and in this 

 manner an opaque mixture was obtained, which 

 retained its iqiacily on standing. As even with 

 this addition, the fabricated liquid had a flat taste, 

 sugar or sugar-candy was dissolved in it, by w hich 

 means the peculiar sweetness of the milk was 

 nearly restored. This adiilleraiion, however, had 

 become so easy of deleclion by means of iodine, 



which renders a mixture of boiled flour and wa- 

 •'''' ''I'"-" J'y i's "Clion on Ihe ficiila of Ihe flour, 

 I hat M. Barrnel was in a belief; that the fraud now 

 described had been but little practised in I'aris. 

 Unveil from this spe.'ies of aduheialion, the deal- 

 ers resort to another mode, so ingenious, that M. 

 BariiKd conceived ihey could not have discover- 

 ed It VMihout the aid of some scientific person. 

 The iiiethod is so simple anil so cheap, thiit for 

 one franc— 18^1 cents— the opacity and color of 

 milk may be imparted to fiftiMii quarts of water, 

 and so liir secret that no disagreeable Uiste cati 

 b- detected. This is nothing niore than the em- 

 ployment of an emulsion of almonds, for which 

 some dealers, more greedy and less cautious than 

 the rest, suhslilnled hemp si'ed, which, however, 

 is liable to impart an acrid lasle. liy cither of 

 these means milk may be diluted loan indelinile 

 extent; and llie only corrective required is a little 

 sugar or siigar-candy, lo remove the flat taste. A 

 peculiar advanlage possessed by the latter mode 

 of adulteration over every other, is, that the veg- 

 etable animal matter, or vegetable albumen of ihe 

 emulsion, by which the oil of almonds is held in 

 suspension, is coagulated or curdled, precisely 

 like casein, by the addition of acids. This mode 

 of ailulteration, however, may he readily detected 

 by the two following rirciimstances, viz :— the 

 coagulnm or curd, formed by acids in the mixture 

 of milk and almond emulsion, as compared with 

 that formed in milk alone, is but a liltle more than 

 one-half; and the fiiciliiy with which, by knead- 

 ing the coagulnm with llie fingers, oil may he 

 sipieezed out of the almond curd, while none ex- 

 ists in that of the milk alone. 



Another adiilteralion lo which milk is subject- 

 ed in Paris, is to add i small ipiantity of snb-car- 

 bon.-iteof potash, or of soda, which saturating the 

 acetic acid as it forms, iirevents the coagulation 

 or separation of curd ; and some of the dealers 

 practise this with so much success as to gain the 

 repniation of selling milk l\iin never turns. Often 

 when coagulation has taken place, they restore 

 the fluidity by a greater or less addition of one or 

 Ihe other of the fixed alkalies. 7'he acetate of 

 potash, or of soda, thus formed, has no injurious 

 eficct on the health, and besides, milk natmally 

 contains a small quantify of acetate of potash, but 

 not an atom of free carbonated alkali. Hence 

 the deleclion of this mixture is evidently the most 

 difliciilt of the processes recommcnded"in the va- 

 rious adulterations mentioned in M. Bamicl's pa- 

 per. Indeed, a chemist alone could conduct 

 while the two former 



It; 



modes may he easily per- 

 formed by any person of common observation. — 

 .'I'rrjcultiirisl. 



Consumptive Patients. 



The Horlicidlurist of the present monlli, in no- 

 ticing Demands Hislury and drt of Harming and 

 T'entllaling Kuoms, S^r., makes the following ex- 

 tract from the work. It is, to say ihe least of it, 

 quite amusing in its character, and we apprehend 

 will not be likely lodo harm. We all know that 

 the fresliiiess of the heaithy milch cow's breath 

 is proverbial ; and the editor very well remem- 

 bers to have heard it long ago observed, that the 

 atnios[ihe:e of the cow-stable was svholesome. 



'I'he subject of warming and vciililaling our 

 aparlments, is by the way, one which we seem 

 to know hut little about. We forget that we loo 

 ticquenlly economize the fuel we use, at the ex- 

 pense of health. It cannot be healthy to live ill 

 our coal stove rooms, where all the beat is retain- 

 ed, and no cinMilalion of air kiqit up. A little 

 (.'Xtra fuel is cheaper ilian ihe doctor's bill, or dis- 

 eased lungs.— /'/iiVa. Farmers'' Cubinel. 



" After an illness," sajs Madame Mezeray, " du- 

 ring which 1 took little care of myseli; ] fell into 

 a consumption. At length I spit blood in clots, 

 and had oiher bad swnptoms. I lost mv sleep; 

 and beiui; as ill as pussible, I had several consult- 

 ations with the first physicians in Pari.s. They 

 concluded my complaint was too far advanced to 

 leave any hope of a cure : but they prescribed 

 ass's milk and exercise on horseback ; which last 

 1 was too weak to take. 



" I was nineteen. I beheld my end approach 

 with deep dismay. One diiy, when I was bewail- 

 ing myself, a very sensible fiieiid of mine paid 

 me a visit. In thi' midst of his cnndoleiice bo 

 said, since all the physicians abandon you, let me 

 bring yon a man who is treated here as a charla- 

 tan because he is not known, but who in my opiu- 



