656 
| or commodities. 
mon use are noticed in the articles BALANCE and 
Srrntyarp; and peculiar kinds, recently in- 
mer or autumn, unless the weevils hibernate, as 
they are ready to take the field in the early 
spring, and in April they abound on the broom 
and furze in Norfolk, Surrey, &c. It is equally 
remarkable that we are ignorant where the lar- 
ve feed. 
“Tgnorant as we are of the early stages of 
these weevils, the only remedies we can at pre- 
sent apply will be in destroying or annoying 
them in their beetle state ; and from their horny 
shells and power of contracting and protecting 
their members, it is difficult to find any applica- 
tion that will extirpate them without injuring 
the plant. For the garden, I should recommend 
the tarring or painting two strips of canvas, and 
placing one on each side of a row of pease early 
in the morning, and two or three hours after ; by 
shaking the plants the weevils would fall down and 
be held fast by the adhesive surface. This might be 
repeated several times each day, until it would be 
seen that their numbers were sufficiently reduced 
to secure the crop. Of course the painting or 
tarring must be repeated whenever it is too dry 
to fix the objects falling down. Neither soot, 
wood-ashes, nor lime will injure the weevils, we 
are informed and can readily believe; yet by 
dusting over the pease early in the morning with 
any or all of these powders, whilst the leaves are 
damp, their food will be rendered so unpalatable 
that the enemy will be driven to forage else- 
where; and if a row of pease were sown near, 
which was left undusted, the beetles would re- 
sort thither, and when it was clear by the ero- 
sion of the leaves that the plague was congre- 
gated there, boiling water poured along the line 
would eradicate them, and thus the principal 
sowing might be saved; or the tarred canvas 
might be most efficiently employed, if that plan’ 
were preferred. Mr. Baker has found harrowing 
or hoeing beneficial when a field of pease is at- 
tacked by the weevils. It should be done whilst 
the dew is upon them, that the earth may ad- 
here and make the plants unpalatable; and he 
says he has found this one of the most successful 
| modes of checking the ravages of the turnip-fly.” 
WEIGHING MACHINE. A machine for 
promptly ascertaining the weight of any objects 
The kinds of it in most com- 
vented kinds, and kinds more or less specially 
adapted to the uses of the farmer, the miller, the 
corn-merchant, and other parties who deal in 
agricultural produce, are so numerous that we 
_ can afford only to notice a few of the most useful. 
Smith’s portable weighing machine, invented 
_ about 21 years ago by Mr. John Smith of Edin- 
burgh, is a contrivance on the principle of the 
_ Roman steelyard for weighing bags or sacks of 
| corn, flour, or other goods. 
_ be weighed is placed on a stand on one side of 
The bag or sack to 
the machine, which is provided with arms for 
holding the sack open so as to allow portions of 
isesaierrer soe aera 
WEIGHING MACHINE. 
the corn or other goods to be added or abstracted; 
and its weight is immediately ascertained by 
putting one or more small weights on a small 
platform on the other side. The machine, when 
in working order, stands like a frame upon the 
floor, but it is provided with an under-support 
and two small wheels,—and can easily be re- 
moved from place to place in the manner of a 
common wheel-barrow. 
The balance weighing machine for sacks of 
corn, bags of flour, and similar bulks and com- 
modities, presents a general resemblance to 
Smith’s, and has as good or better adaptations 
to the barn, and possesses similar facilities for 
holding sacks and for removal from place to 
place; but it is constructed on the balance prin- 
ciple instead of the steelyard one, and requires 
an amount of weights equal to the absolute 
weight of the bodies weighed, and is made in 
various ways, either chiefly of cast-iron or with 
a frame-work of wood, and at cost prices varying 
from £5 to upwards of £8. 
The hydrostatic weighing machine was in- 
vented by Mr. Milne of Edinburgh, and indicates 
the weight of a body by the rise of a column of 
mercury. A cylindrical cistern containing mer- 
cury communicates with a small tube, having 
attached to it a graduated scale; a loose piston 
floats on the surface of the mercury in the cis- 
tern; and a scale-board is attached to the pis- 
ton-rod. Any body placed on the scale-board 
causes the piston to sink in the mercury, and 
to displace a portion of it equal to the body’s 
weight; and the displaced portion rises round 
the sides of the piston proportionally to the 
quantity displaced, and also rises to a propor- 
tional height in the tube, and thereby indicates 
the absolute weight of the body on the graduated 
scale. 
The weighing machines of Mr. James of Lon- 
don are constructed on a peculiar principle, and 
possess a wonderful variety of forms and adapta- 
tions. Their scale-boards do not rest upon a 
system of levers, as in the common forms of 
machines for weighing heavy bodies, but are 
suspended from the extremity of the beam, as in 
the ordinary balance, and at the same time are 
free from all embarrassment by chains or cord- 
age. These machines obtained prizes from the 
French Government, and from the Highland and 
Agricultural Society of Scotland, and from the 
Royal Agricultural Society of England; and the 
report of the last of these says respecting them : 
‘Tt would require more space than can be de- 
voted to this subject to explain the causes of 
error incident to all weighing machines hitherto 
made, and from which Mr. James’s are free. The 
principle is mathematically correct, and mechan- 
ically carried out, as is proved by placing the 
object to be weighed on any part of the scale- 
board, when it will be found to be balanced by 
the same weight. Scale-boards of the largest 
dimensions may be used; and it is hoped that 
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