ACRIMONY. 



AEROLITES. 



Table of Land Measure. 



In an acre are 



4 roods, each rood forty perches. 

 160 perches, sixteen feet and a half each. 

 4,840 square yards, nine feet each. 

 43,560 square feet, 144 inches each. 

 174,240 squares of six inches each, thirty-six 



inches each. 

 6,272,640 inches, or squares, of one inch each. 



ACRIMONY (Acrimonia, Lat.). A sharp 

 property in some plants and vegetables, by 

 which they excoriate and blister the tongue, 

 mouth, or other parts of the body, on being 

 applied to them. The nature of this sort of 

 acrimony has not yet been sufficiently exa- 

 mined by chemical investigation. It seems to 

 differ in some measure according to the nature 

 of the plants; as in the common onion, water- 

 cresses, cabbages, &c., a part of their acrimony 

 is lost, by their being exposed to a boiling heat ; 

 while other kinds, as ginger, capsicum, arum, 

 &c., do not become much milder by undergo- 

 in- that process. 



The juice of the fungous excrescences of 

 some trees possess so much acrimony as to be 

 capable of blistering; and some kinds of 

 fiiniri contain a juice or liquor of a very cor- 

 rosive quality ; and it is probably on this ac- 

 count that many of those which are commonly 

 procured disagree so much with the patient, 

 when made use of as articles of diet. By 

 being more perfectly stewed, or otherwise pre- 

 pared by means of heat, they might most 

 likely be rendered safe and nutritious. Much 

 caution should, however, be used, even when 

 thus prepared, in eating such kinds 'as are un 

 known. "There be some plants," says Bacon, 

 in his Nut. Hist., "that have a milk in them 

 when they are cut ; as figs, old lettuce, sow- 

 thistles, spurge. The cause may be an incep- 

 tion of putrefaction : for those milks have all 

 an acrimony, though one would think they 

 should b lenitive." 



ADAPTER (Adapto y Lat.). In the manage- 

 ment of bees, is a board used to place the 

 hives or glasses upon. 



ADDER (Aerrcp, aecrop, nat>fcj\e, as it 

 seems, from eirtep, Sax. poison; Mces-Goth. 

 nadr, vipera ; Teut. adder). A viper, a poison- 

 ' ous reptile, perhaps of any species. In com- 

 mon language, however, adders and snakes are 

 not the same, the term adder being generally 

 understood to imply a viper. See AXIMAL 

 POISONS. 



ADEPS. In veterinary science, animal oil 

 or fat. The fat differs in different animals ; and 

 hence it has received different names. In the 

 horse it is called grease ; in the ox and sheep, 

 tallow, fat, suet ; and in the hog, hog's lard. 

 At a low temperature all these possess various 

 degrees of consistence ; but in the living ani- 

 mal, they all exist in a fluid state, and are dis- 

 tributed over various parts of the body. An 

 immense quantity of fat is often found in the 

 belly, all deposited in extremely small cells, 

 which have no communication with each 

 other. No fat is ever found within the skull. 

 Fat performs important functions in the 

 animal economy. When the supply of ali- 



ment, for example, is greater than the demand, 

 the surplus is stored away in the form of fat; 

 and when the demand, either from deficiency 

 of food, over-exertion, or disease, becomes 

 greater than the supply, then the absorbents 

 carry the fat into the circulation, and thus, for 

 a time, the evils that would very soon arise 

 from a defect in the quantity of blood are pre- 

 vented. Some animals accumulate fat more 

 readily than others. Health, a round chest, a 

 short back, and tranquil temper are highly 

 favourable to its formation; and when to these 

 qualities are added inaction, clean litter, and a 

 plentiful supply of nourishing food, the animal 

 is soon fit for the butcher. A warm atmo- 

 sphere, provided it be a pure one, is also 

 favourable to fattening. [See LARD OIL, &c.] 

 (Miller's Dictionary}. 



AERATION. The process by which the 

 soil is exposed to the air and imbued there- 

 with, air being indispensable to the healthy 

 growth of plants. When a flower-pot is filled 

 with rather dry earth, if it be plunged under 

 water a profusion of air-bubbles will be 

 seen to rise, owing to the water penetrating 

 between the particles of the dry earth, and 

 forcing out the air previously lodged there. 

 As the more loose and porous a soil is, the 

 greater quantity of air it will contain, it will 

 follow, that the more a soil is ploughed and 

 harrowed, or dug and raked, the better it 

 will be aerated one of the chief beneficial 

 effects of frequently repeating these opera- 

 tions. 



Besides the direct influence of the atmo- 

 sphere, the agency of water is all-important in 

 the process of aeration. All water openly ex- 

 posed contains more or less atmospheric air; 

 and, in consequence of this, it acquires an 

 agreeable taste, always destroyed by boiling, 

 which renders it vapid and disagreeable, by 

 expelling the air. The importance of air con- 

 tained in water to the growth of plants appears 

 from water being found beneficial in propor- 

 tion as it has had opportunities of becoming 

 mixed with air. But the best water, with re- 

 spect to the properties of the air it contains, is 

 rain, which, falling in small drops, often tossed 

 about by the wind, has an opportunity of col- 

 lecting a large proportion of air, and, accord- 

 ing to Liebig (Organic Chem.), ammonia, 

 during its descent to the earth ; and hence the 

 smaller the bore of the holes in a garden water- 

 ing-pot, the better ; and the more minutely the 

 garden-engine scatters the water, the more ad- 

 vantageously, so far as the air is concerned. 



There is another point of view in which 

 aeration appears beneficial, arising from the 

 excrementitious matters thrown into the soil 

 by growing plants, as ascertained by M. Ma- 

 caire; for as these matters become decom- 

 posed in the processes of fallowing, irrigation, 

 and draining, the gases there produced would 

 not so readily be carried off from the soil, but 

 for a due circulation of the common aiP 

 through the earth. See GASES, their use to 

 vegetation. (Miller's Dictionary). 



AEROLITES (From the Greek ap, air, and 

 *.ifa, a stone). Meteoric stones, bodies that 

 fall from the heavens. The origin of these 

 remarkable bodies is still a mystery. 



