f"»;-. 



1864. 



THE ILLmOIS FARMER. 



201 



Treatment op Bee Stings. — Many persons suffer 

 BO little from bee stings, tliat they fear them no 

 more than mosquito bites, and this is usually the 

 case with our most successful apiarians. Others 

 guffer severely: the slightest sting produces large 

 swelling and great pain. In such cases, Dr. Lalour 

 proposes the following treatment: 1. To pull 

 out the sting, which generally remains in the 

 wound. 2. To bathe the place with ice-water, or 

 else acetate of lead or ammonia. 3. To apply an 

 impenetrable coating of collodion, rendered elastic 

 by the addition of one-tenth part of castor oil, 

 whereby the production of heat in the living tissue 

 is prevented and inflamation avoided. 



From the Country Gentleman and Cultivator. 



Beer Measure- 

 It is somebody's duty to protest against the in- 

 troduction at this time of a new measure under an 

 old name, called "5eer Measure.^' There is not a 

 single good reason for its introduction, and as 

 there must be some reason for any change so radi- 

 cal and extensive as that sought to be effected by 

 the change referred to, it follows that the reason 

 must be a bad one — not unsound merely but mor- 

 ally bad. In short there must be some thimble-rig- 

 ging about it. 



Jfow this is pretty plain talk, says the beer-mea- 

 sure man. Yes, sir, and it is meant to be. It is an 

 occasion that demands plain talk, and I have been 

 waiting for somebody to say it for a year past, but 

 as no one has said it, I can satisfy my conscience 

 no longer. 



I suppose that some good old people who studied 

 Doboll thirty years ago, will open their eyes and 

 inquire if there is not ample authority for saying 

 that there is a wine measure of 231 cubic inches to 

 the gallon, and a beer measure of 282 cubic inch- 

 es ? If there are any such, then let them be in- 

 formed that the laws of the United States recog- 

 nize but one gallon, which consists of eight lbs. of 

 pure water at 60 degrees of Fahrenheit, and with 

 certain other conditions that insure accuracy. The 

 State of New York also has a statute gallon which 

 is just the same in quantity, and both are the old 

 English wine gallon of 231 cubic inches. It is not 

 the present imperial and legal gallon of Great Bri- 

 tain, that having been altered by act of parliament 

 from both. 



That is the law and gospel of gallons. "What- 

 soever is more than these cometh of evil." 



Suppose one of our cheese factory men wh» talk 

 so much about beer measure, should in one of his 

 vssits to the great city to look into the market, 

 chance into front street to buy some stores for his 

 family. He inquires the price of sirup — say Stu- 

 art's extra sirup. "Well, $1 25," says the bland 

 salesman. "All right," replies Oneida Co., "as far 

 as the price goesj but I always buy by beer meas- 

 ure." "Beer measure ?" asks the grocer. And I 

 know what else he would say. He would say, 

 "Friend, we are considered sharp in New York, 

 but we can't keep even with you. I would advise 

 you to go OTer to the North river side ; they will 



accommodate you with any kind of measure you 

 want over there." [I hope my North River side 

 readers will pardon this expression ; they will rec- 

 ognize the naturalness of the remark.] 



Oneida county would begin to feel ashamed of 

 himself by that time, and possibly inquire why 

 measures that are good enough to be used in all 

 the transactions of 30,000,o00 of people, from the 

 measure of brandy at $10 the gallon, down to ci- 

 der or vinegar at 31|- gallons to the barrel, is not 

 good enough to measure milk with ? 



I tell you, gentlemen, there is thimble-rigging 

 about it. It is not square. It is not honest. Some- 

 body is to be cheated. 



Don't blame the editors of the Country Gent, for 

 printing my plain talk. I have written a good 

 many pages for their paper, and I never offended 

 anyone before, but here is a case that demands 

 plain talk. The honor of the professsion demands 

 that all this nonsense about beer measure should 

 be dispensed with. It demands it for two reasons : 

 1st. It is a falsehood — there is no beer measure. 

 2d. It is illegal. 



You may make all the contracts you please and 

 stamp them with all sorts of stamp?, and seal them 

 with all sorts of seals, and there is not a court in 

 New York State that will enforce a contract for a 

 beer gallon. They will tell you that the word beer 

 is tautological, but that gallon is gallon, and con- 

 sists of eight pounds of water or a certain well un- 

 derstood fraction of milk above that — say SJ lbs., 

 which is near the truth. 



I will relate one incident appropos to this, and I 

 have done, for I believe in short sermons. Some 

 years ago two men called upon me, and announced 

 their business as of a peculiar and personal nature. 

 A lawyer who thought I knew more about milk 

 than he did, had sent them to me for advice. They 

 were brothers-in-law, and one of them had bought 

 the other's milk for the preceding summer, and 

 had worked it up with his own into cheese. A 

 price had been agreed upon by the gallon, but 

 when pay-day came the buyer raised objections to 

 the seller's bill. He had discovered as DaboU and 

 some absurd modern copyists of Daboll who made 

 school books, say, that the beer gallon consists of 

 282 cubic inches, and that according to the au- 

 thority quoted, this measure was used also for 

 milk [!] and other coarse articles ! and so he wanted 

 to throw off 51 gallons from every 285 of his broth- 

 er's bill. 



What my advice to these brothers were may be 

 inferred. I never heard how they settled it, but I 

 hope that honest counsels prevailed. Truth. 



Coffee and Tea Ccltitre in California. — ^The 

 cultivation of coffee and tea promises to become 

 an important business in California. One nursery 

 at Sacramento has over five thousand coffee plants 

 on trial, and it is believed that there will be no dif- 

 ficulty in hanging up the plant to a standard of 

 hardiness to weather the mild winter of that cli- 

 mate. Near the Mission Dolores several thousand 

 tea plants have been raised during the last year. 

 The tea plant is grown in China and Japan very 

 extensively in latitudes corresponding to all Cali- 

 fornia, and the San Francisco journals think there 

 can be little doubt that it will be cultivated here- 

 after, for household purposes at least, on every 

 farm in that State. 





