AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
57 
contact, and save commissions and a variety of 
other expenses. 
- 0 0. --—- 
The Poultry Chronicle is a weekly periodi¬ 
cal of 24 pages, small quarto, published in Lon¬ 
don. It is very prettily edited by a lady—Mrs. 
Elizabeth Watts. We are happy to comply 
with her request to exchange, and judging from 
the number before us, we doubt not we shall 
find many interesting and instructive articles to 
copy for our readers. 
TO KILL LICE ON CATTLE. 
Every man having any considerable number 
of cattle, cannot prevent more or less of them 
from occasionally getting lousy—particularly 
calves; but there is no apology for permitting 
the lice to stay upon them. As soon as discov¬ 
ered, take some grease of almost any kind— 
stale butter, hog’s lard, pot skimmings, neat’s foot 
or whale oil, and mix it with common brown or 
Scotch snuff—say an ounce of snuff to a pound of 
grease, and warm it so that it will work freely 
with a brush or the hand. Then open the hair 
of the Creature where the vermin are thickest, 
and rub or brush the mixture thoroughly in and 
around wherever a louse or a nit can be found. 
This process will kill them effectually, as in nu¬ 
merous trials we have never known it to fail. 
If snuff be not at hand, the grease alone will 
answer; but the snuff renders the application 
more prompt , if not more effectual. 
Young cattle should be examined frequently, 
to see if lice be upon them, particularly about 
the head, back of the ears and horns, on the 
brisket, down the twist, and just above the root 
of the tail. These are the places where they 
first congregate, and if early found will be 
easily exterminated by applications of the 
grease on those places alone. 
Mercury, in any shape, should never be used. 
It frequently salivates animals when applied, 
and is sometimes fatal to them. Tobacco juice 
is not more effectual—hardly so much so, in¬ 
deed, as grease—and if applied strong, and in 
quantity, is apt to sicken the animal; whereas 
grease, with the small quantity of snuff in it, 
prescribed as above, thoroughly destroys the 
vermin without injuriously affecting the beast. 
The only objection we have ever heard against 
the application of grease or oil, is that it occa¬ 
sionally causes the animal to shed its hair 
sooner than it otherwise would, and in spots; 
but this is nothing like so injurious as to let the 
poor creature remain lousy, or sicken with to¬ 
bacco water. 
WILD CHERRY BARK SYRUP, 
SAID TO BE AN INFALLIBLE CURB FOR FEVER 
AND AGUE. 
The following recipe was handed us by a sub¬ 
scriber, who says it is very highly valued both 
by himself and friends. 
We give the recipe as we received it, neither 
approving nor condemning. We have studied 
little into the causes or cures of ague. By 
carefully protecting our feet from dampness, iy 
avoiding exposure to cold currents while warm, 
or to damp night airs when not exercising , and 
by adapting our clothing to the changes of the 
season without regard to the demand of fash¬ 
ion, we have thus far escaped the attack of ague 
and fever, though often .very much exposed, 
and we expect our bones will not be shaken 
asunder for some time to come, if we continue 
this same care. But some may want a “ cure,” 
and here is one said “ never to fail.” 
Take f of a pound of the inner bark of the 
wild cherry—fresh from the tree—and boil it an 
hour in two quarts of water. Strain off the 
liquor, add to it f lb of sugar, and boil or gently 
simmer it down to H pints. 
A dose of half a wine glass to be taken an 
hour before each meal. If commenced as soon 
as the premonitory symptoms of ague appear, 
or when only one chill has occurred, and pur¬ 
sued for a few days, it will break up the ague. 
After the ague is broken, take it twice a day, 
and then once a day for a week after the chill 
has elapsed, and about two weeks after take a 
dose daily for two or three days. 
-• • •—■—■ 
ERIE RAILROAD. 
We recently made a trip to Canandaigua, 
N. Y., going over the northern route and re¬ 
turning by the Erie R. R. Some of the notes 
we made may be interesting to our readers in 
Western New York, who will have occasion to 
visit this city the coming summer, for various 
purposes, and especially to visit the Crystal 
Palace—which by the way, notwithstanding the 
animadversions of some newspaper writers, gives 
fair promise of being open in all its former 
attractiveness, if not in additional splendor. 
By the northern route we reached Canandai¬ 
gua in thirteen hours and a half, at an expense 
of $6.90. Returning by the southern route we 
reached the city in twelve hours and three 
quarters, at an expense of $6.44, the latter 
route being thus both quicker and cheaper. 
Another point more important still, is the 
greater comfort enjoyed on the southern route. 
We chanced on the northern route from 
Albany to get stowed away in a narrow, poorly- 
ventilated, over-crowded, and over-heated car; 
and our first approach to the noxious atmos¬ 
phere betokened something akin to suffocation, 
reminding us of the remark of one of our city 
dailies, that “ the seeds of death are thus planted 
in several human systems every night.” On the 
other hand, the wide, spacious, well-ventilated 
cars on the New-York and Erie must gladden 
every traveler. 
The scenery on this route, even in mid winter, 
can scarcely be equaled in our whole country. 
Our attention was particularly directed to 
the ride from Penn Yan to Jefferson, on the 
Elmira branch. At an elevation of from one to 
two hundred feet, we glided along on the banks 
of the beautiful Seneca; a lake unsurpassed 
for its loveliness and purity by any similar col¬ 
lection of fresh water in the world. It bids 
defiance to frost, so that in the memory of the 
oldest inhabitant, no day of our coldest northern 
winters has blocaded it with ice, or obstructed 
for an hour the steamers on its waters. When 
the noble Hudson lies enchained with ice, the 
Seneca lake preserves its clear waters as limpid 
as mid-summer. 
This lake, forty miles long, and from two to 
six miles wide, is surrounded with high sloping 
banks of the finest land, affording more desira¬ 
ble locations for beautiful country-seats, which 
gentlemen of fortune would naturally select, 
than any other place we have seen. 
At one point, a small but handsome promon¬ 
tory projects into the lake, and we wondered 
that some rural cottage did not already adorn 
the spot. 
At times we were plunging through dense 
forests and over deep narrow ravines, but for 
the most part through highly-cultivated fields, 
in full view of the premium farms of Seneca 
County, lying on the opposite side of the lake. 
We will not now refer to the growing villages 
of Elmira, Owego, Binghampton, Middletown, 
&c., nor to the romantic views presented at 
every leap of our iron horse, neither will we 
lengthen this article to speak of the striking 
evidences every where presented of the rapid 
agricultural and horticultural advancement, made 
since we visited this region, but a short time 
since. We propose to make a special visit, or 
visits, for this purpose after Spring has put on 
her gay attire, and the enterprise of 1854 has 
begun to develop itself in these departments. 
It is hardly necessary to wander off to the 
Notch among the White Mountains, or else¬ 
where, when the citizens of New York have 
such a variety of wild, combined with highly- 
cultivated scenery, within a dozen hours’ ride, 
on one of the noblest and best-managed rail¬ 
roads of which any country can boast. 
-• • <—- 
For the American Agriculturist. 
DEEDING LAND-A LAW QUESTION. 
Notwithstanding the thousand and one ex- 
parte interrogations with which you are favored 
(?) from week to week, I take the liberty of 
troubling you with still another, which from 
your experience in agricultural matters, I judge 
you as capable as I know you will be willing, to 
answer. 
A and B purchase a farm—set forth by the 
deed of (the seller) to contain 71 59-100 acres 
more or less. A and B proceed to divide the 
land, find it contains only 64 acres and some 
fraction of an acre. The seeming ambiquity, 
more or less, docs it apply to, or mean th ofraction 
of an acre more or less than 71, or does it mean 
in law, the 7 acres actually deficient. 
Your answer will much oblige a constant 
Reader. 
We are not lawyers, and with legal technical¬ 
ities we have had—as we still desire to have—very 
little acquaintance. When a question of this 
kind comes up, our custom is to call in our com¬ 
mon-sense-notions of the principles of justice, 
and we have generally found that, with these as 
our guide, the law has borne out our own deci¬ 
sion. There, are however, some technicalities 
which can be twisted almost any way, depend-, 
ing for their decision upon the comparative skill 
of the pettifoggers who have them in hand. 
We will give our own common-sense-view of 
how the “ law” would settle a question like the 
above. 
If the seller purchased the land in mass, and 
sold it in mass, for a given price for the whole— 
71 59-100 acres more or less—and no intentional 
fraud could be shown, we suppose he would 
not be responsible for the deficiency. But if 
the land was sold for so much per acre—71 51- 
100 acres more or less—or if there could be 
shown any intentional fraud, or that he had at 
any time had the land measured, and might thus 
be supposed to know its extent, he would in 
that case, be liable for damages, and also be open 
to a direct change of fraud. 
The general supposition, however, is that the 
“ more or less” applies to the fractional part of 
