242 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



In Maine dogs may be taxed in any township where the citizens so agree; 

 and in Massachusetts double damages are recoverable from the owner of 

 any dog. In fact, to lead a dog's life means something worse and worse 

 every year, as all the Northern States are bent on raising sheep and ob- 

 taining wool; and even the shQpherd's dog feas lost his old character for 

 faithfulness, and is voted old-fashioned, and a sort of public enemy. 



Many reasons are urged for this reform. The cost of keeping our 3,000.- 

 000 dogs in the United States is put down at $30,000,000 per annum, or as 

 much as all the petroleum has produced during this last j'ear. Then a mil- 

 lion and a half more is put down for sheep destroyed and damaged. 



Let legislatures then impose taxes; let them register and restrain; it 

 will probably only extirpate the vicious breeds and mongrel curs, while 

 the nobler forms will yet sufficiently survive only under those more tamed 

 and proper restraints that shall prevent them from doing harm to the com- 

 munity. The fear of them must be no hindrance to the keeping of sheep. 



Grapes in Winter. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — I have just received a sample of Catawba grapes 

 from R. T. Colburn, of this city, preserved in Cleveland, Ohio, in the fruit 

 house built there upon the plan of B. M. Nyce, Greensburg, Indiana. These 

 grapes, after being a week out of the preservatorj'^, are just as fresh and 

 sound as though only a week from the vines in October. Ice is used to 

 keep the room cool, and science has been invoked to preserve a degree of 

 dryness in the atmosphere that keeps the fiuit from decaying. At first, 

 chloride of calcium was uSed, but a later discovery has proved that the 

 bitter water of salt works, which is absolutely costless, furnishes a valua- 

 ble substitute for the chloride of calcium of commerce, to absorb the moist- 

 ure given oiF by the fruit. I may state that calcium is a silver-white metal, 

 which by its union with oxygen forms lime. It is not known to exist in 

 nature in an nncombined state. Chloride of calcium is produced when 

 chalk, quicklime or marble is dissolved in muriatic acid, and a solution of 

 chloride of calcium, sometimes called muriate of lime, is obtained. This 

 solution occurs in sea water, in the refuse of salt-pans, and is sometimes 

 allowed to flow away as waste, from chemical works. Mr. Nyce produced 

 his chloride by immersing marble spalls or common limestone in muriatic 

 acid, which produces fermentation by dissolving the marble, and becomes 

 chloride of calcium in its fluid state. This is heated in a large pan of sheet 

 iron until it becomes very hard and dry. It is then broken to pieces and 

 put into troughs, where it becomes fluid again by taking up moisture in 

 the room. It is then again taken out, dried', and the same substance may 

 be thus used twenty or thirty times. 



Although this process is qufte inexpensive, yet I am told that the use of 

 the bitterns is still less. The air of the fruit room is agitated by a fan 

 connected with a cheap windmill on the top of the building. The tempera- 

 ture is kept at 34 degrees, and the dryness is regulated by a hygrometrical 

 contrivance. The rooms are gas-tight, and Mr. N. keeps them most of the 

 time so immersed in carbonic acid, created by the gradual ripening of the 

 fruit, that a common candle or lamp will not burn in it. The reason for 



