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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



able to produce such over-fat animals, whether 

 rabbits, or oxen, or sheep. 



Diseases. — Babbits are generally very healthy 

 and hardy. When due attention is paid to their 

 food, to ventilation, and cleanliness, few animals 

 are less subject to disease. But, as in all other 

 cases, filth, foul air, and damp, produce disease in 

 rabbits. Looseness, which may be seen by what 

 passes from them being too moist,must be remedied 

 by dry food ; such as crusts of bread, good corn, 

 old hay, hard biscuit, or any food of a dry quality. 

 The rot may be said to be incurable ; at least 

 we have found it so with young rabbits. The 

 remedy must be looked for in dry hutches, fresh 

 air, and substantial food. The liver complaint, 

 another disorder, is said to be also incurable ; 

 but as it does not prevent the rabbits from 

 fattening, the best course is to prepare those 

 attacked at once for the table. Snuffles or colds 

 may be cured, by removing the rabbit from the 

 damps and draughts which have produced the 

 disorder, to a drier and warmer place. It is much 

 easier to prevent disease than to cure. Cleanli- 

 ness, careful attention, dryness, and regular 

 feeding in the manner we have directed, will in 

 general ensure good health in the rabbits, and 

 entirely prevent any of these diseases. 



Profits. — Rabbits are really profitable. Three 

 does and a buck will give you a rabbit to eat 

 for every three days in the year, which is a very 

 much larger quantity of food than any man will 

 get by spending half his time in the pursuit of 

 wild animals, — to say nothing of the toil, the 

 tearing of clothes, and the danger of pursuing the 

 latter. When the amazing fecundity of the 

 rabbit is taken into account, it will readily be 

 seen, that if the expense of food and management 

 can be kept low, a great profit may be obtained. 

 It is said that from a single pair of rabbits, the 

 prodigious number of 1,274,840 may be produced 

 in four years — supposing all the rabbits to live. 

 We have shown how the least possible expense as 

 to food may be attained, by pointing out the food 

 which costs least ; and yet is quite suitable for 

 the animals. And there appears to be no good 

 reason why a person, living in the country, who 

 has a shed and a garden, should not derive ad- 

 vantage from the keeping of rabbits. When the 

 care of them can be entrusted to boys, the cost of 

 management would of course be diminished. The 

 value of the manure, either for sale or for the 

 garden, is considerable, as it is very valuable. 

 For any person living in a town, who has all the 

 food to purchase, — to attempt to keep rabbits for 

 profit is out of the question. 



The book abounds in useful advice on a 

 multitude of subjects, and we have great 

 pleasure in recommending it to public notice. 



Household Words. February. Office, 

 Wellington Street. 



To offer any critical opinion on a periodical 

 like this, is not requisite. An example will 

 best speak of its interesting features. Let 

 us borrow a few passages from an article on 

 "Popular Science," — rendering "common 

 things " familiar, and putting ignorance to 

 the blush. Alas ! what a short-sighted 



being a man is ! Many are born — live — 

 and die, without knowing or caring to know 

 the why and because of anything that is 

 passing around them ! This is not a happy, 

 but a lamentable ignorance. 



The subject we select is that which treats 

 of, or rather commences with 



THE SENSIBILITY OF NATURE. 



M. Durand, says the writer, lectured on Minera- 

 logy in Paris, about fifty years ago, and he thought 

 he proved that there was sensibility in stones. 

 His great point was the love of the stone for the 

 sun. It was quite a rose and nightingale scandal. 

 Take a solution of salt, put one half of it in the 

 sun ; keep the rest in darkness. Superb crystals 

 will form under the kiss of the sun, while in the 

 shade the salt and water still remain salt and 

 water. Light, said M. Durand, goes therefore 

 into the composition of a crystal. Diamonds are 

 almost wholly composed of sunlight ; they are only 

 found in places where the sun gives heat and light 

 enough to make them. Now, said the French 

 philosopher, what do you call that reception of 

 light to the bosom of a stone — what can you call 

 that but love ? He went farther ; and asserting 

 that all the highest mountains are placed under 

 the equator, called them lumps of sunlight. They 

 are imitations of the salt experiment on a large 

 scale. Their granite peaks are crystallised light; 

 but incomplete crystals. Give them more light 

 and they will be complete — they will become 

 crystals of the sublimest order, they will be 

 diamonds — real Koh-i-noors, or mountains of light. 

 If the sun were but a little brighter and a little 

 hotter, Chimborazo would be all one diamond, the 

 Himalayas would be diamond steeps, and all 

 towns in the East over the sunny side of their walls 

 would have diamond turrets like Amberabad. 

 Every sun-baked brick of Egypt would in that 

 case become a jewel worth some quarts of Koh-i- 

 noors. 



All this is the result of the sensibilities of stones. 

 The whole earth, many old sages believed — 

 Kepler among them — was alive. M. Patrin taught 

 of the earth how metals, plants, and minerals 

 were formed by the gas in its body. It was not, 

 to be sure, sensible like a man, but like a world. 

 It could not talk words, but it could talk things. 

 This is not so very absurd. If the things in 

 nature be not sensible, they certainly are not 

 stupid. Look at a tree or a shrub. Bonuet used 

 to say that at the end of all his study he could not 

 see the difference between a cat and a rosebush. 

 Let us see what the wits are that a rosebush has. 

 Look at its leaves, with their smooth glittering 

 surface turned to the sky ; but their under-sur- 

 faces, all soft and full of pores, open to catch the 

 moisture rising from the soil — half-open when 

 they need only a little, closed when they want 

 none. The rain that falls upon the waxy roof 

 made by the upper surface of the foliage runs off, 

 and is dropped into the ground just over the 

 sucking ends of all the rootlets. Turn some of 

 those rose-leaves upside down. Lay a cat on her 

 back, and she will not consent to remain in that 

 unnatural position. The rose-leaf, too, objects to 

 be inverted. A man may bend a branch so that 

 its leaves all hang with the wrong side upwards ; 

 but let him watch it. He will observe how all 



