186 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
PRESEliVING FllUIT FOR WINTER. 
If the people of the South ate 'more Fruit and less Meat, 
they would be far healthier, especially during the long- 
continued and debilitating heats of summer. At this sea- 
son, fruit is an absolute necessity to all who know its value; 
but, in the winter, it deservedly ranks as one of our high- 
est It is very important to know jo.st how to 
preserve it in the highest perfection, and a few hints may 
not be unacceptable. The common metnod of putting up 
in cans is well understood ; but owing to the difficulty of 
entirely excluding the air, it very often fails of accomplish- 
ing the desired end. A Mr. Dayton, of Nashville, Term., 
has put into practice a new and improved method of her- 
metically sealing cans, which will be a great acquisition 
to housewives, if the app iratus which he uses can be easi- 
ly and cheaply applied. He puts fruit or vegetables in 
cans similar to those of Arthur’s patent, (glass are. best for 
all purposes) ; and, after heating the cans and contents 
to about they are sealed up in the ordinary way 
A small hole is left in the top of the can, allow the escape 
of the air, ov^er which is placed a piece of India rubber 
about the size of a dime. The exhauster is then placed 
on the top of the can and over the rubber, and a small 
piece of sponge, saturated with alcohol, is lighted and 
thrown into the exhauster. TJie combustion of the alco 
hoi consumes every pirticle of air in the exhauster in a 
second ; the aperture in the top of the can then becomes 
effectually closed by the piece of India rubber, and the 
contents will be preserved perfectly fresh and n iIuimI 
Another advantage of the exhauster is that it enables per- 
sons to test their cans and ascertain wdiether they are 
airtight, whieh is absolutely necessary in ordrr to pre- 
serve fruit or vegetables. if Mr. D.ayton, will now fur- 
nish the air-exhausters at a reasonable price, we can have 
fresh fruits and vegetables all the year round. 
Notes of the Weather for April — Lowest point 
of the thermometer 30°. Highest 78°. Range 48°. 
Monthly mean 55. 7, while that of February was 57. 0; the 
lowest and highest points being exactly the same for both 
months Such a remarkable freak of nature will, perhaps, 
not happen again in a century. 
Amount of rain during the month 3 36, as follows : 
On the 1st 60 
“ 6th 10 
“ 0th 20 
“ 18th 1.27 
“ 10th 1.15 
“ 26th 06 
We specify the days for agricuburul reference. 
There were six frosts, viz : on the 3d, 7th, 8th, 15th, 
20th and 22d. 
On the 7th the thermometer was 2° below freezing 
The fruit was generally killed and much of the early wheat 
cut down. 
Seventeen out of the 30 days of April, the thermometer 
was below frest temperaturp — S >or/a (ieurgioM, 
a Bones as a Manure. — A luie numutrr of the Country 
Gentlemen h'As an elaborate article by Levi Bartlett, ofN. 
H , on bone manure. He concludes that there is no other 
■manure whose effects are so l isting as an application of 
ground bones. Besides the increas.c of crops, he says it 
supplies phosphate, which the grasses generally lack, on 
old and long grazed fields in New Kngland, and caus- 
what is called “bone disease” in cattle. Mr. W recom- 
mends that the bones be pounded, and thus broke.n to 
pieces, boded or ground, and then spread evenly over the 
soil, and mixed with it. He has a ^field that was thus 
dressed years ago, and the effect is yet very perceptible 
on clover. 
BOT-FLIE8 AND THEIR YOUNbto 
Entomology presents lew facts for the consideration of 
the husbandmin more worthy of his study than those 
which relate to the propogation of hot-flies, and to the 
j nourishment and growth of their young. They belong- 
to the dipterous, or two v.-inged order of insects, having 
the generic name astrvs, which is the Greek word for 
stinging, or exciting. The vowels o and e united form the 
first letter in the name cestrus. The bot-flies which we 
shall attempt to describe are the oestrus gastcrophilis equi ;■ 
oe hemerrkoidales equi, w'hich are the stomach bot, and 
fundament bot of the horse; the rcstrus bovis, O'c OK-hoi^. 
which is oviposited in the back of the animal; and the 
oestmis oris, or sheep bot, which is oviposited in the nos- 
trils, and fully matured in the frontal and maxillary .sinu- 
ses. 
These flies appear to inhabit all countries where horses, 
camels, horned cattle, deer and sheep are known to exist; 
and without the aid of the latter for rearing the young of 
the former, it is probable that these flies would soon be- 
come extinct. The perfect insect lives but a few days;, 
and where the horse-bot has been hatched and reared ar- 
tificially, it was a pupa only 35 days, (see Genessee Far- 
mer for 1811, p. 39.) Ten months of the twelve which con- 
stitutes the life time of this tribe of insects are spent in 
theWarmer habitation of a larger animal, and they are 
thereby admirably protected from all external injuries. It 
is obvious that those which grow in the backs of cattle 
and in the heads of sheep and deer, subsist exclusively on 
the tissues or secretions by wd:iich they are surrounded- 
and there is good reason for saying that horse-bots, wheth- 
er in the stomach, or rectum, which have their heads 
deeply buried in the mucus of the lining membrane of 
the alimentary canal, and fastened to it by natural hooks 
made for that purpose, draw their nourishment, not from 
the crude vegetable contents of the stomach and bowels^ 
but from the more nutritive blood or secretions of living 
pains. Tiieir only means of escape after reaching matu- 
rity, is to let go their hold on the mucus membrane, and 
pass along w’ith the nutritive matter out of the stomach, 
and with the fecal matter out of the big intestine. If they 
fed on the contents of the alimentary canal, they would 
be so harmless that nuture would not take the pains of 
making the horse so uneasy, so unhappy, when the 
stomach, or fundament fly attempts to oviposit on his 
legs or lips. Instinct prompts the last named fly to lay 
its eggs on the lips of the horse, which causes the animal 
to throw his head about, and try every way to escape his 
tormentor d’his insect is smaller than the bee-hke fly 
which oviposits on the legs and sides of the horse, being 
a half incli lung, and having brown, unspotted wings, a 
hark abdomen, which at the base is white, but reddish 
vedow at the extreinitv. The 1 ova or maggot of this fly 
'S disiingni>hpd from that of the gacteronhilis. (siomach- 
bot) by having two rings lesson its body, its hooks longer 
