efpecially when their wind is hurt, that it was on this account our forefathers gave it the name it now bears; though it has been fo much neglected by us.-M. Raimont, a gentleman in Anjou, chancing to fee fome of his cows eat of thefe nuts, found upon inquiry that they had done fo before, without any injury to themselves, or to their milk: upon which he collected all the horfe-chefnuts he could find, kept them under cover, and gave them, mixed with other food, to his cows. They eat them as greedily as they would have done corn. This is confirmed by another inftance, where it appeared that the cows preferred them to apples, of which they are very fond. Their milk was as good, and in greater quantities than before. This gentleman is likewife of opinion, that as the bitternefs is chiefly in the covering of the nut, if they were blanched, and then rafped, or otherwife prepared, they might be given to hogs and poultry. I am,

Gentlemen,

lime, it will not only render it smooth, but also occafion a great heat, by reflecting the rays of light. But even on the fuppofition that you do not plaifter the walls, the folid ftones acquire a greater degree of heat from the action of the fun-beams, than bricks are capable of: and what is a farther advantage, they keep it longer. The degree of heat acquired, and its duration, will be in the direct ratio of the density of the ftones; and confequently, muft prove least on fuch walls as are built of porous free-ftone, and greatest on those that are reared of whyn and marble.

When your trees are trained clofe to the walls, as they must be when the branches are tied to wires, they are strongly influenced by the heat of the fun on fouth-east and fouth expofures; and in great drought, and very warm weather, I have feen apricot, peach, and nectarine trees fuffer from this cause on these afpects; but they are generally safe in any other. In fuch fituations where the foil is naturally light and dry, fruit-trees are more apt to be deftroyed by excefs of heat, than a rich and moift foil: for this reason, brick-walls are to be preferred where the first is found to prevail, and stone and lime walls will anfwer better in the last cafe.

As ftone-walls are much hurt by frequently driving and pulling of nails, which deftroys the cement, and affords fhelter to noxious animals; the following method of fixing the branches was contrived. What occafioned the trial was, the difficulty of placing the branches at proper distances from each other, on a ftone and lime wall. The inventor imagined, that by means of perpendicular wires fixed to the

I 4

walls,

walls, he fhould be able to place them at any distance from each other he fhould incline. It has now been practifed by him for feveral years with fuccefs, and by feveral gentlemen to whom he communicated it; and as it is attended with lefs trouble and expence than any other method, and has feveral advantages not to be found in any of the ways of fixing trees that I have hitherto feen defcribed, I fhall communicate it to the public; and it will probably come into general ufe, if the trials are fairly made, and the trees managed with proper care. The wires may be placed oblique, or in any direction the planter pleases.

Suppofe now, that your wall is finished, no matter what its height be, or of what materials it is built; that your fruit-tree is planted and headed down; drive into a seam near the top of your wall, or within a few inches of the projection, a fingle plancher-nail, not quite to the head. Directly below this, near the furface of the border, and within four or five inches of your tree, on the fide where you find a feam, drive in another nail of the fame kind, in the manner as above directed. Take a piece of iron or brafs-wire, which you pleafe, from number fifteen to twenty; the fizes may be larger, or lefs, as you incline; fuch as is commonly made ufe of for making cages to fmall birds will do very well; twift the end of the wire about the neck of the firft nail, then drive in the nail to the head, pull the wire close by the wall in a trait line to the other nail, keeping it very tight, till you have it fixed by two turns round the neck of the lowest nail; then turn the wire backwards and for

wards till you break it off; or you may fnap it off with a pair of pincers, and drive the nail clofe to the wall, in fuch a manner as it may keep the wire firm. Where interstices offer near the wire, in the middle fpace, drive in nails here and there, ftiffening the wire by carrying it off the line, and keeping it below that fide of the head of the nail that is farthest from the line, till you have driven it in to the head, and it hold fast the wire. Three or four nails will be fufficient for the middle space, in the highest walls. The nails that you make use of should have large heads.

In adding of new wires to keep the branches faft, as they advance in growing, measure off the diftance on the wall above and below, and keep them equal, which will make the wires run parallel to one another. The distance may be from eight inches to twelve, lefs or more, as you fhall judge proper for the particular tree that is to be trained. When the wires are dry, give them a coat of oil and lead ground together, or varnifh when this is hard and fufficiently dried, tie your branches with rufhes, birches, or baffes, to the wires, placing the branches horizontally at fuch regular diftances as you shall incline to dif pofe them at.

When the wires are painted or varnished, they will laft for many years; nor will they injure the bark of any of the branches, if they be tied clofe to the wire, and care taken not to hurt them in tying.

This management keeps the trees closer to the wall than any other method, and the trees may be pruned

pruned and tied with great expedi

tion.

Provided that you make ufe of fmall wire of the kind that has been made mention of, the expence of a fingle tree in nails and wire, will not exceed one fhilling fterling.

You may fix and paint new wires against the wall, as the branches advance in growth.

The new fhoots must be carefully tied to the wires as they extend; for if they are permitted to grow far beyond the wires, and become bushy at the top, they are apt to be turned back by the wind, and broken off at the part where they are tied to the wires.

The proper time for putting up the wires, is from the month of May to September, or the whole feafon when your trees are pufhing young fhoots. Make choice of fair dry weather for this purpose, as the paint or varnish will then harden in a few days.

When the mixed oil and lead falls on the leaves of fome of the tender kinds, as peaches or nectarines, &c, it deftroys them: this is easily prevented, by fixing and painting your wires on the walls, before the branches reach that length.

Some of the wires will fometimes be broken off by accidents or ruft, at or near the nails, or below their heads. This will happen fooneft where they have had no paint: these can be nailed again, and stiffened in the manner directed. Should the wires be broken off entirely, their places can eafily be fupplied with new ones, as they can readily be flipt down behind the branches any time of the year, even when the leaves are

on, fixed with nails, and stiffened. When any of the wires are relaxed or loofened, they can be made tight by nailing, in the manner already directed. You may also put up your wires in a horizontal direction, or running down obliquely on each fide, from a right or obtufe angle formed in the center of the tree: or the whole of the wires may be placed obliquely, ail of them being parallel: or if any one fhould not grudge the trouble and expence, they may be doubled on the wall with interfections; fo that the interftices may form lozenges, and the branches may be tied to the part where the wires interfect each other.

Some new Experiments on the Prefervation of Corn, by M. Du Hamel. -From the Hiftory of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris.

THE prefervation of corn re

quires two indifpenfable operations: the firft, to deprive it of the moisture it contains, which would foon occafion rottennefs; and the fecond, to fecure it from the ravage of animals and infects.

We should be deceived, if we imagined that the fort of drying, which corn receives from the fun and the external air, at the time of its maturity, took away from it a fufficient degree of moisture to keep it from fpoiling. This drying may at most be fufficient to hinder its being damaged, fo long as it is kept in fheaves in the barn, or elsewhere; but other precautions are neceffary to preferve it, when it is threshed out and feparated from its ear.

In the first trials by M. Du Hamel,

mel, he employed the action of the ventilator: he laid up his corn in a wooden cheft with two bottoms, of which the upper was a fort of grating of wood covered with a canvas; and the pipe of a ventilator introduced between these two bottoms, forced, by the play of this inftrument, the air to pass through the whole depth of the mass of corn. This was already gaining much on the laying out and the manner of airing corn by ftirring it with a fnovel; but he foon perceived that, unless this operation, which is always troublesome and coftly, was long repeated, the corn was ftill in danger of being heated, and the ventilator befides did nothing more than difturb the infects, without deftroying either them or their eggs.

He therefore fought after a more efficacious remedy, and this was the ftove; corn dried by the stove is fufficiently divefted of its humidity to be kept for a very long time without fpoiling; and the heat of the ftove carried to a point fo as not to damage the corn that is defigned for making bread, destroys equally the infects and their eggs.

Experiments have decided in favour of this method, and they alfo gave room to M. Du Hamel to obferve feveral interefting particulars. They informed him, for infance, that the grains did not all equally lose their weight; that the more moist loft more; that, notwithstanding this lofs of weight, the grains firft increased in bulk; that the grains, all things otherwise equal, loft so much the more of their weight as they longer remained in the ftove; that they refumed a part from the moisture of the air, if placed, on being taken out of the ftove, in too cool a place; that it

was an error to believe that one might, by a greater heat, abridge the time of operation, and that the moisture should have time to go out of the corn, to reduce itfelf into vapours, and pass away; that, though corn may be expofed without running any risk, to a heat of upwards of an hundred degrees of M. de Reaumur's thermometer, yet a little more than twenty degrees may be enough; that corn dried in the ftove was more eafily ground, and that the grinding was performed in a much shorter time; that the flour abforbed more water than that of corn not dried by the stove; that the dough kept itself more compact in the oven; and laftly, that it was much fooner baked.

The corn once dried, and the infects, or their eggs it might contain, being deftroyed, it will be. adviseable to lay it in chefts or bins. of found wood that fhut up close, which will eafily fecure it from any damage rats, mice, birds, and cats may do it. In the fame manner may be dried flour, especially that fent in hogfheads abroad, which, for want of this precaution, is often fpoiled before it arrives at the place of its deftination. The operation of drying corn by the ftove is no way difficult. It is enough to throw it into a hopper placed above the ftove, and it will place itself in proper order in the infide. When the operation is over, by only opening the paffage where it is to come out, it will fall of itself into the bags that are held to receive it.

This method is now adopted in feveral parts; but the best and moft ufeful projects require often a confiderable time for being eftablifhed.

1

To take the natural or lively hape

of an Herb.

Receipt for a rich pleasant Wine.

cyder the

FIR

copy, and gently rub the veins on the back-fide of it, with a piece of ivory or fome fuch-like matter, fo as to bruise them a little; afterwards wet the fame fide gently with linfeed oil, and then prefs it hard upon a piece of white paper; and you will have the perfect figure of the leaf, with every vein in it juftly expreffed. This impreffion being afterwards coloured, will feem truly natural, and is a moft ufeful method for fuch as would wish to preferve plants,

prefs, mix it

honey, until it will buoy up an egg. Boil it gently, for a quarter of an hour, but not in an iron pot. Take off the fcum as fast as it rifes: let it cool: then barrel it in a veffel not quite full; and in March following bottle it off. It will be ripe in a month or fix weeks afterwards. Then you will find a rich vinous liquor, as ftrong as Madeira wine, and very pleafant. Honey may be a fine ingredient to affift and to render palatable new crabbed, hard, auftere cyder,