Vol. VIII.— No 50. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



397 



rem the nose will grow more purulent, discolored, 

 iloody, stinking; the ulcers in tliu nose will be 

 jrgcr and more numerous ; and, the air-passages 

 leiiig obstructed, a grating, choUing noise will be 

 learil at every act of breathing. The hmgs are 

 low diseased ; they are filled with tubercles or 

 Iceratioiis ; and the horse at length dies, an eiua- 

 iated and loathsome object. 



The symptoms frequently vary, and to a most 

 uzzliiig degree. The di-'charge will be so slight 

 3 scarcely to be perceived, and known oidy by 

 s stickiness ; and the glands will not be in the 

 !ast degree enlarged. At other times a very small 

 niarged gland may be found, adhering to the jaw, 

 nd may be stationary mouth after M)onth, and the 

 ngeon may be told that there has never been dis- 

 harge from the nose. He will, however, be 

 ■rougly informed here ; it has most assuredly ex- 

 ted, although perhaps to no great degree, at some 

 )rmer period, and he will generally without much 

 ifiiculty discover it then, although perhaps in so 

 nail a quantity that the groom or carter will deny 

 s existence ; and be will principally satisfy himself 

 ith respect to it, by its gluey feeling. 



SILK WORMS. 



Jonathan H. Cobb, Esq. of Dedham, is now 

 shibiting at No. 5, Tremont House, 10,000 silk 

 crms, feeding on Mulberry leaves, together 

 ith the eggs, cocoons, the raw silk, and the 



acliine on which it is reeled. These singu- 

 r little creatures, who furnish half the world 

 ith their richest clothing, are in themselves a 

 real cm-iosity ; and they become more so from 

 le conviction that silk must, sooner or later, be a 

 iluable sotuce of wealth in this country. A little 

 ore knowledge of the skill anil economy used in its 

 anufacture is, we apprehend, all that is now want- 

 ; 12 1-2 cents is the price of a single ticket, and 

 3 cents for the right to go in during the whole 

 xhibiliim, which will last until the worms just 

 atched have finished their cocoons, — a period of 

 iveral weeks. 



In China there is a species of wild silk worm, 

 lat feed on the leaves of the oak and ash. They 

 )in strong grey silk, from which a kind of coarse 

 oth is made, that will bear washing. Is Ponjee 

 lade of wild silk ? The strings of musical in- 

 ruments are made of it, because it is stronger 

 id more sonorous. The Chinese Empress keeps 

 feast in honor of silk worms, similar to the Em- 



ror's Feast of Agriculture ; on which day she 

 oes into the forest near the palace, and with 

 uch pomp and ceremony gathers with her own 

 iperial hands three branches of the mulberry 

 ee. The care of the young worms is confided 



an intelligent woman, who is called Tsam Mou, 



Mothtr of the worms. She is particular to have 

 1 very clean clothes, and not to touch wild en- 

 ve, the smell of which is injurious to silk-worms; 

 id she must wear a very thin dress, in order to 

 dgo of the suitable degree of warmth in the 

 cm ; for the Chinese use no thermometer. 



Leaves covered with dew, or that liave in any 

 ay imbibed an unhealthy smell, are unsuitable 

 worms ; it is likewise a pernicious habit to 

 irinkle the leaves to keep them fresh. The 

 aves should be renewed three or four times a day. 



The Chinese have a prejudice that leaves kept 

 me time in the bosom, to imbibe the moisture 



the body, are excellent for silk-worms. 



Silk is so plentiful in China, and labor so cheap, 

 at all persons in easy circumstances, whether 

 jale or female, wear silk, satiu, or damask ; the 



very uniform of the soldiers is made of it. The 

 ancient name of China, an)ong the Romans, sig- 

 nified the country of Silk. The Chinese consider 

 the chrysalis of the silk worm dainty food. — Mass. 

 Journal. 



WEEDS'-BANE. 



To prevent the growth of weeds round fruit- 

 trees, ktc. which materially injure their productive- 

 ness, the Germans spread on the ground, particu- 

 larly round the fresh-transplanted trees as far as 

 their roots extend, the refuse stalks of flax after 

 the fibrous part has been seiiarated. No weeds 

 will grow under the flax refuse, and it keeps the 

 earth fresh and loose. Spent tan is a substitute for 

 these stalks, which may be prevented from blowing 

 away, by being covered with twigs. 



THE ARMY WORM. 



The Army Worm has made its appearance, and 

 is very troMblesome to our Farmers, who are busi- 

 ly engaged in digging ditches round their wheat 

 anil corn fields. VVe were informed by a gentle- 

 i7ian that he killed about five barrels full of them, 

 by dragging logs through the ditches — thus crush- 

 ing them to death. — Illinois Gazette. 



FARMERS. 



The season of the year is approaching, when 

 the old adversary, who has destroyed so much of 

 our profits, and broken our tools, and beaten our 

 cattle, will be hovering about our farms, and offer- 

 ing his services. His name is stro.vg drIjNK. 

 But he is strong, only because he overthrows. He 

 makes no man strong. We want none of his help. 

 Our hoeing and haying and harvesting will be 

 done better without him than with him. The 

 times are hard, and he is an expensive companion. 

 He will cost us inore for the summer, than all our 

 taxes for the year. Let us, therefore, at the out- 

 set, all resolve that we will not employ him. 

 Whether we belong to Temperance Societies or 

 not, like them or hate them, no inatter, let us, this 

 year, havo nothing to do with rum or whiskey. — 

 American Sentinel. 



SNAKE POISON. 



A Mr M'Corwick of Newton, (Ind.) publishes 

 that pulverised charcoal made into a plaster with 

 hog's lard, is a grand antidote to the poison of 

 snake bites. With it he cured a child which was 

 bitten by a copper head, in both ancles. So rap- 

 id was the progress of the poison that in five min- 

 utes afler the biting, the child's tongue was swol- 

 len, and green matter ejected from the stomach ; 

 ' but the effect of the antidote was nearly as in- 

 stantaneous as the poison,' and the child entirely 

 recovered. The ointment was applied every half 

 hour for twelve hours. One editor suggests that 

 it might be a good application for the sting of the 

 bee and other insects. 



Mysterious Somids. — Dr Arnott states that the 

 crew of a ship sailing along the coast of Brazil, 

 far out of sight of land, heard distinctly, a ring- 

 ing of bells, whenever they stood on a particular 

 place on the deck. Months afterwards it was as- 

 certained that at that time the bells of the city of 

 St Salvador, one hundred miles distant from the 

 ship, had been ringing on account of a great fes- 

 tival. The sounds it seems were reflected from 

 the concave surface of a wide spreading sail, which 

 brought them to a focus as a concave mirror con- 

 verges the rays of light to a point. 



Importance of Chemistnj. — You will allow that 

 the rendering dyes insoluble in water, by conbin- 

 ing with thetu the astringent piiiiciple of certain 

 vegetabhjs, is a chemical invention, and that, wiili- 

 out leather, our shoes, onr carriages, our eijuip- 

 ages, would be very ill made ; you will [lermit me 

 to .say, that the bleaching and dying of wool and 

 silk, cotton and tlax, are chemical processes, and 

 the conversion of them into different cloths is a 

 mechanical invention ; that the working of iron, 

 copper, tin and lead, and the other metals, and 

 the combining them in different alloys, by which 

 almost all the instruments necessary for the tur- 

 ner, joiner, the stone-mason, the ship-builder, and 

 the smith, are made, are chemical inventions ; 

 even the press, to the influence of which 1 am 

 di.sposed to attribute as much as yon can do, could 

 not have existed in any state of perfection with- 

 out a metallic alloy ; the combining of alkali and 

 sand, and certain clays and flints together, to form 

 glass and porcelain, is a chemical process ; the co- 

 lors which the artist employs to frame resem- 

 blances of natural objects, or to create combina- 

 tions more beautiful than ever existed in iiatm-e, 

 are derived from chemistry ; in short, in every 

 branch of the common and fine arts, in every de- 

 partment of human industry, the influence of this 

 science is felt, and we may find in the fable of 

 Prometheus taking the flame from heaven to ani- 

 mate his man of clay, an emblem of the effects 

 of fire in its application to chemical purpose in 

 creating the activity and almost the life of civil 

 society. — Sir Humphry Davy's Last Days of a Phi- 

 losopher. 



Gigantic Etl. — If the Americans excel in sea- 

 serpents, the inhabitants of New South Wales car- 

 ry all before them in the magnitude of their eels. 

 The following paragraph is from a recent Hobart 

 Town paper : — ' It may not be generally known 

 that there is a gigantic species of eel peculiar to 

 this island, found in most of our rivers, particu- 

 larly where they form ponds or still water. A 

 gentleman who was lately bathing in the South 

 E.sk, in one of those beautiful ponds formed by 

 that river, after swimming about some time, sat 

 down to rest himself, as he thought, on the round 

 trunk of a tree, lying about a foot under water. 

 Presently the log seemed to glide from beneath 

 him, and he saw it tinii its head and eyes towards 

 him, and swim round hiin several times, moving 

 its body in a zigzag serpentine direction. If was 

 about a foot or fifteen inches in diameter, and 

 about twelve or fifteen feet long, of a dark green- 

 ish color.' 



Thickness of a Soap bubble. — Newton succeeded 

 in determining the thickness of very thin hunijiaj 

 of transparent substances, by observing the colors 

 which they reflect. A soap bubble is a thin shell 

 of water, and is observed to reflect diflerent co- 

 lors from diflerent parts of its surface. Imtnfedi- 

 ately before the bubble bursts, a black spot may 

 be observed near the top. At this part the thick- 

 ness has been proved not to exceed the 2,500,- 

 000 part of an inch. 



Formation of Shot. — It is the cohesive principle 

 which gives rotundity to grains of shot : the liquid 

 metal is allowed to fall, like rain, from a great 

 elevation. In its descent the drops hecoine truly 

 lobular, and before they reach the end of their 

 fall they are hardened by cooling, so that they re- 

 tain their shape. 



