80 
VILLAGE LECTURES—K0. 5. 
grew without any further care except flowing 
in the winter. In the fall of 1848, I gathered 
from ten rods, where no sand had been spread, 
as many bushels of cranberries, while on the 
part sanded I had as many quarts. The latter 
are now doing better, having got the advantage 
of the grass, and I think will finally work it 
out. I have this year, on the quarter of an 
acre offered for premium, quite a good crop, | 
although the worms destroyed nearly one half. 
I have picked one square rod of the light-colored 
variety, set in mud, and it yielded two bushels 
and twelve quarts. The large red variety yield¬ 
ed on the mud two bushels to the square rod. 
The whole quarter is not yet gathered; it will 
yield about thirty-five bushels, about one half 
of the vines being set on mud and one half on 
sand. 
In selecting meadow for cranberries, it is 
highly necessary to select such as will not dry 
in summer; but much also depends on the selec¬ 
tion of the vines, as the committee will see by 
the samples here presented, all having the same 
soil and the same treatment. The samples are 
not selected, but sent in precisely as they grew. 
The whole expense on the above bog, up to the 
present time, does not exceed $40. 
I have received from the sales of cranberries, 
up to the fall of 1845, 
$320 
Deduct for picking, one fourth, 
$80 
All other expenses for setting, 
interest, &c., 
40 
— 
120 
Net profits, 
$200 
Edward Tiiaciier. 
Yarmouth Port , October 15th, 1850. 
-- 
VILLAGE LECTURES.—No. 5. 
Now, I must not forget that I ought to be re¬ 
ferring more espicially to the fact that all 
people and all living animals are loading the 
air with the poisonous gas which comes up 
through the windpipe chimney, from the fur¬ 
naces burning inside them. But let us still 
further digress for one minute, just to point out 
the fact which thus appears, that a large por¬ 
tion of the food an animal eats, is in reality 
wasted—spent as fuel—burned up within it, 
just to maintain its bodily heat. And the farm¬ 
er might take a hint from that; of course, if his 
feeding cattle or sheep are exposed to cold and 
rain, they will need burn more fuel to keep 
the heat of life within them. Keep them warm 
artificially, and less of the turnip and hay which 
they eat will be burned up within them; keep 
them quiet in stalls or boxes, instead of in yards 
or fields, where they can run about, and the 
bellows will not work so actively, and the fire 
will not burn so fiercely in their lungs, and 
less of the food will be spent in the mere act of 
burning as fuel—more will be available for the 
purpose for which food is given ; that is, for the 
formation of fat and the promotion of growth. 
It is not unfrequently the case that a lot of 
j sheep, folded out in cold weather on the turnip 
field, gain no flesh at all. The fact is, every 
bit of food that is eaten by them is burned up 
within them just to preserve animal heat, and 
the farmer might just as well have thrown it all 
into the fire at once ; but house those sheep, or 
feed them in sheltered yards, where they lose 
heat less rapidly, they will not need so much 
fuel to keep themselves comfortable, and some 
of their food will form flesh. 
Now let us return to the fact that the air is 
being poisoned by all this breathing and fire¬ 
burning. You will find that a very little breath¬ 
ing through some lime water will make it mud¬ 
dy enough, proving how much more carbonic 
acid, and how much less oxygen, there is in the 
air that is breathed out, than in the air that is 
breathed in. The fact is, the air we breathe 
out contains 100 times more carbonic acid than 
the air we breathe in. A man, by the union of 
the air he breathes in with the carbon of his 
food in his lungs, throws out in his breath in this 
way, in the course of a year, about 1£ cwt. of 
charcoal, as much, perhaps, as there is in a sack 
of coals. Indeed, the quantity of carbon or 
charcoal thus added to the air every year by 
the breath of all the animals, human or other¬ 
wise, in Great Britain, is estimated at 2,000,000 
tons’ weight. 
Well then, the air would very soon become 
unfit for man and other animals to live in, were 
it not for the beautiful arrangement of carbonic 
acid gas, being sent into the air, that plants 
remove it. As fast as charcoal in fires and 
candles and in food is uniting with the health¬ 
giving oxygen of the air, and forming the deadly 
gas, the plants are decomposing its carbonic 
acid, and taking the charcoal forming their own 
selves out of it, and giving back the health-giv¬ 
ing oxygen pure to the air again; so that thus, 
the air is maintained fit for use. It is only in 
the daylight, or sunshine, that plants have this 
power, however, and you know that if you want 
to blanch a plant, a rhubarb plant for instance ; 
that is, hinder it from becoming woody, or hin¬ 
der it from decomposing the carbonic acid of the 
air, and so obtaining charcoal to form wood, all 
that you have to do is to keep it from the light. 
