1878. 



THE LANCASTER FARMER 



151 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF TO- 

 BACCO. 



1496 — Romanus Pane, a Spanish monk, 

 whom Cohinibus in liis second voyaije loft in 

 America, piililislied the liist account of to- 

 bacco under tlie name of "Colioiia." 



1525 — Tlie negroes on llie plantations in the 

 AVest Indies began to use it. 



155i»— Jean Kicot, envoy from France to 

 Portugal, sent some of the seeds to Paris, and 

 from him accjuired the name of "Nicotiana." 

 When it was lirst used in France it was called 

 hcrhe du Grande I'rieur of the house of Lor- 

 raine, who was very fond of it. It was also 

 called herhc de St. Croix, from Cardinal St. 

 Croix, who lirst introduced it into Italy. 



15.50— At this date in Holland tobacco was 

 smoked in conical tubes made of palm leaves 

 plaited together. 



1.575 — First appeared a print of the plant in 

 Andrew Tlievet's Cosmograpliic. 



158.5— The English tleet .«aw the Indians of 

 Virginia use clay jiipes, from which time they 

 began to be used in Eurdpc. 



1604— James I., of England, sought to 

 abolish the use of tobacco by heavy imposts 

 upon it. 



IGIO — The smoking of tobacco was indulged 

 in at Constantinople. To render the custom 

 ridiculous a Turk, thus detected using the 

 plant, was led through the streets with a pipe 

 thrust through his nose. 



1015— The cultivation of tobacco was begun 

 in Holland. 



10111 — James I. ordered that no planter cul- 

 tivate more than one hundred pounds. 



1020— Smoking first introduced into Ger- 

 many. 



1031 — First introduced into Austria by 

 Swedish troops. 



1034 — The use of tobacco forbidden in Rus- 

 sia under penalty of having the nose cut off. 



1053 — First used in Switzerland, where the 

 magistrates first punished those found smok- 

 ing, but the custom became too general to be 

 suppressed. 



1090 — Pope Innocent XII. excommunicated 

 all who should take snuft'or use tobacco while 

 at church. 



AROUND THE FARM— No. I2. 



" Did you hear of the accident last week ?" 

 asked a neighbor the other day. "No, .said I," 

 what has happened ? '' A party of ladies and 

 children were driving down a hill, when the 

 breech strap broke and the horse ran away, 

 injuring several of the occupants, broke the 

 shafts and mashed a wheel before he could be 

 stopped." ''It was lucky no one was hurt 

 very bad," said I, but it again brings me to 

 think of a very simple device, which, if ap- 

 plied in this case, would have .saved more 

 than the cost originally, besides the damage 

 the horse sustained, for if a horse once runs 

 away he is not safe afterwards. The device 1 

 have reference to is a good pad-lock, with. 

 which every market carriage should be pro- 

 vided. 



1 am surprised that so many people drive 

 without a good pad-lock. It will save more 

 than its cost in horse fiesh in a single season, 

 for going down hill with a heavy load to hold 

 back is as hard on the horse, if not harder, 

 than going up. If I could i)ersuade all my 

 readers to apply locks to their carriages I 

 would immediately do it. You might as well 

 try to*drive a two or four horse wagon with- 

 out a lock as carriage. This is the third 

 accident happening within three months from 

 the same cause (in one of which a man broke 

 Ijoth arms at the elbows), and I have taken 

 pains to ascertain if they had locks to their 

 wagons, and I found neither of them had. 

 Cutting Cornstalks. 



No doubt my readers will remember that I 

 advised them, last autumn, to cut oif the 

 cornstubbles before husking. To do this ex- 

 peditiously I had a hoe made out of an old axe, 

 which is a capital implement fortius purpose. 

 By getting your blacksmith to make a hole 

 through the flat side of the axe and affixing 

 a handle, your hoe is complete. — Rurarlist, 

 Creswdl, October olh, 1878. 



For The LASCAsTEn Fahmeb. 

 LARGE FLOWERING SPURGE. 

 (Euphorbia C^rollala.j 



The Spurge family consists of herbs, shrubs, 

 or even trees, often with a milky juice, chiefly 

 represented by the genus Euphorbia. The 

 E. fulgens of Mexico, and E. splcndens of 

 Mauritius, are ornamental hot-house flowers 

 often met with. The native species, E. corol- 

 lata, is found frequently along fence rows or 

 in old fields of a rather sandy soil. New York 

 is its northern limit; it grows two or three feet 

 high, and by its neat form and conspicuous 

 branching umbels of white "flowers" cannot 

 fail to attract the attention of any one having 

 his eyes open to grace and beauty. But what 

 we commonly term flowers are peculiar in this 

 genus, which is at once known, however, by 

 having a three iobed ovary, raised out of a 

 kind of flower-cup, on a curved stalk, and 

 milky juice of the plant. The Indians were 

 •acquaiiited with it as a medicine. In a letter 

 written by Mr. Clayton to Dr. Grew, con- 

 tained in the, "Transactions of the Royal 

 Society for 1730," states that "the aborigines 

 made use of this root, called ' Tythymal,' as 



a purge, though it sometimes vomits. It is 

 quick but moderate in its eflects, and has this 

 peculiarity, that it opens the body when other 

 more violent purgatives will not move it." 

 The root is large and branching ; stems erect 

 and round, mostly simjile ; the leaves and 

 habit of growth is well shown by the rough 

 cut. The ^'■Euphorbia corollnta'''' has several 

 common names, such as "Milk-weed," (this 

 name usually applies to the Asclqnas also,) 

 "Snake'sMilk," "Ipecacuanha," and "Indian 

 Physic," which latter name applies to several 

 other plants ; this shows the uncertainty of 

 local common names. 



W. ZollickofEer, M. D., of Baltimore, some 

 years ago brought the plant into notice as a 

 medicine of considerable power, in place of 

 the Ipecacuanha of the shops, and thinks it 

 in no respect inferior to that article. He 

 relates seventeen cases in which he adminis- 

 tered the powdered root of this plant in doses 

 of from ten to twenty grains. Fifteen to 

 twenty grains act as emetic, without an un- 

 pleasant taste or producing any material un- 

 ea.siness Dr. McKeen used smaller doses, 

 giving from three to twelve gi'ains of the 

 powdered root, as a cathartic, chiefly, how- 

 ever. In one case a dose of three grains was 

 actively cathartic ; in another five grains pro- 

 diiced vomiting — these are exceptional cases. 

 It rarely proves inactive. The conclusion of 



Dr. Bigelow is: "Tlie Eui)horbia coroUata 

 must undoubtedly be ranked among the more 

 ellieient me<licine8 of the evacuating cla.ss." 

 So much as to its medical character. What 

 fanners have frequently experienced that it is 

 vi'ry hurtful to small graiiL when it grows in 

 great (luantitles, as it sometimes does, and the 

 CDUimon means that are made use of, such as 

 |)lowiMg down and harrowing, in order to kill 

 blw: f/ntas, have the ellect of increasing the 

 (piantily and rapid growth of the plant. It 

 is never eaten by animals. Thus, like the 

 Canada thistle, it is a bad weed, I5ut it would 

 pay to dig up every i)lant and preserve the 

 roots in such cases. Dr. Darlington, in his 

 "Agricultural ]5otany," does not mention 

 this species ; but several kinds that lay flat on 

 the ground, often met with in corn fields, the 

 E. maculata, L., said to cause salivation or 

 sUdjberiiKj in liorses in the latter part of sum- 

 mer. The other is E. hypericifolia, L. ; it is 

 well to know these low, milky weeds. 



This milky juice will soon become viscid 

 and clammy between the fingers. This family 

 has various jilants, which yield caoutchouc or 

 India-rubljer. The conmion source is from a 

 tree growing in Para, Demarara and Surinam, 

 called the Ilcvca Gidaucirsis by Aublet ; the 

 Siphmnia elaatira of Persoon. 



I have collected of the juice of our low 

 l>lants and formed it into a pill, the size of a pea, 

 and it became so much like a light-colored 

 India-rubber as to satisfy me that the milky 

 juice was of the same nature — the "Milk- 

 weed," "Wild Cotton," genus Asclepias. The 

 milky juice is bitter and acrid and contains 

 caoutchouc ; so also the Dog-banc, family of 

 plants, Apocynoceo'. The Urscola elasticn of 

 Summatra belongs to this family. They all 

 contain genera that are highly poisonous ; 

 others valuable medicines. 



In conclusion I will only add that ctwutrftowc 

 exi.sts in the form of miiuite globules, diffused 

 as an emulsion, Dr. Gray says, "in the milky 

 juices of plants, most abundantly in Utrica- 

 cefe, Euphorbiacea; and Apocynacea;. " Gutta- 

 percha is a similar product of the milky juice 

 of a sapotaceous plant. Many persons con- 

 sider the two products identical ; not strictly 

 so, however. — J. Slauffer. 



For The Lancabter Fabmer. 

 LIME AS A FERTILIZER. 

 Prof. S. S. Rathvon— Dear Sir: With 

 your permission I will offer a few remarks on 

 the efliciency of lime, as an agent in the en- 

 riching or amelioration of the soil, differing 

 with the lecture of our friend Levi S. Reist, 

 Esq., as published in The Fakmkh for Sep- 

 tember. There are often articles in The 

 Fakmeu that ought to be reviewed or criti- 

 cised, if the writers would give their names in 

 full, but to reply to anonymous scribblers, is 

 very much like the old Siiw of "the dog bark- 

 ing at the moon !" 



Mr. II. firstly asks the question, "Does lime 

 benefit oiir soils to that extent as to assure us 

 that it will pay all the expenses connected 

 with it ?" and tells us " in his opinion it does 

 not pay." 



Now, if I am allowed to refer back sixty 

 years, I may say that I well remember the 

 farms in West and Ea.stllempfield townships, 

 and a few farms in Manor towu.ship, Lanca.s- 

 ter county, as also along the turnpike in 

 Chester county, that were so very sterile that 

 neither corn, wheat nor clover could be grown. 

 How are those farms now ? equal in quality 

 of productiveness to the best in the Slate of 

 Pcnnsylv<ania ! If we could ask those farmers 

 who so improved these poor farms, they would 

 say, one and all, lime, in connection with 

 stable manure ! But those farmers who made 

 this great improvement of the soil are nearly 

 all gone. 



I particularly remember a farm not far 

 from Columbia, that was so poor nothing 

 would grow on it but chestnut trees— all was 

 lying out as commons, ho fences, and all the 

 available income of the owiier was che.'ilnuts, 

 of which they gathered wagon loads and sold 

 them in town. That farm now brings as good 

 crops of corn, wheat, clover, tobacco, &c., as 

 any farm iu our township. 



