1876.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



155 



knocked it until I liburated lialf ;i dozen or 

 more; butllu-y were soon on the leaves again, 

 evidently trying to sti-uigliten themselves. 

 They would pass tligjr legs over their wings, 

 but they were uii-^teady on their feet, and 

 seemed to be intoxicated. Every fly that I 

 liberated eventually returned to tlie open 

 mouth and walked in, as if fascinated by some 

 spell. 



In about two hours the room \vas cleared of 

 flies — all liu-ed into the fatal traps. I re- 

 opened the windows to admit more, and 

 among the flies came two or three yellow- 

 jackets — wasp-like insects. These yellow- 

 jackets are very fond of anything sweet, and 

 very soon one found the tempting bait. It 

 alighted upon a leaf, and commenced feeding 

 about two-tliirds of the way from the bas^;. 

 It seemed to relish the food highly, and ate 

 eagerly and quietly for a few moments; Imt 

 soon its wings began to tlutlcr, and it pro- 

 ceeded hurriedly and wildly along the line of 

 sweet until it reached the opening. Hero it 

 paused a moment to feed along the cord that 

 surrounds the mouth of the tube, but its wings 

 were still rais<'d and fluttering. In a little 

 more than a minute from the time it alighted 

 it was a safe prisoner within, buzzing and llut- 

 tering and stirring up the imprisoned flies. 

 On holding the leaf up to the light, I could 

 see its frantic efforts to escape— trying to 

 climb the smooth siu'face, but, like the Hies, 

 ever falling back, until it was powerless to 

 move. — Ilcuytr's Magazine. 



^ 



HEROIC FARMING. 

 Conrad Wilson, of New York, writes thus 

 to the Countrij Gentleman: 



The mode of (^ultiue and the liberal manur- 

 ing practised by market gardeners, cannot, of 

 ! course, be generally adopted by those who cul- 

 [ tivate large areas of land. But I have always 

 ; noticed that those farmers wliose methods ap- 

 ' preach nearest to the standard of the garden, 

 are the ones who obtain, as a rule, the largest 

 yields and the highest rate of profit. It is true 

 enough that to invest yearly in manure at the 

 rate of fifty to eighty tons per acre, requires 

 t more faith and courage, as well as more raouey 

 than the average farmer commands. Yet it 

 is mainly in this intensive mode of culture that 

 the market gardener linds his best renumera- 

 tion. The man who cultivates half a dozen 

 f acres must get larger returns from each than 

 ' those who cultivate from fifty to five hundred. 

 To get seventy tons of cabliage from an acre, 

 ami other products in a similar ratio, the gar- 

 dener can well afi'ord to invest liberally in 

 plant food and other expenses of culture. If 

 he knows or can nearly determine, the value 

 of each intended crop, he can generally calcu- 

 late how much it will 1)6 safe to pay out in 

 order to obtain it ; and having made the cal- 

 culation, he does not hesitate to make the In- 

 vestment. 



Now, there is clearly no reason why the 

 same general nde is not equally sound for the 

 farmer. His business is subject to the same 

 natural laws, and his crops are augmented bv 

 the same process. When the Hon. Henry 

 Lane, of Vermont, by adding a few dollars to 

 the cost of his beet crop, brought the yield up 

 to forty-four tons per acre, and the cost down 

 to six or seven cents per bu.shel, though he 

 achieved no miracle, he showed that intensive 

 culture is profitable for the farm as well as for 

 the garden. 



The grand fact to be considered is this : In 

 all cases where manure is alnindantly supplied 

 and the tillage is thorough and deep, the .soil 

 responds in a corresponding degree, and be- 

 comes, in the hands of a skillful cultivator, 

 simply a machine for converting chemical ele- 

 ments into food ; and whether a man culti- 

 vates ten acres or ten hundred, the more i)Iant 

 food he supplies of the right kind (other con- 

 ditions being e(iual), the larger will be the re- 

 sult ; the lower the cost and the higher the 

 rate of profit. 



The last few dollars added to tlie cost of 

 the crop is nearly always the secret of the ex- 

 tra profit, and sometimes makes the whole 

 difference between profit and loss. All prac- 



tical farmers profess to understand this, yet 

 few of them have proved the courage of their 

 opinions by reducing it to practice. And here 

 is Just the point where men of timid and con- 

 .servative ixilicy halt and hesitate, while the 

 clear-headed, heroic farmer fearlessly meets 

 the expen.se, and wins the prize. 



There is in fact si'arcely a crop raised on 

 the farm that might not be materially in- 

 creases with but slight additional cost, i)ro- 

 vided the owner could determine in each case 

 the additional outlay needed, and the right 

 plai'c to put it. As this (piestion is often easily 

 solved, and iiot always as dillieull as it seems, 

 it challenges the attention of farmers, and 

 well deserves farther di-scussion. 



WHY LARGE CITIES ESCAPE THUN- 

 DERBOLTS. 



We have long been of the opinion, and have 

 occasionally exi)ressed it, that the reason why 

 large cities, especially American cities that 

 are liberally supplied with water and gas|)ipes 

 made of iron, and rnmiiiig from the upper 

 floors of houses into the earth and eommuni- 

 c-ating with still larger pipes from which their 

 contents are supplied, owe immmiity from de- 

 structive tluniderbolts to the conducting pow- 

 er of these andother metallic agencies employ- 

 ed in such buildings. The iron thus used might 

 not serve as an infallible i)rotection against 

 lightning were it not, i)erhaps, for the addi- 

 tional agency of the hundreds of miles of tele- 

 graph wires that pass along the eaves of houses 

 in a large luimberofthemost imblic thorough- 

 fares, and occasionally even cross their roofs, 

 or are conveyed at such elevations as to cap- 

 ture the fugitive lightning and materially equal- 

 ize its distribution before it can concentrate at 

 any given point. 



The innumerable miles of railroad tracks 

 which of late years have likewise extended 

 over populous streets, undoubtedly contribute 

 to this means of diffusing electricity and ren- 

 dering it harmless. If this theory be correct, 

 every house built of iron, or into the construc- 

 tion of which iron largely enters, would need 

 no other lightning rod but a mere point long 

 enough to afford the requisite protection to 

 the area covering the roof, if made of non-con- 

 ducting material, and another short rod at- 

 tached to the lower portion of the iron edifice 

 to carry oft' the electricity into the earth, if, 

 indeedj that would be necessary under the cir- 

 cumstances. The introduction of telegraph 

 wires, rail tracks, gas and water pipes into 

 city houses, as well as the construction of large 

 warehouses and workshops of iron, coincident 

 with the disappearance of deaths or the dis- 

 continuance of serious losses of property by 

 lightning, is an impressive if not a startling 

 fact ; and whether a propter hoc or only a post 

 hoc, is, in a scientific point of view, entitled to 

 serious consideration. 



So fully were we struck with the momentous 

 importance of the deductions drawn from this 

 coincidence, or consequence, or whatever it 

 may be, that when there was in this city a dis- 

 position to require the telegraph companies to 

 convey their wires under ground, we foresaw 

 a contingency that might deprive us of one 

 of our most potent safeguards against the de- 

 structive effects of" Heaven's artillery," and 

 hinted at the possible dangers we might invoke 

 by insisting on that change. 



Several years' observation, during which no 

 deaths nor any serious destruction of property 

 have hap|)ened within the sphere of the con- 

 ducting power of any of the metallic agencies 

 in question, has tended to confirm our belief 

 on this subject, and although church steeples, 

 flag staffs, and the aiiices of triangular sky- 

 lights have felt the electric fury of pa.ssing 

 thunder (douds, their position has been .so far 

 above the range of the conducting influence of 

 the telegraph wires as to deny them any ad- 

 vantage from that source of protection, and 

 the circumstances of the fluid confining its 

 fury to the point struck, and involvingno other 

 contiguous non-conducting object in the dem- 

 olition, would tend to still further confirm our 

 theory, that the erratic lightning soon after- 

 wards came in contact with some of those nu- 



merous transverse or perpendicular metal 

 I)i|)es or wires, that instantly robbed it of its 

 force by accomplishing its dilVusion, and ulti- 

 mately delivering it, without further disjister, 

 to the great terrestrial magnet. — Pen&Ploio. 



flEOiKiBTOWN, Sept. 18, 1870. 



Pkof. S. S. Ratiivon- — Dear Sir: I sent on the 

 cerlitlcate to the National Art Company. I received 

 the cliroinallc paintings, " (iod's Promises, " in good 

 order, and was much pleased with the same, and feel 

 il my duly lo return you my sincere thanks and best 

 wishes for your success in your husiness, for 1 value 

 Tni'. Kakmeu very much. — Af. Jl. M. 



We publish the above, not alone to show 

 the writer's appreciation of our journal, but 

 also to illustrate his opinion of the picture 

 we advertised, and how cheaply and ea.sily it 

 may be obtained by all our subscribers. See 

 advertisement on third page of our cover, 

 Septcmber'number. — El). 



OUR PARIS LETTER. 



Farming on the Continent of Europe. 

 Correspondeuce of Tub I.ancahtek P'aiimku. 



Pakis, Septemlicr 21, 187fi. 



A circumstance very jiromincnt in connection with 

 continental a^'riculture, is the number of eminent 

 Rcicntitic men who devote attention to its study. The 

 desire evidently is to control the experiments of the 

 laboralory by the experiences of tlie farm. Pure 

 practice, alone better than pure science, can only be 

 improved by this united system of work. The do- 

 main selected for scicntillc investigation In ttermany 

 and in Krance, is tlie rearing and feeding of stock, 

 liecause here discoveries and ameliorations can be 

 more immediately revealed and ell'ected, and the 

 practical fruits sooner reaped. Licbig, who broached 

 so many ideas, did not overlook the important one of 

 animal nutrition, but tliey are the views of Boussin- 

 gault on ihissuliject, wliich are more generally adopt- 

 ed in order lo elucidate the mysteries of the nutritive 

 changes which are accomplished in the living body, 

 as founded upon the laws of rational alimentation. 

 Hitherto we were most occupied with what stock eat; 

 to-day the important point Is not exactly what they 

 consume, as how they assimilate it. "It is not what 

 is eaten that nourishes, but what is digested ; " lience, 

 very naturally, investigation is being carried on to 

 ascertain the degree of digestibility with the various 

 races of animals, and the tluctuating circumstances 

 capable of increasing or retarding that function. Now 

 one of the most important of these circumstances is 

 the nutritive relation bet ween the nitrogenous and the 

 non-nit rogcuous matters. Tlie more this relationship 

 is narrow, that is to say, the more the feed contains 

 of protein, for acertainr|uantityofcarl)onaceous mat- 

 ter, the more Uie food is utilized in the process of di- 

 gestion. For the farmer's interests it suftices, not 

 that his stock digest well what they eat, but it is es- 

 sential that they derive the most prolit from the di- 

 gestive functions and the end they fulfill. .Mere di- 

 gestion does not ensure the useful employment of the 

 food. For example, it is now known that the apti- 

 tude for fattening, so remarkably developed among 

 several precocious races, is not founded upon superi- 

 ority in digestive functions — all animals of the same 

 species differ little in this respect — but upon a greater 

 power of assimilation. In other words, tardy races 

 live from day to day, expending what they receive, 

 while precocious breeds reduce their organic wants 

 to an indispensable minimum, accumulating rapidly 

 their savings in the form of meat and fat. Further, 

 it has been ascertained that "precocious races are eu- 

 abled to achieve this double advantage, small expendi- 

 ture and great savings in the ntUization of ili)/extio7i, 

 owing to their relatively smaller lung superlicies as 

 compared with tardy breeds. Professor Sanson has 

 also demonstrated, that living weight for weight, the 

 precocious eliminate less carbonic acid than backward 

 races. 



The scum from the sugar beet factories can be em- 

 ployed as a manure, and thus utilize the small per 

 centage of nitrogen that it contains. But it would 

 be well first to convert, by means of sulphuric acid, 

 whatever sugar remains in the scum into alcohol — 

 one ton of scum yielding 3ti (|uarts of alcohol ; the 

 residue after distillation will still contain the salts of 

 ammonia and the soluble azotizcd matters. Judge 

 Belenet of Algeria, claims to have obtained Important 

 results from the use of granite and porphyry dust as 

 a manure, wlr.ch contain from 10 lo 1.5 per cent, of 

 potash, and have the property of fixing atmospheric 

 ammonia. 



White mustard has been largely sown this autumn 

 as an aid to meet the penury generally existing In re- 

 spect to fodder. It is so relished by milch cows that 

 many peasants call it the " butter plant." It is sown 

 in August on the stubble, if the soil be friable, and 

 burrowed in, or sometimes the soil is turned over with 

 a skim polysock plough, five pounds of seed to the 

 acre ; the plant can be consumed green till the frost 

 arrives, hespecting the preservation of green maize 



