No. 10. 



Natural Science. 



317 



gmoking like a volcano, and crackings open all 

 around ; requiring the constant addition of 

 earth to keep in the heat, which was exces- 

 sive, destroying all vegetation, with the larva 

 of insects, bugs, grubs, &c., at a blow. At 

 the end of a month the whole was turned up 

 and well pulverized, which brought on an- 

 other fermentation; and in about six weeks 

 it was carried abroad on the meadows during 

 a time of frost, a top-dressmg as fine as ashes. 

 The corrosive nature of the lime, corrected 

 by "the salts of the earth," its acidity and 

 sterility neutralized by the lime, the effects 

 of the compound at the passing away of the 

 frost were truly astonishing; seen in the im- 

 mediate growth of the grass, and felt at the 

 time of hay-harvest in a double crop of the 

 most luxuriant growth of herbage, of a quality 

 quite different in its nature; with white clover 

 so thick as to induce persons to suppose that 

 the seeds of that plant had been sown. 



I have seen Dr. Dana's muck manual, 

 and am mucli pleased with it. I have often 

 been surprised to find persons bringing 

 dung from the city at the cost of $70 per 

 acre, and to hear them complain that their 

 crops would not afford the expense of weed- 

 ing; if these persons will just peruse the 

 doctor's book, and go into the business of 

 compost-making with good will, they may 

 soon put their teams to other purposes and 

 their men to mucking, and save time and 

 money — two valuable ingredients; while an 

 extra ploughing of their land will be found to 

 save two extra weedings, besides improving 

 their crops, and consequently, their own cir- 

 cumstances. 



ViR. 



April 25, 1842. 



Natural Science. 



The mere gratification to be derived from 

 learning some of the wonders with which w-e 

 are surrounded, is surely a great satisfaction; 

 for instance, to know that the same thing, or 

 motion, or whatever it is which causes the 

 sensation of heat, causes also fluidity, and ex- 

 pands bodies in all directions ; that electricity, 

 the light which is seen on the back of a cat, 

 when slightly rubbed on a frosty evening, is 

 the very same matter with the lightning of 

 the clouds; that plants breathe like ourselves, 

 but differently by day and by night; that the 

 air which burns in our lamps enables a bal- 

 loon to mount, and causes the globules of the 

 dust of plants to rise, float through the air, 

 and continue their race ; in a word, is the 

 immediate cause of vegetation. Nothing can 

 at first view appear less like, or less likely to 

 be caused by the same thing, than the process 

 of burning and breathing — the rust of metals 

 and burning — an acid and rust — the influ- 



ence of a plant on the air it grows in by night, 

 and of an animal on the same air at any time 

 — nay, of a body burning in that air; and yet, 

 all these are the same operation. It is an 

 undeniable fact, that the very same thing 

 which makes the fire burn, makes metala 

 rust, forms acids, and enables plants and ani- 

 mals to breathe ; that these operations, so un- 

 like to common eyes, when examined by the 

 light of science, are the same. And to know 

 this must be a positive gratification, to find 

 the same substances in various situations 

 extremely unlike each other — to meet with 

 fixed air as the produce of burning, of breath- 

 ing, and of vegetation — to find that it is the 

 choke-damp of mines, the bad air in the Grotto 

 of Naples, the cause of death in neglected 

 brewers' vats, and of the brisk and acid fla- 

 vour of seltzer and other mineral waters and 

 springs'? Now nothing can be less like than 

 the working of a vast steam-engine of the old 

 construction and the crawling of a fly on the 

 window, yet we find that these two operations 

 are performed by the same means, the weight 

 or pressure of the atmosphere — and that the 

 sea-horse climbs the icebergs by no other 

 power! Can any thing be more strange to 

 contemplate, and is there in all the fairy tales 

 that were ever fancied, any thing better cal- 

 culated to arrest the attention and to occupy 

 and gratify the mind, than this most unex- 

 pected resemblance between things so unlike 

 to the eyes of ordinary beholders ! And what 

 more pleasing occupation than to see unco- 

 vered and bared before our eyes the very in- 

 struments and the process by which all-perfect 

 Nature works? Then, when we raise our 

 views to the structure of the heavens, and are 

 gratified with tracing accurate but most un- 

 expected resemblances, is it not in the high- 

 est degree interesting to find that the power 

 which keeps this earth in its shape and in its 

 path, wheeling upon its axis round the sun, 

 extends over all the other worlds that com- 

 pose the universe and gives to each its proper 

 place and motion ; that this same power keeps 

 the moon in her path round our earth, and 

 our earth in its path round the sun, and each 

 planet in its course; that the same power 

 causes the tides upon our globe and the pecu- 

 liar form of the globe itself! — and that, after 

 all, it is precisely the same power which 

 makes a stone fall to the ground. To learn 

 all these things and to reflect upon them, oc- 

 cupies the faculties, fills the mind, and pro- 

 duces certain, as well as the purest gratifica- 

 tion. — Brougham. 



The great mischief is, that we farmers are 

 in too great a hurry to get rich : we forget 

 that the golden age has passed away, and that 

 we are living under the hard influence of the 

 iron ages. 



