NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



227 



great deal would be wasted in filling up the spaces 

 between, as you may see yourbolvcs, if you lay a 

 number of marbles together. If they were square, 

 they would not suit the form of the young bees 

 which are to be placed in them. They arc therefore 

 made with six sides, so as to join together exactly, 

 and are very convenient, besides consuming the least 

 wax, and filling the least space possible. Now, the 

 cleverest men might have spent years in discovering 

 this admirable plan ; but, taught by God himself, 

 the little insect, without study or contrivance, has 

 adopted it from the hour of its creation. — Familij 

 Visitor. 



^ealtl) JDcpartment. 



Asthma. — There is no complaint more harassing 

 than asthma. The Newark Daily Advertiser, a re- 

 liable i:)aper, pledges himself to cure this distress- 

 ing disease with the following simple remedy : 

 Take one and a half ounce sulphur ; one ounce 

 cream-tartar ; one ounce senna ; one half ounce 

 anisesoed ; pulverize, and thoroughly mix the same, 

 and take one teaspoonful in about two tablespoon- 

 fuls of molasses on going to bed, or at such time 

 through the day as may best suit the patient ; the 

 dose once a day may be increased or diminished a 

 little, as may best suit the state of the bowels of the 

 individual. 



Half a spoonful of citric acid, (which may always 

 be bought of the apothecaries,) stirred in half a tum- 

 bler of water, is excellent for the headache. 



illcrl)anics' ?Departmcnt, ^rts, $Ct. 



How Axes are made. — The process has been 

 greatl}' simplified within the last two years. The 

 iron is rolled out in bars the proper width and thick- 

 ness of an axe, and six, eight, and ten feet long ; it 

 is heated, and cut off by a large pair of shears, 

 propelled by water power ; another workman picks 

 up the piece, and places it between a die and the 

 punch, and the punch comes down and forces a hole 

 for the handle by punching out a piece. An iron 

 mandrel is then inserted into the hole, and it is 

 immediately put under another press, which forms 

 one side of the axe ; it then goes into another die, 

 and forms the other side, and is then placed in an 

 upright position, and a chisel comes down and splits 

 the " bit " of the axe ready for the steel ; it is then 

 thrown aside. All this is done at one heat, and in 

 less time than it takes to write the modus operandi. 

 The blade of the axe is then put in and welded, 

 passed along to the forger, tempered, and is cast upon 

 the ground to cool. As soon as cold, it is taken up 

 and j)laned down to an edge by a planing machine, 

 and finished up with emery wheels — painted, la- 

 belled, stamped, and is ready for market. — Bath 

 Advertiser. 



Charcoal melted. — The possibility of melting 

 charcoal has at length been satisfactorily proved by 

 the experiments of M. Despretz. Up to the present 

 time, chemists have considered this an impossibility ; 

 M. Despretz, however, not only melts this refractorv 

 substance, but solders one piece to another, and even 

 volatilizes it. The heat to oif'ect this purpose is gen- 

 erated by a powerful galvanic battery ; the light and 



heat evolved is so great that, even in approaching it 

 only for an instant, there is danger of violent head- 

 ache and pain in the eyes ; and moreover, the face 

 may be burnt as by a powerful coup de soldi. To 

 avoid this, the operator conducts his experiments 

 under the shades of thick blue glass. Platinum 

 clippings, and other metals difficult to fuse, are 

 readily converted into a solid mass. This wUl prove 

 of great service in the arts. 



New Uses for Granite. — The Dublin Evening 

 Post states that a Mr. McDonald, in Scotland, has 

 discovered a method of calcining granite to a fine 

 clay, of extraordinary strength for pottery, especially 

 for making water pipes, some of which are as largo 

 as eighteen inches bore. — Farmer and Mechanic. 



DRAINING WARMS THE SOIL. 



It is reported that in a garden in Hampshire, the 

 temperature of the soil has been raised fifteen degrees 

 by di-aining heavy land four and a half feet deep. 

 This, if true, is a prodigious gain — beyond any thing 

 that we could have anticipated as a permanent result, 

 even in summer. Winter is of course excluded from 

 the statement. Circumstances prevent our exam- 

 ining the statement in the case alluded to ; but, 

 allowing for some exaggeration, there can be no 

 doubt that a result sufficiently approaching it to be 

 of the greatest value, is attainable. 



It is now for the first time that the public atten- 

 tion has been drawn, in the Gardener's Chronicle, to 

 this highly important subject. On the contrary, wc 

 have, on several previous occasions, pointed out the 

 undoubted fact that an increased temperature is one 

 of the most valuable results of deep drainage ; a 

 more probable cause of the immediate improvcmcat 

 of the health of crops than the mere rcnc\s'al of 

 water, or introduction of air into the soil. The 

 nature of deep draining is in fact such as to render 

 additional access of air to the roots of plants too in- 

 considerable to be appreciable. It is only when deej) 

 draining and deep trenching accompany each other, 

 that any great access of air to roots beyond wliat is 

 customary, can be anticipated. Where botli are 

 secured, the effect is certainly magical. 



We have now before us a piece of land, which in 

 1845 was trenched and drained to the utmost depth 

 which the nature of the situation would permit. 

 The trenching was through London clay down to 

 gravel, to about three and a half feet ; the draining 

 was the same. It could be no deeper. In the win- 

 ter of 1845— (5 it was planted, and the following is 

 now the height after four seasons' growth : Ashes, 

 thirteen to fifteen feet; elms, twelve to thirteen feet; 

 oaks, twelve feet ; alders, fifteen feet ; larch, thir- 

 teen to fifteen feet ; mountain ashes, eleven to tliir- 

 teen feet. Yews have made from eleven to twenty- 

 lour inches growth ; Douglas firs, transplanted between 

 August and October, 1818, fifteen to tliirty-one inches; 

 cryptomcrias, twenty-one to twenty-four inclies ; 

 and hollies, eight to twenty-four inches, during the 

 last summer; and what is not a little remarkal)Ic, a 

 fuclisia has lived in this ])lace without any i)rotcc- 

 tion, only dying annually down to the grouml level. 

 All the plants now measured were common nursery 

 stiiff' when planted. Of course the whole i)lantation 

 does not consist of trees that have grown at tlie same 

 rates as those just mentioned; such n tiling never 

 occurred ; but the trees are in general in the liighest 

 possible health ami vigor, in a cold, tenacious daj', 

 which before being trenched would hardly bear grass 

 enough to make it worth cultivation. 



