NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



301 



molasses, and lard are all laxatives, and when the 

 recent discharges have^been very foul, it may be well 

 to give very light doses of castor oil, with the char- 

 coal. Give also a tea of raspberry leaves, for inflam- 

 mation of the bowels, and light doses of hot drops, 

 to relieve pain, which also checks the disease, and 

 promotes a healthy action of the bowels. 



We use white pine, and grind it fine, that there 

 may be no grit to irritate the bowels. We use the 

 charcoal immediately after being burned, or that 

 which has been recently burned and kept corked tight 

 in bottles ; as freshly-burned charcoal is a powerful 

 absorbent of gases, particularly of ammonia and foul 

 odors, and if it becomes saturated, it will have less 

 effect as a medicine. 



Charcoal is a powerful antiseptic, and is excellent 

 to prevent mortitication, to which the intestines are 

 tending, as they become putrescent, in long and 

 severe cases of this disorder. Charcoal is one of the 

 best purifiers in nature. Tainted meat is purified 

 and made sweet by boiling it in a pot with some 

 pieces of charcoal. Mortification has been cured by 

 charcoal poultices. Charcoal dust is a powerful 

 styptic, and is used with success in stopping blood. 

 It also corrects acidity in the stomach. Tliese are 

 its chemical qualities, and it may have other valuable 

 properties. Mechanically, charcoal dust is loosening, 

 like sand, and is, therefore, less liable to produce 

 too sudden a stoppage of the lax. 



ilTcfljanics' ^Department, ^rta, $^c. 



Another Whitewash. — The editor of the Horti- 

 culturist, in answer to the queries of a correspondent, 

 gives the following recipe for a whitewash. We have 

 published a good many recipes for this purpose, but 

 believe we have never published one exactly like 

 this. He recommends it as most excellent, as a 

 cheap and durable wash for wooden fences and build- 

 ings. He thinks that it owes its durability to the 

 white vitriol 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 dis- 

 solve in water, and add one pound of white vitriol 

 (sulphate of zinc) and one quart of fine salt. To give 

 this wash a creana color, add one half 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 pound of 

 French blue, and one fourth pound of Indian red. A 

 drab will bo made by adding one half pound of burnt 

 sienna, and one fourth pound of Venetian red. 



For brick or stone, instead of one bushel of lime, 

 use a half bushel of lime and half bushel of hydraulic 

 cement. 



These washes are very useful in preserving build- 

 ings, fences, &c., to which they arc applied ; and 

 although it may be renewed much oftener than oil 

 paints, they give a very neat appearance to farms, 

 where they are applied to the buildings, gates, &c. 

 As their cost is trifling, it is strange that they are not 

 used more often than they are. 



New Uses for Granite. — A Mr. McDonald, in 

 Scotland, has discovered a method of calcining gran- 

 ite to a fine clay of extraordinary strength for pot- 



tery, especially for making water pipes, some of 

 which are as large as eighteen inches bore. And a 

 discovery has been made in Ireland, that the granite, 

 on an extent of seventy miles, in Wexford, contains 

 so large a proportion of potash that the alkali can be 

 extracted by a chemical process, so as to become an 

 article of commerce. It is estimated that there are 

 two thousand tons of potash, the produce of America, 

 consumed annually in England and Scotland, the 

 present cost of which is forty pounds per ton; and 

 that, by working the granite of Dalkey, which ex- 

 tends inland to Sandyford, the same quantity could 

 be extracted by means of the capital of ten thousand 

 pounds, and sold at twenty pounds per ton, yielding 

 a revenue of forty thousand pounds to remunerate 

 the capitalists and diffuse the blessings of employ- 

 ment among the people, and not only render it quite 

 impossible for the Americans to compete with the 

 Irish, but really push an Irish trade in potash into 

 the American continent. — Dublin Evening Post. 



CULTIVATION AND PRESERVATION OF 

 "WOOD-LOTS." 



Editors of the Cultivator : I can stand it no 

 longer. The inconsiderate clearing of the wood- 

 lands of New England b}' our fathers, without re- 

 gard to the selection of those lands suitable for arable 

 and grazing purposes, finds an apology in the fact 

 that forests, generally, were an encumbrance to them. 

 The greater thoughtlessness and improvidence of 

 their sons, however, in still persisting in the practice, 

 while we have more lands already cleared than a 

 proper and profitable husbandry is bestowed upon, 

 is, to me, a painful and surprising matter. Besides 

 being ruinous to the present owner, it is a perfect 

 " devil take the hindmost " policy for the sons. 

 Go wRere we will, we are compelled to look upon 

 rough, inaccessible lands, and tops and acclivities of 

 hills, which have been swept of their natural cover- 

 ing and fertility, and turned into pastures affording 

 but scanty returns for the hard labor of the animals 

 atteni2)ting a subsistence thereon, and still smaller 

 returns to the proprietor. There is scarcely a farm 

 in this section but has acres of this kind of land that 

 would have been worth five times, yes, in many cases, 

 ten times as much as they now are, had a second 

 growth of wood been permitted to run up on them. 



The operation of clearing and burning a large tract 

 of hill-side woodland, has been going on within my 

 observation for a few years past. It has been of 

 the genuine, old-fashioned sort. A large piece is 

 chopped over, each winter, and the wood and timber 

 marketed. The next August, a heavy fire burns up 

 the vegetable mould on or near the surface, and the 

 ashes left, operating as a powerful and unnatural 

 stimulus on so light a soil, only cause it to give up 

 its organic matter, its fertility, the more speedily. 

 Rye is sown, and yields so fine a crop that another 

 of the same kind is put in the next fall, and possibly 

 a light sprinkling of grass-seed with it. At the end 

 of five years, the land is so far exhausted, that five 

 acres will not keep an old sheep alive through the 

 summer. Then, again, a valuable tillage-field, which 

 has had the protection of this wood from bleak winds, 

 is now exposed to every northern blast, M'hich, in 

 this climate, is a serious consideration. Had the 

 inconsiderate owner just taken off his wood, and 

 "therewith been content," leaving his hill-side to be 

 covered with another growth of trees, he could have 

 sold it to-day, if he wished, for twice what it will 

 noAV bring. 



Ten years ago, I cut the wood off a long stretch of 

 side-hill, and, in my inexperience, burnt over a por- 

 tion of it for pasturage. The remainder was left to 

 grow up again to wood. Many of the young treea 



