Miscellanies. 1 59 



17* Precaution in planting Potatoes.— \l 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. Peschier, Secre- 

 tary of the Medical Society of Geneva, (Switzerland,) in a letter 

 addressed to the Editors of the Bibliotheque Universelle, states that 

 he has proved with entire satisfaction to himself, that the general 

 opinion of the unfitness of cotton for the purpose of dressing wounds, 

 is 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 

 to 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- 

 sistance. On returning, instead of finding it in agony, it was fast 

 asleep ; and the wounds, though deep, healed rapidly, with no other 

 appjication than the soft cotton, which they did not venture to de- 

 tach. It is. Dr. P. remarks, in the most desperate cases, that cotton 

 is the most useful in burns. When the skin, and even the flesh, has 

 been shrivelled and roasted with the heat, the application of cotton 

 has been found to promote the sloughing and suppuration without too 

 much pain, thus preserving the life of the patient, otherwise so doubt- 



, ful under circumstances of this nature. 



Dr. Peschier cites the following cases, which came under his own 

 notice. Two artillery men, in charging a cannon too hastily, had 

 their hands and faces so severely burned by a sudden deflagration of 

 the cartridge, that the epidermis was separated. The injured parts 

 were immediately covered with cotton, and so successful was the ap~ 



