192 farmers' and mechanics' journal. 



Mode of preserving wooden buildings from the ejfccis of Firii, 

 invented by Dr. Fuchs, Prof, of Mineralogy^ in Munich. 



The following is the process: 10 parts of potash or soda ; 15 

 parts of quartz (sand,) and one part charcoal, are melted together. 

 This 'pass, dissolved in water, and either alone or nnixed with 

 earthy matters, applied to wood, completely preserves it from the 

 action of fire. \^F^d. Phil. Journ. 



Pine Apples. 



A great improvement may be made in keeping pine apples by 

 twisting off their crowns, which are generally suffered to remain and 

 Kve upon the fruit till they have sacked out all the goodness. It will 

 be very easy for fruiterers to keep a few crowns by them in water, 

 which can be pegged or stuck on with dough, for show, when the 

 fruit is served up, or artificial ones may be made. A pine apple will 

 keep for a long time when its crown is removed, and will also be 

 greatly improved in flavor, for the more aqueous parts of the fruit 

 gradually evaporate, and leave it much more saccharine and vinous 

 in its flavor ; which natural process is totally destroyed by the vege- 

 tation of the crown, just upon the same principle that an onion or 

 carrot loses its flavor when it begins to sprout in the spring. 



Extract of a letter to M. de Ferussac, Berlin, Feb. 27, 1827. 



There is here at the present time, a mule, from a stag and a 

 mare. The authorities have attested the phenomena, and the struc- 

 ture of the beast is singular enough ; the fore part is a horse and 

 the hinder part a deer, but all the feet are those of the horse. The 

 same stag has covered a second mare, and the result is in anticipa- 

 tion. The King has purchased the mule for the Island of Pfanenin- 

 sel, where there is a menagerie. [Bull. Univ., March^ 1827. 



XrOTICES. 



PARKER'S BRICK PRESS. 



Another Press, for pressing bricks, has been recently invented 

 and put into operation by Dr. James Parker, of this town. It 

 combines in a remarkable manner, the three essentials to every 

 machine — strength, simplicity, and cheapness ; and will be a valua- 

 ble acquisition to the Brick-maker, notwithstanding the many 

 Brick Presses now in operation. 



PREMIUM FOR HEMP. 

 We are authorized to state, that the Trustees of the Gardiner 

 Lyceum are about offering a premium of Fifty Dollars, for the 

 largest, and best crop of water-rotted Hemp, to be raised and pre- 

 pared in this State, during the next year. We have not receive'- 

 their offer in time to insert in this nuniber. 



