Miscellanies. 159 
17. Precaution in planting Potatoes.—It would appear from ex- 
periments made in Holland, that when potatoes are planted, the germs 
of which are developed, as happens occasionally in late operations, 
- or after mild winters, that the produce differs in quantity by more 
than a third to what it would be, if potatoes which had not advanced 
had been used, and further, that besides this diminished product, the 
quality is inferior.—Idem. 
18. Preservation of trees from Hares.—According to M. Bus, 
young fruit trees may be preserved from the bites of hares, by rub- 
bing them with fat, and especially hog’s lard. Apple and pear trees 
thus protected, gave no signs of the attacks of these animals, though 
their foot marks were abundant on the snow beneath them.—(Bull. 
Univ.)\—Idem. 
19. Use of cotton in dressing wounds.—Dr. Prscuter, Secre- 
lary of the Medical Society of Geneva, (Switzerland,) in a letter 
addressed to the Editors of the Bibliotheque Universelle, states that 
has proved with entire satisfaction to himself, that the g e 
option of the unfitness of cotton for the purpose of dressing wound: 
Ss altogether an unfounded prejudice, and that carded cotton, em- 
ployed either as lint or as bandages, is in fact preferable to linen. 
He does not pretend to be the discoverer of this fact, but refers it 
(0 an incidental circumstance which occurred in America. A child 
Which had been most severely burned, was laid upon a heap of card- 
ed cotton, while the person who first rescued the child went for as- 
“stance, On returning, instead of finding it in agony, it was fast 
asleep ; and the wounds, though deep, healed rapidly, with no other 
‘pplication than the soft cotton, which they did not venture to de- 
ach. This, Dr. P. remarks, in the most desperate cases, that cotton 
Sthe most useful in burns. When the skin, and even the flesh, has 
" shtivelled and roasted with the heat, the application of cotton 
8 been found to promote the sloughing and suppuration without too 
Pr Pain, thus preserving the life of the patient, otherwise so doubt- 
nder circumstances of this nature. 
ot Peschier cites the following cases, which came under his own 
thes Wo artillery men, in charging a cannon, too hastily, had 
ands and faces so severely burned by a sudden deflagration of 
reettee, Gisk she epidaenii was separated. The injured parts 
™mmediately covered with cotton, and so successful was the ap- 
