AND H R T f C U L T [J K A L REGISTER 



S 



iny siibslanc^ns wliich are in its way — sometimes 

 villi great violciico, and often doinij irreparable 

 iijiiry. 



W'e do not, however, always liave thunder ami 

 iglitnini; when clo>jd3 form in tlie sky. When a 

 ()i» rolls in from the east, its vapors lie in contact 

 vith the earth and ocean, and the electricity passes 

 .ff silonily as fast as it accumulates. In a lon;» 

 (intinued storm the clouds cover the whole heav- 

 ens, and extenil over a rco;ion of many miles ; and 

 hey form so slowly that there is opportunity for a 

 ;radual escape of the fluid. But when, in a sultry 

 imimer afternoon, black masses of cloud risf in 

 he west, forming very rapidly, and with rounded 

 nd well delined boundaries, the fluid then accu- 

 nulates fister than it can escape, and after a time 

 : darts to the earth, or from rloud to cloud, produc- 

 n^ the terrific eftVcts which we so often see. 

 iplendid and appallinu as tliese results sometimes 

 re, they are imitated precisely but harmlessly, by 

 he apparatus of the lecturer. The fluid is the 

 ame in its movements and in its character, wheth- 

 r it sparkles on the table or thunders in the skies. 



When it darts to the earth, its aim is to pass 

 'iroiigh the best conductor it can find on its win/. 

 lence it strikes a tree; th.it is, it chooses to come 

 own throvsh the juices of the trunk ; for it will 

 e recollected that water was said to be a conduo- 

 ir. It ofton seeks a way throupjh the walls and 

 artitions of a house, because it finds there nietal- 

 c or watery substances which help it forward, 

 lut it must be remembered that it strikes these ob- 

 'cts only so far as they fiunish it a passage way 

 ) the place for which it is destined. The uoni- 

 •lOM idea that a peidtnife, or other metallic body, 

 Itracts the lijjhtuino', is erroneous. A lightning 

 )d suspended horizontnltji in the air, would not at- 

 •act lightning. It is only when it forms a connex- 

 ion between the place where the electricity is, and 

 lat towards which it tends to move. — Fall River 

 9peratives' Journal. 



From the Eastern Farmer. 



PRODUCTION OF INSECTS. 

 Mr Editor — Your paper of the 17th March 

 ist, gave a very interesting article on Entomology. 

 ?he following passage struck me as one which I 

 ad so'no reason to doubt as a correct opinion, so 

 •Bras one f.ict would warrant a doubt of such high 

 tithority as you quote — L)r. Harris's Report on 

 he Insects of Massachusetts: — ".'\ll insects are 

 ■roduced from eggs, and none arc spontaneously 

 •eneratcd from putrid animal or vegetable niallor." 

 The fact to which I allude came under my own ob- 

 ■ervation, and is briefly as follows. Having a hen 

 if a very large size, and very profitable on account 

 ■f the number and size of her eggs, I was desirous 

 .f obtaining some of her breed, and late in the 

 pring of 1840, sat her on some of her own eggs, 

 lUt none of them hatched. I then buried her eggs 

 n a heap of earth. In the spring of the following 

 'ear, on removing the earth, I found some of the 

 ;g^s unbroken as when deposited there. My cii- 

 iosity led me to break one of tli?m, which was 

 lerleotly free from fracture, and in it I found a 

 iving insect. It was about an inch and a half in 

 en.'th. Its colors of imperfect black and light yel- 

 ow, in narrow stripes, the whole length of the 

 )ody, its belly and logs of a redish yellow. Its 

 notions were like those of a caterpillar. And on 

 ts head was a bunch, large for the size of the in- 



sect. ( was reminded, by its disgustinu' appear- 

 ance, of a pa.ssage in a poem by ('olluu Mather, 

 where the poet wished lu lie.strny sonie hereticul 

 religious opinion : — 



" Lest that III ngg bring forth a cockatiicH, 

 To poison all wilh hciuay. and vice." 



I make no remark and give no opinion on this 

 subject, but that " it may not be without amuse- 

 ment, if "iihout instruction to your readers," to 

 inquire if other and similar facts cannot be found 

 to substantiate the doctrine of spontaneous genera- 

 tion of insects f.'om putrid a;iiiiial and vegetable 

 matter. A. 



LUCERNE. 

 A correspodent of the Annapolis Republican 

 takes the following notice of a patch of lucerne, 

 belonging to Wm. Johnson, Esq., of Princess Ann, 

 Somerset co., Md. 



" It consists of about three fourtlis of an acre — 

 it was sown in 182!) — has been cut this makes the 

 twelfth year. He keeps two horses and three 

 cows — has a full supply of milk and cream, and 

 more butter than he knows what to do wilh — much 

 more than can bo said of many farmers who have 

 .500 acres of land without a h't of lucerne. This 

 lot has been cut over once this season, and now 

 before he can get half over again, the three horses 

 and cows getting more than they can devour, he 

 will have to cut it and make hay of it, to prevent 

 it from getting too old. It comes several weeks 

 before clover — may be cut four or five times — 

 ■■strikes its roots very deep, anil will therefore aland 

 dry weather, and will last no ime knows how long ; 

 for this is now a splendid crop, after being cut 

 eleven years, and yet — farmers icon't so.o it ! even 

 Mr Johnson's neighbors, with a few exceptions, 

 and with his success staring them in the face ! I 

 told hirn that the coinmnn objection urged against 

 it was, that they cannot get it started — that the 

 weeds and grass will smother it the fiist year. 

 Walk with me, said he, and I will tell and show 

 you all about it. The best previous culture, said 

 he, is Irish potatoes; the hoe in that case kills 

 grass and weeds, and he showed me a lut of a 

 neighbor's, which last year was partly in corn and 

 partly in potatoes, both sowed in lucerne this 

 spring. That on the poiato part was, to a visible 

 line, much better than the other. The way to 

 manage it is tlii.s: — Take a rich lot of ground on 

 which the water does not lie, winterer summer; 

 cultivate it in Irish potatoes ; sow it down broad- 

 cast, Ist May, twenty pounds of seed to the acre, 

 and in July, cut. Vou may suppose from the looks 

 of it the first season, that the weeds and grass 

 would overcome it, but do n't be alarmed : they 

 die off and the second year the lucerne will sur- 

 vive almost in immortal vigor. The proof of the 

 pudding is in eating it: here I saw ihe proof. 

 When it is considered how early it invites the 

 scythe, how rapidly it shoots up again, how many 

 cuts it will give in the year, and how many years 

 It will last, it is safe to say that an acre of it, well 

 set, is worth twenty acres of clover. 



" But the best is to be told. It is a fact, which 

 I have learned for the first lime, from authority 

 and in a manner which leave.^ ine not a doubt of 

 Its truth — that lucerne possesses the remarkable 

 characteristic of being exempt from that quality in 

 clover and other green meat — as English writers 



call It — which makes it dangi'rous to give it to 

 horses when lu active exercise. In other word.s 

 you may feed them, as Mr Johnson does his car- 

 nage horses, on lucerne instead of dry fodder or 

 hay, and travel them on it last or slow, without 

 dau'fcr of toiicliin;,' their wind! Every one knows 

 that this can't he done with clover. Mr Robin- 

 son, who some years since owned a stage line be- 

 tween Centreville and Easton — a route of 21 miles, 

 over which a sing'e team wus driven fed on corn 

 and green lucerne, without ever blowing a horse. 

 Ill Italy the stage lior.se, in his must active use, is 

 fed on grain and ulfallaor lucerne. But what sig. 

 nifies a thousand illustrations.' This, like others, 

 will bo read and thrown aside, as a thing that 

 'tells very well on paper,' hut too trouhleseme to 

 be put in practice ! 



"It would probably be better to sow it with 

 oats, cutting ofT oats and lucerne in July ; but what 

 I saw had not the aovantage of any protecting 

 crop. The oats would probably assist in kf^eping 

 down weeds and grass. To conclude — the lot 

 should be rich, well worked in potatoes, and well 

 top dressed in February, from year to year; the 

 oftener the better. That gives the crop an early 

 and vigorous start. The farmer who once enjoys 

 the benefit of a lot of lucerne for his horses and 

 milch cows, will never bo witliout again." 



EGGS. 

 A correspondent of the Piscataquis Farmer says : 

 "In conversation a few ihiys since with one of our 

 thrifty farmers on the subject of keeping eggs, he 

 t(dd mo that only a few weeks since, he took to 

 market a quantity of eggs which he had kept in 

 perfect order for seven months. The manner in 

 which they were preserved so long a time he did 

 not wish to keep a secret, and it occurred to me 

 that the fact might well deserve a place in your 

 useful paper, that others might avail themselves of 

 the benefit to be derived from the information. 

 Many modes of preserving are practiced, but none 

 has yet come to my knowledge so simple and 

 worthy of being generally known as this. His 

 method of procedure is simply to collect the eggs 

 as soon as laid, and place them upon the small 

 end, closely packed, in any common vessel, such 

 as a firkin or cask, and let them remain unmoved 

 in the open air, only covered to prevent being ex- 

 posed to breaking. But the great secret is, in my 

 opinion, that of collecting the eggs soon after they 

 are laid, as otherwise nothing will save them from 

 decay. Try the experiment, friends, and if you 

 do not succeed, the expense is nothing, and if the 

 recipe is true, it is valuable indeed. 



Bradford, in his history of Massachusetts, relates 

 that in 1763, on the anniversary of the society for 

 promoting industry, 300 females of Boston as.sem- 

 bled on the common with their spinning wheels ! 

 They were attired in cloth of their own manufac- 

 ture. 



The Vermont Patriot stales that Isaac Tabor, 

 of Montpelier, performed no less an exploit the 

 other ilay, than the shearing of 913 pounds of fine 

 wool from IGti sheep — almost 5 1-2 lbs. per head, 

 and amounting, at 20 cents per lb., to S2J7 25. 



The cotton crop in Miasissippi ia said to pro- 

 mise abundance. 



