facts presented, and the evidence by which they are supported. The change from a single grain, if certain, would be as satisfactory as from any greater numberbut three such changes are required the better to guardment of driving their turkeys, when young, to a against possible mistakes, without adding any considerable difficulty to the operations of the experi ment.] CORN STARCH, We are advised by an excellent house keeper, is no wise inferior to wheat starch, while it can be made with half the labor and expense. As this is the season for making it, we have obtained from our informant, for the Cultivator, Directions for making it.-Take 30 good ears of green corn, fit for eating, grate the corn with a large grater, a lanthorn will do, into a pail of water; turn the whole through a fine metal cullender, or a coarse cloth strainer, to separate the hulls, &c. then change the water two or three times, to render the starch, which settles at the bottom, white and clean; and after the last water is removed, the starch may be cut in pieces, laid out a few days to dry, when it is fit for use, and may be kept any length of time. This quantity will suffice a year for a small family.-Cultivator. From the Southern Agriculturist. EFFECT OF MARSH-MUD ON VEGETATION. finest kinds, and they have had no diseases among [Some of the experiments cited in the following epitome have already been presented to the readers of the Farmers' Register in a more extended form.] From the Cultivator. BONES, HORNS, &c. AS MANURE. Bones are in great demand, in Great Britain, as a manure; and great quantities are annually im ported into that kingdom, from the continent, for this use. They are broken in mills constructed for the purpose, and often upon the farm, by the laborers. Bone dust ordinarily sells at about 2s. or 44 cents, and sometimes as high as 3s. 6d. per bushel; and at this price it is generally found to be a more profitable application than common dung. Bones are frequently applied, and by many preferred, when broken in half or three quarter inch pieces, and sometimes when of larger size. Their durability is in proportion to their size; the smaller A few days before the recent gale in August, they are crushed or ground, the sooner their fertiwe had about an inch thick of marsh-mud, (which lizing properties are exhausted-and the less the had been thrown on the high ground, two months quantity required to be applied. They have been previous,) placed between five or six of the rows applied in various proportions; though the ordinaof an okra bed; shortly after the gale, we found ry dressing is from 20 to 40 bushels per acre; a the leaves dropping from every part of the okra, heavy dressing does not produce corresponding where no marsh mud had been placed, and nothing benefits, and in most cases, no additional benefit. but the decaying stalks are now remaining. The Two bushels of crushed bones are deemed equal okra had arrived at its maturity, and agreeable to to a load or ton of manure. The uncrushed bones the laws of nature, is decaying. But those parts are sold at about 42s. or from nine to ten dollars where the marsh mud had been spread still re- the ton. Their quality is not considered to be immained in full and vigorous growth, and produced paired by their having been boiled. Bones are fruit as usual. Will some of the numerous read-applied as a top-dressing to grass, and harrowed in ers of the Agriculturist, give an explanation of with the grain in tillage crops. The following rethe causes of the above? Was there some pro-sults are selected from a great many, to illustrate perty in the salt earth that produced it? Or may the benefit and economy of bone manure. it have been produced by the roots having received an extra covering? May not the above fact be usefully applied to agriculture? The okra is very nearly allied to cotton, and was even placed under the same genus. May not the cotton plant be preserved from dropping its bolls at the particular season, by the timely application of marsh-mud? From the Southern Agriculturist. RAISING DUCKS AND TURKEYS. On the estate of Garrowby, in Yorkshire, the crops of turnips had dwindled to nothing; by the application of 12 to 20 bushels of bone dust per acre, in drills, the crops have become excellent, and the following crops are very considerably improved. At Clumber Park, 600 bushels, spread upon 24 acres of pasture, a dry, sandy and gravelly soil, doubled the product, in butter, of the cows pastured upon it, over those fed upon pasture not bored. Mr. Watson, of Riellor, applied 25 bushels of nure to an adjoining acre. bones to an acre of turnips, and 25 loads of maThe dunged acre yielded 22 tons; that dressed with bones 28 tons. Mr. Graburn manured part of a field with crushed bones, at the rate of 30 bushels the acre, and another part with eight loads of dung, and repeated the dung the two following years upon this part. The turnips, wheat and grass, which constituted the three crops, were better upon the part once boned, than upon that thrice dung In the Agriculturist of last year, appeared two articles, one on the best mode of raising ducks, and the other, on turkeys. Two seasons have since passed away, and the writer of this has been enabled to test the efficacy of those directions, and in every instance that has come under his knowledge, they have been attended with perfect The directions for raising ducks, were to feed them on animal food and keep them dry. Individuals who have adopted this plan, have ed. sent to our markets from 500 to 700 ducks of the VOL. II.-31 success. Thirty-four acres of sandy soil, on the estate of Sir Charles Thockmorton, were half manured with bones and half with dung. The first gave the earliest and best turnips; the barley which followed yielded five bushels the acre more than the dunged part, and the clover was also heavier upon the boned part. Capt. Ogilvie applied bone dust at the rate of 15 to 20 bushels the acre, to a light sandy loam, and after the experience of five years upon a series of trials, he found all the successive crops of turnips, barley, and grass, decidedly superior to those which had been previously produced by other ma nure. for turnips, or used for any of the subsequent crops. That the best method of using them, when broadcast, is previously to mix them in a compost with earth, dung, or other manures, and let them lie to ferment. That if used alone they may be either drilled in with the seed or used broadcast. That bones which have undergone the process of fermentation are decidedly superior (in their immediate effects) to those which have not done so. That the quantity should be about 20 bushels of dust, or 40 bushels of large, increasing the quantity if the land be impoverished. That upon clays and heavy loams, it does not yet appear that bones will answer. [See No. 55 Twenty bushels of bone dust, at 2s. 6d. would be 50s.; 20 loads of manure at 10s., the price given in the statements, would amount to 200s., which shows a saving of three-fourths in manuring an acre with those substances, at the as-Farmer's Series.] sumed prices, and in the assumed quantities. The two following cases, taken from the Don-bones to enrich our lands? Every farmer, we adcaster report, are worthy particular notice. mit, cannot obtain them; but those who are located And where, it will be asked, are we to obtain 1. “On a field, part of which was boned 40 in the neighborhood of villages and cities may obyears ago, the crops were, on that part, during fiftain a considerable supply. There are two bone teen or sixteen succeeding years, visibly better mills already established on Long Island, and it is than the remainder, although the land was all of understood the proprietors find a ready market for the same quality, and the part not boned was manured with barn-yard dung. 2. "In another case, about three acres of light sandy land were dressed, in 1814, with 150 bushels of bones per acre; since which time the land is said never to have forgotten it, but is nearly as good again as the other part, farmed precisely in the same way, with the exception of the one application of bones." all they can crush. During the last year we purchased sixty horse-cart loads from one man. We had them crushed in a plaster mill; and when about to use them, mixed them with house ashes, and wet the whole plentifully with water. In 48 hours, fermentation having sufficiently progressed, they were applied to turnips, barley and corn; and though we cannot yet speak of their ultimate benefits, they so far confirm the highest opinion en We have had some years experience in the use of horn shavings and horn piths, which are procured from the comb manufactories. The first, of which we have used many hundred bushels, are equal, if not superior, to bone dust. The piths are cut into pieces, upon a block, and buried with the plough. Of these we used 15 loads last spring, upon corn ground, and we think we have not seen a finer crop than is now growing there. As to the size in which bones are most profita-tertained of their utility. bly applied, one of the Doncaster Association remarks-"That if he meant to till for early profit, and if he wished to keep his land in good heart, he would use half inch bones; and, in breaking these, he should prefer some remaining considerably larger: that by using bones of a large size with dust in them, there must be sufficient of the small particles of the dust to set the turnip crop forward, and sufficient of the large particles of the bone left to maintain the land in good condition for the subsequent crop. Bones are found on analysis to contain, in 100 parts, 40 of earthy and saline matter, 40 of cartilage and jelly, and 20 of fatty matter. The soft parts thus form, in the best bone about sixty, and upon an average about fifty per cent. which are almost entirely constituted of the same elements as plants, and all of them, sooner or later, liable to be dissolved and absorbed by the roots. Bones should undergo a partial fermentation before they are applied, in order to produce the best immediate effect. This is done by mixing them with yard manure, or with manure and earth. They have also been mixed and applied with coal ashes with effect and economy. The Doncaster Agricultural Association, after long experience in the use of bones, have published rules for its application, from which it appears, That on dry sands, limestone, chalk, light loams, and peat, bones are a very highly valuable From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. THE INVISIBLE ANIMAL WORLD. In whatever direction we turn our eyes, we every where see around us the most surprising indications of universality of life. The principal of vitality seems to be scattered with the utmost prodigality over and throughout the whole of the inanimate creation. On the earth, in the air, in the rivers and seas, in all places and in all times, we find life. And in what an astonishing variety of forms and combinations! Reckon up all the varieties of animated creatures from a man to a midge, from a whale to a herring, from an albatross to a humming bird; take the human, the brute, the bird, the reptile, the fish, and the insect creation, and compute the supposable number of individuals in each; and after all that we can count, all that we can allow to be in existence, we are yet but beginning to begin to sum up the amount of creatures whom the Creator in his almighty power has endowed with that incomprehensible principlelife. The deeper we examine, the more lofty are our conceptions of this infinitude of living creatures. Astronomers, by means of their telescopes, have told us of the bodies which dot the firma ment, and given us reason to believe that there exist millions of worlds inhabited by beings which must vary in their forms and properties according to the characteristics of the spheres they inhabit. But to bring down our imaginations from the contemplation of so vast a field for conjecture, we are attracted by the discoveries of the microscope, and find, by the attestation of our senses, that in a single drop of water there are myriads of animals-atoms-creatures, of which it would require nearly a thousand millions to form a cubic inch, all recreating and executing their various functions and evolutions with as much rapidity and apparent facility as if the range afforded them were as boundless as the ocean. Where is the man who can contemplate this scene of busy enjoyment, and not be overawed by the majesty of the works of nature, and not adore the hand that has, in such lavish beneficence, scattered the principle of life throughout every department of creation. capricious in their fancy. Sometimes they divide straight across, sometimes lengthwise, and sometimes diagonally; and what forms the chief difficulty in understanding them, the pieces so separated do not resemble the original: an animalcule resembling a ball will give birth-if this word can be properly applied to a number of triangles. Another class of animalcules propagate by the distribution of the internal substance of the parent, of which nothing is left but the envelope, soon to be dissolved; a third class are produced from germs; shooting out from the sides of the parent; and most likely there are many other ways by which they come into life, of which naturalists have yet no knowledge. In some instances, animalcules appear to live in shells, which are bivalve, and open and shut at pleasure. Notwithstanding the searching power of certain kinds of microscopes, it would have been difficult to ascertain the functions of animalcules without the aid of coloring matter. Into the water in which they abound, coloring vegetable matter, which supplies them with food, is introduced; and being partaken of, the internal structure, now transparent with color, is discerned. By this contrivance, it has been discovered that animalcules possess distinct viscera or digestive organs, and which are of various kinds. Most descriptions of these creatures are furnished with a species of hairs bristling out from parts of their bodies; these bristles seem to serve the purpose of fins to give locomotion, and they also act the part of arms to agitate the water, and cause a current to flow towards their mouths. They are also provided with hooks, by which they can attach themselves to any object. Independently of these peculiarities, some animalcules possess the extraordinary faculty of thrusting out or elongating portions of their bodies at various points, which, assuming the appearance either of legs or fins, are termed variable processes, and enable the creature to walk or swim. Until within the last fifty years, hardly any one was aware of the existence of animalcules; that is, small animals invisible to the naked eye, living in water, and in matter of various kinds. It has also only been within a very recent period that this branch of natural history has assumed a regular form; and though a classification has been in some measure effected, from what we can learn, the science is still in a very imperfect state. When we are made aware of the characteristics of the animalcule world-for it seems entitled to this term-it does not appear astonishing that even the most patient investigators, assisted by the most powerful magnifying glasses, should be at a loss to arrange in distinct orders the apparently innumerable and ever-changing classes.-Animalcules bear no resemblance whatever to animals which we can see with the naked eye. They are of all imaginable shapes; their figures resemble round balls, ovals, eels, snakes, corkscrews, funnels, tops, cylinders, pitchers, wheels, flasks, To those who wish to be informed of the alreapurses, semicircles, kidneys, dots with tails, tobac- dy known orders of this wonderful department of co pipes, flowers, branches of trees, eggcups, and nature's handiwork, we would recommend a pesome have the appearance of a tulip with a flow-rusal of the recently published work of Andrew ery bulb and stalk. But their figures are so extraordinary, so infinite, that it would be quite impossible to give the least idea of them by description. One thing is tolerably obvious: they all possess forms suitable to their peculiar mode of living. If they have to seize their food by darting, they are given a shape in consonance with that object. If they live by creeping, or swimming slowly, they are of a more inert figure. In these respects, therefore, nature has paid the same degree of attention to the construction of animalcules as it has done with larger animals. The apparently incalculable number of forms of animalcules is not more puzzling to the investigator than their assumption of new forms.Most creatures that we know of produce young after their kind, either at once bringing forth their progeny in life, or through the medium of eggs, but always producing young resembling themselves in figure. Animalcules, however, have generally a different way of coming into existence. One class propagate by spontaneous scissure, or division of their bodies into two or more portions, each one forming a new creature, which, on its arrival to maturity, pursues the same course. In thus cutting themselves in pieces, they are very Pritchard, Esq., entitled. "The Natural History of Animalcules." In this interesting production, which has afforded us matter for some of our present observations, the author describes the following as the best method of procuring animalcules whereon to make examinations: "In the selection of vegetable substances for infusions such as stalks, leaves, flowers, seeds of plants, &c. care must be taken that there be no admixture of quinine in them or the intention will be frustrated. Immerse these, whatever they may be, for a few days in some clear water, when, if the vessels which contain them be not agitated, a thin pellicle or film will be discerned on the surface, which, under the microscope, will be seen to be inhabited by several descriptions of animalcules: the first produce are commonly those of the simplest kind, such as the Monads. In a few days more, their numbers will increase to such an amazing extent, that it would be utterly impossible to compute those in a single drop of the fluid. After this, again, they will begin to diminish in numbers, and I have generally observed them supplanted by others of a larger species and more perfect organization; such as the Cyclidia, Paramesia, Kolpodæ, &c. It is worthy of remark here, however, that in their production nus. sion of bruised wheat. I have seen the same specics proceed from the body of a dead fly, which has become putrid by lying floating for some time in a glass of water where some flowers had been. This species of mucor sends forth a mass of transparent filamentous roots, from whence arise hollow stems, that support little oblong vessels, with a hole on the top of each.-From these I could plainly see minute globules or seeds issue forth in great abundance, with an elastic force, and turn about in the water as if they were animated? Continuing to view them with some attention, I could just discover that the putrid water which surrounded them was full of the minutest animalcula; and that these little creatures began to attack the seeds of the mucor for food. This new motion continued the appearance of their being alive for some time longer; but soon after, many of them arose to the surface of the water, remaining there without motion; and a succession of them afterwards coming up, they united together in little thin masses, and floated to the edge of the water, remaining there quite inactive during the time of observation." they do not pursue any regular order, even in sim- | animalcules, which proceeded from the putrefacilar infusions. If the vessel be large, and the cir- tion of the mushroom; for by pecking at these seeds, cumstances under which it is placed sufficiently which are reddish, light, round bodies, they moved favorable, a still higher description of animalcules them about with great agility in a variety of diwill succeed, viz. the Vorticella, and, lastly, the rections; while the little animals themselves were Brachioni; and thus a single infusion will repay scarcely visible, till the food they had eaten disfor the little trouble of making it, with a great va- covered them. The satisfaction I received from riety of species. Water in which flour has been clearing up this point, led me into many other custeeped will be found to abound also with animal-rious and interesting experiments. The ingenious cules; and it is remarked by G. Leach, Esq. that Mr. Needham supposes these little transparent the leaden troughs constantly appropriated for ramified filaments, and jointed or coralloid bodies birds to drink out of, contain several descriptions (strung like coral beads) which the microscope of them, and more especially those of the wheel ge- discovers to us on the surface of inert animal and In ponds, too, especially in the shallow vegetable infusions when they become putrid, to be parts, near their edges, and in the immediate vi- zoophytes, or branched animals; but to me they cinity of water plants, prodigious quantities of all appear, after a careful scrutiny with the best glasskinds may be easily procured; so that, possessing es, to be that genus of fungi called mucor, or as we do such myriads of them around us, that mouldiness. Their vegetation is so amazingly they impregnate almost every thing that we eat quick, that they may be perceived in the microand drink, touch and breathe, an anxiety to know scope even to grow and feed under the eye of the more about them, and the effects they produce, observer. Mr. Needham has pointed out to us a cannot but be regarded as rational and laudable." species that is very remarkable for its parts of frucIt appears, also, by the investigations of other tification. This, he says, proceeds from an infuinquiries, that animalcules may be produced by any species of decomposition, whether of vegetable or animal substances. It would almost seem, from what is related, that the whole of the vegetable and animal kingdoms are but compounds of matter resoluble into these extraordinary minute creatures. An idea of this kind is by no means new, and it will perhaps be remembered that Buffon tried experiments to prove its accuracy. "To discover," says he, "whether all the parts of animals, and all the seeds of plants, contained moving organic particles, I made infusions of the flesh of different animals, and of the seeds of more than twenty different species of vegetables; and after remaining some days in close glasses, I had the pleasure of seeing organic moving particles in all of them. In some they appeared sooner, in others later: some preserved their motion for months and others soon lost it. Some at first produced large moving globulous resembling animals, which changed their figure, split, and became gradually smaller; others produced only small globules, whose motions were extremely rapid; and others produced filaments which grew larger, seemed to vegetate, and then swelled and poured forth torrents of The celebrated botanist Dr. Robert Brown, also moving globules." The subsequent examinations entered into experiments of this nature, with the of physiologists have, in a great measure, deter-view of identifying the rudiments of vegetable mined that these moving globules of Buffon, or with animal life, which he successfully accomplishmolecules, as they are scientifically termed, are ed. He found that the pollen and tissue of plants the primary atoms of which plants and animals are were the constituent or elementary molecules or composed, although, at the same time, we are not | organic bodies. “On examining,” says he, the yet beyond the regions of conjecture with respect various animal and vegetable tissues, whether to how these molecules, or animalcula are either living or dead, they were always found to exist; brought into substantial consistency, or how they are developed by the separation of matter during the putrefactive process. So intimately does the vegetable, in its earliest rudiments, sometimes bear an analogy to animal life, that it is occasionally difficult to separate them: it is at least certain that the commencement of the vegetable process is some way connected with the existence and operations of molecules. "Having, at the request of Dr. Linnæus (says Mr. Ellis, a writer in the Philosophical Transactions) made several experiments on the infusion of mushrooms in water, in order to prove the theory that these seeds are first animals and then plants, it appeared evidently, that the seeds were put in motion by very minute and merely by bruising these substances in water, I never failed to disengage the molecules in sufficient numbers to ascertain their apparent identity in size, form, and motion, with the smaller particles of the grains of the pollen. I examined also various products of organic bodies, particularly the gum raisins, and substances of vegetable origin, extending my inquiry even to pit coal, and in all these bodies molecules were found in abundance." Of late, very considerable improvements have been made upon microscopes, by which much interesting information regarding the habits and character of animalcules has been afforded. These microscopes are of immense power in magnify continuance from the first case on the 1st of September, was therefore 42 days. The usual term is 57 days. ing; and by a contrivance for throwing the light of a bright lamp, of the sun's rays, or of oxy-hydrogen gas, upon the object to be investigated, most astonishing discoveries are made. Mr. In the city of Savannah there have been in all Pritchard recommends his Achromatic Engiscope so few cases, that the disease can hardly be said to as having certain decided advantages over any have prevailed there as an epidemic. The immeother description of the microscope. To the stu-diate site of Savannah is high and dry, to which dent of nature there could not be presented a more may be attributed its comparative exemption. boundless and luxuriant field for useful inquiry than is held out by these powerful instruments, and it will be allowed that in no other department of science is there to be found such a delightful source of leisurely recreation. To the man of humble means we can recommend no better or more rational amusement than a visit to one of the many microscopical exhibitions now to be seen occasionally in every large town, and which cannot be too sufficiently pressed upon public attention. From the Norfolk Beacon, Oct. 31. PORTSMOUTH AND ROANOKE RAIL ROAD. All our readers are aware that the line of the Portsmouth and Roanoke Rail Road, between the former place and Suffolk, has been completed some time since, and that the cars for the conveyance of passengers and produce run regularly between the two points twice a day. We have now to inform them that the grading of the remainder of the route has been contracted for to the distance of about ten miles on this side of Weldon. On the river plantations the aggregate number of deaths is computed to have been 700, being a proportion of about one to six of the population. The proportion varied, being more or less upon different plantations. In some settlements it was as great as one to three and four. In New York the proportion was one to twenty-eight. he is convinced from circumstances, that it was the That our planters should not in case of the recurrence of the disease, be induced, by the temptation of saving a portion of their rice crop, unwittingly to expose and sacrifice the lives of their slaves, it should be borne in mind that those negroes who are kept at their field work, are more liable to be attacked than others. A planter with whom we have conversed on the subject, attributes the reappearance of the disease amongst his negroes, and its going through his entire gang, to the fact of his having continued harvesting, although the workers returned to the pine woods every day before sunset, and were not sent out to ing exposure to the night air in the swamps, would work before sunrise. It was thought that avoidexempt them, and we so stated at the time; but it proved otherwise, and although from being promptThe rails designed for the road between Suffolk ly and well attended, they nearly all recovered, yet and the Nottoway-a distance of about 24 miles, field work which brought on the disease when it are laid along the track; but considerations of prudence, which we are pleased to see, induced the reappeared. This fact is in accordance to what is directors of the company to prevent their final ad-stated concerning the Asiatic Cholera, in the rejustment, until the embankments shall have been rendered firm by the rains of the winter. Wefurther learn that some purchases have been made of the land through which the road passes beyond the Nottoway; but that some of the land holders were so exorbitant in their demands, that the directors have deemed it advisable to submit the case to the decision of commissioners, according to the terms of the law. We regret that such a disposition should have manifested itself at this time of the day; the rail road will enhance the value of the land through which it runs a hundred per cent. Such a policy reminds us of the man who charged a friend with a night's lodging, who called to present him with a thousand pounds. We can, nevertheless, congratulate our friends on the steady progress of the work. Every day the improvement is winning new friends, and confirming the old. Now and then some new obstacles may gather before us; but the goodness of our cause will bear us beyond them. And it is almost reduced to a certainty, that within twelve months from this date, the entire route to Weldon will have been completed; and the Portsmouth and Roanoke Rail Road will demonstrate the successful enterprise of our people. From the Charleston Mercury. Since the 12th instant there have been no cases of cently published history of British India;-viz: that be the most potent predisposing cause, and that laborious occupation in the open air was found to soldiers after a long march, travellers after a fatiguing journey, and the natives who cultivated the field were the first and usual victims. In the same camp the Cholera would break out and rage those who had rested. The Europeans, whose amongst the men who had marched, and spare pursuits kept them within doors, generally escaped. We learn that in many of the last cases on the Savannah river, the solution of sugar of lead was administered by Dr. Scriven, with decided success, and proved effectual in allaying the internal irritation and checking the diarrhea. On Monday week we witnessed a completely successful and a very important experiment, made by Mr. Wells, the patentee, in the conversion of salt sea water into a perfectly fresh and pure liquid, fit for every purpose of domestic use and economy. minister bridge; and a number of naval officers A barge was moored in the Thames near Westand scientific gentlemen were invited to inspect the process. The sea water was brought from off Ramsgate, and fully impregnated with the same principle; some of it was in very impure and dirty condition. The apparatus invented by Mr. Wells consisted of a cast iron cooking machine; a cube on a comparatively small scale, especially when we looked to the extraordinary utility of its opera |