language, ought to avoid. We hear it, however, from very respectable individuals particularly in certain parts of the country. But it is not indigenous. The uneducated use it every where, and it is, for this reason, a common grammatical inaccuracy into which children fall. It is offensively common in London. We hear "he did not ought to have went," frequently there. To wilt. 2. Of hatching the eggs. The general rule in Europe is to put the worms' eggs to hatch as soon as the mul berry trees begin to bud. The tree here spoken of is the Italian white mulberry, "To wither." This word is heard in the southern and western counties of England, as "the rose is wilted." End of Provincialisms which are Re-(the proper food of silk worms,) which puted Americanisms. ESSAYS ON AMERICAN SILK BY MESSRS. DUPONCEAU AND D'HOMERGUE (Continued from page 548.) The following are the several directions given by Mr. D'Homergue to American planters and farmers for the raising of silk worms. 1. Of the eggs of silk worms. The eggs of silk worms exactly resemble in their appearance and colour the seeds of the poppy. Hence those seeds are sometimes sold in Europe by dishonest men as silk worms' eggs, or mixed with them. But it is easy to detect the fraud, and at the same time to separate the good or live eggs from the bad ones. The eggs must be washed in pure water; all that are good will go to the bottom, and the bad ones will swim. This separation ought to be made by every one who purchases worms' eggs. It is also necessary to keep them clean, and free them by washing from them a kind of gum which adheres to them. Those who purchase or receive from others the eggs of silk worms, will do well always to observe this direction, although the eggs may have been washed by those who raised them, as many of them may have perished by dampness, excessive heat, or want of care. After the eggs have been washed, they must be dried by exposure to cool and dry air. As the eggs are produced in the month of July, which is a hot month, they must be kept in some cool place until the proper season for hatching them, which is should be every where extensively planted. It buds generally about the 11th. of May. Ten days afterwards, say about the 21st. they put forth their leaves. These ten days are employed in France in hatching the eggs, by exposing them to a heat which is graduated by means of stoves and thermometers. But in this country nature seems to have done every thing, and I can see as yet no need of recurring to art. The worms' eggs may then here be put to hatch when the leaves of the mulberry begin or are ready to appear. I think in this country this happens about the 21st. of May, when the sun passes from Taurus into Gemini. If, however, by some change in the temperature, the mulberry trees should put forth their leaves later than usual, the time of hatching should be delayed proportionally. But I am inclined to think that but seldom happens in this country. The manner of putting the eggs to hatch is as follows. They should be put in a pasteboard or wooden box, not covered at the top, and the sides not more than half an inch high, so that the worms, when hatched, may easily crawl out, as will be presently mentioned. The size of the box should be suited to the quantity of eggs to be hatched, so that they be not on the top of one another; but they may touch each other. The box then should be covered with paper, perforated with holes of the size of a large pin's head, so that the worms when hatched may easily pass through them. I have found that the worms in this country, as far as my experience goes, are generally hatched in three days after being put into the box. When they are near coming out, young mulberry leaves should be put on the top of the box, leaving spaces. The worms, as soon as hatched, will smell those leaves, crawl up to them through the holes in the paper cover, and begin feeding. Then the leaves, covered with worms, are gently taken up and laid on the tabte or hurdle that has been prepared to receive them. The eggs should be put to hatch in a warm place. The heat should be at least eighty degrees Fahrenheit. When I arrived in this city, on the 19th. of May, the thermometer was 824 degrees within doors. It is therefore probable that about the same period it does not often fall below 80 degrees, particularly in the south. The European writers have taken great pains to graduate the heat during ten days which are employed in those countries for hatching worms' eggs. All these precautions do not appear necessary in this country. Care should be taken that the worms do not lie on each other, as it prevents them from feeding. When they do, they should be separated. They should have as much space as possible; the more they are at their ease the better they thrive. Nothing is more prejudicial to the silk worm than to be fed with damp leaves. A quantity of dry leaves should therefore always be kept in reserve, in case of rain. Wet leaves must be dried in the hot sun. The leaves should not be gathered until the sun has absorbed all the dew. The quantity of food to be given to the worms must be calculated according to their ages. In the first days they should not be overfed, In plucking the leaves to feed the worms the buds should not be touched, nor the branches of the tree broken. Nothing but 3. Of the rearing of silk worms. leaves should be gathered. The mulberIn Europe the silk worms, after they are ry puts forth three times in each season; hatched, are generally laid, with the leaves if the branches are broken or the buds on which they are feeding, on wicker hur-plucked off, the tree suffers considerably, dles, in order, as it is thought, the more eaand does not produce so much. All the leaves should not be plucked off, but some sily to keep them clean. Ithink they may as well be laid on clean pine tables, and left on the tree. may in that manner also be kept clean, as I shall presently show. room 4. Of the rising of the silk worm. When the silk worms are ready to make During the first day after the worms are their cocoons, which in this country, genehatched, the room in which they are, should rally, is on the 31st. day after they have be kept in the same degree of heat; but been hatched, a kind of artificial hedge, afterwards, as the heat and the strength of not above one foot high, must be prepared, the insect increase together, the by means of some brushwood without any should be cooled from time to time, by let-leaves, which is to be fixed along the wall, ting in a draught of air. In general, the behind the table on which the worms are. windows should be now and then opened They crawl of themselves in this hedge, to let in the dry air from the north and which is called rising, and there make north west. Dampness is fatal to the silk their cocoons. This brushwood must not worm, and should be constantly guarded be fixed straight up along the wall, but should be inclined above and below, in against. the form of a semicircle towards the table on which it is to rest, because the worms always move in a circular direction; and also in order that, if they should fall, they may not fall on the table or floor, but on some part of the artificial hedge, whence they may crawl up and carry on their work. Cleanliness is also of the greatest importance; when it is wished to clean the table on which the worms are, it is only necessary to place close to it another table on which are put mulberry leaves; the worms will immediately crawl and leave the other table empty, which may then be cleaned. This is necessary to be done the oftener as they increase in size, as they then make more ordure. In the beginning it should not be done until after their first moulting. They generally moult or shed their skin four times. During the moulting which lasts twenty-four hours, they lie torpid, and do not feed. They should then be left quiet. It is easy to know when the worms are ready to rise. They crawl on the leaves without eating them; they rear their heads, as if in search of something to climb on, their rings draw in, the skin of their necks becomes wrinkled, and their body becomes like soft dough. Their colour also changes to a pale yellow. When these signs appear, the table should be cleaned, and the hedge prepared to receive them. From the moment that the cocoons begin to rise they cease to eat; they must not be touched, nor their cocoons, until they are picked off, as will be presently mentioned. 5. Of picking off the cocoons. The worms generally form their cocoons in three days after their rising; but they are not perfect until the sixth day, when they may be picked off from the hedge. In Europe this is not done until the eighth day, nor should it be done sooner in this country, if during the six days there have been violent thunderstorms, by which the labours of the moth are generally interrupted. The cocoons must be taken down gently, and great care taken not to press hard on them; because, if in the least flattened, they fall into the class of imperfect cocoons, and are greatly lessened in value. In picking the cocoons from the hedge, the floss or tow with which they are covered must be delicately taken off, always taking care not to press too hard on the Cocoons. After the cocoons are thus taken down, some are preserved for eggs and others kept for sale. I shall speak of them successively. 6. Of cocoons kept for eggs. In order that the farmer may judge of the quantity of cocoons that it will be proper or advisable for him to put aside and preserve for eggs, it is right that he should be told that fourteen ounces of cocoons will produce one ounce of eggs, and one ounce of eggs will produce a quintal of cocoons. In selecting the cocoons to be kept for eggs, it is recommended to select the white ones in preference, and keep the coloured ones for sale; attention should be paid to having an equal number of males and females, and they are generally known by the following signs; the male cocoons, that is to say those which contain the male insects, are in general smaller than the female, they are somewhat depressed in the middle, as it were with a ring; they are sharp at one end and sometimes at both, and hard at both ends; the female cocoons, on the contrary, are larger than the male, round and full, little or not at all depressed in the middle, and not pointed at either end. They may easily be discerned by a little habit. It is particularly recommended to take of all the floss or tow from these cocoons, so that the moth may find no difficulty in coming out. After the cocoons have been taken down from the hedge, those which are intended for eggs should be laid, but not crowded, on tables, that is to say, the males on one table and the females on another, that they may not copulate too soon, and before they have discharged a viscid humour, of a yellow reddish colour, which prevents their fecundity. They discharge this humour in one hour after coming out of the cocoon, which is generally ten days after these have been taken down from the hedge; but this may be accelerated by heat. At the expiration of one hour after the moths have come out of their cocoons, the males and females may be put together on tables or on the floor; the tables or floor ought to be previously covered with linen or cloth, on which, after copulation, the females lay their eggs. One female moth or butterfly generally lays five hundred eggs; the male and female remain six hours together, during which time they copulate; after which they separate, and the female is forty-eight or fifty hours laying eggs; but the greatest quantity during the first forty hours. From the moment the moths have come out of their cocoons until the females have laid all their eggs, the room must be kept entirely dark; the light debilitates them and makes them produce but few eggs, and the worms that come from them are weak and puny. When the female moths have done laying eggs all the insects must be taken away, and may be given as food to the fowls. The eggs must remain on the cloth where they have beeen deposited during fifteen or twenty days, until they shall have become of an ash or slate colour, when they are perfectly ripe, and may be considered as good eggs. Then the cloth or linen must be folded, and kept in a cool and dry place, until it shall be thought proper to take off the eggs, which is done by putting the cloth into pure water, and when thoroughly wetted, scraping gently the eggs from the cloth, taking care not to injure them. When thus scraped into the water all the good eggs will go to the bottom and the bad, if any, will swim at the top, as mentioned above, Art. 1. The eggs being thus washed, must be dried in the open air, and when perfectly dry the best mode to preserve them is to put them into hollow reeds, or canes, perfectly dry, and closed at the two extremities with a thin piece of flaxen or cotton linen well fastened. It is also the best means to transport them from one place to another. 7. Of cocoons intended for sale. In order to prevent the cocoons from being perforated by the moths escaping from them, which greatly lessens their value, it is necessary to kill the moths. This is generally done by baking in an oven or by steam, but the best mode, which is peculiarly well adapted to warm climates, is to lay the cocoons on linen or cotton sheets, but not too close, or one upon another, and to expose them thus to the heat of the sun in open air, when it is perfectly dry, during four days from 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. taking great care in handling them not to crush or flatten them, which is of the highest importance. In that time there is no doubt that the moths will be killed. The processes of steaming and baking are not always safe, because they may be overdone and the silk greatly injured. I have seen instances of it in this country. Yet if the weather should prove obstinately damp or rainy, those processes must be recurred to, but not in dry sunshiny weather, when they can be avoided. The last thing to be spoken of is the packing of the cocoons to send to market. They must be put in boxes with great care, not pressed too close, lest they should be flattened, and close enough that they should not suffer in like manner by striking hard upon each other in consequence of the motion of carriages or stages. The boxes being dry and well conditioned may be transported by steam boats; if transported by sea, they should not remain longer than fifteen days on salt water, lest they should become mouldy. On river water, and particularly by steam-boats, there is not the same danger. The boxes in every case should be covered with a tarpaulin or good oiled cloth, that they may in no case suffer from dampness or rain. The price of good cocoons in France is from twenty-five to thirty-five cents per pound of sixteen ounces; I mean of perfect cocoons. Perforated cocoons, from which the moth has escaped, those which are spotted, and the imperfect ones, called chiques mentioned in the essay No. V. command no price, and are generally given away by the silk culturists. There are but few of them, because those who raise silk worms being experienced in the business, produce hardly any but good cocoons. When these are sold, the bad ones are thrown into the bargain. The price of cocoons in this country cannot yet be settled; but it will be the interest of the silk culturist to sell them in the beginning as cheap as possible, to encourage the silk manufactures, which alone can procure them regular purchasers, and without which their produce must lie upon their hands. Among the Roman satirists, whose works have descended to us, none is so little known, with respect to his parentage and education, as Juvenal. Horace in his works, gives us numerous hints of what he was, under what circumstances he lived, and how he was educated. All period in which he flourished. But the we know with certainty of Juvenal is the effects of this period are so visible in him, and the differences which a short distance of time had produced between him and Horace so striking, that a description of his writings without pourtraying also the men of his time and the circumstances under which he wrote, could not fail to be enigmatical and unsatisfactory. shall therefore take a short survey of the principal changes which, in the short space of time between Augustus and Domitian, the character, life and manners of the Romans had undergone. Although Augustus unfortunately gave but too much cause of complaint to the small number of republicans who had escaped the fury of civil wars, yet it can We not be denied that by every means in his power, he strove to counteract the general depravity which threatened with a total subversion the still liberal form of government. And had the tottering empire been blessed with a series of monarchs as keenly sensible to public and private infamy, and possessing as much moderation and prudence as Augustus, there is no doubt but a sense of shame, extinct in the Roman people, would have rekindled, and decency, worth and merit would again have risen in public estimation. But fate had otherwise decreed. Depraved and declining Rome saw a succession of rulers whose vices and follies were fully adequate to destroy, even the soundest and most flourishing state. Tiberius, by accepting, to its full extent, the slavish submission of the senate which his predecessor had so strenuously rejected laid the foundation for an all-overwhelming despotism. He, however, yet restrained himself so far as not to indulge his vicious propensities before the eyes of the people. But Caligula, that monster diseased in body and mind, no longer restrained by any sense of delicacy, indulged his vices more publicly. His short reign was characterized by nothing but wanton cruelties, infamous debaucheries and ridiculous practices. Claudius, almost an idiot, ignorant alike of his weakness and his strength, raised, as it were, by accident to the throne, was successively the willing tool for the perpetration of every crime in the hands of some avaricious freedmen and two women-the disgrace of their sex. His reign was so filled with abominations of all kind, that it was doubted whether there could be a worse. But Nero came and the doubt was removed. Under the mild reigns of Vespasian and Titus the empire seemed only to have revived and flourished again, that Domitian, far exceeding the worst of his predecessors in monstrous enormities, might have the more to annihilate. Such a succession of depraved rulers could not fail to have a very corrupting influence on the Romans of all ranks, constituted as the nation was at that period. In the first place we remark the abject servility of the great to their imperial master : next to this the unconcerned shamelessness, with which all sorts of vices were publicly indulged. Neither rank, birth, education, sex nor age made, in this respect, any difference. We may also consider the extreme lavishness and folly in the choice of the sensual gratifications as characteristic of the time. We will not say, however, that towards the end of the first century there existed any perversity unknown to the Romans in the beginning of it. Avarice, Epicurism, unnatural voluptuousness, adulation and servility prevailed already to an alarming extent in the time of Augustus, but these vices were still kept within certain bounds, which none with impunity dared to overstep. Under the subsequent reigns a deterioration in manners and morals is manifest. No longer the lower classes merely, but high officers of the empire, with the emperor at their head, are the persons who seek their honour in folly and their fame in ignominy. Dissolute effrontery, brutal debauchery show themselves in broad day light and make it their boast to trample upon whatever is regarded most sacred and venerable. The satires of Juvenal, written under the infamous successors of Augustus would necessarily have assumed a character different from those of Horace, even though these satirists had been similar in manner of thinking, education and talent. But from what we collect there was also, in this respect, a total dissimilarity between them. As far as the moral character of a man may be judged of by his writings, Juvenal was a man of strict probity, a stern Roman of the old school. The frailties of human nature and the influence which circumstances exert on the mind of men were either not known to him, or were without any weight in the scales by which he weighed the moral worth of human actions. did not possess the humour and natural cheerfulness of Horace. Whatever vice or folly he inveighs against, he is always cold and serious, and we are tempted to He |