I have used whale oil soap, one pound dissolv- destroy this insect in order to raise apples, as it is to hoe corn and destroy the weeds in order to make a crop of corn. And an orchard will succeed no better without this attention than will a field of corn left to take care of itself. It has been suggested that as this insect has its enemies, some day it will disappear, but it will not do to trust this theory, even though it should prove true, for that day may be far off. J. J. BROWN. SHEBOYGAN, May 26th, 1864. The Watering of Plants and Trees. In times of drouth, like the present, persons not accustomed to the care of plants and newly planted trees, are often in a quandery as to whether to water them, and if so, who and when to do it. A word on this subject: As a general rule trees and shrubbery, and carefully prepared soil, and then thoroughly watered and mulched, will pass unharmed through the severest drouths without further care. But if, as often happens, proper care was not used in the planting, it may be necessary to employ watering as a means to keep them alive. In regard to the proper time to use the remedy good judgment is necessary; if used before they are all hatched enough may be left to cover the tree and then the labor is lost-planted as they ought to be, in well drained if every scale would average fifty eggs, and we should succeed in killing forty-eight of the fifty, there would yet be enough to double the number already on the tree, and this number would in all probability do great damage, and perhaps make you believe that the remedy was good for nothing. It is necessary to know the newly hatched insect at sight, and if your eyes are not sharp get a small magnifying glass to assist them; examine them from time to time and note when they begin to hatch, and also when they first begin to locate, and they should not be allowed to become so old as to In such cases it is well to apply a sufficient quantity to thoroughly moisten the roots, and then water again when the soil again begins to become dry. Every two or three days will usually be often enough. As to time when, we would emphatically say in the evening, after sun down. defy the effects of the remedy. The covering containing eggs should also be carefully examIt involves a good deal of labor, this wained from time to time, and as soon as hatching tering properly, but what is worth doing at has ceased commence vigorously the work of all is worth doing well, and fruit-trees which their destruction. With a properly made syr-will continue to bless the owner with lucious inge, the largest tree can be thoroughly syr- fruit, are certainly worth much care and labor. inged in twenty minutes, and if the application be of the proper strength it will destroy every bark louse on it. To make sure work syringe several times. Our people are so thorougly imbued with the idea that all that is necessaay to make an orchard is to select a good piece of ground and plant the trees, that it is a great effort to do anything more. But in this state particularly it is just as necessary to watch with care and An Excellent Work on Grape Culture. We have just received from the author, Andrew S. Fuller, practical horiculturist, Brooklyn, N. Y., a copy of his recently published book entitled "The Grape Culturist: A treatise on the cultivation of the Grape." After a careful examination we are prepared to say, we like it very much. It takes up the different subjects a discussion of which is necessary to a knowledge of the best meth- This gentleman recently exhibited his cutter ods of growing by seed, propogating by single at our request, in operation at this place, and buds, and by cutting, of laying, grafting, hy-in company with Gen. Atwood, Treasurer of bridizing and crossing, transplanting, prunning, training, &c., &c., and deals with them in so plain, practical and simple a manner as to render the whole matter intelligible to the most inexperienced. The book is cheap at $1.00, and should be in the hands of every one who attempts the cultivation of that most delicious and wholesome of all the small fruits-the grape. A Fine Hardy Raspberry. We have been cultivating a Raspberry for some years past, which we found in the hands of a horticultural friend in Racine county, Wisconsin, who has had it ten or twelve years. Its name and history is not fully known to us yet. It is evidently a foreign sort, or at least of foreign parentage; is nearly or quite as the North river Antwerp, which it resembles in form and firmness; is of excellent flavor and very productive, and best of all, is entirely hardy, being the first of that class we have yet met with that has proven so in Wisconsin. We have fruited it both in Wisconsin and here in Columbus, and it grows in favor with us every year. We hope to be able to give more of its history after the fruit is ripe this season. COLUMBUS, O. A. G. H. the State Agricultural Society, and several other gentlemen, we had the pleasure of seeing it work upon ground previously selected by us in this immediate vicinity. The land chosen was not the roughest in the world, but sufficiently so to make it of but little practical value in the condition in which we found it; the hummocks being from 6 to 15 inches high, and very close together. The bog-cutter was put on at about 8 o'clock in the morning, and about 11 o'clock was as flat as a pan-cake, and only required one more going over to make it as smooth. Area of land, one acre; force employed, one span of horses. The implement consists of a number of steel knives, sloping backwards and so arranged as to cut the hummocks into pieces of triangular form which, when again cut crosswise, are reduced to small bits, suggestive of mince meat. At a distance the cutter has the appearance of an ordinary harrow, and is about as broad and heavy. In view of the effectiveness of this implement; of the increase in value of the land for crops of tame grass; of the vast amount of labor it will save by enabling the farmer to harvest such crops with a mower, and finally of its applicability to other uses, as for MECHANICAL AND COMMERCIAL. instance the thorough preparation of lands A Bog-Cutter that Works Admirably. To the farmers of Wisconsin, which State abounds in boggy meadows, susceptible of being made very valuable if the hummocks can only be smoothed down so as to admit of their being mown, any machine, capable of converting such marshes into true meadows, is certainly a great desideratum. recently broken by the plow, we feel it our duty, as it is entirely our pleasure, to thus bring it to the attention of the public. It may be suggested that from the character of the implement, it is important that the bog to be smoothed should be free from large roots and stones, and that the work should be done before the grass gets so long as to clog. During this drouth the worst bogs must be Well it appears to us that the right imple- dry enough to allow horses upon them, and ment has at last turned up. We refer to the bog-cutter recently patented and manufactured by Mr. C. E. Steller, of McGregor, Iowa. we doubt not that hundreds of our farmers will be pleased to read Mr. Steller's advertisement, and to test this valuable instrument produced a crop of seed as well as of flax. The dried flax, as gathered from the field, is first cut by machinery into suitable lengths, representing the staple of upland cotton, about one and one-eighth inches long. This process is performed by automaton machinery. with great facility, and at little cost. The material is subjected to a steaming process in large vats, and then is dried by machinery rapidly revolving. Next, it passes through what may be called a ginning process, whereby the woody husk or chives is separated from the fibre. By chemical process the fibre is then exploded longitudinally, and assumes the required fineness of cotton. The whole process is rapid, simple and cheap. In this form the material is successfully carded, spun and woven. Beautiful specimens of flax cotton, drawings, rovings, yarn and cloth, and also of flax mixed with cotton, have been exhibited to the Secretary of the Interior, and others, by Ex-Gov. Jackson, of Rhode Island. As a material for mixture with wool, the cottonized flax is vastly preferable to cotton. It combines in the carding process with greater facility. The yarn is stronger. The cloth is very durable, even more so than if made wholly of wool. The lustre of the cloth is improved. Flax wool also receives a dye with the same facility as wool itself.-National Intelligencer. Ice-Making Machines in Demand. The Philadelphia Press has the following in relation to this subject: "If, in the face of the abundance of ice, the prices be kept up-few, we suppose, will have the impudence to think of raising them -science must be resorted to to produce the article artificially. It can be manufactured now, with the aid of steam power, by evaporating ether or any other similarly volatile liquid in vacuo, and again condensing the vapor to liquid, so as to be used afresh. By such a machine, 20 deg. Fah. below zero, (52 of cold) can easily be obtained. Now, as water in ordinary cases freezes at the degree of heat marked 32 on Fahrenheit's thermometer, the machine readily produces ice. By its means ice is made nearly under the equator, in Peru, where previously ice had never been seer, and the British Government employs these machines in India and the Cape of Good Hope, for the use of troops in the hospitals. At Calcutta, the machine-made ice is driving the imported Boston ice out of the market, and seriously threatens the extinction of the large and profitable ice importation from America, established by Mr. I. Tudor, of Boston, over thirty years ago. In large cities, such ice making machines (producing over ten tuns a day, with ease,) might be worked by companies, or even by private persons, at a profit, with prices what they have been of late years. What is needed, however, is an apparatus, at once low-priced, simple, speedy and effective, which may be used in every house. The French firm of Carrie & Co. showed such a machine in the London Exhibition of 1862. It produced ice of such perfeet purity that pieces of it could be put into the drink that is to be cooled-solid, transparent ice, without any sponginess. As the volatile liquid is only the aqueous solution of ammonia, the cost of making it is very slight. The machine is sold in London as low as $20 each, for the smallest machine, and it was estimatethat it might be supplied on lower terms, if manufactured largely. The scot of ice thus produced was far below what we paid, in this city, last year. We only wonder that in this country, where the price of ice has lately gone up so greatly, some ingenious inventor has not discovered a cheap and effective process, for use in all ordinary dwelling-houses, by means of which every family might be self-supplied with ice, at reasonable rate. If prices keep up, after the large natural supply of ice this winter, we shall probably have the French machine introduced here, of course with improvements. If ice continues dearer than bread, every house will have its own icemaking apparatus." The Conscience of Capital. It has often been said that capital has no conscience that gain, irrespective of either means or ultimate end, is its god. In an important sense this is true-so true that the Capitalist is scarcely thought of, except as the incarnation of selfishness, cold, keen, shrewd and soulless. There are noble exceptionsnow and then instances of the sublime consecration of money to patriotic and philanthropic ends-but they are so occasional as to ma'e them all the more emphatic in proof of the rule. We would not be extreme, and deny to capital all schemes that do not involve self-sacrifice and heroic devotion to the great interests of man; for a statute of limitations like that would so repress the energies of men, as that all accumulations would necessarily be accidental and very exceptional. What we do insist upon is that capital should despise all extortion and meanness, and not so generally as it does lose sight altogether of the rights and interests of Labor. These two should be on terms of generous friendship, not of hostility. One of the most reprehensible manifestations of this characteristic spirit of Capital, is that of a combination of capitalists in order to secure to themselves the advantages of a monopely, the basest feature of which is, that it is usually practiced under circumstances which make its effects most grievous to be borne. Laborers' "strikes" are of the same class of proceedings; but these have the virtue of a sort of necessity, while the "combinations" of bankers, brokers, merchants and of extensive manufacturers, are for the sake of rapid and needless accumulations. It is a principle of political economy that price should be regulated by the natural law of supply and demand--that no civil statute should, except in extreme cases, be applied to the regulation of commercial affairs. And this principle is thoroughly sound as to its applicability to those transactions which are influenced by the action of any restraining or compelling force. But does it not often happen that combinations of dealers and manufacturers conspire to make an appearance of scarcity, where there is really a comparative abundance, with a view to large and extravagant profits? Such has been especially true of the stock. brokers and bankers of the great business centers since the beginning of the present national troubles, and it strangely continues to be as true as ever of several elasses of merchants and manufacturers. But, by whatever class, and at whatever time, they are base frauds upon the consumer, and merit the reward of defeat and ruin. A Sleigh Brake. I see in the April No. of the FARMER an inqiry for a cheap, convenient and effectual brake for sleighs. Make a clevis of inch square bar of iron, wide enough for the thickness of a runner. The lower end should be made square and faced with steel, and long enough to draw on an angle of forty-five de grees. NEOSHO, WIS. ZET. MERRELL, was very damp in France, and much of the with mildew. All the flour so affected lost stored flour became heated, and was attacked much of its nutritive qualities, and yielded less bread according the government standard. To obviate such a great evil, flour-drying machines have been introduced. The most successful resembles a long, vertical cylinder, in the interior of which is a spiral plate extending from top to bottom, revolving on a spindle. The plae is heated by steam pipes. The flour to be dried is received by a spout at the top, and is carried down on the warm expose it uniformly to the heat. The moisspiral plate, when it is stirred by brushes to ture which escapes is carried off by a funnel, and the flour is discharged at the bottom, in a dry room, in the lower story of a mill, and is cooled before it is packed. It has been found that waterproof bags are the best article in which to pack it for long-continued storage. Of course, flour which is designed for use soon after it is made does not require to be thus treated, and as the climate in the interior of America is drier than that of France, our flour contains less moisture and is not so liable to heat But allowing for this, it has too much moisture for lengthened preservation in store; and all that is designed for distant shipment, or for long storage, would be rendered more secure if submitted to such a drying process. It is well known that vegetables and most organic bodies will remain unchanged for a long time in a dry SCIENCE, ART, STATISTICS. atmosphere, while they will decay rapidly Drying Flour. In the market columns of a Liverpool paper, American sour flour forms one of the items, and is always quoted at a low price compared with good flour. It consists of flour that has been damaged by exposure to water, or which has become heated by an excess of moisture contained in it. Such flour is used for making starch, also the sizing that is employed for dressing cotton warps. Much of this flour is damaged by water, when being carried on our lakes, canals, and rivers, and with more care this might be prevented. But the carrier is not to blame for the flour which becomes damaged by internal heating from containing too much moisture, when it is stowed in the hold of his vessel, as the same results will follow when it is kept in quantity in a store. But all this damage to flour may be prevented by drying it before packing in barrels, and the operation should not entail much extra expense when properly conduc'ed. In France, where large quantities of flour are stored by wealthy bakers, much attention has been devoted to this subject, and drying machines are now employed for expelling the moisture from flour before it is stored up. The summer of 1860 when exposed to air and moisture. Kiln- Production of White Wax. J The last number of The Technologist, a valable scientific journal published in London, contains a paper by the editor, P. L. Simmonds, Esq., on the trade in beeswax, from which we extract the following: "There are two kinds of wax found in commerce-yellow or unbleached, and white, or purified and bleached. The bleaching of wax is affected by exposing it in thin lamina to the action of the light and air, by which it becomes perfectly white, scentless, harder, and less greasy to the touch. To accomplish this, it is first broken into small pieces and melted in a copper cauldron, with water just sufficient to keep the wax from burning. The cauldron has a pipe at the bottom through |