AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
283 
WHAT IS A MINIE RIFLE 1 
Every account received from the war in 
the Crimea is loud in praise of the “ Minie 
Rifle.” 
These fire arms in the hands of good 
marksmen deal certain destruction at an im¬ 
mense distance, and the wholsale slaughter 
of the Russian gunners- at the batteries of 
Savastopol, has won for this weapon of 
death the soubriquet of “King of Fire Arms.” 
So dreaded is this fatal ball that a Russian 
gunner goes to his station at an embrasure 
as to certain death. 
The barrel of a rifle has, running the 
length of its inner surface, spiral grooves or 
channels—hence the name of rifle, which 
means a rifled or a grooved gun. The object 
of a rifle barrel is to give greater precision 
to the ball, by cummunicating to it a rotary 
motion. This motion it receives on its pas¬ 
sage out of the gun, provided the ball is so 
crowded into the barrel as to fill up partially 
or entirely the grooves ; and the more per¬ 
fectly the ball fits into the barrel the truer 
its course, and the less windage there is : 
that is, the less space there is between the 
ball and barrel for the strength of the pow¬ 
der to escape. It is estimated that when the 
windage is only one-twentieth of the calibre 
of the gun, one-third of the powder escapes 
and of course its strength is lost. 
The great object therefore to be obtained, 
is a perfect fit to the barrel by the ball, thus 
to give the rotary motion, and to save the 
powder. 
A French gun-smith invented a rifle which 
had its breech pin project wedge-shaped, 
about two inches into the barrel. The ball, 
a conical shaped one, was then dropped into 
the barrel, and a few heavy blows by the 
rammer, drove the wedge or pin into the 
ball so as to fill the grooves in the barrel. 
The Minie ball, now so famous, is an im¬ 
provement upon all balls, inasmuch as it 
makes the powder slug or spread the ball, 
instead of the rammer doing that work. 
The ball is oblong with a conical point. 
In its base it has a conical hollow running 
half or two-thirds the length of the ball. A 
cup made of sheet iron is placed in the ori¬ 
fice of this hollow, which at the instant of 
firing is driven by the powder with great 
force into the ball, thus spreading it open, 
so as in its course out, to perfectly slug or 
fill the grooved barrel. This accomplishes 
the whole object; it saves time in ramming, 
it destroys windage, thus economizing in 
powder, and makes the ball perfectly fit 
the barrel so as to give the ball a complete 
rotary motion, and certaintity of direction. 
Thus the Minie improvement—taking its 
name from a French officer named Minie— 
is a Minie ball not a Minie rifle. The coni¬ 
cal shape of the bullet gives it greater weight 
of metal than a round one, affords less re- 
sistence to the air, and greatly increases the 
distance it can be thrown. This shaped 
ball, however, has been used for a long time 
by sportsmen. 
A Paris correspondent of the Tribune, 
some months since, was witness to experi¬ 
ments made by Major Minie himself with his 
ball, and saw that officer plant three balls in 
succession in a target the size of a man’s 
hat at the distance of three-fourths of a 
mile. And this officer said he could do it all 
day long and teach any other man to do so. 
It is not to be wondered at that the Rus¬ 
sians have a horror of the French chasseurs 
and their Minie ball. 
The present popularity of the rifle owes 
its origin to the skill of American sharp 
shooters, bred and trained in our new set¬ 
tlements, and who, in our Indian and other 
wars, have shown the efficacy of the rifle 
ball in picking off officers, gunners and prom- 
nent objects; but its perfection, we ima¬ 
gine, has been accomplished by the hands of 
the French. [Cleveland Herald. 
ECONOMISE. 
0 yes, economise ; put off the little bills ; 
the mechanics can wait! Never mind the 
tailor, he belongs to the credit party ; no¬ 
body pays the tailor. Stop the newspaper ; 
you “can get along without it.” Put off the 
carrier, he has only come through storms, 
and cold, and heat, every day regularly to 
serve you, and now, when he wants coal and 
clothing to keep his little ones from freezing, 
stop the paper! 
Never mind the school bill; the poor wo¬ 
man who has taught your children to read 
can wait. Take the children ©ut of school ; 
they can get along without schooling this 
winter, and you must economise. The school 
teacher must pay her rent, but then, if she 
don’t, if she fail, that’s nothing ; nobody in 
Wall-street knows her! 
Discharge your porter; you can “ get along 
without him” this winter; perhaps he’ll 
starve, but no matter, you must economise ! 
Can’t you do without that pair of chickens 
to-day 1 No sir; they must be roasted; 
they are so good cold at night with a bottle 
of porter and bread and butter ! Then you 
must have a turkey for dinner^,- no§ genteel 
family can think of getting along without 
roast turkey for dinner ; and as you are at 
market, you had better have some oysters 
sent home ; they are so good ! 
You must economise, but don’t think of 
smoking one less cigar a day ; a cigar costs 
only three cents; what’s that! You are 
going to a party to-night ; stop and tell the 
hair dresser to go and dress your wife’s hair ; 
no lady, now-a-days, thinks of doing it her¬ 
self! 
Eddy wants a new cap ; buy that; it costs 
but three dollars. There are some beauti¬ 
ful wax dolls ; Kitty must have one, buy it! 
Then you must send up a few dozen more 
of porter ; it is so good with the cold chicken 
for supper; and while you are about it, you 
may as well send home a couple of baskets of 
champagne to have in case a friend comes in. 
Buy a ticket to the opera to-morrow night; 
stop and order a carriage for the party to¬ 
night ; then go-home and talk about hard 
times, and swear you must economise. 
VALUE OF A MANUSCRIPT. 
The original manuscript of Gray’s Elegy 
was lately sold at auction in London. There 
was really a “ scene ” at the auction room. 
Imagine a stranger entering in the midst of 
a sale of some rusty looking old books. The 
auctioneer produces two small half sheets of 
paper , written over, torn and mutilated. He 
calls it “ a most interesting article,” and 
apologizes for its condition. Pickering bids 
jGIO ! Rodds, Foss, Thorpe, Bohn, Holway, 
and some few amateurs quietly remark, 
twelve, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and so 
on, till there is a pause at sixty-three pounds. 
The hammer strikes. 
“ Hold,” says Mr Foss. 
“ It is mine,” says the amateur. 
“ No, I bid sixty-five in time.” 
“ Then I bid seventy.” 
“ Seventy-five,” says Foss ; and fives are 
repeated again until the two bits of paper are 
knocked down, amidst a general cheer to 
Payen & Foss, for one hundred pounds ster¬ 
ling, $500. On these bits of paper are writ¬ 
ten the. first drafts of the Elegy in a Country 
Church-yard, by Thomas Gray, including 
five verses which were omitted in publica¬ 
tion, and with the poet’s interlinear correc¬ 
tions and alterations—certainly an “ interest¬ 
ing article ;” several persons thought it would 
call forth a ten pound note, perhaps even 
twenty. 
Parmesian Cheese. —This cheese is pro¬ 
duced almost entirely from grass and hay, as 
they very seldom feed anything else to their 
cows. The process of making this cheese is 
very simple, and anything but cleanly. 
“ The cows are kept tied in the stables the 
year round, and only put out a few hours 
each day, for water and exercise ; they are 
rather better than an ordinary race of milk¬ 
ers, and are procured in Switzerland, at three 
years old, before they have produced their 
first calf ; they are allowed to breed every 
year and the young calves butchered ; and 
when they get too old for the dairy, they are 
killed and their places again supplied from 
Switzerland. They possess a very decided 
appearance as a distinct breed, being univer¬ 
sally, some of them brown and others mouse 
color, with a light or mealy tinge around the 
eyes, and nose, very straight on the back ; 
coarse in the bone, horn and hair. The agri¬ 
cultural ^establishment at Grignon prefer 
them to any breed of cattle.” 
Prolific. —Iowa is a great country truly, 
and is every day growing larger—that is in 
resources and population, and where all this 
will end we can’t tell. 
By private letter from a friend, we learn 
that on the 11th inst., the wife of Thomas 
Woodcock, of Montrose, Iowa, presented 
her husband with four sons !!! All in good 
health and condition. We shall have to 
move farther west without delay. Who can 
say that every means is not resorted to, to 
populate Iowa. [Semi-weekly Bugle. 
A French paper thus traces the sensations 
of a reader of advertisements : 
The first advertisement—He don't see it. 
The second insertion—He sees it but don’t 
read it. 
The third insertion—He sees it. 
The fourth insertion—He looks at the 
prize. 
The fifth insertion—He speaks of it to his 
wife. 
The sixth insertion—She is almost wil¬ 
ling to buy. 
The seventh—He purchases. 
A Smart Dog. —A friend of ours has a dog 
which used to be very smart. He says : 
“ There warn’t anything in all Kentuck,” 
said he, “ that could begin with him, ’cept 
once. One day we started a bar, [bear] a 
regular snorter. He put right straight off 
and the dog after him, an’ I brought up in the 
rear. They were soon out of sight, but I fol- 
lered on for a mile or so, and came out at 
last on a clearing, where was a log hut, an’ 
a feller setting down an’ smoking his pipe as 
comfortable as possible. 
“ Did you see anything of adorg an’ a bar, 
goin’ by here V sez I to the feller. 
“ Yes I did,” sez he. 
“ Wal, how was it 1” sez I. 
“ Wal,” sez he, taking his pipe out an’ 
drawing his coat sleeve across his face, “it 
war about nip an’ tug, though I think the 
dorg had a leetle the advantage.” 
“ How was that ?” 
“ Wal, he was a trifle ahead.'' 
Personal Difference. —The Layfayette 
(Indiana) American tells the following : We 
were highly amused at hearing the following 
incident related as having occurred at the 
billiard saloon in this city, a few evenings 
since. Two gentlemen were playing a 
game. George (you know George?) re¬ 
marked to a bystander, “ that’s a good lick !” 
“ No,” was the reply, “ I think it was good 
luck.” “Well,” instantly replied George, 
“ we’ll not quarrel about it; it’s only a dif¬ 
ference between you and I.” [u and *.] 
