Osage for Silk-Worms.
In a private letter to the editor of The Prairie Farmer Dr. L. S. Pennington, of Whiteside County, Illinois, says: "Many thanks for your instructive articles on Silk Culture. Could the many miles of Osage orange found in this State be utilized for this purpose, the industry would give employment to thousands of dependent women and children, by which means they could make themselves, at least in part, self-supporting. I hope that you will continue to publish and instruct your many readers on this subject."
Anent this subject we find the following by Prof. C. V. Riley in a late issue of the American Naturalist:
"There is a strong disposition on the part of those who look for making money by the propagation and sale of mulberry trees, to underrate the use of Osage orange as silk-worm food. We have thoroughly demonstrated, by the most careful tests, on several occasions, that when Maclura aurantiaca is properly used for this purpose, the resulting silk loses nothing in quantity or quality, and we have now a strain of Sericaria mori that has been fed upon the plant for twelve consecutive years without deterioration. There has been, perhaps, a slight loss of color which, if anything, must be looked upon as an advantage. It is more than likely, how ever, that the different races will differ in their adaptability to the Maclura, and that for the first year the sudden transition to Maclura from Morus, upon which the worms have been fed for centuries, may result in some depreciation. Mr. Virion des Lauriers, at the silk farm at Genito, has completed some experiments on the relative value of the two plants, which he details in the opening number of the Silk-Grower's Guide and Manufacturer's Gazette. Four varieties of worms were reared. The race known as the "Var" was fed throughout on mulberry leaves. The "Pyrenean" and "Cevennes" worms were fed throughout on leaves and branches of Osage orange, while the "Milanese" worms were fed on Maclura up to the second molt and then changed to mulberry leaves. At the close examples of each variety of cocoons were sent to the Secretary of the Silk Board at Lyons, and appraised by him The Maclura-fed cocoons were rated at 85 cents per pound, those raised partly on Osage and partly on mulberry at 95 cents per pound, and those fed entirely on mulberry at $1.11 per pound.
"This, Mr. des Lauriers thinks, seems to show that the difference between Maclura and Morus as silk-worm food is some 'twenty-five to thirty per cent in favor of the latter, while it is evident that the leaf of the Osage orange can be used with some advantage during the first two ages of the worms, thus allowing the mulberry tree to grow more leafy for feeding during the last three ages.' The experiment, although interesting, is not conclusive, from the simple fact that different races were used in the different tests and not the same races, so that the result may have been due, to a certain extent, to race and not to food."
SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL.
A writer in an English medical journal declares that the raising of the head of the bed, by placing under each leg a block of the thickness of two bricks, is an effective remedy for cramps. Patients who have suffered at night, crying aloud with pain, have found this plan to afford immediate, certain, and permanent relief.
California stands fifth in the list of States in the manufacture of salt, and is the only State in the Union where the distillation of salt from sea water is carried on to any considerable extent. This industry has increased rapidly during the last twenty years. The production has risen from 44,000 bushels in 1860 to upwards of 880,000 bushels in 1883.
The amount of attention given to purely technical education in Saxony is shown by the fact that there are now in that kingdom the following schools: A technical high school in Dresden, a technical State institute at Chemnitz, and art schools in Dresden and Leipzig, also four builders' schools, two for the manufacture of toys, six for shipbuilders, three for basket weavers, and fourteen for lace making. Besides these there are the following trade schools supported by different trades, foundations, endowments, and districts: Two for decorative painting, one for watchmakers, one for sheet metal workers, three for musical instrument makers, one for druggists (not pharmacy), twenty-seven for weaving, one for machine embroidery, two for tailors, one for barbers and hairdressers, three for hand spinning, six for straw weaving, three for wood carving, four for steam boiler heating, six for female handiwork. There are, moreover, seventeen technical advanced schools, two for gardeners, eight agricultural, and twenty-six commercial schools.
The Patrie reports, with apparent faith, an invention of Dr. Raydt, of Hanover, who claims to have developed fully the utility of carbonic acid as a motive agent. Under the pressure of forty atmospheres this acid is reduced to a liquid state, and when the pressure is removed it evaporates and expands into a bulk 500 times as great as that it occupied before. It is by means of this double process that the Hanoverian chemist proposes to obtain such important benefits from the agent he employs. A quantity of the fluid is liquified, and then stowed away in strong metal receptacles, securely fastened and provided with a duct and valve. By opening the valve free passage is given to the gas, which escapes with great force, and may be used instead of steam for working in a piston. One of the principal uses to which it has been put is to act as a temporary motive power for fire engines. Iron cases of liquified carbonic acid are fitted on to the boiler of the machine, and are always ready for use, so that while steam is being got up, and the engines can not yet be regularly worked in the usual way, the piston valves can be supplied with acid gas. There is, however, another remarkable object to which the new agent can be directed, and to which it has been recently applied in some experiments conducted at Kiel. This is the floating of sunken vessels by means of artificial bladders. It has been found that a bladder or balloon of twenty feet diameter, filled with air, will raise a mass of over 100 tons. Hitherto these floats have been distended by pumping air into them through pipes from above by a cumbrous and tedious process, but Dr. Raydt merely affixes a sufficient number of his iron gas-accumulators to the necks of the floats to be used, and then by releasing the gas fills them at once with the contents.