1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



447 



with horns on the shoulders," and which ravages 

 the ehii trees in this part of the country. The 

 sparrow has been found by careful observers to 

 destroy more than three thousand insects per 

 week, while breeding ; including not only cater- 

 pillars, but flies, beetles, bugs, and other perfect 

 insects. I made no "offer gyutuitoiishj to teach" 

 "Farmer," but to exchange infoymation, and hav- 

 ing answered his queries, will be obliged to him 

 in tarn first, to inform me what facts he can pro- 

 duce in support of the belief in M-hich he indulges 

 with regard to the injury caused by the wood- 

 pecker, and second, to favor me with his name 

 and address, unless there is some important rea- 

 son lor concealment. Fkancis G. Sanborn. 

 Andover, August, 1862. 



GYMNASTICS AS A MEANS OF PHYSI- 

 CAL HEALTH. 



The following remarks ai-e taken from Dr. Dio 

 Lewis' book, "The New Gymnastics," just pub- 

 lished. They form the preface to a German work 

 on Dumb Bell Exercises, wliich Dr. Lewis has in- 

 corporated in. his volume. The exercises referred 

 to are all to be found in "The New Gymnastics :" 



Man's physical integrity must ever depend upon 

 his fidelity to nature. Through the deteriorating 

 influences of civilization, he has departed far from 

 nature. If he woitld restore his life-energy, he 

 must, like the prodigal son, return. 



Health is the most precious of earthly posses- 

 sions. He who has it, has all things ; he who 

 xBcks it, has nothing. Men seek with vehement 

 earnestness, external things. How few recognize 

 the value of health. Men seem, to care as little 

 for their bodies as the snail for its shell. The 

 world is full of misery. Physical deformity and 

 suffering are increasing with fearful rapidity. 

 Thank God, the great physiological revolution 

 which is to restore man to his pristine condition, 

 is inaugurated. 



As in the jn-osecution of all other reforms, we 

 are met on every hand by prejudice. We are 

 told that man was not designed to enjoy uninter- 

 rupted health ; that in this life, he must be the 

 victim of disease and suffering ; that nature will 

 give all needed superintendence to the body. 

 True, they say, it is possible to ward off danger, 

 but quite chimerical to undertake the prevention 

 of disease by a development of the powers within. 

 Hufeland took this view of the subject. But the 

 physiological reformer of the present hour afhrms 

 that the physical organism is susceptible of iiulef- 

 inite imin-ovement ; that it can be made by cer- 

 tain hygienic processes so vigorous and resistant, 

 that amid diseases and dangers it may pass 

 through the fire unscathed. 



How shall such invigoration of our bodies be se- 

 cured ? So far as the answer can be given in one 

 word, it is, gymnastics. In the animal body, ex- 

 ercise is the principal law of development. By 

 gymnastics, we mean system of exercises which 

 the greatest wisdom and largest experience have 

 devised, as best adapted to the complete develop- 

 ment of the physical man. Ideler was the first to 

 comprehend the principle of gymnastics, and their 

 application to the training of the body. He saw 

 their infinite wortn in the education of youth ; in 



the preservation of the health of adults ; and in 

 the cure of many diseases. 



Gymnastics are valuable to all persons, but es- 

 pecially to clerks, students, sedentary artisans, 

 and still more particulary, to those, who in addi- 

 tion to sedentary habits, perform exhaustive in- 

 tellectual labor. With the latter class, sufi'ering 

 from indigestion and nervous irritability, nothing 

 but a wise system of gymnastic training can pre- 

 vent the early failure of the powers of life. We 

 believe that to such persons this little work will 

 come as a most welcome friend. We believe that 

 it may assist them in returning to health and na- 

 ture. Do not, friends, v>'e implore you, refuse its 

 kind offices by such pleas as "want of time," the 

 "great difficulty of the feats," "age," "rigidity of 

 limbs," or "want of strength;" for if these excuses 

 are well founded in your case, the exercises de- 

 scribed in this little work will prove to you of 

 great value. 



The reader will find descriptions and illustra- 

 tions of a large number of the most valuable ex- 

 ercises with (lamb bells. The descriptions are so 

 simple that there will be no difficulty in under- 

 standing them. 



It is hoped that in this little book many per- 

 sons will find a simple means, through which they 

 may secure a full use of all their powers. May 

 they find it a source of health and happiness. 



THE BED OP THE SEA. 



Take up a pinch of the soil over which lies two 

 thousand five hundred fathoms of sea water, sub- 

 mit it to a microscope, and behold, though it 

 looks and feels like fine clay, it does not contain a 

 particle of sand, earth or gravel. Every atom 

 under the lens tells of life and living things. The 

 bed of the Atlantic is strewn with the bones and 

 shells of the myriads of creatures inhabiting its 

 waters — creatures so numerous that figures tail to 

 convey an idea, or the mind to embrace their vast 

 .profusion. The navigator traversing the blue sea 

 sails for days in a fleet ship through waters so 

 thickly covered with small pulpy sea-nettles, or* 

 meduste, that it looks to him like a "countless 

 meadow in yellow leaf." The savant, following 

 on his trail, places a single one of the sea-blubbers 

 under a lens, and in one of its nine stomachs finds 

 seventy thousand flinty shells of microscopic dia- 

 tomacse, one of the many animalcula* of the sea. 

 Thus each creature in these thousand squai'e 

 leagues of medusae was sucking from the millions 

 of these diminutive creatures, and ejecting their 

 shells, to fall, in a gentle yet perpetual shower, 

 down to the bed of the ocean, and there, in time, 

 form strata of siiicious and chalky matter for fu- 

 ture geologists to ponder over. And, remember, 

 that upon all these medusa^ pi-ey legions of bigger 

 creatures, and that into these helpless colonies 

 sails the huge whale with cavernous mouth, and 

 gulps down as many of them at every feast as they 

 do of the minute diatomaca?. 



Fine Wheat. — We have upon our desk as 

 handsome a specimen of wheat as one could ask 

 to see. It grew upon the farm of Mr. S. M. Ba- 

 ker, of Hillsboro' Bridge, N. H. We hope Mr. 

 Baker Avill send us some account of the wheat 

 itself, and of his mode of cultui'e. 



