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THE SOUTHERN WORLD, FEBRUARY 1, 1882.
7
§nt1m L ed §ms.
Mushrooms.
The mushroom is a very accommodating
plant. We have seen them growing in old
tubs, in out-of-the-way corners of sheds, in
abandoned greenhouses, on shelves in stables,
and in every case giving apparently a good
and healthful crop.
All that is needed for success is a temper
ature from 50° degrees to 60° degrees, some
fresh horse manure and a little spawn. Hav
ing procured wlint fresh horse manure that
is needed, mix it well with about one-third
of its bulk of good loam, and you are pre
pared to make your beds in whatever place
you prefer. If you determine to form beds
make them narrow—certainly notmore than
five feet in breadth and about fifteen inches
in height. The material must be made com
pact by beating down ns evenly as possible.
If undercover, the beds may be made flat
an the top, butif in theopen air they should
be rounded to sited the rain. After the beds
have been made a week, there will be con
siderable heat produced by the fermentation
of the manure.
Bricks of spawn should have been secured
previously, and they can be sent every where,
postage or expressuge free, at about thirty
cents a pound. Break them into pieces as
large as walnuts, and insert in the beds just
below the surface, about ten inches apart.
One pound of spawn is sufficient for a space
two by six feet. If there seems to be much
heat, do nothing for a week or ten days, un
til it somewhat subsides. Then cover the
bed with an inch or more of good earth,
pressing it down with the back of a spade.
It is not likely in a large bed that water will
be needed at all; but if the material should
appear very dry, water lightly with warm
water. In small beds, or pails, or anything
of the kind, it is probable water will be
needed once or twice.
Mushrooms will begin to appear in about
six weeks after planting the spawn, and can
be gathered for three or four weeks. In
gathering, take up the mushroom entire,
leaving no stem in the bed, and placing a
little earth in the hole made by its removal.
When the crop is gathered, cover the bed
with a little more earth, beat it down gently
and give a pretty good moistening with tepid
water, and in about a month more another
crop will be produced.—[Vick’s Illustrated.
Cellars as Centers of Malaria.
Dr. C. R. Agncw, writing from Florida,
says: In this State a somewhat new prob
lem presents itself, in the fact that all houses
should be constructed without ceHnrs, and
so raised on underpinning os toaliowaclean
sweep of light and air beneath them. Indeed
it is a question whether such a mode of con
struction should not be adopted everywhere
for dwellings. I have for moro than twenty
years believed that cellar atmosphere is a
most prolific cause of disease and death. I
believe that it increases seventy-five per cent,
the risk from malarial diseases all over our
country. Through this State the native pop
ulation, as by an instinct, raise their simple
cabins three or four feet abovo the ground,
and allow air and light to pervade the space
so made beneath the ground-floor. I advise
all travelers to avoid those hotels and other
domiciles in the South which are not so con
structed.
Precautions for Health.
The prevalence of malarial fever in many
sections of the country, is suggestive of pre
cautions for the preservation of health.
There is no doubt but a large number of
severe cases of chills and fever, bilious fever,
and other kindred complnints, could be
prevented by anticipating the season in the
matter of warm clothing. Especially should
children be dressed warmly, and required to
put on their shoes and stockings, which
many of them discard during the very warm
weather of summer. It is a curious fact
the prevailing complaint of autumn—chills
and fever—exactly resembles the weather,
cold nights and hot days, and may be the
direct result of these. At all events, It is
very probable that many cases of chills and
of bilious fever might be prevented by warm
dressing during the cold nights and early
mornings, and by having a little Are in the
house, enough to remove the chill and
dampness.
A lady who has spent several years in a
malarial district says that while their neigh
bors were, every fall, shaking with chills
and taking quinine, (an ounce bottle of
which was to be found in nearly every house,
and was resorted to upon the least Indispo
sition), her family escaped almost entirely
by staying in-doors after sundown in the
evening and before sunrise in the morning;
by putting on extra clothing at these times,
and having a little fire tn the house every
cool morning and evening and every cool,
damp day. It was not necessary to have
sufficient Arc to heat the rooms uncomforta
bly, but just enough to dry the atmosphere
and dispel the morning and evening chilli
ness. She believes that this plan enabled
them to bid deAnncc to chills and fever.
This is a very simple precaution, and cer
tainly worth a trial. An ounce of preven
tion is wortli a pound of quinine.
What la Needed.
From the Connecticut Cournnt.
The agricultural mind is naturally inde
pendent, looking to the ground and the
skies for support. Ingrain in it is the
thought of propping the State, but never of
being supported by it. It is naturally re
ligious and its notion of heaven is of a land
kept Bowing with milk and honey by good
farming. It has many enemies in nature
that it knows of, and it can not conceive of
any that it don’t know of. That it should
be managed and gradually trained to this or
that direction from the outside, like an ox,
is also inconceivable. That the schooling
of its children should be so contrived ns to
weaken their hold upon outside affairs is
scarcely conceivable by it. In truth the
government, or the civilization which does
this long, cut its own throat, like a hog
swimming. The picture of the old man try
ing the virtue of stones on the rude boy in
the apple tree might well be put back into
tho spelling book. Immigration will help,
but can not alone reinforce the State. The
minds of our own young people must be
bent or broken to agricultural pursuits.
The few farmers who have kept strict agri
cultural schools all their lives need not be
ashamed of receiving help in that direction
from revised law. Mechanics have had it
for a century. Millions upon millions in
treasure and blood have been spent in
strengthening our mechanical arm. Tariff-
villcs are thriving everywhere, while weeds
and grass are growing in the old farm barn
yard. But the pendulum which governs
human action swings both ways, on a gen
eral average, in a long term of years. The
people will not take a stone for bread. But
no great progress in agriculture, morals or
religion can be made until we take our life
leases of agricultural land as a sacred trust,
and learn to leave our bit of the world as
good as we found it. All robbery, dis
honesty, inAdelity and wrong is built up
from robbing the land.
Dark Swine Preferred.
Some forty odd years ago, when I Arst
began to execute orders given mo by tho
Southern planters, they required, with rare
exceptions, white swine. I told them tho
dark colored would prove the most hardy
and thrifty for their hot climate, the same
as negroes over white men. But I could at
Arst persuade only a few to adopt my opin
ion and take Berkshire, Essex or Neapolitan,
in preference to Suffolk, Prince Albert,.
Yorkshire, Irish Grazier and Chester
County—these last Ave being tho popular
white pigs of that day. But my Southern
friends soon found that all of these Ave were
subject to scurf, mange, and other disagree
able cutaneous diseases, which the black or
dark spotted pigs escaped entirely, and
always wore a healthy, clean, glossy hide.
Tiio planters then began to change their
orders, and in the course of a few years
would hardly accept white pigs from the
North, of even the Anest breeds, as a gift.
In most other parts of the United States, a
deep prejudice prevailed against black and
dark spotted swine, and a few would breed
them. Pork packers were especially op
posed to them, because, they said, the skin
was dark, and yet this would generally
scrape to whlto when they came to dress it.
However, time went on, and as breeders
gradually found out, North, Enst and West,
the same objections to white swine which
had taken place at the South, they began
rapidly to change the color of their stock,
and now few white hogs are found in the
Chicago, or other great markets of the West,
the general run being on the Berkshire, the
Poland China, and Essex. Indeed, so much
more favorably are dark-colored swine now
considered there, that they have been grad
ually breeding out the white spots of the
Arst two sorts above, and now they are
almost entirely black or very dark brown,
like the Essex and Neapolitan. All these
swine are very thrifty, and mature early.
The Berkshire and Poland China are espe
cially hardy—can endure any. extreme of
climate, from the coldest to the hottest.
The Berkshire is famous for its larger pro
portion of tender, lean, juicy meat, and is
consequently greatly preferred for smoked
hams, shoulders and bacon. Tiie three
other sorts cut up choice, clear, fat pork,
which is most desirable to salt and barrel.
—[A. B. Allen in N. Y. Tribune.
Glucose—Its Relation to Health and
Adulteration.
The apparently popular idea that this arti
cle was deleterious and even poisonous, was
a pure fallacy, just as it was a fallacy to be
lieve that hard water was moro nutritious
than soft, or that beef tea, as ordinarily made,
was strengthening to the body. Glucose was
made principally from corn, or rather
from the starch to be found in corn. It wns
made by extracting the starch and then sub
mitting that starch to tho action of sulphu
ric acid. After the chemical action had
taken place, the starch being converted into
glucoso the acid was neutralized by adding
chalk or marble dust to the general com
pound, which would then be composed of
glucose and sulphate of lime, the latter a per
fectly harmless article. But, harmless though
the sulphate of lime was, the glucose would
not mix with it but remained at the top
and could be drawn off.
As to the glucoso itself, it was composed of
hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon—just what
cane sugar wns composed of—though in
slightly different quantities. The difference
between cane sugar and glucose, so far as the
hotly wns concerned, was this: Glucose when
eaten,went directly into circulation through
out the body, givingit Aeshnnd strength, but
enne sugar, when enten, had Arst to bo con
verted into glucose before it could circulate.
In other words, the body demanded glucose,
and the chemical acids of the stomach made
glucose in large quantities from bread, fruit,
and almost every variety of food.
But it was claimed by tho alarmists that
qunntics of the sulphate of lime were to be
found in glucose. This might be true {n some
cases, but what of it? Sulphntc of lime wns
perfectly harmless, and could bo found in
large quantities in all waters used in the
manufacture of the great English ales and
beers. Anyone who drank a glass of Bass’
or Allsop’s ale took into his system a larger
quantity of sulphate of lime than could he
found in the same quantity of glucose syrup.
Again, it had been claimed that sulphuric
acid in a freestate had been found in glucose.
Chemists who claimed this did not know
their business. In the Arst place, the pres
ence of the free acid would injure the appa
ratus of the manufacturer to a frightful
extent, and would color the glucose and
greatly deteriorate from its commercial value
Therefore, selAsh motives alone induced the
manufacturer to use about twice as much
marble dust to neutralize the acid as was
really necessary. Tho conclusion was, then,
that glucose was very valuableosanutritious
article of food, and the time would come or
should come, when it would be used for ordi
nary purposes instead of sugar. It would
cost only three or four, or perhaps two, cents
a pound, and was fully half as sweet as cane
sugar.—[Brewers' Journal.
High Feeding Moat Profitable.
It is an error to assumo that high feeding
is too expensive for general practice, os I will
endeavor to show by a few examples. In the
case of a pair of grade short-horn twins,
owned by an Illinois farmer, their food for
the Arst six months consisted of sour skim
milk, oil meal and grass, which gave as good
a growth as whole milk. At six months old
the pair weighed 1340 pounds. For the next
six months, they were fed out of doors, on
grass, corn and hay, and weighed at one year
old, 1060 pounds. Attwo years flicy weighed
3305, and at three years, 5500 pounds. Any
dairy farmer can feed calves as theso wero
fed, and should see that it is for his inter
est to give them all they can eat and digest.
A Concord, N. H., farmer bought a calf
which weighed 160 pounds, at the age of four
weeks. He fed it exclusively upon skim
milk, until it was nine months old, allowing
it of course to graze what it would; during
the next three months it got shorts in addi
tion to the skim milk. At the end of that
time, being one year old, its girth was six
feet Ave inches, and its weight 1200 pounds
live, dressing 902 pounds,—as much as some
four-year olds.
These instances show that large calves can
be raised without feeding them on new milk;
skim milk supplemented with oil meal or
corn meal, will effect a rapid growth', and at
a cost which will permit a handsome proAt
to be realised.
Ax Arab proverb: “ All sunshine makes
the desert. ” ■
Kindness is the golden chain by which
society is bound together.
IVk would willingly have others perfect,
and yet wo amend not our own faults.
It is easier to And a score of men wise
enough to discover the truth, than one in
trepid enough in the face of opposition to
stand up for it.
Look over on the bright side, which is
ever the heaven sido of life. This is far bet
ter than any medicine.
He TnAT docs good to another does good
also to himself, not only in the consequence
but in the very act; for tho consciousness
of well-doing is in itself aniplo reward.—
Seneca.
Life is a book of which wo lmvo but ono
edition. Let each day’s actions, ns they
add their pages to the indestructiblo volume,
be such ns we shall bo willing to have an
assembled world rend.
No physician ever weighed out medicino
with half so much exactness and care as God
weighs out to us every trial; not one grain
too much docs ho ever permit to bo put
in the scale.—Cecil.
Death from a lightning stroke is said to
bo absolutely painless. But wo don’t seo
how they know. lVc don’t believe any per
son who ever died that way hnd a ciianco to
tell how it felt.—Boston Post.
God’s sweet dews and showers of grace
slide off the mountains of pride and fall on
the low valleys of humble hearts and mnko -
them, pleasant and fertile.
No one’s life can possibly be changed after
death. To transmute an evil lifo into a
good one, or the life of an infernal being to
that of an nngcl, is utterly impracticable,
beyond tho grave.
If you tell your troubles to God, you put
them into the grave: they will never rise
again when you have committed them to
him. If you roll your burden nnywhere
else it will roll back again like the stone of
Sisyphus.—Spurgeon.
Young Hayseed, a knowing young fellow
from the country, wns in town the other
day and “ put up” at one of tho Arst-clas^e-
hotels. After dinner he strolled out to the
office, and, picking up a toothpick from the
box on the office counter, used it vigorously
on a set of tobacco-stained grinders, and
then replaced it carefully in tho box, say
ing ns he did so: “Some fellers would put
that air sliver in their pocket and kerry it
away, but their ain’t nothing menn about
me, I kin tell you.”—Baltimore Commercial
Bulletin.
Remember that each day you are casting
a healing or a hurting shadow. No man
liveth to himself alone. There may be somo
poor soul back of you creeping along with
fear and trembling amid tho experiences of
life—poor, timid and heart-broken. You
can not go and creep with him; you can not
grope amid the darkness and despair witli
him, but you can do ono thing; you can lift
up your voice and sing some song of holy
conAdence, some sublinto hymn of trust, and
God will Aout tho sounds back to that halt
ing soul, and he will be cheered and strength
ened and saved by your joy.
The Keokuk Gate City hns unearthed tho
meanest man on record, and locates h'ini at
Burlington. Tho story, as tho paper men
tioned tells it, is, that while a deaf, dumb
and blind hand-orgnnist was sleeping on tho
post-office corner, the wretch stole his in
strument and substituted a new-fangled
churn therefor; and when tho organist
awoko ho seized the handles of the chum
and ground away for dear life, and when
the “shades of night were falling fast,” tho
meanest man in the world came around,
took his churn, restored the organ to its
owner, and carried home four pounds of
creamery butter.
Men say tho old cathedral pinnacles point
to heaven. Why, so does every tree that
buds, and every bird that rises as it sings.
Men say their aisles are good for worship.
Why, so is every mountain glen, and rough
sea-shore. But this they have of distinct
and indisputable glory,—that their mighty
walls were never raised, and never shall be,
but by men who love and aid each other in
their weakness; that all their interlacing
strength of vaulted stone has its foundation
upon the stronger arches of manly fellow
ship, and all their changing grace of de
pressed or lifted pinnacle owes its cadence
and completeness to sweeter symmetries of
(he human souh