Chapter XII: TECHNOLOGY.--Notes on Dyewood Extracts and Similar (4)

That such a fine pear, which does so well in France, would soon find its way to England there exists little doubt, as we find that within a few years it became established and well known throughout the United Kingdom. All the earliest trees would be worked upon the pear or free stock, and as root pruning until recently was but little practiced, we may reasonably suppose that the majority of them are deeply anchored in clay, marl, and other subsoils calculated to force a crude, gross growth from which high flavored fruit could not be expected. These defects under modern culture upon the quince and double grafting are giving way, as we find, on reference to the report of the committee of the pear conference, held at Chiswick in 1885, that twenty counties in England, also Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, contributed no less than 121 dishes to the tables, and thirty-eight growers voted in favor of the Duchesse being recognized as one of our standard dessert varieties. This step looks like progress, as it is a record of facts which cannot be gainsaid, and it now remains to be seen whether the English grower, whose indomitable will has brought him to the front in the subjugation of other fruits, will be successful with the fine Duchesse d'Angoulême. Although this remarkable pear cannot easily be mistaken, for the benefit of those who do not know it, the following description may not be out of place. Fruit large, often very large, 3½ inches wide and 3 inches to 4 inches high, roundish obovate, uneven, and bossed in its outline. Skin greenish yellow, changing to pale dull yellow, covered with veins and freckles of pale brown russet, and when grown against a south wall it acquires a brown cheek. Eye open, with erect dry segments, set in a deep irregular basin. Stalk 1 inch long, inserted in a deep irregular cavity. Flesh white, buttery, and melting, with a rich flavor when well ripened; otherwise rather coarse grained and gritty.

As to culture, experienced fruitists say the tree grows vigorously and well. It bears abundantly, and succeeds either on the pear or quince stock, forming handsome pyramids, but is better on the quince. Here, then, we have the key to the secret of success: The cordon on the quince; roots near the surface; loam, sound, sandy, and good; and good feeding. Aspect, a good wall facing south or west--the latter, perhaps, the best. Those who have not already done so, should try trees on the quince as pyramids and bushes, as this, like some other capricious pears, although the fruit be smaller, may put in better flavor than is met with in fruit from hot walls.--_The Garden._

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SUCCESSION OF FOREST GROWTHS.

The following is from an address delivered by Mr. Robert Douglas before the Association of American Nurserymen at the meeting in Chicago recently.

It is the prevailing and almost universal belief that when native forests are destroyed they will be replaced by other kinds, for the simple reason that the soil has been impoverished of the constituents required for the growth of that particular tree or trees. This I believe to be one of the fallacies handed down from past ages, taken for granted, and never questioned. Nowhere does the English oak grow better than where it grew when William the Conqueror found it at the time he invaded Britain. Where do you find white pines growing better than in parts of New England where this tree has grown from time immemorial? Where can you find young redwoods growing more thriftily than among their giant ancestors, nearly or quite as old as the Christian era?

The question why the original growth is not reproduced can best be answered by some illustrations. When a pine forest is burned over, both trees and seeds are destroyed, and as the burned trees cannot sprout from the stump like oaks and many other trees, the land is left in a condition well suited for the germination of tree seeds, but there are no seeds to germinate. It is an open field for pioneers to enter, and the seeds which arrive there first have the right of possession. The aspen poplar (_Populus tremuloides_) has the advantage over all other trees. It is a native of all our northern forests, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Even fires cannot eradicate it, as it grows in moist as well as dry places, and sprouts from any part of the root. It is a short-lived tree, consequently it seeds when quite young and seeds abundantly; the seeds are light, almost infinitesimal, and are carried on wings of down. Its seeds ripen in spring, and are carried to great distances at the very time when the ground is in the best condition for them. Even on the dry mountain sides in Colorado, the snows are just melting and the ground is moist where they fall.

To grow this tree from seed would require the greatest skill of the nurseryman, but the burnt land is its paradise. Wherever you see it on high, dry land you may rest assured that a fire has been there. On land slides you will not find its seeds germinating, although they have been deposited there as abundantly as on the burned land.

Next to the aspen and poplars comes the canoe birch, and further north the yellow birch, and such other trees as have provision for scattering their seeds. I have seen acorns and nuts germinating in clusters on burned lands in a few instances. They had evidently been buried there by animals and had escaped the fires. I have seen the red cherry (_Prunus Pennsylvanica_) coming up in great quantities where they might never have germinated had not the fires destroyed the debris which covered the seed too deeply.

A careful examination around the margin of a burned forest will show the trees of surrounding kinds working in again. Thus by the time the short-lived aspens (and they are very short-lived on high land) have made a covering on the burned land, the surrounding kinds will be found re-established in the new forest, the seeds of the conifers, carried in by the winds, the berries by the birds, the nuts and acorns by the squirrels, the mixture varying more or less from the kinds which grew there before the fire.

It is wonderful how far the seeds of berries are carried by birds. The waxwings and cedar birds carry seeds of our tartarean honeysuckles, purple barberries and many other kinds four miles distant, where we see them spring up on the lake shore, where these birds fly in flocks to feed on the juniper berries. It seems to be the same everywhere. I found European mountain ash trees last summer in a forest in New Hampshire; the seed must have been carried over two miles as the crow flies.

While this alternation is going on in the East, and may have been going on for thousands of years, the Rocky Mountain district is not so fortunate. When a forest is burned down in that dry region, it is doubtful if coniferous trees will ever grow again, except in some localities specially favored. I have seen localities where short-lived trees were dying out and no others taking their places. Such spots will hereafter take their places above the timber line, which seems to me to be a line governed by circumstances more than by altitude or quality of soil.

There are a few exceptions where pines will succeed pines in a burned-down forest. _Pinus Murrayana_ grows up near the timber line in the Rocky Mountains. This tree has persistent cones which adhere to the trees for many years. I have counted the cones of sixteen years on one of these trees, and examined burned forests of this species, where many of the cones had apparently been bedded in the earth as the trees fell. The heat had opened the cones and the seedlings were growing up in myriads; but not a conifer of any other kind could be seen as far as the fire had reached.

In the Michigan Peninsula, northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, _P. Banksiana_, a comparatively worthless tree, is replacing the valuable red pine (_P. resinosa_), and in the Sierras _P. Murrayana_ and _P. tuberculata_ are replacing the more valuable species by the same process.

In this case, also, the worthless trees are the shortest lived. So we see that nature is doing all that she can to remedy the evil. Man only is reckless, and especially the American man. The Mexican will cut large limbs off his trees for fuel, but will spare the tree. Even the poor Indian, when at the starvation point, stripping the bark from the yellow pine (_P. ponderosa_), for the mucilaginous matter being formed into sap wood, will never take a strip wider than one third the circumference of the tree, so that its growth may not be injured.

We often read that oaks are springing up in destroyed forests where oaks had never grown before. The writers are no doubt sincere, but they are careless. The only pine forests where oaks are not intermixed are either in land so sandy that oaks cannot be made to grow on them at all, or so far north that they are beyond their northern limit. In the Green Mountains and in the New England forests, in the pine forests in Pennsylvania, in the Adirondacks, in Wisconsin and Michigan--except in sand--I have found oaks mixed with the pines and spruces. In northwestern Minnesota and in northern Dakota the oaks are near their northern limit, but even there the burr oak drags on a bare existence among the pines and spruces. In the Black Hills, in Dakota, poor, forlorn, scrubby burr oaks are scattered through the hills among the yellow pines. In Colorado we find them as shrubs among the pines and Douglas spruces. In New Mexico we find them scattered among the piñons. In Arizona they grow like hazel bushes among the yellow pines. On the Sierra Nevada the oak region crosses the pine region, and scattering oaks reach far up into the mountains. Yet oaks will not flourish between the one hundredth meridian and the eastern base of the Sierras, owing to the aridity of the climate. I recently found oaks scattered among the redwoods on both sides of the Coast Range Mountains.

Darwin has truly said, "The oaks are driving the pines to the sands." Wherever the oak is established--and we have seen that it is already established whereever it can endure the soil and climate--there it will remain and keep on advancing. The oak produces comparatively few seeds. Where it produces a hundred, the ash and maple will yield a thousand, the elm ten thousand, and many other trees a hundred thousand. The acorn has no provision for protection and transportation like many tree seeds. Many kinds are furnished with wings to float them on the water and carry them in the air. Nearly every tree seed, except the acorn, has a case to protect it while growing, either opening and casting the seeds off to a distance when ripe or falling with them to protect them till they begin to germinate. Even the equally large seeds of other kinds are protected in some way. The hickory nut has a hard shell, which shell itself is protected by a strong covering until ripe. The black walnut has both a hard shell and a fleshy covering. The acorn is the only seed I can think of which is left by nature to take care of itself. It matures without protection, falls heavily and helplessly to the ground, to be eaten and trodden on by animals, yet the few which escape and those which are trodden under are well able to compete in the race for life. While the elm and maple seeds are drying up on the surface, the hickories and the walnuts waiting to be cracked, the acorn is at work with its coat off. It drives its tap root into the earth in spite of grass, and brush, and litter. No matter if it is shaded by forest trees so that the sun cannot penetrate, it will manage to make a short stem and a few leaves the first season, enough to keep life in the root, which will drill in deeper and deeper. When age or accident removes the tree which has overshadowed it, then it will assert itself. Fires may run over the land, destroying almost everything else, the oak will be killed to the ground, but it will throw up a new shoot the next spring, the root will keep enlarging, and when the opportunity arrives it will make a vigorous growth, in proportion to the strength of the root, and throw out strong side roots, and after that care no more for its tap root, which has been its only support, than the frog cares for the tail of the tadpole after it has got on its own legs.

There is no mystery about the succession of forest growths, nothing in nature is more plain and simple. We cannot but admire her wisdom, economy, and justness, compensating in another direction for any disadvantage a species may have to labor under. Every kind of tree has an interesting history in itself. Seeds with a hard shell, or with a pulpy or resinous covering which retards their germination, are often saved from becoming extinct by these means.

The red cedar (_Juniperus Virginiana_) reaches from Florida to and beyond Cape Cod; it is among the hills of Tennessee, through the Middle States and New England. It is scattered through the Western States and Territories, at long distances apart, creeping up the Platte River, in Nebraska. (I found only three in the Black Hills, in Dakota, in an extended search for the different trees which grow there. Found only one in a long ramble in the hills at Las Vegas, New Mexico.) Yet this tree has crept across the continent, and is found here and there in a northwesterly direction between the Platte and the Pacific Coast. It is owing to the resinous coating which protects its seeds that this tree is found to-day scattered over that immense region.

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[NATURE.]

THE "HATCHERY" OF THE SUN-FISH.

I have thought that an example of the intelligence (instinct?) of a class of fish which has come under my observation during my excursions into the Adirondack region of New York State might possibly be of interest to your readers, especially as I am not aware that any one except myself has noticed it, or, at least, has given it publicity.

The female sun-fish (called, I believe, in England, the roach or bream) makes a "hatchery" for her eggs in this wise. Selecting a spot near the banks of the numerous lakes in which this region abounds, and where the water is about 4 inches deep, and still, she builds, with her tail and snout, a circular embankment 3 inches in height and 2 thick. The circle, which is as perfect a one as could be formed with mathematical instruments, is usually a foot and a half in diameter; and at one side of this circular wall an opening is left by the fish of just sufficient width to admit her body, thus:

The mother sun-fish, having now built or provided her "hatchery," deposits her spawn within the circular inclosure, and mounts guard at the entrance until the fry are hatched out and are sufficiently large to take charge of themselves. As the embankment, moreover, is built up to the surface of the water, no enemy can very easily obtain an entrance within the inclosure from the top; while there being only one entrance, the fish is able, with comparative ease, to keep out all intruders.

I have, as I say, noticed this beautiful instinct of the sun-fish for the perpetuity of her species more particularly in the lakes of this region; but doubtless the same habit is common to these fish in other waters.

William L. Stone.

Jersey City Heights, N.J.

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ANCIENT LAKE DWELLINGS.

Among the many traces which man has left of his existence in long past ages on the face of the earth, says a correspondent of the _Scotsman_, none are more interesting and instructive than the lake dwellings of Switzerland and other countries, which have been discovered within the last fifty years or so. Although these relics of the past are far more modern than those which we referred to in a late article on "Primeval Man," and are probably included within the range of Egyptian and other chronologies, yet they stretch far beyond the historic period, so far as Europe is concerned, and throw a flood of light on the habits of our ancestors, or at any rate predecessors, in these regions. We are tolerably well acquainted with the history of the Jews when David worked his way up from the shepherd's staff to the royal scepter, or when Joshua drove out the Canaanites and took possession of their land, but of what was going on in Europe in these times we have hitherto had no knowledge whatever. These lake dwellings, however, were in all probability inhabited by human beings somewhere about the time when the events we have referred to took place, and may have been inhabited before the earlier of them.

The first hint we had of the existence of these remarkable dwellings was obtained in 1829, when an excavation was being made on the shore of a Swiss lake. Some wooden piles, apparently very old, and other antiquities were found by the workmen. Not much attention, however, was paid to this discovery till 1854, when a Mr. Aeppli drew attention to some remains of human handiwork found near his house, in part of the bed of a lake which had been left dry during a season of great drought. The workmen employed in recovering some land from the lake found the heads of a great many wooden piles protruding through the mud, and also a number of stags' horns, and implements of various descriptions. Stimulated by this discovery, search was made in various lakes, and the result was truly astonishing. In every direction remains of the habitations of prehistoric man were discovered, and relics were found in such abundance that the history of this unknown past could be traced through long ages, and the habits of the people ascertained with a very considerable amount of probability. The details are so numerous that it would be impossible in the space at our disposal to go into them all.

Of course, during the long time that has elapsed since these structures were erected, their remains have been reduced to mere ruins, and it is only by comparing one with another that we are able to picture to ourselves what they were originally like and what sort of life was led by the men who inhabited them. The oldest of these dwellings belong to the stone age, when man had not acquired any knowledge of the use of metal; when all his instruments were merely sharpened stones, fixed in wooden handles, or pieces of bone, horn, or other natural material. They are therefore somewhat roughly finished, but at the same time exhibit considerable ingenuity and skill. The method of construction seems to have been somewhat as follows: A suitable situation, not far from the shore, where the water was not very deep, having been fixed upon, these prehistoric builders drove into the muddy bottom of the lake a number of piles or long stakes, arranged generally pretty close together, and in some sort of regular order. These piles were formed generally from stems of trees, with the bark on, but occasionally from split wood. The ends were sharpened to a point by the aid of fire or by cutting with stone axes. On a sufficient number being driven in, and their upper ends brought to a level above the surface of the water, platform beams were laid across, fastened by wooden pegs, or in some cases fixed into notches cut in the heads of the vertical piles. The platform was generally very roughly made, just a series of unbarked stems placed side by side and covered with layers of earth or clay, with numerous openings through which refuse of all kinds fell into the water beneath. In many cases connection with the shore was made by means of a narrow bridge or gangway, constructed in the same manner. On this rude platform huts were erected by driving small piles or stakes which projected above the floor, and to these were fastened boards standing edgeways like the skirting of our ordinary rooms, and marking out the size of each building. The walls of the huts were formed of small branches of twigs interwoven and plastered over with clay. The roof was made of straw or reeds like a thatched cottage. In size these huts were probably eighteen to twenty feet long, eight or ten feet broad, and about six feet high. They may have been divided into rooms, but there is no evidence of this. Each was provided with a hearth formed of three or four slabs of stone. The number of huts in each settlement must have been considerable, in fact, they must have formed villages of no mean extent, for as many as forty, fifty, or even a hundred thousand piles have been found spread over a large extent of ground, forming the foundation of one such settlement. It is probable, however, that these were not so numerous when first erected, but were gradually added to as the population increased. This fact, along with many others, shows that these dwellings were inhabited for long periods of time, during which the population pursued their ordinary life in comparative peace and quietness in their island homes.

Such is, in brief, a general account of these remarkable structures. Of course there were several variations in the methods of fixing these piles, one of which may be mentioned as showing the ingenuity of the builders. Where the piles did not get a firm hold of the lake bottom, they carried out in boats or rafts loads of stones, which they threw down between the piles, thus firmly fixing them, just as modern engineers sometimes do for a similar purpose. As to the habits of the people who dwelt in these lake dwellings, we get a considerable amount of information from the various implements, refuse, etc., which fell through the imperfectly closed platforms into the lake, and which have been preserved in the mud at the bottom. They were fishers, hunters, shepherds, and agriculturists. Skeletons of fish are found in large abundance, and in some settlements even the fishing nets, and hooks made of boar's tusks, have been discovered. Then again there is an abundance of remains of the hunter's feast; bones of the stag, wild boar, bear, wolf, otter, squirrel, and many other wild animals are found in rich profusion, and often these are split and the marrow extracted. These ancient men, however, did not entirely rely on such precarious provision for their wants, but were so far advanced in civilization that they kept cattle and domestic animals of various kinds. They possessed dogs in great numbers, as well as cows, sheep, goats, and pigs, and in winter time had these housed on their settlements, as among the remains found are litters of straw, etc., which had evidently served as bedding for these animals. This, of course, necessitated the gathering of grass or other material for their food. They also cultivated wheat, barley, flax, and a number of other vegetable products. Their methods of cultivation were no doubt very rude, consisting of a mere scratching of the ground with crooked branches of trees or with simple instruments made of stags' horn; but, nevertheless, they succeeded in getting very good results. Among the relics which they have left are found stones for crushing corn, the grain which they used, and even the very cakes or bread which they made. There are also fruits, such as the apple, pear, nut, etc.; so that the bill of fare of prehistoric man was by no means contemptible. He had fish, game, beef, mutton, pork, bread, and fruit, besides a plentiful supply of water from the lake at his door. He was acquainted with the potter's art, and manufactured earthen vessels of various kinds. He seems to have produced two kinds--a coarser and a finer; the former made from clay mixed with a quantity of grains of stone, and the latter of washed loam. These he ornamented in an elementary fashion with certain lines and marks. Some of the vessels he used have been found with a burnt crust of the porridge which he had been making adhering. As to his clothes, these were probably formed in great part from the skins of wild or domestic animals, but he also used fabrics made from flax, which he had learned to weave, as remains of cloth, twine, rope, etc., are not infrequently found in his dwellings.

One prominent feature in the history of these lake dwellers is their gradual advance in the arts of civilization. While the main features of their settlements remain very much the same during the whole period of their residence, there is a gradual improvement in the details; the settlements become larger, and the implements, etc., better finished. And this is especially observable in the change of material which the dweller uses. In the earlier stages of his existence stone is the predominant feature, all his knives, saws, chisels, axes, etc., are made from this substance; but as time rolls on, one or two implements are found made of bronze, which is a mixture of tin and copper, and requires for its production a certain amount of knowledge and mechanical skill. Gradually the number of bronze implements increases until eventually stone is superseded altogether, and improved forms of weapons of war make their appearance, and his work has a more finished look, arising from his improved implements. Whether the manufacture of bronze was an original discovery of his own, or whether it was an importation from some more advanced race, is not certainly known; but as he undoubtedly had intercourse with the East, it is probable that the first bronze was imported, and that afterward he discovered the way to manufacture it himself. However this may be, it seems evident that the introduction of this material greatly aided his development. As stone gave place to bronze, so in the course of time this latter gave place to iron, probably introduced in the same manner some considerable time before the dawn of history; and this metal held its place until these habitations were finally abandoned.

With regard to the religion of these lake dwellers, if they had any, nothing is known. From some curious objects formed somewhat like the crescent of the moon, which are found in considerable numbers, it has been supposed that they worshiped that body; but there seems to be really no evidence for this supposition, and these objects may only have been ornaments, or perhaps charms, fixed above the doors of their huts something after the manner of the horse shoe nailed over the door in modern times to keep away evil spirits. So far as can be inferred from the remains that have been examined, the same race seems to have inhabited these dwellings from their commencement to their end. There is no appearance of invasion from without; all seems continuous. Probably his race came in early time from the East, and were a pastoral people, with flocks, herds, and domestic animals, and built their peculiar habitations to protect themselves from human enemies. Certainly the arrangements were well fitted for the purpose in those days, when the club and the spear were almost the only weapons of offense. Dr. Keller, who has investigated this subject with great care, is of the opinion that these lake dwellers were a branch of the great Celtic race.

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[New England Farmer.]

HOW TO RAISE TURKEYS.

The best feed for young turkeys and ducks is yelks of hard-boiled eggs, and after they are several days old the white may be added. Continue this for two or three weeks, occasionally chopping onions fine and sometimes sprinkling the boiled eggs with black pepper; then give rice, a teacupful with enough milk to just cover it, and boil slowly until the milk is evaporated. Put in enough more to cover the rice again, so that when boiled down the second time it will be soft if pressed between the fingers. Milk must not be used too freely, as it will get too soft and the grains will adhere together. Stir frequently when boiling. Do not use water with the rice, as it forms a paste and the chicks cannot swallow it. In cold, damp weather, a half teaspoonful of Cayenne pepper in a pint of flour, with lard enough to make it stick together, will protect them from diarrhea. This amount of food is sufficient for two meals for seventy-five chicks. Give all food in shallow tin pans. Water and boiled milk, with a little lime water in each occasionally, is the best drink until the chicks are two or three months old, when loppered and buttermilk may take the place of the boiled milk. Turkeys like best to roost on trees, and in their place artificial roots may be made by planting long forked locust poles and laying others across the forks.--_American Agriculturist._

HOW TO RAISE TURKEYS.

Keep the turkey hens tame by feeding them close to the house. Have two or three barrels in sheltered corners containing plenty of straw or leaves for them to lay in. Gather the eggs every evening, as turkey eggs are very easily chilled. Keep the eggs in a woolen cloth on end and turn them every three days. Set the first seven eggs under a chicken hen, as they get too old before the turkey hen will go to sitting. Make a board pen ten or twelve feet square and twelve or fourteen inches high. Put a coop in it and put your hen and turkeys in it. Feed the hen with corn and the turkeys soaked wheat bread (corn meal will kill them), until they are a week old (I feed five or six times a day). Then feed wheat until they are big enough to eat corn. Give plenty of fresh water in a shallow vessel. Keep the mother in the pen until they are large enough to fly over the top of the boards. Let them out awhile about the middle of the day. Shut them in at night. A turkey hen does not like to be shut up, but have a good big coop for her and she will go in. Don't let the little turkeys get their backs wet until they are feathered. The turkey hen will sit down when night comes just where she happens to be, but if you drive her home a few times she will come herself after that. Always feed them when they come home, no matter if they are full of "hoppers." Have your No. 2 pen in the orchard under an apple tree where it is shady. Have the turkey hen's pen close to the chicken hen's pen, so that when the chicken hen weans her turkeys, they will soon learn to go with the turkey hen. Give them a dose of black pepper in their feed every cold rain. And never, no never, get excited and in a hurry while working with turkeys if you don't want them to get wild and fly all over the plantation. Three or four weeks before selling, feed all the corn they will eat.

FOOD HINTS.

Restrain your desire to count your young turkeys, and let them alone for twenty-four hours after they get into this world. Remove them to a clean, airy, roomy coop, and give them boiled eggs, stale wheat bread crumbs just moistened with milk or water, "Dutch" cheese, or a mixture of all these.

For the first two weeks feed entirely with the eggs, bread, curds, cooked rice and cooked oatmeal. About the third week commence feeding cooked cornmeal; and from that on they may have any cooked food that would be suitable for chickens of the same age. Season all food slightly with salt and pepper, and twice a week add a level tablespoonful of bone meal to a pint of feed. Never feed any sour food or sloppy food of any kind, except sour milk, and never feed any uncooked food of any kind until after they have thrown out the red on their heads. Feed often, five or six times a day, until after they are three months old; then, if insects are numerous, you may gradually reduce the number of meals per day to three or even two.

After they are three months old they may be given wheat, cracked corn, etc., but not whole corn until they are five months old. Keep the coops dry and clean, and the turkeys out of the dew and rain until they are fully feathered, and have thrown out the red. Dampness and filth will kill young turkeys as surely as a dose of poison. For the first few days confine the poults to the limits of the coop and safety run; then, if all appear strong and well, give the mother hen and her brood liberty on pleasant days after the dew is off.

If they get caught out in a shower, get them to shelter as soon as possible; and if they are chilled take them to the house and thoroughly dry and warm them. See that the little turkeys come home every night. The turkey mother must, for the first few nights, be hunted up and driven home. After they are three months old, turkeys are quite hardy, and may be allowed range at all times. If turkeys that are well cared for, and have always seemed all right, show signs of drooping when about six weeks or two months old, give Douglas mixture in the drink or food, and add a little cooked meat to the food once a day.--_The Practical Farmer._

ABOUT SITTING.

For an ordinary place, select from a good breed (I prefer the bronze) a large gobbler and two or three hens. As soon as the warm weather comes, place about the barn in sheltered places two or three barrels on their sides, and in them make nice nests. In these the hens will lay. Gather the eggs every day, keeping them in a cool place. When a box contains 23 eggs mark it No. 1 and begin to fill a second box, and when it contains 23 eggs mark it No. 2 and so continue. It is well to leave turkey hens on the nest two or three days, for they often lay one or two eggs after they begin to show signs of sitting.

When you have decided to sit a hen, give her a good nest and 15 eggs and at the same time give a common hen eight eggs. These, when hatched, are all to be given to the turkey hen. Never try to raise turkeys with a domestic fowl. If you have no place free of grass, you can start turkeys with difficulty. Feeding is of the greatest importance. For the first week I have found wheat bread moistened in water the most satisfactory. If you can feed them by sunrise for the first three or four weeks, you need lose hardly a bird. Each evening try and call them nearer and nearer home, so that you will not be troubled with their wandering to the neighbors'. As early as possible train them to roost high, so as to be out of danger at night. Bird dogs are often very destructive to turkeys, at times destroying a whole flock in a single night. Fatten with corn. The turkey crop ought to be one of the most profitable on our farms.

Dr. G.G. GROFF. Pennsylvania.

GRAHAM.

Turkeys want care, especially for the first two or three weeks. I feed graham and wheat bread, made by scalding the flour, making a very stiff dough, and baking in a hot oven; soak over night in cold water. I also give them plenty of young onions, cutting them up with scissors. Be careful not to let young turkeys out in the morning while the grass is wet. After the birds are two weeks old I feed wheat, but no corn until they are about a month old. I like hen mothers best, for turkey mothers are rangers, and do not take kindly to being kept in a coop. The bread will keep a week if made right, but do not soak more than will be wanted in a day, as it soon sours. I feed scraps from the table, such as potatoes and bits of meat cut very fine, but not much of the latter to young birds. I rarely lose a bird.--_Mrs. E. Reith, in Homestead._

CARE AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT.

In turkey raising the one who is the most careful and attentive to the small things is the most successful. The first laying of eggs should be set under a chicken hen. The turkey hen will, after a few days' confinement, lay another batch of eggs. A good-sized hen will cover and care for ten eggs; a turkey hen, seventeen. Make a large, roomy nest of soft, fine hay--straw is too brittle and slippery. If there is danger of lice in the nest-box, sprinkle with water in which carbolic acid has been mixed in the proportion of eight drops to a half gallon of water. Don't wet the eggs with this. After the eggs have been sat on one week, sprinkle with warm water every other day, until the last week; then every day, until they hatch. Have the water clear, and use a flower or fine rose sprinkler. Let the water be of the same temperature as the eggs, which can be ascertained by slipping a thermometer under the hen for a few minutes. This softens the shells, and as a little turkey is very weak, it is helped out easily, and is stronger than if working long to get out.

Let the little turkeys get well dried and strong enough to climb around the edges of their nest before taking them off. Have a pen, say six feet square, built for them, and made tight at the sides clear down to the ground, to keep them from getting out and being chilled. Put sand and fine gravel over the ground, and cover enough of it to afford shelter at night and when it rains. They may be kept in this pen the first four or five days, then let out after dew is off, and shut up before night.

For the first few days' feed, nothing is better than clabber cheese or curd made by scalding clabbered milk until the curd separates and is cooked, then skimmed out and fed. Mix a little black pepper with this every other day. Meal must not be fed raw for several weeks, and then should be mixed with sour milk instead of water. Bake the meal into bread by mixing it, unsifted, with sour milk, and adding a little soda and pepper. Spinach, lettuce, onion tops and any other tender greens, chopped fine, are excellent food. From the time a turkey is hatched until it is ready for market it should have plenty of milk. Give them clear water to drink, for milk is a food. See that the very young ones have milk and water in quite shallow dishes, for they are in danger of getting wet if the dish is deep.

GATHER THE LITTLE TURKEYS IN

at the first signs of rain, and they will soon learn to run and fly to their coop at the first drops. Always shut them up at night, for they are early risers and will be out long before the dew is dried off. Don't pen them too near the house. Feed them at or near the same place all the time and they will learn to go there when hungry. Give them a good feed at night and they will remember to come home for it. If the morning is dry, feed lightly and let them hunt the rest in the orchard and fields. Keep the grass and weeds mowed around their pen and feeding places. Mix slaked lime in the dust for them to take their dust bath in, and sprinkle the carbolic acid and water over and around their roosting pen. Keep pails and kettles covered, for they will get drowned if they have half a chance, as they begin to fly so young. Of course a turkey hen will take her young off, and care for them after a fashion, but the safest way to make them tame is to raise them where they may be cared for. Even if the turkey hen hatches her last batch of eggs, it is a good plan to have a hen ready to take the little turkeys and slip them away at night. If she still stays on her nest give her 20 or 25 hen's eggs, and if she hatches them let her run with the chickens. They are not so tender or so easily led astray as turkeys are, nor as valuable.--_Mrs. Jas. R. Hinds, in Orange Judd Farmer._

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WATER AS A THERAPEUTICAL AGENT.

By F.C. ROBINSON, M.D.

My experience in the use of water in almost every disease occurring in this climate has long since satisfied me that it is less objectionable and produces quicker and better results than any other treatment, and can be used when all other medication is contra-indicated. Drinking water should be pure, uncontaminated by animal or vegetable impurities, and given _ad libitum_, unless, in rare instances, it should cause vomiting or interfere with the capability of digesting food. If children are comatose or delirious, as they frequently are in typhoid fever, give water to them regularly, or force it upon them, if they refuse to take it, as I was obliged to do with a child of six years just recovering from that fever.

It is my custom to allow cold drinks of water in all cases of measles whenever patients desire it, and I am satisfied that it aids the early appearance of the rash, and certainly is cooling and grateful to the patient. Hot drinks or vile and nauseous teas are unnecessary in this disease, and should be discarded as useless, odious, and disgusting. If congestion of the lungs or any intercurrent inflammation occurs, or the rash is much delayed, a hot water bath or the old reliable corn sweat will break up the complication with amazing rapidity, and if the head is kept cool, will not generally be unacceptable to the patient.

Hot baths reduce temperature by causing free perspiration afterward, and cold packs reduce it by cooling the surface sufficiently long to reduce the heat of the blood, and, if used judiciously, seldom fail of success. I have reduced the temperature four degrees in two hours by wrapping around a child a sheet wet with tepid water, and no other covering. Cold packs are sometimes objectionable, because of their depressing effects, and should only be used to reduce high temperature and when there is no congestion or inflammation of any of the vital organs of the body.

Cold water poured in a small stream from a pitcher upon the head for five or ten minutes will often relieve headache, and is a benefit in all inflammatory brain diseases, if, at the same time, you can put the feet into hot water containing mustard or pepper.

Large enemas of warm water will care for spasmodic colic, and I have, in one instance, relieved strangulated hernia by the same method, and at another time the same result was accomplished by a large injection of warm linseed oil. I have often applied a cloth wet with cold water upon the throats of children suffering with spasmodic croup, with satisfactory results.

I have seen infants suffering with diarrhea or summer complaint, sleepless, worrying, fretting, or crying from thirst, begging for water, and the mother or nurse afraid to give it more than a teaspoonful or two at a time, saying that it vomited everything it drank as soon as taken. I have often, when visiting such cases, called for a glass of cold water, and, to the surprise of the mother, would allow it to take all it could drink, which usually would be retained, and the child would soon be wrapped in a refreshing sleep. Without medicine, a proper regulation of the child's diet would soon restore it to health again.

The spasms of children, from whatever causes, or the eclampsia from uræmic poisoning, are often readily controlled when immersed in hot water or given a hot vapor bath or corn sweat. If the convulsions of children are accompanied by a high temperature, put them into water of 100° and then gradually cool it down to 68° or 70°, and then keep them in a room of the same temperature, with little covering. If the temperature rises, repeat the treatment as frequently as necessary, and I think you will not be disappointed in the results.

Scarlet fever and diphtheria, two of the most dreaded and formidable diseases of children, are largely shorn of their terrors when, in addition to an early and thorough medicinal treatment, the little patients are bathed in as warm water as the surface will allow frequently, or for thirty minutes wrapped in a warm, wet blanket, followed by warm, dry coverings, to maintain the perspiration that such treatment usually produces. It has proved to me a valuable aid in eliminating from the blood the specific poison which causes these diseases, and I can safely recommend it to your notice and trial.

There is no disease more favorably influenced by this treatment than pneumonia, and in mild cases one daily warm bath or sweat, without medicine, will be sufficient to arrest this disease, and it is among the first things I usually order. If I find a child or infant with a temperature of 103° to 105°, short, dry, and painful cough, dyspnoea, rapid pulse, great thirst, or vomiting, with dry crepitation in any part of the lung tissue, I order it rolled up in a blanket or sheet coming out of hot water, and in thirty minutes change it to warm, dry blankets, and soon the little fretful, worrying sufferer would rest in a quiet, peaceful sleep.--_Peoria Med. Mo._

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ON THE HEALTH VALUE TO MAN OF THE SO-CALLED DIVINELY BENEFICENT GIFT, TOBACCO.

By J.M.W. KITCHEN, M.D., New York.

With perhaps the exception of heredity, the question of stimulants and narcotics in their relation to the physical welfare of the race is second to none in importance. With trifling exceptions, the whole world is addicted to their use. The universality of such use has led many to consider them a necessity to man, and that they are God's gifts to him, and, if rightly used, are of physical benefit. It may not be a perversion of judgment to consider that their widespread popular use is greatly due to the efforts of the race to gain anæsthesia for, and distraction from, those pains and punishments that are the inevitable sequence of departure from hygienic and social law on the part of the individual, his ancestry, and society in general.

The taste for these things is acquired, not natural, though the acquisition may be through hereditary influence. An idea is held by a majority of even fairly intelligent individuals that there is a justifiable, harmless, and even beneficial use of these substances by the general public, though acknowledging that beyond a certain indefinite line this use becomes an abuse.

I believe that there may occasionally be cases in which the physical benefits derived from their use outweigh the injury they inflict, but I think this use is very much less than is generally supposed, and if we can judge from the preponderance of evil effected by such use, these substances ought to be considered as the materialized curses of God rather than as beneficent gifts. The prevalent idea as to the beneficent nature of these substances I consider to be a delusion that can only be explained upon the hypothesis that there is a widespread lack of appreciation of the fact that, though they may have an immediate pleasant and agreeable effect upon the body, their injurious effects are cumulative, and are usually ultimate, and so distant as to be difficult of direct connection with their cause to ordinary observation. The more moderate the use of these substances, the more remotely is the effect removed from the cause and more difficult of detection. That the ordinary habitual, so-called moderate use of stimulants and narcotics, such as tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol, is, in the vast majority of cases, really an abuse, is a proposition that I think should be admitted by all who have given the subject an unbiased study.

The idea that the user of tobacco and other injurious substances will be cognizant of the injury inflicted by habitual use in moderate or even excessive amounts is an undoubted fallacy. The daily, weekly, or monthly injurious effect may be entirely unobservable to even trained physicians, and yet the ultimate cumulative effect may be fatal. I can instance numerous cases of physicians directly fatally injured by the use of alcohol, who have never had the slightest cognizance of the fact; and I can also instance cases of grave disease from the use of tobacco where the patients never have believed that tobacco has been the cause of their troubles, even after a unanimous opinion to that effect has been expressed by a number of competent medical advisers. The habitual consumption of opium, in doses of any amount, is generally admitted by most people to be physically injurious outside of its strict medicinal application. Moderate indulgence in alcohol as a beverage is beginning to acquire a very widespread evil reputation. But how about tobacco? Tea and coffee we can confidently leave to the consideration of a somewhat remote posterity of a considerably advanced intelligence and elevated hygienic ideals.

The relation of tobacco to the physical welfare of man can only be fairly estimated by viewing the subject in its broadest aspect; by considering its effects upon the race as a whole rather than in individual cases; by taking into consideration economical and other social conditions that at first sight might be considered as having little relevancy to the medical side of the subject. But there can be no just consideration of the matter otherwise. The direct deleterious effects of the immoderate use of tobacco are readily observable; but the great bulk of the evil physical effects due to the moderate use of this plant are of an intermediate nature and not directly noticeable; nevertheless, they are real, and worthy of medical attention. The plainly marked results following the use of tobacco in relatively large amounts seem to be due to quick and extreme interference with nutrition, and a diminution of function of all kinds, which may be represented by anything from a slight decrease of appetite and digestive ability up to a complete loss of function of almost any important organ. Tobacco has stimulating as well narcotic properties, but as ordinarily used its stimulating effect appears to be slight as compared with its narcotic influence. In this respect it differs from alcohol, the use of which, owing to the usual method of introduction in large amounts through the stomach, produces directly, by stimulation, readily noticeable structural changes. But with tobacco the direct evil results are mostly of a functional character, and are more generally diffused, owing to the usual slow manner of introduction into the body. These two properties have an effect upon the body in moderate use as well as in immoderate use, the effect being simply in proportion to the quantity used, though the effects of moderate use may not be measurable by ordinary means. It is easy to see the effects of large amounts of tobacco in the stunted growth of adolescents; in functional cardiac disorders; in intellectual sluggishness, loss of memory, and color blindness; in loss of appetite, and other neuroses of motion, and marked blunting of various functions of sensation, and in degeneracy of descendants; but that lesser evils are produced must be proved mostly by inference, circumstantial collateral evidence, and analogy.

The greater evils that are the outcome of a moderate use of tobacco are probably due to prolonged slight interference with nutrition, and consequent general decrease of vitality, which renders the individual more susceptible through indirect influence to the invasion of disease, and which lessens the capacity for productive effort.