84 



THE LANCASTER FARMER 



[June, 



first calf March 17tli, when she was only one 

 year and three months old ; another heifer, 

 belonging to the same gentleman, came in 

 when only one year and five months old. 



O. S. Bliss pays a just compliment to home 

 butter-making when he says that he thinks 

 none will live long enough to see as good but- 

 ter made from any co-operative establishment 

 as is made in the best private dairies, and he 

 expects to see the best and most enterprising 

 dairymen constantly drawing out of combina- 

 tions and returning to dairy practice. There 

 can be no question that gilt-edge home-made 

 butter is the finest in the world. 



A METHOD of improving India rubber and 

 gutta percha by the addition of a distillate of 

 birch-bark has lately been brought out. Dis- 

 tillation of the outer layers of the bark pro- 

 duces a dense, black, gummy matter resem- 

 bling gutta percha and capable of resisting 

 the action of air and of the strongest corro- 

 sive acids. It is claimed that the durability 

 of India rubber or gutta percha is greatly in- 

 creased by the addition of a small quantity— 

 a twentieth part is sufificient— of the birch- 

 bark gum. 



M. Decourneau attributes the cracks in 

 common mortars and cements to the uncom- 

 bined quicklime which they contain. In ord- 

 er to neutralize the lime, he uses a very fine 

 siliceous powder mixed with diluted nitric 

 acid. He thus obtains mortars of much great- 

 er, more uniform and more lasting re- 

 sistance than those hitherto used. The appli- 

 cation of this method has given excellent re- 

 sults. Some made by the process may be 

 worked like the natural product. 



M. Gley, a French physiologist, has been 

 investigating the effects of brain work on the 

 circulation of the blood. In his experiments 

 he has found that when he applied himself to 

 a difficult subject, upon which he had to con- 

 centrate all his energies, the rythm of the 

 heart was lar more accelerated than when 

 considering some matter with which lie was 

 familiar. 



A PECULIAR phenomenon ocurred in Au- 

 gust on a mountain of Rhenish Prussia. In 

 the side of the Rrennede Berg a pit of about a 

 hundred square yards in area suddenly opened, 

 emitting a great volume of flame and engulf- 

 ing a house and its inmates. It is believed 

 that the cause of the catastrophe was the ig- 

 nition of gas arising from a petroleum vein 

 in the depths of the mountain. 



There are so many breeds of sheep and so 

 much said in favor of each that some men 

 may delay, not knowing which to take, and 

 others may be led to believe that some one 

 breed is the one and neglect a good opportuni- 

 ty to purchase some other. But if a farmer 

 will select from any flock he can find a few 

 wide-breasted, broad-backed, deep-bodied, not 

 too long-legged sheep, and put a Southdown 

 ram with them, he will not make a very great 

 mistake. This is John Gould's advice. 



Experiments to determine the changes of 

 color produced in flowers by ammonia have 

 given these results : Over a dish of ammonia 

 was inverted a funnel, in the tube of which 

 were placed the flowers experimented upon. 

 Blue, violet and purple flowers were found to 

 change to a beautiful green ; deep red flowers 



to black, and white to yellow. These changes 

 are most striking when the flowers have sev- 

 eral different tints, in which the red lines are 

 turned dark, the white yellow, etc. If the 

 flowers thus changed are placed in pure water 

 they retain their new colors for several hours, 

 gradually resuming their original tints after 

 that time. Another observation made in this 

 connection is that the flowers of the aster, 

 which are naturally inodorous, acquire a very 

 agreeable perfume under the influence of am- 

 monia. 



A GOOD garden always pays the farmer, as 

 with proper management the work can be 

 done at a small expense. Farm business, in 

 the spring, is always pressing, and the farmer 

 is generally short of help. Much, therefore, 

 depends upon the mistress of the house, who 

 can superintend the management of the gar- 

 den, to some extent. If women of the house- 

 hold would spend more time in the open air, 

 in some healthy exercise, they would add 

 much to their own happiness and health. 



There is a farmer who is T's 



Enough to take his E's, 

 And study nature with his I's 



And think of what he C's. 



And hears the chatter of the J's 



As they each other T's ; 

 And saj's that when a tree D K's, 



It naakes a home for B's. 



A pair of oxen he will U's, 



With many haws and G's ; 

 And their mistakes he will X Q's, 



While ploughing for his P's. 



In raising crops he all X L's, 



And therefore little O's ; 

 And when he hoes his soil by spells, 



He also soils his hose. 



COMMONPLACE EXPERIENCES IN 

 NATURAL HISTORY.* 



" Desullorily Doited Down." 



When I was a "small boy" — about five 

 and sixty years ago — my mother sent me to a 

 village grocery to fetch her some vinegar. 

 Returning homeward I met another " small 

 boy," and in order to have a "small talk" 

 with him, I sat my vinegar down upon the 

 ground, it being in an open tin vessel. I 

 have no recollection what the subject of our 

 conversation was — probably as to the best lo- 

 cality to obtain " fish- worms" — at all events, 

 on looking into the vinegar I was surprised to 

 discover that it was teeming with thousands, 

 perhaps tens of thousands, of minute undu- 

 lating worms, or "eels." I called the other 

 boy's attention to it, and he also saw them. 

 I immediately returned to the store and in- 

 formed the grocer that his vinegar was full of 

 worms, and in attempting to demonstrate it 

 to him I utterly failed. He became angry, 

 threatened to box my ears, and ordered me 

 out of his store. I then took it home and dis- 

 closed the same fact to my mother, but failed 

 to convince her also. Neither could I con- 

 vince any of our neighbors, somehow I could 

 not bring them into focal rapport with the 

 vinegar, and I was deemed a falsifier 

 or an idiot. I am not sure that that was pre- 

 cisely the language they applied to me, but it 

 amounted to that. I have no recollection of 

 ever having seen those animalcula; in vinegar 



at the May meeting of the 



—save on one occasion — after that event, 

 with the "naked eye;" but very frequently, 

 with the aid of a common pocket microscope. 

 But I had no access to such an instrument 

 then, even if there had been one in the vil- 

 lage. N(^twithstanding the ridicule and the 

 jeering I was subjected to, nothing could 

 shake my confidence in the fact— that I had 

 seen the little eels in the vinegar. Those 

 animalculce, or "eels" as they are frequently 

 calldd, belong to the genus Vibrio, and there 

 are many species of them. They are named 

 Vibrio from their vibratiag or undulating 

 movements. They are included in Cuvier's 

 second order of Infusoria called Homogena. 

 Infusoria comes from the Latin infusum, 

 because they are usually found in liquid in- 

 fusions, when left exposed to the air for a 

 time ; and because they are alike in principal 

 and elemental structure the lesser group is 

 called Homogena. But, they are not found in 

 vinegar alone, but also in various infusions, 

 in paste, in purulent mater, and even in the 

 tartar which collects on teeth. 



NT)w, in citing this commonplace phenome- 

 non, I desire to illustrate the advantages of 

 giving some attention to natural science in 

 youth before the mind is encumbered by the 

 cares and responsibilities of maturer life, be- 

 cause many things can be detected by the 

 youthful eye that would be entirely overlooked 

 at a more advanced period. Moreover, the 

 practical experiences of youth — when there is 

 a love for science — "come to stay," and can 

 be called into requisition at almost any period 

 of life, if the mind has not become perverted. 

 I well remember when Josiah Holbrook— the 

 advocate or founder of the Scientific Lyceum 

 System in Lancaster county— inoculated me 

 and many others with the "mineral fever.". 

 The small boys of our excursions had greatly 

 the advantage of the adults, or even many of 

 the larger boys, in detecting the smaller ob- 

 jects—such as loose crystals, fossils, shells, 

 arrow heads, &c.— simply because of their di- 

 minished height these objects were brought 

 more immediately within the focal range of 

 their vision. 



In this connection, but far above the 

 "Vinegar-worm" in organic structure, I 

 must introduce the "Hair-worm," because 

 about this period of my boyhood I noticed the 

 first specimen swimming in a small prol on a 

 public roadside. I secured it and took it 

 home, whtn the "wisdom-chest" of the 

 neighborhood very gravely pronounced it a 

 "living horse-hair," and stated that any hair 

 in the mane or tail of horse would turn into a 

 snake by "soaking " it in water for an indefi- 

 nite time. I conveniently believed it at the 

 time, and so did everybody else with whom I 

 was acquainted ; but, years afterwards, when 

 there arose many doubts about it, I attempted 

 to animate a horse-hair by immersing it in 

 water, and after an experience of six months 

 I abandoned it as altogether untenable, for 

 my subjects still remained lifeless horse-hairs. 

 There are difierent species of these Gordians, 

 or Hair-worms, but our most common species 

 is the Gordius equaticiis. The specific name is 

 derived from the circumstance of their being 

 found usually in water, but there are species 

 that are frequently found near the centre of 

 solid heads of cabbage, and one specimen that 

 came under my observation was found in the 



