142 



THE FARMERS CABINET. 



VOL. I. 



in a coat of lime with the vegetable lay. By 

 so doing, it appears to us they would, the 

 ensuing season, receive all the benefit fronn 

 the lime which is usually derived from it the 

 second year. The peculiar virtue of lime 

 consists in part, in accelerating the progress 

 of vegetable decomposition, and thus, within 

 a given time, increasing the quantity of car- 

 bonic acid evolved, and in correcting any 

 superabundance of vegetable acid which may 

 abound, and so far as these benefits may be 

 derivable from the application of lime, corn 

 planted in fields next spring, manured this 

 fall with lime ploughed in, would receive 

 every advantage which usually appertains to 

 crops the second year. 



Lime. — Lime, now so extensively and pro- 

 fitably used in agriculture, exists in its purest 

 state in good marble. The refuse of marble, 

 which is in great abundance at our valuable 

 quarries in Montgomery and Chester coun- 

 ties, has recently been burnt into lime of the 

 best quality, and promises to be a valuable 

 acquisition to our farmers, and a profitable 

 appropriation of a refuse article to the owners 

 of marble quarries. 



phur and brimstone, it is said, will effect a 

 speedy cure. 



Seed Whe.a.t. — An amusing and instruc- 

 tive anecdote was related to me of a farmer 

 in Vermont, to whom his neighbors were ac- 

 customed to resort, for the purpose of secur- 

 ing their seed wheat; and was able to supply 

 with that which was very superior in its ap- 

 pearance, productiveness, and early maturity, 

 I which hewas accustomed tocall barrel wheat, 

 and which readily commanded three dollars 

 per bushel, when other wheat was sold for 

 one dollar, and one dollar and a quarter. — 

 The secret was at last discovered. He used, 

 before threshing his wheat, to select the best 

 sheaves, and striking them over the head of 

 an open barrel, three or four times before 

 laying them down to be threshed, obtaining 

 in this way a superior seed. As in this way 

 the largest and earliest ripe kernels would be 

 shaken out, and fall into the barrels, he ob- 

 tained what might be considered a select 

 seed which he denominated his " barrel 

 wheat;" and which the farmers, until they 

 heard how to do it for themselves, found their 

 advantage in purchasing. 



Maize Sugar. — Dr. Ballas, having sent 

 two specimens of the Maize Sugar to the 

 French Academy of Sciences, M. Biot has 

 submitted them to certain experiments of po- 

 larization, in order to ascertain their percise 

 nature. The deviation of the luminous rays 

 to the right of the place of polarization, in 

 an aqueous solution of this sugar, after Alter- 

 ation, and the proportion of its aversions to 

 the left by the addition of liquid sulphuric 

 acid, have been found by M. Biot to agree 

 with the pure sugar derived from the cane. 



Disease among the Stock in Louisiana. 

 — According to the Louisiana Advertiser, 

 Chorion is the name of a disease as fatal 

 among the horses, mules, horned cattle,sheep, 

 hogs and wild deer of Louisiana, as the 

 Cholera is to man. Neither is man wholly 

 exempt from it. Many instances have been 

 known, where those who have been attending 

 to their horses and cattle in the disease, have 

 been attacked with it, and repeated instances 

 have occurred of death ensuing. Planters 

 in the very pinch of a crop, have been known 

 within a week not to have a horse to put in 

 the plough; although he may have had a dozen 

 — all having died of the fell disease. A 

 planter writes to the editor of the Advertiser 

 that an ox which died of the disease, had 

 been skinned and left in the pasture, where 

 his hogs ate of it and were instantly attack- 

 ed with the charbon. Sulphur, flour of snl- 



Progress op the arts. — The May-bug is 

 now becoming an entirely new article of 

 commerce. A society formed for the purpose, 

 at Guedlinbourg, has caught nearly 19,000,- 

 000 of May-bugs to make oil of them. They 

 have already made the attempt in Hungary* 

 and obtained three measures of oil from eight 

 measures of the May-bug. They put the 

 insects into earthen pots, covered with straw 

 or a tissue of metallick threads, and turn 

 them over upon a heated vessel, which is 

 destined to receive the oil which flows out — 

 this oil is particularly good for greasing 

 wheels. Paris paper. 



Beet Sugar. — The manufacture of beet- 

 root sugar in Belgium is extending on a 

 large scale. Six new establishments have 

 been authorized, all in the province of Hain- 

 aut. The government could not refuse the 

 licenses; but it appears they are devising 

 means for filling up the gap made in the rev- 

 enue by this novel produce. 



A young farmer having purchased a watch, 

 placed it in his fob, and strutting across the 

 floor, says to his wife, ' Where shall I drive 

 a nail to hang my watch upon, that it may 

 not be disturbed and broken"!' ' I do not 

 know a safer place,' replied his wife, ' than 



in 



our meat barrel, I'm sure no one will go 



aro f*^ j-iicjfiirr* if ' 



there to disturb it 



Early rising is a merit in whoever practices 

 it. Farmers are generally early risers. 



