man should possess almost any advantage without the exercise of his own labours and ingenuity; and the same care to stimulate and reward skilful industry, which we find in the processes of agriculture, is extended to the management of the grain after it is removed from the field into the barn-yard and the granary. When the corn is properly secured in the stack, it may be preserved for years without further attention, if care has only been taken to place it so as to be free from the depredations of rats and mice, which may be effected with ordinary attention. The straw is itself an excellent preservative, by keeping the grain separate, and free from injurious atmospheric influences, under an equable heat; and the farmer well knows the advantage which arises from suffering his grain to remain unthreshed till he has occasion to send it to market, or apply it to use. The mode of separating the corn from the straw has undergone many improvements. The ancients performed this operation by causing oxen to tread upon the sheaves, or by drawing a heavy carriage over them, both of them awkward, and not very efficient contrivances.* A more advantageous, but at the same time a more tedious and laborious method of later times, was the use of the flail, which, indeed, is still employed where farms are of small extent. Within the last half century, however, after machinery had made great progress in almost every species of manufacture, that power came at last to be applied to this agricultural object; and now a threshing machine has come to be an indispensable appendage to every farm of even moderate size. After the grain has been thus disengaged from the ear, it is separated from the chaff by means of fanners, an improvement on the ancient method of winnowing in the wind, and is then removed into the granary. Here The Italians and inhabitants of Gascony, till lately, employed wains and sledges in this manner. Perhaps the custom may not yet be altogether abandoned. it requires frequent turning and winnowing for the first six months, to keep it from the effects of moisture, and from the depredations of insects. After this period it has acquired such hardness as to demand less labour and attention, and, provided it be kept dry, may, with moderate care, be preserved for many years. In the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences for 1708, it is mentioned, that in the preceding year a magazine of corn was opened in the castle or fortress of Mentz, which had been lodged there in the year 1578, and the bread which was made of grain thus preserved for a period of 130 years, proved to be excellent. Another instance of the same kind is recorded by the Abbé de Louvais, who, when travelling to the frontiers of Champaign, was conducted to a magazine of corn in the castle of Sedan, which had been laid up there for more than a century. This store had suffered some injury from damp, but the greater part of it was made into bread, and turned out to be perfectly sound. The author of the "Spectacle de la Nature,” who states these facts, founds on them a proposal for the erection of public magazines, in which quantities of grain should be constantly kept stored up at the expense of the government, and under its superintendence, to be only opened for sale during years of threatened scarcity. This proposal, which reminds us of the method of avoiding a similar calamity adopted in Egypt by Joseph, is so reasonable, that it seems surprising it is not more frequently acted on. In Spain and Russia, indeed, this precaution against scarcity has been taken to a considerable extent, and I believe in some other continental countries also.* * The Mark-Lane Express for 20th April, 1835, says, " In foreign countries magazines of grain are erected by government in different parts of the kingdom to provide for a scarcity. In Spain there are upwards of 5000 of these depositories. Every occupier of land is compelled to bring in a certain quantity of corn, proportionate to the size of his farm. In the following year, he takes back the corn, and replaces a larger amount of the new growth. Thus he continues annually to increase the stock by these contributions, until a certain measure of grain is deposited. Then each party receives back the whole of the corn he has furnished, returning in lieu of it an equal quantity of new corn. 66 Though an attempt of that nature," says the ingenious but somewhat antiquated author alluded to, “might seem ridiculous in such a country as France, yet it must be acknowledged, that such an expense, were it once defrayed, would, in case of the failure of crops, not only secure the poor and needy from paying exorbitant prices, and the rich from the insults of an incensed populace, but preserve both from a public calamity, which is shocking in its nature, obliges thousands to remove out of the land, and exposes such as stay behind to frequent tumults and the most malignant distempers." "% Having mentioned this author, of whose sensible observations I have more than once availed myself, I shall conclude the present paper, by quoting the striking remarks with which he closes his dialogue on corn. 66 We have had recourse to a thousand expedients to secure the enjoyment of this grain, and to alleviate the labours it costs us. We employ hard and polished instruments to facilitate the toil of rearing it, and consign the most painful part of the fatigue to horses and oxen. We accelerate the necessary motions and despatch of husbandry by wheels and levers, and a hundred other machines, which are useful in gathering, threshing, transporting, grinding, and baking. But, as dexterous and inventive as man has been for the mitigation of his labours, and the frugal management of his time, corn, which is the best and most necessary nourishment, obliges him to submit to a perpetual round of inevitable toils. It is here that the Deity has made necessity prevail over indolence, more than in any other instance whatever; and although his Providence alone increases what man endeavours to propagate by plantation and culture, he is *Dialogue xv. Both in this and the 12th Dialogue, the author mentions a method by which grain may be effectually secured, that it may not be improper, to notice. This method is to cover the heap, after having been two years exposed to the action of the air, with a thin surface of quicklime, which is then to be dissolved by sprinkling it over with a small quantity of water. "This lime causes the grains to shoot to the depth of two or three fingers, and incloses them with an incrustation, through which neither air nor insects can penetrate." more desirous to conceal his gifts and benefactions under the veil of human labour, than to render us inactive, by supplying us with a constant flow of liberalities, which would only cost us the pains of collecting them together." SECOND WEEK-SATURDAY. BIRDS THEIR STATE IN AUTUMN. THERE are several peculiarities incident to the state of the winged tribes in this season, which seem to require some notice. The breeding season is now over, but many of the young broods still require and receive the tender care of the mother bird. Their parental employment has been assigned as one reason of the general silence of these delightful musicians of the grove during the months of autumn. Whatever truth there may be in such a reason, there can be no doubt of the fact. With the exception of the few birds mentioned in a former paper, there are scarcely any of our native songsters which exert their musical powers at this season. They may be seen, however, flying in flocks or in families; and it is interesting to remark the judicious and tender attentions of the parent to the instruction of the young. The chief care of the migrating birds seems to be to prepare their brood for their long and perilous journey. As if anticipating the necessity of a powerful and accustomed wing, they urge them to frequent flights, and incite them, by various arts, expertly to employ the power bestowed on them by the Creator, of finding their way through the trackless air. Every thing is mysterious in the operations of instinct, and leads us directly and irresistibly from the creature to the Creator. We cannot believe that the feathered * Dialogue xii. tribes, with their stinted faculties, have any real knowledge of what either they themselves, or their young ones, may require in encountering their distant aërial voyage; nor can it easily be supposed, indeed, that they have any previous anticipations as to the nature and extent of the journey they have to undertake. They do not reason, and form resolutions, in the same way as man. Whatever may be said of those occasional deviations from the practices of their species, and those accommodations to circumstances which appear to imply a higher principle, there can be no doubt that all their great and common movements are nothing more than instinctive impulses. Among this number must be ranked their migratory propensities; and it is doubtless the same principle which incites them to take the preparatory steps. They train their young for flight, without knowing why. This is the first part of that unreasoning impulse to change their residence, impressed upon them by the Supreme Intelligence-a Divine energy, the object of which they do not understand, but which most wonderfully guides them to the previous means, as well as to the ultimate action. The following beautiful verses of an American poet, addressed to a waterfowl, finely allude to this instinct of migration, and to the feelings it ever ought to inspire :— "Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, "There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, The desert and illimitable air, Lone wandering, but not lost. "All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere, |