eighbouring
trees, at the height of about nine feet. The three principal points, to
which the supporting threads were attached, formed here as they usually
do, an equilateral triangle. One thread was attached above to each of
the trees, and the web hung from the middle of it. To procure a third
point of attachment, the spider had suspended a small stone to one end
of a thread; and the stone being heavier than the spider itself, served
in place of the lower fixed point, and held the web extended. The little
pebble was five feet from the earth." The whole was observed, and is
described by Professor Weber, of Leipsig.

MEDICUS.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE

Public Journals.

* * * * *

COBBETT'S CORN.

(_Concluded from page 79._)

The first operation on the grown plants is that of topping; this is the
planter's _hay_ harvest; the tops serve for chaff, for dry food instead
of hay, for fodder. They are cut off above the ears, collected by a cart
going along the intervals or roads, and stacked for winter use. Mr.
Cobbett's harvest of tops was not so successful as it might have been:
this arose from his absence at the favourable opportunity for stacking.

The ears of corn are stripped off when the grain is hard, and carried in
carts to the barns, and placed in corn cribs adapted for the purpose.
The grains are taken off the pithy cylinder on which they grow, by being
rubbed or scraped on a piece of iron: in America a bayonet (a weapon
called by the Yankees _Uncle George's toasting fork_) is invariably used
for the purpose: the cylinder, now bared of its grain, is called the
_cobb_. The delicate leaves by which the ear is enveloped is, as has
been mentioned, called the husk; it may be used for the stuffing of
beds: Mr. Cobbett has converted some of it even into paper.

In Mr. Cobbett's sanguine temperament the uses to which the grain
is applicable are wonderfully numerous and important. Under the heads
of pig-feeding, sheep-feeding, and cow-feeding, poultry-feeding,
and horse-feeding, he gives an account of his own experiments and
observations. Of the thriving condition of the American horses Cobbett
gives an example in his amusing vein, and by a trial made at his own
farm in Long Island, he proved that neither their strength nor speed
deteriorates on corn.

The branch of man-feeding is, of course, an important department of the
subject. The forms i