130 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
roform is very useful for killing insects for the 
study of natural history, or for cabinets. My 
plan is to take a small wooden pill-box, drop a 
few drops of chloroform on the bottom, w T here 
it is quickly absorbed, put in the victim, place 
the lid on tight, and in a few minutes the beetle, 
caterpillar, or whatever it is, is sure to die 
happy; and what is of more consequence to the 
naturalist, in good shape, and does not suffer 
the tortures recommended by some old works on 
the preservation, &c., of entomological speci¬ 
mens ; “ such as sticking a pin through the tho¬ 
rax of the insect, putting a piece of card on 
likewise as a safeguard, and then heating the 
end of the pin in the flame of a lamp until the 
poor sufferer expires in agony.” 
Another grand recipe has also gone the 
rounds of the papers, which is “to produce 
either a cherry without stone, or apple without 
seed, I forget which. We must take the young 
tree, split it, take out the pith, reunite the dis¬ 
severed trunk, and lo! our work is accomplished; 
for if (?) the tree lives, it will surely produce a 
fruit without seed. This reminds me of the way 
that some old works recommend to make by- 
bloem, or two-colored striped tulips: a red and 
a white tulip root must each be split exactly in 
two pieces; the half of the red must be fastened 
and tied to the half of the white, and if a red 
and a white tulip is not produced, it is not the j 
fault of the operator. 
I have also seen in the papers the celebrated j 
curculio trap, viz., a wide-necked and wide¬ 
mouthed bottle, half filled with molasses and 
water, and highly recommended by said papers. 
Good! and so it would be, if curculios were 
bent upon suicide and loved switchel; but un¬ 
happily for fruit-growers, the curculio is not so 
desperately bent upon self-destruction, and 
does not love switchel as much as the cele- 
oratea auu.t w —n„,. v wine. I 
will admit, however, that the bottle of molasses 
does some good, even if it does not serve the 
purposes required of becoming a sepulchre for 
all molasses-loving curculio; as on examining 
the contents of a switchel bottle, hung up in the 
orchard of a neighbor, I found above seventy 
black hornets, that eat the overripe plums and 
peaches, several wasps, one unfortunate locus bo¬ 
rer, ( Lapeida Bevittata,) that had probably only 
iust popped in, when examining the premises 
out of mere curiosity; and above eighty moths, 
but of what species I could not determine, as the 
color and form of both wings and body, were 
so disfigured by decay and molasses, as to be— 
as the papers say of bodies found floating in the 
New-York docks—perfectly unrecognizable by 
their dearest friends. However, I thought by 
certain marks that some of the victims were 
the perfect moth of a cut worm so destructive 
to young plants. Many persons thus seeing 
the bottle well filled with insects, and not ex¬ 
amining the contents, would take it for granted 
that many of the much dreaded and little known 
curculio were amongst the number, and would 
tell of the successful experiment to their neigh¬ 
bors who would also go and do likewise. I say 
little known curculio, as many people who talk 
so learnedly about it, have merely a speaking 
and not a personal acquaintance with the little 
depredator; for when a reward was offered for 
the best plan of destroying it, some wise Jersey- 
man sent two large bottles full of May-bugs, as 
specimens of his prowess in the curculio ex¬ 
terminating line. Even in our last week’s vil¬ 
lage paper, I saw an article copied from the 
Maine Farmer, in which the crown imperial, 
(Frittillaria ,) is recommended to be grown in¬ 
stead of the potato. Now this may all do very 
well for those persons whose delicate olfactory 
nerves delight in (he peculiar fragrance emitted 
by a certain little black and white animal, 
(Mephitcs Americana,) very destructive to do¬ 
mestic poultry, and before whom even the 
stately shanghai may with cause tremble in his 
feathered hose; but for my own part the per¬ 
fumes of one uncovered and uncooked root of 
the crown imperial in my study is enough to 
drive all study out of my head for the rest of 
the day; perhaps, however, the cooking pro¬ 
cess may render it not only palatable, but even 
delicious, but I doubt very much of its capabil¬ 
ities as a field-crop. I think now I have pointed 
out enough popular fallacies, copied into the 
different journals without consideration, for the 
present, although I might proceed almost ad, 
infinitum. G. 
Byrnesville. 
AGRICULTURAL TOUR IN GERMANY.—NO. 9. 
BY COUNT DE GOURCY. 
Translated for the American Agriculturist from the Journal 
d’Agriculture Pratique. 
I observed many fields of flax still in flower, 
along the road from Ochsenhausen to Biberach. 
It is not more than half as tall as that grown 
in Flanders. The villages arc well built; the 
dwelling-houses, many of which are of one 
story, have newly painted window-shutters, 
which afford evidence of the comfort and habits 
of neatness of the inmates. The farmers are 
for the most part owners of their farms; they 
have a good number of cattle; one was men¬ 
tioned to me who has not less than thirty horned 
beasts, seven working horses, fifty sheep, and 
six swine. The only Schwerz plows I have ob- 
A »orkooclj vro ro il'lC'pC UObvl 
by M. Horn. 
A recently-constructed building, "used as a 
public school, was the only one which par¬ 
ticularly attracted my attention. 
In the valley of the Danube, rutabagas and 
cabbages take the place of beets. 
A little beyond Biberach I crossed valleys 
with a peaty soil. I saw them only while they 
were being improved with soil and marl, taken 
from the adjoining hills. On the soil where 
turf has been cut, good meadows have been 
formed, after providing for the escape of the 
water. The nearer we approach lake Constance, 
the more densely is the country inhabited. The 
villages are less remote from each other; their 
churches are more splendid, their steeples lofty 
and ornamental. The woods have more de¬ 
ciduous trees, and fewer resinous ones; while 
the scattered farm-houses and mills enliven the 
landscape, a large number of saw-mills, and ex¬ 
tensive irrigating arrangements, may be ob¬ 
served. The country in the vicinity of the 
town of Ravensburg is particularly beautiful 
and rich; near this the convent of Weingarten 
strikes the view, which owes its name to the 
beautiful banks covered with vines, with which 
it is surrounded. This is the most beautiful 
and richest portion of the long valley which I 
have just crossed. The eye rests with gratifica¬ 
tion on fine orchards and poppy fields, many of 
which still bear their burthen of white and rose- 
colored flowers. I observed some crops of pump¬ 
kins and hemp, which were certainly very 
vigorous. 
We arrived during a beating rain, at about ten 
o’clock in the morning, on the border of the 
large and beautiful lake Constance. Friedrichs- 
hafen is a very small town ; since the railroad 
brings many bathers here from the interior of 
the country, it has increased in size by the con¬ 
struction of a crowd of pretty cottages, from 
which a view of the Alps and the lake may be 
obtained. Each of these houses has in front of 
it a fine garden, which reaches to the water’s 
edge. The bathers occupy it during one season 
of the year only. 
There are several very fine hotels at Fried- 
richshafen, and many beautiful steamboats, 
which plow this little inland sea, departing and 
arriving daily. The king of Wirtemburg has 
converted an ancient and very beautiful monas¬ 
tery, elevated on a kind of promontory, into a 
country-seat. An agricultural school, located 
at about three miles from Friedrichshafen, was 
to be visited by me—the very unfavorable 
weather prevented this. 
At about two o’clock I got on board a steam¬ 
boat, which conducted me to Romanshorn, one 
of the headlands on lake Constance, where a 
beautiful view may be had. I afterwards passed 
on board another steamer coming from Con¬ 
stance and proceeding to Arbonne, which con¬ 
veyed me to the towm of Saint-Gall. I gazed 
for several hours on that beautiful bank, de¬ 
corated with fine houses, villages, and small 
towns, behind which a rich plain spreads out be¬ 
fore the eye, covered with fruit-trees, vines, rich 
herbage, and well-cultivated fields, the whole 
surmounted by mountains toweling in alpine 
grandeur. From Rohrsack to Saint-Gall the dis¬ 
tance is about five miles. I erred in making this 
trip in a closed carriage, the team of which went 
almost at a walk. By proceeding on foot I could 
have arrived sooner, and would have enjoyed tne 
view of this beautiful country, where there is 
sftinpiliJng now itiful to be admii cd al¬ 
most at every step. Saint-Gall is a charming- 
city, in a delightful situation; it is also famous 
for industry and commercial enterprise. Its in¬ 
habitants are rich, or in easy circumstances at 
least. The interior of the city and its suburbs 
are adorned with pleasant dwellings; the hotels 
are numerous and comfortable; the dwellings 
of the small land-owners, dotted all around 
upon the slopes of the neighboring hills, arc 
pleasing and commodious; while their whole 
exterior evidences a certain degree of prosperity. 
During the long walk which T took in the 
vicinity of Saint-Gall the following day—occu¬ 
pying from four o’clock in the morning till ten— 
I observed nothing denoting the presence of 
poverty. I sincerely regretted that the long¬ 
distance still before me, prevented my staying- 
longer in this charming district. 
TnE Two Topers. —There was some consi¬ 
derable meaning in the reply given, to a rich, 
pompous, and, within bounds, hard-drinker, (who 
every day drank just too much, and not much 
too much,) by a toper who would get drunk 
whenever he had an opportunity : Jim, .why do 
vou make a beast ot yourself, in this way ? 
"Why don’t you drink like a gentleman? Why 
do n’t you drink as I do? I w-w-ould, Colonel, 
if I had the means —have n’t the m-m-eam, 
Colonel! The by-standards, who well knew 
how much more the Colonel could and did drink 
than his weaker-headed brother, laughed loud 
and long at this palpable hit.— Knickerbocker. 
Tael Corn.— The correspondent in Illinois, 
who when he came east left corn-stalks twenty- 
five feet high, with twelve ears a foot and a hall 
in length on each, and on the top of every stalk 
a full-grown gourd-shell, with a pint and a half 
