196 
A 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
fruit, have tender bowels, and I have noticed I 
that they are almost universally pallid ; while, 
on the other hand, children who are allowed a 
moderate daily proportion of sound fruit are 
usually florid, especially among the poor. I 
therefore imagine that the use of fruit facilitates 
the introduction of iron, the coloring principle of 
the blood into the circulating system. When 
living in the country, with the advantages of a 
large garden and plenty of fruit, I always 
allowed my children a liberal proportion, and 
I never had occasion to treat them either for 
diarrhoea or skin eruptions, though it is a very 
common opinion that cutaneous diseases are 
often brought on by the too free use of fruit. 
On first removing my family to town, the usual 
supply being cut off, two or three of the younger 
ones became effected with obstinate diarrhoea 
and dysentery, which resisted all the ordinary 
modes of medical treatment. My opinion on 
the subject afterwards induced me to give them 
a good proportion of fruit every day, as Grapes, 
Oranges, ripe Apples, &c., when all the symtoms 
presently subsided, and they have never since 
been troubled either with bowel complaints or 
skin eruptions to any noticeable extent. The 
editor of the Lancet , in animadverting on the 
“health of London during the week ending 
August 20,” makes the following remarks:— 
“The deaths ascribed to diarrhoea arc 126, of 
which 115 occurred among children. The 
tender age of nearly all the sufferers, 97 of them 
not having completed their first year, is suffi¬ 
cient to dispel the popular error that the use 
of fruit is the exciting cause.” Several years 
ago a serious and very fatal epidemic, then called 
“ English cholera,” prevailed in the neighbor¬ 
hood where I was living. It chiefly attacked 
very young children and old people, and was 
almost as rapid in its progress as the Asiatic 
form. This epidemic occurred in the autumn, 
and many people, influenced by the common 
prejudice, dug holes in their gardens and buried 
all their fruit, and some even went so far as to 
destroy the trees. I made many inquiries as to 
the previous habits of the victims of this epide¬ 
mic, and in almost eveiy case I learnt that fruit 
had not for some time previously formed any 
part of their diet. One writer in the Lancet 
has strongly rocommended the use of baked 
fruit as a preventive of cholera, and another 
has strenously advocated the administration of 
diluted sulphuric acid during the actual attack, 
and the proofs brought forward of their good 
effects, correspond with my own experience. 
It is asserted that the cholera has never yet 
prevailed in the cider counties, nor in Birming¬ 
ham, where acidulated treacle beer and sulphuric 
acid lemonade arc freely used to obviate the 
poisonous effects of white-lead in the manufac¬ 
tories. — M. D., in the London Times. 
-9-9* - 
The way to have good Bacon. — Salt your 
meat in a good cask; put salt sufficient on each 
layer to cover it; three or four days after, make 
a brine as strong as can be made, in boiling 
water; skim the brine while making; when 
cool, cover the meat with it, and keep it under 
the brine six weeks; then let it drain a few 
minutes, and rub thoroughly with black pepper 
ground fine, (the finer the better,) hang and 
smoke until your bacon is well cured. If it 
hangs in the smoke house twelve months, you 
need have no fears of bogs or skippers. — Prai¬ 
rie Farmer. 
A Frenchman meeting an English soldier with 
a Waterloo medal, began snecringly to animad¬ 
vert on the British Government for bestowing 
such a trifle, which did not cost them three 
francs. 
“ That is true to be sure,” replied the soldier; 
“ it did not cost the English Government three 
francs, but it cost the French a Napoleon .” 
- » 9 • - 
A little child hearing a sermon, and observ¬ 
ing the minister very vehement in his words 
and gestures cried out, “ Mother, why don’t the 
people let the man out of the box!” 
TASTE IN WASHINGTON 
The following pointed and elegant article, prin. 
cipally on the architecture of the city of Wash¬ 
ington, is from the pen of the late celebrated 
sculptor, Gkeenough. It is a model in style 
and sentiment. He wrote as well as he chiseled, 
and this is giving him high praise. 
It surely cannot be asking too much that the 
seat of government, where the national struc¬ 
tures rise, and are yearly increasing in number 
and importance, should present a specimen of 
what the country can afford in material and 
workmanship, in design and ornament. If this 
were resolved on, a stimulus would be given 
to exertion, while the constant experience here 
acquired would soon perfect a school of archi¬ 
tectural design. 
The defects of the stone of which the Capitol 
was built, could have been no secret to Mr. Bul- 
finch. Had there existed a board, or a school, 
or any other responsible depository of architect¬ 
ural experience, we should not have witnessed 
the deplorable recurrence of the same quarries 
for the construction of the Patent Office and the 
Treasury buildings. The outlay in paint alone, 
to which recourse has been had in order to 
sheathe this friable material, would have main¬ 
tained a school which would have saved us from 
the blunder, not to mention the great advantage 
we should have derived from its designs and its 
pupils. Had the amount expended in white 
lead been invested, a fund would have now ac¬ 
cumulated sufficient to reface them all with mar¬ 
ble. I am convinced that true economy would 
at this moment order the Potomac stone, where- 
ever it has been used, to be immediately replaced 
by a better material. 
Setting aside, however, the question of econo¬ 
my, and looking at the question of propriety, can 
any thing be more absurd than to expend mil¬ 
lions upon noble pieces of masonry, and then to 
smear them with lead—thereby reducing them 
to a level with the meanest shingle palace? 
Stone among building materials, standing where 
gold stands among metals, to paint stone is like 
covering gold with tin-foil. So far has this been 
carried, that even in the Rotunda, where no con¬ 
ceivable motive could exist for the vandalism, 
the entire masonry has been painted, and that, 
too, of various tints, so that I will venture to af¬ 
firm that many carry away the idea that the 
whole is but a piece of carpenter’s work. The 
treatment of the Treasury buildings, where the 
granite basement has been painted of one co¬ 
lor, the columns of a secoud, and the wall be¬ 
hind them of a third, where even the lampposts 
have been daubed with divers tints, like a bar¬ 
ber’s pole, is noticed with priceless naivete in 
an important public document as a neat piece 
of work. What shall we say of the balustrades, 
where massive iron bars have been driven bodily 
into the columns, as though a column in a first 
class building might be treated like a blind wall 
in the basest structure, and that, too, without a 
shadow of need ? What shall we say of the 
iron railings that obtrude upon the eye about 
the blockings of the Patent Office, and veil, 
with their inharmonious blackness, the organ¬ 
ization of that building? What of the one slen¬ 
der chimney of red brick, which peers over the 
broken profile of the marble Post-Office ? Will 
any adept in the science of construction explain 
why the gas light which is seen at the eastern 
entrance of the Capitol, was made to hang with 
so many feet of tiny pipe, and then secured by 
shabby wires driven into the columns? Would 
any person conversant with the proprieties of 
building tolerate such a slovenly arrangement 
in a private house, or in a private stable, if col¬ 
umns formed a feature of it ? Do not such ab¬ 
surd and ignorant malpractices look as if a bar¬ 
barous race had undertaken to enjoy the mag¬ 
nificence of a conquered people, and not known 
how to set about it? Does any one fancy that 
the uninstructed multitude does not feel these 
incongruities? It is not so. As well may you 
hope to sin against grammar in your speeches, | 
and against decency and self-respect in your 
dress or deportment, and expect that it will pass 
unobserved. 
The effect produced by the grounds and 
shrubbery in the neighborhood of the Capitol 
deserve a moment’s attention. There is some¬ 
what in flower beds and fancy gardening, with 
corbeilles of ephemeral plants, so out of all keep¬ 
ing with the character and functions of this 
edifice, as to give the spectator a painful sense 
that the idea of the adaptation of grounds to 
buildings has never recurred to those whose 
duty it was to look after these matters. Trees 
and verdure are beautiful, and flowers still more 
so, but they arc impertinent adjuncts to the 
Capitol of the United States, and where they 
veil and obstruct the view of the facade , as at 
the Post-Office, are insufferable. The creeping 
vines that have been led over the arches which 
support the platform in rear of the Naval monu¬ 
ment, are a grosser instance of misguided search 
after the picturesque. If these arches are 
properly constructed, the vines are impertinent, 
for they hide their articulation. Whether well 
or ill built, the proximity of these vines is a de¬ 
structive element, uselessly added to the inevita¬ 
ble wear of the weather. Further, if the prin¬ 
ciple which guided their introduction here be a 
sound one, logical sequence and harmony call 
for their appearance in other like situations. 
The position of the group of Columbus and 
the Indian girl is anomalous and absurd; ano¬ 
malous, because it invades the front view of the 
portico, chokes the facade , and hides another 
statue byl the same artist; absurd, because it 
treats the building as somewhat on which to 
mount into conspicuous view, not as a noble and 
important vase which it is called humbly to 
adorn and illustrate. The statue of Washington 
is surrounded by dwarf cypress and clumps of 
rose-bush. These are impertinent and ridicu¬ 
lous—impertinent because they hide the pedes¬ 
tal and obstruct the view of the inscription, thus 
overlaying the intention of the monument, and 
that for the mere display of ephemeral vegeta¬ 
tion, a phenomenon, however attractive, not 
here in place—ridiculous, because they seem as 
if intended in some way to help and eke out the 
sculpture; which, when a statue of this class 
requires it, must be done by replacing it with 
something worthy to stand alone. The grass 
within the railing, if cut close, destroys the 
monumental effect, by the exhibition of frequent 
care; if neglected, offends by its rank growth 
and decay. The railings which have been placed 
about the statues of the Capitol accuse a want 
of respect for the public property. They accuse 
it without remedying it; for, in spite of their 
protection, perhaps because of it, the statues 
of Columbus and of Washington have received 
more injury in the few years that they have 
been so guarded, than many figures wrought 
before the birth of Christ have suffered in com¬ 
ing to us through the so-called dark ages. I 
have several times seen boys at play on the por¬ 
tico of the Capitol; which, if right, makes it 
wrong there to place costly sculptures. If I 
protest against iron railings around statuary, it 
is because I believe they avail not for their ob¬ 
ject. I trust to the intelligence of the many to 
do justice to the artistic efforts made for their 
sake. In the end, I believe the people will be 
the best guardians of public works here, as they 
have proved themselves elsewhere. Four lamps 
have been placed around the statue of Wash¬ 
ington ; by night, they light only the feet of the 
figure; by day, they exactly obstruct two of 
the principal views of it. I doubt not that the 
person who so placed these lights meant to do 
the statue a service. He probably never heard 
of “the eight views” of a statue. These ever- 
jarring principles of magnificence and economy 
—laying out millions for dignity, and denying 
the thousands necessary to insure care, intelli¬ 
gence and taste, in their conservation and expo¬ 
sition—produced a certain compound of preten¬ 
sion and meanness of effect, highly to be depre¬ 
cated in great public works. I say highly to be 
deprecated, for, however they who have given 
