AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
313 
hours on the ice, “hide and seek” in the 
barn, with the thermometer closely approx¬ 
imating zero; hunt the cows, bring water, 
chop wood, jump the rope—or do almost any 
and every thing else, in all sorts of weather 
—and how seldom did you hear of lung- 
complaints, consumption and bronchitis! 
1855—Winter—thermometer ten degrees 
below freezing. Fashionable people reside 
there—probably worth ten hundred, or ten 
thousand—immaterial—they are fashionable, 
though ten thousand in debt! See, the sol¬ 
diers are passing in the street—up goes the 
window, and there is the bare head and chest 
of a delighted little boy. 
Next day after—a pull at the bell. The 
door opens, and in walks—a doctor ! “ The 
croup ! doctor,” ejaculates the anxious moth¬ 
er, “ Johnny has got the croup desperately— 
this way—do be be quick, doctor!” 
But, reader, this is not his first call to-day 
to administer to similar cases—only his 
tenth! and a doctor, too, not doing an ex¬ 
tensive family practice. There are—how 
many doctors ? No matter, there are plenty 
of them. They live on—on the fashionable 
weakness of mothers. 
“Johnny”—as many hundreds, yea, thou¬ 
sands of Johnnys are—was simply dressed 
in the fashion —by a mere accident happened 
to get a breath of fresh air, and—croup was 
the result. Fashion forbids air to children. 
What right have fashionable people to 
breathe the plebian compound of oxygen and 
hydrogen that every ragged, dirty-faced brat 
inhales ! 
If children fashionably dressed have the 
misfortune to get into a pure atmosphere and 
become poisoned —suffer with lung-fever or 
cough unto death (as hundreds do)—remem¬ 
ber, “ it is the will of Providence!” and 
fashion has nothing to do with it. * 
Vermont State Agricultural Society.— 
At the annual meeting held at Middlebury, 
on the eleventh instant, the following gen¬ 
tlemen were elected officers : 
President.—Fredrick Holbrook, of Brattle- 
boro’. 
Vice Presidents.—Edwin Hammond, Hen¬ 
ry S. Morse, Henry Keys, S. W. Jewett. 
Corresponding Secretary.—J. A. Beck¬ 
with, of Middlebury. 
Recorcing Secretary.—Charles Cummings, 
of Middlebury. 
Trersurer.—Ed. Seymour, of Vergennes. 
Auditor.—Fred. E. Woodbridge. 
Additional Directors.—George F. Hodges, 
E. B. Chase, J. VV. Vail, John Gregory, A. 
L. Bingham, David Hill, John Howe, Jr., J. 
M. Colburn, B. B. Newton. 
Production of Sea Island Cotton in Af¬ 
rica.—A Liverpool dealer in Sea Island cot¬ 
ton writes to his correspondent ifi Savannah 
as follows : 
“ The French colony of Algiers, in Africa, 
is likely to compete with the United States 
in the production of fine Sea Islands. Two 
years ago ten bags were grown ; last year 
140, and this year it is stated that 2,000 bags 
will be produced. This cotton, so far, has 
been sent to Havre, and the prices realized 
were from 3s. 4d. (58e.) to 4s. ($1) per 
pound.” 
CHEMISTRY 
FOR SMALL AND LARGE BOYS AND GIRLS. 
CHAPTER III. 
27. Having learned that every thing is 
made up of very minute atoms, and that 
most substances contain different kinds of 
atoms, let us suppose that we know enough 
of the art of chemistry to separate these 
atoms from each other and examine them. 
Before we begin this, however, we must get 
a great mass of them together by them¬ 
selves, so that we can see them. We will 
then suppose that we have a lot of little 
boxes, into which we can put the separate 
atoms of the same kind, as we pull to pieces 
various compound bodies. For particular 
reasons we will mark these boxes with cer¬ 
tain letters, as follows : 
H 
C 
0 
N 
S 
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
P 
Cl 
Oa 
K 
Na 
6 
7 
s 
9 
10 
Mg 
Fe 
Ai 
Si 
Mil 
11 
15 
is 
14 
15 
to 
00 
c/j 
we will 
take to 
pieces 
a little 
particle of 
common 
sugar. 
Here 
we find 
ten atoms of one kind to put in the first box, 
H ; twelve atoms of another kind, to put in 
the second box, C ; and ten atoms, of a still 
different kind, to put in the third box, O. 
The smallest particle of sugar, then, consists 
of thirty-two atoms arranged together—per¬ 
haps, as a boy would pile up together ten 
small white blocks, twelve larger black ones, 
and ten still larger blue ones. 
29. Next we will examine a particle of 
chalk. We have first one atom of metal, 
which we will put in the eighth box, Ca; 
then one atom of the same kind as we have 
already put in the second box, C ; and we 
have three more atoms, all alike, and of the 
same kind as those in the third box, 0. 
30. Next take a particle of saleratus. We 
find one atom of bright metal, which we will 
put in the ninth box, K ; two atoms like those 
in the second box, C, and five more atoms 
all alike and of the same kind as those in 
the box O. 
30. Next divide a particle of water into 
its two kinds of atoms, and we shall have 
one atom for the first box, H. and one for 
the third box, O. 
32. Next, let us examine a particle of pure 
clay, and we shall find two atoms of a metal 
for the thirteenth box, Al, and three atoms 
more for the box 0. 
33. Examining a particle of gypsum (Plas¬ 
ter of Paris), we shall find one atom of 
sulphur, for the fifth box, S ; one atom of a 
metal, for the box Ca; and four more for the 
box 0. 
34. Examining green vitriol, we have one 
atom of iron, for the box Fe ; one atom of 
sulphur, for the box S, and four atoms more 
for the box 0. 
35. Burn a piece of bone thoroughly, and 
in a particle of this we shall have one atom 
of metal for box Ca; one atom of phospho¬ 
rus for box P, and six atoms more for the 
box 0. 
36. Examine a particle of salt, next, and 
we shall find one atom for the box Cl, and 
one of metal for the box Na. 
| 37. Now here are some curious facts. In 
every thing we have examined, except the 
last, we have found some atoms for the third 
box, O. Who would have thought that we 
should find some of the same kind of atoms 
in sugar, bones, and poisonous green vitriol, 
1 and yet this is the fact. 
38. Take 3 atoms from the box H, 4 atoms 
from C, and 3 atoms from O, and we have 
precisely the materials for forming a parti¬ 
cle of vinegar ; while 10 atoms from H, 12 
fromC, and 10 from O, will be exactly what 
is wanted for a particle of sugar. 
39. Put together one atom from the box 
Na ; five from O, and two from C, and we 
have a particle of common cooking soda ; 
while one from Na, four from O, and one 
from S. produces a particle of Glaubber 
salts. 
40. Well here is something still more 
strange. Leave out the metals (except iron), 
such as gold, silver, copper, &c., and collect 
every thing you can find or think of—and 
can you not count a full thousand names of 
different things?—and you will find that when 
they are all separated into their different 
atoms, there will only be fifteen kinds of 
these atoms. Those 15 boxes, H, C, O, &c., 
will hold them all, and* there will be only one 
kind of atoms in each box. 
41. Chemical Analysis, of which you have 
often heard, is the art of separating these 
various substances into their atoms, or ele¬ 
ments, to find what they are each made of. 
42. Now suppose we fill these 15 boxes 
with masses of their appropriate elements— 
only one kind in a box—and we can then 
draw out of two or three, or more, of them, 
just the kind and number of elements to 
make any substance we may wish to. If we 
desire to produce salt, we will get an equal 
number of atoms from the seventh and tenth 
boxes, Cl and Na, and put them together, 
and pure salt will be formed. So we 
can form a thousand other substances, as 
soon as we have learned by chemical analy¬ 
sis (41) what they are made of. 
43. You thus see, already, why it is that 
chemistry is of so great advantage to us in 
making various substances, as stated in the 
introduction. We shall next inquire how it 
is that so few kinds of atoms can be put to¬ 
gether in such a way as to form such a va¬ 
riety of things. How many kinds of wood, 
stones, colors, vegetables, flowers, &c., can 
you reckon up ? A little boy once counted 
over, for us, nine hundred and thirty-seven 
different things, all of which were .entirely 
made of the fifteen kinds of atoms in our 
boxes above ; and the greater part of them 
were made of the atoms or elements in the 
first four boxes. 
A Blue Rose. —The horticulturists of 
Paris, it is said, have succeeded by artificial 
crossings in obtaining a natural rose of blue 
color, which is the fourth color obtained by 
artificial means—that and the yellow or tea 
rose, the black or purple rose, and the 
striped rose being all inventions, and the re^ 
suit of skillful and scientific gardening. 
