46 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
land on which they run. A good shepherd and his dog can take 
care of 1,000 to 1,500 sheep, or more, and feed them in winter. 
8. Can a practical common sense man, one that is well acquaint¬ 
ed with the management of sheep, be had, and for a term of years, 
and at what salary ? Such men may no doubt be had, at a salary 
of $200 per annum, and board. £C? = Should any one who reads 
this be disposed to engage, and can bring evidence of his qualifica¬ 
tions and chaiaeter, he may advise us of the fa.ct, or address Mr. 
Diehard. 
From the representation given of the country, we feel a strong 
conviction, that the district described is well adapted to sheep hus¬ 
bandry, and that it might be rendered there a profitable business. 
F. I. Fenn seriously asks our instructions for cultivating 
white beans; and we give them. Plant as early as you do Indian 
corn, or 20th May, in hills or drills; the rows two and a half feet 
apart—the hills eighteen inches asunder, four beans in a hill; or if 
in drills, one plant may grow in every six inches or less; keep 
the crop free from weeds, and the surface of the soil open—and 
harvest when the crop is ripe. The soil described will do to try , 
and it may be improved by dung, and possibly by plaster. Note 
down (he treatment of the crop, the expense, the product, and the 
profit or loss: and improve your second year’s practice by the er¬ 
rors of the first. Take counsel from your experience. White 
beans will not improve any soil, though they are often a profitable 
crop. The poorer the soil, the lighter the crop. Coarse dung is 
adapted to this crop, and should be buried; and a grass ley, once 
ploughed and well harrowed, will add much to the product. 
CALORIC, 
Is the matter of heat, in contradistinction to the sensation 
which it produces. It is an imponderable fluid, which exists in 
all terrestrial bodies, however cold to the touch, in a greater or 
less degree, as in air f water, wood, iron, Sic., and is chemically 
combined with them. It is often termed latent heat. It is in¬ 
terposed between the molecules or atoms of matter, tends to se¬ 
parate them from each other, and when accumulated beyond its 
natural quantity, the excess acts as heat, changing solids into li¬ 
quids, and liquids into vapor—as ice into water, and water into 
steam. “ Matters which exist naturally in a gaseous state, and 
which are rendered solid by being brought into combination with 
other substances, return to their natural state as soon as a sufficient 
degree of heat is applied to destroy the force of affinity which 
unites them to their base. This is illustrated in the burning of 
lime, and boiling of gypsum—the acids, or rather the gases united 
with their base, are expelled by the heat. But those which are not 
origina ly gaseous in their form, as oils, water, and some minerals, 
pass through all the degrees intermediate between their natural 
state and that of imperceptible vapor.— See Chaptal, p. 10. What¬ 
ever brings the atoms of matter violently and closely together, be it 
compression, percussion or friction, or the mixture of two substan¬ 
ces, which, when chemically combined, occupy less volume than 
when separate, tends to expell the caloric which interposed between 
them, and by destroying the chemical union which existed between 
those atoms and the caloric, and to cause sensible heat. Thus 
hammering cold iron upon the anvil, will force out the caloric, and 
the metal will in time become red hot. By rubbing tivo pieces of 
dry hard wood, fire is produced, which existed before in a latent 
state, but which by friction is set free. Water thrown upon quick 
lime or boiled gypsum, often produces a heat which sets fire to build¬ 
ings. In this case the caloric comes from the water. Fifty pounds 
of lime will take up and solidify seventeen pounds of water. The 
caloric which the water contained is thereby set free, and becomes 
sensible heat. The air too, readily elicits fire, and ignites spunk, 
on being violently compressed in a metal tube. Caloric is also dis¬ 
engaged from the atmospheric air by combustion. As condensa¬ 
tion produces heat, so expansion or evaporation produces cold, by 
imbibing caloric from surrounding objects. Spontaneous combus¬ 
tion arises from the chemical union of matters, which occupy, in 
their combined form, less space than when separate. Both heat 
and cold are artificially produced by mixtures, one kind abstracting 
heat from the surrounding objects, and producing cold, and the 
other giving it off, and producing heat. Hence the coolness which 
is produced by watering or sprinkling during the heats of summer. 
By the evaporation which ensues, the volume of water employed be¬ 
comes greatly enlarged, and the heat of the atmosphere interposes 
between its particles, becomes latent, and is carried off with the va¬ 
por. The more volatile the liquid, the greater the coolness induc¬ 
ed. Ether, ammonia, camphor and alcohol, produce more sudden 
changes in temperature than water. Ether is volatalized at a 
temperature of 98, ammonia at 140, camphor at 145, sulphur at 170, 
alcohol at 176, and water at 212°, or boiling heat; muriat of lime 
becomes volatalized at 230, and mecurvat660° of Fahrenheit; but 
when the heat is abstracted, all these matters return to their natu¬ 
ral state. “ Whenever a body changes its chemical state, (says Dr. 
Black,) it either combines with, or separates from, caloric.” Fix a 
small tin cup with ether in a large watch-glass containing a little 
water, and place both under the receiver of the air pump. The ex¬ 
haustion of the receiver will cause one of the fluids to boil, and the 
other to freeze, at the same instant. — Parke. Mix three parts of 
snow with four parts of potash, immerse the bulb of a thermome¬ 
ter in the mixture, and the quicksilver will show an artificial cold 
of 83 degrees. When water is poured upon dry pulverized plaster 
of Paris, in order to form cornices in rooms, great heat is produced 
by the mixture. This is owing, as in slacking lime, to the water 
giving out its caloric as it becomes solidified in the plaster or 
lime. When the cream in a churn changes from a fluid to a so¬ 
lid, a considerable degree of heat is produced from the same 
cause. 
Although a universally pervading element, and essential to all 
the purposes of organic life, caloric is subservient to the artificial 
use of man in innumerable ways; and those who understand best 
its properties and laws, will best know how to apply it to the use¬ 
ful purposes of life. Heat is necessary to the germination of the 
seed, the developement of the plant, and the maturity of the fruit; 
it is also necessary to the fermentation of manures. Some plants 
grow, and some fruits ripen, in a temperature of 45 to 50, while 
others require a heat of 60 to 80 to perfect their maturity. Light 
porous soils, as sands and gravels, becomes heated by the sun’s 
rays much sooner than compact heavy clays, and they part with 
their heat more readily, particularly sands, when the sun is obscur¬ 
ed or withdrawn. The color of soils has also an influence upon 
their capacity for absorbing or retaining heat. Davy found that a 
black soil, containing nearly one-fourth of vegetable matter, when 
exposed to the sun, acquired in one hour an increased temperature 
of 23 degrees, while whi'e soil, whose base was chalk, under a si¬ 
milar exposure, acquired an increased temperature of only 4 de¬ 
grees. But the black earth, removed into the shade, lost again, in 
half an hour, 15 degrees of its acquired heat; and the white earth, 
in the ssme time and position, lost 4 degrees, or all it had acquired. 
In green houses, the walls are sometimes blackened, and the soil 
spread with the soot, in order to concentrate and fix the heat, and 
this has been known to raise the temperature in the house several 
degrees. On the table lands of the Alps, it is not uncommon to 
throw black earth upon the snow, to hasten its thawing, and expe¬ 
dite its preparation tor tillage. Aspect has also a great influence 
in determining the influence of the sun’s rays upon the soil. All 
slopes to the south, south-east, and south-wt st, are warmer than 
those in opposite directions. The nearer to a right angle the sun’s 
rays fall upon a surface, the greater the heat they impart. Thus in 
constructing green houses, it is the rule to give the glass that slope 
which will bring it at right angles with the rays of the meridian 
sun, at the season its heat is most needed to excite rapid growth. 
The practical benefits which the farmer may draw from the con¬ 
sideration of the preceding facts, are many and important. We 
shall confine ourselves to a notice of a few of them. 
1. They show the importance of draining. Water is a bad con¬ 
ductor of heat. Land well drained may be worked and planted ten 
days or a fortnight earlier than if in a wet condition. If there is 
an excess of water in the soil, or reposing upon the subsoil, it pre¬ 
vents the ground acquiring the heat, in summer, necessary to the 
healthy growth and early maturity of farm crops, and necessary, 
also, to the decomposition of vegetable manures. If the water 
comes from springs, it is always of a cold temperature; if it is sur¬ 
face water reposing upon the subsoil, it becomes stagnant—in both 
cases it is unfriendly to an early or health}’ growth of plants. 
2. They show that, the capacities of soils for heat may be increas¬ 
ed, by mixing with those which are light colored, darker earths, as 
swamp muck, wash of the roads, earth from head lands and ditches, 
