126 



THE FARMERS' CABINET. 



VOL. I, 



ells, the Kindricks, the Cushings, the Wind- 

 ships, the Wilders, the Walkers, the Hag- 

 gerties, and others, that I have forgotten, 

 have found that their labors have been "like 

 words fitly spoken" — the glory of wisdom 

 — "flowers of gold in pictures of silver." 



The cultivation of flowers at the present 

 day seems not merely confined to gratify a 

 laudable ambition ; but to extend itself far, 

 very far beyond it. The florists have gone 

 back to ancient days, as every one must, 

 who intends to follow nature in matters of 

 taste. The greatest eff'orts of the present 

 generation of florists have been the use of 

 flowers in depriving the grave of its horrors ; 

 I allude to the connexion of a garden with a 

 cemetry, as at Mount Auburn. The dark 

 and silent chambers of the dead have always 

 been distressing to the living; they say, 

 with Othello — 



* Here is my journey's end, here is my birth, 

 And every sea-mark of my utmost sail." 



'I he horticulturistof Mount Auburn leaves 

 his flowers with a different feeling than that 

 experienced by our great ancestors when 

 driven from Eden, 



" O flowers, 

 That never will in other climate grow, 

 My early visitation, and my last 

 At ev'n, which I bred up with tender hand 

 From the first opening bud, and gave ye names, 

 Who shall now rear ye to the sun, or rank 

 Your tribes, and water from th'ambrosial fountl" 



The florist now knows that from the gar- 

 den he loved, that those very flowers which 

 he reared to the sun, are to be planted 

 around his grave ; to shed their perfume and 

 scatter their leaves on every summer breeze. 



This " lovely conceit," like Ophelia's 

 pure imagination, "has turned every thing 

 to prettiness;" — and the traveler, as he 

 wanders through the labyrinth of flowers, 

 which seem to cover the hearse and the 

 pall, and to hide the spade and the mattocks, 

 whispers to himself " can this be death V — 

 if it be. 



"Death is the privilege of human nature ; 



And life without it were not worth the taking !" 



Go on, ye florists ; and while you extend 

 in innocent rivalry in making Earth's bosom 

 each year more lovely than the last, be 

 assured that you will secure the affection 

 and gratitude of all ; and that even he who 

 has no parterre of flowers to boast of, no 

 garden from which to gather golden fruits, 

 will select those which the Muses have scat- 

 tered over the fields of knowledge and taste, 

 and bind them on your brows. 



Philo Florist. 



A Plant possessing the properties of 

 Spontaneous Combustion. — A very inter- 

 esting paper was recently read by Mornay, 

 before the London Linnean Society, dercrib- 

 ing a shrub which grows on the rivers of 

 Brazil, and which is called the Euphorbia 

 Phosphoreseens. Where this Euphorbia 

 forms large entangled impenetrable masses, 

 covering, perhaps, a quarter of an acre of 

 ground, and growing some twenty feet high, 

 it will take fire spontaneously, emitting, for 

 some time, a vast column of dense black 

 smoke, and at last, bursting out in flames. 

 Whenever the author had an opportunity of 

 observing the combustion of the juice of 

 this plant, on its coming into contact with 

 atmospheric air, the temperature was a very 

 little raised ; the combustion (with flame) 

 went on a low temperature, until stopped 

 by the formation of a crust, which quickly 

 takes place. The temperature always ap- 

 peared to be too low to spread into a confla- 

 gration. 



RURiiLi. &Doio[z:sTic ncoNonrsr. 



To cure Bacon. — To half a bushel of small 

 hominy salt, pounded, and one bushel of 

 blown salt, put two pounds of salt petre and 

 three quarts of molasses — mix all well to- 

 gether, and rub your hams and shoulders 

 thoroughly with it, and put a thin layer on 

 each; then pack the hams in the powdering 

 tubs, with the skins downards and as com- 

 pact as possible ; first sprinkling the bottom 

 of the tub with unmixed blown salt. When 

 the tub is half full of hams, put in the 

 shoulders until three quarters full, then fill 

 up with the middlings, jowls and heads, 

 giving a thin layer of unmixed blown salt 

 between every layer of meat. After your 

 meat has remained, (if small, four weeks, if 

 middling size five weeks,) take it out and 

 hang it up to smoke, with the hocks down- 

 wards. When well smoked, take it down 

 and rub it thoroughly with hickory ashes, 

 and pack it in dry hogsheads, with the hocks 

 down: once or twice during the summer 

 examine, rub it again with hickery ashes, 

 and towards the fall it may be hungup, and 

 it will then keep for many years. 



The method of making Transparent Soap. — 

 Tallow is the basis of all soaps for the 

 toilette, known under the name of W iudsor, 

 because olive oil forms a paste too difficult 

 to melt, and having an oder too powerful for 

 mixing with perfumes. Tallow-soap, dis- 

 solved with heat in alcohol, returns to its 

 solid state on cooling. It is this fact which 

 has led to the discovery of transjrareut soap. 

 When well prepared, this soap should have 

 the appearance of fine white sugar candy. 

 It may also be colored, and vegetable colors 



