AMEBICAN AGBICULTUBXST. 
185 
and lizards, or each other as chance and 
might may govern. As a rule however, the 
small fry should have possession of the wa¬ 
ters for at least one year in advance, that 
they may multiply to a sufficient extent to 
supply partial food to the larger ones ; and 
as they spawn, and keep in the shallowest 
waters, they will thus propagate insufficient 
abundance to prevent a future scarcity when 
their more voracious fellow-lodgers are in- 
introduced. 
In ponds of sufficient extent, fish may be 
kept and propagated to profit, aside from 
supplying the family with so great a luxury 
in food as fresh fish are usually esteemed. 
They may be fed with the offal meats of the 
slaughter-house or the farm, or with balls of 
flour or meal, boilded or baked. They may 
be called to a particular point of the pond to 
feed at regular hours, if they become accus¬ 
tomed to it. Such extra feeding will give 
them an earlier and increased growth, and 
having less need to prey upon the smaller 
fish, the stock of course will be largely in¬ 
creased. 
The feeding and care of fish will also be a 
source of pleasure and amusement to the 
members of the family; and while away 
many an hour of leisure or idleness that 
might otherwise tempt away the younger 
ones to resorts of dissipation or vice. In 
short, aside from its useful objects, we would 
have the fish-pond, as we would the dove¬ 
cote or the rabbitry, to give pleasure and va¬ 
riety to the farm, and to cluster around it all 
the endearments with which life in the coun¬ 
try should be surrounded, 
To give the fish pond its most ornamental 
features as an object of interest or beauty, it 
should be partially clothed with trees and 
shrubs. In trees we would select the soft 
or water maples, the willows, the water, or 
black ash, the birch, and the lowland poplar. 
In the way of shrubbery, the black alder, the 
wild rose, and the osier willow, make a beau¬ 
tiful fringe to a water margin. A certain ex¬ 
pression of wildness should be given to the 
pond, where it is of any size, and if it have 
some hidden nooks and recesses difficult to 
approach from the shore, it will be all the 
better. Fish love seclusion. Indeed, a pond 
haunted on every side by the foot of man, or 
the tread of animals, is but an indifferent spot 
for their welfare, and the more it can resem¬ 
ble, in outward appearance and keeping, the 
wild water of the river, the lake, or the nat¬ 
ural pond, the more congenial will it be to 
the tastes and habits of the fish, and of course 
more profitable to the proprietor. 
It is scarcely necessary to add that the 
pond should have an outlet of sufficient ca¬ 
pacity to let off its surplus water, and be 
thoroughly secured against accident in burst¬ 
ing away, as an occurrence of this kind 
might in a few hours, destroy the labor and 
solicitude of years. 
Diogenes and Aristippus. —Diogenes once 
said to Aristippus, “If you could eat cab¬ 
bages, you would not have to pay court to 
the great;” to which Aristippus replied, 
“ If you could pay your court to the great 
you would not have to eat cabbages,” 
THE SIGHT OF BIRDS. 
Pigeons find out newly sown fields im¬ 
mediately, and will frequently go several 
miles to a field the very morning after it is 
sown. Wild ducks that feed at night, are 
equally quick in finding their food; and in 
this case l should be glad to know what 
sense they employ. 'The red deer invari¬ 
ably knows when the shepherd’s patch of 
grain is fit for his food, and will frequently 
come down in such numbers as to eat up 
the entire crop in a single night. The car¬ 
rier pigeon finds its way home, take it what 
distance, and any way covered up you will. 
Toss it up in the air, and, after circling a 
few moments, it adopts its line of flight with¬ 
out hesitation, and without mistake. Audo- 
bon furnishes an instance of the exercise of 
this faculty, in his description of the razor¬ 
bill. 
The instinct or sagacity which enables the 
razorbills, after being scattered in all direc¬ 
tions in quest of food, during the long r.ight, 
often at great distances from each other, to 
congregate towards morning previously to 
their alighting on a spot to rest, has appeared 
to me truly wonderful, and I have been 
tempted to believe that their place of 
rendezvous had been agreed upon the even¬ 
ing before. 
Man probably surpasses birds in extent of 
vision, as much as birds surpass man in 
sharpness. Ross in his voyage to Baffin’s 
Bay, proved that a man under favorable cir¬ 
cumstances, could see over the surface of 
the sea, one hundred and fifty miles. It is 
not probable that any animal can equal this 
extent. In sharpness of sight, on the other 
hand, birds greatly excel us. The eagle 
soaring at such a hight that he seems a mere 
speck, sees the grouse walking in the heath¬ 
er, which plant it so closely resembles in 
color as readily to escape the sportsman’s 
eye. Schmidt threw at a considerable dis¬ 
tance from a thrush a number of beetles of 
a pale, gray color, which the unassisted 
human eye failed to detect, yet the bird ob¬ 
served them immediately. Many birds readi¬ 
ly perceive insects on branches where the 
sharpest sighted person could detect noth¬ 
ing.—Putnam’s Monthly. 
The Merchant’s Clerk and the Plow boy. 
—The young man who leaves the farm-field 
for the merchant's desk or the lawyer’s or 
doctor’s office, thinking to dignify or ennoble 
his toil, makes a sad mistake. He passes, 
by that step, from independence to vassal 
age. He barters a natural for an artificial 
pursuit, and he must be the slave of the cap¬ 
rice of customers and the chicane of trade, 
either to support himself or to acquire for¬ 
tune. The more artificial a man’s pursuit, 
the more debasing is it morally and physi¬ 
cally. To test it, contrast the merchant’s 
clerk with the plowboy. The former may 
have the most exterior polish, but the latter, 
under his rough outside, possesses the true 
stamina. He is the freer, franker, happier, 
and nobler man. Would that young men 
might judge of the dignity of labor by its use¬ 
fulness and manliness, rather than by the 
superficial glosses it wears. Therefore we 
never see a man’s nobility in his kid gloves 
and toilet adornments, but in that sinew arm, 
whose outline, browned by the sun, betoken 
hardy honest toil, under whose farmer’s or 
mechanic’s vest a kingliest heart may beat. 
THE VIOLET—ITS PERFUME. 
“ The forward violet thus did I chide : 
Sweetthief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, 
If not from my love’s breath?” 
The perfume exhaled by the Viola odorala 
is so universally admired that to speak in its 
favor would be more than superfluous. The 
demand for the essence of violets is far 
greater than the manufacturing perfumers 
are at present able to supply, and, as a con¬ 
sequence, it is difficult to procure the genu¬ 
ine article through the ordinary sources of 
trade. 
Real violet is, however, sold by many of 
the retail perfumers of the West End of 
London, but at a price that prohibits its use 
except by the affluent or extravagant vota¬ 
ries of fashion. The true smelling princi¬ 
ple or essential oil of violets has never yet 
been isolated ; a very concentrated solution 
in alcohol impresses the olfactory nerve with 
the idea of the presence of hydrocyanic acid, 
which is, probably, a true impression. Bur¬ 
nett says that the plant Viola tricolor (heart’s 
ease) when bruised, smells like peach ker¬ 
nels, and doubtless, therefore, contains prus¬ 
sic acid. 
The flowers of the heart’s ease are scent¬ 
less, but the plant evidently contains a prin¬ 
ciple which, in other species of the viol;* is 
eliminated as the “sweet that smells” so 
beautifully alluded to by Shakespeare. 
For commercial purposes, the odor of vio¬ 
let is procured in combination with spirit,oil, 
or suet, by maceration, or by enfleurage, the 
former method being principally adopted, 
followed by, when “ essence ” is required, 
digesting the pomade in rectified alcohol. 
Good essence of violets, thus made, is of 
a beautiful green color, and, though of a rich 
deep tint, has no power to stain a white fab¬ 
ric, and its odor is perfectly natural. 
The essence of violet, as prepared for re¬ 
tail sale, is thus made, according to the quali¬ 
ty and strength of the pomade : Take from 
six to eight pounds of the violet pomade, 
chop it fine, and place it into one gallon of 
perfectly clean (free from fusel oil) rectified 
spirit, allow it to digest for three weeks or 
a month, then strain off the e c sence, and to 
every pint thereof add three ounces of esprit 
de rose ; it is then fit for sale. 
We have often seen displayed for sale in 
druggist’s shops plain tincture of orris root, 
done up in nice bottles, with labels upon 
them inferring the coiftentsto be “extractof 
violetcustomers once “ taken in ” thus, 
are not likely to be so a second time. 
A good imitation essence of violets is best 
prepared thus : 
Spirituous extract of cassie pomade... 1 pint. 
Esprit de rose from pomade..£ pint. 
Tincture of orris.£ pint. 
Spirituousextractof tuberose pomade £ pint. 
Otto of almonds...................5 drops 
Septimus Piessb. 
