FACTS FOR FARMERS. PRESERVING AND MOUNTING FERNS.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 359, 1 September 1874, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS. PRESERVING AND MOUNTING FERNS.

lii choosing the fronds, be careful not to gather the young ones, as though the most delicate green whilst growing, they lose their colour in drying. Place the fronds between several sheets of paper (preferably blotting paper), and pass over a moderately heated flat iron for several minutes. Use only, however, will determine how long to continue the iron as ferns vary in the thickness of their fronds. Then place separately in a book and lay nbida for a day or two pi c\ ions to mounting. To do this, smear the sheet of p.i per o\er with liquid gum, lay the reversed side of the frond on the gummed surface, press gently, remove, and place carefully on the paper where you intend it to remain. Finally pass over a piece of blotting paper to remove creases. Tiiis will be found much more effective than the unsightly method of pasting little scraps of paper across the ferns to keep them in situation. PRODUCTION OF S'IAUCH, PAPIiR, AND SOAP PHOM CORN. All the ingredients of corn, according to Leconte, may bo utilised. The grain is, in the first place, to be saturated with a solution of caustic soda in large cisterns, and transferred to cylindrical sieves ; then dipped in water, and ground in connection with a continuous stream of pure, or somewhat caustic water. The quantity of soda, depending on its quality, the oily contents of the grain, and the temperature, shpuld be such as to saponify the oil of the grain while allowing the starch to appear solid and Hrm. The liquid, as it leaves the mill, passes over sieves, on which the germs, hulls, «te, are retained while the starch and soap pass through, and flow over large, inclined surfaces, upon which the starch settles, and tho dilute soap solution collects in cisterns. Tho starch is then washed with pure water in cisterns, again passed through sieves into cisterns., allowed to settle twenty-four kour&, and after drawing off the supernatant liquid, removed

and dried. Excellent soap may be obtained from the dilute solution, and the germs, «.vc, can beutilised in paper manufacture.

and dried. Excellent soap may be obtained from the dilute solution, and the germs, «.vc, can beutilised in paper manufacture. STOMACHICS. Under this head are comprehended certain rrmediea employed when the stomach is wanting in tone and vigour. The following may be Uken with advantage : — Take twenty grains of powdered rhubarb, and dissolve it in three ■ ounce-* and a-lulf of pepperraent water, then add sal volatile and compound tincture of gentian, each a drachm and a-half. Dose : From one ounce to an. ounce and a-half ; or beat apricot kernels to a paste, and put into spirits of wine, in the proportion of an ounce of kernels to half a pints of spirit. Infuse for a fortnight, then filter, or pour on" carefully. Persons of weak digestion may take a teaspoonful of this twice or thrice a day in water. In some cases of nervous indigestion, this ia a most valuable remedy. The dose may be extended to a tablespoonful by degrees.

Mr Edward Wilson communicates to the Pall Mall Gazette some interesting particulars concerning the eucalyptus, or " fever tree." This plant has the singular property of absorbing ten times its weight of water from the soil, and emitting antisepetic camphorous effluvia. When sown in marshy ground it will dry it up in a veiy short time. The English were the first to try it at the Cape, and within two or three years they completely changed the climatic condition of the unhealthy parts of the colony. At Pardock, twenty miles from Algiers, a farm situated on the banks of the Hamyxe was noted for its extremely pestilential air. In the spring of 18G7 about 13,000 of the eucalyptus were planted there. In July of the same year — the time when the fever season used to set in — not a single case occurred ; yet the trees were not more than 9ft high. Since then complete immunity from fever has been maintained. In the neighbourhood of Conbtantine the farm of Ben Machydlin was equally in bad repute. It was covered with marshes both in winter and summer. In five years the whole ground was dried I up by 14,000 of these trees, and farmers and children enjoy excellent health. At the factory of the Rue de Con&tantine, in three years a plantation of eucalyptus has tiunsformed twelve acres of marshy soil into a magnificent park, whence fever completely disappeai-cd. In the island of Cuba this and all other paludal diseases are fast disappearing from all the unhealthy districts where this tree has been introduced. A station-house at one of the ends of a railway viaduct in the department of the Var was so pestilential that the officials could not be kept there longer than a year. Forty of these trees were planted, and it is now as healthy as any other place on the line. A French botanist, M. Prillieux, has recently been making researches as to the production of gum in fruit troees. According to him, the flow of gum. constitutes a veritable disease, which he names gommosc. The alimentary substances held in reserve in the deeper part of the tissues, instead of serving for the growth of the plant, are employed for the production of gum, and a portion of them accumulate, awaiting the instant of their transformation, about gummy centres, which seem to act in the organism as centres of irritation. M. Prillieux compares this effect to what occurs when an insect deposits one of its eggs in the tissues of a plant. Under the influence of this local irritation a gall is formed, the tissues are changed and the new cells which appear stoi-e up within them masses of alimentarysubstances, and especially of fecula. These deposits are destined not for the wants of the plant itself, but for the development of the little parasite which is found Avithin. The production of gum at the expense of the plant's reserves, has no other limit than the entire exhaustion of the plant. Scarification of the bark by longitudinal incisions in the branches is the chief remedy proposed by M. Prillieux. These wounds necessitate the production of new tissues ; and under this very active excitation the matters in reserve are compelled to formation of new cells, and cease to be drawn towards the gummy centres. Dingier 's Journal gives the following method for testing dyea in order to detect adulterations :—: — Red dyes must neither colour soap and water nor lime water, nor must they themselves become yellow or brown after boiling. This test shows the presence or absence of Brazil wood, archil, saffiower, sandal wood, and the aniline colours. Yellow dyes must stand being boiled with alcohol, and lime water. The most stable yellow is madder yellow ; the least stable are anatto and turmeric ; fustic is rather better. Blue dyes must not colour alcohol reddish, nor must they decompose on boiling with hydroch-^ loric acid. The best purple colours are composed of indigo and cochineal, or purpurin. The former test apjjlies also to them. Orange dyes must colour neither water nor alcohol on boiling ; green, neither alcohol nor hydrochloric acid. Brown dyes must not lose their colour on standing with alcohol, or on boiling with water. If black colours have a basis of indigo, they turn greenish or blue on boiling with sodium carbonate ; if the dye be pure gall-nuts, it turns brown. If the material changes to red onhoiling -\\ ith hydrochloric acid, the colouring matter is logwood without a basis of indigo, and is not durable. If it changes to blue, indigo is present.