268 



KEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



TO PREVENT CRQ-SYS, BLACKBIRDS AND CUT- 

 WORMS FROM DESTROYING CORN. 



Stir in warm tar with the corn, then mix with 

 plaster before planting. 



Plant no pumpkins except in the outer rows, 

 and give the plant a direction outward. 



Will tar applied to young apple trees late in 

 the fall, prevent mice from gnawing them ? 



Mt. Holly, Vt. J. P. 



Remarks. — Tar might prevent the gnawing 

 by mice wherever it is applied, but would it not 

 be dangerous to a young tree to cover so much 

 of its stem as would be necessary to keep it from 

 mice? Snows drift about young trees, and we 

 have seen them completely stript of thoir bark 

 three or four feet from the ground. 



"WHITE STRAWBERRIES. 



I have on hand a small lot of white strawberry 

 plants, which I wish to introduce into the market. 

 They bore abundantly last season, were ripe as 

 early as any which I had, and held out the long- 

 est. 



I would be much obliged if you would give me 

 a little information in regard to grafting an or- 

 ange tree ; I have one very thrifty, about two 

 years old, which has never blossomed. 



Austin C. Packard. 



J^orth Bridgewater, April, 1858. 



Remarks. — This publicution will introduce the 

 "White Strawberry," and perhaps induce some 

 one who knows to tell you about grafting the 

 orange tree. 



CRANBERRY PLANTS. 



Can you infonn me where I can obtain the best 

 kind of cranberry roots sufficient for setting three 

 or four acres? A Subscriber. 



Winchendon, Mass., 1858. 



Remarks. — Select the plants bearing the fin- 

 est-looking berries you can find in the neighbor- 

 hood of the land you intend to plant. This is 

 the course we should take. 



RELATIVE VALUE OF ARTICHOKES. 



Will some one inform me of the relative value 

 of artichokes compared M'ith potatoes, or other 

 roots, as feed for swine or cattle. They can be 

 made to yield four hundred bushels to an acre, 

 and be dug in the spring, at a time when there is 

 a scarcity of other vegetables. A Farmer. 



Windsor, Vt., 1858. 



COVERING MANURE. 



* * * I am confident from forty years' expe- 

 rience, that it will not do to bury manure very 

 deep in the cold region of Vermont. 



Waitsjield, Vt., 1858. Erastus Parker. 



TO STOP the nose-bleed. 



Firmly press the thumb and finger on opposite 

 sides of the nose, immediately below the bone, 

 from three to ten minutes, according to the ra- 



pidity of bleeding. If the bleeding be in the ex- 

 treme point, then compress that part in a similar 

 manner. l. 



ARTIFICIAL WHALEBONE. 



It would almost seem that science, in its rapid 

 march, would finally procure for the great whales 

 of the deep a respite from the tormenting and 

 deadly assaults of the harpoon. Artificially made 

 oils and fluids are steadily displacing animal prod- 

 ucts for purposes of illuminations, and now by a 

 somewhat recent discovery the bone of the whale 

 is no longer needed to supply our umbrella and 

 skirt-makers with skeleton frames. In 1855, Jo- 

 seph Kleemann of Meissen, Germany, obtained a 

 patent for a mode of preparing a substitute for 

 whalebone. The process has been put into prac- 

 tice in this city by Vellman, Solomon & Co., who 

 are turning out about twenty thousand umbrella 

 frames every week ! It consists in taking sticks 

 of the common ratan and soaking them in a li- 

 quid extract for about four days, after which 

 they are immersed in a solution of any of the 

 iron salts, which gives the ratan a a deep black 

 dye. Subsequently the sticks are exposed in a 

 close vessel, for the space of about one hour, to 

 the action of steam of about three or four atmo- 

 pheres' pressure, and then thoroughly dried in a 

 furnace or drying room at a temperature of about 

 180° Fah., when they become ready for the im- 

 pregnating process. 



The sticks are then placed into an iron cylinder 

 (capable of standing the pressure of at least ten 

 atmospheres,) connected by a pipe with an open 

 vessel, containing a varnish made by dissolving 

 120 parts of shellac and 100 parts of burgundy 

 pitch in 90 parts of absolute alcohol. The air 

 having been exhausted from the cylinder, the cock 

 connecting it with the vessel containing the var- 

 nish is opened, when the atmospheric pressure 

 Avill force the varnish into the cylinder and into 

 the pores of the ratan. 



The impregnation of the ratan is rendered 

 more perfect Ijy the use of a pump for forcing 

 the solution into the cylinder. The ratan has now 

 changed its character and become hardly distin- 

 guishable from the best quality of whalebone, 

 except that it is somewhat more elastic and less 

 liable to splinter and break. It has gained one 

 hundred per cent, in weight by impregnation. 

 After being removed from the cylinders, or im- 

 pregnators, but little remains to be done in the 

 way of drying, polishing, fitting the ends, «S:c., 

 to prepare it for use for umbrellas, parasols, 

 canes, &'c., and various other purposes. — Scien- 

 tific American. 



Remedy for Leaks. — A correspondent of the 

 Lynn News says : 



Some years ago I had a leaking "L." Every 

 northeast storm drove its waters in. I made a 

 composition of four pounds of rosin, one pint 

 linseed oil, and one ounce red lead, applied it hot 

 with a brush to the part where the "L" joined 

 the main house. It has never leaked since. I 

 then recommended the composition to my neigh- 

 bor, who had a lutheran window which leaked 

 badly. He applied it, and the leak stopped. I 

 made my water cask tight by this composition, 

 and have recommended it for chimneys, windows, 

 &c., and it has always proved a cure for a leak. 



