Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/497

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rough fmllax with broad and blunt-pointed leaves, and no notches or prickles at their edges. 4. The one-leaved dwarf fmilax, called one-leaf, unifolium, and little lilly of the valley.

5. The rough racemofe fmilax with Solomon's fcal leaves.

6. The fpiked fmilax with Solomon's feal leaves. Tourn.
 * Lift. p. 654.

Smilax afpera, is ufed for great fcarlet oak, or ilex. Tourn. Inft. p. 553.

Smilax lesvtSj in botany, a name given by many authors to our common great white bind-weed. See the article Con- volvulus.

SMIRIS, in natural hiftory. See Emery.

SMITING-/: ne, in a fliip, is a fmall rope faflened to the miflen-yard-arm, below at the deck, and is always furled up with the miflen-fafl, even to the upper end of the yard, and from thence it comes down to the poop. Its ufe is to loofe the miflen-fail without ftriking down the yard, which is eafily done, becaufe the miflen-fail is furled up only with rope-yarns; and therefore when this rope is pulled hard, it breaks all the rope-yarns, and fo the fail falls down of it- felf. The word of art is, finite the mi/fen (whence this rope takes its name) that is, hale by this rope that the fail may fall down.

SMOKE [Cyd.) — Smoke-^W, in our old writers. Lands were held in fome places by the payment of the fum of fix- pence yearly to the fheriff, called fmoke-fther. Pat. 4 Ed w. 6. Smoke-fiver, and fmoke-penny, are to be paid to the minifters of divers parifhes as a modus, in lieu of tithe-wood ; and in fome manors, formerly belonging to religious houfes, there is ftill paid, as appendant to the faid manors, the antient Peter-pence, by the name of fmoke-money. Blount.

SMORZATO, in the Italian mufic, is ufed to fignify that the bow, or fiddle-flick, fhould be drawn to its full length, not with the fame ftrength of hand throughout, but bear- ing lighter and lighter on it by degrees, till at laft fcarce any found be heard. This term is not much ufed at prefent, Broffard. Dia. Muf.

SMUT (Cycl) — Smut, in hufbandry, a difeafe in corn, in which the grains, inftead of being filled with flower, are full of a black ftinking powder.

Many things have been fufpected as the caufes of this diftem- perature in corn ; but Mr. Tull feems convinced by expe- riment, that it is caufed only by too much moifture, the feveral plants of com, which he had taken up by the roots and planted in troughs of very moift earth, all bringing forth fmutty ears, while very few fuch were found in the corn of the field from whence thefe plants were taken. It is obfervable, alfo, that thofe ears, the grains of which are to be fmutty, never fend up any flowers at all. The two things, recommended by writers of hufbandry as remedies, or preventions of this difeafe, are brining, and changing the feed. The firft of thefe methods was acciden- tally difcovered about a century ago: a fhip load of wheat was, about autumn, funk near Briftol, and afterwards was taken up at the ebbs at feveral times, after being thoroughly foaked in fea-water. When the wheat was all taken up, it was found unfit to make bread of, but a farmer trying fome of it for fowing, found it anfwer very well, and him- felf, and the neighbouring farmers, bought it all up at a fmall price ; the country all about was fown out of this cargo. It happened that fmuttynefs in the wheat-corn was a reigning difternper in all parts of the kingdom at that time, but it was remarkable, that all the fields (own with this fait wheat were abfolutely free from the mifchief : this eafily introduced the practice of foaking wheat, before fowing, in a brine of fait and water, to prevent it in other places, and it has fucceeded well. Mr. Tull gives an inftance of the certainty of' its effect, in the cafe of two farmers whom he perfonally knew, and whofe farms lay intermixed : thefe men bought the fame feed between them from a very good change of land, and parted every land between them in the field ; the oldeft farmer believed the brining to be a fancy, and lowed his feed unbrined, the other brined all his feed, and the confequence was, that the old farmer had a great deal of fmui in his corn, while the other had not one fmutty ear.

When wheat is intended for drilling, it muft be foaked in no other brine than that of pure fait and water, for if there be any greafe among it, it will never be dry enough for this manner of fowing. If feed wheat be foaked in urine, it will not grow, and if it be only fprinkled with it, it will moA of it die, unlefs it be planted presently. The moft expeditious way of brining wheat for drilling, is to lay it in a heap, and wafh it with a ftrong brine fprinkled on it, ftirr'mg it up with a fhovel, that it may be all equally brin- ed, or wetted with it ; after this fift on fome fine lime all over the furface, and ftir it up, ftill fifting on more in the fame manner till the whole is dufted with the lime, it will then be foon dry enough to be drilled without farther trouble. It muft be quick lime, in its full ftrength, that is ufed on this occafion.

Bad years will caufe fmut in corn, and good years will pre- vent it: it is, however, obfervable, that the crops in which there is fmutty corn will, if ufed for feed, be liable to pro- 3

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duce fmutty corn again, rather than other feed. The brin- ing is a defence againft bad years, and againft the mifchiefs attending the lowing corn among which there has been

fmut.

The other method of changing the feed is by many held ef- fectual to prevent fmuttynefs in the crop ; feveral, who have tried this with due care, have found perfect fuccefs from it : and it is to be obferved, as to the great fuccefs of the drowned wheat at Briftol, that it was a change of feed to the lands on which it was fown, as well as a brined feed. Seed-wheat fhould be bought from the crop on a ftrong clay-land, whatever kind of land it is to be fowed upon. A white clay is a good change for a red clay, and a red clay for a white ; but whatever the land be, from which the feed is taken, it may be infected, if that be' not changed there the preceding year ; and then there may be danger, though it be had from ever fo proper a land. It is a rule among the farmers, never to buy feed-wheat from a fandy foil; they exprefs their diflike of this by the coarfe rhime ;

fand is a change for no land. A crop of wheat, very early planted, is not fo apt to be

fmutty^ as one planted lefs early ; and the farmers have ob- ferved, that the largeft and plumpeft ground fat wheat is more liable to be fmutty than the fmall ground wheat. Tuli's Horfehoeing Hufbandry.

The fmut of corn ufually happens after rain, followed by a bright funfliine ; and when the fmutted ftalks are examined, they are found to be fpotted, and pricked as it were with fmall burnt places. The caufe of the malady, therefore, probably is, that thofe fmall drops of rain, which remain upon the ftalks before they are dried up by the fun, act as fo many lenfes, or fmall burning-glaftes, and their focus being very near them, their effect falls upon the ftalk which fupports them; wherefore the fun's rays, collected in this point, muft burn, and this burning dries up the ftalk, and prevents the ear from graining, or producing its proper feeds. See the article Blight.

Smutty corn is of a very mifchievous nature to thofe who eat it. Schober has publifhed a diflertation on a terrible epidemical malady that raged, in the year 1722, in many parts of Germany, and carried off a great many people of all ages and fexes : this he attributes wholly to their eating flower and bread made of corn, among which a larger than ordinary quantity of this fmut had been produced the year before, and ground down with St. From this it appears, that thefe black ears have a ftupefactive and narcotic qua.- lity, depending on a peculiar fulphur they are endowed with, and to this fulphur it is owing, that they are fo inflamma- ble beyond oiher corn. This iulphureous principle is very hurtful to the nerves, and never tails to caufe diforders of them, of various kinds, when taken in any quantity ; con- tractions, and convulfions of the limbs, vertigos, ilcepinels and, in fine, light-headednefs, were the fymptoms of the difeafes brought on by the eating it on the occafion above- mentioned ; and fometimes true, and incurable epilepfies come on. Some were feized with fevers, and children in particular were found inore fubject to the fmall-pox that year, than they had been ubferved to be, and they had com- monly very bad kinds. SMYRHIZA, in botany, a name ufed by Pliny, and fome other of the old authors, for the common myrrhis, or cher- vil Ger. Emac. Ind. 2. SMYRNIUM, Alexanders, in botany, the name of a genus of the umbelliferous plants, the characters of which are thefe. The flower is of the rofaceous kind, confifting of feveral petals, arranged in a circular order on a cup, which afterwards becomes a fruit of a fort of globular figure, com- pofed of two thick and, in fome degree, lunated feeds, be- ing gibbofe and ftriated on one fide, and flat and fnaooth on the other. See Tab. 1. of Botany, Clafs 7. The fpecies of fmyrnium, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe. 1 . The common great fmyrnium^ or herb Alex- anders. 1. The round-leaved Candy fmyrnium. 3, The lefler parfley-leaved Portugal fmyrnium. Twm. [nft. p. 31. The antient Greeks have plainly defcribed two different plants under this name ; the one the common Alexanders, the other the petrofelinum Cilicium, or Cilician par/ley. The former of thefe plants loves moift and rich ground, and the other grows no where but on rocky hills, and in the drieft and moft barren places. Pliny, not obferving that the antient writers knew two plants under this name, accufes them of an error, in faying that the fmyrnium loved dry and barren places, whereas the Romans, who cultivated the

fmyrnium at that time, found it delighted only in rich moift foils; but the antients, whom he cenfures thus, had fpoke what he records of the -petrofelinum, not of the great water-

fmyrnium. SMYRUS, in ichthyology, a name fometimes given by Pliny to the fifh called by authors myrus, and by Willughby the

fea-ferpent with a comprefled tail/

It is a fpecies of the murtena, according to Artedi, and is diftinguiihed from all the others by that author, under the name of the murana with a ftiarp fnout, variegated with

white