244 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



FEB. TO, 1836. 



(Krom tlic Harrisburg Intelligencer.) 

 IMPORTANT DISCOVERY. 



]n our last, we noticed the important disoovcry 

 of Petir Rimer, Esq., of smelting iron ore with 

 mineral coal. It will be a new era in the iron 

 manufacture in this country. Tiie moment we 

 pass the Alleghany mountains, runnin<; from north- 

 east to south-west, nearly through the middle of 

 the state, we come into the liitnminous coal re- 

 gion. The rocks in this region, reaching to the 

 Rocky mountains, are horizontal, and frequently 

 alternate with iron ore and bituminous coal. — 

 This is the case at Karthaus, oa the west branch 

 of the Susquehanna, a few miles above the ter- 

 mination of the canal extending to Philadelphia, 

 The process of smtOting iron -ore with mineral 

 coal, has for some time been known in Emope, 

 and it lias been on this account that one kind of 

 iron could be made iu Great Britain, and sold in 

 lliis country under a duty of $30 [ler ton. Thou- 

 sands of dollars have been expended in this state, 

 and hundreds of enterprising men have been ra- 

 ined, in their experiments to discover this method 

 of making iron. A year or two ago, the Legisla- 

 ture incorporated a company, with an immense 

 capital, to make the experiment, as it was thought 

 to be beyond individual enterprise. 



At length, however, Peter Ritner and Joseph 

 I,oy, with limited pecuniary means, have erected 

 a furnace on the plan of the coke and iron furna- 

 ces of Wales, and succeeded in making the finest 

 iron for foundry and many other purposes. 



Mr Ritner is a hrotlicrof the Governor of Penn- 

 sylvania. 



ally which, if in one continuous sheet, would 



reach four times from pole to pole ; and if em- 

 bodied in a book form, would be equal to issuiug 

 six volumes as large r.s the Bible every minute in 

 the year! 



[Of the one thousand two hundred newspapers 

 in the United Slates, upwards of sixtyfive are pub- 

 lished in Boston, as follows: — Ten daily pipers, 

 nine semi-weekly, twentyseven weekly, and fifteen 

 monthly, with thrice-weekly, semi-monthly and 

 quarterly. Now at a very modest calculation of 

 1000 copies to each emission, — and a number, 

 we know, issue from 2 to 6,000 copies, — it would 

 give us 6,240,000 printed sheets annually ; which, 

 if in one continuous sheet, supposing two feet in 

 length to each sheet, would reach about 2,500 

 miles, and if embodied in a book form, would be 

 equal to issuing seventy volumes as large as the 

 New Testament every working hour in the year.] 



Cause ok Dyspepsia — A jileasant writer in 

 the last number of the American Quarterly, in 

 reviewing the recent books of travellers in North 

 America, agrees with Mr Tudor, one of the au- 

 thors reviewed, that, iu addition to the Aniercian 

 practice of bolting one's meals, another cause of 

 that peculiar American disease calle<i dyspepsia 

 is, — 



" The enormous quantity of hot bread, bot 

 rolls, smoking hot cakes, half baked and Jittle 

 removed from dough, and withal saturated with 

 melted butter, which are consumed at nearly every 

 meal, morning, noon, and night by all ages, and 

 each sex — by little children as well as by grown up 

 fathers and mothers." To these two sufficient 

 reasons we can yet ad<l another — and that is, the 

 custoi[i of " taking tea," which means drinking a 

 quantum of the Chinese beverage, with a pretty 

 substantial accompanimeut of various " relishes,'.' 

 two or three hours only after a hearty dinner. — 

 " Don't give the stomach too much to do," said an 

 experienced physician," and it will never trouble 

 you," but it may well be supposed that it will 

 murmur and revolt at the little rejiose wliich it is 

 permitted to enjoy. 



Newspapers. — In 1775 there had been 78 dif- 

 ferent newspapers printed — 39 of wliich had 

 been discontinued ])revious to that time — so that 

 at the commencement of the Revolution there 

 were but 39 papers published in the United States 

 — and of the number then printed but eight es- 

 tablishments are now in existence. In 1810 the 

 whole number of newspapers was three hundred 

 and fifty. There are now about one thousand 

 two hundred newspaper establishments in the 

 United States, from which are issued, at a mode- 

 rat£ calculation, 100,000,000 printed sheets annu- 



soil will keep them warmer, and the cones will 

 ripen sooner. 



In England, it is not in this view that they have 

 made use of it on jioles ; they make them as long, 

 at least, as the common sticks, and they make 

 them terminatf in a point. It is remarked with 

 satisfaction, ths;t the electric action which these 

 metalic conductors invite, hastens vegetation con- 

 siderably. The effects are so marked that a sen- 

 sible diflerence may be perceived in a bop field 

 before and aftei the passage of an electric cloud, 

 from which the conduetors have borrowed the 

 fluid. These conductors have all the effect of 

 lightning rods — ithey render natural the electric 

 clouds which puss within their reach, and agricul- 

 turists in making use of them, do a service to the 

 country by diminishing the danger of storms. 



Manual Labor and Mental Cultivation. — 

 My conviction — not lightly taken up, but the re- 

 sult of long and earnest thought — is, that daily 

 occupation with manual labor is in no way hi- 

 compatible with the highest mental cultivation 

 and refinement ; that so far from the exercise of 

 mechanical employment daily, for a moderate 

 time, being detrimental to the mental powers, it 

 has, on the contrarj', a decided tendency to 

 strengthen them ; and that if those who at pre- 

 sent serve the public in the capacity of writers, 

 were to employ several hours a day in mechanical 

 labor, their bodily health would be improved, and 

 their writings would take a character of vigor, 

 startling even to themselves. They would find 

 the workshop a more healthy atmosphere than 

 the drawing-room. There is no reason, save igno- 

 rance, why anythinglike degradation should attach 

 to the character of the working mechanics. There 

 is no reason, save ignorance, why they should not 

 have dwellings as good as their employers, as to 

 all the purposes of comfort. There is no reason, 

 save ignorance, why they should not have abun- 

 dance cf good and well prejiared food for the body, 

 and access to books of all kinds for the proper 

 culture of the mind. There is no reason, save 

 ignorance, why they should not have access to 

 lectures of all kinds, and [licture and sculpture 

 galleries, and museums, far more imposing than 

 anything the world has yet beheld. There is no 

 reason, save ignorance, why the great body of the 

 working people should not possess, in adilition to 

 all that is necessai-y for the comfortable mainte- 

 nance of the bodj', all the pleasures of mental re- 

 finement, which are now only within the grasp of 

 the very rich. There is no reason, save ignorance, 

 why the ruling power of the state should not be 

 in their own hands, and all else, save oi.ly the 

 excitements of ostentation and expensive sensual- 

 ity. — Tait'sMag. 



Improvement in the Culture of Hops. 

 A French paper mentions experiments which are 

 said to be making in France and Englaml in the 

 use of iron wire, instead crC wooden poles, in the 

 cultivation of hops. In an economical point of 

 view, they say there is no doubt but the result will 

 be favorable — but there is a more satisfactory rea- 

 son for the substitute on another account. In 

 France, it is thought that in consequence of the 

 use of these wires it will not be necessary to raise 

 the stalks so high from the ground, and that 

 training the plants around horizontal wires, the 



The Cotv. — TJie cow must have been once a 

 wild and savage animal. Whether she was do- 

 mesticated from the American buffalo, or gome 

 other wild beast, ^ve have do means of knowing, 

 with certainty, nor could the knowledge be of 

 much use ; we can only know her domestication 

 must have been loiifT anterior to any liistorical re- 

 cords we can ever obtain. But as the cow and 

 the buffalo propagate in any cross, we may natu- 

 rally conclude theui to be of one species, and that 

 the difference has been effected by domestication, 

 conducted by art, with different degrees of skill. 

 To see, then, ho\y far nature can be improved by 

 art, let us compari; the two animals together. In 

 the one case, the wild and shaggy buffalo, with 

 eyes of fierceness, and frame formed for combi- 

 ning force with unrestrained agility — calculated 

 to bound over hilils, and dash through forests and 

 thickets — of littlii use to mankind, except to the 

 savage hunter, alsuost in a corresi)onding degree 

 wild and uncivilizt^d. Compare with this the do- 

 mestic cow, the iri'Other and source of a train of 

 our richest comforts, witli eyes beaming with mild- 

 ness, apparently sympathizing with our social 

 wants, and seeming only to want the power of 

 speech to express lier gratitude for the favors she 

 receives, and for which she not only richly pays 

 through her life, hut with interest at her death. 

 Instead of affording milk barely sufficient to sup- 

 |)ort her own young while their nature requires it, 

 she furnishes a supply, not only for her own off- 

 spring, but for ours and ourselves, almost unlimit- 

 ed as to quantity ami duration. Her shaggy hair 

 has become fine, short, and silky, and the propor- 

 tions of her form so changed as to increase the 

 quantity of her flesh in those parts where it is most 



valuable, and diminish it where it is less so JV. 



Y. Farmer. 



The Skuisk. — Of all the penetrating odors, that 

 of the skunk is as astonishing as it is offensive. 

 It diffuses itself to a great extent, and penetrates 

 through almost every ojiposing substance. A lady 

 informs nie, that on visiting an acquaintance she 

 perceived the smell of a skunk in the butter on 

 the table. On inquiry, she learned that a skunk, 

 about si's months previous, got into the cellar 

 where the butter was packed in stone pots. The 

 scent had penetrated and remained in the butter 

 during the above long period. Farmers and dairy- 

 men sbouJd be particularly cautious in guarding 

 their cream and butter from the scent of skunks ; 

 if the offensive animal be near the house, without 

 being in tble milk-room, the butter is very liable 

 to become injured. — lb. 



