juice fufficient to cover the turnipfeed you intend to fow in which let, it foak about 12 hours; the next day mix it with the bruifed leaves, and fow all together.

Turnip-feed is generally covered with a brush harrow; take elder bufhes for this purpofe; if the berries are on, the effect will be increafed. If, notwithstanding thefe precautions, the fly fhould attack the young plant, draw elder bushes gently over them.

I have found by experience, that the fly rarely attacks turnips growing on the ground, from which a crop of flax has been taken the fame feafon. I have alfo, and with good fuccefs, prevented the ravages of the turnip fly, by covering my turnip-field with firaw, after it was prepared for feeding, and then burnt the itraw the day before I fowed.

If turnip-feed is fowed while it rains, it does not require to be harrowed in, and the young plants fhoot fo ftrongly, that they foon gain ftrength beyond the power of the Dy.

there is a prodigious difference in the growth and thriving of the animal, when fed with new or fkimmed milk. I followed the method of gruel made by barly and oats ground, with the greateft exaftnefs, laft year, with two calves, both of which, fo far from being reared, were fo reduced that though I changed their diet to milk, upon finding it would not do, yet was too late with the change, and they both died. I will not condemn the method from one experiment; but I must own I have my doub of its ever proving a real and entire fubftitute for milk.

During my refidence in Ireland, I had the opportunity of buying calves at the low price of twenty pence to three fhillings, which induced me to make my experiments on this en quiry. Knowing, before I went, the cheapnefs of calves, I had colletted various receipts for weaning them; among others, hay tea, bean meal mixed with wheat, flour, barley, and oats, ground, nearly, but not exactly in mr. Budd's proportion; but prin cipally flax-feed boiled to a jelly, and mixed with warm water. This being recommended more than the refl, I refult 1 well remember. Of above tried it on more calves. The general three or four: and I was convinced, thirty calves, I reared not more than feafon could convince me, as ftrongly as the experiments of one that of the methods tried, deferved re little flax jelly, reared the few that ance. Barley and oatmeal, with a efcaped, except one, on which a tra was made at the fuggeftion of my coachman, who had reared many calves. He defired to mix two-thr fkim milk and one third water, with a fmall addition of flax-feed jell diffolved. That calf recovered quickly from the low condition it had beca reduced to, and afterwards throve well. I intend multiplying my expe riments in the enquiry after the object, as often I am able; all I

поне

affert is, I have hitherto had no fuc✩ cefs.

I now come to the second object, that of improving fkim milk, a defideratum as much to be defired as the former. The moment I received the very fatisfactory communication from that great patron of every patriotic endeavour to ferve the public, the duke of Northumberland, I tried it exactly according to the recipe below, and at the fame time recommended it to two farmers in different parts of the kingdom, who, I knew, were folicitous for difcoveries of this kind. It anfwered with me as well as I could with the first feafon, and has flood a fecond tell. The farmers, to whom I communicated, report allo favourably of it; in all cafes it has appeared to do better than fkim milk alone. Thus one material ftep is gained, not the complete eltablishment of the method, which can only follow multiplied and varied experiments, but a proof, that it may be very fafely recommended, to thofe who are the molt cautions, and the most fearful of incurring expenfe.

RECIPE.

Take one gallon of skimmed milk, and in about a pint of it add half an ounce of common treacle (melaffes) firring it until it is well mixed. Then take one ounce of linfeed oil cake, well powdered, and with the hand let it fall gradually, in very fmall quantities, into the milk, irring it in the mean time with a fpoon or ladle, until it be thoroughly incorporated. Then let the mixture be put into the other part of the milk, and the whole. be made nearly as warm as new milk, when it is first taken from the cow; and in that flate, it is fit for ufe.

N. B. The quantity of the oil cake powdered, may, from time to time, be increased as occafion may require, and as the calf becomes inured to the flavour of it.

Vol. II. No. V.

On bee keeping.

MANY and great are the advan

tages to be gained by the inhabitants of thefe united states, if bees were propagated, fupported, and preferved. Our foil and climate are inferior to none for this purpose. Not Egypt, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, England, or any part whatever of the whole globe, would exceed us in the quantity, quality, or flavour of the honey. Canaan, of old, could not with more propriety be called a land flowing with milk and honey, than America would be,, did we but improve all the means to produce thefe fo valuable and fo important articles, which we might do very eafily; which would affili each other when we annually extended fuch paflures as would increase both.

Bees-wax for manufactures, candles, and exportation, will be a great motive to exertion, and perhaps emulation in this fyftem; efpecially was a bounty given upon it by government. Wax candles would then be fold as cheap as tallow, and the quantity of wax, in American exports, would be very great indeed.

A writer obferves, that were bees propagated, and fupported as extenfively as a country would bear, innumerable infects would be destroyed, which feed upon the honey in the bloom of trees, fhrubs, and herbs; and that this would tend to expel thofe hofts of infects, which we obferve floating in the air, play, ing in the rays of the fin, near the time of its fetting, many of which we are in danger of receiving into our bodies by refpiration, because of their fmallnefs, much to the injury of our health.

If thefe obfervations are juft, will not the increafing of bees allift in expelling the caterpillar and canker worm, which have so often destroyed the fruit of the apple tree; whofe

F

young, often feed пров that part

of the bloom, from which the bees collect the yellow down, which they carry into their hives on their legs ?

This point could be eafily decided by thofe perfons who have trees near their bee houfes, or in those paris of the country where bees are moft frequent. Should the knowledge of any one prove this to be a fact, that fuch trees are lefs frequently, or never attacked by thefe ravagers, the world ought to be favoured with the information.

Infects often feed upon that moiftore, which many trees, especially. the chefnut, atford in very fultry days, in fummer, which the bees collect with great activity: this is fometimes called honey dew, and is the sweet fap of the tree fweating through the leaf, and becomes honey; which, if more generally collected by the bees, would thereby ferve to expel thofe troublesome and noxious infects.

A FARMER,

To preferve butter perfectly fweet the whole year.

TA

AKE of crude fal ammoniac, and of loaf fugar, each 4 oz.nitre 8 oz.-allum-falt 1 lb. Let the above ingredients be finely powdered, and weil mixed together. As foon as the butter is fufficiently work. ed, it fhould have an ounce of the above powder wrought into every pound, and after landing till the next day, the fame quantity fhould again be added to it, working it well, as before; prefs it into an oak tub or barrel, as it keeps better in oak veffels than any other.

N. B. The powder fhould be mixed with the butter immediately after it is made; for flanding even one day, previous to that, makes the fuccefs lefs certain.

Quere addressed to the lovers of cydi.

SINCE elder is very obnoxious

to infefts, will it not be wife to make a ftrong decoction of it, and preferve it in bottles or cafks through the winter, that it may be applied to the apple trees in the fpring? Per haps it will prevent the worm from deftroying your fruit. If it be thought that the decoction will lofe its quali ties before the return of spring, the leaves and flowers may be dried and preferved, and the decoction made just before you use it.

Copy of a letter from mr. Decius Wadsworth to col. Jeremiah Wad worth, containing a further ac count of mr. James Cowles's wheat. Farmington, August 15, 1787, SIR,

HAVE the fatisfaction to inform

you, that mr. Cowles's wheat con tinued free from any material injury by the fly, until the harveft; though confiderably affected by a blaff which prevailed in the neighbourhood, but which on no account appears owing to the fly; yet the flraw was very luxuriant: three hundred fheaves were reaped on an acre. The diffe rence between the wheat which had but an inperfect trial of the preparation, and the other, is very ftriking, and ferves more than any other fatt, to convince us of the efficacy of the elder. Mr. Cowles informed me, that he reaped but four fheaves where the peck of feed, mentioned in mer letter, was fown.

my

for

If this peck of feed was of the fame quality, and differed in no refpeét but the mode of preparing it. from the refl, as mr. Cowles flated

NOTE.

* For the former account of this wheat, fee American Museum to Augufl, 1787, page 175.

mr.

it undoubtedly was, unless by me unlucky circumflance owles was deceived in that particu, (for his veracity is unqucffiona=) the efficacy of the elder is eftashed, and we may congratulate : farmers, that fo eafy a method is covered, of relieving them from : profpect of want, with which ey were threatened.

D. WADSWORTH. Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth.

Letter relative to the Heffian fly.

To the printer. FEW months fince, I read an advertisement in one of the blc papers of Philadelphia, comining of that pernicious infect mmonly known by the appellatiof the Hellian bug, as being gerally deftructive to the wheat in at flate. I beg leave to inform you, at my neighbours and I futtained eat lofs by that reptile; fo great, deed, that we defpaired of ever ifing any. In the year 1783, I rtunately purchased one buthel of heat of a certain quality, which educed more abundantly, than any at I have feen for many years, id proved an antidote to the abovefcribed infect thefe two years paft. Any perfon or perfons who fhould defirous of purchafing any quany of faid wheat (not exceeding one indred bushels) may be fupplied ith the fame, at fourteen fhillings er bufhel, by applying to mr. Peter Valfh, inftructor of youth, No. 24, Duke-freet, New York.

PETER BURTIS,

Newton, Long Ifand,
August 24, 1787.

In the ufe of mercurial preparations in the fcarlatina anginofa. Mr. M. Carey,

SIR, YOU are requested to publifh in your entertaining and inftructing

Museum, the following facts, reípecting the use of mercurial preparations in the cure of the fearlatina anginofa, or ulcerous fore throat, accompanied with fcarlet fever, for the entertainment of your medical readers, by

your refpectful, humble fervant, WILLIAM CURRIE.

HAVING had many opportunities of obferving the inefficacy of the remedies in common use for the scarlatina anginofa, or fore throat, with fcarlet fever, which prevailed in Philadelphia, the preceding fummer, I was induced, by reading an account of the extraordinary fuccefs which fome practitioners in hot climates had experienced from mercurial preparations in the angina maligna, (which I conceive to be only a variety of the fame difeafe, produced by the fame fpecific contagion), and encouraged by the example of the ingenious dr. Rufh, and the judicious dr. Kuhn, on whose judgments I rely more than on my own-I conceived it my duty to give it a cautious, but at the fame time, a fair and faithful trial, in fuch cafes as manifeftly difcovered fymptoms of great debility and putrefaction to which circumlances I thought proper to confine it; and found it to fucceed beyond my expectations. I treated the dif eafe, when otherwife circumflanced, according to the directions given by dr. Cullen and dr. Perkins: for the particulars whereof, as well as for a defcription of the fymptoms, I beg leave to refer to their treatises on the fubject; and fhall proceed with my ftatement of facts.

Calomel was the preparation which I generally employed; of which I have frequently given from thirty to forty grains, in the courfe of five or fix days, to a child of five or fix years of age proportioning the quantity and frequency of exhibi

tion, to the age of the patient, and violence of the fymptoms. My ufual dofe, to a child of two years of age, was three grains of calomel, twice a day, guarded by a warm opiate, fuch as thereac: Venet: for the first three or four dofes-that it might the more readily enter the circulation, and att more powerfully upon the difeafed glands of the throat and what is remarkable, when given in this way, it feldom or never raised a falivation in children; but if it had, it could have been productive of no ill effect.

After having adminiftered a few dofes of calomel, combined with an opiate, I generally difcontinued the opiate; and found the mercury feemed afterwards to have a lefs tendency to run off by the bowels, than when given at first without the opiate. When this was not obferved, the continuance of the opiate feemed to increase the comatofe propenfity (a fymptom infeparable from the worlt form of this difeafe), and to diminish the fenfibility of the trachea, and thereby to counteract, in a great meafure, the flimulating action of the mercury upon the glands of the throat, &c.

The operation of the calomel, as an expectorant, was fometimes promoted by a few grains of ippecacuanha, given fo as to excite a vomit two or three times.

I never employed purges under the recited circumilances, through fear of their debilitating effects and, as every fymptom contra-indicated blood-letting, it was never advif

ed.

addition of the Peruvian bark-is abfolutely neceffary.

The natural efforts of the confli tution, for the removal of this dif eafe, feem to be by an eruption on the skin, ulcers behind the ears, or an external fwelling of the throat, all of which, when the depofition or determination appears to be deficient, indicate the ufe of blifters. I accor dingly employed them in every fuch cafe, and generally with great fuccess. I applied them under each ear, over the tonfils, fo to as meet on the tra chea. The ealier in the complart they were applied, the more certain was the fervice they performed. They produced thefe falutary effects, probably by deriving the flow of ha mours from the internal to the external parts, and thereby diminished the irritation occafioned by the acid matter. They could not act by tak ing off fpafm, where no fpafm exted: but by whatever mode they att ed, I am certain of their good effetis, No tendency to gangrene fucceeded their application in any cafes that came under my infpection, even in the most defperate cafes, though I have frequently feen bad effects follow their application in feveral cafes of the putrid or malignant fe vers.

I employed the gargles recommend ed by Huxham and Fothergill, for the ulcerations of the fauces or ton fils; but infifted more particularly on having the warm fteam of a decoction of camomile flowers, Peru vian bark, and honey, with vinegar and water, received into the throat by means of Mudge's inhaler. This not only afforded cafe, but ferved in fome manner to attenuate and affit the operation of the calomel, in feparating the mucus in the fauces and trachea, and, by exciting a flight cough, promoted expectoration and the expulfion of the acid matter.

con

To conclude-I am perfectly vinced, that mercurial preparations