THE CULTIVATOR. 
S3 
The accompanying figure represents a simple but very 
useful implement, which no farmer should be without. 
It is nothing new, except the tongue. I am induced to 
present it to the public, by seeing its usefulness tested in 
smoothing down roads previous to freezing. If each 
path master (or road supervisor) would procure one and 
go over his district, just before freezing up, it would con¬ 
fer a greater public benefit than the same amount of la¬ 
bor bestowed in any other way, by making a smooth 
sleigh track through the winter. I have represented it 
with saddles or bolsters for drawing logs, which can be 
taken off when it is wanted for any other use. They are 
used by the sawyers in this region to draw logs into the 
mill from remote parts of the yard. Large saw logs are 
easily loaded, and more easily removed in this than in 
any other way, even on bare ground. If the farmer is 
obliged to convey any thing over the roads, when they 
are partially frozen, this will draw more easily than any 
thing else; and instead of being like the wagon, detri¬ 
mental to the road, is actually beneficial. 
It is made of two or more plank, according to their 
width. They may be sawn in a sawmill, by cutting part 
one way, and then reversing the ends of the log and saw¬ 
ing the other. The tongue is attached by means of eyes 
passing through the fore part, secured by nuts; these are 
easily taken off when wanted for summer use in drawing- 
stone. Jason Smith. 
Tyre, N. Y., 1844. 
SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. ’ 
Lectures on the Application of Chemistry and Geology to 
Agriculture. By Jas. F. W. Johnston— Part 4th, 8 
vo. pp. 135. Wiley & Putnam, New-York. 
This valuable work, as it was issued from the press 
of this country, has been noticed in preceding pages of 
the Cultivator. But when we called the attention of the 
agricultural community to the two volumes published in 
the city of New-York by Wiley & Putnam, the fourth 
part was still wanting. We now have that fourth part 
given to the public by the same publishers, and it com¬ 
pletes the work, and when the several parts are put to¬ 
gether it will form one octavo volume of 620 pages. 
If the first, second, and third parts were valuable and in¬ 
teresting, the concluding fourth part is still more so. To 
the farmers of New-York, who feed stock to make butter 
and cheese, the twentieth lecture, On Milk and its Pro¬ 
ducts, is worth mpre than any heretofore published work 
on these subjects. It contains, in a condensed form, un¬ 
der distinct heads, all that is desirable to be known in re¬ 
lation to butter and cheese as made in Europe. And al¬ 
though it may not be practicable in this country, to fol¬ 
low all the directions given in this lecture, yet the skill¬ 
ful agriculturist will find much information by which he 
may be benefited. To those who make cheese for ex¬ 
port to England, the various methods of preparing it in 
that country will give him hints calculated to make it 
suitable to the taste of his customers. 
On another occasion we stated in the Cultivator, the 
necessity of having pure salt to make good butter. John¬ 
ston in the above mentioned lecture corroborates our for¬ 
mer expressed opinion by the following remarks: 
“ The salt should be as pure as possible, as free, at 
least, from lime and magnesia as it can be obtained, 
since these substances are apt to give it a bitter or other 
disagreeable taste. It is easy, however, to purify the 
common salt of the shops from these impurities, by 
pouring a couple of quarts of boiling water upon a stone 
or two of salt, stirring the whole well about, now and 
then, for a couple of hours, and afterwards straining it 
through a clean cloth. The water which runs through 
is a saturated solution of salt, and contains all the impu¬ 
rities, but may be used for common culinary purposes, 
or may be mixed with the food of the cattle. The salt 
which remains on the cloth is free from the soluble salts 
of lime and magnesia, and may be hung up in the cloth 
till it is dry enough to be used for mixing with the but¬ 
ter or with cheese.” (p. 565.) 
Johnston’s work comes to us in the form of Lectures 
as they were delivered to a class of farmers in England. 
They were published in parts as the lecturer gave them 
to the press after delivery. The fourth now before us 
completes the series, and contains three lectures, being 
the 19th, 20th, and 21 st of the entire course. These 
three treat respectively— Of the Product of the Soil—OJ 
Milk and its Products—Of the feeding of Animals and the 
purposes served by the Food. Each of tbi«se lectures is a 
treasure to the farmer. They are published in a small 
octavo volume by themselves, by Wiley & Putnam, 
(Broadway, New-York, price 31 cents.) The entire se¬ 
ries of twenty-one lectures may also be obtained of them 
and other booksellers, in a handsomely bound volume of 
620 pages for one dollar and fifty cents. The work is 
the most valuable of any of the late publications on ag¬ 
riculture. We do not mean by this commendation to 
depreciate the labors of Liebig. He pointed out many 
new chemical facts applicable to the improvement of ag¬ 
riculture, (some of which however were more theoreti¬ 
cal than practical,) and he led the way for Johnston and 
others to profit by his labors, and render them practically 
useful. Johnston has done so in an eminent degree, and 
his work is a pearl to all practical farmers. 
In the commencement of the 21st and last lecture he 
treats of the substances of which the parts of animals 
consist, viz: the muscles, the fat, the bones, hair, horn, 
wool, &c. He then in the second section asks— Whence 
does the body obtain these substances? Are they contained 
in the food? And continues— 
“ Whence does the body derive all the substances of 
which its several parts consist?” 
“ The answer to this question appears at first sight to 
be easy. They must be obtained from the food. But 
when the inquiry is further considered, a reply to it is 
not so readily given. 
i( It is true, indeed, that the organic part of the food 
contains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen-—the 
elements of which the organic parts of the body are com¬ 
posed. The inorganic matter also which exists in the 
food contains the lime, the magnesia, the potash, the so¬ 
da, the sulphur, the phosphorus, and the iron which ex¬ 
ist in the inorganic parts of the animal body—so that the 
question seems already resolved. The body obtains 
from the food all the elements of which it consists, and 
if these be not present in the food, the body of the ani¬ 
mal cannot be properly built up and supported. 
“ But to the chemist and physiologist the more impor¬ 
tant part of the question still remains. In what state do 
these elements enter into the body? Are the substances of 
which the food consists decomposed after they are taken 
into the stomach? Are their parts first torn asunder and 
then reunited in a different way, so as to form the chem¬ 
ical compounds of which the muscles, bones and blood 
consist? Are the vital powers bound to labor, as it were 
for the existence and support of the body? Do they 
compound or build up, out of their ultimate elements, the 
various substances of which the body is composed—or 
do they obtain these substances ready prepared from the 
vegetable food on which animals in general are fed? 
The answer which recent chemical researches give to 
this second question, forms one of the most beautiful con¬ 
tributions which have been made to animal physiology 
in our time. 
“ We have seen that the flour of wheat and other cul 
tivated grains consists in part of gluten, of albumen, o i 
of casein. These substances all contain nitrogen, and are 
identical in constitution with each other, and with the 
fibrine of which the muscles of animals chiefly consist. 
The substance of the muscles exists ready formed, there¬ 
fore, in the food which the animal eats. The labor of 
the stomach is in consequence restricted to that of merely 
selecting these substances from the food and dispatching 
them to the several part? of the fiorlv. fber 
