Vol. XI.— No. 5. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



37 



tiii"uishe(l it by their numbers. In Soutli Amcn- 

 ca, tliere are countless varieties ; sou<c puisne 

 their labors by day, and others !iy night ; they 

 form ditTerent strata in the air, and new detacli- 

 mcnts relieve guard as last as the former are ex- 

 hausted. Hund)oldt tells us, that near Rio Unare 

 the wretched inhabitants bury themselves in the 

 sand, all excepting the head in order to slec]) ; we 

 should think that, in such a condition, they would 

 be sorely tempted to make no exception. Even 

 this is not so groat an evil as the destruction made 

 by the white ants among papers of all descrip- 

 tions. The same authority mentions, that there 

 are no documents of any antiquity spared by this 

 destroyer; it invades the tenure of property, the 

 duration of literature, the record of history, and all 

 the means of existence and improvement, by which 

 civil society is held together. It is melancholy 

 enough to see gardens, fields, and forests sinking 

 into dust ; but we must confess that this last ca- 

 lamity <iuile exceeds all others. 



To those who resent these injuries, it may be 

 consoling to know that the means of ample ven 

 "■eance are within their reach, and if they choose 

 to follow the example of those who kill and eat 

 insects, the insects will certainly have the worst of 

 the war. The Arabs, as is well known, eat lo 

 ousts with great relish, though, for reasons, not 

 certainly founded upon the disparity of outward 

 favor, they look with abhorrence upon crabs and 

 lobsters. Hottentots, also, delight to have locus'ts 

 make their a|ipearance, though they eat every 

 greeu thing, calculating with some foresight, that 

 as they shall eat the locusts, they shall not be 

 losers in the long run. This people, who are far 

 from fastidious in any of their habits, also eat 

 ants boiled, raw, or roasted, after the manner of 

 coffee ; and those who can overcome the force of 

 prejudice, so as to try the e.xperiment, confess 

 that they are extremely good eating. Kirby, the 

 English naturalist, bears his testimony to this ef- 

 fect. Smeathman says, " I have eaten them 

 dressed in this way, and think them delicate, 

 nourishing, and wholesome ; they are something 

 sweeter, though not so cloying, as the maggot of 

 the palm-tree snout beetle, which is served up at 

 the tables of the West Indian epicures, particular- 

 ly the French, as one of the greatest luxuries of 

 the country. In parts of Europe the grub of some 

 of the beetles are highly esteemed ; the ceramhyx 

 is the delight of the blacks in the Islands ; the in- 

 habitants of New Caledonia are partial to spiders. 

 Equidtm no7i invideo, miror magis. It is highly 

 probable that a large proportion of insects were 

 intended by providence for food ; and if we will 

 not eat them, it is unreasonable to complain of 

 their numbers. 



ner superior to all others, and if, upon experi- 

 ment, after following strictly the directions, they | 

 prove otherwise, we will cry aloud and spare j 

 not against this species of Yankee epicurism. 



Brown Bread. — Indian Meal, half a peck ; Rye 

 ftleal, half a peck ; molasses, one gill ; yest, half | 

 a pint; salt, two table spoonfuls. This is to be | 

 mixed with skimmed milk, boiled and cooled, but 

 water, nriilk warm, will answer. It must be mix- 

 ed quite soft, kneaded one half hour and baked 

 in iron pans twelve hours. 



Baked Beans. — Take one quart of Beans, wash 

 them thoroughly, soak them over night and rinse 

 them in the morning. Put them into an iron pan 

 with two quarts of water and stew them over the 

 fire quarter of an hour. Then wash and score 

 one pound of pork, (fat and lean) and put it into 

 the kettle with the beans and boil them quarter 

 of an hour longer ; then stir in two table spoon- 

 fuls of molasses, fill up the kettle with water, and 

 if i)ossible let them stand in the oven over night. 

 — A'orthampton Courier. 



CONTAGION AND INFECTION. 



These two words are commonly used promis- 

 cuously, being generally supposed to be sy- 

 nonymous terms. Such, however, is not the fact, 

 and the difference in their meaning is easily 

 shown by referring to their derivation. Contagion 

 is derived from the Latin word contingo, lo 

 touch ; and is applied to diseases which are com- 

 mimicated to a person afliected with such disease, 

 as the measles, the itch, the small pox. Infection, 

 on the other hand, is derived from inficio, to stain, 

 to dye, to soak, to imbue, to saturate; and is ap- 

 plied to diseases which are not communicated to 

 a jierson by simple contact with anotiier person 

 afiected, but i-equires something more ; as a per- 

 son going into a room where a large number of 

 persons affected with a particular disease are col- 

 lected together, and though he would not take the 

 disease by merely touching the sick, yet by re- 

 maining a long time in the room with them, by 

 handling them, inhaling their breath, and breath- 

 ing the contaminated atmosphere of the room, his 

 system might become so imbued, soaked, satura- 

 ted with the noxious etfiuvia, as to be atfected with 

 the disorder. The contagion is applied to more 

 virulent diseases, and such as are taken by slight 

 exposure or simple contact, while infection is ap- 

 plicable only to such as can be contracted by long 

 and continued exjiosure. — Boston paper. 



DOMESTIC MATTERS. 

 Baked Beans and Brown Bread are two staple 

 commodities in the weekly fare of New Euglaiid- 

 crs ; in the southern country, a man's origin and 

 primitive descent is known to be Yankee when 

 he advocates and defends brown bread and the 

 bean pot. But never mind, a man who will not 

 uphold these wholesome and nutritious com- 

 pounds, would sell his birthright for a mess of 

 pottage, — he has no real Yankee principle of life 

 in him, and should be driven out of paradise into 

 the land of musquito nets and mdlifiers. An 

 experienced housewife has furnished us with the 

 following receipts for serving up these articles as 

 they do in the eastern part of the state, in a man- 



Powdered Charcoal. — This may be obtained in 

 bottles of the druggist, or prepared in families. 

 To prepare it, put sound coal in the fire, and after 

 bringing it to a red heat, pound and sift it, the finer 

 the better; bottle and stop it close with a leather 

 or writing paper cap, tied over the cork. In the 

 preparation let no dampness come upon it. Its 

 efficacy is weakened even when administered in 

 water. This may be taken best in a little nnik or 

 molasse.s, a table spoonful at a time. No injury is 

 ever sustained from it, and it is a jtowerful cor- 

 rective of putridity. In diseases of the bowels, 

 and malignant fevers, we have known it to be very 

 useful ; and in checking choleric pains and diar- 

 rhosa, we have ))roved its value. In health it is 

 laxative ; but in this epidemic cholera, it has often 

 restored the tone, the healthy feeling and action 

 of the bowels. It interferes not with any ordina- 

 ry food or physic, and may be given in the lowest 

 condition of the sick. — JV. ¥. Whig. 



Boston, Wednesday Evening, August 15, 1832. 



SECOND CROP GRASSES, SALIVATION 

 OF STOCK, &c. 

 Farmers have, generally, been inclined to at- 

 tach considerable value to the second crops of 

 grasses, called aftermath, or rouen ; and this has 

 been particularly the case with regard to clover. 

 Mr Lorain, however, has thrown some doubts on 

 the expediency of attempting to keA cattle with 

 the rouen or second crop of this grass. We would 

 submit the remarks on this subject to the consid- 

 eration of our good practical cultivators, and 

 should be happy if they would make our paper a 

 vehicle for communicating their opinions on a 

 subject of considerable importance to ihe agricul- 

 tural interest. 



" Certain it is," observed Mr Lorain, " that 

 when the second crop grasses, given to my cattle 

 in the yard consisted of red clover, I have seen 

 them prefer eating the old straw, with which their 

 sheds were thatched. Nay, more ; I have seen 

 them (though naturally quiet,) so much goaded by 

 hunger, that they have broken the fences of my 

 cattle yard several times in the course of one day, 

 when a fresh supply of fresh cut, beautiful look- 

 ing, second crop red clover was entirely rejected 

 by them, and which no efforts of mine could com- 

 pel them to eat. 



" What may appear still more extraordinary, I 

 have seen them, after Iieing turned into the very 

 fields from which this cro|) of clover had been 

 cut, return in the evening tolerably well filled. 

 Whether they have sufficient sagacity to pick out 

 the least obnoxious parts of the clover, or to gath- 

 er other plants that are in some certain degree 

 calculated to counteract the baneful effects pro- 

 duced by the clover, is unknown to me. The 

 facts are, however, correctly related. 



" I formerly believed the salivation of horses 

 and catile, is not altogether confined to red clover. 

 I had observed, that in proportion as this grass 

 predominated, in loads procured from a mixture 

 of it with the spear grasses, my cattle confined to 

 the yard were more or less salivated. 



" Since I have removed to the back-woods, 

 where red clover is too seldom sown, I find the 

 horses and rattle slabber quite as much as they 

 do where this grass has greatly prevailed. My 

 neighbors say white clover is the cause of this. 

 It m.iy be, and I suspect it is the principal cause : 

 but until the cattle be confined where they can 

 get no other grass but white clover, nothing cer- 

 tain can be known of the extent of the slabbering 

 produced by eating it. 



"The s|ip;ir grasses grown on the firm where 

 soiling M'as extensively practised by me, consisted 

 principally of timothy, orchard, and green grass- 

 es, with some little ont grass. It clearly appear- 

 ed, that if these grasses be in any degree affected 

 by the cause which ))roduces salivation, it can be 

 but little, as the second crops were found capable 

 of greatly correcting the profuse slabbering, cer- 

 tainly introduced in my practice by red clover. 

 These grasses when mixed with the clover, never 

 failed to affect this valuable purpose, and that too. 

 as far as this could be determined by the eye, in 

 dun proportion to the quantity of them which 

 ha|>pene<i to be mixed with the clover, brought 

 in with them for feeding the cattle ami horses in 

 the vards. 



