&l)c farmer's iHontljlj) Visitor. 



179 



Affection for Offspring. 

 One of the strongest feelings of animals is 

 thru Of affection for their offspring ; and, indeed, 

 so intense is this impulse among the greater 

 number, that it may he said to exceed the care 

 which they employ for their own preservation, 

 or the indulgence of their own appetites. 

 Among insects' and some other oT the interior 

 tribes, the care and solicitude of providing for 

 their young engrosses the better half of their 

 existence : for they labor during the prime of 

 life to provide a comfortable nest and proper 

 food for their offspring, which they are never 

 destined to see, death overtaking them before 

 they can enjoy tiie pleasure of beholding [heir fu- 

 ture family. .Many timid animals, that shrink from 

 danger while they are single and alone, become 

 bold and pugnacious when surrounded by their 

 young. Thus the domestic ben will face any 

 danger and encounter any foe in order to pro- 

 tect her brood of chickens ; and the lark and 

 linnet will allow themselves to he taken in their 

 nest rMher than desert the young which lie pro- 

 ■ tected under their wings. Even those animals 

 whose general nature is characterized by savage 

 and unrelenting fierceness, are gentle, and ten- 

 der, anil affectionate to their young. The grim 

 lion fondles with paternal softness his playful 

 cubs ; and the savage bear has been known to 

 interpose her own body between the deadly 

 • musket and her helpless offspring. Cut this 

 feeling in animals lasts only for u season. After 

 they have nourished and brought up their young, 

 these go out from their parents, all further lies 

 between them are broken up, and they know 

 each other no more. How different is this from 

 human connections! The fond mother watches 

 over the long and helpless period of infancy, in- 

 stils into early childhood lessons of wisdom and 

 virtue, and feels her hopes and affections in- 

 crease with every year that brings an increase of 

 reason. Nor are such family ties severed by 

 death. The child, on its part, returns the care 

 and affection of its parents; and when old ags 

 and second childhood come upon them, the 

 children then feel it their greatest happiness to 

 repay in acts of kindness and attention the debt 

 of gratitude which is justly due. What a moral 

 beauty is thus thrown over the common instinc- 

 tive affections, and how greatly superior appears 

 man's nature to that of the mere brute! — British 

 Quarterly. 



The Chemical Character of Steel. 



Steel is found by surrounding bars of wrought 

 iron, with charcoal placed in fire-brick troughs 

 from which air is excluded, and keeping the 

 iron bars and charcoal in contact, and at lull red 

 hral lor several days; at the end of which time 

 the iron bars are found to be converted into 

 ' steel. What is the nature of the change which 

 _lhe iron has undergone we have no certain 

 - knowledge; the ordinary explanation is, that the 

 iron has absorbed and combined with a portion 

 of the charcoal or carbon, and has, in conse- 

 quence, been converted into a carburet of iron. 

 But it has ever been a mystery that on analysis, 

 very minute and questionable a portion of 

 li appears that the grand 

 object 



think that these blisters are the result of the de- 

 composition of the carbon; whose metallic base 

 enters into union with the iron and forms with 

 it an alloy, while the other component element 

 of the earhou is given forth, and so produces in 

 its escape the blisters in question. On th're as- 

 sumption we come to a very interesting ques- 

 tion— What is the nature of liiis gas? J I) order 

 lo examine this, all thai is requisite is to till a 

 wrought iron retort with a mixture of pure car- 

 bon anil iron filings, subject it to a long contin- 

 ued red heal, and receive the evolved gas over 

 mercury. Having obtained the gas in question 

 in this manner, then permit a piece of polished 

 steel to come in contact with this gas, and ill all 

 probability we shall then have reproduced on 

 the Surface of the steel a coat of carbon result- 

 ing from the re-un'mii of its two elements, name- 

 ly, that of the metallic base of the carbon then 

 existing in the steel with the, as yet, unknown 

 gas; thus synthetically, as well as by analytic 

 process, eliminating the true nature ot steel, and 

 that of the elements or components of car- 

 bon. — J. J\'apicr, Esq. 



so very minute 

 carbon is exhibited. 



error in the above view of the subject consists 

 in our not understanding the nature of the 

 change which carbon undergoes in 'us combina- 

 tion with iron in the formation of steel. Those 

 who are familiar with the conversion of iron in- 

 to steel, must have observed the remarkable 

 change in the outward aspect of the bars of iron, 

 after their conversion! namely, thai they are cov- 

 ered with blisters. These blisters indicate the 

 evolution of a very elastic gas, which it sets free 

 from the carbon in the act of its combination 

 with the iron. I have the strongest reasons to 



Breadstuff's. 



In the absence of demand from Europe for 

 our breadstuff's, the prices of every description 

 are drooping at a season of the year, when we 

 usually find them advancing in value. Freights 

 also continue very low notwithstanding several 

 hundred large vessels have been taken away for 

 California. There is nothing of consequence 

 going forward to Europe but Cotton, and the 

 shipping remaining is superabundant to perform 

 this work. The ship owners and the grain grow- 

 ers of the United States, have been greatly bene- 

 fitted for several years past by the demand upon 

 the grain harvests of the United States, to supply 

 the deficiency in food caused by the Potato rot, 

 in the populous countries of Europe, but this 

 seems now to be over. 



The Potato rot, seems like the Cholera, to be 

 passing away from Europe and America. On 

 this continent, in Nova Scotia where it first ap- 

 peared, there is little or none of it the present 

 year, and the potatoes from that region come 

 now as they did formerly, excellent beyond those 

 of all other countries. In the United States very 

 little complaint is made, nearly all the destruc- 

 tion being confined to the fields before digging, 

 and nothing of it found after the Potatoes had 

 been harvested a week or two. 



In Europe, there is no complaint on the con- 

 tinent, where, however, the Potato is not so much 

 used as in Great Britain. In England and Ire- 

 land the late crop of Potatoes has generally es- 

 caped injury, and afforded a large supply of food 

 for men and animals. 



The Price Currents and the letters state that 

 the restoration to the markets of the Potato, has 

 entirely cut off the demand for Indian Corn, ex- 

 cept to a limited extent for the feeding of ani- 

 mals. At Liverpool, there was in store nearly 

 two millions of bushels of Indian Corn, and in 

 the Irish ports twe and a half million bushels, 

 almost unsaleable, and there were numerous fresh 

 arrivals of vessels with the article from the Black 

 Sea and the Mediterranean, beside some from the 

 United States. — Newburyport Herald. 



Great Pail Factory. — At Niagara Falls, 

 where there is as much water power as might 

 drive all the machinery in the world, there is a 

 factory for the manufacture of wooden pails, 

 which is believed to be the largest tn the world. 

 The factory is owned by Messrs. Patterson and 

 Murray, and is a large four story stone building. 

 They have ill operation as much machinery as 

 can turn out one thousand pails per day and 

 about live hundred tubs. The factory consumes 

 a million feet of pine lugs a year, and baud and 

 wire iron in proportion. The machinery is all 

 of the latest and most improved description, and 

 tin- facility and rapidity with which the pails are 

 now made are in striking contrast with the slow 

 and laborious process of hand manufacture prac- 

 tised a few years since. And the beauty and 

 uniformity of the article are as striking as t tie 

 celerity with which it is manufactured. — Scien- 

 tific American. 



Another Whitewash. — The editor of the 

 Horticulturist, in answer to the queries of a cor- 

 respondent, gives the following recipe for a 

 whitewash. We have published a good many 

 recipes for this purpose, lint believe we have 

 never published °'ie exactly like this. He re- 

 commends it as a most excellent, cheap and du- 

 rable wash for wooden fences and buildings. 

 He thinks it owes its durability to the while vi- 

 trol which it contains. 



Take a barrel and slake a bushel of freshly 

 burned lime in it, by covering the lime with 

 boiling water. After it is slaked, add cold water 

 enough to bring it to the consistency of good 

 whitewash. Then dissolve in water, and add 

 one pound of white vitrol, (sulphate of zinc) and 

 one quart of fine salt. To give this wash a 

 cream color, add one half a pound of yellow 

 ochre, in powder. To give it a fawn color, add 

 one fourth of a pound of Indian red. To make 

 a handsome gray stone color, add one half a 

 pound of French blue, and one fourth pound of 

 Indian red ; a drab will be made by adding one 

 half pound of burnt sienna, and one fourth part 

 of Venitian red. 



For brick or stone, instead of one bushel of 

 lime, use a half bushel of lime and a half bifshel 

 of hydraulic cement. 



Velocity of Electricity. — Professor Mitch- 

 ell, of the Cincinnati Observatory, has succeeded 

 in measuring the velocity of electricity, by means 

 of two circuits, the one a few feet long, and the 

 other extending to Pittsburg, a distance of 607 

 miles. The result of his experiment fully prov- 

 ed that it did require an appreciable lime for the 

 electrical wave to travel G07 miles, and that the 

 velocity of the electric wave is 28,524 miles per 

 second, in case Pittsburg is distant 007 miles 

 from Cincinnati measured along the wires. It 

 yet remains to fi\ the velocity of the electrical 

 wave when transmitted through the ground in 

 different directions. 



Indian Enterprise. — Two flats, laden with 

 hides, pecans, beeswax, and dried fruit, from the 

 country of the Creek Indians, landed at Van Bu- 

 ren, Arkansas, on the 10th ultimo. The Intelli- 

 gencer, of that place, says: — "The boats, cargo, 

 and all, are the fruits of Indian enterprise. It is 

 a new feature in our trade to be supplied by the 

 wholesale, with dried fruit by our red brethren. 

 The spirit of the age is not confined to the 

 States and white settlements." 



Facts. — Never keep your cattle short ; few 

 farmers can afford it. If you starve them, they 

 will starve you. 



It is an error to plant seeds from a State fur- 

 ther south. In a cold season, only the seed from 

 a colder climate will ripen well. 



The heller animals can be fed, and the more 

 comfortable they can be kept, the more profita- 

 ble they are, and all farmers work for profit. 



A change of fortune hurts a wise man no 

 more than a change of the moon. 



Isiportant if true. — It is mentioned for the 

 benefit of planters and others annoyed with rats, 

 that they may be kept from doing injury to grain, 

 &c, by the use of common elder bush. Break 

 off boughs from a growing bush and scatter 

 them around outside of the grain heaps, and no 

 rat will trouble the premises. The discoverer 

 was much annoyed by the creatures before he 

 tried the plan. 



Mrs. Partington expresses great apprehension 

 that the people in California will bleed to death, 

 as every paper she picks up announces "another 

 vein opened." 



He who falls in love with himself will find no 

 rivals. 



