MISCELLANEOUS.

Southland Times, Issue 1705, 21 February 1873, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

A Day's Work. — The average estimate of labor in farm work may be taken as follows : — A man will turn OTer and mix manure in the heap thirty cubic yards a day, or one and a-Kalf to two tons. He can fill into a cart from the heap some twenty-four cubic yards a day and spread it upon the surface of the land from the heaps at the rate of about ten to about fifteen cubic yards a day, according to its condition, the distance between the heaps beiug a rod. A man can dig and fill into a cart ten cubic yarda of chalk, twelve of strong clay, fifteen of light loam, and fourteen of strong loam. He can spread of slaked lime eight tons per day. One and a quarter to one and a half acres of meadow grass can be mown in a day by one man ; of wheat, by the sickle half an acre, by the scythe two acres. A man can thrash out five quarters of corn by the flail in a day. An acre of land can be dug by the spade by a man in fourteen twenty- on© days.— Mark Lane Express. Arithmetic at One's Fingers' Ends. — The Chinese are reported to have daily recourse to a highly ingenious mode of reckoning by the aid of the Sngers, and it is stated that, in this way, they perform all the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, with numbers from 1 to 100,000. In this method of computation, every finger of the left hand represents nine figures, as follows : — The little finger indicates units, the ring finger tens, the middle finger hundreds, the fore-finger thousands, the thumb tens of thousands. When the three joints of each finger are touched from the palm towards the tip, they count one, two, and three of each of the denominations as above named Four, five, and six are counted on the back of the finger joints in the same way ; seven, eight, and nine are counted on the riaht side of the joints from the palm to the tip. The forefinger of the right hand is used as a pointer. Thus 1, 2, 3, 4 would be indicated by first touching the joint of the forefinger ; next the hand on the inside ; next the middle joint of the middle finger on the inside ; next the end joint of the ring finger on the inside, and finally the joint of the little finger, next the hand on the outside. It must require no little practice to enable a finger-calculator to deal correctly and rapidly with figures of any magnitude. The plan is, however, undoubtedly a handy one. " Towards the end of last year" (says the Saturday Keview), " an act was passed by the American Legislature setting apart for ever what is henceforth to be known as the National park, in the territories of Montana and vV.yoming, comprising no less than 3,578 square miles, under public trust and custody, sacred from squatting or settlement, for the benefit and pleasure of the people. Nature is here to be seen and worshipped in her unpolluted majesty and beauty. An act of foresight and good taste like this forms a worthy crown to the policy which the Government of the United States has pursued in the system of land survey* that it has set on foot and constantly kept up through the whole extent of the Union/ ____^