1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



423 



Many of the best fanners in this vicinity, who 

 are not usually hasty to adopt new notions, have 

 become satisfied in regard to this fence, and are 

 preparing to build it on tlieir own farms. Un- 

 doubtedly, it will eventually come into general 

 use, and if so, depend upon it, the country will 

 become richer thereby. I. B. Aykk. 



Bradford, VL, Jtdy, 18G2. 



Remarks. — If any one wishes to see the fence 

 our correspondent so greatly commends, he can 

 find it on our farm at Concord, oSIass., where some 

 fifty rods are set. The fence rests entirely upon 

 stones, not a particle of it touching the ground. 

 We expect to be able to give the exact cost per 

 rod, as it stands. 



THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS, 



The nephew of Dr. Jenner, Avhen on board a 

 vessel going in a direct course for Newfoundland, 

 and more than one hundred leagues from any 

 land, saw a brown owl gliding over the ocean with 

 as much apparent ease as when seeking for a 

 mouse over its own native fields. Mr. William 

 Thompson, of Belfast, in his Natural History of 

 Ireland, records, vol. I., page 102, from the log 

 book kept on board the John and liobert, of five 

 hundred tons, Captain M'Kechnie, from Quebec 

 to the port of Belfast, that from thirty to forty 

 snowy owls, on the 16th of November, 1838, were 

 seen when the vessel was 2t50 miles from the 

 Straits of Belleisle. Several followed the ship ; 

 from fifty to sixty were seen on the 18th, some 

 alighting on the rigging and j'ards ; three were 

 caught and taken to Belfast alive. The last of 

 those seen at sea was on the 2()th of November ; 

 the vessel then near 700 miles from Belleisle, and 

 sailing along in latitude 54, or nearly so. The 

 Rev. Robert Holdsworth wrote me word that a 

 water-rail alighted on the arm of a man-of war, 

 about 500 miles to the westward of Cape Clear, 

 and at the same distance from any known land. 

 An officer of the ship caught it, and carried it 

 with him to Lisbon, feeding it with bits of raw 

 meat. In a day or two it became perfectly tame, 

 and would eat out of his hand. By the kindness 

 of two officers of the Royal 42d Highlanders, sta- 

 tioned at Bermuda, I received the skin of a land- 

 rail shot there. This bird is not found in the 

 New World, and could only have reached Bermu- 

 da under the inffuence of a strong northeast wind 

 and thus saved its life, for a time, by making that 

 island. With respect to Sir Ross's pigeons, as 

 far as I can recollect, he dispatched a young ])air 

 on the Gth or 7th of October, 1850, from Assistant 

 Bay, a little to the west of Wellington Sound, and 

 on the l.'3th of October, a pigeon made its appear- 

 ance at the dovecot in Ayrshire, from whence Sir 

 John had the two pairs of pigeons which he took 

 out. The distance between the two places is 

 about 2000 miles. The dovecot was under repair 

 at this time, and the pigeons belonging to it had 

 been removed ; but the servants of the house were 

 struck with the appearance and motions of this 

 stranger. After a short stay, it went to a pigeon- 

 house of a neighboring proprietor, where it was 

 caught and sent back to the lady who originally 

 owned it. She at once recognized it as one of those 

 she bnd given to Sir John Ross, but to nut the 



matter to a test, it was carried into the pigeon- 

 house, when, out of many niches, it went directly 

 to the one in which it had been hatched. No 

 doubt remained in the mind of the lady as to the 

 identity of the bird. — YnrrelVs Birds. 



SCIENTIFIC MODE OF BOILING MEAT. 



When animals are newly killed, there is an acid 

 secretion in their ilesh which turns blue litmus 

 paper red, and which renders their flesh easy of 

 digestion, if it be eaten immediately. In a few 

 hours, however, this acid evaporates, and the meat 

 becomes hard and difficult of digestion, till it ha.s 

 been softened by cookery, or kept sufficiently long 

 to have become tender, from the process of de- 

 composition having commenced. In Liebig's re- 

 cently published work on the "Chemistry of Hu- 

 man Food," we are told that boiling flesh slowly, 

 effects a chemical change in its composition ; and, 

 according to the length of time employed in boil- 

 ing, and the amount of water used, there takes 

 place a more or less perfect separation of the sol- 

 uble from the insoluble constituents of flesh : the 

 water, or soup, in which the flesh has been boiled, 

 containing the soluble matter, and the houilli or 

 meat from which the soup was made, consisting 

 chiefly of fibrous, insoluble matter, nearly useless 

 as nourishing food. Thus it is obvious that when 

 the water in which the meat has been boiled slow- 

 ly is thrown away, by far the greater part of the 

 soluble or nutritious matter is wasted. A very 

 different mode of cooking should be adopted when 

 it is wished to eat the meat. The muscular fibre 

 of flesh in its natural state is everywhere sur- 

 rounded by a liquid containing dissolved albumen. 

 When this is removed by boiling with water, the 

 muscular fibre becomes hard and horny, and this 

 hardness increases the longer it is boiled. "It is 

 obvious, therefore," observes Liebig, "that the 

 tenderness of boiled meat depends upon the quan- 

 tity of albumen deposited between the fibres, and 

 there coagulating ; for the contraction or harden- 

 ing of the fibres is thereby, to a certain extent, 

 prevented. If the flesh intended to be eaten, be 

 introduced into the boiler when the water is in a 

 state of brisk ebullition, and if the boiling be kept 

 up for some minutes, and then so much cold water 

 added as to reduce the tem])erature of the water 

 to 158°, the whole being kept at this temperature 

 for some hours, all the conditions are united which 

 give to the flesh the cjualities best adapted to its 

 use as food. When it is introduced into the boil- 

 ing water, the albumen immediately coagulates 

 from the surface inwards, and in this state forms 

 a crust or shell, which no longer permits the ex- 

 ternal water to ])enetrate into the interior of the 

 mass of flesh. But the temperature is gradually 

 transmitted to the interior, and there effects the 

 conversion of the raw flesh into the state of boiled 

 meat. The flesh retains its juiciness, and is quite 

 as agreeable to the taste as it can be made by 

 roasting ; for the chief part of the sajnd constitu- 

 ents of the mass is retained, under these circum- 

 stance, in the flesh." 



A Good Idea. — That is a good idea of Clark's : 

 ''Ihe frost is God's plow, which he drives through 

 every inch of ground in the w > '1 1, opening each 

 clod and pulverizing the whol- ' 



