Vickipedia

ANTIPHLOGISTIC (Gr. anti, against, and phlego, I burn), a term applied to remedies, and also to regimen, that are opposed to inflammation; such as blood-letting, purgatives, low diet, &c.

PACKFO’NG, or PETO’NG, a Chinese alloy or white metal, consisting of arsenic and copper. It is formed by putting two parts of arsenic in a crucible with five parts of copper turnings, or finely divided copper; the arsenic and copper require to be placed in alternate layers, and the whole is covered with a layer of common salt, and pressed down. When melted, the alloy contains nearly the whole of the arsenic, and is yellowish-white in color when in the rough state, but takes a flue white polish resembling silver. It is not very ductile, and cannot be fused without decomposition, as the arsenic is easily dissipated. It was formerly much used in this country, as well as China and India, for making the pans of small scales, dial-plates, and a variety of other articles requiring nicety of make, such as graduated scales for philosophical instruments. It is probably never imported now, the nickel alloys of Europe having quite superseded its use; in China, however, it is still extensively employed.

ROTATION OF CROPS. The plants like the animals of the farm differ much in their habits, and in the different sorts of food on which they subsist. The broad-leafed clovers, turnips, and mangold abstract from the air a large proportion of the materials of their growth; whilst the narrower-leafed grains and grasses, especially if their seeds are ripened, partake more largely of mineral food withdrawn from the soil. The cereals require for their healthy nutrition large supplies of phosphoric acid and silica; leguminous plants devour a large share of lime; turnips, carrots, and clover take up a great amount of potash. Corn-crops, occupying the ground during the greater part of the year, favor the growth of weeds; well-tended root-crops, on the other hand, afford better opportunity for deep culture, for the extirpation of weeds, for the convenient application of manures; whilst, being in great part consumed on the land, they raise its fertility. Mainly’ from such considerations, the farmer of arable land is led to grow a succession of dissimilar plants, or, in other words, to adopt a rotation of crops. The cereals exhausting the farm, en account of their ripened seeds being sold off. are generally alternated with fallow, root, or cleansing crops, or with beans and peas, which occupy a kind of intermediate position between the cereals and the roots; whilst clovers or grasses are taken at intervals of six or eight years. The rotation most suitable for a particular farm is, however, greatly modified by various circumstances, and especially by the nature of the soil, climate, markets, available supplies of extra manures, amount of live-stock kept, £c. That course of cropping is evidently the most desirable which will economically secure, with thorough cleanness of the soil, a high and increasing state of fertility.

Many rotations are based upon the Norfolk or four-course system, which consists of (1) Clover or mixed grass seeds; (3) Wheat, or in many parts of Scotland, oats; (3) Turnips, Swedes, mangold, potatoes, or bare fallow; (4) Barley. The details of this system are generally as follows. The clovers or grasses are mown or grazed; when cut, they are either used green or are dried for hay; the second crop is carted home for the cattle or horses; near towns, it is sold off; or it is consumed on the ground in racks by sheep, which on most highly cultivated farms receive besides a daily allowance of cake or corn. In districts where town-manure can be obtained, a top dressing is applied as soon as the first crop of grass is cut. On the poor and worse cultivated soils, the grass-crop occasionally remains down for two, or even three years, thus extending a four into a five or six years’ rotation. The clovers or mixed seeds are ploughed up in autumn, and followed generally in England by wheat, and in Scotland by oats. These crops are now usually drilled, to admit of horse and hand hoeing. After harvest, the stubble is, if possible, cleaned by the scarifier, grubber, or plough and harrows; or, where the management for several years has been good, any patches of couch-grass or other weeds are best forked out by hand. The land, especially if heavy, or intended for mangold drilled on the flat, as practised in the drier parts of England, may then be manured and deeply ploughed : the grubber and harrows, in April or May, suffice to prepare for the drilling of mangold or Swedes. Heavy land, intended either for roots or barley, should, in spring, be ploughed or disturbed as little as possible. In Scotland, and the cooler moist climates of the north and west of England, turnips and potatoes are grown on raised drills or balks, in which the manure lies immediately underneath the plant.

Frequent horse and hand hoeing should insure the thorough cleaning of the crop. Unless in the neighborhood of towns, where it is greatly more profitable to sell off the whole of the root-crop, part of the Swedes or mangold is taken home for the cattle, but the largest portion is consumed by sheep in the field. After the fallow or cleaning crop, another cereal crop is grown : under the Norfolk system, this is generally barley, with which the clovers or seeds are sown out. Where sewage or tank water is available, Italian rye-grass is often used, and on land in high condition, early large and repeated cuttings are obtained; but rye-grass has the disadvantage of being a worse preparation than clover for the wheat-crop which usually follows. The chief failing of the four-course system consists in the frequent recurrence of clover, which cannot be successfully grown oftener than once in six or eight years. To obviate this difficulty, one-half of the clover quarter is now often put under beans, peas, or vetches, thus keeping the grass or clover seeds eight years apart.

The Norfolk four-course system is unsuitable for heavy land, where a large breadth of roots cannot be profitably grown, and where their place, as a cleaning crop, is taken by bare fallow, vetches, or pulse. Bare fallows are, however, less frequent than formerly, being now confined to the most refactory of clays, or to subjects that are so hopelessly full of weeds as to require for their extirpation several weeks of summer weather, and the repeated use of the steam or horse ploughs, the scarifier, grubber, and harrows. In such circumstances, winter vetches are often put in during September or October, are eaten off by sheep and horses in June or July, and the land afterwards cleaned: this practice is extensively pursued on the heavier lands in the mid-land and southern counties of England.

In such localities, the following system is approved of—(1) The clover leas are seeded with (2) wheat; then come (3) beans, pulse, or vetches, manured, horse or hand hoed; (4) On good land, wheat succeeds; (5) Oats or barley often follow, but, to prevent undue exhaustion of plant-food, this system requires considerable outlay in artificial manures, cake, and corn; (6) A fallow, or fallow crop, deeply and thoroughly cultivated, and well manured, comes to restore cleanness and fertility; (7) Barley or wheat is drilled, and amongst this, the clover-seeds are sown. On the heavier carse-lands in Scotland, the following plan of cropping is generally practiced—(1) Clover; (2) Oats; (3) Beans; (4) Wheat; (o) Bare fallow or fallow crop, usually including a considerable breadth of potatoes; (6) Wheat; (7) Barley, with which the clovers or mixed grasses are sown. Under this system, it is difficult, with so few cleaning crops, to keep the land clean; roots, besides, are not produced in quantities sufficient properly to supply either cattle or sheep during the winter. To remedy these defects, roots may be introduced after the oats, and would be followed either by wheat or barley. This extends the rotation from seven to nine years.

In all well-cultivated districts, whether of heavy or light land, stock-farming is extending, and a more vigorous effort, is being made to raise the fertility of the land. Root-crops are accordingly more largely grown; indeed, it is sometimes found profitable to grow two root-crops consecutively; thus, after turnips, Swedes, cabbage, or mangold, well manured from the town or farmyard, and eaten off by sheep, potatoes of superior quality are produced with one ploughing, and a dose of portable manure. Specialities of management occur in almost every locality. In Essex, winter-beans follow wheat, are got off in August, and are succeeded by common turnips. Near London, and in other southern districts, early potatoes or peas are grown for market, and are immediately followed by turnips. In ninny parts of England, where the soil and climate are good, rye or vetches sown in autumn are consumed in early summer, and a root-crop then put in.

Good rotations do not necessarily insure good farming; they are merely means to an end. By carefully removing weeds, by deeply stirring the soil, and by applying appropriate manures, wheat may be grown on the same soil for an indefinite number of years. At Lois-Weedon, in Northamptonshire, the Rev. S. Smith has for twenty years cultivated alternate three-foot strips of wheat and well-forked bare fallow; the land that is wheat this year being fallowed next. Although no manure whatever is applied, and only one-half of the experimental plot is each year under crop, the yield continues to stand at four quarters per acre, which is about four bushels per acre in excess of the average acreable produce of Great Britain.

The Lois-Weedon system, owing to the outlay which it entails for manual labor, probably could not be carried out with profit on a large scale. It demonstrates, however, the inherent resources lying dormant, especially in clay-soils, and indicates how they may be rendered available by thorough cultivation. It is mainly by such cultivation that steam-power proves so serviceable in our fields. The soil is turned up deeply to the disintegrating solvent influences of wind and weather; the necessary operations are rapidly overtaken in good season; much work is accomplished in autumn; treading and poaching of the surface is avoided; whilst a larger breadth of roots is attainable for the healthy and economical support of the sheep and cattle-stock, which not only directly enhance the returns of the farm, but also raise rapidly its manurial condition.

As agricultural education and enterprise extend, fixed rotations will be less regarded. The market-gardener, who extracts a great deal more from his land than the farmer has hitherto been able to do, does not adhere to any definite system of cropping. If the farm is kept clean and in improving condition, there can be no harm in growing whatever crops it is adapted to produce. Cropping clauses are only requisite during the three or four last years of a tenancy. The restrictions found in some agreements, preventing the growth of clover for seed, flax, and even potatoes, are inadmissible. Equally objectionable are clauses against the sale of particular sorts of produce, such as hay or roots.

The farmer, if he is fit to be intrusted with the use of the land, ought to be permitted to grow or sell off any crop he pleases, provided an equivalent in manure be brought back. On well-cultivated land, in good condition, it is now the practice of the best farmers to take oats or barley after wheat; indeed, some of the best malting barley in Essex, on the Scottish carse-lands, and elsewhere, is now grown after wheat. The frequent growth of cereals, and the heaviest of hay and root crops, even when removed from the farm, may be fairly compensated for by large doses of town-dung or of sewage. The plant-food disposed of in the more ordinary sales of the farm is economically restored by the use of bones or superphosphate, guano or nitrate of soda, or by keeping-plenty of sheep, penning them over the land, and supplying them liberally with cake and corn.

SIEGE (Pr. a seat, a sitting down) is the sitting of au army before a hostile town or fortress with the intention of capturing it. With certain elements, the success of a siege is beyond doubt; the result being merely a question of time. These elements are : first, the force of the besiegers shall be sufficient to overcome the besieged in actual combat, man to man. If this be not the case, the besieged, by a sortie, might destroy the opposing works, and drive away the besiegers. The second element is, that the place must be thoroughly invested; so that no provisions, reinforcements, or other aliment of war can enter. The third element is, that the besiegers be undisturbed from without. For this it is essential that there shall not be a hostile army in the neighborhood; or, if there be, that the operations of the besiegers be protected by a covering army able to cope with the enemy’s force in the field. The ancients executed gigantic works to produce these effects. To complete the investment, they built a high and strong wall around the whole fortress; and to render themselves secure from without, they built a similar wall facing outwards, beyond their own position. The first was circumvallation, the second contravallation. It was thus that Caesar fortified himself while besieging Alexia, and maintained 60,000 men within his ring. In modern warfare, it is considered preferable to establish strong posts here and there round the place, and merely sentries and vedettes between.

Let us now assume that a fortress of great strength has to be reduced, and that the force of the enemy in the vicinity has been either subdued or held in check by a covering army. By rapid movements, the place is at once invested on all sides, This step constitutes merely a blockade; and if time be of little importance, is a sufficient operation, for hunger must sooner or later cause the fortress to surrender; but if more energetic measures are required, the actual siege must be prosecuted. Advantage is taken of any hidden ground to establish the park of artillery and the engineers’ park; or if there be none, these parks have to be placed out of range. The besieging force is now encamped just beyond the reach of the guns of the fortress; and their object is to get over the intervening ground and into the works without being torn to pieces by the concentrated fire of the numerous pieces which the defenders can bring to bear on every part. With this view, the place is approached by a series of zigzag trenches so pointed that they cannot be enfiladed by any guns in the fortress. In order to accommodate the forces necessary to protect the workers, the trenches at certain intervals are cut laterally for a great length, partly encircling the place, and affording safe room for a large force with ample battering material. These are called parallels, and they are generally three in number. The distance of the first parallel will increase as small-arms become more deadly; but with the old smooth-bore muskets it was usual to break ground at 600 yards from the covered way of the fortress, while at Sebastopol, ground was broken at 2000 yards, and in the siege of Paris by the Germans, the lines were begun at least 4 miles from the city.

The locality of the parallel being decided on, a strong body of men is sent to the spot soon after nightfall. The attention of the garrison is distracted by false alarms in other directions. Half the men are armed cap-a-pie, and lie down before the proposed parallel; while the other half, bearing each pick and shovel, and two empty gabions, prepare for work. Each man deposits the gabions where the parapet of the trench should be. He then digs down behind them, filling the gabions with the earth dugout; and, after they are filled, throwing it over them, to widen and heighten the parapet. Before daylight, the working-party is expected to have formed sufficient cover to conceal themselves and the troops protecting them. During the day, they—being concealed from the garrison—widen and complete their parapet, making it of dimensions sufficient to allow of wagons and bodies of troops with guns passing along. During the same night, other parties will have been at work at zigzags of approach from the depots out of range to the first parallel, which zigzags will be probably not less than 1000 yards in length. The profile of a completed trench is shown in fig. 1, the shaded portion representing a gabion. As a rule, the defenders will not expend ammunition on the first parallel, for its extent (often several miles) will render the probability of doing material damage extremely small. For this reason also, the dimensions of the parapet and its solidity are of far less importance in the first parallel than in the more advanced works of attack.

The first parallel AAA, fig. 2, being completed, the engineers select points near its extremities, at which they erect breast-works, B, B, to cover the bodies of cavalry, who are kept at hand to resist sorties from the garrison. The length of the parallel is usually made sufficient to embrace all the works of two bastions at least. Sites are then chosen for batteries, C, C, which are built up of fascines, gabions, sandbags, and earth. They are placed at points in the parallel formed by the prolongation of the several faces of the bastions, ravelins, and other works of the fortress, which faces the batteries are severally intended to infilade by a ricochet fire. Other batteries will be formed for a vertical fire of mortars and shell-guns. By these means it is hoped that the traverses on the hostile ramparts will be destroyed, the guns dismounted, and the defenders dispersed, before the final approaches bring the assailants to the covered-way. The sappers will now commence their advance towards the points, or salient angles, of the two bastions to be attacked. If, however, the trench were cut straight towards the fortress, its guns could easily destroy the workmen, and enfilade the approach. To prevent this, it is cut in short zigzags—as at D—the direction always being to a point a few yards beyond the outmost flanking works of the garrison. The side of each trench nearest the fortress is protected by gabions and sandbags, as in the case of the parallel.

At intervals, short spurs of trench, incipient parallels, are cut, as at E, to contain small-arms-men, to act as guards to the sappers. The second parallel is about 300 yards from the enemy’s works, and has to be more strongly formed than the first. It often terminates in a redoubt, F, to hold some .light artillery, and a strong force of infantry, who could assail any sortie in flank; or it may run into the first parallel, as G-, giving easier access for troops than through the zigzags. The second parallel is riveted with sandbags, in which loopholes are left for musketry. After passing the second parallel, the angles of the zigzags become more acute, to prevent enfilading. At about 150 yards, certain demi-parallels, H, are cut, and armed with howitzer batteries, to clear the covered-way, while riflemen also act from it. The third parallel is at the foot of the glacis. Thence the place, after being sufficiently battered, is taken by a storming-party, who make their way over the glacis, or the covered-way is topped by the double sap, as in fig. 3; which is a safer plan for the army general, though much more deadly to the sappers. When the crest of the fig 3—Double Sap. covered-way has thus been reached, batteries of heavy artillery will be there established, for the purpose of breaching the walls of the ravelin and bastion; while at the same time miners will first seek to destroy the defenders’ counter-mines (which would otherwise be likely to send these batteries into the air), and then will excavate a tunnel to the ditch, at the foot of the counterscarp.

If the breach becomes practicable, a storming-party will emerge from this tunnel or gallery, and seek to carry the opposite work by hard fighting. If inner works still subsist, which would tear assailants to pieces, the double sap may be continued across the ditch, if a dry ditch, right up the breach, that counter-batteries may be formed. If the ditch be wet, means must be adopted for a causeway or a bridge. By these means, however obstinate may be the defence, if the besieging force be sufficiently strong, and aid do not arrive from without, the ultimate success of the attack becomes certain. Vauban raised attack to a superiority above defence, first, by the introduction of ricochet fire, which sweeps a whole line; and secondly, by originating parallels. Before his time, the whole attack was conducted by zigzag approaches; in which the troops actually in front could be but few, and were therefore unable to withstand strong sorties of the garrison, who, in consequence, frequently broke out and destroyed the works of the besiegers, rendering a siege an operation of a most uncertain character.

SOCIAL SCIENCE, a name that has of late years been given to the study of all that relates to the social improvement of the community. A society, called ‘The National Association for the Promotion of Social Science,’ was first organized at a meeting which was held under Lord Brougham’s auspices in July 1857, to consider the best means of uniting together all those interested in social improvement. The annual meetings have been held each year at a different place. The Association as now constituted comprises five sections—1. Jurisprudence and Amendment of the Law (subjection, Repression of Crime); 2. Education; 3. Health; 4. Economy and Trade; 5. Art. The Association aims at promoting improvement in all matters falling within these departments, by means of bringing together, for free discussion, societies and individuals interested in social problems.

sociology is the somewhat barbarous name that has of late been used to denote the study of the origin, organization, and development of human society.

SOCIALISM, the name given to a class of opinions opposed to the present organization of society, and which seeks to introduce a new distribution of property and labor, in which organized cooperation rather than competition should be the dominating principle, under the conviction that the happiness of the race, and especially of the classes without capital, would be benefited thereby. Historically considered, Socialism, like many of the significant phenomena of our age, is a product of the French Revolution. That terrible outburst of popular discontent is most properly regarded as an anarchic attack on the social system that had its roots in the feudalism of the middle ages. The furious hatred of the court and the aristocracy, the passionate love of the ‘ people,’ of ‘ humanity,’ of ‘ liberty,’ though called forth by special circumstances, and never formally worked out into a theory of social life, virtually contained in themselves the germs of all later proposed organizations. In the middle ages, the right of freely and fully enjoying life, property, and political independence was limited to a favored few; while the great masses were condemned to dumb servitude, and a perpetual minority. Even the industrial population did not recognize the Socialistic idea. The members of the different guilds or fraternities claimed exclusive right to exercise certain branches of industry, and probably the great majority of the inhabitants of a town remained in a disregarded and dependent state. Amid such social conditions, resting, as they did, on a belief in the necessity of different distinct ranks, the free action of individual life, and even the vital progress of the whole community, became well-nigh impossible.

We have not space here to trace the course of the various minor reforms that weakened the authority of the medieval theory of life; but we must not omit to notice the speculations of the political philosophers of the 18th c. in France, England, and Germany, as operating powerfully in favor of a new social system, in which the idea of humanity (assuming, at the French Revolution, as we have observed, the concrete form of the ‘ people ‘) stands out prominently. Nevertheless, the first shape that the modern spirit of industry took, was not Socialistic, in the strict and proper sense of the term: it was rather individualistic, and found, as it still finds—for it is yet the prevailing theory—its natural expression in such proverbs as, ‘ A fair field, and no favor;’ ‘ Everyone for himself, and God for us all.’ But still, even this lawless individualism is to be regarded as a protest against the false class-legislation of preceding times, and as an assertion of the absolute right of each member of society to a share in the general welfare. That it has not universally commended itself to civilized mankind, as a perfect system, is demonstrated by the appearance and temporary popularity of such schemes of society as those of Owen (q. v.), Fourier (q. v.), St. Simon (q. v.), and the enthusiasm excited at intervals in different parts of Europe by the promulgation of extreme communistic opinions. See communism. It is objected to Socialism, under its various forms, that it makes human happiness too much dependent on material gratifications; that it robs man of that energy that springs from ambition; that it unphilosophically ignores an individualism and inequality to which Nature herself has given her inviolable sanction; and that, by the abolition of social rewards and punishments, it neither holds out any hope to the industrious, nor excites any apprehension among the indolent. On the other hand, we must admit that the vigorous assertion of Socialistic principles has led men to a more liberal and generous view of humanity as a whole. Moreover, it has forcibly called public attention to numerous evils that have sprung up along with the modern development of industry, for which no remedy—not even a name—had been provided; to the vital interdependence of all classes; and to the inadequacy of the individual or ‘ selfish ‘ system, as it has been called, to redress the wrongs or cure the evils that inevitably spring from its own unchecked operation. The recent spread of Socialistic opinions in Germany, taken in connection with the two attempts made on the life of the emperor, has led, in 1878, to special and stringent legislation designed to check the growth of Socialism. In 1878 it was computed that there were in Germany 75 Socialistic publications, with 135,000 regular subscribers.