172 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



DECEiniBER 7. 1831'; 



Cold Weather. — As winter is fast approach- 

 in'' and liinbs will pnibjihly be frozen, we ileeni 

 it an act of mere liiimanity, to fiive a few worils 

 of adviire, wbich may proliably save some finsters 

 and toes, and tbe rcadi-r may be certain that we 

 speak the words of experience. 



Wear loose shoes, which will give the bones 

 and muscles of the feet free play. The animal 

 heat is sufficient, unless at a very low tempera- 

 ture. Indian niocassms are still better. In dry 

 weather they are a perfect defence against cold ; 

 in wet, it is never cold enough to paralyze the 

 system. 



If you sliould chance to freeze a hand or a 

 foot, never go nigh a fire to thaw it, unless you 

 wish to lose a finger or a toe. Stay till a tub of 

 ice-cold water can be procured, and then plunge 

 the frozen member into it. Then you will feel 

 acute pain and lose the skin of tlie frozen part, 

 perliai s the toe or finger nails — never mind — 

 they will soon be renewed. 



If, on tbe other haiiil, you thaw your frozen 

 digits at a fire, they will shortly exhiliit one black 

 mass of corrujition, the flesh will fall from ttie 

 bone, and the dry bones will protrude, till morti- 

 fication or the surgeon's knife removes them. 



Tliere is danger that mortification may take 

 place even when a proper course of thawing lias 

 been used. In such a case, wear a loose glove or 

 stocking, crainrtied as full of ])ulverized charcoal 

 as it will hold. It is a most powerful anti-pulre- 

 Bcent, and we have known it to prove efficacious 

 in a great many instances. 



If you freeze your nose or ears, ap|)ly a hand- 

 ful of snow to them. It is the suilden change of 

 solid to fluid that is dangerous. Fishes may be 

 kept for years in a frozen slate and be restoriMl to 

 Jifo by a gradual thaw. We have more than once 

 witnessed the last. 



If the ef&aet of cold should render you sleepy 

 or apathetif, beware how you yield to your bc- 

 nuird>ed feelings, or you are gone. You may, 

 perliaps, remember the cases of Drs. Banks and 

 Solander, lost and benighted at Terra del Fuego 



if not, we will give you an example of the 



danger of sleeping from the effects of cold, from 

 our personal experience. 



Half a score of years ago, a party of soldiers 

 were descending Rum River, on the ice. The 

 day was intensely culd, and toward.s the close of 

 it a private was observed to lag behind. No no- 

 tice was taken of this, as it was a thing of frequent 

 occurr tnce, and the party proceeded to encamp. 

 But when the night grew dark, and the straggler 

 did not appear, all were in alarin. In the morn- 

 ing a few men went back to find tbe absentee. 

 They found that the man had turned into the 

 woods, and had attempted to make a fire. He 

 had stricken a spark, placed a handful of twigs 

 upon it, and had knelt down to blow the flaiiie. 

 In this posture Death laid a cold hand upon him 

 and the ravens bad picked his eyes out. He was 

 buried in his bent posture, and we saw the three 

 vollies fired over him. The same exertion which 

 this man used to strike a light, would have ena- 

 bled him to reach the camp, which was only a 

 mile <-!islant. 



We once froze our feel, to all appearance stiff, 

 to tbe ancles; but we did not run to the fire. On 

 the contrary, we danced barefoot in the snow, 

 though there was no feeling, till cold water could 

 be obtained. When we put them in the tub, a 

 thick scum of ice rose to the surface. We lost 



the skin and the nails, but not a joint. We have 

 never stood upon a warm foot since. The effect 

 of one thorough freezing adheres forever. 



Having lived years in a much colder climate 

 than thi.«, we have had some o|)portunity to study 

 the operation of extreme cold, and if experience 

 amounts to any thing, we can say that the pre- 

 cautions we have recommended are infallible. — 

 The Balance. 



Marble. — There are fine quarries of excel- 

 lent marble in th,; Green Mountain State. A 

 beautiful specimen was left at our office this week 

 from a quarry in Piymouth, Vt, on Black River, 

 about twenty-five miles above us. It is much 

 firur (in contradistinction from the coarse grain- 

 ed) than any we have ever seen from that Siate. 

 The colors are various from very light black, with 

 all the intermediate shades. We are informed 

 a'so that there is in the same town a quarry of 

 pink colored marble, which is very beautiful. 

 These quarries have not been worked a great 

 while — the mill for sawing out the slabs having 

 been but a short time in operation there. Quite 

 a number of elegant fire-places, however, from the 

 Plymouth quarry, have already been sent to Bos- 

 ton and other places, and more ordered, and it is 

 probable an extensive business will soon be car- 

 ried on there. The S[)ecimen before us is certain- 

 ly fiir superior to the Thomaston marble, much of 

 which is iiseil for fire-places in New England, 

 and many have pronounced the fire-places made 

 iVotn the Plymouth quarry far more beautiful in 

 color and finene;s of grain than the Philadelphia. 

 With the Italian and Egyptian we do not under- 

 take to compare it. lliere is also a quarry of 

 soapstone at Plymouth. From Grafton, Vt. more 

 than ten thousand dollars worth of this stone is 

 annually exported to the southern cities. — Aat. 

 Eagle. 



HESSIAN PtT. 



The fly itself is a small insect with long Idueish 

 wings, and may be seen hovering about over a 

 wheat field in a warm day in the fall, after the 

 wheat is up and has got into stooling — it then 

 deposits its eggs, from one to five or six, on the 

 lower leaf where it joins the stalk. The eggs 

 when first laid, are about the size of the point of 

 a pin and white; they grow until they become of 

 the size of a flax seed, when they change the color 

 to a brown, and appear in the shape and color of 

 a flax seed. While in the white state they appear 

 to extract Dourisbment from the stalk of wheat 

 from their wounding it, the eggs continue in the 

 flaxed state in the stalk at the junction of the 

 lower leaf until the nt^xt spiing, and every stalk 

 that has an egg in it turns to a dark green anil per- 

 ishes before the next S| ring. In the sjiring, after 

 the wheat begins to grow, no eggs can be found 

 in the live wheat, but on examining, there can be 

 found (lea 1 stools of wheat, and on taking these 

 up you will find the egg at the root of the stool 

 where it was deposited, ajjpcaring like a flaxseed. 

 When the weather becomes waiin these eggs 

 hatch, and the little creature crawls up out of the 

 ground, and begins to lay eggs on the survivmg 

 wheat, close to the stalk on the lower leaf, where 

 the egg remains, going through its changes until 

 fall, when it comes out a fly again, and commen- 

 ces on the new sown wheat. 



The fly will lay its egg in Rye, but the rye stalk 



grows strong and fast, and bursis open the husk 

 leaf vvheie tbe egg is laid and the egg falls out and 

 perishes. It will lay ils eggs in oats and timothy, 

 but not do much injury. This fly is a very differ- 

 ent insect from tbe fly that has lately made its ap- 

 pearance in New England and New York state, or 

 the Maryland fly — in both of these last cases tho 

 fly lays its egg in the grain while in a milky state, 

 and the worm eats the milk and meal out of the 

 grain, bu: in no case has the grain been eaten by 

 the Hessian fly or found in it — but all these flies 

 may depredate in the same field in their own way. 

 What is the remedy .' It cannot be in a[)plying 

 any thing to seed before sowing, as the fly lives 

 on the root or near it, instead of the ear or grain. 

 Even good tillage has failed this last s:ason as 

 well as late sowing. Will net litne ilo it if prop- 

 erly applied, as a very small portion of litne is a 

 quick and certain death to many insects? A pint 

 of lime mixed with 100 bushels of wheat will de- 

 stroy every weevil in it, and if blown from a fan 

 into a barn it will destroy or diive them all out. 



Lime is a certain and quick death to fleas &,c. 

 and it is said that by sewing over the grain it will 

 destroy the egg in the grain. — Supposing a farm- 

 er when he found the fly was in his wheat depos- 

 iting its eggs should sow half a bushel of lime 

 while warm after slacking upon an acre, in a still 

 morniuif while the dew is on — the lime being 

 light and fine will spread and settle down on the 

 leaves of wheat, and reach the egg while in the 

 soft and white state and most likely destroy it. 

 Where the stubble is full of the eg^, by ploughing 

 deep iti the fill or early in the spring, the egg will 

 be buried so deep that it will perish. In the fall 

 one or two frosts will destroy most of the fly, and 

 late sowiBg in some cases. — Pennsylvania Re- 

 publican. 



Remarkable Circumstance. — A swarm of 

 bees was found hived in a small thorn bush, on 

 the farm of Mr John Brooks, in this county, about 

 the first of last month. The bees had made some- 

 thing like half a bushel of rich well-filled comb 

 when discovered. Mr Brooks has cut uj) the bush 

 and removed them to his garret, where they con- 

 tinue to work. This is one of the most remarka- 

 ble freaks we ever beard of — the bees must have 

 lost their usual instinct. Some gentlemen, we un- 

 derstand, attemlit to account for it by supposing 

 the Queen bee had received an injury, which ren- 

 dered her unable to jiroceed farther. — Slaunto7i 

 Spectator, 



Fat Cattle. — We thought it would be sad 

 times this winer for Beef, but our Hatfield farm- 

 ers, nothing daunted at the failure of the corn 

 crop, are scouring the Stale of Vermont of their 

 flax seed bran, and the city of New York of their 

 southern corn, to feed out to cattle. Another year 

 all this scampering after food for cattle will be 

 saved by the introduction of the beet culture, the 

 puiuice of whi'-h, with the rich hay from our al- 

 luvial meadows, will make the best of beef. — 

 Hampshire Rep. 



The antiseptic properties of peat, bark, &c., 

 owing to its caibon, are well known. A female 

 corpse in dress of the Ancient Britons, was lately 

 discovered in a peat bed in England, in a state of 

 entire preservation. It must have remained there 

 at least 1600 years. 



