ing was as follows:-rising at three, forenoon, the, a meal of deer's flesh. As one of the party, sevmen carried a part of their burden to the first eral of whom followed, was watching an opportustage, and continued to go backward and for-nity to fire, the prisoner called out, "Tirez! tirez! ward till all was deposited. They then slept mon cher frère, si tu m'aimes. A la tête! à la for a few hours, and in the cool of the evening tête !" (Fire, fire, my dear friend, if you love me, the boats were brought up. By these means every- at the head, the head!) The bear was accordingthing was ready at the western end of the por-ly shot over the right temple, and was quickly tage early on Monday the eleventh of July. afterward despatched with a couteau de chasse, "With reference to the Methye Portage I may or hunting knife. The liberated voyageur escaped remark, that except the steep hill at its western without injury, except an ugly scratch over the extremity, the road is good and tolerably level, face. and it appeared that much fatigue and suffering might have been spared by using trucks. Accordingly, two were made by our carpenters at Fort Chipewyan in 1827, for the return of the expedition, and they answered extremely well. I mention this circumstance in the hope that some such expedition will be adopted by the traders for the relief of their voyageurs, who have twice in every year to pass over this ridge of hills."

The next extract is from the narrative of Captain Back's more recent expedition to the Arctic Sea in 1833-5. It is short; and refers to a source of annoyance which diminishes greatly the pleasure of the brief summer in the fur country-the myriads of moschetoes and sand flies.

"There is certainly no form of wretchedness among those to which the chequered life of a voyageur is exposed, at once so great and so humiliating as the torture inflicted by those puny bloodsuckers. To avoid them is impossible; and as for defending himself, though for a time he may go on crushing by thousands, he cannot long maintain the unequal conflict so that at last, subdued by pain and fatigue, he throws himself in despair with his face to the earth, and half suffocated in his blanket, groans away a few hours of sleepless rest."

RURAL ECONOMY.

RURAL LIFE.

THE most beautiful sight in England is the cottages of the poor, where taste and industry display their mutual results.

And here let us observe, that it costs no more to build a residence in good than in bad taste, and that our country friends err in not thinking a little more of this than they do. In England there are elaborate and carefully written books containing plans and estimates of cottages that cost from three hundred dollars to fifty thousand!—from an edifice of one room and bedroom to those of the greatest dimensions. We have run too much into the Grecian style for comfort; we forget that high columns and lofty colonnades give neither the shelter in winter nor the shade in summer which our climate demands. Blinds, porches, lattice-work, large and low piazzas, are much better adapted to our use than the Grecian fane, and when properly combined, afford the most beautiful and picturesque form, while they are also infinitely more comfortable.

Dr. Richardson relates another anecdote illustrative of the daring and ferocity of the grisly bear :Our villages and farm-houses might be made "A party of voyageurs, who had been employ- to be very striking and elegant in their appeared all day in tracking a canoe up the Saskatche-ance without costing as much as the ill-designed wan, had seated themselves in the twilight by a and often comfortless dwellings, which meet the fire, and were busy in preparing their supper, eye at every turn.

when a large grisly bear sprang over the canoe In the country, then, so far as the desire of that was tilted behind them, and seizing one of comfortable or elegant residences actuate our the party by the shoulder, carried him off. The minds, we may find "ample room and verge rest fled in terror, with the exception of a man enough" for its gratification. In the gratification named Bourasso, who grasping his gun, follow- of the taste for good and wholesome fare, surely, ed the bear as it was retreating leisurely with even the gourmand must admit the country preits prey. He called to his unfortunate com- eminent. Everything may be had fresh and pure. rade, that he was afraid of hitting him if he fired What flour, what butter, what eggs, what proat the bear, but the latter entreated him to fire without hesitation, as the bear was squeezing him to death. On this he took a deliberate aim, and discharged his piece into the body of the bear, who instantly dropped its prey to pursue Bouras

so.

He escaped with difficulty, and the bear ultimately retreated to a thicket, where it is supposed to have died; but the curiosity of the party not being a match for their fears, the fact of its decease was not ascertained. The man who was rescued had his arm fractured, and was otherwise severely bitten, but finally recovered."

Ross Cox tells a similar story: the bear in this instance seized a voyageur from a group of ten Canadians seated round a blazing fire, enjoying

visions of all kinds repay the cares of industry. How healthful the table of the independent farmer or mechanic! Why, the jaded appetite of the resident in town revives at the very thought of these luxuries of the country.

But how much more than this may be attained. A secd dropped here and there, slips from the nosegay replanted, a specimen of some shrub or some fruit-tree, springs up almost without a thought to repay the slightest attention of the horticulturist, the aboriculturist or the florist.

What choice vegetables, what rare plants, what beautiful flowers may be the trophies of any one in the country, who will devote the smallest leisure to their cultivation.

Persons who once become interested in this, would yield beets enough to keep ten cows from pursuit, find themselves surrounded by immeas- the first of November till the first of May, should urable enjoyment. Those only of enthusiastic not every farmer make his arrangement for plantminds have within a few years abandoned all ing beets this spring? From our own experience, other concerns to cultivate this neglected field, we have no doubt, that this addition of beets to and the discoveries of science aiding them in the ordinary feed of the cows, makes a weekly their task, they have become real benefactors to difference of two pounds each, in their product of their race, as well as true friends to their own in- butter. From the first of November to the first terests. Any one-almost the poorest person, of May there are twenty-six weeks. This nummay in this way reap the pleasures which nature ber of weeks at two pounds' additional butter, denies to those whose shade is the awning of a gives us fifty-two pounds, for each cow during the dusty street, and whose groves are but stacks of period named, or five hundred and twenty pounds, chimneys. for the ten cows; and if we set down the butter as being worth twenty-five cents per pound, it will give us one hundred and thirty dollars as the value of additional yield brought about by the feeding with the product of an acre in beets. But this is not all. The proprietor of the cows, in the spring, would have the gratification to know, that he had treated his animals well, and the satisfaction of seeing them in good condition.

FRUIT TREES.

THE following improved method of preventing canker-worms and other insects from ascending trees, is the invention of Jonathan Dennis, jr., of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

Baltimore Farmer and Gardener.

GARDEN FRUIT.

gar

This apparatus consists of a circular metal trough and roof, made of one entire piece of metal; it is generally made of lead, and bent so as to conALMOST every farmer that has even a small form to the shape of the tree, den attached to his premises, is pretty sure to and the ends soldered together have a lot of currant, and perhaps gooseberry so as to make a trough com- bushes growing in the margins-the very place, pletely round the tree with a by the way, where they should not be set out; roof over it; it is made so but did they never think that there are other large as to leave an inch be- bushes, which, with about as little trouble, will tween the trough and the tree, produce them as good, and even better fruit? which will allow the tree to Let them, for instance, set out two or three dozen grow several years. The space of the White Antwerp Raspberry bushes. They between the trough and the require but little more care than common curranttree is filled with hay, straw-bushes; and they yield a large and beautiful fruit, husks, cotton, waste tow, sea- to be eaten from the bushes, or to be sat as a desweed, or any substance that sert upon the table. We venture also to recomis easily compressed by the mend, sanguinely, the Thimbleberry, or black growth of the tree. The Raspberry, which may be found wild in many troughs should have a little right whale-oil, that places in this state. When cultivated in gardens costs forty cents per gallon, put into them three they grow very large, and are as sweet as the times in a year, five gallons was found sufficient nicest tooth could desire. The bushes, too, make for one hundred and fifteen trees for a year, and an ornamental appearance. The dark red and some of the trees were very large, and it kept polished stalks rise from three to six feet from the the worms down so completely that it was diffi- earth, and then bend over in graceful circles to cult to find one upon the trees. This trough is the ground; on coming in contact with which, put on at the small expense of fifty cents for a the end inserts itself in the soil, takes new root, tree, one foot through, and a very small crop of and sends up a young shoot for fruit the next apples will pay the expense of putting on, and year. They make an elegant appearance in the they will last several years without being made garden and in front yards, and the abundance of larger, and when the tree has grown so as to fill fruit which they produce is astonishing. From the space that was left between the trough and twenty or thirty sets we have in our garden, we the tree, the trough can be cut open, and a piece dare say we gathered bushels-in the plural numput in to make it larger so as to answer for sev-ber-last year. Mixed with a little cream and eral years more, and when the lead is taken off, sugar, they present upon the table a dish that it will be worth two thirds as much as it was would do honor to the most exalted guest. when it was put on.

SUGAR-BEET FOR MILCH COWS.

TO DRIVE BUGS FROM VINES.

THE ravages of the yellow-striped bugs on cuAN intelligent gentleman from the eastward as- cumbers and melons may be effectually prevented sured us a few days ago, that by giving his cows by sifting charcoal-dust over the plants. If rea peck of sugar-beet twice a day, cut up with peated two or three times, the plants will be entheir hay, he was enabled to get just as rich milk tirely free of annoyance. There is in charcoal during the winter, as in summer, when the pasture some property so obnoxious to these troublesome is at its best. Now, as an acre of ground well insects, that they fly from it the instant it is apmanured, planted in this root, and well attended, plied.

Muse with a Lyre of improved form; taken from a Grecian bas-relief.
STRINGED INSTRUMENTS.

(Continued from page 23.)

say, that Apollo first conceived the idea of a stringed instrument of music, by hearing the twanging of a bow-string. Apollodorus gives it OUR previous remarks, in treating the subject as his opinion that Mercury was the inventor of of stringed musical instruments in use among the the lyre, and hence the father of all stringed inpeople of the antediluvian and the patriarchal struments. He gravely asserts, as a matter not ages, were based upon Scriptural authority alone, to be controverted, that a large tortoise having and we merely gave a brief historical view of the been left by the retiring waters of the Nile, soon harp and lyre. We shall now take data furnished wasted away, leaving nothing but his shell and by profane writers, and go more into a detailed tendons, nerves, cartilages, &c., which, being condescription of the construction and use of string-tracted by dessication, became sonorous. Mercu

ed instruments.

The Greeks, as we have mentioned on another occasion, always claimed to be at the fountainhead of all learning and science, and every invention was attributed to their gods, demi-gods, or poets, whose name was legion. Some authorities

ry happening to pass that way, struck his foot against it, and being attracted by the musical sound which it sent forth, the idea of constructing a lyre suggested itself to him. He accordly formed a piece of wood into the shape of a tortoise shell, and distending the dried sinews of

animals across it, produced the lyre. That such will be noticed that the first two specimens of an incident led to the invention of the lyre and Grecian and Roman lyres, nearly resemble, in harp, appears extremely probable, and we are form, the tortoise. Indeed the Romans called it justified in believing the story to be true, setting testudo, that is, tortoise, and Pausanius mentions aside the divine character of the discoverer, and the fact, that there were tortoises bred upon clothing him in humanity. In the illustrations of Mount Parthenius, whose shells formed excellent the previous number on musical instruments, it bellies for lyres.

and in most cases the player is represented standing, the instruments being in height, equal and sometimes greater than that of the player.

The form of the Egyptian lyre was exceedingly | ber of these strings varied from four to eleven, simple, and the number of strings was few. The paintings, representing the playing of these instruments, were found in the tombs of the Theban kings, and the catacombs in the vicinity of Thebes, and if they are correct representations of the instruments then in use, the art must have been in its infancy. Some seemed to have been formed by a simple piece of elastic wood, bent sufficiently to admit the extension of a number of strings across the curve thus formed. The num

Of the stringed instruments of the ancients, none are extant, and we are taught their manner of use only through the medium of vague and questionable history, and the statues and paintings which have survived the wreck of empires, and bade defiance to the destroying tooth of time. Scripture history is the most authentic and ex

plicit; and yet it may be questioned whether the | the same source there can be but little doubt; instruments used by the Hebrews, correspond and the existing analogy between the sculptures with those of the surrounding nations, and par- of the Greeks, the paintings of the Egyptians, and ticularly of the Greeks and Romans. That both the records of sacred writ, render it highly probthe Jews and their neighbors, derived their able that the only difference between their stringknowledge of the lyre and other instruments from ed instruments, was in the form, not in principle.

The discovery and exhumation of those buried, and forgotten cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum, has thrown much light upon the history of the fine arts and other pursuits at the period of their destruction, and the paintings and sculpture found in the latter, give us lucid ideas of the musical instruments in use among the Romans about the commencement of the Christian era. It will be observed, that the lyres of the two figures on the last page, very nearly resembles those of the ancient Greeks, delineated in a former number, while the square lyres of the above two, are constructed upon the same principle, only one of them has an additional number of strings. The

most ancient lyre had but three strings, and it is recorded that its effects were more potent than those of a greater number. The number of strings ultimately amounted to twenty, in some kinds of lyres. But the lyres of three and of seven strings were the most popular, and were in more general use.

Other stringed instruments were used by the Hebrews and the surrounding nations, especially the Babylonians. In the narrative of the reign and curse of Nebuchadnezzar, a great number are mentioned, and among them the harp, the dulcimer, the psaltery, and the lute.