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THE

AMERICAN

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

OF

AGRICULTURE AND SCIENCE.

CONDUCTED BY

PRS. E. EMMONS AND A. J. PRIME.

VOLUME I

ALBANY :

raWTED BY C. VAN BENTHDYSEN AND CO.

1S45.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

We take this opportunity to acknowledge our obligations to the
numerous papers, both those devoted to the agricultural, as well
as other interests, throughout the country, for the kind and com-
plimentary manner in which they have noticed the enterprise in
which we have embarked. They are aware of the difficulties at-
tending our situation, and of course will appreciate the value of
our labors, and be able to make all due allowances for any defi^
ciencies in the outset.

As the Editors reside in different places, they would state, that
agricultural papers wishing to exchange with this Journal, will
confer an additional favor by sending a copy of their paper to
Albany and Newburgh^

E. EMMONS, Albany^
A. J. PRIME, JYewburgh.

ERRORS.

On page 223, 10th line from the bottom, for " our," read " one."

On page 246, 3d line from the bottom, for "they never," read " the newer.**

On page 247, 7th line from the top, for " plant," read " planet."

In note on same page, for "vessels," read " vescicles."

On page 250, for " tripunctuta," read " tripunctata."

CONTENTS.

VOLUME I— NUMBER 1.

Page.

Food of Plants, by Thomas Hun, M. D., 9

What is to be done for American Agriculture, 25

Education of the American Farmer, 36

The claims of Agriculture upon Government — Rev. J. For-
syth , Newburgh, 39

Sour Soils, 47

Manures, 51

Phosphate of Lime, 60

Fertilizers in the Rocks, 62

Free Martins— (i. C. Monell, M, D., Newburgh, 65

New Publications :

Draper's Treatise on the forces which produce the organiza- r,

tion of Plants, 71

Farmers' Miscellany :

Draining — Jesse Ryder, Sing-Sing, 83

Disease in Potatoes, 91

Farmers' Clubs, 102

Ploughing, 105

Gardening — Liquid Manures, 108

Adaptations of Nature, 109

Germination, 110

Charcoal, 112

Inorganic parts of Plants, 114

Injection of warm water into the Uterus of the Cow, 1 16

Necessity of air, &c., 116

Means for Improvement, 1 17

Over-ripened Seed, 1 17

Relation of clay to sandy Soil, 118

Theories, 118

Experiment — R. G. Rankin,.. 119

yi CONTENTS.

Page.

Road-wastes, 120

Grubs and Wire-wormSj 121

Extracts from Foreign and Domestic Journals :

Analysis of Riccj etc 123

" Cotton wool, 130

« « Seed, .4 132

*^ Indian Corn, .'. 133

Experiments on the production of Butter, 137

On the waste pieces of Landj 139

Culture of the Grape Vine, 143

On soaking Seed, 146

Model Farms, 148

Incubation, 150

Rearing of Cattle with a view to early maturity, 152

Silk, 155

Thrift, 167

Source from whence Plants derive their Inorganic Matter, . . 170

New Books :

Earraers' Manual, 173

Lectures, 176

Letters on Chemistry, , 179

American Poulterer's Companion, 181

Mrs. Rundell's Cook Book, 182

Economy of waste Manures, 182

Berkshire Jubilee, 182

VOLUME I— NUMBER 2.

Food of Animals, 185

Climate of the State of New-York, 205

B^ds of Oyster Shells upon the Hudson River, 215

Experiments, 217

Phosphate of Lime and other Fertilizers in the older Rocks, 219
Education of American Farmers, 222

New Publications :
Geological and Agricultural Survey of New-Hampshire, .... 232

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation 240

Insects injurious to Vegetation, 250, 255

contents. vu

Farmers' Miscellany.

Page.

On the proper treatment and management of Meadow Land, 270

Effects of Mental Impressions during pregnancy, 278

Yellows in Peach Trees, 283

Improvement of Stock, 288

Potatoes, 290

Selection of Seed, 292

Degeneracy from bad Tillage, 293

Gardening, 296

Agricultural Study, 296

Fruit Trees, 297

A Fragment, 297

Practical Directions for the Flower Garden, 298

Manures, No. 2, 311

Notices of the Winters at New- York for the last forty-two

years, etc. , 347

Cold Winters and Deep Snows, , 350

American Agricultural Association, 352

Peruvian and African Guano, 355

The Alpaca, 358

On the Formation and Secretion of Carbon by Animals, .... 361

Dinner in honor of Professor Liebig, 364

New method of obtaining Cream from Milk, 369

Miscellanies :

Birds, 370

American Cheese, 371

Cow Feed,.. 371

Sale of American ilay, , 372

TO THE PUBLIC.

An attempt at the present time to establish a Quarterly Journal
of Agriculture and Science will perhaps be looked upon by many
as premature, and as likely on that account to incur a failure of
patronage ; or it may even be regarded as unnecessary and uncalled
for, so far as it proposes to administer to the general or specific
wants of an agricultural community. But a watchful attention to
the progress of agriculture for the last ten years, and to the nu-
merous and important discoveries made in the collateral sciences
during that period, has inspired us with confidence in the usefulness
and ultimate success of our undertaking, and induced us to put in
execution the means within our reach for its advancement. To
enable our patrons and friends to form an opinion on the utility of
the publication we propose to issue, a detailed statement of its
scope and design is here exhibited.

The leading features of the Journal will be agricultural. What-
ever bears directly or indirectly upon the pursuit of farming, as a
matter of course, comes within our plan, and within the legitimate
field of our labors. We intend, however, to advocate that system
of cultivation which is best adapted to this country. While
British and other foreign husbandry will receive a full share of
attention, we hope not to be considered singular in the expression
of the opinion that the intgi'ests of the American farmer should not
be identified with those of the European landholder, and cannot
always be best promoted by pursuing those methods which are
found successful abroad. We are aware, when we speak of Ameri-

VOL. I. NO. 1. A

2 TOTHEPUBLIC.

can farming as differing in character from that of England and
other foreign countries, that the distinction is not so much founded
upon essentially different principles, as upon position and cir-
cumstances ; for the principles of the science have a general appli-
cation ; the means and methods for procuring large and bountiful
returns from the earth, and for improving and perfecting the
different kinds of stock, are the same here as in England or France :
they are founded on general and immutable laws. The food of
plants consists of the same elements every where, whether these
plants grow in valleys or on mountains, in the warm sunny regions
of the south or the cold frosty regions of the north, and the laws
of life which govern the vegetable and animal kingdoms are the
same in all latitudes and climes. The agents which modify organic
bodies, and under whose influence they grow up and decay ; by
which they are nurtured, and by which they fulfil their destiny,
operate uniformly the world over. Heat, light, electricity, and
water, awaken every where the dormant forces of the vital atom,
and call into action a principle which had lain in a state of rest in
the seed or in the bud : they sustain the energies of the being they
have just stimulated into life, and maintain its growth and develop-
ment from the period of its first vital movement through all the
st^o-es it has to pass to reach its maturity. The laws, then, by
which these changes are effected, and by which the progress of all
organized beings to their proper perfection maybe either hastened
or retarded, vary not : they are fixed and stable. The glorious
sun, shedding his bright rays upon the mountain forest and upon
the herbs of the valley, transforms and vitalizes the fluids and
elements which circulate in the leaf; and this transformation is a
necessary result, wherever the conditions of sunlight and vegetation
exist. It is a terrestrial law, w^hich j^eigns wherever vegetables
grow, or wherever they are formed upon a terrestrial plan. The
leaves of plants turn green in the light of the sun, the yellow rays
of that luminary converting the colorless sap into the substance
termed chlorophyl ; and this is a law of light. Can we break this

TOTHE PUBLIC. 6

law 1 No ! But although we cannot break any of nature's laws,
we may sometimes evade or counteract them. We may spread a
curtain over the plant in a garden, or interpose a screen
between the sun and the leaves of an herb ; and by this arrange-
ment, even although all other conditions necessary to growth are
applied, we shall notably interrupt the decomposition requisite to
the production of color in the vegetable tissue, and give place to
a blanched, etiolated, and imperfect being. But the special mode
by which this and all other changes are effected in vegetation are
the same every where ; so that whether we wish to produce, or to
destroy, the law is at our hand : if we know the effect abroad, we
are sure of the same effect at home. It is for these reasons, and
in them we find cause for admiration, that the modes and rules of
culture which are successful in one place, will be successful in all
other places, provided we adapt them to the varying conditions of
climate and situation.

But to return to the subject of American husbandry. We be-
lieve it ought to differ from the English system in some of its
specific productions. The English cultivator, for instance, impelled
by the humidity and comparative coolness of his climate, which
favor the growth of the turnip and other root crops, employ these
articles very extensively in sustaining and fattening their cattle.
Now the American farmer is not driven to the use of these watery
products. Our Indian corn, or maize, ought to be the principal
food for fattening our domestic animals. The zea mays is the
very prince of vegetables : its seeds or kernels furnish, to the live
stock which feed on it, an abundance of oil or fat to line the cel-
lular tissue, of fibrin to enrich the blood and enlarge and strengthen
the muscles, of the phosphate of lime to give solidity to the bones,
and indeed of all the elementary principles requisite to the due
performance of the functions of nutrition and respiration. A field
of maize, with the tall stems of the plants waving in the gentle
summer breeze, and spreading their long pointed leaves to the
brilliant light of an American sky ; or with the autumnal stalks

* TOTHEPUBLIC.

bending under the weight of the golden grain of the ripened ear,
forms a glorious rural spectacle, and is that crop which of all
others clothes the husbandman's landscape in its richest ^eauty.
But this plant owes all its importance to its intrinsic value as an
article of food ; and could the English farmer grow it, his turnip
crop would be comparatively but little esteemed. In this connec-
tion, we hesitate not to say, that we regret that many of our
agricultural writers advocate the culture of the root crops in imi-
tation of the English system of husbandry, in preference to that
of maize, which is so well adapted to our superior climate.

The condition of the American farmer differs from that of the
same class in any other country. He is not only the owner of the
soil, but he works it with his own hands. Let not this condition
be changed. He may be comparatively poor : he has not his
thousands to spare for the purchase of compost, nor his hundreds
to pay for the erecting of brick and mortar fences. For his labor
he requires a speedy return : indeed this is often indispensable for
his own and his family's comfort. We do not mean by this
remark to advocate what has been termed the skinning process;
but as our farmer is not wealthy, and as he performs his own work,
his returns are wanted when his crops are harvested. His true
policy in cultivation is, notwithstanding, the preservative policy : his
system must still be that which husbands the strength of the soil.

It is moreover the peculiar lot of the American farmer to be
placed in proximity to vast and rich forests, superior to anything
in the old world ; with a soil deep and black, the debris of nume-
rous ancient generations of organized beings both vegetable and
animal, intermixed with the fine silt of rivers and lakes. The
compost heaps of the English farmer can hardly vie with the rich
soil which is spread by the hand of nature over the western prai-
ries and beneath the western forests. For this reason, the older
and partially exhausted soils of the Atlantic slopes must come in
competition with the new and exuberantly rich soils of the west
under a great disadvantage, particularly in the cultivation of some

TOTHEPUBLIC. O

of the staple productions. The western farmer spreads his
wheat broadcast over thousands of acres. In those wide-spread-
ing fields, no fence interrupts the wave of the bending grain as the
breeze glides over its surface ; and such are the facilities for the
transportation of produce, that wheat and flour are poured upon
the Atlantic board, as from an inexhaustible magazine which has
been accumulating its treasures for ages. Towards this almost
boundless territory, the tide of emigration continually sets ; and
from thence an untiring industry sends back to the less fertile re-
gions the products of her labor, as from an overflowing granary,
in such profusion that the drill husbandry, from which the largest
returns are derived, can scarcely hope to compete. Still, let but
new avenues of industry be opened, and if ever two days' labor
are required to grow that which in the west requires only one, the
east need not yet despair of securing w^ealth and prosperity under
the influence of her indomitable perseverance, and in the multi-
tude of resources at her command.

From this discussion, w^e return once more to the consideration
of the prosper object of our Journal. Especially we wash it to be
understood that we aim to promote the advancement of that sys-
tem of husbandry which shall be the most profitable, and the best
adapted to circumstances when all the peculiarities of location
and place are taken into consideration, together with the competi-
tions which spring up between rival communities, the plans of in-
dustry which may be devised, the special kinds of stock and pro-
duce which the markets of the day may require, and, in fine, all
those conditions which modify personal and general interests when
viewed in their broade«'t bearings, and as they most affect the pros-
perity of the American farmer. The present is distinguished from
the past by a wonderful energy in prosecuting scientific research.
Not only are old fields broken up anew, but new ones are entered
with astonishing zeal. The impetus which is thus given to disco-
very, in all countries where intelligence has a vigorous reign, can
hardly be conceived by one who has not a good share of industry

6 TO THE PUBLIC.

in his readings, or who does not make it his business to post up
facts of the preceding years. The American farmer and gentle-
man, Ihen, who beyond all other men is most interested in the
progress of knowledge, will do himself injustice if he neglect the
opportunity and means of becoming acquainted with those di€C0-
veries which the indomitable energy of the present age is continu-
ally making. It may appear, to be sure, that there is an extraor-
dinary eagerness for discovery in pure science, but that this does
not become of much practical importance. This, however, is not
the true viewj for such is the utilitarian spirit of the age, that no
sooner has a discovery been made, than it is appropriated to some
of the branches of industry: every thing is caught up and applied
to the promotion of the arts, or the improvement of domestic eco-
nomy.

We would not incur the charge of prolonging this address un-
necessarily, but wish yet to say a few words as to the means we
possess, and may command, to enable us to carry out the plan of
our work. Many gentlemen of both practical and scientific ac-
quirements, who are especially occupied in researches for the ad-
vancement of science and agriculture, are already engaged as con-
tributors to our Journal. Our own individual connection with the
geological and agricultural surveys, has placed within our reach
much important matter relating to agriculture, both in this and
other States of the Union. We propose also to extend our re-
searches south and west, for the purpose of seeking out new sour-
ces of information on subjects most interesting and useful in the
sphere of our labors, and of rendering our publication what its
title imports, a Journal of American Agriculture. It will be our
personal endeavor to multiply the means for increasing the pro-
ducts of the earth, and to encourage the prosecution of those
inquiries which may lead to the discovery of new sources of the
fertilizing agent, particularly the phosphates and carbonates, the
inorganic elements which constitute so essential a portion of many
of our most valued vegetable productions. This inquiry is scarce-

TO THE PUBLIC

ly begun in this country; and though we may be disappointed in
our expectations from it, we believe no one will venture to deny
its importance and necessity. But while we thus explicitly state
the main scope and range of our work as it regards agriculture,
we wish it to be understood that we do not design to confme it
wholly to this department. We intend to record the discoveries,
and to lay before our readers the most interesting facts, in science
at large, so far at least as our pages will admit; always, however,
aiming at judicious selection, and extending only so far as may
enable our readers to keep pace with the progress of knowledge.
It will be a part of our object to give occasional abstracts of the
proceedings of scientific bodies, and notices and reviews of new
publications. Without attempting a dogmatic course, we shall
assume the right to express our opinions on matters pertaining to
the subjects discussed in the journals and other scientific publica-
tions of the day; always, however, with a proper respect for the
views and opinions of others, and under the conviction that we
are all liable to err.

In conclusion, we feel deeply the responsibilities of the task we
have undertaken. W^e are not unaware of the labors we shall be
called to perform if we are faithful, and wish to be useful; nor of
the vexations and embarrassments which attend the conductino- of a
public journal. But we do not rely wholly upon our own resour-
ces and personal exertions. We respectfully solicit our friends,
and all who feel interested in the promotion and diffusion of agri-
cultural information, to aid us in this undertaking; and, at the
same time, we are pledged to furnish at least a moderate remune-
ration to those contributors who may supply us with communica-
tions suitable to our pages.

E. EMMONS,
A. J. PRIME.

Albany, January^ 1845.

AMERICAN

QUARTERLT JOURIAL

OF

AGEICULTURE AND SCIENCE.

FOOD OF PLANTS

BT THOMAS HTTN, M. D.

If we put a seed into the earth, it will, under suitable condi-
tions of moisture, heat, and light, germinate, grow and become a
plant weighing many thousand times more than the original seed
Whence does it derive the materials out of which its substance is
formed ? In what shape do these materials exist before entering
mto Its composition ? In other words, what is the source of the
tood of plants, and what is the nature of this food '?

As to the source of the food of plants, it is plain that it must
be in the soil, or in the atmosphere, or in both, for with these
alone is the plant placed in communication. The question re-
mains, m what proportion does each of these contribute to the
formation of the plant, and what particular constituents does each
lurnish ?

The question of the food of plants is of great practical impor-
tance, for all agricultural processes have for their object to place
plants in the conditions most favorable to their growth and deve-
lopment ; and as a due supply of food is one of the most essen
tial of these conditions, it follows that these processes must be

VOL. I. NO. 1, Ti

10 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

founded on a knowledge of the articles of food required by plants
in general, and by each particular kind of plants.

Until a few years ago, the knowledge possessed on this point
was so defective, that it furnished no certain basis for any system
of agriculture, and all scientific farming was looked on with great
distrust. It was considered safer to trust to a certain routine of
practice which was found to work well in many cases, but the rea-
son of which was unknown, than to have recourse to scientific
principles which, however plausible they might seem, rarely led
to any profitable application. But practices foimded on blind rou-
tine must in many cases be misapplied, and the art pursued un-
der such a system must remain stationary. Of the imperfection
of the art of agriculture it is unnecessary to speak, and as to its
improvement it may be affirmed with great truth that while all the
other mechanical arts have been making such wonderful progress,
this one, which occupies more men than all the rest together, has
scarcely partaken of the movement, and that with the exception of
some improvements of its instruments, for which it is indebted to
other arts, it is now, in all essential respects, at the same point it
was two thousand years ago.

Agriculture is however destined no longer to remain stationary.
Recent improvements in organic chemistry are changing the whole
aspect of vegetable and animal physiology, and rendering these
sciences susceptible of practical application. The mode in which
plants are supplied with food, and the kind of food they require,
are becoming better understood, and the theory of manures is be-
coming more perfect ; in a word, a science is springing up which
will revolutionize the whole art of agriculture, and enable it to
take its rank among the mechanical arts founded on fixed scientific
principles. In a few years it will be considered as absurd for a
man to undertake the management of a farm without having ac-
quired a theoretical knowledge of agriculture as it would be to at-
tempt to practice engineering without a knowledge of geometry.

In this paper, I propose to point out in as plain a manner as
may be, what are the materials out of M-hieh the substance of
plants is formed and the sources whence these materials are de-
rived, and thus explain the action of various substances used as
manures. I have nothing new to add to what is contained in the
treatises of Liebig, Dumas and others, on this subject ; I only hope

FOODOFPLANTS. U

to call attention to their views and render them intelligible to a
class of persons who do not possess the knowledge of chemical
principles which these works suppose in their readers.

Let us first of all see what is the composition of the matters
found in plants, and we will be better prepared to understand the
nature of the food and the changes it undergoes.

A superficial examination of the composition of plants shows
that they contain gum, starch, sugar and other matters of like na-
ture, which are not found in the soil nor in the atmosphere. The
plant must, then, by virtue of forces peculiar to itself, form these
matters out of the materials it derives from these two sources.

But we must look more closely into the composition of plants.

If we burn a plant in the open air, a large portion passes off in
the form of vapor of water and of gas, and a quantity of ashes
remains.

This ash of plants which cannot be dissipated by heat, is found
on analysis to be composed of salts of soda and potash, alumina,
silex and other earthy and saline matters. These matters are es-
sential components of the plant, but do not seem to have made
part of its organized tissues. They are simply deposited in these
tissues, and are called the inorganic constituents of plants. Lie-
big has called especial attention to their importance in vegetation.

Those parts which pass off in a gaseous state during combus-
tion are the organized parts and organic products of the plant.
If we collect these gases and this vapor, we find that on ultimate
analysis they may all be resolved into four elements, carbon, oxy-
gen, hydrogen and nitrogen. There are also some traces of sul-
phur and phosphorus.

We can thus arrive at the first grand division of the constituent
parts of plants, viz., the inorganic constituents, composed of
earthy and saline ingredients which remain after burning, in the
form of ashes, and the organic matters composed of the four sim-
ple substances I have mentioned, and which pass off in the form
of gas and vapor.

Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen are then the elements
out of which all the organic matters of plants are formed ; but
these elements are combined in a manner very different from that
in which they are combined in dead matter, and this leads me to

12 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

point out the difference between organic and inorganic combina-
tions.

The chemist in his laboratory can obtain from starch, gum, al-
bumen and other organic matters, the elements of which they are
formed : he can separate them into carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and
nitrogen, but he cannot by any means within his reach cause the
elements again to combine so as to form these organic matters.
These matters are formed only in the living plant and under con-
ditions which the chemist cannot imitate.

Thus gum is formed from three elements, carbon, oxygen,
hydrogen, united together in certain definite proportions. The
chemist can cause these elements to unite in various ways ; the
oxygen and hydrogen wnll combine and form water, the oxygen
and carbon will form carbonic acid, the carbon and hydrogen will
form carburetted hydrogen. But he cannot by any possible means
cause the three to combine and form gum. .

So in the case of organic matters containing four elements, viz.,
carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. These elements will unite
by ordinary chemical processes to form various compounds. The
carbon and oxygen will form carbonic acid ; the hydrogen and
nitrogen will form ammonia, and these compounds will again unite
to form carbonate of ammonia. But this substance is very differ-
ent in its properties from albumen, which is/ound in living plants.
, These compounds of the three or four simple substances which
are formed only in the laboratory of the living plant, and which
cannot be reproduced by the chemist from their elements, are
called proximate principles. They are very numerous, and it is
not necessary here to enumerate them, but for understanding
what is to follow, the composition of the most important of them
must be known.

Some of these proximate principles contain only three of the
elements I have mentioned, and then these three are always carbon,
oxygen and hydrogen. Others contain four elements, and then
nitrogen is added to .the abov^ three. The former are called 7ion-
nitrof^enizedj the latter nitrogenized principles. This is a most
important distinction, and its applications are numerous in vege-
table and animal physiology.

Of the nitrogenized principles there is a class in which the oxygen
and hydrogen exist in the proportions to form water, so that they

FOODOFPLANTS. 13

may be considered as compounds of carbon with water, or more
properly with the elements of water, for it is not proved that water
exists as such in them. This affords a convenient way of stating
their composition.

Carbon. Water.

Starch, = 12 + 10

Cane Sugar, 12 +11

Gum, 12 + 11

Sugar of Milk,... .12 -f 12

Grape Sugar, 12 +14

From this table it may be seen that these principles are convert-
ible into each other, simply by adding or subtracting the elements
of water. Some principles as, gum and cane sugar, are identical
in composition though different in properties. Such instances of
substances having different propertieswhile their composition is the
same, are also found in inorganic compounds. They are called
isomeric. Their differences are supposed to depend on a different
arrangement of their atoms.

Among the non-nitrogenized principles, there are others in
which the oxygen and hydrogen are not united in the proportions
to form water. These are the oils and acids.

The nitrogenized proximate principles are albumen, fibrin and
casein ; they are identical in composition with the principles of
the same name found in animals. These three^principles are nearly
identical in composition, differing only in the proportions of sul-
phur and phosphorus which exist in them in very minute quantities.
They may all be resolved into a principle called protein, composed
of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, combined with sulphur
and phosphorus.

Thus, fibrin,.. = Protein, + P. + 2 S.
Albumen,.... = Pr. + P. + S.

Casein, = Pr. + S. +

These nitrogenized principles are of great importance in nutri-
tion, since all the organized tissues of animals are formed from
them. They are the only proper supporters of nutrition, and
vegetable food is nutritive in proportion to the amount of nitro-
genized principles it contains. The non-nitrogenized principles
. serve as supporters of respiration and not as supporters of nutrition.

14 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

Animals whose organized tissues are composed of thess princi-
ples are incapable of forming them from their elements, and hence
must receive them ready formed in the flesh of other animals or in
vegetables. All the albumen, fibrin and casein now existing in
animals must have previously existed in vegetables, which are the
grand agents for forming organic compounds for the use of animals.

Plants contain then, two classes of substances:

1. Inorganic constituents consisting of salts of soda and potash,
of silex, alumina, &c., which are deposited in, but do not form a
part of the organized tissues. These constitute mainly the ashes
of plants when burned.

2. Organic matter composed of three elements : carbon, oxygen,
and hydrogen — or of four elements, nitrogen being added to
these three. These elements are united together in the living
plant under conditions which cannot be reproduced by any artifi-
cial means, and form what are called proximate principles.

Now that we have an idea of the composition of plants, we
proceed to the consideration of their food.

As we have established two classes of substances entering into
the composition of plants, viz., the organic and the inorganic mat-
ters, so we may establish a corresponding division of their food.
I will consider each of these divisions separately.

1. Of the materials out of which the organic matters or proxi-
mate principles of plants are formed.

There are four articles of food out of which plants form all their
proximate principles or organic constituents. They are

1. Water, composed of hydrogen and oxygen.

2. Carb. acid, " " carbon and oxygen.

3. Ammonia, " " nitrogen and hydrogen.

4. Nitric acid, " " nitrogen and oxygen.

It will be seen that the two first of these substances (water and
carbonic acid) contain the elements of the non-nitrogcnized princi-
ples of plants. For if from the carbonic acid we subtract the
oxygen, we have carbon remaining, which by its union with the
elements of water jn different proportions, forms starch, gum,
sugar and the other principles of that class.

For the formation of the nitrogenized principles we must have, in
addition to these elements, nitrogen, which is derived from ammonia
or from nitric acid.

FOOD OF PLANTS. 15

Those substances which constitute the food of plants, are derived
from the soil and from the atmosphere. Formerly, great impor-
tance was attached to the soil, as furnishing materials for the
organic constituents of plants. It has been shown however, from
more recent researches, that the atmosphere is the great reservoir
of food, and that the supply derived from the soil though in several
respects important, is comparatively small.

The atmosphere is composed principally of two gases, oxygen
and nitrogen, in the proportions by volume of 208 of the former
to 792 of the latter. It contains also 2 A o ^Y volume of carbonic
acid gas, and a variable quantity of watery vapor. Besides this,
it is constantly receiving ammonia from animal decomposi-
tioH and animal excrements, but by reason of the solubility
of this gas in water, it unites with the vapor and is thus carried to
tlie earth in the form of rain and snow. Although the amount of
ammonia in the atmosphere is too small to be detected by chemical
analysis, yet its presence in snow and rain proves its existence
there, and besides we know that from various sources it is con-
stantly passing in the atmosphere.

Carbonic acid, ammonia, and water, are the constituents of the
atmosphere which afford nourishment to plants. The proportion
in which they exist is small, but when we take into account the
immense extent of the atmosphere, we find their absolute amount
to be very great.

The composition of soils is more variable than that of the at-
mosphere. In a general way, it may be said that the soil consists
of earthy and saline matters, which constitute its basis, and are
derived from the disintegration and decomposition of rocks, and
of a quantity of vegetable matter called vegetable mould or humus.
This matter during its decomposition, gives out carbonic acid.
Besides these, soils contain matters derived from the atmosphere,
such as water impregnated with carbonic acid and with ammonia.

According to Liebig, the great value of the soil for vegetation
depends on its earths and alkalies, which seem to supply the inor-
ganic constituents of plants. The humus or mould is compara-
tively unimportant except at certain stages of vegetation, in fur-
nishing carbonic acid to the roots.

I shall now proceed to examine each of the articles of food I
have enumerated.

16 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

1. Water. This substance is also a necessary ingredient in the
food of animals, but in them it serves the purpose of a diluent or
solvent of the alimentary principles, and does itself contribute di-
rectly to nutrition. It serves this same purpose of a solvent also
in plants, for the carbonic acid, the ammonia and the inorganic
constituents are introduced in a state of solution in water. But
water is also directly nutritive in plants ; its elements combine
with the carbon of the carbonic acid and form the non-nitrogen-
ized proximate principles.

The part played by water in vegetation is then doubly impor-
tant, for it not only serves as an indispensable article of food
which is converted into the substance of the plant, but by its sol-
vent properties it serves to introduce the other articles of food
from the soil and from the atmosphere.

The necessity of water for vegetation and the sources whence
it is derived, are so generally understood that they require no fur-
ther illustration.

2. Carhonic acid. Carbon is the preponderating element of
plants, constituting more than fifty per cent of their weight. It
is introduced in the form of carbonic acid, which is derived from
the soil and from the atmosphere.

The carbonic acid derived from the soil is absorbed by the roots,
passes into the trunk and from thence into the leaves and ends by
being exhaled, without change, if no new force intervenes.

" Such is the case with plants vegetating in the shade and du-
ring the night season : the carbonic acid of the soil permeates
their tissues and is diffused in the air. Plants are commonly said
to produce carbonic acid during the night ; this is incorrect : plants
then only transmit unchanged the carbonic acid which their roots
have pumped up from the soil.

" But suppose this carbonic acid, whether derived from the soil
or from the atmosphere, to be in contact with the leaves and green
parts, and the light of the sun to fall on them, immediately the
whole scene is changed : the carbonic acid disappears ; minute
bubbles of oxygen are evolved from every point of the leaves and
the carbon is fixed in the tissues of the plant.

" And it is a point most worthy of remark and fitted to arouse
attention, that these green parts of vegetables, the very ones that
have been found capable of exhibiting this wonderful phenome-

• FOOUOF PLANTS. 17

non, the decomposition of carbonic acid, are also possessed of ano-
ther property, not less peculiar, not less mysterious.

" If we attempt to transfer their images to a prepared plate of
the apparatus of M. Daguerre, the green parts are found not to be
reproduced, not to be formed ; it is as if the whole of the chemical
rays essential to the photographic phenomenon had disappeared,
iiad been absorbed and retained by the leaf.

" It would seem, therefore, that the chemical rays of light van-
ish entirely in the green parts of plants — an extraordinary absorp-
tion without doubt, but easily explained when the enormous ex-
penditure of chemical force necessary to the decomposition of a
substance so stable as carbonic acid is required.

" Let us next inquire concerning the part played by the carbon
thus wonderfully fixed by vegetables. What is its business —
what its destination 1 For the major part unquestionably, it com-
bines with water or its elements, and it thus gives origin to sub-
stances of the highest consequence in the economy of plants.

" Twelve atoms of carbonic acid being decomposed and aban-
doning their oxygen, there will result twelve atoms of carbon,
which, with ten atoms of water, will compose either the cellular
or the ligneous tissue of plants, or the starch and dextrine which
are their derivatives."*

Such is the important part which is played by carbonic acid as
an article of the food of plants. Introduced into their interior,
whether by the roots or by the leaves, it is, under the influence of
the sun's rays, decomposed in the green parts, its carbon remains
in the plant and the oxygen is exhaled into the atmosphere. The
carbon then unites with the water or its elements, and forms starch,
sugar, gum and the other non-nitrogenized principles.

The action of plants is in this respect precisely the reverse of
what takes place in animals. The latter consume the carbon in
their food, which ultimately combines with the oxygen introduced
by the lungs, and is converted into carbonic acid, which passes
into the atmosphere, and is by plants again resolved into carbon
and oxygen. For this reason plants have been called apparatus
of reduction, and animals apparatus of combustion.

The carbonic acid is derived from the soil, where it is genera-

* Dumas' Balance of Organic Nature.
VOL. I. — NO. 1. C

1$

QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ted by the decomposition of vegetable matter, and from the at-
mosphere. The main source of carbonic acid is, however, the
atmosphere. " How can this be otherwise when the enormous
quantities of carbon which trees, the growth of centuries, for ex-
ample, have laid up, are contrasted with the very limited extent
to which their roots extend ? Very certainly where the acorn,
whence sprung the oak which is now our admiration, geriAinated
a hundred years ago, the soil where it fell and struck not did not
contain the millionth part of the charcoal which the oak now in-
closes. It is the carbonic acid of the atmosphere which has fur-
nished all the rest ; that is to say, almost the whole mass of the
noble tree."

" But what can be more clear or conclusive upon this subject
than the experiment of M. Boussaingault, in which peas sown in
sand, watered with distilled water and fed by the air alone, never-
theless found in this air all the carbon necessary to their develop-
ment, flowering and fructification."*

Liebighas insisted strongly on the fact that the vegetable mould
is of much less consequence in furnishing carbonic acid to the nits
of plants than has been previously supposed. According to him,
this vegetable mould is more important as furnishing the inor-
ganic constituents of plants in a soluble state than as furnishing
carbonic acid.

Plants are, however, dependent to a great extent on the carbo-
nic acid of the soil. During germination the plant derives its
nourishment from the supply laid up in the seed. By the time
this supply is exhausted the roots and first green leaves are
formed. The latter organs can now take in carbonic acid from
the atmosphere, but the quantity absorbed will be in proportion to
their surface, which is very small. If then the plant is vegetating
in a soil which furnishes no carbonic acid to the roots, so that the
whole supply must be derived from the atmosphere by its leaves,
its early growth will be slow and the season far advanced before
it arrives at maturity. But if the roots can take in carbonic acid
the process of growth is more rapid, the leaves are formed in
greater abundance, and as the leaves increase, the capacity for
taking in carbonic acid from the atmosphere is increased, and thus

• Dumas' Balance of Organic Nature.

FOODOFPLANTS, 19

the growth of the plant is accelerated, not only by the amount of
absorption by the roots, but also by the increased absorption by
the leaves.

On this depends the importance of furnishing to young plants
in the spring of the year manures capable of furnishing these nits
with carbonic acid. For the same reason the earth is broken up
to admit air to vegetable matter of the soil, and thus favoring its
decomposition, during which it gives off carbonic acid. When
the roots are thus freely supplied with carbonic acid, the plant
sends out leaves which themselves are organs for introducing nu-
tritive matter from the atmosphere. We thus gain time, so impor-
tant for a crop which is to be produced in a single season, but
which is of little moment to forest trees which are to continue
during a long succession of seasons.

Ammonia or JYitric acid. — This is the third article of food for
plants. It furnishes the nitrogen they contain.

Carbonic acid and water contain the elements of all the non-
nitrogenized principles of plants. The nitrogenized principles,
fibrin, albumen, and casein, require the concurrence of nitrogen,
which can only be introduced in the form of nitric acid or some
salts of ammonia.

Although plants are surrounded by an atmosphere containing
seventy-nine per cent of nitrogen, yet they are incapable of intro-
ducing and assimilating it in that form. Some experiments of
Boussaingault, which seem to him to prove that plants abstract
nitrogen from the atmosphere, admit of being differently explained.
It is more probable that the nitrogen was obtained from the mi-
nute quantity of ammonia in the atmosphere.

Wild plants contain less of the nitrogenized principles than
those which are cultivated for food. Indeed, the value of vegeta-
ble products as food for animals, depends mainly on the quantity
of nitrogenized principles they contain.

One of the great problems in agriculture, is to furnish plants
with a supply of nitrogen at a cheap rate. Water and carbon are
in general provided by nature in sufficient abundance; and for wild
plants, ammonia is furnished sufficiently from the sources I will
presently point out. But for plants which are cultivated with re-
ference to the amount of nitrogenized principles they contain, it

20 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

is necessary to surround the roots with manures containing an
additional amount of nitrogen.

Let us now see what are sources whence the ammonia is deriv-
ed for the use of plants.

The flesh of animals, and a large portion of the blood, consists
of nitrogenized principles, fibrin, albumen, gelatine, which dur-
ing its decomposition after death, gives off the nitrogen in the form
of carbonate of ammonia.

During life, the animal tissues are continually undergoing a
change, receiving new matter from the products of digestion, and
giving up their old materials which are thrown ofFin the excretions
from the lungs and kidneys. By the former, (the lungs,) is thrown
off the carbon, in the shape of carbonic acid, and by the latter,
(the kidneys,) the nitrogen in the shape of urea, which by expo-
sure to the atmosphere, is speedily converted into carbonate of
ammonia.

Thus it is that all the nitrogen which enters into the foorl of ani-
mals, and which is directly or indirectly furnished by plants, after
making part of the living tissue of the animals, is ultimately re-
stored to the atmosphere in the shape of ammonia, or its carbo-
nate.

Just as animals consume the carbon of vegetables, and after-
wards restore it to the atmosphere in the shape of carbonic acid,
that is in a shape adapted for vegetable nourishment, so do animals
restore the nitrogen they consume in their food to the atmosphere,
in the shape of carbonate of ammonia, which again serves for the
nourishment of vegetables.

The ammonia or carbonate of ammonia, which is thus disengag-
ed from animals after death, and from their excretions during life,
being volatile, passes into the atmosphere. By reason of its affi-
nity for water, it combines with the vapor of the air, and descends
to the earth in the form of rain or snow, and is applied to the
roots of plants. Ammonia never exists in the atmosphere in suf-
ficient quantity to be detected by chemical analysis, but its pre-
sence in rain and snow water, proves that it must have previously
existed in the atmosphere.

Plants, also, can absorb ammonia directly from the atmosphere
by means of their leaves. This seems to be proved by the expe-
riments of Boussaingault, to which I have before alluded. He

FOODOF PLANTS. 21

found that some kinds of plants in a soil of pure silex, moistened
with distilled water, were capable of growing and forming nitro-
geni^ed compounds. In this case the nitrogen must have been de-
rived either from this gas as it exists in the atmosphere, or from
the ammonia which is present in very minute proportion. The
latter explanation is on many accounts the most probable.

According to Dumas, nitrate of ammonia is also generated by a
combination of its elements, by the action of electric sparks in
thunder storms, which is carried to the earth by the rain.

From these sources ammonia is constantly jiassing into the at-
mosphere for the support of the vegetation in the earth. But this
general supply does not furnish a sufficient proportion for cultivat-
ed plants, and hence the necessity of manures, which are capable
of producino: it in greater abundance.

The manures which furnish the most abundant supply of ammo-
nia, are urine and the excrements of animals, but particularly the
former. But owing to the volatility of the carbonate of ammonia
which is generated by the manures, it is liable to pass at once into
the atmosphere, instead of contributing to the nutrition of the
plants around whose roots it is deposited. Different modes have
been proposed for fixing this ammonia, by converting the carbo-
nate into a salt which is not volatile. This is effected by adding
some mineral acid, such as sulphuric or muriatic, which gives rise
to a sulphate or muriate of ammonia, which is not volatile, and
remains permanent, so that the whole of it may be absorbed into
the plant. The addition of these acids has the further advantage
of destroying the ammoniacal smell of putrid urine, and for these
two reasons it is resorted to in the man\ifacture of poudrette.

According to Liebig* " the evident influence of gypsum (sulphate
of lime) upon the growth of grasses — the striking fertility and
luxuriance of a meadow upon which it is strewed, depends only
upon its fixing in the soil the ammonia of the atmosphere which
would otherwise be volatilized with the water which evaporates.
The carbonate of ammonia contained in rain water is decomposed
by gypsum in precisely the same way as in the manufacture of sal
ammoniac. Whether sulphate of ammonia and carbonate of lime
are formed, and this salt of ammonia possessing no volatility, is
consequently retained in the soil."

• Agricultural Chemistry.

2J^ QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

" In order to form a conception of the effect of gypsum it may
be sufficient to remark that 110 pounds of burned gypsum fixes
as much ammonia in the soil, as 6,880 pounds of horse's urine could
yield to it, even in the supposition that all the nitrogen of the
urea and hippurci acid were absorbed by the plants, without the
smallest loss in the form of carbonate of ammonia. If we admit
with Boussingault, that the nitrogen in grasses amounts to -j-i^ of
its weight, then every pound of nitrogen which we add increases
the produce of the meadow 100 pounds, and this increased product
of 100 pounds is effected by the aid of a little more than four
pounds of gypsum.

INORGANIC CONSTITUENTS OF PLANTS.

All the organic parts of plants are formed by means of transfor-
mations which take place in the substances I have named, to wit,
water, carbonic acid and ammonia, or nitric acid. But there are
other constituents which also require notice.

In all plants there is a certain amount of mineral substances
which remain after burning, in the shape of ashes. These substan-
ces vary in different plants, and are more abundant in some than
in others. They consist, for the most part, of salts of soda and
potash, silex, alumina, lime, magnesia and some others.

Liebig has insisted very strongly on the necessity of these
mineral ingredients for plants, and has shown that no matter how
abundantly a plant may be supplied with water, carbonic acid,
and nitrogen, it will not flourish if the inorganic constituents are
wanting. Thus wheat, rye, peas and beans, contain a large pro-
portion of the alkaline and earthy phosphates, and will not flourish
in a soil destitute of them, however rich it may be in other ingre-
dients.

The inorganic constituents are originally derived from the
disentegration and decomposition of the rocks which form the basis
of the soil, and that portion of them which is removed with the
crops must be restored in the shape of manures, or by allowing
the ground to lie fallow while a new supply is generated by the
further disintegration of the rock.

When lands are exhausted by successive crops, the exhaustion
depends rather on the absence of the inorganic constituents than of
the sources of carbonic acid and water. This exhaustion of the
soil may be prevented to some extent, by raising successively crops

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE.

S3

of substances requiring different constituents, and on this the
system of alternation of crops is founded.

The principal source from which the soil is to be supplied with
the inorganic constituents of plants, is the urine and excrements of
animals and different animal remains. Urine contains a large
proportion of alkaline and earthy phosphates, and on them depends
its value as a manure, more than on the nitrogen it furnishes.
The same is true of bones, which have been found to be so valua-
ble as manures. After being buried a few years they contain no
animal matter, and furnish only food for the inorganic constituents
of the plant.

Guano is a substance which has recently been brought into use
as manure. It consists of the excrements of birds which has
accumulated for a great length of time, and it furnishes to plants
both nitrogen, and alkaline and earthy phosphates.

These matters must not only be present in the soil, but must
also be soluble in water, and several substances are employed as
manures, the efficacy of which depends on their capacity of forming
soluble combinations of the silex, alumina, &c.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE FOR AMERICAN AGRICULTURE ?

Ever since the attention of agriculturists in England was awa-
kened to the immense benefits to be derived to their noblest of
arts, by the aid offered by science, there has been a vast amount
of speculation afloat in this country upon the same subjects. If,
instead of speculation, it had been the well grounded result of in-
vestigation and careful experiment, it would have been, even at
this time, amply sufficient to have redeemed American farming, and
placed it upon a secure and profitable footing. If the activity and
zeal displayed, instead of being set to work loosely and without
any definite object, had been first enlightened and then cautious —
slow and prudent, and directed to particular results — if instead of
being distributed over the whole broad field of agriculture at once,
it had been guided with discretion to the improvement of some
single branch of husbandry — the effects at this day would have
been incalculable. Great revolutions, such as are necessary in

24 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

farming, cannot be produced in a day or a year. It is not suffi-
cient only to inform and enlighten the few — to arouse here and there
one to the task of personal reformation — it is not sufficient even,
that the leading agriculturists of the country should be aroused to
the application of new principles and practices — but in such a
country as this the whole mass must work together in order to
produce any result that will be appreciable to any but the closest
observer. It is true that the tendency of knowledge, among a
free people, is to spread and diffuse itself among all — yet when
the prejudices, and those ingrained into the nature of the mass of
American farmers, are considered — when it is remembered that
they have to unlearn every thing in order to learn any thing —
that a man must be convinced he is wrong before he will learn to do
right — must be conscious of his ignorance before he will consent
to be instructed — when all these circumstances are taken into the
account, it cannot perhaps be matter of surprise to any that so lit-
tle progress has as yet been made in this country in rational farm-
ing. As long as a man believes he has arrived at perfection, it is
the veriest folly to try to improve him. It is a question then of no
small importance — " What is to be done for American Agriculture ?"

It is matter of congratulation, no less to the patriot and the po-
litical economist than to the farmer himself, that something has
already been done. A different system is beginning to prevail,
and although it may not appear to a superficial observer, yet by
one who refers to the practices of former years and compares them
with the present, much will be seen to convince him that farming
is undergoing a slow and gradual but sure change for the better.
Call it rational — mental — scientific, or what we will — its efforts
are beginning to be felt and will continue to increase. We see
this in the large tracts of land that have been and are being re-
deemed from waste — in the restoration, in some parts of the coun-
try, of exhausted soil — in the improvement of stock and the dis-
position to obtain improved breeds — in the multiplied production
of better farming implements, which can only be made in such
abundance to supply an increasing demand — but in nothing more
than in the growing desire for information shown in the increase
of agricultural papers and books. And we hail all these as indi-
cations of the dawning of a new era in farming.

In replying to the question at the head of this paper, we shall

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 25

consider only what individuals ought to ilo. The question of
what government ought to do, will be examined at another time.*
I. The farmer must acquaint himself with the principles of his
art. Jts foundation is laid in knowledge, and its successful prac-
tice depends upon individual skill. Of late years the sciences have
laid open vast resources for the farmer. Geology, Botany, and
especially Chemistry, have already taken rapid steps towards revo-
lutionizing the practice of agriculture. It no longer answers for
a man to quote his father as the best authority. We must go
higher now and follow the laws of J^'ature. Let us not be un-
derstood to mean that every farmer must become a chemist in the
strict sense of the term, although to a certain degree he must be
one. He is a practical chemist already, and he should be in a
measure a theoretical one ; that is, he should be a reasoning man,
in respect to the operations he carries on. He should be able to
see the cause when a certain effect is produced, and to understand
why the various processes which he follows are necessary, and what
are wrong and what are right. This does not involve necessarily
an acquaintance with all the technical terms of science, terms now
so much the dread of the uneducated farmer. But he should un-
derstand the names of things he uses, and not ask the chemist who
labors for his benefit, to perform the impossibility of finding
names for substances which a man can comprehend without find-
ing them out. Nothing is more common than this complaint, and
nothing more wrong. A great beauty and excellence in the
names applied by modern chemistry is, that for the most part, the
name of the substance defines and explains its composition, so
that by seeing the name of a compound we know of what it con-
sists. Take an example — the acid commonly called " oil of vit-
riol." This is an unmeaning term, and conveys no idea of that
substance any more than if it were written in the Chinese tongue.
But the name " sulphuric dcid," which is the proper one, indicates
at once that sulphur is the essential ingredient, and a slight know-
ledge of chemistry tells us that oxygen is the other. The farmer
is familiar with " plaster of Paris ;" does he know such a sub-
stance as " sulphate of lime ;" a name which at least shows the
presence of sulphur and lime ! On the contrary, fault is often

* An able article on this subject will be found on another page.— Eds.
VOL. I. — NO. 1. D

26 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

found with writers because they will call it gypsum ; a name suf-
ficiently unscientific to please any one.

But it is not after all, the names which most concern the farmer,
although in order to be a rational one he must understand them.
The substances themselves are what he is interested in, and their
application in his business. He ought to understand the relative
value of different manures and their adaptedness to partic\ilar soils
or crops ; the preparation, improvement and management of ma-
nures in order to secure their highest effect ; the composition of
soils and plants and the effects produced by the latter growing in
the former, to exhaust them and render them unproductive ; in fine
he must know the whole relations of the vegetable, mineral and
animal world. The farm should be regarded an out-door laborato-
ry where every process is regulated by rule as strict as the che-
mist obeys in his. If we should stop to give instances to substan-
tiate the value of this kind of knowledge, we should soon fill a
volume, for there is no process in the whole art that would not
bear us out. Therefore we need not do it. We are well aware of
the prejudice which has heretofore existed against book farming ;
a prejudice which is rapidly disappearing and which was the child
of ignorance.

It cannot be possible that agriculture alone of all the arts must
stand aloof from the aids offered by science. All other industrial
occupations owe their elevation and importance to it. And what
may not farming be, when the farmer in the full realization of the
dignity of his calling, becomes the thoroughly informed man he
ought to be. And there is no sufficient reason why any man in
this country should be ignorant of ali the improvements that have
been made in agriculture, and equally true is it, that knowing
them, there is no reason why he should not put them in practice.
We are a reading people. We mingle with each other. What
one does, is seen and known by all. The distinction of classes is
only nominal, and in all that pertains to the common good, all
meet on common ground. The interchange of thoughts and views
is free as the air we breathe. The means of acquiring knowledge
are cheap and abundant, and in every man's power. 1 say again,
there is no reason why any man should not be well informed in all
that concerns his business. But before all are so, the barriers
raised by prejudice and early training must be broken down, and

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 27

that patriarchal respect lor old custom*? and old usages and old
ways must be done away.

The education and elevation of the farmer is not a Utopian scheme,
even for the present 2;eneration. And for the next we may expect
men competent to fulfil their destiny as the foundation and support
of this republic. England and Germany are in advance of us, but
when we move it is with rapid strides. They have laid the foun-
dation in their investigation and discovery of the laws of organic
life, and we must build upon it. The practical farmer in this
country has not been behind the man of science. The latter has
but just begun to arouse himself to his duty, as the former is look-
ing to him for counsel. Where they occupy the field together,
what results may we not anticipate ? It has, perhaps, been to the
hindrance of improvement that the scientific men have not taken
the lead, and have left practical men to guide themselves in the
to them untrodden fields of science. It is that fact that has
caused speculation to be substituted for true knowledge, and thus,
although a large and extensive desire has been manifested by intel-
ligent men to adopt new measures, yet from want ot proper direc-
tion, their notions of what they want have often been so indefinite
as to lead to no beneficial result. We would not be understood as
depreciating the very laudable efforts made for improvement by our
agriculturists. On the contrary, we are rather disposed to censure
those men, w^io from their studies are capable of giving an intel-
ligent direction to that spirit of enterprise which might at this
time have effected vastly more than has been done. But neither
can go alone. The theories of one and the facts of the other
must eventually meet, and thus a firm superstructure maybe raised.

A few years ago farming was regarded as little better than a
menial service, and the farmer Avas looked upon as little elevated
above the serf or the slave. It was forgotten that agriculture,
the manufacturing and the commercial interests, were all insepara-
bly connected in the prosperity of the state; or rather, in the
words of another, " that the land and the owners, and the culti-
vators of the land, form the primary essentials, and the mercantile
and manufacturing establishments, the accidental adjuncts of our
state — and that the ruin of the solid walls and foundation of the
stupendous fabric of the greatest nation upon earth, would involve
in one common destruction its richest appendages and most orna-

28 QUARTERLYJOURNAL,

mental decorations."* No country can — and this country especi-
ally cannot, foster too fondly its agricultural interests. It is now,
and must continue to be our national wealth. And this is at the
present time eminently the direction of public feeling. To what-
ever cause it may be attributed — whether to the wish to be free
from the anxieties and cares and insecurity of commercial life — to
the sense of the greater security of the landed interests — whether
to these selfish considerations, or the return of a healthy state of
moral feeling, urging the conviction of the holier and happier in-
fluence of rural pursuits upon themselves and their children — to
whichsoever of these circumstances it is attributed, it is a gratify-
ing fact that many wealthy and intelligent men are forsaking the
laro"e cities, and devoting themselves to agriculture. And to them
much of the credit is due for the improvements that have already
been made. What farther duties devolve upon them we shall have
occasion to consider hereafter. We rejoice that they have begun
to raise the farmer to his proper position in society.

But the education of the present generation of farmers we re-
gard as of small importance compared with that of their children.
Here is our great reliance. This subject is one which has of late
been much discussed, and has arrested the attention of the execu-
tive committee of the New-York State Agricultural Society, and
the officers of the common schools of that state. They have taken
some action upon it, and have recommended the introduction of
agricultural books into the district libraries, and that society has
offered premiums for text books to be used in the schools; with
what result is yet to be determined. But laudable as this move-
ment is, we regard it with comparatively little anxiety. The mere
agricultural education of the young is a matter of small moment
in comparison with their general education. In our common
schools, a large majority of the pupils are children of farmers.
Three fourths of our whole population are employed in tilling the
soil. Upon these in a great measure, depends the prosperity of our
free institutions. In civil relations no class ranks higher, or can
command more power. Our legislators are — or should be — large-
ly chosen from among them, for theirs is the commanding interest.
How important then, that they should be well instructed in all that
concerns the citizen as well as the farmer. Education does not

• London Quarterly Review, March, 1844. Article— Agriculture.

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 29

necessarily unfit any one for the business of life, and we would
see our youth growing up, reading — thinking — reasoning men.
Make them such, and we make them intelligent farmers.

We do not intend here to go into the full consideration of the
methods of education adapted to our farming population, nor of
agricultural schools and colleges. This will afford ample mate-
rial for a further article. As far as agricultural information is con-
cerned, there is no want of sources from which to derive it. Pe-
riodicals devoted to this subject are numerous and increasing.
Books have been written and published, both practical and scienti-
fic, and all at little expense. A new literature is fast going through
the process of formation, and we may soon expect tn see the far-
mer's library as well stored as that of tlic professional man. Then
will agriculture be raised, as it should be, to the dignity of a pro-
fession, and its followers cease to be regarded as mere machines to
toil and dig, forgetful of their higher nature.

II. Preparation for farming upon correct principles is an
individual concern. Every man must do it for himself. But
when we come to the application of these principles to prac-
tice, there is much that one or a few may do for the benefit of
the whole. What a man knows, he knows for himself; but
from what he does, thousands may learo to do the same. And
in this country, whose inhabitants are celebrated for " having
their eyes open," what is done by one is seen by all. And one
of the best stimulants for a young, or even an old farmer — if free
from prejudice in favor of the way his father did — to improve-
ment in the management of his farm, is to visit those that are well
conducted — to examine the manner in which they are managed —
the implements, the stock, the fences, the buildings, and the whole
condition of it. We were forcibly struck with the value of this,
upon reading the fact that an English proprietor, in order to give
his farmers an idea of the benefits of improved methods, had paid
their expenses while travelling to visit a district where farming
was conducted upon scientific principles. The effect was, that
they improved from that time, by adopting the plana they had
witnessed. But farms conducted upon such principles, are too rare
in this country to be easily found; and if they were to receive the
visits of all our farmers who need the example, we fear their en-
terprising proprietors would reproach us for the recommendation.
The neighborhood of our large cities and the borders of our

30 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

great thoroughfares are rapidly becoming occupied by a new class
of agriculturists. Men of wealth who are retiring from business,
and who are indisposed to settle dowm in inactivity, are purchas-
ing small farms and turning their attention to the cultivation of
the soil. These are the men to whom the country must look for
example in this great field. Accustomed to the brick and mortar
of the city, and often unacquainted with the simplest of the prin-
ciples or processes of husbandry, they have all to learn. They
can also bring intelligence and wealth to the business. Why may
we not expect them to take a noble and decided stand in favor of
modern improvements ? At the same time, let us recommend them
to be cautious and prudent, and have an eye to the general ad-
vancement of the art. Some cases have come under our notice
where gentlemen of this class, no doubt with a laudable ambition
to show large results, have bestowed an amount of labor and ex-
pense upon crops which would be ruinous to the common farmer.
It makes no difference to them at what cost — but the only good
we can see flowing from it, is the showing the capabilities of the
soil when tasked to its utmost limit. But this is not what is
wanted, unless it can be done with profit. It is not the elfect pro-
duced by manuring wath a compost of a large number of costly
materials, which more than swallow up the proceeds of the crop —
nor that of applying an immense quantity of manure to result in
the same loss — these are not what the American farmer wants —
but to learn how he may reap the greatest product at the least
expense. Economical farming is the thing desired — to develoj)
the whole resources of the individual farm in its soil well tilled —
its yard manure — its marl — its muck — the waste of the house i.nd
the farm — all, in fine, that can add to its productiveness, and that
with the least outlay.

There are also operations which are attended sometimes with
considerable expense, which nevertheless repay largely in their
effects, and add greatly to the capacities of the farm. They have
been little practiced in this country, but in others have been fol-
lowed by the very best results. And to some of these we would
briefly call the attention of the class of whom we are now speak-
ing. The first is deep ploughing.

As ploughing is generally practiced in this country the soil is
very rarely loosened to a greater depth than six inches — perhaps

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 31

not often so deep. But there are benefits to be gained from deep
ploughing when judiciously done. The eflect of rain falling upon
and passing through the soil is to wash down to too great a depth
to be reached by the roots of plants those soluble substances
which are their food. Not only the mineral parts of the soil, but
the manures which are applied, are washed out and oftentimes ac-
cumulated in the subsoil in large quantities. These, if turned up
and mixed with the soil, would add greatly to its fertility. The
mere loosening the earth to the depth of ten or twelve inches
will be very useful by allowing a greater extent of the roots of
plants. At the same time, caution is necessary lest the subsoil
contain substances which may be injurious to vegetation. In such
cases the use of the subsoil plough should precede deep plough-
ing, to allow free access of the air to assist in the chemical changes
necessary, and also to partially drain the soil by affording a free
exit to superfluous moisture. This latter process has never yet
been very extensively introduced into this country, and it is our
belief that our ag-riculture has suffered much from the want of it.
The surface soil has been tilled over and over, while the process
of deterioration has been going on in the older sections, till its
productiveness seemed almost lost. Deepening the soil would
unquestionably vastly add to its powers, if it does not in a great
measure restore them.

But these processes are far too little appreciated in this coun-
try. Indeed, the difference between them is not known by many,
and when subsoil ploughing is spoken of, they suppose that it im-
plies bringing the subsoil to the surface. But this is by no means
the case, the process only consisting in tearing up the subsoil in
the furrow which another plough has made, and leaving it to re-
main in this broken state below the next furrow turned upon it.
The value which is attached to this in this country may be in-
ferred from the fact that among all the numerous implements ex-
hibited at the late fair of the New-York State Agricultural Socie-
ty, and also at that of the American Institute, in the city of New-
York, in October last, we searched in vain for a subsoil plough,
although we heard numerous inquiries for them by persons wishing
to see what they are. Wherever they have been used, although
attended with extra cost, this has been more than repaid in im-
mense produce. But this is not the only gain. The additional

32 QUAKTERLY JOURNAL.

ease of tilling the soil afterwards, is a consideration of no small
importance in all cases, and especially in those heavy, cold lands
with a retentive or impervious subsoil, which are much benefited
by the operation.

Another process, which has not found its way into this country
to any great extent, is thorough draining. The effects of this upon
English farming have been most wonderful, and we know of no-
thing which now is exciting greater attention in that country.
Since its introduction immense tracts of land which before were
worse than unproductive have been reclaimed and reduced to til-
lage, and are now among the most fertile. Although attended
with considerable expense, yet the money is not thrown away —
for land which rented for two to five shillings the acre before
draining, readily brings twenty, thirty, and even as high as forty
shillings, after this is done. We might quote abundant facts in
this connection were it necessary, or in the scope of this article.
A writer in the Gardener's Chronicle states that " Draining in the
best manner seldom costs more than £6 per acre, and can be often
done effectually for half that sum," and that cold, w^et lands which
Will not average s xteen bushels the acre, " wdien properly drained,
with the same labor and manure, will average thirty bushels."
Thorough draining is not so extensively necessary in this country
as in England, yet it would be difficult probably to find a farm
where it could not be employed to a greater or less extent with
great advantage. The partial system of draining which is gene-
rally practiced is productive of very little permanent good.

The example of wealthy, independent farmers is necessary to
the introduction of these improvements, and when they are once
seen in their practical benefits, enough will be found to adopt
them. Before they are generally received, men must be convinced
that there is no risk nor danger of loss attending them. Once let
them see that by the application of improved methods of farming
they may in a very few years not only pay the interest, but actu-
ally receive both the whole cost in increased products, and they
will no longer hesitate. In England, where most of the land is
held under leases, the proprietor usually, either alone or in con-
nection with the tenant, makes the improvements. But in many
cases the tenant himself, where he holds on a long lease, makes
them himself, anticipating with all certainty a large remuneration

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 33

m the increased fertility of the soil. In this country, where every
man tills his own huid, it seems an impossibility to convince many
that all the improvements they put upon their land is so much
added to its real value" — not only its })roduetive value from year
to year, but its market value.

The limit of productiveness in the soil is not known — the ex-
tent to which its fertility may be increased. And the question is
not, is this soil adapted to wheat, or something else, but which-
ever is most profitable to the grower must be compelled to grow
upon any soil. This is true scientific farming, and when at the
same time the greatest amount is raised at the least cost, we have
all the demands of the art fulfilled.

III. The application of scientific principles to agriculture is the
i)usincss of the practical farmer — the investigation and development
of them to the chemist and naturalist. Why they have hitherto
not directed their labors more to this end, is difficult to understand.
(3ne thing, however, is certain, that the labor and time employed
would have been but poorly repaid. It cannot be expected that
they should work without pay any more than it can be expected
of the farmer. And when the latter is fully awake to the value
of the aid to be derived from the former, it will be found that he
is ready and competent to the business. It is not long since we
received a communication from a practical farmer, setting forth
the benefits of scientific knowledge in agriculture — giving a his-
tory of the progress of improvement abroad, and urging the rais-
ing a fund to employ a chemist from Germmuj to analyse soils ;
and also suggesting that Professor Johnston be invited to visit this
country, in order that his opinion might be obtained w'ith regard
to the improvement of our agriculture. It is not w-onderful that
such should be the feelings of a man desirous of knowledge in
his occupation, for almost all the books on the subject are written
by Europeans, and almost all authorities quoted are of the same
parentage. This, we do not believe, is altogether the result of
a preference for foreign opinions, although we know that the idea
is somewhat prevalent that they are better than our own. The
science of agriculture is the same the world over, but its applica-
tion to practice must vary wath the climate, and, in a measure,
with the habits and condition of a people, and other circumstan-
ces. As far as mere science is concerned then, both theirs and

VOL. I. — NO. 1. E

34 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ours is the same, but our farmers would find themselves greatly
astray if they were to follow those systems out in their practice.

It is therefore the duty of the scientific men of this country to
lay their hands to this enterprise, and to direct their etf'orts to the
improvement of American agriculture. While they hold back, the
farmer will wander but half enlightened. As we have said before,
both must go together. The methods by which they are to ad-
vance the science of farming are too well understood to require
any thing more than mere mention, at this time. The analysis of
soils, and especially of the ashes of our various cultivated plants,
must lay the foundation. The latter we regard as the most im-
portant, because of the impossibility of determining the value of
the soil on a farm, by examination of one or even many specimens.
If portions of the soil from different parts are mixed, the indications
derived from analysis will of course not be definite with reference
to any one part nor the whole farm, from the known varieties of
soil which often occur in close proximity to each other. For the
same reason the analysis of one specimen is not to be relied upon,
in forming an opinion of what may be needed to improve the whole.
The analysis of plants, determining their exact constituents, is
calculated to lead to correct conclusions as to what is necessary to
perfect their organization, and is attended, in the end, with vastly
less labor.

The subject of manures, in respect to their relative value — the
subject of adulterations — fixing the quantity to be applied, and the
period to apply them — the relative value of different kinds of food
for stock, and its applications to the rearing and fattening of ani-
mals and to the business of the dairy, and many other subjects of
this kind demand the labor and investigation of the chemist. The
vast field of vegetable and animal physiology, as yet scarcely en-
tered upon, offers great inducements for research. The improve-
ment of breeds of cattle suited to our various climates is a subject
of great importance in this country at the present day. Indeed,
the whole world of science in its application to various branches
of husbandry, lies open to the scientific man, and the w^ants of this
country call for his aid.

IV. The introduction of new articles of culture is a subject
worthy of attention by the American farmer. He is not restricted
by climate to the cultivation of a limited variety of products. Our

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 35

country embraces all climates and is suited to the plants of almost
all zones. It is unnecessary here to enter into an examination of
particular ones, but it is hoped that their importance will attract
that attention hereafter which they deserve. It has already called
forth some notice, but not so much as it ought. The culture of
silk is exciting increased interest every year. The proceedings of
the Silk Convention held in the city of New York, in the month
of October last, displayed a most gratifying zeal in this pursuit. It
is now demonstrated that this climate is favorable to the business,
and may we not expect that the time is not far distant when the
amount of imports irom foreign countries will be very much di-
minished, if we cannot enter into the full faith that we shall ye
become exporters of the article.

The cultivation of hemp is assuming at the present time no
small share of importance, and under the new modes of preparation
for use, bids fair to become of great consequence to the country.
The olive — madder, and other articles which we have hitherto
di'awn from other nations, may be cultivated in this country with
profit, and it is only necessary that the enterprise of our agriculturists
should be awakened and directed to them. The following state-
ment of the amount of some of these products imported to the
United States from foreign countries, will show their cost to
us, and what may be saved by growing them ourselves. In the
year 1842 the value of imported silks, was $10,095,382 ; hemp,
$1,119,559; olive oil, $138,2i7.

We have attempted briefly to show w^hat may be done for
American agriculture. That the subject has not been examined in
all its bearings is true — indeed it were impossible in the span of a
single artice. We hope however to have opportunities in future,
in more practical papers, to set forth the subject more at large.
That something must be done is felt by all. Our farmers are
groaning under low prices — the new states are running a strong
opposition with the old, and the only way for the latter to equal-
ize themselves with the other, is to make use of all the improve-
ments which are in their power.

Again — in the old states, many are adopting, and many more
will adopt, new methods, and the rest must be left behind. They
cannot compete with them whilst they stick to old practices, any
more than they could with old fashioned implements. Thus two

36 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

laws govern the two cases — the best implements and the best me-
thods will insure success — and those who adhere to old imple-
ments and old methods must do it at their own loss.

EDUCATION OF THE AMERICAN FARMER.

There is nothing remarkably strange or remarkably wrong in
the disposition of Americans to seek after new things, or to be
dissatisfied with old. Many look upon a thing with which they
have become familiar, as they look upon a coat which they have
worn for a time, and consider that on this account it is really worn
out and must be changed.

In some matters this disposition to change is of little or no con-
sequence, and is not likely to be followed by injurious effects.
When we come, however, to other matters, as our institutions, this
disposition to change is to be looked upon with concern and ap-
prehension, lest on the one hand, we should injure establishments
which are doing all that is possible, and doing it well, or on the
other hand, attempt to substitute in their places those which are
inferior in point of utility, and more expensive in their arrange-
ments. In these cases some higher principle must actuate or con-
trol our determination or judgments than those which govern us
when we change our hats or our garments. Our inquiry in such
cases, what is the fashion 1 ought certainly to be made with a very
jealous eye.

If, for instance, the fashionable or popular cry should be for
some great change in our educational institutions — institutions
which have produced great and good men, as our statesmen, our
judges, our leaders in trying times ; men honored for attainments
at home and abroad, whose discoveries in science and the arts
have benefited the nation — we should listen to it with great cau-
tion and distrust. By these remarks we do not wish to be under-
stood that we believe our institutions may not sometimes be im-
proved by introducing changes both into their organization and in
their courses of instruction, but we mean to be understood that
an old thing is not to be abandoned simply because it is old, nor a
new to be introduced because it is in accordance with the popular

EDUCATION OFF A KM ERS. 37

cry, or the fashion of the times. If, however, they have ceased to
be useful ; if they no longer answer the purposes for which they
were designed, let them be abandoned ; or if they are no longer
adapted to our circumstances, and cannot fill the place they once
did, then let them be replaced by others, and by those which are
better.

These remarks are made in consequence of the opinions which
have been freely expressed in some quarters, particularly in agri-
cultural meetings, that our colleges and higher schools of learning
are not adapted to fulfil the wants of the /farmer ; or in other
words, that he needs an institution of a different character, and
founded upon a different plan ; for as they are not to be lawyers
or clergymen or physicians, but are destined for a different sphere,
so their education should be adapted to fit them to move in that
sphere, or to be more definite, their education should be agricul-
tural. This view of the subject is very plausible, and it is not
strange that many should fall in with it, and believe that it is
the very thing which will do for them.

But let us see how much real soundness there is in the position.
In the first place, if this view of the subject is the right view, then
it would ap})ly to all persons who design to be educated : and the
lawyer must have his, the physician his institution, and so on
But again, in order to get at the merits of the question, how the
farmer shall be educated, we must understand first what the colle-
giate course of study is designed for. We answer, they are de-
signed to develop the mind. All the collegiate exercises and stu-
dies have no other end than the development of the intellectual
powers ; the student is trained by a systematic course, which
though it is in mathematics, or languages, yet it has no reference
at all, necessarily to his future business ; it looks not to the ques-
tion whether he is to become a clergyman, lawyer or physician,
farmer or watchmaker. The whole course of instruction is to be
considered as preparatory ; it is only to lay a foundation ; it is
disciplinary. In this disciplinary course, however, he acquires
something more, it is true, than the mere rudiments of knowledge ;
much of it is eminently practical, but still the course is designed
for discipline and for development of the intellect. For secur-
ing this object, it proceeds in regular gradations from the less to
the more diflficult and abstruse studies ; it is intended to lead the

38 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

mind step to step, advancing upward, as the intellect acquires
power by previous exercises. If these are not the main objects of
study in early life, we know not what the objects are.

If, then, we are right in this position, what follows when we in-
quire what institutions are required for the education of farmers'
sons ? Shall institutions be established which have no regard to
the development of the mental powers — institutions which shall
take the narrow view that of simply fitting the sons of farmers
how to plough ; to sow and to reap, or carry their acquirements a
little farther, how to analyse soils, to distinguish rocks or the dif-
ferent objects in nature. This is well and right and important, so
far as it goes, but it is essentially defective ; and in order that an
institution for farmers' sons should be adequate to meet their wants
and necessities, it would still have to embrace in its course of in-
struction that which is disciplinary — that which shall develop the
intellectual powers. Taking this view of the subject then, we
conceive that so far as institutions are concerned enough already
exist to meet the wants and necessities of community. This is
the view" not only as it regards the attaining the full objects of
education, but it is the true one so far as economy is concerned.
A new institution must have its full board of instructors, its build-
ings, apparatus, and its endowments ; whereas the institutions al-
ready established have all these requirements supplied.

However, that the old and useful institutions may be more use-
ful to the agriculturist, let one of their present officers, a profes-
sor of chemistry, give a course of lectures on agricultural chemis-
try, which shall embrace the modes of analysis of soils and of the
organic substances. Or to be still more useful, let the ordinary
course be varied somewhat so as to give to a class of pupils who
intend to pursue agriculture, personal instruction ; or superintend a
particular course of study which is deemed most suitable and best
adapted to meet the particular inquiries of the farmer. To be brief,
however, on this subject we need only say, that there is no doubt
in our minds but the institutions already established are either in
their present organization and course of study fitted to supply all
the wants of farmers' sons, or they may with trifling alteration in
their course of study be adapted to meet them. We intend here
however, to speak only of the capabilities of our present institu-
tions, not of the course of education which is particularly adapted

CLAIMS OF AGRICULTURE. 39

to the farmer. We, however, in this matter, should take the view
that it is not simply the farmer who is to be educated ; it is the
man and citizen, and any plan or course of education which leaves
out of view this sphere must be essentially defective, must be un-
sound and tend to foster a narroAv and confined view which belongs
only to place and business. The principles on which our insti-
tutions are founded are not worn out ; though they are ancient,
they are founded on those which wall not essentially change ; they
are not, it is true, inflexible and unyielding in their adaptations.
Like communities and like individuals, the progress of mind must
carry them along, the discoveries in science which they themselves
have been instrumental in making, must add from time to time to
the course of study. They must then enlarge the field of their
operations ; they must adjust themselves to the conditions of so-
ciety which they have actually brought about. But we do not
believe for all this, that for every wind which blows, they are to
change the course of their educational voyage which they are con-
ducting, that they are to steer for another port, though it may be
nearer than the one for which they have set their sails and their
compass.

But still it is a happy feature in our institutions that M'hile they
move forward on the sea of human affairs, that while on this or
that side the breeze may spring up : still they can gently give to
its impulse, by swerving from an upright position accommodat-
ing themselves to the varying forces, and even if need be, outride
the storms which rise by stiffly adhering to the principles upon
which they are founded, and keeping clearly in view the chart
w^hich experience and observation has constructed for their guid-
.ance.

THE CLAIMS OF AGRICULTURE UPON GOVERNMENT.

The whole numbei- of persons in the state of New-York, en-
gaged in agricultural employments, according to the last census,
is 455,954 ; the whole number devoted to commerce is 28,468 j
the whole number employed in manufactures is 173,193. It will
then be seen from this short statement, that the agricultural is
numerically speaking, the great interest in this state ; and the

40 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

same holds true of all the other states in the Union, with the ex-
ception of Massachusetts, Rhode-Island and Pennsylvania.

The fact just stated, that the pursuit of agriculture is the one in
which the great mass of our population are engaged, is sufficient to
show that no other interest can have a greater claim uj)on the at-
tention of government ; and looking to the past action of the
legislature, in the encouragement given to the formation of agri-
cultural societies, we think there is evidence to believe that this
conviction is a general one. Certainly we are not aware that any
complaint has been made in any quarter against this use of the
funds of the state. No formal argument, therefore, seems neces-
sary to prove that government should do something for agricul-
ture ; the obligation has been already acknowledged, and to a cer-
tain extent acted upon by our own and other states. It may, in
fact, be looked upon as an established axiom in political science,
that all the leading interests of the nation — agricultural, commer-
cial, manufacturing, have claims upon the legislature, — claims
which cannot be in any case neglected without producing ultimate
injury to all. In all these departments of human labor there are
some things which can be done only through the collective energy
and influence of the state ; the resources of no single person, of
no individual corporation, are adequate to their accomplishment.
And as government exists not for its own sake, but for the benefit
of the governed, the i'nference seems an obvious one, that where
there are benefits which the governed cannot individually secure,
and which can be attained for these by government, they are enti-
tled to count upon its aid.

The equitable adjustment of these particular claims is undoubt-
edly attended with no small difficulty ; how, in other words, shall
<'-overnment lend its aid to any one of the three great interests
before mentioned, without exciting the just jealousy of the oth-
ers 1 We are disposed to look upon this as one of the most im-
portant problems in political science ; it is one which has long
been discussed, both in Britain and in our own country, but it has
not yet been satisfactorily resolved.. Some, indeed, very confi-
dently affirm, that the true answer to it will be found in these two
words — free trade ; but while this theory is " very fair to look
upon," it is still nothing but a theory, for not one of the great
family of nations has ventured to adopt it.

CLAIMS OF AGRICULTURE. 41

However, it would 'be beside our purpose to enter into any
speculations on this point ; one of the principles of our national
policy always has been, and is now, protection ; — equitable, indeed,
even handed, yet decided protection to all those great interests
in which our citizens are engaged — to the merchant, the mechanic,
the farmer ; — all have tasted in a greater or less degree of the
pleasant fruit of governmental aid. The question w^hich we pro-
pose to discuss in this article is the practical one, what can the
government (federal and state) do for the farmer 1 keeping of
course within those limits respecting which there is no dispute —
in what way can the most effectual aid be given to that particular
pursuit, in which the vast mass of our population are employed 1
and w^hich is, in truth, the basis and support of every other —
agriculture.

Now, in the discussion of this question it may be observed, that
there are various w^ays in which the legislature may lend its aid to
the farmer, apparently to his great benefit, while in the ultimate
result, if he is not absolutely injured by it, he at least derives no
substantial good. For example, bounties may be given to encou-
rage the production of certain articles, which are quite unsuited to
the particular localities in w^hich they are attempted to be raised.
Some years since, the state of Maine expended (annually) a large
sum in this w^ay, with a view to induce her own farmers to cultivate
wheat. And so the state of New-York might make an annual ap-
propriation for the purpose of introducing the culture of tobacco ;
now it is not difficult to show that in such cases the farmer is rather
injured than benefited, because his energies are misdirected ; he
is put upon the cultivation of something for which his soil or his
climate may be altogether unsuited, and w^hich the farmer of some
other state will raise for him at a far less cost. We do not mean
by these remarks to intimate that bounties should never be offered,
but there is danger of carrying out the thing to an unwarrantable
length, — of overlooking the great physical fact of the diversity
of soil, climate, &c., and that no single locality, however highly
favored, can produce every thing. To attempt every thing is to
gain nothing. In our judgment, the only o])ject of a bounty should
be, not io force the cultivation of some thing new, but effectually
to test the capabilities of the state ; and to do this it certainly is
not necessary to keep up a system of bounties.

VOL. I. NO. 1. F

42 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Another illustration of well-intended but ill-judged legislation
for the benefit of the agriculturist, may be drawn from the long
established policy of Great Britain. Her landed interest has long
been the object of her special regard and special legislation ; she
has steadily aimed to secure to her own farmers all the advantages
of her own markets, to shut out all possible competition. But
with the progressive development of the resources, and the exten-
sion of the commerce of that great empire, other interests have
been created, and though it cannot be said that they have been
wholly uncared for, yet the landed has been the grand interest.
The result of this special legislation for the farmer's good is, that
those interests have been rendered antagonists striving for the
mastery, whose natural state is one of mutual co-operation for a
common good. It has been w^ell observed by a writer in the Lon-
don Quarterly Review, " that the agricultural and commercial
portions of our population are embarked in the same bottom,
forming the complex cargo of the great galleon of the state, in
which they must sink or swim together."

We are free to confess that we are not at all desirous to see any
such legislation in behalf of the American farmer. So long as
our tariff is based upon the principle of protection, he unques-
tionably should have his share of it. But we regard this as a
matter of little moment, because our agriculturists are as sure of
our home market without a protective tariff as with one.

The great thing, we apprehend, which the farmer needs, is to
know how^ to make his land in the highest degree productive, at
the least possible expense. We look upon this as the grand pro-
blem in agricultural science ; and it is one which cannot be satis-
factorily resolved without the efficient and judicious interposition
of the legislature. And w^hen we consider how intimately the
solution of this problem is connected, not only with the primary
profit of the farmer, but the physical happiness of all classes of
the community, no man wall, surely, venture to say that this inter-
position should be denied. It is a fact which may well seem
strange to us, that while the mechanic, the manufacturer, the man
of commerce, by applying the discoveries of modern science to
their respective pursuits, have increased their wealth to an extent
which arithmetic can hardly compute, the farmer, until within a
very short period, has remained quite unconscious that the same

CLAIMS OF AGRICULTURE. 43

science might be applied with the same prospect of success to his
employment — the most ancient and the most important of all hu-
man arts. But the revelations dimly seen, or rather prophetically
guessed at by Lavoisier, and since hi.s day fully unfolded by Davy,
Johnson, Liebig, and others, establish beyond all doubt the ex-
istence of a most intimate relation between chemistry and all the
occupations of the cultivator of the soil. Indeed, the discoveries
of agricultural chemistry have rushed upon us so rapidly, as hardly
to give us time to form a just estimate of their individual magni-
tude and importance ; and while it would be absurd to say that
they open to the farmer a future of indefinite progression in the
productiveness and the productions of the soil, this much may be
affirmed, that they prove the impossibility of noio fixing their
limits.

Jn an admirable article on agriculture, in a recent number of
the London Quarterly Review, it is stated, that " between 1801
and 1841, the population of the British empire increased from 16,-
300,000, to 26,800,000 ; and these increasing numbers have been
sustained with food almost entirely by the augmented productions
of our own improving agriculture. By extensive enclosures,
draining, «&,c., an amount of new and efficient forces have been
called into action among the more energetic and intelligent part
of the cultivators of the soil, especially in the northern and eastern
portions of the island, which has been very nearly adequate to
meet, from our home supplies, the increased demand for food
arising from the addition of 10,000,000 to the population of the
empire in the first forty years of this steam-rate century." We
introduce this passage simply to show how the productiveness of
a country may be increased — even one which has for many centu-
ries been under cultivation. The results of particular instances of
improvement, as given in the article already quoted from, are
truly astonishing ; and w^hat is w^orthy of especial remark is the
fact that the most surprising of these results should be placed to
the credit of agricultural chemistry.

Now, how shall the problem of greatest and most profitable
productiveness, at least expense, be resolved ? In this impor-
tant work, there is doubtless much which the American far-
mer must do for himself, but at the same time he needs, and must
have, the aid of the state. For,

44 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

1. The first step towards improvement is a conviction that we
have not yet reached perfection. But it is well known that con-
victions of this sort are not very easily awakened in the minds of
persons moving constantly in the same limited circle, comparing
themselves with none but their immediate neighbors. Such men
are commonly prepossessed in a degree commensurate vriih. their
ignorance, that no improvement can be made. How strong and
widely extended, for example, has been the prejudice among our
agricultural population, against " book farmers ?" This iJliberal
sentiment still exists, though we believe it is beginning to give
way. What now can be expected of such men in reference to
what is, not merely a practical art, but a science of the highest
order, requiring a combination of various subordinate sciences in
order to consummate its perfection. It is an established fact that
the sciences of chemistry, of animal and vegetable physiology, of
mechanics, form the foundation both of the theory and practice of
that most important art, whose object is to obtain supplies of food,
by co-operating with those laws which regulate the growth and
multiplication of the animal and vegetable productions of the earth.
Agriculture, says Liebig, is both an art and a science ; its scien-
tific basis embraces a knowledge of all conditions of vegetable life,
the origin of the elements of plants, and the sources whence they
derive their nourishment. Now looking to the vast mass of our
agricultural population, in their present character and modes of
thinking, it is vain to expect that they will, individually, make
those experiments without which there can be no useful discovery.

2. But even if they had the disposition, the great majority of
our farmers have not the means of making the requisite experi-
ments fully to test the virtues of various soils and manures. The
farmer's whole capital — we speak of the class — is invested in his
land and the usual means of its cultivation ; his farm probably is
not without some incumbrance upon it ; he can, therefore, spare
neither his land nor his time, for experiments which may turn out
well, and may subject him to loss.

3. Neither can the gentleman-farmer — to use a term Avhich has
become somewhat common — be depended upon for the determina-
tion of the great question before mentioned. We of course must
be understood as speaking of them generally. There are no doubt
many exceptions to the remark just made ; there are men possess-

CLAIMS OF AGRICULTURE. 45

ing the means, the disposition, and the intelligence necessary for
the successful prosecution of this work. But without enlarging
on this topic, or meaning to intimate that the labors of this class
of agriculturists have been wholly useless, we have only to refer,
in proof of our assertion, to the pages of our agricultural papers.
These record a vast multitude of experiments, and they sometimes
announce stupendous results — 29 to 70 bushels of wheat to the acre
— but they are for the most part quite silent as to the expense of
production. We have read of composts containing from twenty
to thirty different ingredients ; now, not to speak of the costliness
of such a composition for enriching the soil, a circumstance which
puts it quite out of the reach of the mass of our farmers, the ex-
periment in a scientific point of view is worthless, because in such
a combination of agencies it is impossible to determine which of
them are hurtful or useless, and which are beneficial.

The work, therefore, if ever done effectually, must be undertaken
by the state ; she has ample resources ; she will, of necessity, call
science to her aid ; and she will aim to elevate and benefit the
agricultural interest, not merely in a particular locality, but
throughout her entire extent. But the practical question arises, in
what way shall the state lend its aid ? In reply to this inquiry,
we beg to observe,

1. That the general government owes a duty to agriculture —
to American agriculture, and this duty is all the more urgent inas-
much as it can be fully discharged without withdrawing one
dollar from the national exchequer. The pecuniary means of
performing the great work to which we have adverted, have been
furnished through the singular generosity of a foreigner. We of
course refer to the Smithsonian bequest. It certainly must be re-
garded as disgraceful to our government, that scarcely a single
step has been taken towards the fulfilment of the benevolent design
of the testator, though several years have elapsed since the money
was received. We do not mean to attempt an outline of the
entire system of instruction which should be pursued in the Smith-
sonian college : all that we mean to say is, that the diffusion of
useful knowledge in reference to that branch of human industry,
which is the basis of all others, and in which two-thirds of the
whole population of the United States are engaged, should be one
of the prominent objects of its erection. By the devotion of one-

46 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

fifth of the sum in the hands of government to this object, the in-
terests of agriculture throughout the entire Union might be vastly
benefited ; the erection of the institution near the seat of govern-
ment would greatly help to diffuse its blessings far and near.

As we have already intimated, we would not wish the Smithso-
nian college to be a mere agricultural school ; there are other equally
important branches of knowledge, which should not and need not
be overlooked ; but we regard this subject as one which eminently
deserves the early and earnest attention of the friends of agriculture
in all the states. It is high time that the money be used for the
noble purposes for which it was given.

2. We believe that a better use might be made of the sum
which has been placed by the legislature of our own state at the
disposal of the State Agricultural Society. The existing law will
soon expire by its own limitation, and in any future act, we deem
it of great importance that those who may have the management of
the fund, should be directed to reduce the number and increase
the amount of their premiums. In this way, we believe that much
good will be done, and at least expense to the state ; so far, at least,
as respects experimental agriculture, if we may be allowed to coin
a phrase. Many a farmer might be tempted to undertake the
raising of some new production by the offer of a premium of one
hundred or five hundred dollars, who would not venture on the
experiment for five or twenty dollars. Take, for example, the arti-
cle of hemp ; the question whether it can be profitably cultivated in
our state, might by the offer of a high premium be settled in a
single year, or in two years at most.

3. The establishment of a permanent department or a Board of
Agriculture, is a subject well worthy of serious consideration.
The fact that the state society has for some years been employed
as the agent of the state, seems to us to be a virtual acknowledge-
ment of the want of some such department of government. Why
then, shall we not have one responsible like all the other branches
of the government to the legislature and the people 1 The interest
to be watched over is a commanding one ; it, more than any other,
affects the general welfare. It deserves a department, and we
fondly hope that the day is not far distant when we shall have
one.

4. The promotion of agricultural science is another duty which

SOURSOILS. 47

the legislature owes to our farming population. This branch of
our subject is amply large enough to merit a separate discussion.
We have neither the room nor the time to enter into it with the
fulness which it deserves, but we hope to be able to do so in some
future number. The numerous and urgent proposals to establish
agricultural schools, would seem to indicate a deep conviction in the
public mind of the importance of the object itself; but how can it
be best attained is a question to which different answers are given.
An agricultural college, and the introduction of the study into our
common schools, have been suggested. In regard to the first of
these projects, we can only say at present, that the establishment
of a college where the young farmer may at a small expense obtain
the whole education which he needs to fit him for the duties of
active life might be useful ; but to found a ynere agricultural school,
in our judgment, would be a very unwise scheme. We entertain
the same opinion in regard to the other suggestion, viz., the intro-
duction of the study of agriculture into our common schools. If
these schools were what they should be — if they were conducted
by men who made teaching their exclusive business, the proposal
might not be objected to ; but looking at our common schools as
they now are and are likely to remain for years to come, notwith-
standing all the efforts to elevate, w^e cannot but deem the plan
above mentioned as worse than foolish, for the result can be nothing
else than the imparting of that " little knowledge" which is always
" a dangerous thing." No. Let the study of scientific agriculture
be introduced into our academies^ and some good may be expected
to be done. But we shall not pursue the subject further, as we
hope to recur to it again in some future number.

SOUR SOILS

It is highly important that, whilst facts are examined and care-
fully treasured up by the agriculturist, errors should also be
searched out and guarded against ; and this not less in practice
than in theory. All the processes of agriculture are based upon
theory of some kind. No farmer works by guess. He has
his reasons for all he does, and can least of all, be induced to
try anything new, unless there are reasons for it, and such

48 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

reasons as strike his mind as good and sufficient. Yet it is
not to be denied that for many things he has only the show of
reason, whilst in fact there is none at all. We will not say this
is the case in regard to the subject placed at the head of this ar-
ticle, although we believe there exists no such thing as a sour soil.
We offer no apology for differing from the farmer or the man of
science in this respect, though both of them may be implicated in
what we consider an error. We are well aware of the almost
universal belief in it, arising, as we apprehend, in the practical
man, from observing the benefit often arising from the application of
alkalies and alkaline earths to the soil. The little knowledge which
almost every one possesses of chemistry teaches him that when an
acid and an alkali unite they form a salt — a compound generally
of a mild and inactive kind compared with the substances which
go to form it, and therefore it is thought, that when that class of
substances is applied to soils which they call sour^ an amelioration
is produced by their uniting with the peculiar acid which exists there.
But does the benefit result from their neutralizing a free acid which
was injurious to vegetation ? Let us examine it a moment.

What acid or acids are found by actual analysis, in a free state,
in the soil? and which are prejudicial to vegetation, or which
favor the growth of certain plants 1 It cannot be carbonic, for
this, every one knows, is an essential part of the food of plants,
and in the quantity in which it is commonly found, instead of be-
ing prejudicial, is an actual source of life and vigor. Exa-
mine the analysis of soils given by the most correct analysts.
We find, it is true, that inorganic acids, (sulphuric, phosphoric
and muriatic) are present in variable quantities in almost all soils.
But we find also the alkalies, (potash, soda, lime and magnesia)
and the oxides of iron and manganese as invariably present. True,
we are not told in so many words, that they are combined with the
acids, but it cannot be supposed that these substances should exist
uncombined by the side of each other, in circumstances the most
favorable for union. The moment they come in contact they
unite and form salts, and in this form they are found. The analy-
sis of a large number of soils from various parts of the state of
New-York, during the last two years, confirm these views.

Are the organic acids found in the soil ? It is granted on all
hands that these are formed by the living and growing plant, and

so UR so I Ls . 4y

depend upon the plant in which they are formed for their peculiar
character. The oxalic acid of the sorrel, tartaric of the grape,
citric of the lemon, and malic of the apple, and a host of others,
may be formed by those plants growing in the same soil. Liebig
says, " We have no reason to believe that a plant in a condition of
free and unimpeded growth produces more of its peculiar acids than
it requires for its own existence;" and he also says, that all of them
" are in combination with bases."

During the process of germination a seed gives off acetic acid
to the soil. But it does not remain there uncombined. If seeds are
caused to germinate in powdered chalk or carbonate of lime, after
a time acetate of lime may be washed out from the chalk, (Bra-
connet). And it is possible that the acid is sent out for this very
purpose, to dissolve the lime and return with it into the circulation
of the plant. At all events, it is always found in the soil combined
with lime.

Oxalic acid is not known to exist in the soil or in the water
which reaches the roots of plants So says Johnston ; and yet the
production of sorrel, which abounds in this acid, is supposed by
many to depend upon the sourness of the soil. But observation
proves that if this is the case, lime, the ordinarily recommended
remedy, will not so neutralize the acid as to prevent its growth,
even when applied in large quantities. Thus, Mr. N. Darling of
New-Haven, Conn., mentions having seen it growing near an old
limekiln, luxuriantly, through a considerable thickness of lime.
In the Cultivator for August, 1844, it is stated that Doct. Beek-
man, of Kinderhook, " had several loads of good lime spread on
some land which was much infested with this plant. It was
spread in the central part of the field very thick. After a lapse
of two years, no effect whatever has been discoverable, either for
or against the sorrel." It is but just to state here that numerous
instances are mentioned of this plant being eradicated where lime
was used. In the Cultivator for July, 1844, will be found a letter
from J. J. Thomas, containing some curious facts in this connec-
tion. One is, that this weed disappeared from the land of Mr.
Dell, after the use of lime. Is it not, to say the least, probable,
that in all such cases a course of active tillage has done more than
the lime ? But oxalic acid has never been found in the soil.
Some physiologists have attributed to the roots of plants not

VOL. I. NO, 1. G

50 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

only the power of absorbing food, but also of throwing off those
matters which are taken up with the food and are not necessary
for the growth or sustenance of the plant. Amongst the experi-
ments instituted to determine this point, we find but one in which
there is any evidence of an acid being excreted, and in this case it
was united with a base. When the ground upon which the poppy
had been grown was washed, a considerable quantity of acetate of
lime was found.

But if free acids exist in soils they must be dissolved in the wa-
ter which passes through, and will then appear in springs and
wells, which we believe is never the case, although these waters
always contain some salts. There is an apparent exception to this,
but it is only apparent, in the case of carbonic and sulphuric acids
as they exist in some springs and as they are produced beneath
some soils in overwhelming quantities, so as to destroy all vegeta-
ble life. The presence of these acids depends upon some local
cause for which there is no remedy.

Nothing has been said thus far of humic acid, which is known
to abound in soils chiefly composed of vegetable matter, because
this acid is utterly insoluble, and can therefore have no injurious
effect upon vegetation. We are only considering such free acids
as are prejudicial, and which of course must be soluble. It cannot
be assumed that soils abounding in this acid due from this cause un-
productive. They are so, not because they contain the acid, for it is
generally admitted to be, under proper circumstances, an abundant
source of nourishment to plants, but because the acid is insoluble,
and cannot in this state be conveyed into the mouths of plants.

But after all, the question must be decided by analysis. It can-
not be reasoned thus — because such a plant grows upon a soil, that
soil is sour. The only evidence of its being sour is the actual
finding an acid in it, and if one is there it can certainly be found.
Besides, this question cannot be decided from the effect of alkalies,
and till some acid is found in the soil, the cause of the benefit fol-
lowing theit use, must be looked for in something else than their
neutralizing power.

MANURES. 51

MANURES.

THE RELATIONS OF ORGANIC TO INORGANIC MATTER.

Manures are the food of plants. This is a fact which has been
well understood through all the ages of agriculture, so far as the
mere circumstance of applying them to the soil in order to secure
a reasonable crop; but the hoxo they operated to bring this about,
or why they were applied at all, have been points not so well com-
prehended. That plants are beings of a delicate and complicated
organization seems to have been long known, but this knowledge
was of a general kind and led to no practical good. It has been
left to the science of the present day to unlock this storehouse
of exhaustlcss knowledge, and to astonish even the wise men of
the nineteenth century with the wonderful developments that are
almost daily made of the relations of organic and inorganic mat-
ter. A seed falls into the ground, and, watered with the genial
showers of spring, soon sends up a tender shoot. It reaches up-
ward— expands — throws out its branches and leaves to the light
and air, and its roots reach downwards and pierce into the soil.
Year after year it grows and spreads till it becomes a tall oak or
the gigantic pine. It opens its blossoms and for a few days they
rejoice in the glad sunshine and then fade and fall. Next suc-
ceeds the fruit — the seed — that strange product which is for the
sustenance of the animal world. Whence have the materials been
derived, which have served to build up the frame of the plant and
perfect its fruit? Have they all come from the soil in which it
grew, or from the atmosphere? We prepare the soil and manure
it, and sow it with wheat. Does the crop depend upon the soil,
the air, or the manure, for sustenance?

In the early part of the seventeenth century. Van Helmont ad-
vanced the theory that water was capable of supplying to plants
all they need to perfect their growth, and thought he had demon-
strated the truth of his theory by .experiment. In the following
century, Jethro Tull maintained that plants only required earthy
particles for their nourishment, and that it was only necessary to
pulverise the soil to secure an abundant crop. He supposed that

52 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the only use of air and water is to aid in reducing the soil to the
state of extreme division. Others have said that the vegetable
matter in the soil was the great source of fertility, and till the
light of analytical science w'as thrown upon the subject, every
thing relating to it was vague and uncertain. It may now be
considered as settled that plants are dependent upon the earth, the
air, and water, for sustenance, and that deprived of either they
cease to exist. The earth furnishes the mineral ingredients with-
out which the plant could no more flourish than without those it
derives from water and the atmosphere.

But in order to obtain a full comprehension of the action of ma-
nures and their individual value, it is necessary to take a more
particular view of the relation which plants sustain to the earth on
which they grow. That physician would be deservedly exposed
to ridicule, who, ignorant of nature and character of disease and
of the operation of medicines, should attempt to cure his patient
by administering a potion consisting of numerous ingredients, ho-
ping some one in the compound might reach the case. So ought
the farmer to be placed by his side, who remains ignorant of the
nature of soils and plants, and the action of manures, and applies
2l fertilizer^ as he terms it, composed in a similar manner, in the ex-
pectation that his crop will have the sagacity to select what it
needs 'and reject what it does not need. Such is not rational,
neither is it economical farming. The object of the farmer ought
to be to get the greatest yield from the least outlay — to apply those
manures which will supply the wants of the crop, and at the same
time render the soil permanently productive. We say this cannot
be done without knowledge, and that, not a general knowledge
that manures must be applied, but a particular and minute under-
standing of what constitutes a fertile soil, and what plants need to
develop their! powers in the greatest perfection. A full investi-
gation of these subjects would far exceed the bounds of an article
or even a series of articles in this Journal. The reader is referred
to the various standard works on agriculture, for a full discussion
of these points, and particularly to the lectures of Prof. Johnston,
which is in our estimation the best work of the kind yet printed.
In the meantime let us proceed as far as our limits will allow, and
as essentially introductory to the consideration of individual ma-
nures, to examine the relations of plants to the soil.

M A N U RES.

53

When we look around upon the old settled and long cultivated
portions of this country, and reflect upon what they were in the
days of our fathers, we cannot but notice an alarming change.
The soil has experienced a wonderful degeneration — it has lost its
fertility. It has been tilled — it has been manured — it has been
watered with the rains and dews of heaven, and with the sweat of
toil, but its productiveness is gone — or as the owner says, it is
worn out. But the land does not wear out. Some radical change
has taken place which unfits it for the production of the crops it
once bore, or any other. Here luxuriant crops of wheat once
grew, there tobacco and there cotton were raised in abundance, but
now the impoverished soil refuses a return. And what is the
cause? This we will attempt briefly to elucidate.

When a portion of any plant is burned, the greater part disap-
pears; a small portion of ash only being left. The quantity left
by some plants is greater than that left by others, and the differ-
ent parts of the same plant leave unequal quantities, and in all
cases the residue is small when compared with the bulk of the
plant. This will be evident from the following table:

Quantity of ash in 100 lbs. of

Wheat, 1 . 18 lbs

" Straw, 3.51 '

Rye, 1.04

" Straw, 2.79

Oats,

2.58

" Straw, 5.74

Barley, 2.35

" Straw, 5.24

Beans, 2 . 14

" Straw, 3.12

Peas, 2.46

" Straw, 4.97

Potatoe, 2 . 65 lbs.

" leaf, 4.79

Turnip, 7 . 05

" leaf, 2.96

Hay, 9.00

Red Clover, 7,70

Parsnip, 14.34

" leaf, 15.76

Elm wood, 1.88

" leaf, 11.80

Oak wood, 0.21

" leaf, 4.50

The above tables are quoted to show the quantities of ash left
after burning different plants, that the quantity is always very
small, varying from one to fifteen per cent, and that different parts
of the same plant give different quantities. The constituents of
this ash are substances with the most of which every one is fa-
miliar. Thpv are potash, soda, lime, magnesia, alumina, silica.

64 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

iron, manganese, chlorine, iodine, sulphur and phosphorus. These
do not exist in the plant in their simple form, but variously com-
bined with each other and with another class of substances to
be mentioned hereafter. Till a very recent date they were re-
garded as not essential to the vegetable structure, being considered
as being only accidentally present, from the fact of the plant
growing in the earth. They are now however, regarded as not
only important, but essential in the economy of vegetation, and it
is the opinion of Liebig, that the presence of these substances ex-
ercises the whole control in perfecting the plant. If they were
not necessary to the healthy growth of the plant, or were only
accidentally present, we should expect that sometimes one would
be found in plants of the same species, and sometimes another in
greater proportion than at other times, or that plants of whatever
kind growing in the same soil would contain the same quantities.
But this is not the case. The variation is very slight in plants of
the same kmd, and those proportions may be considered as uni-
form. Nor do plants of different species, nor even those of dif-
erent varieties of the same species, growing in the same soil, con-
tain the same quantities. In the tables quoted above, a remarka-
ble difference appears in the quantity of ash left by various plants,
and the difference is as remarkable in the constituents of this ash.
Thus, the straw of wheat gives more than three per cent of ash,
in which the principal mineral ingredients are as in the following
table compared with those of oats, yielding nearly six per cent,
and beans more than three per cent. The quantity is what is
found in 1,000 lbs. of straw.

Wheat, Oats, Bean,

lbs. lbs. lbs.

Potash, 0.20 8.70 16.56

Soda, 0.29 0.01 0.50

Lime, 2.50 1.52 6.20

Magnesia, 0.32 0.22 2.09

Sulphuric acid, 0.37 0.79 0.34

Phosphoric acid, 1.70 0.12 2.26

Silica, 28.70 45.88 2.20

A remarkable difference will be observed in the proportions of
these substances in the different straws, and especially in the pot-
ash and silica. While the wheat straw contains potash 0.20,

MANURES. 56

and silica 28.70 lbs., the bean contains potash 16.56, and silica
2.20 lbs. in 1,000.

Healthy and perfect plants of the same kind, will always be
found to contain the same number of these substances, and in the
same or very near the same proportions. This constancy of com-
position, whether the plants are grown upon the same or different
soils, is indisputable evidence that these substances are indispen-
sable.

These portions of the vegetable structure are all derived from
the earth, and a fertile soil always contains them. Not always,
it is true, in the same proportions, but they must be there in some
quantity, or it is unproductive. The amount of some one may be
very small in comparison with the mass of soil, and yet in con-
nection with others give it a character of high fertility, as every
farmer has seen in the application of a minute quantity of gypsum
to a field of red clover.

It will now be readily understood, to what this wearing out, or
degeneration of the soil is attributable. In successive crops these
substances are taken from the soil, and have not been restored in
equal quantity in the manures that have been applied. The
grain — hay — milk — butter — cheese — beef — wool, «&c., have been
taken to the market, and all that was contained in them of a mine-
ral nature, was so much robbed from the soil. The process of
deterioration may not have been apparent, for originally the supply
was large. But such a drain kept up for years has had the effect
of impoverishing the soil and leaving it at last, in a measure at
least, unproductive. The amount taken off in any one year was
small, but continued for a number of years makes a large quantity,
and if the whole has not been restored in the shape of manures
containing the very substances carried away, the land must even-
tually cease to be productive. At the same time another cause has
been operating to bring about the same result. By the processes
of cultivation some of these materials, which formerly existed in
the earth in an insoluble state, are rendered soluble. They are
taken up by the rain which falls, and carried down with it in its
passage to the subsoil. In this way lime is often entirely exhaus-
ted from a soil.

It will be understood from what has been said, that all crops do
not exhaust the soil of the same substances in the same proportion.

66 ' QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

From this cause land which has ceased to be productive of one
plant may yet be well calculated for another. And this has given
rise to rotation in crops, now so extensively practised.

Another cause of unproductiveness in a soil may be merely men-
tioned here, and that is the presence of noxious substances. But
this will be referred to more at length in another place.

All this might have been prevented and may be remedied. It
is possible not only to restore a soil to a former degree of fertility,
but the limit of its productiveness is not known. Besides, we
know not the effect which a continued cultivation of wheat, for
instance, on a highly improved soil may have upon the qualities
of that grain. We know indeed, that all our cultivated plants have
been produced from a naturally inferior stalk, and that those grown
upon a poor soil are inferior to those grown upon a rich one, and
that cultivation has been the means of making them what they are.
Have they reached the limit of improvement 1 is a question it is
hoped will not be answered till proper efforts have been made to
answer — no. We believe not, and we also believe that as long as
the soil is continued in a' condition of progressive improvement, so
long we shall find a corresponding improvement in not only the
quantity but the quality of all cultivated plants.

But the relations of organic to inorganic matter may be traced
yet farther. The vegetable world is the food of the animal world ;
the connecting link between the highest and the lowest orders of
creation. The plant or its seed is eaten, and, behold, bone is
made — muscle — fat — milk, and all the varied products of animal
life. Whence all these 1 It will hardly be believed by those who
read it now for the first time, that these are not really formed by
the animal, but are the ready made products of the vegetable,
which have only to be appropriated and put in their proper places
in the body. Such is, nevertheless, the fact ; these very materials,
as such, being found in the structure of the plant. But the con-
nection does not stop here. Plants and animals die. Their bodies
decay and return to the earth and air from whence they sprung, to
become again food for a new generation — to become, in fact, ma-
nures. And thus the eternal circle goes on. How wonderful
then this relation, thus briefly noticed. The earth is the great
storehouse and source of vegetable food. The plant receives it
and prepares it for the animal, both of which must be eventually

MANURES. 57

converted into food for a new race, thus linkingthe whole creation
together in an unbroken chain.

But another branch of the subject yet remains to be considered.
We have seen that plants contain but a small proportion of min-
eral or inorganic matter. The organic substances on the other
hand are by far the most abundant. They compose the great bulk
of the plant, constituting generally more than ninety per cent of it,
although they are few in number, and three out of four of them,
when pure, being always found in the form of gas. They are
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon. Unlike the inorganic
matter, these are not derived solely from the earth. Indeed, it is
a point not yet settled whether some of them are not derived ex-
clusively from the atmosphere. That there is a sufficient amount
in the atmosphere to furnish plants with all they require, may be
true, and yet at the same time it may not be true that they receive
them all from this source. If it be true, then a great error has
existed, and still exists, and is increasing in extent under the au-
thority of science, in the preparation of farm-yard manures and
composts for application to the soil. Instead of preventing tho-
rough decomposition in the dung-heap, or checking it when it has
reached a certain point — instead of using gypsum or charcoal to
arrest the gases as they escape from decomposing animal matter —
instead of ploughing in green manures or adding any vegetable or
animal matters to the land, the proper course would be to decom-
pose all such substances as perfectly as possible, or actually burn
them, thus suffering all the volatile parts to escape into the atmos-
phere, whilst the ashes alone are retained to be applied to the soil.
Liebig himself, to whom this whole theory is often imputed, says,
that humus is of use in the soil as a source of carbonic acid to
enable the plant to gain time, that is, to increase rapidily ingrowth
in a short period ; thus admitting that this gas is derived from the
soil in part, while he adds, that by this means " space is obtained
for the assimilation of {he elements of the soil necessary for the
formation of new leaves and branches ; meaning the inorganic
substances." — {Familiar Letters on Chemistry, Letter 15th.)

But the experiments of Saussure seem to show, that the plant
may not only derive its carbon from the soil in the form of carbonic
acid, but that it has also the power of absorbing it in other forms
and assimilating it. Practically considered, safety lies on the side

VOL. I. NO. 1. H

58 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

that makes both the soil and the atmosphere the sources from which
these elements are drawn. It is well known that the roots will
absorb them if presented to them in a liquid form, and if intro-
duced into the circulation they will no doubt be appropriated by
the plant.

Nothing in a solid form can enter into the circulation of plants.
It is by means of water that they receive all their food which they
take in by their roots, that fluid being the solvent of all they re-
quire. By their leaves they absorb gases and probably water also.
But before any thing can enter the minute pores of the roots, it
must be dissolved in water. But this is not the only use of water.
It is composed of two of the gases mentioned above, viz., oxygen,
and hydrogen, and is an abundant source from which the plant can
receive them. And it may be proper before closing this paper, to
consider in a few words the sources whence the plant derives its
organic constituents.

Carbon constitutes a very large portion of the vegetable. From
forty to fifty per cent, nearly or quite one-half, of all plants consists
of this substance. This is derived from several sources. First,
by their leaves from the atmosphere. When wood or coal is
burned in the open air, the principal product is carbonic acid, i. e.
carbon united with oxygen. During the process of respiration,
animals give off from their lungs this same substance. About
eleven ounces of this gas are said to be thrown off from the lungs
of a healthy man in twenty-four hours. This mingles with the air,
constituting about xolo P^"^^ °^ ^^^ weight, the quantity varying
somewhat under different circumstances ; in the vicinity of large
bodies of water, it being less, and at night more than in the day.
From this source it is absorbed by the leaves of plants, which are
furnished with numberless pores, serving as mouths. It is the
opinion of one class of vegetable physioligists that it is in this way
that they obtain all their carbon, making no use of their roots for
this purpose.

But it is probable that it is taken up largely by the roots, both
that which is brought down from the atmosphere in rain, and also
that which is formed in the soil by the decomposition of animal
and vegetable matters. These organs indeed, may be considered
the true mouths of plants, by which they receive by far the greater
part of their food, both organic and inorganic.

MANURES. 5d

Although there are various sources from which plants may de-
rive their hydrogen, yet water may be considered as the chief one.
Of this substance it constitutes two parts in three ; and being the
only medium by which they can receive their food, it is constantly
passing through their organs, and is there decomposed, furnishing
both hydrogen and oxygen to them. Ammonia is a compound of
hydrogen and nitrogen, and may have a part to perform in fur-
nishing this gas.

Plants are surrounded with the atmosphere containing oxygen,
are constantly supplied with water containing it, and are always
absorbing carbonic acid of which it is a constituent ; and therefore
no one will be at a loss to find the source from which plants pro-
cure this gas.

Although nitrogen forms a large part of the atmosphere and a
very small part of plants, it does not appear that they obtain this
substance from this source.

We have just stated that ammonia consists of hydrogen and ni-
trogen, and it is an abundant product of the decay of animal and
vegetable substances. This is the substance commonly called
hartshorn. It is known to exist in the juices of some plants
already formed, and is absorbed in large quantities by water. It
exists in the atmosphere in very small quantities at all times, and
being washed down by rains, is brought in contact with the roots.
Thus passing into the circulation, it is decomposed and its nitrogen
appropriated.

Another source is nitric acid (aquafortis.) This is also one of
the products of decaying animals and vegetables. Besides this, it
is produced during thimder showers, by the effect of the lightning
upon the air, causing its elements to enter into a chemical union,
and being absorbed by the rain is brought down and taken up by
plants. The effect of some salts of this acid as manures, depends,
without doubt, upon thissubstance.

We have thus examined as fully as our space will allow, the con-
stitution of plants, and their relation to the soil. It yet remains,
before entering directly upon the subject of manures, to consider
some circumstances w^hich modify their action. This will be done
in the opening of the next number.

60 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

PHOSPHATE OF LIME.

It is an object of great importance to discover phosphate of
^ime in its pure state, or even mixed with other materials, in suffi-
cient quantity to supply the wants of agriculture. We fear, how-
ever, that this desideratum will not be realized very soon. Al-
though it cannot be said to be rare, yet it is not known to exist in
large beds, and very rarely in small ones. The common mode of
its occurrence in the mineral kingdom is either in small dissemi-
nated particles, or in crystals varying in size from a needle to five
inches in diameter. When occurring in crystals it is never in suf-
ficient quantity to meet at all the wants of farming ; and in fact,
these crystals are so highly esteemed by mineralogists, and so high
a value placed upon them, that no one would ever think of spoiling
them, or of devoting them to any other purpose than to adorn the
cabinet. There are only two localities know-n in JNew-York which
can possibly yield an amount sufficient to render it an object to the
farmer. One of these places is seven or ten miles west of Port
Kent, on Hogback mountain, at the iron ore bed of Messrs. Thom-
linson & McDonald, or which is know^n in the Geological Report
of the 2d District, as the Rutger's ore bed. At this bed it forms
in some parts, nearly one-half the mass of the vein or bed ; at others
considerably less. It is, how^ever, the principal stoney matter of
the bed near the surface. The phosphate of lime of this locality
may be obtained at the place where the ore is separated. The
kind of stoney matter mixed with the ore is feldspar and horn-
blende, mostly the former — hence, the whole material separated
from the ore could be preserved and ground like plaster, and used
as a fertilizer. The best way of using such a powder, would be
to put a small quantity in the earth with the seed, or apply it as
directly to the growing plant as possible. Let it be understood, how-
ever, that this locality is not of very great importance ; the wash-
ing of the ore, however, would supply several farmers with this
invaluable substance. We have mentioned this locality that it
may not be lost, to those certainly who live in the immediate
neighborhood ; for they ought to secure it for their gardens at

PHOSPHATKOFLIME. 61

least. In the course of a year, if the ore continues to be worked,
several tons of it might be procured. In using it, it should be
reduced to an impalpable powder.

The color of this phosphate is red or reddish. It sometimes
appears in large crystals upon the walls of the vein, but it is so
extremely brittle that it will be very difficult to procure it in a
good form for the cabinet ; still, it is an interesting variety.

Another locality of phosphate of lime deserving of the atten-
tion of the agriculturist, is that of the Sandford ore bed in Moria
or Westport. It is washed out of the ore in the same way as the
former. Its color is a duller red than the former, or rather brown,
and is always in small grains, and appears somewhat like the flesh-
colored feldspar.

In addition to the above localities of phosphate of lime, one
other is deserving of notice, which we had forgotten when we
commenced our notice of the preceding. It is at Crown Point,
and th^ mineral is known as the eupyrchroite. We discovered its
locality while engaged in the survey, and as the external characters
are so dissimilar to phosphate of lime, we considered it a new
mineral substance. Our experiments at the time showed it to be
a phosphate, but we conjectured that it contained another sub-
stance in combination. We still entertain this opinion. But the
analysis of Dr. Beck shows that phosphate of lime enters largely
into its composition ; and as it forms a vein in the rock more than
a foot wide, it is possible it may be of some importance to the
farmer. It is a dull green, and fibrous and obscurely mamillary,
or in the form of segments of a sphere. This substance is inter-
mixed with silex in little masses in the interior, and on that account
will not pulverize so easily as it usually does. We have not ex-
amined it, however, with the view of determining how much this
locality can furnish at a reasonable expense. At the time we dis-
covered it, we considered it rather in the light of a trap dyke, or
an earthy vein ; it was concealed, however, partly by soil, and
hence we may be deceived as to its wndth, nature of the deposit,
as well as to its extent.

62 QUARTERLYJOURNAL

FERTILIZERS IN THE ROCKS.

Our attention in the course of the agricultural survey, has been
turned to the character of the rocks as fertilizers of the soil. The
first inquiry was — do the rocky masses themselves admit of being
applied as manures '? and in the second place, what' elements do
they contain which renders them valuable as fertilizers to soils 1
In answer to the first question, we have ascertained that some at
least of the shales — limestone shales, as they may be called — are
of great importance to agriculture. We stated in one of the
meetings held at the geological rooms, some of the results of the
analysis which we had made : showing that they are rich in saline
matter, and mostly free from the astringent salts which are inju-
rious to vegetation. These examinations are the first which have
been made in this country in this matter, and we propose to pur-
sue them. New-York, in every district, except the Atlantic, is rich
in the shales, particularly the western, or the wheat growing dis-
trict. In order to use these shales, the best mode will be to raise
them, throw them into heaps in prepared places and then let them
crumble and decompose. The debris of the heaps may be mixed
with a compost or with barn-yard manure. If the decomposing
matters are astringent, mix them with sufficient lime to neutralize
the salt, which will probably be mixtures of the sulphates of iron
and alumine ; these will be decomposed, and gypsum will be one
of the resulting compounds. In addition to these salts there will
be found sulphate of magnesia, which ranks high as a fertilizer.

Besides the shales, the limestones themselves are deserving of
examination ; but, as I have not yet advanced far in this inquiry
in regard to them, I merely speak of them in this brief manner,
hoping by and by to lay some important results before the agricul-
tural community.

Of the materials which it is possible the fossiliferous limestones
may contain, we may state the high probability of their being rich
in phosphate of lime. Derived as they all are from primary
rocks, all of which are occasionally known to embrace this sub-
stance, we can hardly doubt of its presence — especially when we
connect it with the fact that much organic matter has been enclo-

FERTILIZERS IN THE ROCKS. 63

sed in the rocks themselves, in combination with organic remains.
All animal matter contains more or less of the phosphates, and
hence as these remains of organic bodies are still enclosed in our
rocks, we conceive that it must be locked up still in these sedi-
mentary masses. Bearing upon this subject, we may state that
the recent examinations of Mr. Benjamin Silliman, Jr., of the co-
rals, bears out this conjecture. Thus, Mr. Silliman found as much
as nine or ten per cent of the phosphate in some of his examinations
of the corals. Is this substance likely to be lost when these corals
are enclosed in their rocky beds ? If a limestone with a few per
cent of this substance could be found, its value for agricultural
purposes would be greatly increased.

All these facts and suggestions have a practical bearing, and w^e
are anxious the farmer should be able to avail himself of all the
aids which science can afford. On this subject we propose to give
from time to time, the results of our inquiries.

Phosphate of lime, we have already stated in another article,
occurs in the white limestones, such as those in Orange, St. Law-
rence, and Jefferson counties. Of the origin of this substance
there is a difference of opinion, and we hope we may be excused
for occupying a short space in our columns in the discussion of this
point, although it has no practical bearing ; yet we believe that all
enlightened agriculturists will be pleased to know as much as pos-
sible of those subjects which relate to the history of important
materials — one so important as phosphate of lime.

Mr. James D.Dana, [Joicrnal of Science p. 135, Vol. XL VII,]
maintains that the phosphate of these limestones, although now in
superbly finished crystals, originated from organic structures, from
corals, which after being enclosed in their rocky prison, were ex-
posed to intense heat, and hence were decomposed ; the phosphate
of lime separating from other matters composing the original co-
ral, assumed the form and condition we now find it. In this expo-
sure, the whole rock is supposed to have undergone an entire
change, passing from an earthy to a liighly crystalline mass. The
idea is, that these rocks were originally deposited in the ocean,
enclosing in their several beds and layers the organic bodies which
then lived upon those beds; or, in that ocean — mere sediments —
but by the exposures we have already spoken of, have been chang-
ed and brought to the condition we now find them. Magnesia is

64 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

another element of corals, and as many limestones are magnesian,
it is inferred that these limestones have also a similar origin. Pro-
ceeding still farther, Mr. Dana infers that the magnesian minerals,
as serpentine, steatite, pyroxene, tremolite, spinelle, chrondrodite,
all have a similar origin ; a derivation from organic matter. But now
let us enquire, are these generalizations necessary 1 Are they pro-
bable ] 1. As it regards the phosphate of lime, we have given
two localities [p. 60,61,] where it forms the gangue of iron ores ;
and again it exists in gneiss, mica slate and granite. Is it of organic
orio-in here ? There is no proof of it. It is only when contained in
limestones that phosphate of lime and magnesia are supposed to
have this origin. The question must turn then, on this point : are
the relations of these limestones in St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Essex,
and Orange counties, such as to bear out and sustain the hypothesis 1
We answer in the negative, and would add in support of our ne-
gative, their relations are such as to overthrow — to entirely over-
throw it — to demolish it. The limestones which are richest in
phosphate of lime and other magnesian minerals, are universally
enclosed in gneiss or granite — they are in veins or beds ; one in
particular, which is rich in these minerals, projects out of the hy-
persthene rock, or comes up from below. How a sedimentary,
coraline rock could get into this position remains to be shown. That
it has been acted upon by heat is not denied, but that this and
many other masses like unto it were originally sedimentary rocks,
not a fact in existence has ever been cbserv£d to sustain the hy-
pothesis. Again, the magnesian limestones of Berkshire county,
the Stockbridge limestone, which is truly a sedimentary rock and
stratified, has never furnished to my knowledge a crystal of phos-
phate. It is here that we ought to find it, inasmuch as it is gran-
ular or crystalline, and may have been formed at a period when
animals dwelt in the seas upon whose bottom it was deposited.
But once more and we shall drop the subject. We wish to be un-
derstood not to deny the possibility of changes of the kind Mr.
Dana speaks of. We deny the propriety of the application he has
made of the facts to the limestones of the counties mentioned
above. For a full account of this origin we refer the reader to the
Geological Report of the 2d District.

r R K i: MARTINS. 65

FREE MARTINS.

When a cow produces two calves, one of them a bull calf, and
the other a cow calf, the cow calf is known by the curious name of
Free Martin* The male becomes in due time a perfect and use-
ful bull, but the female is generally supposed to be incapable of
propagation.

This belief is prevalent, not only in this country but elsewhere.
An opinion so wide spread and so fully believed, not only by
the ignorant and vulgar, but experienced and intelligent cattle
breeders, would seem to be worthy of some degree of credit. It
certainly merits investigation.

T^'he first point of inquiry, is to determine whether it is an inva-
riable, rule that free martins will not propagate. In order to as-
certain how far this opinion, so generally received, might be cor-
rect, I made careful inquiries among many who were engaged in
reaving cattle, and also examined such journals and books as
would be likely to furnish information on the subject.

It soon appeared beyond a reasonable doubt, that free martins
tcere not necessarily barren; yet as a general rule, subject to a few
exceptions, they will not breed.

A gentleman of A'eracity, residing in Buffalo, and well known
to many agriculturists throughout the state, informed me that he
reared a free martin on his own farm, and that she afterwards
calved. This animal is still living, and is on the farm of L. F.
Allen, Black Rock. An English gentleman informed me of an
other instance in England, which occurred under his own observa-
tion. The heifer died of disease, and on examination after death
was found to be pregnant.

Two cases of free martins propagating are recorded, and a
third related on hearsay evidence in the American Agriculturist,
Vol. III. No. 3, March, 1844, by Joseph Cope of Pennsylvania.
An anonymous writer in the Farmers' Magazine, for November,
1806, describes a free martin, belonging to Mr. Buchan of Kil-
lingtringham, which had a calf, and proved to be a good milker.
Another writer in the same Magazine for November, 1807, raised
a free martin, which bore when two years old a fine male calf.

•Cattle ; their Breeds, Management and Diseases, &c.,by W. Youatt. Phila-
delphia, 18.^6, p. 538.

VOL. I. — NO. ] . I

66 QUARTERLY' JOURNAL.

These are the only free martins I can ascertain on sufficient
evidence to have propagated, while there is abundant evidence,
equally good, of a very considerable number which had been
faithfully tried and proved barren.

It would hence appear that the rule is, singular as it may seem,
that the female twin is unfruitful, yet in a few rare instances she
is capable of breeding.

It becomes then an inquiry not of physiological curiosity alone,
but of practical value, to learn upon what the barrenness depends,
and how the fruitfulness or un fruitful n ess of the calf may be
known in early life.

It is established with tolerable certainty, that the free martin
when incapable of propagating is anatomically deficient, t)r
deformed in some of the organs of generation ; and these deficien-
cies or deformities veryi plainly and with a great degree of uni-
formity, modify her external form and appearance. We accord-
ingly find heifers of this description coarse and masculine in struc-
ture • and in the head and horns especially they exhibit a very
marked approach to those of the ox ; the teats are smaller than
is usual in the heifer : she manifests no propensity to breed. The
external appearance of the vagina is the same as in other cows.

Some of these distinctions are of course not developed until she
has arrived at the age of bearing. The internal structure is
marked by still greater differences ; these, however, are not to be
seen except by post mortem examination.

The first, and so far as I know, the only scientific investigation,
was made by the accurate and distinguished anatomist John Hun-
ter. He examined three of these free martins, and found in them
all a greater or less deviation from the form of the female, and the
addition of some of the organs peculiar to the male ; they w^ere in
fact hermaphrodites.

The subjoined description of one of them is taken from the
Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LXIX. p. 289.

" Mr. Abuthnot's free martin, seven years old. The external
parts were rather smaller than in the cow\ The vagina* passed
on as in the cow, to the opening of the urethra^-\ and then

• Vagina is a technical term ; the common name I believe is bearing,
t Urethra is the passage for the urine from the bladder.

K R E E MARTINS. 67

it began to contract into a small canal which passed on to the di-
vision of the uterus into two horns, each horn passed along the
edge of the broad ligament, latterly toward the ovarm.

" At the termination of these horns were placed both the ovaria
and the testicles. Both were neai'ly of the same size, which was
about as large as a small nutmeg. To the ovaria I could not find
any fallopian tube.

" To the testicles were vasa deferentia^ but they were imperfect.
The left one did not come near the testicle ; the right one only
came close to it, but did not terminate in the body called the epi-
didymis. They were both pervious and opened into the vagina
near the opening of the urethra.

" On the posterior surface of the bladder, or between the uterus
(womb) and bladder, near the two bags called vesicula seminales
in the male, but much smaller than they are in the bull, the
ducts opened along with the vasa deferentia. This animal then
had a mixture of all the parts, but all of them were imperfect."

Mr. Hunter also states that in external form they bore a marked
resemblance to the ox.

Free martins, however, even when barren, are not always her-
maphrodites ; they may be simply deficient in the sexual organs
peculiar to the female. In this case their form is not necessarily
masculine, yet it is so in the majority of instances.

About a year since I examined a free martin of this descrip-
tion, reared by Frederick I. Betts, Esq. of this place, (Newburgh).
She was about three years old, and in external form and appear-
ance presented nothing different from other cows. She manifested
the sexual propensities, even to a greater degree than usual ; in-
deed she was almost constantly in season ; yet she never became
pregnant, although faithfully tried.

In the structure of the internal organs of generation, there was
no mixture of male parts, but a very marked departure from the
natural structure of the female.

The vagina externally presented the usual appearance of a heifer
which had never borne a calf. It passed on, as in the heifer ex-
amined by Mr. Hunter, to the opening of the urethra, when it
begun io contract into a small canal, which passed on for six inch-
es, where it terminated in a closed sac, one inch from the mouth
of the uterus.

68 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The uterus was perfect in structure, but exceedingly small.

The ovaries were small, corresponding in size to the womb j
their structure presented no well marked difference from other
cows.

Thefallopia7i tubes were also perfect, but likewise small.

The womb and appendages, in fact, very nearly resembled the
same parts in a calf a few weeks old. The following estimate of
the size and weight of the vagina, uterus, &c., of a cow, a calf,
and the free martin referred to above, will exhibit the extent of
the deficiency in size, &c.

Coio, after two years old.

Length of vagina 14 to 20 inches ; circumference of vagina
about 8 inches. Length of the womb 12 inches ; circumference
of the womb li inch ; weight of the w^hole from 1 to 2 pounds.

Calf ^ four weeks old.
Length of the vagina 6 inches ; circumference of vagina 2k
inches. Length of the womb 2 h inches ; circumference of the
womb iths of an inch ; weight of the whole 1 ounce.

Free Martin.
Length of vagina 8 inches ; circumference of vagina near the
mouth 2 inches ; circumference of vagina at the middle iths of an
inch. Length of the womb 2% inches ; circumference of womb
3ths of an incti ; weight of the whole II ounces.

\\\ taking the length of the womb, I measured from the mouth
to the extremity of one of the horns of the womb. I took the
measure in this way, because there is more uniformity in the size
of the horns, than in what is usually termed the body.

The accompanying plates will aid in understanding the struc-
ture of these parts.

Fig. 1 represents the natural appearance of the vagina, womb
and ovaries, as they appear externally when removed from the
body.

a. is the external view of the vagina.

h. represents the situation of the mouth of the womb, which is
fully exposed in Fig. 2.

c.c. are the ovaries.

e.c. the two horns of the womb.

F R E E M A II T I N S . 69

Fig. 2. represents the same parts, with

a. the vagina, slit open to show

h. the mouth of the womb.

c.c. the ovaries.

d. the urethra opening into the vagina.

e.e. the horns of womb.

Fig. 3 represents the same organs, as found in the free martin
belonging to Mr. Betts ; the vagina being slit open to show its
extent and termination, an inch beyond. The mouth of the womb
is represented by the dotted lines h.

From these dissections it would appear that there are two varie-
ties of free martins.

The first, and by far the most common, are probably hermaphro-
dites. They are more or less masculine in appearance, and mani-
fest no desire for the male. They will even work, it is said, with
an ox ; I knew an instance of the kind in this cofmty. This va-
riety, so far as I can learn, never breed. This conclusion, made
as it necessarily is, from comparatively slender materials, may be
erroneous ; yet I think there is sufficient evidence to afford a rea-
sonable ground for the opinion. It is worthy of notice that the
Romans called their barren cows taura^ as if they had something
of the bull about them. But it is not slated that these tauree
were free martins, although the supposition is not improbable.
Columella* speaks of " taurce which occupy the place of fertile
cows, and should be sent away." Varrof also calls the barren
cow taura.

The second variety of free martins resembles other cows exter-
nally, being feminine in appearance and exhibiting the usual sex-
ual propensities. Those belonging to this class may breed, or
they may not : generally, however, they will not. I know of no
external mark by which the barren of this latter variety may be
distinguished from the fruitful. Future investigations may dis-
cover some external mark, but at present it is mere guess work.

A free martin calf, then, that resembles a male in external ap-
pearance, and especially about the head, may safely be condemned
as unfruitful ; and even if she is not masculine in appearance,
she may still, in nine cases out of ten, be also condemned as

• Lib. vi. cap. 22. t -De Re Rustica. Lib. ii. cap. 5.

70 QU AllT ERL Y JO U RX AL.

equally useless for breeding. The farmer that raises a free martin
for a breeder will, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, be disap-
pointed in his expectations.

If these conclusions are correct, they afford a most singular
anomaly to the usual order of generation. Why twin heifers or
twin bulls should be fruitful, and a free martin barren, is utterly
inexplicable upon any known or supposable principle of physio-
logy. Yet, strange as it may appear, observation would seem to
establish the fact as a general rule, and we are obliged to admit
it, notwithstanding our unbelief and its apparent inconsistency.
The subject is well worthy of further investigation, and farmers
having free martins born on their farms would confer an especial
favor upon many others, if they would have them carefully ex-
amined, after death, by some person acquainted with the natural
structure of the organs of generation. It is not necessary to keep
the animal until grown, if this is not convenient, as the organiza-
tion of the parts can be sufficiently seen in the j^oungest calf.

There have been instances of the cow producing three and even
four calves at one birth ; but there is, I believe, no mention in
these cases of the procreative power of the female. I examined
one cow whose womb contained four calves ; all of them were
females, finely formed, well developed, and bearing a close resem-
blance to each other. In each of these calves the organs of gene-
ration were perfect ; and had the calves been born and reared,
there was no anatomical reason why they should not all have
proved good breeders.

I also met with two heifers which were barren. In one there
was a fibrous plug, closing the mouth of the womb, and which,
according to the prevalent opinion of generation, would necessa-
rily prevent impregnation.

In the other, the womb had two mouths, instead of one. Yet
this does not necessarily cause unfruitfulness, for I subsequently
dissected a cow whose womb contained a calf, and yet had two
mouths.

There are many other interesting topics connected with these
investigations, which I may resume on some other occasion.

?!ewbur^h, January 1st, 1845.

K K W PUBLICATION. 71

NEW PUBLICATION.

A treatise on the forces which produce the organization of plants, with an appendix
containing several memoirs on capillary attraction, electricity and the chemical
action of light, by John W. Dhapee, M. D., Prof, of Chemistry in the Univer-
sity of the oily of New-York.

The title of this book and the high reputation of its author,
strongly incited us to give it an early perusal. We were wishing
also to furnish our readers with some abstracts from its pages that
we might be instrumental in awakening in thera, if need be, a
taste for a higher order of inquiry than is found in the ordinary
treatises on the physiology of organic beings. Probably no field
has ever been opened so rich in facts, so important in results, and
at the same time so attractive to the philosophic mind, as an inquiry
into the nature of those forces which produce organization ; and
if the mystery which hangs over the production of organic bodies,
if the secrets which belong to life are ever dispelled or revealed,
it will be by labors in this field of research. It is true that it is
not a new field, one that is just opened or just entered, for many
keen sighted men of former days, men profound in knowledo-e
and skilled in philosophic analysis have made those forces the sub-
ject of anxious and serious inquiry. That these inquiries have
been eminently successful we by no means assert. Surrounded as
they necessarily are with great and serious difficulties, partly from
the nature of the forces themselves, but mainly from the circum-
stance that they become known to us solely from their effects, it
can hardly be considered strange that they should have often ter-
minated unsatisfactorily, or without obtaining positive results.
Still those inquiries have been at least partially successful ; and
hence instead of losing their interest, they are at the present time
awaking and exciting more attention than at any former period.
The work of Professor Draper is divided into two parts. The
first is a compilation,, as we call it, of the views of modem phi-
losophers on subjects relating to the forces concerned in organiza-
tion, or those which have a hand in developing vegetable and ani-
mal bodies, as the action of the imponderables, light, heat and
electricity. The second part is made up of memoirs written at
different times and published in the journals of the day. Anion <t
them we find one on capillary attraction. Another on the various

72 Q U A R T E JR I, V J O U R N A L .

phenomena of light and heat, the rays of the solar spectrum. An-
other of still more importance treats of the tithonic ray^ or the
chemical rays of former writers. These essays are well illustra-
ted, and the peculiar doctrines supported by numerous well de-
vised experiments, the manipulations and arrangements of which
are neatly demonstrated by diagrams on copper. Of the first part
we feel bound to say that it is written in philosophic language,
that it bears the impress of a philosophic mind, and that an air of
importance and originality appears throughout the whole produc-
tion, and that even the commonplace ideas are so well expressed
that they bear the aspect of new thought and original suggestions.
It may truly be called a labored treatise, a well-wrought- produc-
tion abounding in valuable matter, which, though it cannot be
claimed as original or new, still, the labor expended in putting to-
gether the materials, entitle the author to a share of the credit
which is awarded to originality.

Having expressed our views of the general merits of the work,
we proceed to notice some of the doctrines which Prof. Draper
has expressed, and which he has attempted to maintain. We must
premise, however, that of these doctrines we find it necessary to
make a selection, and to confine ourselves within narrow limits,
for it is impossible to notice, even summarily, all the opinions and
doctrines which are expressed in the first part of the work. The
treatise is introduced with some general views of the influence of
physical agents on organization and life, in which he has given
brief expositions of the nature of organized combinations, the
changes which are efTected by physical laws, and how they effect
the extinction of living races, also on the relations of organized
forms to the atmosphere, and closing with a notice of that law
which secures or which emancipates the higher races from the di-
rect dominion and action of external agents. Prof. Draper, in
the second section of the introduction, takes this early occasion to
express his decided dissent from the views "entertained by many
physiologists in legard to the existence of a vital force. As this
is one of the leading doctrines of the work, we shall extract the
passage in which he announces his views.

" In this work the existence of the Vital Force of physiolo-
gists— as a homogeneous and separate force — is uniformly denied.
Tiio progress of science shows plainly that living structures, far

N E \V P U B L I C A T I O N . 73

,; urn being the product of one such homogeneous power, ure rather
the resultants of the action of a multitude of natural forces.
Gravity, cohesion, elasticity, the agency of the imponderables,
anil all. other powers which operate both on masses and atoms, are
called into action, and hence it is that the very evolution of a liv-
ing form depends on the condition that all these various agents
conspire. There is no mystery in animated beings which time
will not at last reveal. It is astonishing that in our days the an-
cient system which excludes all connection with natural philoso-
phy and chemistry, and depends on the fictitious aid of a visionary
force, should continue to exist ; a system which, at the outset,
ought to have been broken down by the most common considera-
tions, such as those connected with the mechanical principles in-
volved in the bony skeleton, the optical principles in the construc-
tion of the eye, or the hydraulic action of the valves of the heart."
vSuch, then, is the view of Prof. Draper of the vital force ;
which, though we are not yet ready to subscribe to, we are aware
that the tendency of the in-coming philosophy is to support them.
We, perhaps, are not informed of the whole argument which dis-
prove on the one hand the existence of a vital force, and on the
other demonstrates that what has been attributed to it belongs
wholly to physical forces, as gravity, cohesion, elasticity and the
imponderabl^. , We see not why we may not subscribe to the doc-
trine that the evolution of a living being has some dependence
upon those agents or upon the joint action which they conspire to
produce, and yet consistently maintain the separate existence of a
homogeneous vital principle. The evolution of a complex or even
sunple structure may depend on physical agents, that is, without
those agents the evolution could not proceed. The seed of a plant,
for example, contains a vital principle according to most physiolo-
gists ; still, this principle will remain at rest, will not of itself
evolve a fabric or organic body, in the absence of heat and moist-
ure ; and though the evolution is thus dependent, it by no means
militates or overturns the doctrine that prior to evolvement that
principle had an existence in the germ or seed. So the green scum
upon stagnant water which appears to be evolved by the agency of
light and heat ; the living atoms which dance upon the Avater, the
monad which floats there and teems in every dead pool, living
atoms generated in death, are no more the products of sunlio-ht

VOL. T. NO. 1 . K

74 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

and caloric, than the principle at rest in the egg and seed. There
is something before evolution, something behind the curtain, which
to be sure we cannot see, which makes it possible for light, heat
and electricity to evolve the specific being. But what is still more
important, we cannot conceive how, even by the joint action of
light, caloric and all other physical agents combined, a given being
is just what it is — how those forces should develop from a germ
one specific being and not another. The early stages of all or-
ganic beings are so similar that it is extremely difficult to detect
any differences among them ; and modern observations have estab-
lished the fact that at one period the higher and more perfect beings
pass through stages during development when their organization is
that of some lower and inferior tribe. Now, on the principle that
the mere mechanical forces develop a being, and impress upon it
its type, or give it its characteristics, we are wholly in the dark
how such certain results can take place — how the chick, for ex-
ample, when it is in that stage where it is taking on the organiza-
tion of a fish, it should not go on in its development and become a
fish rather than a fowl. There must be, then, it appears to us, a
principle, call it if you please a vital principle, in organic beings
which holds some control over physical force, independent of it,
and gives such a direction to all those movements which will end
uniformly in the production of a specific being in j^ny given in-
stance. How beautifully this is illustrated in fermentation. Do
we see the leaven in the flour 1 No : but still it is there — we
know it by its workings ; every particle is moved ; it pervades the
whole mass ; it prepares it for the oven ; so, though we are unable
to see the vital principle in its simple homogeneity, we may still
see it in its action. Inquiries however, of this nature, we confess,
are on the outskirts of the boundaries of our knowledge ; they
are surrounded with a dim haziness or twilight, so that it is impos-
sible for us to separate clearly the known from the unknown. It
is therefore important when we push our observations into this dim
circle, that we mistake not on the one hand that which is only
probable for that which is certain, and that we continue to feel dis-
satisfied with our evidence so long as it is possible to push our ob-
servations farther. There is undoubtedly sufficient liglit already
evolved upon this and kindred subjects, to encourage us still to push
forward our investigations ; at the same time, however, we should

NEWPUBLICATION. 75

bear in mind that we shall sooner or later reach those ultimate
facts of which no account can be given, except that they bear the
sole impress of the fin<2;er of Deity.

Professor Draper evidently belongs to the sanguine class of phi-
losophers, if we may be permitted to judge of character from many
expressions which he has recorded. There are no mysteries in an-
imated beings, says Prof. D., which time will not reveal. Admit
it, and admit also that physical agents are the prime movers of
organized atoms or beings, from beginning to end, we still assert
that not a whit of this mystery would be removed, rather we are
inclined to say, that it would be increased. Undoubtedly organized
beings are subjected to conditions ; the living cell as well as man
was adapted to pre-existing physical agents. There is a terrestrial
plan, and the physical agents, ponderable and imponderable, must
mould and shape that plan ; so far as movements are concerned,
they may exalt and sustain those movements, they may give a
higher degree of sensibility ; still they cannot originate the small-
est spark of vitality, though if need be and if proper conditions
exist, they may blow it into a flame when once the spark has been
struck out.

We have, perhaps, dwelt too long upon the introductory chapter.
We proceed, then, without farther comment, to the subjects of the
first chapter of the work. It is entitled, " On the action of the
sunbeams in producing organized bodies." Light is here shown
to be the agent in developing the green color of vegetables ; it
directs their growth. Leaves placed in carbonated water in sun-
light decompose the carbonic acid : the oxygen is disengaged and
escapes in bubbles : the carbon enters into combination with other
principles or elements already in the tissue of the plant, and forms
with them the mucilage or some other compound, which adminis-
ters to its growth. Living leaves in air, perform the same func.
tion, absorbing the carbonic acid, where it is decomposed as before,
and even more energetically than when immersed in carbonated
water.

Chapter IL treats of the flow of sap in plants. It is due to the
carbonization of water in the leaves by the light of the sun.

We shall condense Prof. D.'s views on this subject, as it will
enable us to economize both our time and space.

1. Capillary attraction is the physical cause of this movement.
The constitution necessary for capillary attraction to take place, is

76 Q IT A R T E R L Y J n U R N A L .

that tlic (laid into which the fine tube is plunged, should be
able to wet the tube ; thus water wets a glass tube, and hence
rises above its hydrostatic level, but quicksilver will not wet
glass, therefore it does not rise. It is not necessary that the in-
strument should be in the form of a tube in order that the fluids
may be elevated above their hydrostatic* levels j a sponge, the
cellular tissue, or any porous body, is, to all intents and purposes, a
capillary instrument, capable of lifting water ; even the passages
between cells are exceedingly short tubes.

2. From these facts the following law is deduced, viz: When
two fluids are brought together in contact in a porous solid, or se-
ries of capillary tubes, which is wetted by both, but unequally, that
one which wets the porous solid most, or for which the attraction
is strongest, will pass most rapidly through it, and may drive the
other entirely before it. To make the law^ plainer, it is observed,
that the structure of plants and animals is like a congeries of
capillary tubes, particularly in vegetables, the leaf and the
spongiole of the root.

Now for the application of the principles to the circulation of
sap. The ascending sap is derived from the ground by the action
of the spongioles ; it passes upward by the woody fibre and ducts
of the alburnum to the upper surface of the leaf. A change takes
place here by sunlight ; it obtains carbon, and forms a thin
watery solution, becomes a mucilage; this mucilage being now
elaborated sap gains the under surface of the leaf, and returns back
through the cellular tissue, finding its way by the medullary rays
to all parts of the plant. The descending sap in the spongiole is
mucilage, and from this fact is derived the reason why water will
enter the spongiole from without. The experimental fact and
proof is deduced from the following : Put sweetened water in a
bladder and immerse it in simple water, the latter flows in, and the
former out. The bladder is a congeries of capillary tubes ; the
flowing in and flow-ing out is nothing more than capillary attrac-
tion. It is the mucilage or the descending sap which reaches the
spongiole which enables the water to enter, and having entered,
rises in the stem; So in the leaf, with the mucilage on one side
and the water on the other, the latter drives the former before and
makes it descend, the tissue of the Icnf havuig a greater attraction
for water than for mucilage.

N E W P U B L 1 C A T I O N . 77

This, then, is tiic doctrine of the circulation . Is the doctrine
proved I We say, not clearly so. The assumption upon which it
is partly founded, is not, to our mind, well established. The as-
cending fluid is not water with some saline matter in simple solu-
tion ; it is already mucilage long before it reaches the leaf.
What is the ascending sap of the sugar maple but mucilage, or a
fluid already partially elaborated ?

2. The analogy between the spongiole of a root and a bladder is
assumed also ; for in order that the analogy should hold good, the
mucilage in the spongiole should flow out while the water in the
earth flows in. This is far from being proved.

3. No provision is made in this theoretical circulation, for the
growth of the branches, or for the flow of sap before the expan-
sion of the leaves.

As our views in relation to the circulation of sap differ some-
what from those of our author, we propose in a very few words to
give an exposition of them. We must observe, however, that we
have never been satisfied with any explanation which we have
yet seen.

Water hokling in solution carbonic acid, together with the saline
matters which are common in soils, is received into the spongiole
and ascends through the newest parts in the greatest abundance.
It partakes of the nature of nutritious matter soon after it is re-
ceived into the tissue of the plant. It reaches the dormant bud in
which the rudimentary leaves and branch are folded. It furnishes
the nutriment whose elaboration now completed in the still imper-
fect parts by light, and the leaves are in consequence developed, or
in other words grow ; the basal leaves first, the others in succes-
sion, and as long as leaves remain whose foundations were laid
in the bud the branch elongates, and it seems or appears to elon-
gate solely by the development of the leaf at the termination of
the branches. In about three or four weeks after the sap begins to
rise the branches have attained their full growth ; all this is effect-
ed by the ascending sap. While the leaves and branches are thus
arriving to maturity the sap only flows feebly downward, but dur-
ing this process sap accumulates in the newer parts, especially be
tween the bark and wood last formed. Here it becomes pulpy and
soft and penetrable. The ascending sap in the mature leaf under-
goes those changes which have been so frequent ly described by wri-

78 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ters upon physiology, and then passes through the inosculating ves-
sels between the upper and under surface of the leaf and circulates
downwards, or the full flow downwards is now established and its
progress deposits the matter which is to form the next annual
layer, which is in fact nothing more than a fibre or root proceed-
ing from each leaf, penetrating through the already formed pulpy
matter of the ascending sap. It, however, descends, passes
into the root, where it deposits the matter which is to elongate
this part of the plant. The whole end of the circulation is this :
by the ascending fluid the buds become leaves and branches ; by
the descending aliment the roots extend outwards and downwards,
while both currents assist in the formation of the annual layers.

This exposition, however, leaves out of view the special force
by w^hich the currents were moved, and it is rather a statement of
what is effected by the ascending and descending fluids. The roots
may require the elaborated sap, that which has undergone a change
in daylight.

But there are many instances where the woody fibre is formed
by the descending sap — the pandamus, for example ; and then
there are still other cases where a tree has survived accident, and
has increased in diameter by the descending fluid. Thus, when
the entire bark, near the root, has been destroyed, we have seen
it survive the injury, the whole root, together with an inch or two
of the trunk being in a state of perfect dryness, like a piece of
seasoned wood, and yet the upper part w^as covered with leaves,
and several annual layers were already deposited down to the in-
jured part. It is evident, then, that plants possess the power of
accommodating themselves to circumstances, and their circulation
will go on though not a spongiole exists, or a root from which a
spongiole can spring.

A tree from which a ring of baik four or five inches long has
been removed, will frequently survive the injury, and its trunk,
both above and below the removed ring, wall increase in diame-
ter. Two pine trees opposite the cantonement at Plattsburgh, are
still standing and growing in this condition. The growth upon
the lower margin is upwards, and laps upon the dry portion of the
ringed part, so that should those trees continue to live and grow,
this part will entirely close up by a deposition from below, while
not a single layer is deposited upon the apparently dead part at

N E W P U B L I C A T I O N . 79

the upper margin ; but two inches above the upper margin the
diameter of the trunk has increased, since the injury, nearly twice
as much as that below ; the shape, too, of the upper margin is
different from the lower, the former being quite oblique, the latter
direct. There is no branch below the wound.

The third chapter of Prof. Draper, on the chemistry of plants,
treats of the circulation of the blood, or rather the mechanical
cause of the circulation. In this essay, contrary to the common
notions which prevail, the movement of the blood is not due to
the action of the heart, or at least it plays quite a subordinate
part. What, then, is the power which moves the blood ? Prof.
Draper maintains that this power is obtained from the affinity
which arterial blood has for carbon. Thus, p. 36, § 114, "The
oxygenizing action of the arterial blood is, therefore, the true
cause of the systemic circulation." The principle upon which
this power is based is, " that if two liquids communicate with one.
another in a capillary tube j or in a porous or ■parenchymatous struc-
ture^ and have for that tube or structure different chemical affini-
ties ^ movement will ensue; that liquid which has the most energetic
affinity will move with the greatest velocity, and may even drive
the other liquid entirely before it.'''' — p. 35.

Now for the facts and their application : the arterial blood go-
ing from the heart outwards into the parenchyma or cellular struc-
tures, contains an excess of oxygen, which it has just received in
the lungs ; this oxygen is ready to combine with or burn out any
carbon in those structures, hence it moves towards them. When,
however, this affinity is satisfied, or when the oxygen is neutralized
by carbon, and perhaps by hydrogen, it is prepared to leave these
structures. It is then, however, venous blood. Now, as the
movement in the arteries is sustained by the affinities of the ox-
idized blood, and as it moves towards them, the venous blood is
driven before the arterial. W^e will not, however, dwell upon
this subject, but refer our readers to the book itself, only we \vish
to make two inquiries : first, admitting the chemical affinity which
is supposed to exist between oxidized blood and the parenchyma-
tous structures, shall we not be obliged to admit also that this affi-
nity acts at sensible distances ? and second, how and by what force
is the circulation carried on in the lymphatics and lacteals ?

Passing over those chapters which are devoted to the considera-

80 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

tion of the physical constitution of the sunbeams and the pris-
matic spectrum, we shall detain the reader a moment only with
the contents of chapter sixth, in which it is satisfactorily and very
beautifully shown which of the rays in the sunbeam decompose
carbonic acid, and at the same time turn the vegetable organs to
green.

It is probably known to all of our readers, that light, as it comes
to us from the sun, contains several distinct principles, each prin-
ciple impressing the visual organs in its own specific manner, each
producing a sensation which we call light ; thus, one produces
red light, another yellow, and another violet light. These princi-
ples are separated from each other when light passes through a
triangular prism of glass, and each color, when the rays have
passed through the glass, occupy upon a plane upon which they
are received, a certain position, but shading gradually into each
other. In common language, the rays are called different kinds
of light

As it has been shown that light exerts a very important influ-
ence upon plants, an interesting inquiry arose, viz : by which of
the rays of light are vegetables most affected ? Is it the compound
white light, or is it one individual ray, which decomposes carbonic
acid, and gives the green color to them 7 To give a satisfactory
answer to these questions many experiments have been made with
the different kinds of rays. In some experiments, light was made
to pass through colored glass, or colored solutions — as the yellow,
red, orange, violet. By a series of experiments made by colored
glass, the fact has been discovered that the different kinds of light
act very differently upon plants ; thus, yellow light gives the green
to vegetables by decomposing carbonic acid, whereas plants ex-
posed to the action of the other rays, the same effects were Ic's';
and less in the proportion to their illuminating power.

As colored glass does not transmit a pure ray, or one unmixed
with the others, Professor Draper first employed the rays separated
by the triangular prism of glass, and exposed plants directly to
each kind of light, by a set of tubes. By this arrangement the
Ijo-ht was made to fall upon the plants growing in boxes, and ar-
rano-ed in such a way that a comparative estimate could easily be
made of the effects of each ray upon the same plant.

This plan of experimenting resulted in a very gratifying manner,

NEW PUBLICATION. 81

confirming the experiments which had been previously made in Eu-
rope. Under yellow light transmitted through a tube, so as to
exclude all extraneous light, decomposition of carbonic acid takes
place in the leaf.* When, however, a plant or leaf is exposed in
carbonated water to a violet ray, no such change ensues. Diges-
tion then in the leaf is promoted by the light of the solar beam,
and that kind of light which illuminates the most is also the most
energetic in promoting the growth of plants. For this reason in
part, vegetables growing in a clear bright sky, are greener and more
vigorous than those growing in a darker region or one fre-
quently overcast with clouds. The effect of light is seen by the
position which the growing branches always assume : in a green-
house, or in a pot standing in a window, they always direct them to
that quarter from which they receive the most light. The south
sides of trees in open fields grow the fastest upon that sde. The
rings of growth are thicker than upon the north side. Trees in a
forest produce their branches mostly at the summit. But light,
however, is not the sole agent in promoting a vigorous growth.
The presence of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, vapor, and tem-
perature, exert their share of influence. We do not, however,
subscribe to the doctrine that there ever was a period when a
greater amount of carbonic acid existed in the atmosphere, than at
the present. Admit this fact, and it would then be necessary to
admit another, viz., that the light of the sun was also greater, for,
by an increase of light only, could an additional quantity of car-
bonic acid be digested. For ourselves, we believe that the present
volume of the inorganic forces was established as early as the cre-
ation of organic beings.

The twelfth and last chapter of Professor Draper's work, is " O71
the nervous agent in plants^

It is well known that in order that a being should possess sen-
sibility, it must be provided with a nervous apparatus or system,
and furthermore, in order that it may hold relations to the exter-
nal world, this system is equally necessary. Plants have not been

• It is proper to add in regard to the effects of colored light, that [they do not
seem to be sustained by experiments reported in the Journal of the Franklin Institute,
where yellow light appeared to destroy, or at least injure, the vitality of seeds. In
the experiments referred to, the blue and green rays appeared to exert the least favor-
able influence on seeds, and the young plants which were produced from (hem. — Eds.

VOL. I. — NO. 1. L

82 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

provided with a nervous system. They are, therefore, insensible
to what we term pain ; neither can they hold those relations to
the external world which are held by sensible beings. But as
plants are thus deprived of a nervous system, is there any thing in
nature which supplies its place 1 Professor Draper answers this
question in the following paragraph, p. 102.

" If thus, in animal existence, we find the various nervous ma-
chines divided off, and the impressions of light, of sound, of taste,
committed to a separate apparatus, how is it with plants 1 The rays
of the sun are the true nervous principle of plants !"

We have not noticed this paragraph for the purpose of com-
ment, but have given it to our readers for their consideration.
It is, we confess, a beautiful idea. It is, however, too imaginative
to be admitted into a philosophical treatise. The resemblance and
analogies between plants and animals, are too distant ; the types
upon which they are constructed are too dissimilar to admit of the
comparison ; and in fact, we scarcely allow ourselves to compare
the organs of vegetables with those of animals. We might as well
call the solar beams the muscular system, as the nervous, inasmuch
as plants bend towards the light.

We have already expressed our views generally of the work of
Prof. D. It contains probably, all that is known of those forces
which modify the growth of plants ; or in other words, it contains
a full exposition of what is termed the chemistry of plants. The
subject is, however, followed out so much into details, that it takes
a very wide range, embracing therein considerations relative to
botany, physiology, geology, chemistry and natural philosophy.
The work is in quarto of 324 pp., well printed, and on good
paper.

FARMERS^ MISCELLANY.

DRAINING.

BT JESSE RIDER, SING-SING.

I THINK that the nearer we can bring theory and practice into
juxtaposition, so as to compare the deductions of reason with the
truths of experience, the more likely we shall be to come to cor-
rect conclusions in regard to both. I look upon a theory as worth
but little unless it is to aid in some practical operation ; and that
practice which is not enlightened by some general principles, which
which when arranged are the theory of the operation, must be
very poor indeed. Therefore it is that the theories of the learned,
and the practices of the unlearned, should go together in the same
work. It will tend to reduce theory to practice, and practice to
theory, and thus aid us in coming at the truth.

In accordance with the foregoing, I have determined to furnish
a little of the practical to mix up with your theoretical cogita-
tions, hoping that nobody will be the worse off for what I write,
in case any body should happen to read it. But before I proceed
to farming operations, I think it is best to put the farm in a state
fit for cultivation, by as thoroughly draining the parts requiring
it, as is possible, and in the most judicious manner. And first,

OF THE LAND THAT SHOULD BE DRAINED.

In my view, any upland that is too wet to admit red clover to
grow freely with other grasses, ought to he drained^ and lowland
should be brought to bear timothy and red-top as the dominant
grasses, by the same process.

In this section of country, I think that the upland generally
claims attention ; first, the smooth and handsome slopes and
ridges. When in grain, the parts requiring it are pretty clearly

84 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

indicated by the absence of a crop ; but they are never so readily
distinguished as when the land is in grass. The cold water that
issues to the surface and flows over the land, is not congenial to
the growth of the better kinds, of grasses, but favors that of the
coarser sort, which thrive, not so much because of the absence of
better kinds, as because the better kinds cannot grow there. The
coarse grass, then, indicates the parts to be drained.

In draining upland, it is desirable to bring the surface of the
parts requiring it as near as may be to the same degree of dryness
as the parts adjacent, in the same enclosure, because the land
thereafter is to be subject to the same treatment ; thus, if the bal-
ance of the enclosure is dry land, suitable for Indian corn, the
parts drained should also be brought to a state suitable for Indian
corn ; but if the surrounding land, though too wet for grain, be
dry enough to grow timothy and clover, it is best adapted to the
cultivation of grass, then the draining of the wetter parts should
be in reference to bringing them to the same state, and for the
same purpose.

A great deal of upland is light enough to bring the best of the
cultivated grasses in profusion, without an admixture of wild
grass, and yet too wet in most seasons for corn. Such land fre-
quently has its wet spots, which require draining to improve tlie
quality of the grass. Now the question is, is it all to be made
corn land, or grass land 1 I say, unhesitatingly, that it should all
be adapted to grass ; therefore, the wet spots should be drained in
reference to that purpose merely.

Some land is naturally adapted to grain, other land to grass.
It is more profitable to till the former and pursue a rotation of
crops, than to leave it all the time in grass. In fact, the grass
will so far run out of most grain land in a few years, as to impose
the necessity of ploughing it up to renew the grass, if for no other
purpose. But it is so clearly designed for tillage, that it is the most
profitable use that can be made of it. Not so with grass land, for
if that is to be made into grain land, it would require drains so
numerous to take away the moisture which would be a surplus
for a grain crop, as to make the outlay too great to be realized in
returning profits.

What I would call thorough draining for the production of

farmers' miscellany. 85

grass, would not, in most cases, be thorough enough for the culti-
vation of grain. I suppose that the lowlands of Scotland afford
the best instances of thorough draining heavy land for tillage, and
the plan there adopted is, as I have been told, to lay the drains in
parallel lines at a distance apart of about two rods, and have them
lead off into large open ditches, through which the water passes
away.

At two rods apart it will take about eighty rods of ditch to drain
an acre, which in this country will cost to dig and fill in a proper
manner, from fifty to eighty dollars, when perhaps one-quarter the
expense would fit it for the production of grass.

As to draining bog swamps, such as exist in this part of the
country, I will say but little, hoping the owners will take my ad-
vice with most of them, and let them renew their covering of
maple, ash, birch, and elm, of which they ought never to have
been more than temporarily deprived ; for true it is, that when
cleared it is the most incorrigible and hopeless of land — only
one degree removed from solid rock on the score of profit, and
oftentimes worse than nothing.

The draining they get is generally confined to setting the out-
let and cutting a main ditch through to take off the water, so that
cattle need not go by water to feed off the bogs. But as it is they
frequently mire and die in such places. And I have noticed that
those who think most of bog pasture continue to have the least
hay in the spring. They generally keep too much stock, which
makes a little bog grass in the spring a perfect god-send to them.
Their cows come home with dirty bags and sore teats, and there-
fore a good excuse for kicking. After all, bog grass is but little
earlier than clover on good dry soil, and if the time spent in
draining swamps was bestowed on the upland, it would be of
much more advantage to the owners in most cases.

The peat and muck of all bog swamps with which I am ac-
quainted, rests on a bed of blue clay, which compels the water
which falls upon them to escape laterally into drains, or by evapo-
ration. Such swamps generally lie so level, that although they
may be filled with open drains, the soil, from its spongy and re-
tentive nature, will be too wet in the spring of most years for a
crop to come forward with any chance for success. Indeed, I see

86 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

no way of reclaiming such land but to throw it into large ridges,
at great expense ; and then I think it would have to be dressed
largely with alkalies to dissolve the muck, to secure permanent
fertility. But if the time spent in ridging was employed in re-
moving the muck and peat to the upland, it would be much better
paid.

I do not think these remarks, in relation to the bog swamps east
of the Alleganies, apply with as much force, and perhaps with
very little force, to the swampy grounds west of the mountains ;
for I have observed, in travelling through the western states, that
most of the swamp lands or wet prairies are covered with grass,
some of which is of good quality, instead of the unsightly bogs
which cover acres soon after they are denuded of wood, and that
they are easily drained, and when drained make the best of corn
and grass land, in fact vieing with the bottom lands in the produc-
tion of corn.

The muck appears to be more open and porous, so that when
drained the superabundant rain which falls upon it soon settles away
so as to leave the surface soil dry enough for the roots of cultiva-
ted plants to thrive in. And I have been assured that in draining
for the cultivation of grass, the water should not be settled more
than eighteen inches below the surface, or it would be too dry for
timothy grass ; an instance of which I saw myself in Indiana,
where the owner had drained too thoroughly for grass, and in order
to restore it had been obliged to partially fill up the ditches.

I suppose the difference between the soils of the eastern and
western swamps cannot be known without a chemical analysis of
each ; and as Dr. Dana has already analysed the soils of ten differ-
ent swamps in Massachusetts, it only remains to procure the anal-
ysis of the soil of some western wet prairie to make the compari-
son, the result of which I would very much like to see.

A large portion of the land which requires draining lies between
the swamps and streams and the uplands immediately contiguous
to the former, and offers great advantages for draining by having
sufficient descent to carry off the water. Such border land appears
to need nothing more to bring it to a good state for the production
of grass, than to cut off the springs and leaches that are generally
confined to the borders of the upland ; and therefore, the first

farmers' miscellany. 87

drains should be made near the upland, and running, as near as
may be, parallel to the dividing line between the wet and dry land.
Experience proves that the drains may oftentimes be made a rod
or more below the first issuing of the water, which instead of con-
tinuing to flow to the surface above the drain will find its way into
it beneath the surface, and thus by digging further down the de-
scent we not only dry the parts above, but also cut off the springs
to a lower depth and perhaps save the necessity of digging another
drain below the first. But if the water from a lower depth slill
issues to the surface below the first drain, there is no remedy but
that of cutting another drain below the first one, and running as
near as may be parallel with the line of issues ; and this should be
repeated until all the water is intercepted before coming to the sur-
face ; and the various drains should be so planned as to concen-
trate as much as possible into other main drains which run direct as
may be advisable, to the place for discharging the water, so that
the fewer there are of them the less the expense in etTecting the
same result.

In draining ridges and upland, the land which is too wet and that
which is already dry enough, very often run into each other so im-
perceptibly as to make it a matter of opinion where the first drain
should be made. My way is to run so near to that which I am sure
is dry enough, as to make it all equally dry above the drain, having
reference to that breadth of land from which the water will draw
under into the drain, as before stated. The judgment must direct
how far below the next drain should be made, unless it be left for
time to determine it. A pretty sure way would be to strike a level
from the bottom of the first or upper drain, which would determine
at what distance the water could again come to the surface.

If the surplus water on the surface of land which has a descent
be more the result of the nature of the subsoil, than because of
springs and leaches discharging on it from the land above it, the
office of the drain is not to cut off the water from coming to the
surface, but to receive the surplus of that which falls upon it, and
which without a drain to receive it and carry it aM^ay beneath the
surface, will have to float off, and thus by accumulation increase the
€vil complained of. In such cases, where there are no perceptible
issues from the land which lies above it, but few drains are required
to furnish the subterranean outlets.

88 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

And it is very often the case that other land lying below is flood-
ed by this foreign water, which has enough to do of itself to dis-
pose of its share of that which falls from the clouds, but when it
is overcome by this foreign supply it is reduced to the same state
of the land from whence it flows ; therefore all that is required is to
gather it in from its sources by the requisite number of drains and
carry it through that which is naturally dry enough with a single
drain, and the work is accomplished much easier than might have
been anticipated.

It will readily be perceived that in thorough draining it often
requires great consideration and good judgment so to lay them out
and concentrate them into a main drain, as to secure the intendec'
result with the least length of drain.

In treating upon drains made upon ridge or upland, the presu'^^p-
tion is that they are all to be covered ; if so, I am opposed to oca-
ting any main drain in the lowest part of any hollow or low place
through which the surface water naturally runs, from the fact, that
before the raw surface gets a covering of grass to protect it, it may
be washed away by a flood, and the drain partially or wholly choked
up by the water finding its way in and carrying with it earth, gravel,
and small stones. The same thing might take place in case the
land was ploughed ; but I am opposed to ever ploughing land that
is blind drained, unless, as I have before observed, it lies in with
other land which is too dry for permanent Ye.^^O'^ ^^ pasture
ground, unless there is some overruling ner' g^-^^y for it ; for it is
just the kind of meadow land which is most profitable, and can be
made to produce a much heavier burthen than any newly seeded
land.

The soil of muck land that is draiued, is beforehand stiff, wet,
and heavy ; after draining, some five or ten years must elapse before
it is completely lightened and ameliorated, unless the operation is
forwarded by enriching it with manure.

Filling a drain being attended with considerable expense, ind
lifting one which has become choked up, being still more expen-
sive, I would advise that whenever they are dug through a mucky
or alluvial soil the banks be made sloping, and the earth scraped
back and spread over the surface of the ground, so as to mow or
pasture quite to the bottom of the ditch ; which, when neatly done,

# farmeks'miscellany. 89

will look very well, and be no great impediment to business ope-
rations on the farm. That makes the ditch a permanent affair, by-
preventing the banks from slipping in and filling it up. Whenever
it needs cleaning or deepening, the earth from the bottom will
afford an excellent top dressing for the grass ground in the vicinity.
In fact, I consider one of the advantages of draining consists in
bringing up the subsoil and mixing it with that of the surface.

OF DIGGING AND FILLING DRAINS.

After having fixed on the site for a drain and staked out one side
of it, begin at the lower end and stretch a line between the first
'•two stakes, then have the ditches with the spade cut through the
sod by the side of the line, then set over to the other side of the
i'!*ended drain and renew the operation there. The w^ork is then
rig-.tly begun, which is half the battle. The sod is now to be
thrown on one side of the ditch and the loose earth on the other,
because we want the sod after the stones are in, to place grass side
down upon them, to prevent the loose earth from getting in before
the covering of the ditch can sod over.

In regard to the size and shape of the drain, I prefer having
them three feet wide at the top, three feet deep, and not to exceed
fifteen inches wide on the bottom ; but that breadth of bottom does
not admit of trunking the drain, or in other w^ords, making a
bridge for the Wt*^er, neither do I want that it should for my
method of filling, \ bich is this : Get flat stones, or those that are
flat on one side at least, and set against the sides of the drain with
the thinnest ends or sides down, and the flattest sides against the
banks of the drain ; they should be from eighteen inches to two
feet high as they stand in., the ditch, and are kept firmly to their
places by a third stone between them, as round or dumped as w'e
can get it, and of a size to wedge in, and thus crowd the flat stones
against the banks of the ditch, but it must not go near the bottom
of the drain unless it has a thin edge down, which w'ould do no
harm. The water course is beneath the keystone. But of all
this I can give a better idea by the annexed cut or figure of the
drain, (being an end view,) and its filling.

VOL. 1. — NO. 1 . M

90

QUARTERLY J0UR:«AL

a.a. Side stones.

b. Keystone.

c. Water course.

d. Filling of stones.

6. Covering of soda.
/. Filling of earth.
g. Covering of earth.

After the keystones are in, I proceed to put in the largest of
those which are on hand ; but there is this to be observed, that the
flattest stones, and the larger their surface the better, so they be
not too high, are first selected and placed with their flattest sides
against the sides of the ditch to keep the banks to their places,
and then of the stones that are thrown in promiscuously care
should be taken to have them lie as level as may be, with their
flattest sides up to intercept earth in its passage down ; the nearer
we come to the top the smaller the stones should be, and break
joints with them as much as possible, and my practice is to break
some on the top of the filling with a hammer, to the end that
every crevice may be filled up. Then invert the sods upon them,
and last of all with a road scraper, scrape on the loose earth and
round it up over the drain.

In this section of country we sometimes have severe frosts with-
out a covering of snow on the earth to prevent its getting in
deep. Sometimes it freezes to the depth of two feet or more ; and
I see no reason why it should not work upon, and loosen the sur-

farmers' miscellany. 91

face of the banks ami cause them to run in and fill up the drain,
unless they are protected by stones as I have mentioned.

There are advantages in constructing and filling drains in the
manner here represented, which I will mention. There is much
less hard-pan to pick up and throw out ; there is scarcely a pos-
sibility of the banks working in through the action of frost, or
their being filled with earth, so long as the land remains in grass ;
they will be much easier taken up in case that operation ever has
to be performed ; it takes far less stone to fill them, and when
filled, if they should wash out at the bottom, the stones cannot
settle down and obstruct the water course, because their pressure
is lateral against the sides of the drain. I will venture to say
that this is the very best method of filling a drain where the ma
terials can be procured without too great expense. The materials
should be on hand before the ditch is dug, and when dug it should
be filled immediately.

Another way of filling drains of this shape is to set flat stones,
or those with thick ends and thin ones, on the bottom, with the
smallest and thinnest ends down, leaning against the side stones,
and against each other ; then put the largest you have next on
top which will leave the greater space for water to circulate among
those which are on the bottom ; a little practice will make all
familiar ; then finish filling as before directed.

DISEASE IN POTATOES.

BY M. SUTTER.

According to the last census, 108,298,060 bushels of potatoes
were raised in the United States. Unfortunately, within the last
two years, this crop — of importance inferior in this country to
none, except perhaps the wheat crop — has suffered severely from
disease. What the average diminution from this cause may be
through the nation, it is impossible to estimate from any data in
my possession. In some sections, however, it may safely be set
down at fifty per cent, and in others as high as, or higher, than seven-
ty-five per cent. Some individual cases may have occurred,where the

92 QUAHTERLYJOURNAL.

crop has been a total loss. The failure of such an article, which
has formed the chief dependence of the poorer classes for food, is
calculated to excite intense alarm, and the investigation of the
cause of the disease, and some remedy for it, becomes a subject of
the highest importance. It is not my intention to offer any thing
as to its nature or cause, for notwithstanding all that has been
written upon it, I regard it, as yet, utterly in the dark. The sur-
mises in regard to the disease, afford a striking example of the too
great tendency in our farmers to frame theories, without sufficient
ground. Instead of collecting facts, and making extensive obser-
vations, and then comparing them, the discovery of every new fact
and sometimes z. false, fact^ has given rise to an explanation which
has seemed entirely satisfactory to the mind of the individual who
has noticed it, but unfortunately to no one else. I do not say this
is true in all cases, for there are some which may approach to the
truth. But I must be pardoned if I bestow upon others all the
ridicule with the pen, which I have upon reading them. I shall,
in what follows, endeavor to state the individual conjectures about
the origin of this disease, and some reason for not giving full be-
lief to them.

1. Chemical defect — either in the soil or in the tuber, produces
a tendency to decay.

2. Unfavorable weather — occurring about the time the tuber was
forming.

3. An insect — injuring the root — directly, or by its ravages in
the stem.

4. Honey-dew — a substance about which nothing is known.

5. Improper care — in keeping the root through the winter.

6. Manuring in the hill.

7. Manuring the land.

8. Atmospheric causes.

9. Fungtis.

10. Degeneracy in varieties — from long cultivation.

11. Degeneracy in varieties — from propagating by seed.

This is a full list, so far as I have seen or heard of suppositions
upon the subject. I will now proceed to state them more fully.

1. Chemical defect. It is very natural for a chemist to suppose
this to be the case at first view ; but when it is remembered that
there is hardly any portion of world where the potatoe is culti-

farmers' miscellany. 93-

vated and the disease has not prevailed — that all soils have been
alike liable to it, and that portions of the crop may be found per-
fectly sound even in the same hill where others decay, it cannot
be decided that this is the cause. And if it does not result from
defect in the soil, it cannot be supposed to be so in the tubers. As
■will appear hereafter, plants growing side by side may be one bad
and the other sound.

2. Unfavorable weather. In the summer of 1843 a long and
severe drought occurred, followed by heavy rains and continued
hot weather. Just at this time the disease was first noticed in this
country. Of course the weather was universally set down as the
cause, and the trouble was not looked for again. But in 1844, a
season totally different from the former, it occurred to a greater
extent than before, and this could no longer be regarded as a suf-
ficient reason.

3. An insect^ or worm. I was inclined to pass over this as utterly
undeserving notice, farther than mere mention. But I have con-
cluded to insert some clippings from a few papers, showing up the
notion. The " Massachusetts Cataract" contains a communication
from Henry M. Paine, on the subject. He states that he has ex-
amined the diseased potatoes with a microscope magnifying nine
thousand times. He found an insect near the juncture of the
stalk and root, with " a body shaped like the soldier ant, and legs
like the hairy garden spider."

The editor of the "Newsletter," Westfield, Mass., says the
disease is not owing to an epidemic influence operating as a disease,
&c., but to an insect that has made it a nidus for the perpetuation
of its species." He says farther, that from some of the infected
potatoes " may be seen the insect in its pupa state, escaping ; in
others, you may, on boiling, find the rudiment of the insect in em-
bryo : and in others, no insect will be found, they having escaped
into the ground."

A writer in the " Washington Post," Salem, N. Y., says, after
describing the appearance of the disease, " The perforations in the
skin appear to be made by the different kinds of worms. The
most numerous are about half an inch in lenjTth, of a brown color,
body oval when full size. The other is a small brown worm, body
round, and the size of pin wire, an inch in length ; on the potatoes
are small white spots, resembling potatoe starch, which I at first

94 QUAKTERLYJOURNAL.

mistook for mould, but proved to be the castings of these destruc-
tive borers."

The following is from the " Massachusetts Spy:"

" In connection with all its stages, except its most advanced de-
cay, but more especially in its incipient attacks, are found maggots
or larv(Ej and other creatures which I shall call insects; and even
in the most decayed specimens, there are, apparently, traces of their
mischievous work. The larvae or worms average about a line in
length — are slender, with dark heads, semi-transparent bodies, and
are sluggish in their movements.

" The insects are, some, invisible to the naked eye, others, a
mere visible white point — and others still, nearly a line in length,
with numerous short legs, long antennae, of a white color, extremely
active and shy."

And this from the " Utica Daily Gazette :"

" They bear the appearance of having been eaten out by an in-
sect, and in many cases I discovered a small green colored maggot
in the cavity. On scraping off the outer bark from the vine I dis-
covered that the leaflet buds had the appearance of having been
eaten out, leaving the holes through which I conjectured the insect
had passed. Those vines attached to a sound and ripe potatoe
were solid and partially green. Is it not possible, and highly
probable, that all this evil may thus be caused by an insect ?"

These are a few, from the legion I have met with on this point.
But it is far more probable that the insects, worms, &c., are at-
tracted by the disease, than that they are the cause of it. When I
planted my potatoes last spring, as soon as the puces touched the
ground, I observed that they were covered with a little black in-
sect, which all hopped off suddenly w^hen disturbed. Perhaps
they deposited the egg to produce the disease.

4. Honey-dev). I have noticed a great deal of late in agricul-
tural papers about this substance, but without finding out what it
is, and now it is lugged in to account for the potatoe disease.
This substance has been seen on the vines, and perhaps it caused
the tubers to rot. Well — perhaps it did.

5. Improper care in keeping the tuber through the winter.
This is an imported opinion, and worth just about as much as
Yankee ones. It supposes that the tubers are stored in heaps and
thus become heated, producing weakness. But they have always

farmers' miscellany. 95

been stored in this way as long as I can recollect, and if this would
have injured them, it ought to have done so years ago. But I
aver, that if there is vitality enough in the eye of a potatoe to
sprout and to reach the surface of the ground, this cause cannot
operate. The new roots are sent out from the bottom of the new
shoot immediately after it starts, and then draw nourishment from
the ground. These shoots may be entirely separated from the old
potatoe and planted, and w^ill produce a good crop.

6. Manuring in the hill ; and 7. Manuring the land. These
amount to one and the same thing. It has beeri observed, in some
cases, that where manure has been freshly applied, the disease
has been worse than where none had been used. A writer in
the " Newburgh Telegraph," says :

" We planted a small patch of potatoes upon a very heavy soil,
turned over a few weeks before planting. From this we had
twelve bushels, about half of which turned out bad. In an old
garden, separated from this by a fence, where no manure was ap-
plied last year, and, as far as we can ascertain, for two or three
years, we gathered sixteen bushels, not one of which was bad.
The latter, however, it might be mentioned, were planted earliest."

And further, that a farmer in that county stated, that in the
same field, where it was manured, the crop was an entire loss,
while in a portion that had no manure, the crop was good, ^A
writer from Columbia county, in the same paper, states his expe-
rience as the same.

8. Atmospheric causes. The following from the Amherst Ex-
press, suggests this opinion.

" I strongly suspect that the strange disease, which for several
years has so deeply affected the sycamore, plane, or buttonwood
tree, {Plataiius occidentalism is analogous to that which has now
assailed the potatoe. I was struck with the resemblance, when cut
open, between a partially decayed branch of the sycamore, and a
potatoe in the same state. I do not believe that in either case the
disease results from parasitic plants or insects : two fruitful sources
of disease to plants. Why may it not be some atmospheric agen-
cy, too subtile for the cognizance of our senses, like those which
bring such epidemics as the influenza and the cholera over partic-
ular districts or continents 1 Modern science has shown us that
many of the most powerful agencies of nature are concealed from

96 QUART ERLYJOURNAL.

common and even acute observation. May there not be others
yet undiscovered, w^hich deeply affect the delicate machinery of
organic life ?"

9. Fungus. I cannot do better on this point than present the
curious and interesting communications of Mr. Teschemacher, of
Eoston, unless they occupy too much space. It is the only ex-
amination conducted scientifically which I have seen. They are
taken from the " New England Farmer."

, NUMBER ONE.

Mr. Breck — Mr. James Brown having kindly brought me
some of the potatoes infested with the disease which has this year
committed such ravages on this vegetable, I proceeded at once to
investigate the subject.

The peculiar smell, and the reputed poisonous qualities of this
diseased potatoe, made me nearly certain that it was a species of
fungus — a position which I think has been confirmed by my ex-
amination with the microscope.

The appearances which I examined were —

1st. A nearly black discoloration of the potatoe, just below the
skin, penetrating about one-sixteenth to one-quarter of an inch
into the substance, and apparently through the skin, in little black,
indented tumifications, like pustules. It is probable that in these
holes the vegetation of the fungus first begins, and spreads under-
neath.

2d. On the surface of the skin, where these pustules were
enlarged, there had been produced a greyish, slimy substance, of a
very offensive smell.

The black mass, divided in a drop of distilled water, exhibited
under the microscope a number of long and oval, very irregularly
shaped dark bodies, interspersed among the cells of the potatoe.
Many of these cells appeared lacerated, but this might partly have
been produced by the mechanical action of dividing, although I
think not altogether. The greyish slimy mass was semi-transpa-
parent and indistinct, even mixed with distilled water, and ex-
posed to the strongest light I could throw.

In order to discover a remedy for this disease, I decided on ap-
plying various substances to this fungus, with a view of effecting
its decomposition, and examining their action under a microscope.

farmers' m 1 s c k l I, a n y . 97

»
The first application was salt, and the action of this was so instan-
taneous and decided, that I did not proceed to any other.

A portion of the dark substance was placed on a piece of glass,
on the microscope-stand, in a drop of distilled water, and then
thoroughly examined. A little salt, on the fine point of a pen-
knife, was then added ; a nearly instantaneous change took place
— the dark-colored masses separated, much of them seemed to pass
away, and instead appeared numerous dark slate-colored bodies,
which I easily recognized as the spores, or reproducing bodies of
the fungus. With the grey, slimy substance, the effect was still
more striking : all the indistinct slime disappeared — the mass
became clear and transparent, and left nothing but these innumera-
ble dark globules floating about in the drop of water.

It seemed to me, that the salt destroyed all the vegetation of the
fungus, leaving nothing but the reproducing spores, which are in-
destructible by salt. The spores of fungi are the bodies by which
they are reproduced and spread, and are analogous to the seeds of
other vegetables, and these spores are generated in such enormous
quantities, that many fungi, like this on the potatoe, spread with
inconceivable rapidity ; but in order to vegetate, they require cer-
tain favorable conditions and circumstances, which yet require
much investigation. These favorable circumstances are, in my
opinion, prevented by salt, as it destroys the fungus vegetation.
Therefore, wherever the disease existed this year, I recommend a
liberal supply of salt to be spread on the soil, and trust it will
eradicate the evil. It is, at all events, a remedy which cannot do
much injury, if it does not succeed.

During the examination of the black substance, I of course
recognized the grains of starch, which appeared sound ; but wish-
ing to know whether the fungus had affected them, I added a lit-
tle iodine. The grains immediately took the usual purple color,
and I think were not at all injured ; indeed, it appears to me, that
the injury takes place by the rupture of the cellular parts of the
potatoe.

I am aware that it requires some practice to judge well of the
appearances under the microscope ; but I repeated these examina-
tions six or seven times, and always with the same results : still, I
s;hould be very glad to have them repeated by others, whether their
correctness be confirmed or not.

VOL. 1. NO. 1. N

98 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

My microscope being made by myself, is of course very inferior
to those now manufactured in London and Paris ; and it would be
very desirable that some of our scientific societies would import
one of these, the cost of which is too high for persons of moderate
incomes. It might be made accessible, under certain conditions, to
those desirous of undertaking such investigations as these ; for there
are many cases where the action of various substances on the causes
of animal and vegetable disease are examined to very great advan-
tage under the microscope, and effects seen which cannot be ob-
served in any other way.

Should any gentleman, possessed of one of these superior instru-
ments, be desirous of examining this disease, I would request of
him to look at the action of the sulphate of iron, sulphate of soda,
or of ammonia, or of any other substance which can be cheaply
applied to the soil as a preventive, and to give notice of his obser-
vations either in your or some other periodical, for I see with
delight anything that can bring nearer to each other science and
agriculture. Yours,

J. E. Teschemacher.

Boston, Oct. 1844.

NUMBER TWO.
To the Editor of the N. E. Farmer—

Not having seen any communication objecting to the views I
have taken of the cause of the disease in the potatoe, and which
subsequent examinations have only tended to confirm in my own
mind, I resumed the investigation of the subject. The results I
now offer to you for publication. I have first to notice the idea
that this disease arises from worms which are found in the decayed
potatoe — and remark,

1st. That the worms are the same which are found in all rotten
potatoes, from whatever cause the decay may arise.

2d. The potatoe decays previous to the worms appearing, for
the worms are never found in the sound part of the potatoe, eating
their way in or depositing their eggs, nor have I ever seen the
worms in that part of the potatoe in which the fungus has already
commenced vegetating : it is only in the most rotten part that the
worms exist, after the fungus has caused this decay.

farmers' miscellany. 99

3d. Salt instantly kills the worms, as any one may satisfy him-
self, with the assistance of the common compound microscope.

Under the full impression of the existence of the fungus in the
potatoe, two questions present themselves.

1st. Is the fungus the cause of the decay, or merely a growth
on the tuber already diseased from some other cause ? — and

2d. When and in what part of the plant the disease originates,
and how it is propagated and disseminated ?

The probability is that the fungus is the cause of the disease —
for the fungus appears on the skin of the potatoe, and can be tra-
ced by its gradually dark color penetrating from the outside by
degrees into the sound inside, the outside fungus developing itself
first, and producing slime and rottenness, while the inside yet re-
mains hrm and sound. If the fungus resulted from the potatoe
first becoming rotten, and thus forming favorable circumstances for
its vegetation, then the presumption is that we should occasionally,
although perhaps rarely, find parts of the potatoe rotten without
the fungus, which I, at least, have never yet seen. I have often
seen heaps of rotten potatoes, without ever before observing this
peculiar fungus, which, on account of its smell, cannot be mistaken.
If this was therefore a disease merely affecting the rotten potatoe
and not the sound one, it would have been long ago and much
more often observed. Dr. Wallroth, an excellent German botanist,
who appears to have closely studied the fungus family, observes in
the Linnea^ (a botanical periodical, published in Germany,) Vol.
XVI. for 1842, that he has ascertained the disease called there the
potatoe scab, or loar^ — a kind of swelling or tumor, ending in rot-
tenness— to be a species of subterranean fungus, which he calls
Erysihe subterranea, and of which he gives a long scientific de-
scription. I am not sufficiently versed in this subject, to decide
whether this description agrees exactly with the disease at present
under discussion, but it appears to me to differ in several partic-
ulars.

The second question, as to the origin and propagation of this
fungus, is one which presents great difficulties in its solution.
These arise partly from the knowledge of the propagation of the
fungus family being yet in its infancy, and partly from the want of
means of pursuing the study of this microscopic subject properly.
From the almost universal accounts of the tops of the plants hav-

100 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ing first died down, and thus indicated the disease, it has suggested
itself to me, even if this fungus is really a subterranean species,
whether it has not been propagated and disseminated by spores
floating in the atmosphere and attaching themselves to the stalk of
the potatoe, on that vegetating and extending themselves down-
wards until they reached the point of junction with the tuber,
there producing decay, and the death of the upper part of the
vegetable, and afterwards disseminating themselves through the
tuber.

A parallel to this probably exists in the mushroom^ a fungus
which is naturally produced from horse droppings, when by being
kept dry for a considerable time, they have arrived at a favorable
state for the development of the spores. These spores have pro-
bably attached themselves to the stems of hay which has been eaten
by the horse, have passed through its stomach and remained in an
inert state, until favorable circumstances have produced their de-
velopment in the droppings.

I regret that I had not commenced this investigation early enough
to have examined the stalk and Its junction with the tuber, wdth
the microscope, on the first appearance of its drooping, as all the
proof now to be expected from experiments, can only be of a nega-
tive character : however, here are such results as I have obtained :

1st. One of these much diseased potatoes was cut in halves ;
each half was placed on half a sound potatoe, in perfect contact,
placed under a bell glass in a damp, dark atmosphere, temperature
57° to 62°. In five days the sound potatoe was not in the slight-
est degree contaminated with the fungus or the worms.

2d. A whole diseased potatoe covered with black spots, was
placed under a glass, in the same circumstances as experiment No.
1, in contact with a whole sound potatoe. The fifth day the sound
potatoe remained uncontaminated and without worms.

3d. A whole and much diseased potatoe was buried two inches
below the soil, which was damp but not wet. A sound potatoe
was buried in the same soil, two and a half inches distant from it,
the temperature kept as before — 57° to 62°, In five days this latter
remained quite sound.

It is possible that five days is not long enough ; I have therefore
left them all in the satne state, and shall not touch them for three
or four weeks.

farmers' miscellany. 101

As I do not seek to establish any favorite theory, I trust my
remarks may incite to observation and provoke discussion, and pro-
vided the practical and useful truth on this subject be discovered,
I do not care much whether it be by myself or by others.

J. E. Teschemacher.

10. Degeneracy in varieties from long cultivation. Some
have thought that some varieties were less subject to the disease
than others. A writer in the " Democrat^'' Northampton, Mass.,
says : " We have a field of ' Mercers ' that have nearly all rotted,
while ' Carters ' adjoining appear r)iuch less injured.''"' But on the
other hand, the writer in the Amherst Express, already quoted,
says : " The ' Carter' potatoe is the most decayed.'''' Indeed, no
variety seems to have been exempt. If the disease is owing to
degeneracy of this kind, a very ready remedy suggests itself, viz :
to raise new varieties from seed. But new ones have suffered as
well as old.

11. Degeneracy in varieties^ from propagating hy seed. This has
just been suggested by a scientific friend at my elbow, and differs
from No. 10. Every one at all acquainted with the laws of breed-
ing animals knows that too close breeding, or breeding in and in^
has a tendency to produce effeminate, weakly kind. It is not only
so among animals, but the same is the fact in the human race.
This theory supposes that it holds also among plants, and that the
disease supervenes from the varieties having become degenerated —
from raising successive generations from one family by seed.
Another friend suggests its analogy to scrofula in man. The for-
mer of these, I confess, strikes me as the most probable theory I
have yet heard. But it is attended with difficulties like all the
rest. If this be the true cause, or either of them, I see no hope
for the potatoe, inasmuch as an unhealthy plant must extend a
disease resulting from such a cause to all that are raised from it
even by seed. We must then go back to the original stock from
the mountains of Chili and Peru. This I believe is the sum of the
prevailing theories ; and as we said before, they all leave us in
the dark yet, and we must expect to be there till some more sys-
tematic observations are made throughout the country by cultiva-
tors. The chemist cannot tell w^hat it is by analysis, any more
than he could detect the cause of the small pox by analysing the
body of a man that has died with it. Intelligent, observing far-

102 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

mers, who are not ready to frame a theory from one isolated fact,
are the persons to whom we must look to find out the cause. It
has been said that the disease was imported from Europe to this
country. If so, perhaps it was brought over for us to detect the
cause, and cure it and send it back.

The only remedy we have seen recommended as proving effect-
ual, is a small quantity of lime thrown into the hill.

Wampanuxet, Dec. 19, 1844. •

FARMER'S CLUBS.

During the long evenings of winter, the farmer may find much
time for mental improvement. We have often thought how much
time is wasted that might be used in profitable cultivation of the
mind. If every evening were employed in examining and learn-
ing one new idea only, it would amount in one year to three hun-
dred and sixty-five — and that is more new ideas than will often be
found in a whole book ; or in the active years of a man's life, from
five years old to fifty-five, he could number no less than 18,250
new ideas ; and this supposing he learns only one a day. But
when it is remembered that one thought is the father of a multi-
tude, and the more the mind knows the more its capacity is in-
creased, we may take it as settled, that in the ordinary days of a
man's life, an amount of knowledge beyond computation may be
acquired if only our leisure time is profitably occupied alone. But
by interchanging our ideas with each other, we are furnished with
another aid in acquiring knowledge.

There is probably no one way in which so much has been done
"for the improvement of farming, as by farmer's clubs. Wherever
they have been established in this country, they have given a new
life and interest to the business. But in Great Britain they are
laying the foundation of a total revolution in the condition of the
tillers of the soil. An idea is generally prevalent, that in that
island the large landlords are the persons who take the lead in
these meetings. To a degree this is true. Yet, if any one will read
the foreign Agricultural Journals, he will see that the tenantry are

farmers' miscellany. 103

also wide awake to the benefits derived from these social meetings,
and that in many of them they are the active members. And they
not only talk of mere practical matters, but unlike our farmers,
they are not startled at the technical words and terms, but grapple
with the hard names of chemistry, like men of science, so that it
is sometimes highly amusing to witness their familiarity with these
matters, though they never saw the inside of a laboratory in their
life. But they have learned by hearing others, and they talk un-
derstandingly. We know that farmers in this country, that boasts
of its general knowledge and education, are apt to richcule such
notions and complain that men who write for their benefit will not
find some other words for the names of things they write about, that
they can understand, as if oxygen or hydrogen would be any more
comprehensible with another name.

But if they will meet together and make themselves familiar
with these things, they will cease their complaints. In their
meetings they can talk over those matters in which they are all
interested, and we venture to say there is no neighborhood in
which some one will not be found who can explain all hard words.

We have among our own best friends, some farmers, who can
talk like a book, as the saying goes, and communicate facts of vast
importance and interest, and who, if they would form such
associations amongst their neighbors, would aid not a little in stir-
ring them up to improvement. Ideas which one man may think
of little consequence, because he has known them all his life, may
be entirely new and of great benefit to others. And there is no
man who has not something in his head that will be new to some-
body. The march of the world is forward now, and there is no
class of men who have suffered so much undeserved neglect as the
tillers of the soil. They need, as a mass, a strong lift to bring
them up. And we rejoice at every aid that is held out to them.\
Let them be induced to form clubs — meet together sociably, and
talk over what they have done and are doing, and what more can
be done by them — learn what peculiarities of tillage each one may
have, and if they are not able at first to talk very learnedly, we
venture to say that the sense of their ignorance thus brought home
to them, will stimulate them to seek for information where it can
be found. It will open the way for knowledge to creep in, and
they will be better prepared to become scientific men.

104 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The idea of book farming, seems to be lawfully repugnant to
some men j but book farming is only the filling up of the very
practices which every man has followed, who ever drove a plough
through the soil, or carted a load of manure upon it. That it does
reprobate, and most deservedly, the murderous practices which
have alriiost made deserts of some of the finest and most produc-
tive parts of our country, is most true. But it teaches also the
methods to be pursued in order to renovate the exhausted land
and make it once more a garden.

We have escaped from our subject — but let us go on a little
farther. What has been the cause of this ruinous system 1 We
believe in many cases it is the fear of expense. Many men will
not take the trouble to estimate the additional gain which would
accrue to them from restoring to their soil, a portion at least, of
what they have taken away. The prospect of a small gain, quite
hides the view of a great gain, preceded by a trifling outlay, and
so they content themselves, looking upon their farms growing
poorer every year, but we venture to say, no faster than they are.

Another class is really ignorant of what ought to be done. We
cannot easily forget the surprise of a farmer, who calls upon us
very often, when, in talking to him about the use of urine, as a
manure, a few" days since, we told him its value and how he might
save it by the use of charcoal ; and he burns charcoal on his own
farm. He opened his eyes upon a new fact, and went away
exclaiming : " I'll try it ! I'll try it !"

Now to return, for we do not wish to speak of that class of
farmers who are too lazy to till their land properly. In these
agricultural meetings, a thousand facts would be circulated ; what
one man reads will be told to those who do not and will not, and
in this way, before they know it, they will be as much book
farmers as any. We are all creatures of imitation, and one man
will do what he has seen his neighbor do with success. And
knowledge is catching, when there is any in circulation, even by
the most indifferent. Let our friends in the country try the expe-
riment, and see if it does not succeed.

farmers' miscellany. 105

PLOUGING.

Next to the free manuring of the soil, nothing is of more im-

jortance in agriculture than ploughing. Indeed, it maybe said to

cimk before manures, inasmuch as their application can be of little

crvice, unless the ground is prepared to receive them, by means

it' the plough. It is not our intention here to say anything of the

mechanical part of this process, but simply to set forth some of

the principles upon which its use depends.

It pulverizes the soil. Every one knows the benefits arising
from this process. A free access is given to the air, and the gases
which are always floating in it. The carbonic acid and ammonia
which we have often spoken of as the essential food of plants, cir-
culate through all the soil, and are equally distributed to the roots
of plants. These, unobstructed, can also extend themselves farther
in all directions, and find an abundant supply of nutriment.

The access of the air also assists in the decay of any vegetable
or animal matter which the soil may contain. This, whilst the air
is excluded, lies inactive, or is converted into substances which are
injurious. But by the action of the oxygen of the air, a thorough
decomposition takes place, and the elements of the plants are re-
stored to the soil to become the food of a new race. Besides this,
there are certain compounds of the metals with oxygen ; which in
one form, are active poisons to all vegetable life. This is where
they are united with only one portion of the oxygen, but when
they are combined with more, the effect is different. Now, when
the admission of air is not free, the decaying substances in the soil
take away the oxygen from these higher forms of combination and
leave one which is injurious. Some of the salts of the metals are
produced in the same way, which destroy vegetation.

The action of the air upon the inorganic parts of the soil, is not
less worthy of notice. All soils contain portions of rocks, in an
undecomposed state, which consist of elements of great fertility.
By ploughing, these are turned up to the air and thus exposed to
decay more or less rapidly ; restoring the very elements which may
have been exhausted by previous cropping.

The germination of seeds is aided by pulverizing the soil. For

VOL. I. — NO. 1. O

106 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

this process to take place, the presence of oxygen is necessary.
Now, seeds buried deep in the ground, or even at a slight depth, and
surrounded by compact earth, cannot grow. This is always found
to be the case in ploughing land that has been laid down to grass.
New kinds of plants will start up in abundance, and seeds, no
doubt, may lie buried in the soil for many years in an inactive state,
merely for the want of air.

There are numerous other benefits arising from ploughing. It
drains the surface of superfluous water, and on the other hand
counteracts the effects of drought, by assisting the moisture to as-
cend from below. If done in the fall, it kills the larv8e of insects,
which have been laid in the ground to winter, and also buries the
seeds of many weeds too deep to germinate.

But ploughing as done in this country, is only turning over the
surface. Deep ploughing is rarely practised. And we have often
heard men mistake it for suhsoiling. But the latter process consists
only in stirring up the subsoil with a plough constructed for the
purpose, without bringing any of it to the surface ; whereas in
deep ploughing the lower portions of the soil are all brought to the
surface, or mixed with the surface soil. There are benefits result-
ing from this when practised right.

It is a fact, perfectly plain to any one, that the rain falling upon
the soil and passing through it, must, gradually at least, dissolve
all the soluble substances it meets with, and carry them down to a
greater or less depth into the earth. And not these only, but those
substances which are not already soluble, but which are in a finely
divided state, will be washed down in the same manner. We may
suppose that, in this way alone, a surface soil, when nothing is
applied, may from year to year be drained of its most valuable
parts, and at the same time an accumulation of them take place at
a depth below what the plough ordinarily reaches. Under these
circumstances, the under soil will contain the elements of great
fertility, whilst the surface soil may be very unproductive. It
will readily occur to any one, that in such a case the proper course
will be to plough deep — to turn up this under soil and make it the
top soil. This is undoubtedly true. The fact is, that the plough
is very rarely carried to any considerable depth — from four to six
inches being probably as deep as almost any farmer ploughs.
Hence the soil below this will be constantly becoming richer,

farmers' miscellany. 107

'.vhilst the surface becomes poor. Now, if the plough were to be
'.arried from six to twelve inches deep, this fertile portion would
])(? brought to the top and furnish a new soil.

That this is correct in principle, there can be no doubt. Yet
I aution is necessary in putting it into practice. Those substances
v.hich are valuable as food for plants are not the only ones which
sink down through the soil. Many will be found which are actu-
ally injurious, and which, if brought to the surface, would destroy

1 hope of a crop. The solid state of the under soil prevents
.Iso the free access of the atmosphere, and therefore this soil wil'
not have undergone that thorough decomposition which is neces-
sary to fit it to be productive. Deep ploughing should therefore
be done either

I. Gradually. Year after year the plough maybe driven deep-
er, bringing up and mixing with the surface soil the lower portions,
which will thus, without material injury, be gradually incorpora-
ted and form a deep soil. This will probably be found the best
course, as there is little risk in it of doing injury to the present
soil by mixing too large a quantity of noxious substances with it.
Or,

II. There are many soils where, if deep ploughing is practised
in the fall and the lower portions exposed to the winter's freezing,
they will be so broken up and changed, as to be ready for a crop
in the following spring. In this case, the land should again be
ploughed crosswise in the spring, so that the old and new soils
may be thoroughly mixed together. By this means also, the de-
struction of many injurious insects whose larvae have buried them-
selves beneath the reach of ordinary ploughing, is insured. The
more thorough the draining of the soil, and the chance given to
the roots of plants to extend themselves deeper, are important ad-
vantages connected with this process. Farmers generally do not
seem to appreciate the fact, that plants are highly organized beings?
deriving their food by their roots, from the soil, and, of course,
growing perfect in proportion as they have a better opportunity to
supply themselves by reaching out their fibres in all directions.

Where the lower portions of the soil contain such substances
as are injurious, and which cannot be mixed directly with the up-
per, thorough draining should be practised ; and this, together
with the use of the subsoil plough, will, after a sufficient time,
prepare the way for deep ploughing.

108 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

GARDENING— LIQUID MANURES.

The paramount importance of giving to growing plants an abun-
dant supply of manure, cannot be too deeply impressed upon the
mind. Many persons use it as if they feared its effects and were
going into a very careful experiment to ascertain whether or no it
may not do hurt ; whereas it is a fact that every one ought to
know, that a plant cannot reach any thing like perfection without
it. We have heretofore given a full list of the kinds of manures
most commonly used in this country, and the modes of preparing
and applying them. V/e wish now to call the attention of those
engaged in horticultural operations to the use of liquid manures.

The constitution of plants is such that they can receive no food
except that w^hich is dissolved in water. In itself, water is pro-
bably of very little use to them. They could easily obtain the
elements which compose it, and which it affords to them, from nu-
merous other sources ; but as a solvent to prepare nourishment for
them, it performs a very important office. The extremities of the
roots consist of a loose, spongy structure, covered with a thin sort
of membrane, pierced with numberless small holes which are the
terminations of the sap vessels. These are essentially the mouths
of plants, and through these they imbibe all their food. Of course
they can only take up that which is immediately in contact with
them, and when this is exhausted, they extend their fibres in quest
of more.

Again — the slow decomposition which takes place underneath
the surface of the ground, by which manures are rendered soluble,
furnishes a very small portion of food at a time to plants. The
supply is constant, it is true, from this source, but it is scattered
through the soil, and the roots must either extend themselves to
find it, or depend upon the circulation of moisture in the ground
to bring it to their mouths. The former is a slow process, and
the latter often a very precarious one ; so that, in dry seasons, the
products of the garden may be very much shortened, or even cut
off, for want of wat^r.

We believe that liquid manures might be very extensively and
economically used, in the large way in agriculture. But we in-
tend these remarks to apply particularly to gardening, where the

farmers' miscellany. 109

sphere of operations is not so large as to make the process look
formidable. The benefits arising from this mode of application
may readily be inferred from what has been said. The manure is
applied in a form ready to be immediately taken up by the plant —
it may without trouble, be made of any strength — and it is applied
directly to the roots. A correspondent of the London Gardener's
Magazine, speaking of the cultivation of the ground at Ghent,
says : — " Liquid manures may justly be considered the summum
bonum, as, if applied when the corn is sprouting, or just before a
rain, it has an effect which no other manure can have. It destroys
insects and throws a surprising degree of vigor into the crops."
The Chinese, who are said to excel all other nations in the know-
ledge of gardening, make a very extensive use of this practice,
thus manuring the plants rather than the soil, and by this economy
are enabled to produce large crops with their limited quantity of
manures.

When writing at large on the subject of manures, we noticed a
kind of liquid manure recommended by Dr. Dana, of Lowell,
amounting to this — to one hundred pounds of peat, add one pound
of potash and fifty gallons of water, in any convenient vessel, and
stir the mixture occasionally for a few days, when the liquid may
be drawn off and applied to the roots of plants. The vessel may
be repeatedly filled and used again.

Any of the kinds of manure commonly used may be stirred up
in water, and after having stood for a sufficient time to extract the
soluble matters, applied in the same manner. Urine, made very
weak with water, would be a very useful application to vegetables
two or three times in the season. •

ADAPTATIONS OF NATURE.

The insect tribes, and the vegetable kingdom, jnarch on harmo-
niously together under the genial influence of the sun, which
warms both into life at those periods to which both are adapted ;
if one is retarded by the absence of the necessary temperature, the
other is also immature and undeveloped, and thus waits for the
favorable condition in which it may securely and with certainty
fulfil the law of its beinsr.

110 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

GERMINATION OF SEEDS.

Three circumstances are necessary in order to fit a seed to ger-
minate, viz : heat, moisture and air. If either of these are want-
ing, the process of vegetation will not go on. No seed will ger-
minate at a temperature below the freezing point of water, and as
a general thing not less than ten degrees above that point. About
forty degrees of Farenheit's thermometer is the lowest, and above
that to eighty degrees — the temperature varying according to the
character of the seed, whether it be of a plant belonging naturally
in the hot, warm, or cold regions of the earth. Some seeds will
bear a greater degree of cold than others, without losing their
now^er of germinating. The severest cold of our winters leaves
them uninjured, whilst others perish.

Moisture is also necessary. Not a great quantity of w^et, but
so much as the earth will naturally hold. Too much w^ater is
injuriovis ; the effect of it may be seen, if any one w^ill put a pint
of peas in a bowl and fill it to the top of the peas with w'ater ;
after they have been left two or three days, those on the top w^ill
be found to have sprouted, w^hilst the low^er ones are only swelled,
and in a few days these latter will be found to have rotted without
having begun to grow. With many seeds the process of germi-
nation is materially hastened by soaking in water or the solution
of some salt. Boiling water may in some cases be used, and there
are seeds which will not lose their powder of growing even by
being iToiled for one or two minutes. A better plan than to im-
merse them in water, when the quantity is not large, is to wrap
them in a w^et cloth and place it in a damp and dark place till
germination commences. Soaking in soot water, tar water, and
in solutions of salts, has been supposed to prevent rust and other
diseases to which grain is subject, and also to prevent the depre-
dations of insects. This, we apprehend, is not the case. The
only benefit we can recognise as arising from it is a rapid growth,
produced by the stimulating and nourishing properties of the sub-
stances used, which enables the plant to reach a size too great to
be injured before the insects are produced. We know of no w^ell

farmers' miscellany. Ill

authenticated experiments which show its effects in preventing rust
or otlier diseases. If such is the case, it arises probably from the
same cause — the rapid and healthy growth of the plant.

Seeds will not germinate if air is excluded. The oxygen is ab-
solutely necessary to produce those chemical changes which take
place in a growing plant. Hence seeds which are buried deep in
the earth may remain for years in a sound state and yet not grow,
because they are out of the reach of the air. Facts of this kind
are familiar to every one. When a well or pit is dug, plants of-
ten spring up of kinds which have not been seen in the same re-
gion before. They have retained their power of germinating for
years, and as soon as they are brought under the proper influences
this process takes place. This shows that seeds should not be
planted too deep, and indeed experiment has fully shown that
seeds planted not over one-half inch below the surface will grow
quickest.

Light has also an effect to retard germination. One change
which takes place during the process, is the formation of carbonic
acid, by the carbon of the seed uniting with the oxygen of the
air. Now the well known effect of light is to cause plants to re-
tain the carbon and set the oxygen free, and the effect is probably
the same upon seeds. While exposed to the light, there is the
struggle between the opposing principles, and germination is slow
to begin. But in darkness the carbon is separated, and that ac-
tion which is called life commences.

Amongst other uses to which charcoal may be put in horticul-
tural operations, may be mentioned, that it hastens the germina-
tion of seeds. If they are sown in pure charcoal, or in earth
which is largely mixed with that substance pulverized, they will
be found to sprout and send up their first leaves several days in
advance of those sown in earth only. At least this is our own
experience, and it is our opinion that seeds which have been kept
so long as to lose their power of growing, under ordinary circum-
stances, may be revived by the use of this substance. Whether
seeds may be said to be alive, is to us a question. We know of
no form of life in organized beings unattended with specific action.
We are inclined to think that life is developed in them by the cir-
cumstances mentioned above.

112 QQARTERLY JOURNAL

CHARCOAL— ITS PROPERTIES AND USES.

This substance has excited great attention of late in some por-
tions of the country, although no accurate experiments have yet
been made to test its value as a manure. In theory, it is certain
that it possesses properties which are calculated to render it a very
valuable substance in agriculture. And this arises from a power
not peculiar to charcoal. All porous bodies have the property of
absorbing the different gases in greater or less quantities. Charr
coal, after it has been heated to redness^ and cooled without being
exposed to the air, will absorb ninety times its own volume of ammo-
niacal gas, and considerable quantities of others. If heated and
cooled under water, and then placed in a confined portion of at-
mospheric air, it will absorb all the oxygen and leave pure nitro-
gen. Now, upon this property of absorbing gases depends its
use as a manure. In itself, it has no valuable properties. It is
one of the most indestructible of substances. Exposed to heat of
the greatest intensity, if air is excluded, it suffers no change. Mois-
ture has no effect upon it, and there is no chemical agent which
will act upon it. It has been said by some writer, that, after be-
ing in the ground for several years, it becomes converted into a
sort of coaly earth. But, on the other hand, it is a well known
fact that fence posts are often charred at the bottom, in order to
preserve them from rotting, and it succeeds for a great number of
years. In this case, no such change can have taken place. It
is, at any rate, very doubtful if it is ever converted into earth, or,
of itself, furnishes any food for plants. But it does absorb gases,
and by the powerful condensing force which all porous bodies pos-
sess, they are made ^olid in the pores of charcoal. One cubic
inch of charcoal will condense ninety cubic inches of ammonia, or
thirty-five of carbonic acid. And, holding it with all this force,
how are they to give it off to plants '? One class of theorists will say,
that the vital power of the plant can separate it. But it is locked up
in the pores of the charcoal, where not even the most minute fibre
of the roots can penetrate. Others say, it is by the power of fix-
ing gases that it does good, but they do not account for the giving
them out. What then is it 1 Let us look a moment at another
fact.

l- A K M E R S ' MISCELLANY. 113

Water absorbs, at tlie common temperature aiitl pressure, Irgni
seven hundred to eisht hundred times its volume of ammoniacal
oas, and when boiled will not part with the whole of it. Now
notice the difference : charcoal absorbs ninety, and water eight
hundred times their volume. The superior force of the water is
^een at a glance. And what must be the result ? Why, simply
this : If charcoal is put upon land as a manure, however much
«xas it may have in its pores, the first shower of rain will separate
it and carry it with it into the earth, ready for the use of the plants,
in the mean time, the water takes the place of the gas in the pores.
As soon as they become dry, and perhaps before, the process of
absorption commences again, and again it is washed out.

This view of the case M^ould indicate the use of charcoal as a
top dressing to crops. And this we believe to be the correct plan.
Buried in the soil, it adds to its looseness, but is not exposed to
alternate dry and wet, as when on or near the surface.

But its action in compost heaps, or as an absorbent of the urine
of man and animals, depends upon another principle. The gene-
ral opinion seems to be, that its use is to absorb the gases, ammo-
nia, &c., which are given off during decomposition of animal and
vegetable substances. That this is not the case will readily appear,
if any one will reflect a moment upon its w^ell known action on
animal matter. If meat which has begun to putrefy be packed
down in charcoal, it is not only deprived of all bad smell, t)ut the
process of putrefaction is immediately stopped. No more gases
are formed, and of course none can be absorbed. Its effect in this
case is to stop the process of decay. In the same manner, any
animal or vegetable substance, if exposed to the action of char-
coal may be preserved for any length of time unchanged. What
the power is by which this is done we do not pretend to say.

It is not, then, by absorbing gases that it is so useful in these
cases, but simply through this power of preventing decay and pre-
serving these matters in their unchanged state. Thus, when used
in the compost heap, or when saturated with urine, all the sub-
stances it comes in contact with are brought under its influence,
and when applied to the soil are gradually separated from it by
the rains which fall upon them, and there undergo the decay which
fits them to become food for plants.

Charcoal has the property also of preserving vegetable as well

VOL. I. NO. 1. P

114 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

a? animal substances from decay. And it is probably on this ac-
count that it has been found useful in propagating plants from
their cuttings. Many remarkable experiments have been made
with it, and with great success. Even leaves have taken root in
finely powdered charcoal, kept constantly wet.

INORGANIC ^(PARTS OF PLANTS.— STRAW AS A MANURE.

Besides the four substances which we have often mentioned —
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon — as forming what are
called the organic elements of plants, a number of others are al-
ways found in them, which they derive from the earth; and these
have been called inorganic. They are all of mineral origin, being
produced by the decay of rocks, of which they form a component
part. We have said, they were always found in plants, and this
is strictly true — they being as absolutely necessary for the produc-
tion of a perfect plant as those first mentioned. But the quan-
tity is not at all times the same, nor the same in all parts of the
plant. Thus, during one period of its growth, one substance, as
potash, may be found to abound ; whilst, at another period, the
relative proportion of this particular substance will be found to
have "fery much diminished. And the whole proportion of inor-
ganic matter may be very different at one period from another.
Thus it was found that " plants of the same wheat, which a month
before flowering, left 7 . 9 per cent of ash, left when in flower,
only 5.4, and when ripe 3.3 per cent" — (Johnston) — showing
a remarkable diminution in the quantity of ash, or rather, perhaps,
increase in organic matter.

Different parts of the same plant exhibit, also, a very material
difference in the same respect, and presenting a very strong prac-
tical bearing to the farmer. We shall refer to this below. The
fact is shown by the analysis of the straw and grain of different
plants. According to Springel, whose analyses are thought to be
very correct, when 1000, lbs. of wheat straw are burned in the
open air, 35.18 lbs. of ash are left. When the grain itself is
burned, 11.77 lbs. are left. We give some of the most remarka-
ble differences between the quantities of inorganic substances, of
which this ash consists, in the following table :

farmers' miscellany. 115

Grain. Straw.

Potash, 2.25 lbs 0.20 lbs.

Soda, 2.40 " 0.29 "

Lime, ...0.96 " 2.40"

Silica, 4.00 " 28.70 "

Phosphoric acid, ... 0 .40 " 1 .70 "

Here can be seen at a glance, the greater quantity of potash and
soda in the grain, whilst the straw abounds in lime, silica and
phosphoric acid. The silica, as might be expected, is vastly more
abundant in the straw than in the grain, being, in fact, the back bone
of the plant, by which it is enabled to bear its burden of grain
erect. And experiment has demonstrated that upon whatever soil
the plant is grown, if it attains a healthy growth and ripens its
seed well, the quantity and quality of the ash is nearly the same.

As we said before, this has a very important practical bearing.
It show^s the process by which soils become impoverished, and also
serves to point out the method by which they may be continued
fertile or improved and restored when exhausted. And we have
been led to these remarks by having often heard it said, and lately
by a highly intelligent farmer, that if the straw was every year
restored to the ground from which it was taken, the soil would
produce good crops of wheat forever. An examination of the
above table speaks a different language from this. The straw and
ibe grain: deprive the soil of very different substances. By resto-
ring the straw, the lime, silica and phosphoric acid would be mostly
returned, but the potash and soda would be taken away. Thus
gradually these would be diminished, and although from year to
year little difference might be noticed, yet after a number of years,
if the extremes are compared, w^e do not doubt that a vast change
would be discovered. The practice of returning the straw to the
land is a good one, but at the same time it will be perceived that
other manures, and those containing the substances taken off in the
grain, are necessary to keep the soil in a really productive state.
And well conducted experiments will determine exactly what those
manures should be ; and this is one great aim of agricultural sci-
ence.

We would recommend, in this connection, to all who are en-
gaged in agricultural pursuits, to study the 2d No. of Johnston's
Agricultural Chemistry. The whole work is one which should be

/

116 QUARTERLY.! OURNAL.

in the hands, and its contents in the head, of every farmer. There
is not its equal to be found ; and, if carefully studied from the be-
ginning, there is no reason why the whole should not be under-
stood. The author has conferred a lasting blessing upon his race.

INJECTION OF WARM WATER INTO THE UTERUS OF THE COW AS A
MEANS OF EXPEDITING DELIVERY.

This method of promoting delivery in lingering cases was by
Dr, Dick, an eminent veterinary surgeon of Edinburgh. Having
been consulted by a person in the neighborhood, w^hose cow was
in great distress with a prospect of an unfavorable issue in her ac-
couchment, six or eight quarts of warm water were injected into
the uterus after elevating the animal's hind quarters by a bundle of
straw. Within five minutes the calf was safely expelled by the
natural efforts. The instrument employed was a common syringe,
fitted wnth a large flexible pipe of gum elastic. The liquor
amnii had escaped at an early stage, and the animal had become
nearly exhausted. After the water was injected the calf floated
in the uterus freely. It is unquestionably an important method,
and one which m&y be resorted to again under similar circum-
stances, and should be remembered by the person who may have
a valuable animal suffering and in danger of losing her life.

NECESSITY OF AIR, MOISTURE AND WARMTH.

For the successful culture of all crops it is necessary that the
roots should be supplied with air, moisture and warmth. The
condition necessary to supply air and warmth are the same. Firsts
looseness of soil. Second, a proper depth beneath the surface.
Whatever may be said of the carbonic acid in the atmosphere, as
the food of plants, farmers certainly wall not infer from it that it
is no matter how the roots are served. As no seed will germinate
without air, so plants \\U\ not thrive if their roots are deprived of
it. Too much moisture in the soil prevents the access of air as
perfectly as a dense or compact soil from any other cause. Hence
the necessity of providing passages and ways by which water may

farmers' miscellany. 117

pass off. This is as necessary as guano, or any other nitrogenized
substance. A wet soil is cold from the evaporation constantly
going on at the surface. The moisture which passes into the at-
mosphere is immediately replaced from the water below rising by
capillary attraction to suppfy its place, and constant circulation is
thus preserved from below upwards ; even an upward current of
moisture goes on in the coldest weather in the winter. Let a pit
with water be covered with boards, and the under surface of these
boards will be covered with frost during the most severe weather
of winter. How much more rapid is the escape of water in warm
summer weather than the winter ? As the evaporation in one case
exceeds the other, so in the same proportion with the temperature.

MEANS FOR IMPROVEMENT.

Could our farmers be induced once a year to visit their brother
farmers in their vicinity, it would promote very materially their
interests. There are many farmers who sincerely believe that they
know quite as much as their neighbors ; this, to be sure, may be
true, but after all, it is very likely that they are not so well ac-
quainted with some kinds of rural economy as others. Then,
again, intercourse with their distant neighbors, for the special pur-
pose of being benefited, will serve more than one purpose — it will
benefit both parties, the visiting and the visited. Emulation, which
is often the spring of business, will be excited. We do not care
who the individual is, or what business he is in, without emulation,
without ambition to excel, very little, comparatively, will be done.
Farmers, then, visit your neighbors to see how they manage their
farms and their stock, and when you have done this, go home and
improve upon their modes of management. Beat them, if you
can.

OVER RIPENED SEED.

There are many instances where seed for culture, or sowing, is
cut before it can be said to be.fully ripened. Wheat cut while it is
in the milk — maize, too, which from an early frost has not certainly
ripened — will grow if cut up immediately and properly dried. In
some instances, too, it has been found that unripe potatoes are bet-
ter for seed, produce a better crop, and more certain, than those
which were not raised or dug till they were perfectly ripe. Thus

118 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

in the Agricultural Report for 1843, in the Journal of Agricul-
ture, and the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural So-
ciety of Scotland, p. 99, it is stated that the under ripened seed
of the potatoe crop raised in the bad season of 1841, produced
crop without failure in 1842, in the aHeged unfavorable season, in
consequence of heat and drought, while the over ripened seed
raised in the fair season of 1842, has caused an extensive failure
in 1843, in a favorable season. These are very important facts,
and as the report very properly inquires, should not unripe seed
be planted in all cases 1

THE RELATION OF CLAY TO SANDY SOILS,

There seems to be one remarkable association of soils ; thus,
wherever a sandy tract exists it is rarely disconnected with clay j
clay, as such, in this state, underlies every tract of sand which
we have seen. It is not always accessible, but in many -instances
it is so, and it requires only a slight examination to find it. It
will frequently be found cropping out beneath the sand in ravines,
and on the borders of streams. The Hudson river sands always
rest upon clay, and that is the order in which the two deposits
are situated with regard to each other, sand above and clay beneath.
When clay is the surface material, it is because the superincum-
bent sand has been removed by diluvial action. From these facts
it will be seen, that the both kinds of soils may be frequently
ameliorated by mixture, and even is more practicable than most
farmers are aware. The position too of these soils is important,
on account of the certainty of procuring water ; the clay beneath
is impervious, in consequence of which it will throw up water
when the sand is penetrated.

THEORIES,

Those formulas of belief termed theories, which, although they
may have been but distant approximations to the true, yet are far
more satisfactory than to remain in the mere possession of facts
unconnected by expressions signifying the existence of relations.
Hence we find in the spirit of philosophy that spirit which attempts

TARMERS' MISCELLANY. 119

to reduce all facts to order and to express all rslations in their sim-
plest forms. All this is eminently observable in the higher intel-
lects, as Newton's, Des Cartes, Hippocrates, Boerhave, Cullen,
Linnaeus and Cuvier. But philosophy is not limited to a few great
and overshadowing intellects, it exists in' the human mind. We
observe it in that spirit which attempts to systematize all knowledge
and all facts. We observe this not only in the astronomer when he
attempts to express in general formulas the sum of present knowl-
edge, or to set down the general results of his observations, but
also in the mechanic and laborer, where he simplifies his processes
and brings under one operation what before required many. If then
we find this spirit in man, what high hopes may we not entertain
of his advancement, and where shall we liniit his attainments or
set bounds to his achievements.

EXPERIMENT.

FisHKiLL Landing, Nov. 25, 1844.

My Dear Sir — I tried an experiment on my farm, which, so
far as results are concerned, proved highly satisfactory ; but the
philosophy of the experiment, the true cause of those results is
yet to me very questionable. Pray expound : for in agriculture as
well as other matters in life, there are more things in heaven and
earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

The lot experimented upon contains thirteen acres of a gravelly
loam, which prior to my possession of it, had been exhausted by
^^ taking every thing off' and jmtting nothing on^'' and was foul in
the extreme with weeds and stones.

The first year I raised corn and potatoes, manuring in the hill,
and obtained of course but a small crop. In the fall I ploughed
it again and picked off the stones. The next year I sowed oats,
three bushels and three pecks timothy, and one peck clover per
acre, lightly top dressed, harrowed three times, and rolled the
whole in carefully. The oats yielded thirty-five bushels per acre.
In the month of September I thoroughly mixed one ton of plaster
and one ton of leached ashes, and sowed it in the thirteen acres as
evenly as possible. When winter came on there was a thick coat-
ing of vegetable matter on the ground of over three inches in
thickness, (the grass had not been pastured or cut) and towards the

120 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

close of the winter, (in February,) I soweil forty bushels of pow-
dered charcoal, (or dust, as we call it,) to the acre on the snow.
The grass came up early this spring, and last harvest I cut three
tons to the acre of handsome and nutricious hay as can be found
in the country. Portions of the timothy was four feet high by
measurement, and the heads averaged in the highest portions of it
eight inches in length. It was cut just after the blossom had
covered about two-thirds of the head, and with care the whole was
cut and housed without loosing a pound by rotting or bleaching,
notwithstanding the continued rains w^e had last harvest.

Your own investigations and experiments in scientific agricul-
ture, will I presume readily suggest the viodus operandi of the
plaster, ashes and charcoal ; but not so with myself. I am still
unsatisfied wuth any solution from books, analogy or practice, but
lean more in favor of the potash of the ashes than any thing else
— could the charcoal under the circumstances act other than me-
chanically '? Will you favor me with a scientific (practical) solu-
tion of my experiment, which I consider not of so much import-
ance " per 5f," as per circumstances of soil, &c.
Very truly your friend,

RoBT. C. RANK^^^

Our correspondent has not given the full account of his experi-
ment and the condition of his land w^hich we wish ; but there is but
little mystery as it appears to us in the fine crop of hay which was
obtained after such a plentiful application of gypsum, ashes and
charcoal. The peculiarity in this experiment consists in the appli-
cation of the charcoal to the snow which then covered the ground.
In thus applying it it is very possible that some advantage is
gained. Snow, especially fresh fallen snow, is rich in ammonia,
'and it seems to us highly probable that charcoal may absorb '
ammonia freely and store it up for the use of the vegetal):
Spent ashes too, it is well known, are well adapted to grass ;i:ii!
grain whose straw yields a large amount of silica.

ROAD WASTES.

Intersected as our country is with roads and channels of coni-
municalion, they furnish a great amount of drained surface whicli

farmers' miscellany. 121

• nay be turned to an important end by the farmer whose lands lie
idjacent to them. Every rain and every shower washes the road
and carries off to parts unknown, the droppings of animals inter-
mixed with the fine earthy materials. Most of these substances
now go to waste ; even some farmers are so abominably slovenly
and wasteful as to milk and yard their cows in the road before
their doors and then let the soluble parts run off down the gutter.
But even though the waste of roads contained no soluble matter,
still the water itself will irrigate the field, and increase the quantity
of hay in meadows at least one-fourth their ordinary yield. Let
every farmer then who can save the road wastes open shallow
drains over his meadows in such a way that the current shall run
slow and evenly, and gradually spread itself over the field. It
will also reduce his road tax and give him a better way for travel.

GRUBS AND WIRE WORMS.

Some soils appear to be infested with worms in an unusual de-
gree. What is the cause and what is the remedy for this condi-
tion 1 The first inquiry we should make is, what is the nature of
the soil in which these pestiferous insects abound 1 According to
our observations the soil is unusually lean and poor. They do
not infest it until it is worn out, or has become exhausted by cul-
ture. There may be exceptions, but so frequently have we wit-
nessed the fact that we have been disposed to set it down as esta-
blished, that a lean soil is at least more subject to the grub, -wive
worm, &c., than a soil which is in good heart and condition. W^e
are supported in this position by the fact that not only whole fields
are greatly infected when worn out and poor, but particular patches
of a field become infested, when by any cause they have been sub-
jected to unusual exhaustion. This last year we observed a field
planted with corn, one part of which was remarkably fine ; but
another portion was entirely destroyed by the wire worm. Now
this portion was poor and lean, was exhausted by the roots of a
large oak. This, to be sure, is not so clear a case, and stand-
ing by itself, we should not place much reliance upon it. But in
addition to this, we know of farms which being run down, as it is
termed, have become so entirely infested that it is difficult to culli-

VOL. I. NO. 1. Q

122 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

vate them. Then again, the fact that a soil is usually in this
condition when poor, is agreeable to analogy. Animals are not
infested with worms until they are lean and poor. Children poor-
ly fed, are the subjects in which worms most abound. On the
other hand, children and the young of all animals which are sup-
plied with abundance of nutricious food, are rarely if evertifflicted
with parasitic worms. We may look at the subject in another
point of view. Animals which are well fed resist the effects of
worms. So a soil which is rich, produces plants which are capable
of withstanding the injuries of worms. A feeble plant which
would be inevitably destroyed by a worm, might, if vigorous, con-
tinue to grow and finally outlive the injury. If the views we
have expressed are but partially correct, we think we are warrant-
ed in the conclusion that one of the best remedies for worms is
high cultivation ; and as a preservative means, that cultivation
which preserves the soil in a good condition is the one which will
ensure it against these animals. But admitting that we are not cor-
rect in the view we take of the subject, still, we are satisfied that
most of the remedies which have been proposed are worthless.
Salt, for instance, is not unfrequently recommended, which is to be
sowed broadcast over the field. Now, it would seem that if a
person would reflect a moment, they would see that the small quan-
tity of this material to which we are restricted, would not have the
least etTect on the worm ; and so of any substance whatever which
has hitherto, or which can be recommended for this specific pur-
pose. Soaking the seed in bitter, saline or poisonous substances is
by far a more direct method of efCeciing the object; still it is w
(juestion whether even their good effects do not originate from the
vigor which the young plant derives from the solution. We leave
tlifs subject at this time with one additional recommendation,
viz : preserve the birds from the (U-adly fire of the rascally boys of
the neighborhood. We would extend protection even to the crow,
that black coated vagabond, as he has been called ; every humane
farmer, however, will of course see that the birds are not only not
destroyed, but protected; and every selfish, narrow contracted one,
we sboukl expect, would guard his interest so far, as to prevent the
deftruction of animals which are of so much importance to him as
robins, sparrows, swallows and bluebirds, together with hosts of
others equally usefui.

EXTRACTS

DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN JOURNALS.

The importance of obtaining correct analyses of our cultivated vegetables is begin-
ning to be appreciuted in the country, and we ai-e happy to see so good an example set
by the agricultural societies of Winyaw and All-Saints. We make no apology for
extracting from the Southern Agriculturist the entire articles containing the analyses
of rice, cotton wool, cotton seed,rfndian corn, and the yam or sweet potatoe.

AN ANALYSIS OF RICE, RICE STRAW, CHAFF, &c.

At a meeting of the Agricultural Society of Winyaw and All-
Saints, in Georgetown District, in November, 1843, it was pro-
posed that an analysis be made of the grain, straw, chaff, &c., of
rice. This was agreed to, and the task committed to Professor
C. U. Shepard, of the Medical College of the state of South-
Carolina. The following analysis is the result of his chemical
investigations, and was handed to Col. Allston, the chairman of
the committee appointed to carry the proposition into effect.

Charleston, S. C, Jpril 6th, 1844.
Dear Sir,

I hasten to lay before you at the earliest moment in my power,
the report on rice, concerning which I have had communications
with yourself and Dr. Parker. I hope it may not disappoint the
expectation already formed of the work by yourself, or the society
for which it has been executed.

The task has greatly exceeded in difficulty the estimate I formed
respecting it at the outset ; it having occupied me closely in my
laboratory for at least three weeks. The results given in the
report are generally deduced from the averages of repeated ana-
lyses.

If the society publishes my report, I should feel obliged if a
copy would be forwarded to the Hon. Mr. Ellsavorth, of the
Patent Office, Washington, whom I have led to expect such a
favor.

And I have the honor to remain,

Most respectfully, your obedient servant,

CHAS. UPHAM SHEPARD.
Hon. R. F. W. Allston.

124 QUAKTEKLY JOURNAL.

CHEMICAL EXAMINATIONS OF THE RICE PLANT AND RICE SOIL IN
SOUTH-CAROLINA,

1. — Of Clean Commercial Rice.

Burned in a porcelain capsule under the muffle, until ali com-
bustible matter had disappeared, a blebby glass-like ash remained,
weio-hing 0.404 per cent, or less than half a part in one hundred
of the rice consumed.* Corrected statement of mineral constitu-
ents of clean rice=0.487 per cent.

Composition of 100 parts of tliis residuum.

Phosphate of lime (bone-earth,) with decided
traces of intermixed phosphate of magnesia, . . 76 .20

Phosphate of potassa, nearly 5 per cent, '

Silica, sometimes as high as 20 per cent.,. . .

And the following salts in traces only. They
are enumerated in the supposed order of
their abundance, viz : ) " ' ^^ '^^

Sulphate of potassa,

Chloride of potassium,

Carbonate of lime,

Carbonate of magnesia, . <

2. — Of the Cotyledon^ commonly called the eye or chit of the grain .

Ignited under a muffle on a porcelain plate, it burns with a
bright light, and the ash flows into a glass. From the intimate
way in which it adhered to the plate, it was impossible to deter-
mine its weight, or even its composition, in a satisfactory manner.
The expression 6.824 per cent, however, may be taken as an ap-
proximation to the weight of the residuum. In composition, it
appears scarcely to differ from the ash of clean rice, except in
being somewhat richer in lime, and in the phosphoric and sul-
phuric acids.

3. — Of the fine Rice Flour, as it comes down on the bulk.

It gives, on burning, a bulky, porous ash, weighing 10.746 per
cent, of the flour consumed. Corrected as above==12.30 per ct.

_ . ^ ^ ^

• It beinff rnquisitc to determine the 'norf^anic in<^redienfs of rice, and of the vari-
ous parts of the entire ])lant, us it may reasonably be supposed they are returned to
the soil again on the decomposition of ti>e plant ami its parts, (whetlier taking place
spontaneously or otherwise,) and not to give those ingredients in all cases as they are
actually yielded to us in the prc-cess of destructive analysis, I shall subjoin many of
the constituents of the ashy residua not as found, but rather as the principles of che-
mistry authorise us to deduce them, in eccordance with the above requisition.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 125

Composition of 100 paris of this residuum^ as follows :

Silica, with traces of combined potassa, 38 .02

Phosphate of lime, with traces of phosphate of magnesia, 54 .60
Phosphate of potassa, (rich in this salt,) '

Sulphate of potassa,

Sulphate of lime, in traces,

Chloride of calcium, "

Chloride of potassium "

Lime and magnesia, ''

■' and loss, . 7 . 38

100.00
4. — Of coarse Rice Flour ^ from the hulk.

It gives, on burning, a bulky, porous ash=11.23 per cent.
Corrected stateraent:=ll .831 per cent.

Composition of 100 parts of this residuum., as follows :

Silica, with traces of combined potassa, 69 .27

Phosphate of lime, with traces of phosphate of magnesia, 28.94
Phosphate of potassa, (rich in this salt,) )

Carbonate of potass, in traces, |

Sulphate of potassa, 'J ^^^^ _ ^ ^ ^ ^ .^

Lime and magnesia, "■ ' ^

Chloride of calcium, "

Chloride of potassium, "

100.00
5. — Of the Husk J cominonly called chaff., or offal.

Burns wath little or no flame, into a perfectly white, silicious
skeleton of the husk. In weight it equals 13.67 per cent.

Composition of 100 parts of this residuum., as follows :

Silica 97 .551

Phosphate of lime, with traces of alumina and oxides of

iron and manganese, 1 . 023

Carbonate of lime, 0.294

Phosphate of potassa, )

Sulphate of potassa, in traces, I i i i iqo

/^i 1 • 1 r i ■ cc r and loss. ............ i. lo^

Lhlonde oi potassmm, " f '

Carbonate of potassa, " J

100.000
6. — Of the Bice Straw.

Burns into an ash, which is a semi-fused, glassy frit. It weighs
12.422 per cent.

126 QUAllTERLY JOURNAL.

Composition in 100 parts, as follows :

Silica, 84 .75

Potassa, with probable traces of soda, combined with the

the above silica, 8.69

Phosphate of lime, with traces of oxide of iron (and

manganese,) 2 . 00

Carbonate of lime, 2 . 00

Alumina, in traces, . . . . ^

Phosphate of potassa, . . |

Carbonate of potassa, . . |- and loss, 2 .56

Sulphate of potassa, . . .

Chloride of potassium,

100.00
7. — Rice Soil from Waverly Island.
Silica, with fine sand, one-third of which is feldspathic "j

and slightly magnesian or talcose ; and contains alu- } . -, „p^
mina with from 2 to 4 per cent of potassa, mingled i

with soda and magnesia, J

Alumina, partly combined with humic acid, 12.35

Peroxide of iron (combined with humus,) with decided

traces of phosphate of lime, (bone-earth,) 4.15

Carbonate of lime, with traces of magnesia, 0.40

Water of absorption, .... 8.50^ 09 nn

Humus, (organic matter,) 23 .50 ^ '^'

Chloride of calcium.
Sulphate of lime, . . .

Sulphate of magnesia, \ and loss, 1 . 35

Sulphate of potassa, .
Chloride of sodium, .

100.00
8. — Rice Soil from Woodville, Mai7i, Waverly.

Silica, with fine sand, as above, 57 .50

Alumina, partly combined with humic acid, 10.45

Peroxide of iron (combined with humus,) with decided

traces of phosphate of lime, 4 . 60

Carbonate of lime, 0 .40

Carbonate of magnesia, 0.58

Water of absorntion, 7.50 ? of; qn

Humus, ......... ..17.80^ ^^"^^

Chloride of calcium, )
Sulphate of lime, .... |

Sulphate of magnesia, )■ and loss, 1 . 17

Sulphate of potassa, . . |

Chloride of sodium, . . j

100.00

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 127

9. — Rice Soil, from Matanzas on the Main.

Silica, with fine sand, as above, 60 .50

Alumina, partly combined with humic acid, 8. 15

Peroxide of iron (combined with humus,) with decided

traces of phosphate of lime, 3 . 00

Carbonate of lime, with traces of magnesia, 0.85

Water of absorption, 9.00 ( q

Humus, 18.50^ ^^-^^

Chlorides of calcium and of sodium, ? , i -, ^^

c 1 1 , 1 1 > and loss, 1 . 00

Sulphates nearly as above, ^ '

101.00
10. — Rice Soil from, Dr. Parker.

Silica, with fine sand, as above, 41 .25

Alumina, (combined with humus,) 9 .25

Peroxide of iron, (combined with humus,) 3 ..30

Phosphate of lime, . 0 .55

Carbonate of lime, 0 . 85

( 'arbonate of ma2;nesia, 0.45

Water of absorption, 9.50^ d.Q nn

llumus, (with odor of ammonia,) 33.50^ 4d.OO

Chloride of calcium, abundant, )

( 'hloride of sodium, |

Sulphate of lime, \ and loss, 1 .35

Sulphate of magnesia,

Sulphate of potassa,

100.00
Additional particulars, ivit/i some consequences from theforegoijia-,
\\.\ 100 parts by weight of rough rice (from which the remains
of stems and glume-leaflets had been separated,) gave
82.10 parts of grain, and
17.90 " husk.

100.00

[2. 1 100 parts of unhusked grain, gave

95.238 parts of non-cotyledonous grain, and
4.762 " cotyledons, or eyes.

100.00

1 3. 1 100 parts of non-cotyledonous unhusked grain, gave

94 .3 of grain without husk, cotyledon or epidermis,
5.7 of epidermis, or inner coat.

100.00

128 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

1 4. J 100 parts of rough rice, then has
17.900 husk.
3.909 cotyledon.
4.456 epidermis.
73.735 clean grain.*

100.000

[5. J The ratio of rough rice to the straw of the harvested grain,
deduced from taking the mean of fifteen separate experiments,
gave the weight of the grain 53.5, that of the straw, including
the panicle or stems, 23.6.

But as many of the leaves appear to have been mutilated, I am
disposed to assume as a probable approximation to the truth, the
weight of the grain as just double that of the cut straw. And as
some observation of the stubble and roots strongly favors the idea
of their equaling together the weight of the straw, I shall still
farther venture to consider the rough rice of a ripe, harvested plant
as equal in weight to that of the entire stem, leaves and root.

[6.] Let us next attempt an approximation towards an appre-
ciation of the mineral constituents of these different portions of the
rice plant.

The ash in 100 parts of rough rice equals .7462 parts. And
as the ash in 100 of the husk, equals 13.67, that in 17.90 parts
of husk must equal 2.446 parts. By difference, therefore, be-
tween 2.446 and 4.752, the ash of the cotyledon, epidermis and
clean grain, in 100 parts of rough rice, will equal 2.316 parts.

But the percentage of the ash in clean rice being known, we are
able to state what the amount of ash is. In clean rice of 100 parts
rough rice, it is 0.297 parts. The general statement, then, will
stand thus, for 100 parts rough rice.

Ash in the husk, 2 .446 parts.

" cotyledon and epidermis,.. 2.019 "
" cleangrain, 0.297 "

4.762
[7.] The straw, (including the stubble and root,) having been
assumed as equal in weight to the rough grain, the ratio of the
mineral ingredients of the former to the latter, stands as 12.422
to 4.762.

[8.] Considering a single rice plant, in its dry, mature state, to
weigh 100 grains, (a supposition which will often accord with tlie
fact,) we shall have of mineral matter in the different parts of the
plants, the following number of grains :

• From losses sustained to the clean grain, in the process of milling, it is not pro-
bable that above 70 parts of commercial rice are afforded by lOO of rough rice.

K X T R A C T -S 1- O R K I G N A N U U O M K S T 1 C . 1:29

In the stubble and root, 36 . 08

" straw and pan leaves, 36 .08

" husk, 14.20

" cotyledon and epidermis, 11 .70

clean rice, 1 . 94

100.00
As, however, in the milling, nearly one-sixth of the cotyledon
still adheres to the grain, lor all practical estimates, it will be
nearer the truth to state the mineral ingredients of clean rice at 2
per cent those of the whole crop, and to diminish, therefore, the
residuum of the cotyledon and epidermis by 0.06 per cent,
making the percentage statement to stand thus :

Stubble and root, 36 . 08

Straw and leaves, 36 . 08

Husk, 14.20

Cotyledon and epidermis, 11 .64

Clean rice, (commercial,) 2 . 00

100.00*
[9. J If the foregoing views are correct, it becomes plain, at a
glance, that the planter who sells his crop in the condition of rough
rice, robs his lands of 27.84 per cent of the mineral ingredients
of this species of produce ; while, on the other hand, he who sells
it as clean rice, subtracts from them but two per cent of these
ingredients.

But the true value of these constituents cannot be rightly esti-
mated by their numerical proportions, since the mineral ingredients
of the cotyledon and epidermis consist of above fifty per cent of
the most precious saline substances, while in those of the stubble,
root and husk, the like constituents scarcely rise to ten per cent.

[lO.j From the extreme slowness with which the husk sutfers
conversion into humus, unless fermented with stable litter, this
portion of the rice plant appears to be almost wholly neglected by
the planter. But as it contains above thirty per cent of carbon,
it mu«;t be capable, when incorporated with the soil, of performing,
to a considerable extent, the functions of humus, i. e. of gradually
giving rise to carbonic acid from combining with the oxygen of

• It may be useful to present here, also, a per centum view of the incombustible
constituents of the rough rice.

Husk, 51.00

Cotyledon and epidermis, 41 .81

Clean rice, 7.19

It scarcely need to be stated, that the cotyledon and epidermis are found in the
coarse rice flour, intermingled larg-ely with the husk, and witli from three to four per
cent of powdered clean rice. The cotyledon and the epidermis are richer than the
clean rice in saccharine matter and gluten, which materially augment the value of
rice flour as a feed for cattle and swine. These principles are tlius returned to the soil
unilcr the most favorable conditions for agriculture.

VOL. I. NO. 1. R

130 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the air, and of raising the temperature of the soil by its erema-
causis, or slow combustion. Besides, its minutely divided silica
is in a more favorable condition for absorption by the rootlets of
plants, than that which is offered to them by the soil itself. We
may add to these supposed useful properties of the husk, the me-
chanical service w'hich in certain stiff, compact lands it is capable
of exerting, by keeping the ground open to the access of air, and
as an absorbent of moisture. As it is unlike to the stalk and leaf,
in not containing alkali, it might, perhaps, be found advantageous
to add wood a-shes along with it to the soils on which it is applied.

The extraordinary results, so fully proven of late, to flow from
the use of minutely divided charcoal, would perhaps authorise
another mode of treating the rice offal, which is to burn it wdth a
smothered combustion in small kilns, or in heaps partly covered
with soil, whereby it might be converted into a species of char-
coal. I should anticipate from such a preparation of the husk,
whether applied alone, or previously mixed up with putrescent
matters into a compost, the most marked effects.*

I conclude this report with the hope that this inquiry, which is
by no means supposed to have exhausted the subject, or to have
reached that rigid accuracy of result which it is to be hoped may
one day be obtained, may afford the rice planter more valid reasons
than he before had, for husbanding those mineral elements of his
crop with a religious care, the neglect of which, with whatever
apparent impunity it may at first be attended, cannot fail in the
end to involve him in a hopeless struggle against nature.

C. U. SHEPARD.

Charleston, April 6th, 1844.

4

AN ANALYSIS OF COTTON WOOL, COTTON SEED, IN-
DIAN CORN, AND THE YAM POTATOE

1st. Cotton Wool.

One hundred parts by weight of cotton-wool on being heated in
a platina crucible, so long as a brightly burning gas continued to
be emitted, lost 86 . 09 parts — the residuum being a perfectly charred
cotton, which on being ignited under a mutHeuntil every particle
of carbon was consumed, lost 12.985, and left an almost purely

*I need scarcely to add, that the different composition of tlie stem and leaves of
the rice, would scarcely justify a similar procedure wilh these parts of the plant, since
unless the temperature be regulated with great care, the silica would form witii the
tile associated alljali, a true glass, which for agricultural purposes, would be nearly as
inoperative as common sand.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 131

white ash, whose weight was rather under 1 per cent or, 0 , 9247. Of
tills ash, about 44 per cent was found to be soluble in water. It con-
tained 12 . 88 per cent of silicious sand, which must have been acquir-
ed adventitiously in the process of harvesting the fibre. Deducting
the sand from the ash, the constitution of the latter is as ibllows : —

Carbonate of potassa (with possible traces of soda,) .... 44 . 19

Phosphate of lime with traces of magnesia, 25 .44

Carbonate of lime, 8 . 87

Carbonate of magnesia, 6 .85

Silica, 4 . 12

Alumina (probably accidental,) 1 .40

Sulphate of potassa, 2 .70

Chloride of potassium, )

Chloride of magitesiuin, |

Sulphate of lime, |> and loss, 6 .43

Phosphate potassa, I

Oxide iron in minute traces, . j

100.00

Eut since it is obvious that the carbonic acid in the above men-
tioned salts must have been derived during the incineration of the
cotton, the following view will more certainly express the impor-
tant mineral ingredients abstracted by the cotton from the soil for
every 100 parts of its ash.

Potassa (w^ith possible traces of aoda,) 31 .09

Lime, 17.05

Magnesia, 3 . 26

Phosphoric acid, N. 12.30

Sulphuric acid, 1 .22

64.92

For every 10,000 lbs. of cotton wool, then, about 60 lbs. of the
above mentioned ingredients are subtracted from, the soil in the
proportion indicated by the numbers appended, i. e. omitting frac-
tions.

Potassa, 31 nounds.

Lime, 17' "

Magnesia, 3 "

Phosphoric acid, 12 "

Sulphuric acid, 1 "

Several queries were submitted to me along with the sample to
be analyzed, relative to the effect of soils on cotton. I regret to
state that the almost total ignorance in which we are still left re-
specting the composition of the varieties of this fibre, and the soils

132 Q U A R T E U L Y ' J <) U R N A L.

producing them, prevents me I'rom hazarding any explanations on
the subject. This is the first destructive analysis ever made (at
least so far as my knowledge extends,) of the cotton wool. Nor
am I acquainted with the properties of the soil which afforded it.
Prior to any deductions, it is clear we must know the composition
of each variety of cotton, as well as that of the soil it affects. At
present I can only venture on connecting together two facts, which
appear to occupy important relations to one another. The soil of
St. Stephen's, which is said by F. A. Porcher, Esq., to be a stiff
clayey loam, produces the strongest and finest fibre of the Santee
varieties. The Sea-Island qualities are supposed to owe their
superiority to the use of marsh mud, which I have ascertained to
be a clayey admixture, rich in alkalies and alkaline earths. Whe-
ther the similarity between these two staples is influenced most (if
it is affected at all,) by the chemical or mechanical qualities of the
soils producing them, it is impossible to decide. It is also con-
ceivable that the two sets of qualities may conspire to one and the
same end.

2d. Cotton Seed.

One hundred parts, heated as above, lost 11 Aid, and the tho-
roughly charred residuum burned under the muffle, left 3 .856 parts
of a perfectly white ash. The composition was found to be as
follows :

Phosphate of lime (with traces of magnesia,) 61 .64

Phosphate of potassa (with traces of soda,) 31.51

Sulphate of potassa, 2 .55

Silica, 1 .74

Carbonate of lime, 0.41

Carbonate of magnesia, 26

Chloride of potassium, 25

Carbonate of potassa, ")

Sulphate of lime, ! « , , ^.

c 1 I 4. f • } ^ loss, 1.64

Sulphate of magnesia, '

Alumina & oxides of iron & manganese in traces j

100.00

In comparing the above table with that afforded by the cotton
wool, a marked dissimilarity presents itself. The ash of the cot-
ton seed is fourfold that of the fibre ; while the former has also
treble the phosphoric acid possessed by the latter, as will the more
clearly appear, when we present the analysis under another form,
corresponding with the second table under cotton wool.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 133

Phosphoric acid, 45 . 35

Lime, 29 .79

Potassa, 19 .40

Sulphuric acid, 1.16

95.70
From the foregoing analysis it would appear difficult to imagine
a vegetable compound, better adapted for fertilizing land, than the
cotton seed ; nor can we any longer be surprised at the well known
fact, that soils long cropped with this staple, without a return to
them of the inorganic matters withdrawn in the seed, become com-
pletely exhausted and unproductive.

3d. Indian Com.
One hundred parts heated to redness in a crucible, so long as a
brightly burning flame was emitted, lost 81.05 parts. The com-
pletely charred residuum on being ignited beneath a muffle, upon
a platina foil, until all the carbon was consumed, left 0.95 parts,
or less than 1 per cent of an easily flowing clear glass. This ash
has the following composition : —

Silica, 38.45

Potassa, (with traces of soda) 19.51

Phosphate of lime, 17 . 17

Phosphate of magnesia, 13 . 83

Phosphate of potassa, 2 .24

Carb. lime, 2.50

Carb. magnesia, 2 . 16

Sulphate of lime, I r-q

Sulphate of magnesia, )

Silica, mechanically present, 1.70

Alumina, traces,

Loss, 1 . 65

100.00
Omitting the silica as an unimportant loss to the soil, and the
carbonic acid which is a product of the analysis, we have in every
100 parts of the ash of the Indian corn, the following important
inorganic constituents : —

Potassa, 20.87

Phosphoric acid, 18 .80

Lime, 9.72

Magnesia, 5.76

55.15
That is to say, for every 1,000 pounds of Indian corn sold from
an estate, the land is robbed of 9i lbs. inorganic matter, whereof

134 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

about 5i lbs. consist of principles of prime value to all species of
crops.*

4:ih. Sweet Potatoe, {Yam.)

The tubers analysed, though fresh from the market, were obvi-
ously drier than when first harvested.

One hundred parts of the thinly sliced tubers on being tho-
roughly dried at a temperature of 200°, lost 58.97 per cent of
water.

One hundred parts of the undried potatoe gave 1.09 parts, or
rather over 1 per cent of a white ash stained in points of a bluish
green color.

Its composition was as follows : —

Carbonate of potassa, (with traces of soda) 60.00

Phosphate of lime, 14 .57

Phosphate of magnesia, 5 . 60

Carbonate of lime, , 5 ..39

Carbonate of magnesia, 3 . 80

Chloride of potassium, 4 , 60

Sulphate of potassa, 4 . 35

Silica, 70

Chloride of calcium, "]

Sulphate of magnesia and lime, ! , , qq

AT* f clllU loss. •••••• . •J'J

Alumma, , ( '

Oxide of iron and manganese in traces, J

100.00

One hundred parts of the ash from the sweet potatoe tuber, con-
tains then the following inorganic principles which must have been
withdrawn from the soil.

Potassa, 43 .59

Phosphoric acid, 11 .08

Lime, 10.12

Magnesia, 3 . 80

Potassium, 2 .42

Chlorine, 2.18

Sulphuric acid, 1 . 90

85.09

* In n recent number of the Boston Journal of Natural History, I observe some ob-
servations by Dr. Cliarlos T. .Tackson, on the inorg:anie constitution of Indian corn,
wlierein Dr. J. supjjoses phosjihoric acitl to be jirescnt in Ihe grain, in a free or un-
conibined state. The experiment wiiich led him to form this conjecture, did by r >
means succeed in my hands as describetl by him ; for althousrh the grain was repo, -
edly incinerated upon a bright planMna foil under a miifller, stiU tlic metal lost imne
of its polish or malleability. Neither can I agree with Dr. J. in his opinion of the
presence of ammonia as a base in Indian corn; the volatile alkali obtained by him,
being a product rather than an educl of the analysis.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 135

Tabular view of some of the foregoing results.

In Cotton wool. Cotton seed. Indian corn. Potatoe.

Weight of ash, 0.0247 p. c. 3.8oCp.c. 0.9.5 p. c. 1.09p. c.
Essential inorganic ingredients absorbed from the soil.
By Cotton wool. Cotton seed. Indian corn. Potatoe,

' Potassa, 31.09 19.40 20.87 43.59

Lime, 17.05 29.79 9.72 10.12

Magnesia, 3.26 trace 5.7G 3.80

Phosphoric acid, 12.30 45.35 18.80 11.08
Sulphuric acid,. 1.12 1.16 trace 31.90

Chlorine, traces traces 2 . 18

. Potassium,.... 2.42

One thousand pounds of each crop give of organic ingredients,
of the 1st, 9i lbs.; 2d, SSi lbs.; 3d, 9i lbs.; and of the 4th, 10
9-10 lbs.

The proportions of inorganic matter that may be regarded as
most important, are — In the 1st, 64-100 ; in the 2d, 95-100 ; in
the 3d, 55-100; in the 4th, 85-100 lbs.

If equal weights of cotton wool and Indian corn be taken from
the same area or land', the deterioration to the soil. in organic prin-
ciples should be nearly the same. The yam, if compared with
either of these crops would appear to rob the soil of a still hea-
vier weight of saline matter, although it is noticeable that the pro-
portion of phosphoric acid abstracted by it is considerably less,
and that no portion of it is thus withdrawn in the condition of
phosphate of potassa.

Finally, under the same weights, the cotton seed removes about
four tanes as much of these ingredients as the yam, and six times
the quantity that passes oti'by the cotton wool, or the Indian corn.
Moreover, the proportion of phosphoric acid (the most valued mi-
neral constituent of a soil,) in the cotton seed is nearly double that
in Indian corn, and treble that in cotton wool and the yam ; where-
by the inestimable qualities of the cotton seed as a fertilizer, be-
come still further apparent.

The following letter from Professor Shepakd to F. A. Porcher,
Esq., has been communicated for publication since the foregoing
report.

Chaki.esto.v, April 22d, 1844.
To Frederick A. Porcher, Esq.

Dear Sik — I thank you for calling my attention to the analy-
s of Sea-Island cotton wool, by Dr. Ure, as quoted in the valua-
■le Memoir on Cotton by the Hon. W. Seabrook. It is the first
.;otice I ever had of any chemical examination besides my own, of
the ash of cotton wool, and it is proper that I should submit a few
remarks to your society respecting the different results arrived at
in the two cases.

136 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

If the example analyzed by Dr. lire, was a fair one, of which 1
confess I entertain some doubts, several discrepancies would appear
to exist between the two varieties examined. Before alluding to
these, however, I beg leave to state, that in my analysis, both of
the wool and of the seed, I contented myself with the determina-
tion of the proportion of the phosphates, without establishing
rigorously the ratio of the magnesia to the lime ; neither did my
analysis give by itself the chloride of potassium, (muriate of
potash.) Yet I am able to add, from a recurrence to my notes,
that this compound fell short of three per cent. I am greatly
surprised, however, to find the oxide of iron so high in the Sea-
Island variety, since in that of the Santee it cannot equal half a
part in one hundred. Should the absence of carbonate of magne-
sia in the Sea-Island variety be verified, and the extraordinary
content in the latter of chlorine and sulphuric acid be established,
the inorganic difference between the two staples, will, to say the
least, be as remarkable as those existing in their physical qualities.

Comparative Statement.
Table I.

Sea-Island. Santee.

Earthy phosphates, ,„ 17 .4 25 .44

Carbonate of lime, 10.6 8.87

Carbonate of magnesia, 6 . 85

Chloride of potassium, (muriate of potash,).. 9.9 3.00?

Sulphate of potassa, 9.3 2 . 70

Silica, 4.12

Peroxide of iron, 3.0 0.50?

Table II.

In this table the acids are separated from their bases, and the
carbonic acid is omitted.

Sea-Island. Santee.

Potassa, 35.24 31.09

Lime, 10.28 17.05

Magnesia, 3.20 3.26

Potassium, 5.70 1.50?

Phosphoric acid, 9.84 12.30

Sulphuric acid, 4.75 1.22

Chlorine, 4.20 1.50?

Peroxide of iron, 3 .00 less than 0.50

Silica, 4.12

Phosphate of potasa, , 1 .50 ?

76.11 73.99

Very respectfully, yours,

CHARLES U. SHEPARD.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 137

[From Transactions of Highland Ag. Soc]

EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRO-
DUCTION OF BUTTER.

BY PROFESSOR TRAILL.

The produce of the dairy forms so important a branch of agri-
cultural industry, that it appears surprising how few attempts
have been made to investigate the comi)arative merits of different
methods, employed in various places, lor the production of butter
and cheese. The qualities of these articles are well known to dif-
fer greatly in our own country ; yet each district has gone on for
long periods to follow its own methods, as if each had attained
perfection in the art. This is a proof either of the want of any
fixed principles to guide us in the practice of these important eco-
nomical operations, or of their being unknown to the majorty of
farmers.

The subject long engaged the attention of the late estimable
Dr. Gerard of Liverpool and myself, and for several years, espe-
cially in the years 1806 and 1807, we carried on many experi-
ments ; in some of which we were assisted by our friend, Dr. Bos-
tock, now of London.

It was originally intended to comprise in our investigations the
whole subject of the production of butter and cheese ; but our
professional avocations, and other interruptions, prevented the
completion of our plans, after we had performed numerous experi
ments on the production of butter. The hope of being one day
able to complete them, has hitherto prevented any account of
them being published. On the death of Dr. Gerard, the whole
papers, in a state of great confusion, came into my possession ;
and I now propose to lay before the Highland and Agricultural
Society of Scotland the principal results which we obtained.

We had a dairy of four, sometimes of five, cows at our disposal ;
but, after numerous preliminary trials, we found that the numeri-
cal results, on the quantity of the butter obtained, were most uni-
form and satisfactory when we made each experiment on a few
pints of milk only. It is true that the proportional yield of but-
ter was sometimes greater from a large than from a small quantity
of cream or milk ; but the different experiments were found to be
most accordant on being repeated, when we operated on quantities
not exceeding six English pints for each churning. This probably
arose from our being then able to carry on the process in glass
vessels, which permitted us to see the progress of the operation,
and to collect the product more perfectly ; and also from our

VOL. I. NO. 1. S

138 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

being enabled to use, in experiments on this small scale, a more deli-
cate balance to ascertain the weight of the butter obtained.

We were also thus enabled to make the comparative experi-
ments on the same milk, on the same day — points of essential imr
portance — as the richness of even the same cowl's milk is liable to
vary considerably from day to day, as we found from experiment,
according to her food, her health, and possibly, too, according to
the state of the weather. We also found thai the time which had
elapsed from the last calving had much influence on the quantity
of the butter. The quantity of butter was smallest, and the pro-
portion of cheesy matter greatest, just after calving ; and gene-
rally speaking, the milk of those cows w^hich yielded the least
quantity of milk, w^as richest in butyraceous matter. Thus the
quanti+y of butter afforded by a quart of milk of a small Alder-
ney cow was considerably more than from a quart of the milk of
the large Lancashire breed.

We proposed to ourselves various objects ; such as ascertain-
ing accurately the temperature acquired by milk in churning^
(which, I may state in general terms, without detailing the ex-
periments, we found to range from 5° to 8^ of Fahrenheit ;) the
effect of external temperature on the production of butter ; the ef-
iect of adding water to the churn, as is practised in many places ;
but, above all, to ascertain the comparative advantages of churn-
ing—

1. Sweet cream alone.

2. Sweet milk and cream together.

3. Sour cream, or that slightly acid.

4. Sour milk and cream together.

5. Scalded cream, or what is called clouted cream, as prac-

tised in Devonshire.

Each of these five methods of preparing the milk afforded very
different results ; and, as these investigations seem to be the most
important, I shall give them more fully than the rest, selecting,
from numerous experiments, those which were most carefully per-
formed, and are, therefore, most worthy of confidence. Although
the absohite quantity of butter differed with the season and con-
dition of the cattle, yet as the five methods were practised at the
same time, on equal quantities of the mingled milk of four or five
rows, the comparative results of each series may be considered as
not far from the truth.

It is well known that the milk first drawn from the cow is far
inferior in quality to that last drawn ; the latter is technically, in
Lancashire, called the afterings, and in many towns generally sold
as cream. It seemed also an object of interest to ascertain the
comparative quantity of butyraceous matter yielded by the first
and last part of the milking, as also the quntity of casci7ie or curd
in each.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 139

The principal results of the experiments made, are —

1. That the addition of some cold water during churning, facili-
-.;ites the process, or the separation of the butter, especially when
the cream is thick and the weather hot.

2. That cr<?am alone is mare easily churned than a mixture of
cream and milk.

3. That butter j)roduced from sweet cream has the finest flavor,
when fresh, and appears to keep the longest without acquiring ran-
cidity ; but that the buttermilk, so obtained, is poor, and small in
quantity.

4. That scalding of the cream, according to the Devonshire me-
thod, yields the largest quantity of butter ; which if intended for
immediate use, is agreeable to the palate and readily saleable ; but
if intended to be salted^ is most liable to acquire, by keeping, a
rancid flavor. The process of scalding is troublesome ; and the
milk, after the removal of the cream is poor, and often would be
unsaleable from the taste it has acquired from the heating.

5. That churning the milk and cream together, after they have
become slightly acid, seems to be the most economical process
on the whole ; because it yields a large quantity of excellent butter,
and the buttermilk is of a good quality — a point of some im-
portance when buttermilk is largely used as an article of diet, as
it is in Lancashire.

6. That the keeping of butter in a sound state appears to depend
on its being obtained as free from uncombined albumen, or caseine,
and water, as it can be, by means of washing and working the
butter when taken from the churn.

[From Ike Journal of Agriculture.]

ON THE WASTE PIECES OF LAND IN CULTIVATED FIELDS.

BY MR. PETER MACKENZIE, STIRLING.

When a piece of ground is enclosed for a garden, it is with the

intention that every square foot of it should be put to some useful

purpose ; for from the centre of the ground to the bottom of the

wall vegetation will thrive ; and persons accustomed to cultivate

,j every part of the ground of which they have charge, often won-

! der, as they pass along the highways and byways of their neigh-

I horhood, why so much land is allowed to remain undisturbed, in

I what is considered well cultivated fields. The ground I mean is

that which is sometimes called the borders of the field. I have

often inquired for a reason why it is not brought into cultivation

as well as the rest of the land, and have never received anything

140

QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

like a satisfactory answer. I have been told by some that! they
have just been accustomed to such things, and think no more about
it ; by others that they do not like to go too near the hedges, for
fear of destroying the roots of the thorns — ^but a little reflection
soon convinced them that the leading roots of quicksets are gene-
rally placed beyond the reach of the plough ; and it will be found
that the root of a healthy hedge will not be confined to the space
that is left unbroken up, but will often be found in the ploughed
land. I think it could easily be shown that the farmer is a great
loser by allowing so much of his land to remain in an uncultivated
state ; he must pay for it all, and it must be a great drawback on
the productive part of the farm to make up lor the deficiency of
the unproductive. The space left by the plough untouched is, at
least, three feet from the fence, and where open ditches are left in
the field it is much more. Supposing a field to be one hundred
yards, by five hundred, this will give ten acres, one rood, twelve
poles, twenty-seven yards 3 and with a border three feet wide, left
unploughed, will take from it twelve hundred square yards, which
is about one rood ; and if we take fields of less size than ten acres,
the increase of waste land will be greatly augmented. But taking
it at one rood to every ten acres, this will give two and a-half
acres to every one hundred acres ; this is surely too much land to
be allowed to be in a state which is worse than useless, for we
will be able to show that it has a very baneful effect upon the cul-
tivated crop of the farmer ; and if we extend our calculation to
the fifteen millions of acres in Britain that are employed in the
cultivation of wheat, barley, rye, oats, beans, peas, clover, rye-
grass, roots and cabbages, by the plough, it will be found that an
enormous quantity of land is in a great measure lost, and I believe
the waste is greater in many parts of England than in Scotland.
When we bear in mind that many of the fields are small, and sepa-
rated from one another by enormous double hedges, surely some-
thing might be done to lessen the quantity of land that is, from
year to year, permitted to be unproductive ; five acres for every
three hundred acres is worth the looking after, and land, too, in
most cases, the best in the country. Supposing the land to be, on
an average, worth £2 per acre, and the farm consisting of two
hundred acres, what does the farmer get in return for his .£10 of
rent which he pays for the borders of his fields 1 The botanist
would, perhaps, meet with the richest harvest j he would not be
long in collecting one hundred or one hundred and fifty species of
plants, all more or less injurious to the farmer. Among the most
conspicuous will be the spear thistle, Cuicvs lanceolotu!,', common
ragwort, Stmecio Jacolxca^ black knapweed, Centaurea nigra^ and
many others that might be named, that prove a lasting scourge to-
the land, wherever they are permitted to multiply. When they

EXTRACT S F OREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 141

are allowed to ripen their seeds, the winds of summer and autumn
disperse them over the country ; and, although they do not make
much appearance at first, they are not the less sure of coming at
their appointed season. Those of them that are biennial and pe-
rennial plants, will make little show for a time ; but, when the
second year of their existence comes round, they will show them-
selves in gay colors, and, if allowed to remain undisturbed, will
scatter a numerous progeny around them ere they die. The nour-
ishment that docks, thistles and ragworts extract from some fields
must be very great ; for in some pastures they are very abundant.
So convinced was a cottager of the evil effects of permitting weeds
to grow and seeil among his crops, that he not only kept them
out of his own garden, but assisted in destroying those of his
neighbors, that they might not seed and come over upon him. By
a little extra labor, much land might be reclaimed from the bor-
ders of fields, and instead of proving ai loss to the cultivator,
might become a benefit to the country ; for it shows but an imper-
fect state of cultivation when so many enemies to the crops are
permitted to live and die unmolested. In gardens, as well as in
fields, the destruction of weeds is often very imperfectly gone
about ; there are some weeds, such as the Poa annua, groundsel
and chickweed, that are constantly .shedding their seeds, and re-
maining also in flower at the same time ; and, if particular atten-
tion be not observed, the old weeds will not be long off the ground,
before another race will be pushing their way to supply the room
of those that had been removed ; and, if they aire only left for a
short time, they will play the part which their forefathers did be-
fore them — shed their seed — and, if left undisturbed, would soon
become possessors of the land.

One important step towards the eradication of agricultural
weeds, would be to have as few open ditches as possible in the fields
under cultivation. Some time ago, I was told, by one of the
leading agriculturists of Britain, that there should be none ; for
they are not required where land is properly drained. Ditches
are commonly formed where thorn hedges are planted, in order to
supply earth for the benefit of the roots of the plants ; but it is
allowed by many farmers that, if the land be well prepared, quick-
set hedges will thrive better in soil that is not thrown up in the
usual way of planting, the roots not being so far from the influ-
ence of the sun or air as those that are planted in the common
way, and that they will seek nourishment from both the fields
which they divide, instead of being confined to one. Open ditches
are often found to be very inconvenient when a hedge requires its
annual cutting ; a ditch four feet wide is too much stride across
and work freely, and in many cases, the searseraent next the hedge,
by frequent cleaning, and the action of the weather, is worn away.

142 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

SO that the person who works with the switching-bill has to stand
in the ditch ; and when the ditch is two and a-half feet deep, and
the hedge four feet high, the work is both unpleasant and slowly
performed ; for the highest part of the fence is the place where
the shoots are strongest, and, of course, most difficult to cut. It
will be seen that more than one advantage will be gained by ban-
ishing open ditches from fields where it can conveniently be done,
and, in many cases, it can be done with little expense and trouble.
They can be made into drains, and filled with such materials as
are commonly used in draining land, and the filling wuth soil is
done very simply — by means of the plough taking earth from the
headlands or sides of the field, so that, in a short time, the farmer
may have the cultivated part of his farm considerably enlarged at
very little expense ; for I have been informed, by those who have
tried the experiment, that they were more than paid for their trouble
by the first year's crop. More land could be broken up by the
plough than is commonly done. It is the practice of some far-
mers, after ploughing as much as can be properly done by two
horses, afterwards to use one, and by altering the line of draught,
are enabled to come a little nearer to the fence. Still there is some
land left — could it not be brought into cultivation in the same
manner that the acute angles of fields are managed, namely, by
digging 1 A laborer or two would not be very long in digging
what may be left by the plough ; they could do it on day's w^ages
or piece-work, as may be found answerable. It is done by nurse-
rymen and market-gardeners, who have generally higher rents to
pay for their land than farmers, and if they find a remuneration
for their outlay, would it not be profitable also for the agricultu-
rist 1 It would increase the produce of the farm in that which
would be useful, and also cut off the source from which many of
the foes of the cultivated crops are propagated ; and the nearer
the farm can be brought to that of a well cultivated garden, the
better will it be for the producers of food as well as for the con-
sumers ; and surely it would add to the prosperity of the country,
when, instead of the thistle shall come up the wheat, and instead
of the cockle, shall come up the barley. If such simple means
were adopted for increasing the produce of the farm, it would
enable many tenants to look forward with a lighter heart towards
the rent-day, and also to banish from their grounds many of the
enemies that assail the labors of their hands.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 143

[From the Britannia.]-

CULTURE OF THE GRAPE VINE.

A Deicriptive Account of an improved Method of Planting and Managing the RootM
of Orape Vines. By Clement Hoare. Longman.

The results of Mr. Hoare in the management of vines are so
wonderful, considcrinc; tiie simple means he takes to produce them,
that we should be inclined to view his assertions as too marvel-
lous for belief, if we did not know that he is himself one of the
most successful cultivators of the vine who ever lived in England,
and if he did not assure us that he "has not recommended any
point of culture the merits and advantages of which he has not
himself for years repeatedly and carefully tested." We glance at
a few of the principal topics in this ingenious treatise, which we
earnestly commend to the notice not only of the horticultural
world, but of every one who loves a garden, and desires to see it
yield at a very small cost an ample supply of delicious grapes.

For the management of vines in greenhouses, Mr. Hoare strongly
reprobates the practice of planting the roots in richly manured
borders. His theory is, that grapes are formed and brought to per-
fection, not from any nourishment received from their roots, but
by solar heat and light alone, and that the roots of vines in this
country are so far from requiring any stimulative power, that they
require to be checked, that the growth of the branches may not be
too rapid. This check, he explains, is afforded in w^armer countries
than our own by the great dryness of the climate and the superior
heat of the sun, so that the tops of the shoots as they advance in
growth are turned into a kind of jelly, and rapidly harden into
wood, whicn thus becomes firm and close in texture, and bears buds
at very short intervals. But from that check not existing to the
same extent in England, our climate being more humid, and our
sun less fervent, the vine has a natural tendency to luxuriance in
growth, the branches are long and tender, and the buds on them at
much longer intervals. This theory is explained with delightful
clearness in Mr. Hoare's treatise, and illustrated by a decisive ex-
ample :

Some few years since the author received a bundle of vine cut-
tings from one of the most celebrated vineyards in Spain. They
were the entire growth of the year, as each had a portion of the
preceding year's wood attached to it. The longest shoot measured
eight and a half feet, but the average length was about eight fe'et.
The wood was perfectly cylindrical, and of the closest texture,
and almost as hard as heart of oak. The buds w^re large, promi-

QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

nent, and highly symmetrical, and stood out in bold relief on the
sides of the canes. They were produced so near to each other as
to be only one and three quarters of an inch apart. Now, a cor-
responding shoot produced in this country by an established vine
would be about twenty-five feet in length, and the buds w^ould be,
on an average, distant from each other betwixt four and five inches.
The shoots produced in these different countries, therefore, would
each contain pretty nearly the same number of buds ; and the
question immediately arises, what was the cause of the great dis-
proportion that existed in the length of these shoots 1 Simply, no
other than the greater intensity of the light and heat which the
Spanish shoots enjoyed over the English shoot. Nature was as
long manufacturing one and three quarters of an inch of wood in
Spain as she was four and a half inches in this country ; but then,
in the former instance, the bright light of the sun, and the inten-
sity of his rays, would not let the shoot go ahead. Their united
influence caused it to linger in its growth, and its watery sap, there-
fore, was turned into a jelly-like substance almost as fast as it was
produced, and then fine fruit buds were the natural consequence.
And these shoots may be considered as types of all others produ-
ced within the vinous latitude.

It follows, then, that in England the roots of vines do not want
stimulating, but that the soil for them should be like that which
they enjoy in the finest countries, dry, rocky and warm. He con-
siders it extremely detrimental to a vine that its roots should be in
a soil where perhaps the temperature is 34 or 40 degrees, while the
branches should be luxuriating in a temperature of 70 or 80 degrees.
He would, therefore, for all vines in greenhouses prepare an arti-
ficial bed for their roots, as he prepares an artificial climate for their
branches and fruit. The principle on which he would form this
bed, for we do not here pretend to enter into details, is that of
making a pit in the earth, three feet deep, and four or five feet
square, lining it with solid brickwork, so that the roots of the vine
shall not pierce through, and filling it wdth broken bricks, mortar,
charcoal, and bones. These materials should be used in equal pro-
portions, without admixture of any other substances. The bricks
should not be too hard-burned, and the mortar should be old.
Those, with the charcoal, should be in lumps, about the size of an
egg. The bones, if hollow, should be broken in half, that the roots
may creep into the cavities. Any will do, but they should be of
animals that have arrived at maturity, from their greater hardness.
These substances should be well packed, and the vine-root care-
fully placed in them. The flooring should be of firm brickwork,
wnth one row of bricks loosely laid, that they may be taken up to
afford the roots moisture when required.

The result of this treatment is that the roots, being furnished
with the largest possible extent of surface, and with the best nutri-

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 145

ynent in the shape of bones, will give vigor to the vine, and that
grapes will be produced six weeks earlier than on other vines, while
the bed will last good, if not forever, for an immense number of
years.

All this part of the treatise may be read with much advantage
by those who possess greenhouses. We come now to that more
novel part of the volume, intended for those who would like, with
little cost or trouble, to grow grapes in the open air.

In commencing this part of his subject, Mr. Hoare lays it down
as a rule that the roots of a vine will strike equally well upwards
as downwards. The great requisites for the soil are warmth, mo-
derate dryness, and great extent of surface. He proposes to secure
those requisites by building of good brickwork a hollow column,
three feet in diameter and five feet high. He prefers circular erec-
tions because the vine inay be easier trained, and during the height
of summer the sun will shine all around it. The base of this col-
umn should be formed of solid brickwork level with the earth,
and four feet square. When that is finished the erection of the
column should be commenced on it ; half bricks will do, if they
are perfectly strengthen-ed at four equally distant parts of the cir-
cle by one course of whole bricks. When two courses of bricks
have been thus laid down over the foundation of brickwork, the
interior of the column should be filled with the substances before
described, broken bricks, old mortar, charcoal, and bones, all being
closely packed, A half circular hole should now be cut in a brick
on that side of the column facing the south, for the stem of the
vine to be brought through. It should be one and a half inch in
diameter, and the like hole should be cut in the brick meant to fit
on it, so that the cavity may be round, and the dimension of it one
and a half inch. The vine should now be planted. It should be
three years old, and the bole of earth round the roots be loosely
bound round in flannel well soaked in soap-suds. So much of the
stem should be left outside the column as contains three good buds.
The soil should be a little raked away for the roots to lie in, and
the substances should then be packed closely round the roots, care
being taken that they are so placed that no mice shall creep in
through the hole made for the stem of the vine to pass through.
The next course of the bricks should then be laid on, the soil being
filled in as the column rises, and so on until the column rises within
1 three courses of its intended height. Then a course of bricks is
laid over the well packed substances at top, being jointed with
' mortar only, and not laying a bed of it. With two more top
courses the column will be finished, care being taken so to lay them
as that they shall slope towards the centre of the column, forming
a cavity to catch moisture, which, piercing through the brickwork,
will descend to the soil. In this cavity raignionette or any shrub

VOL. I. NO. 1. T

I

146 OIUARTERLY JOURNAL.

of the kind may be placed, which will give it a pretty finish, and;
hang over from its top. The hole for the stem of the vine may
be filled in with moss to give it a pretty appearance. As the vine
grows it is to be trained round the column, and with moderate care^
Mr. Hoare asserts,- may be made to bear fifty pounds of fine grapes
in one season. The cost of the column, he believes, should not
exceed 25s., but we hardly imagine it could be properly erected for
that sum.

It is easy to believe that such columns^ when erected in suitable
situations, and the vines are well trained around them, and clusters-
of grapes appear, must add to the beauty of grounds. They
may be planted singly or in groups ; and the cost is so slight, and
the gain in fruit, according to our author, so certain and so large,,
that the experiment is well worth trying. We liave but given an
outline of Mr. Hoare's plan. Those who are desirous of further
information must consult this pleasing treatise. They will find it
full of instructive details, the result of extensive management, di-
rected by an intelligent mind, and of long experience. The man-
ner of the remarks is clear and pleasing, ancl the whole treatise of
eminent utility to those who have the care of vines, or who pro-
pose to engage in their culture-

[Abridged from the Scottish Journal of Agriculture.]

ON THE EFFECTS OF SOAKING SEEDS IN CHEMICAL

SOLUTIONS,

There was perhaps no object in the exhibition of plants in the
society's show, at Dundee, in August, 1843, which attracted such
general attention as the remarkably strong and vigorous oats grow-
ing in soil, exhibited by Mr. James Campbell^ of the Educational
Seminaries of that town. The soil in which they grew possessed
no peculiar property, except that it had not been manured for
eleven years. Tiie vigor of the plants, according to Mr. Campbell,
was entirely to be ascribed to their seed having been subjected to
a process by which they were soaked in certain chemical solutions,
Mr. Campbell has, since the show, in the most liberal and disin-
terested manner, placed the }>articulars of his process in the hands
of the society, for the benefit of agriculturists generally ; and to
further his good intentions, the society has thought it proper to
publish his own explanation of the method of conducting the pro-
cess of preparing the seed, as it is given in a letter to the secre-
tary.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 147

*' I steeped the seeds of the various specimens exhibited in sul-
phate, nitrate, and muriate of ammonia, in nitrate of soda and
potass, and in combinations of these ; and in all cases the results
were highly favorable. For example — seeds of wheat steeped in
sulphate of ammonia on the 5th of July, had by the 10th of Au-
gust, the last day of the show, tillered into nine, ten, and eleven
■stems of nearly equal vigor : while seeds of the same sample, un-
prepared, and sown at the same time in the same soil, had not til-
lered into more than two, three, and four stems.

I prepared the various mixtures fix)m the above specified salts
exactly neutralized, and then added from eight to twelve measures
of water. The time of steeping varied from fifty to ninety-four
hours, at a temperature of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, I found,
however, that barley does not succeed so well if steeped beyond
sixty hours.

Rye-grass and other gramineous seeds do with steeping from six-
teen to twenty hours, and clover from eight to ten, but not more ;
for, being bi-lobate, they are apt to swell too much and burst.

The very superior specimens of tall oats, averaging one hund-
red and sixty grains on each stem, and eight available stems from
each seed, were prepared from sulphate of ammonia. The speci-
mens of barley and here were prepared from nitrate of ammonia ;
the former had an average of ten available stems, and each stem
an average of thirty-four grains in the ear ; and the latter an aver-
age of also ten available stems, with seventy-two grains in the
ear.

The other specimens of oats which were next the most prolific,
were from muriate of ammonia ; and the promiscuous specimens
of oats were from nitrates of soda and potass — strong, numerous
in stems (some having not less than fifty-two), and not so tall as
either the preparation from the sulphate or muriate of ammonia.

It was objected by some that the tallest oats were too rank,
and would break down before coming to seed ; but I have no fear
of that, as they were strong in proportion to their height ; and
should there even be any ground for the objection, I am confident
that a combination of sulphates of ammonia and soda, or potass,
would rectify the excess of height, and render the grain equally
productive.

I have at present a series of experiments going on in the coun-
try, with seeds prepared in seven different ways, and sown in pure
sand, and in a tilly subsoil, taken six feet from under the surface,
and in which there is no humus or organic matter of any kind.
Along with the prepared seeds are also some unprepared^ and I
expect to be able to form a comparative estimate of their growth
by visiting the place in October.

At all events, from the experiments which I have already tried,
I am quite satisfied that, even without the application of common

148 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

manures, double crops, at least, rnay thus be raised ; and under-
the application of the ordinary manures, crops tenfold greater thart
usual.

The various salts were prepared by me from their carbonates-
I am, &c."

[Frosn the Spectator.]'

MODEL FARMS TN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND.

An important step has been made to promote agricultural edu-
cation in Scotland. During the late agricultural meeting in Glas-
gow, a number of gentlemen favorable to the establishment of ele-
mentary schools for the purpose, met in the merchants' hall j.
when, besides gentlemen connected wdth the Agricultural Chem-
istry Association of Scotland, several strangers attended, including
Lord Wallscourt, Lord Clements, Lord Ranelagh, Sir Robert
Bateson, Sir R. Houston, and others. The Lord Justice Clerk
took the chair ; and Professor Johnston explained the object of the
meeting. Mr. Skilling, superintendent of a model farm at Glass-
nevin, near Dublin, under the Irish Board of Education, made a
statement of the measures carried out by the board since 1838-
There are now three thousand teachers under the board ; there are
seven training establishments to supply teachers, but there wdlf
shortly be twenty-five ; and it is intended to plant one in every
county of Ireland. Mr. Skilling described the plan pursued at
the Glassnevin training school, established in 1838 j the class of
labor is limited to spade husbandry, only the spade and w'heel-bar-
row being used :

" The scholars, amounting to sixty or seventy, were lodged near
the farm, and fed from it. After being engaged on the farm in the
mornings of five days in the week, they w^ent into the town for
their literary education ; but the whole of Saturday was appropri-
ated to examinations. They had a garden, and, in connexion with
it, a competent gardener, who lectvired for one half hour in the
morning ; and he (Mr. Skilling) also lectured to the young men
on agricultural subjects. At stated periods, the teachers attended
the farm, and witnessed every practical operation which was going
on upon it. They observed every system of cropping, and got ex-
planations on every subject with which they were unacquainted ;
and the result was, that when they went away at the end of the
course^ they were found to be vastly improved in the scientific
knowledge of agriculture and its practical details. During the
course, they were enabled to obtain a considerable knowledge of

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 149

agriculture, chemistry, and geology ; they also received practical
information as to the principles of rotation in cropping, the culti-
vation of green crops, and the like. The practical errors which
existed as to the management of land were also pointed out to
them — such as the loss caused by bad fences, seedling-beds for
Vv'eeds, &c. ; and on the other hand, they were shown the advan-
tages of (h'aining, and opening and turning the land, and the bene-
ficial results of these on the general management."

This model farm had not only paid its rent, but returned a profit
of jG150 or <£170 a year. Afterwards, five boys educated in a
training school at Lame, in the north of Ireland, were introduced
and examined :

" They seemed to belong to the better class of peasantry, being
clad in liomely garbs ; and they appeared to be from twelve to
fourteen or fifteen years of age. They were examined, in the first
instance, by Mr. Gibson (inspector of schools) on grammar, geo-
graphy, and arithmetic ; and scarcely a single question did they fail
to answer correctly. They were then examined by Professor John-
ston on the scientific branches; and by Mr. Finnic of Swanston
aiul Mr. Alexander of Southbar, on the practical departments of
agriculture. Their acquaintance with these was alike delightful
and astonishing. They detailed the chemical constitution of the
soil, and the effect of manures, the land best fitted for green crops,
the different kinds of grain crops, the dairy, and the system of ro-
t.ilion. Many of these answers required considerable exercise of
1 tllection ; and as previous concert between themselves and the
irentlemen by whom they were examined was out of the question,
rlieir acquirements seemed to take the meeting quite by surprise ;
at the same time that they afforded it the utmost satisfaction, as
I vincing how much could be done by a proper system of training.
The youths and their teachers retired amidst much applause."

Lord Clements bore testimony to the eagerness for instruction
evinced by the peasantry near his property, in the wildest part of
C'onnaught ; men twenty years of age coming from a distance of
many miles to attend the school. Mr. Atlee, the teacher of an
agricultural school, on Lady Noel Byron's property, at Ealing,
reported the success of that establishment; there were at that mo-
ment five hundred applicants for atlmission to the farm as boarders.

Principal Macfarlan advocated education in agriculture ; but ex-
horted the meeting to carry on their improvements in accordance
■with the feelings of the people, not shocking their habits by rash
linnovations. He moved a resolution, that elementary instruction
ishould be afforded to the rural population of Scotland. This was
seconded by Mr. Alexander of Southbar, and carried unanimously.

Colonel Lindsay, of Balcarras, declared that the people of Scot-
land must make haste lest they should be behind in the progress
lof improvement —

150 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

" He must congratulate these young men from Ireland on the
admirable display they had made. To be a Scotsman was often
found a recommendation in procuring employment elsewhere ; but
these young men from Ireland would soon show to Scotsmen that
they were behind the Irish, and that, if they would maintain their
high character for industry and intelligence, they must be instruct-
ed as they were. These lads from Ireland had evinced so much
agricultural information, that, when ready for employment, they
had only to ask to obtain it. He was almost ashamed to admit
his belief, that there was not a similar class of youths in Scotland
who would answer the questions as these Irish lads had done."

[From the American Agriculturist.]

INCUBATION.

In an impregnated egg previous to the commencement of incu-
bation, a small spot is discernible upon the yolk, composed appa-
rently of a membraneous sac or bag, containing a fluid matter, in
which swims the embryo of the future chick, and seemingly con-
necteJ with other vesicles around it.

1st Day. In a few hours after exposure to the proper tempera-
ture, the microscope discovers that a humid matter has formed
within the limits of the embryo. At the expiration of twelve or
fourteen hours, this matter bears some resemblance to the shape of
a little heail ; a number of new vesicles also successively appear,
foreshadowing the different parts of the future body of the chick ;
those first formed, and most easily distinguished, may afterward be
recognized as assuming the shape of the vertebral bones of the back.

2d Day. The eyes begin to make their appearance about the 30th
hour, and additional vessels, closely joined together, indicate the
situation of the navel. The brain and spinal marrow, rudiments
of the wings, and principal muscles, become observable. The for-
mation of the head is also evidently proceeding.

3d Day. The beating of the heart is perceptible, although no
blood is visible ; after a few hours, however, two vesicles, con-
taining blood, make their appearance. One forming the left ven-
tricle, the other the great artery. The auricle of the heart is next
seen, and, in the whole, pulsation is evident.

4th Day. The wings now assume a more defined shape, and the
increased size of the head renders the globules containing the brain,
the beak and the front and hind part of the head, distinctly visible.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 151

5th Day. The liji'er makes its appearance, and both auricles,
now plainly seen, approach nearer the heart than before. That
splendid phenomenon, the circulation of the blood, is now evident.
, 6th Day. The lungs and stomach are distinguishable, and the
full gush of blood from the heart is distinctly apparent.

7th Day. The intestines, veins and upper mandible become visi-
ble, and the brain begins to assume a distinct form.

8th Day. The beak for the first time opens, and the formation of
flesh upon the breast commences.

9th Day. The deposition of matter forming the ribs takes place,
and the gall bladder is perceptible.

10th Day. The bile is distinguishable by its green color, and
the lirst voluntary motion of the body of the chick is seen, if sepa-
rated from its integuments.

11th Day. The matter forming the skull now becomes cartila-
ginous, and the protrusion of feathers may be noticed.

12th Day. The orbits of sight are apparent, and the ribs are per-
fected.

13th Day. The spleen gradually approaches to its proper posi-
tion in the stomach.

1 ith Day. The lungs become enclosed within the breast.

15th, 16th, and 17th Days. During these days, the infinity of
phenomena in this wonderful piece of vital mechanism elaborate
it into more perfect form, and it presents an appearance closely ap-
proaching the mature state. The yolk of the egg, however, from
which it derives its nourishment, is still outside the body.

18th Day. On the eighteenth day, the outward and audible sign
of developed life is apparent, by thefaint piping of the chick being,
for the first time, heard.

19th, 20th, and 21st Days. Continually increasing in size and
strength, the remainder of the yolk gradually becomes enclosed
within its body ; then, w^ith uncommon power, for so small and
frail a being, it liberates itself from its prison in a peculiar and
curious manner, by repeated efforts made with its bill, seconded
by muscular exertion with its limbs, and emerges into a new exist-
ence.

The position of the chicken in the shell, is such as to occupy
the least possible space. The head, which is large and heavy in
proportion to the rest of the body, is placed in front of the abdo-
men, with its beak under the right wing ; the feet are gathered up
like a bird trussed for the spit, yet in this singular manner, and
apparently uncomfortable position, it is by no means cramped or
confined, but performs all the necessary motions and efforts requir-
ed for its liberation, with the most perfect ease, and that consum-
mate skill which instinct renders almost infallible.

152 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The chicken, at the time it breaks the shell, is heavier than the
whole egg; was at first.

An egg; will not hatch in vacuo.

The infinite wisdom of the Great Architect of the animal frame
is remarkably manifested in its providing the chick with a sharp
and hard substance on the tip of the bill, by means of which it is
enabled to fracture the shell to liberate itself from its imprison-
ment. Its own bill is too soft to enable it to break the shell there-
with, and in two days or less this hard and pointed substance dis-
appears, the young bird no longer requiring to use it.

Equally extraordinary and wonderful is the fact that the germ
of the chick is provided with the ability to keep itself always on
the top of the yolk of the egg, to the end that it may take the
heat from the parent bird when setting, to produce incubation.

[From the Transactions of the Highland Society.]

REARING CATTLE, WITH A VIEW TO EARLY MATURITY

The production of beef at the quickest and cheapest rate being
the object in view, the first requisite is a stock of cows possessing
qualities suitable for this purpose. Accordingly, they should be
good milkers, able to keep at the rate of two and a half to three
calves each, of a kind known to have a tendency to fatten readily,
and to come early to maturity, and of a structure likely to produce
a vigorous, well-grown steer. In other w^ords, they must be good
short-horns ; only having more regard to their milking properties
than is usually done by breeders of bulls. And here it may be
well to notice, that it is in general highly inexpedient for the beef
grower — the farmer who depends largely on his regular cast of fat
cattle — to attempt breeding his own bull. It is only a few indi-
viduals in any district who have the taste and skill requisite for
this difficult department of the business, not to mention the large
capital which must necessarily be invested in it, the precariousness
of the return, the greater liability to casualties of such high-bred
animals, and the additional expense of their housing and mainte-
nance. On Tweed-side, the breeding of bulls is confined to a very
limited number of persons, chiefly Northumbrians, w^ho, by devo-
ting their whole attention to this department, are able, from year
to year, to furnish a class of bulls which are steadily improving
the general breed of the district. The contrary practice is at this
moment compromising the character of this valuable breed of cat-
tle in several districts of Scotland into which they have been more
recently introduced. Made wiser on this point by experience, the

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 153

farmer of the Border purchases from some breeder of established
reputation a good yearling bull, which he uses for two or three
seasons, and then replaces by another in like manner. This bull
serves his own cows and those of his hinds, and some of the neigh-
boring villagers ; and thus, though his own stud be limited to six
or eight cows, he can select from the progeny of his own bull as
many calves as he requires to make up his lot, and has them more
uniform in color and quality than could otherwise be the case. As
the male parent among sheep and cattle is known to exert by far
the greater influence in giving character to the progeny, and in-
creasingly so in proportion to the purity of his breeding, it is evi-
dently much to the advantage of the beef grower to spare no rea-
sonable trouble and expense in obtaining a bull of thorough purity,
and then to select his calves with the most scrupulous attention.
From overlooking all this, how often may lots of cattle be seen,
on the best of land too, which can only be fattened at an enormous
expense of food and time, and, after all, are so coarse in quality
as to realize an inferior price per stone ! Occasionally a few beasts
of the right sort will be seen in such lots, which, by going ahead of
their fellows to the extent of £4 or £o a piece of actual market
value, shew what might have been done by greater skill or attention
on the part of the owner. It is very desirable to have all the cows
to calve betwixt the 1st of February and the 1st of April. If
earlier, they will get almost dry ere the grass comes, and calves
later than this will scarcely be fit for sale with the rest of the lot.
When a calf is dropped, it is immediately removed from its dam,
rubbed dry, with a coarse cloth or whisp of straw (this being what
the cow would do for it with her tongue, if allowed), and then
placed in a crib in the calf-house among dry straw, when it receives
a portion of its own mother's first milk, which, being of a purga-
tive quality, is just what is needed by the young animal. For a
fortnight, new milk is the only food suitable for it, and of this it
should receive a liberal allowance thrice a day ; but means should
now be used to train it to eat linseed cake and sliced Swedish tur-
nip ; and the readiest way of doing so is to put a bit of cake into
its mouth immediately after getting its milk, as it will then suck
; greedily at anything it can get hold of. By repeating this a few
tliaes, and placing a few pieces in its trough, it will usually take
t'l this food freely ; and whenever this is the case, it should have
i- much as it can eat, that its allowance of milk. may be diminish-
< il, to meet the necessities of the younger calves which are coming
in siucession. This is of the greater importance that it is always
most desirable to avoid mixing anything with their milk by way
of helping the quantity. When a substitute must be resorted to,
oatmeal porridge mixed with the new milk is perhaps the best.

VOL. I. NO. 1. U

154 QUARTERLY JOLRNAL.

Sago has of late years been much used for this purpose ; but an
eminent English veterinary surgeon has recently expressed a very
decided opinion that its use impairs the digestive powers of the
animal, and predisposes to disease. The sour smell invariably
found in a calf-house, where porridge or jelly of any kind is mixed
with the milk, is proof sufficient that indigestion is the conse-
quence. An egg put into each calf's allowance, and mixed with
the milk by stirring with the hand, is a good help, and never does
harm : but, with this exception, it is best to give the milk warm
and unadulterated, however small the quantity ; and along with
this, dry farinaceous food, turnips and hay, ad libitum. If more
liquid is needed, a pail with water may be put within their reach,
iis this does not produce the bad effect of mixed milk. Indeed,
in this it is best to keep as closely as possible to the natural
arrangement according to which the calf takes its suck — at
first frequently, and then at longer intervals, as it becomes able to
eat of the same food as its dam. The diet of the cows at this
season is a matter of some consequence. Swedish turnips yield
the richt'st milk, but it is too scanty, and calves fed on it are lia-
ble to inflammatory attacks ; globe turnips should therefore formi
their principal food during the spring months. Care must also be
taken that they do not get too low in condition in the autumn and
winter, and for this end it is well to put them dry at least three
months before calving. Some may think this long ; but, on a
breeding farm, milk- is of little value at this season. The cows,
when dry, are kept at less expense, and, by this period of rest,
their constitution is invigorated, greater justice done to the foetus,
now rapidly advancing to maturity, and so much more milk ob-
tained after calving, when it is really valuable. When the calves
are from four to six weeks old, they are removed from their sepa-
rate cribs to a house where several can be accommodated together,
and have room to frisk about. So soon as the feeding yards are
cleared of the fat cattle, the calves are put into the most sheltered
one, where they have still more room, and are gradually prepared
for being turned to grass ; and, when this is done, they are still
brought in at night for some time. At six weeks old, the mid-day
allowance of milk is discontinued, and at about fourteen weeks
they are weaned altogether. When this is done, their allowance
of linseed cake is increased : and as they have been trained to its
use, they readily eat enough to improve in condition at this crisis,
instead of having their growth checked, and acquiring the l-arge
belly and unthrifty appearance which used to be considered an un-
avoidable consequence of weaning. The cake is continued until
they have so evidently taken with the grass as to be able to dis-
pense with it. They are not allowed to lie out very late in autumn,
but, as the nights begin to lengthen and get chilly, are brought in
during the night, and receive a foddering of tares and clover fog-

EXTRACTS 1' U H K 1 (i X AND DO M 1'. STIC. 155

gage. When put on turnips, the daily allowance of cake (say 1 lb.
each) is resumed, and continued steadily through the winter and
spring, until they are again turned to grass. This not merely pro-
motes their growth and feeding, but (so far as five or six years' ex-
perience can determine the point) seems a specific against black-leg,
which was often so fatal as altogether to deter many farmers from
breeding. It may be well to state here distinctly the particular
purpose for which cake is given at the different stages of their
growth. At first, the object is to accustom them to a wholesome
and nvtricious diet, which will supplement the milk obtained from
any given number of cows, so as to achnit of a greater number of
calves being reared, and at the same time have greater justice done
them than could otherwise be practicable. At weaning time,
again, it is given to help the young animal over the transition from
milk to grass alone, without check to growth or loss of condition.
During the following winter, however, the special object of its
use is to prevent black-leg, as, but for this, turnips ad libitum
would be sufficient. When put to grass as year-olds, they deci-
dedly thrive better on sown grass of the first year than on old pas-
ture, differing in this respect from cattle whose growth is matured.
They are laid on turnips again as early in the autumn as these are
ready ; and it is a good practice to sow a few acres of globes to be
ready for this express purpose. It does well to give the turnips
upon the grass for ten or fourteen days before putting them finally
into the feeding yards ; and then, if they can be kept dry and
warm, and receive daily as many good turnips as they can possi-
bly eat (globe till Christmas and Swedish afterwards), they wnll
grow at a rate that will afford their owner daily pleasure in watch-
ing their progress, and reach a weight by the 1st of May which,
if markets are favorable, w'ill reward him well for his pains. The
leading features of this system are uniform good keeping and pro-
gressive improvement ; in other words, to get them fat as soon
after their birth as possible, and keep them so till they reach ma-
turity. The details given above are a description of the expedi-
ents generally adopted by the breeders of this district for securing
these objects.

[From tlie last Report of tlie Commissioner of Patents.]

SILK.

During the past year the silk business in this country has been
steadily advancing. A greater interest is evidently felt in the sub-
ject ; the evidence is decisive, that it needs only patient perseve-
•;mce to accomplish greater things than its warmest advocates have

156 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ventured to hope for. A well represented national convention on
the subject was held at New-York in October last, at the time of
the fair of the American Institute, by the direction of which a
great number of letters and communications from persons en-
gaged in the business in all parts of the United States have been
published in a pamphlet called " The Silk Question settled.'^'' The
statements contained in this publication furnish the most complete
view of the condition of the business of cultivation of the mul-
berry, raising and feeding worms, and the manufacture of silk,
with the methods best adapted to success, that has before been pre-
sented to the public. Twelve states were represented by the ap-
pearance of a delegation in person, and communications were
received also from the residents of eight more. From the various
other information, as well as from this publication, it is evident
that there has been an increase of attention to this crop all over
the United States. In New-England it does not probably equal
that of some other sections of the country. Some scattered notices
may help in estimating the crop of the first year ; but much reli-
ance will be placed on the publication just mentioned, and wf.
shall endeavor to condense some of the important results and con-
clusions on account of their eminently practical bearing and uti-
lity. The greatest increase in the crop seems to have taken place
at the west. The states of Ohio, Tennessee, and Indiana, have
several enterprising men whose influence has been felt in urging
forward this business, and the advance is most encouraging. It is
very difficult to fix on any ratio, and the estimate of the table will
probably, in many cases, fall far below the actual progress ; but
there is sufficient to show that there is a steady increase from year
to year. In the New-England states, Connecticut and Massachu-
setts stand foremost in their attention to silk. In Connecticut, the
effect of the exertions of some ardent friends of the cause, previous
to the revolutionary war and just about the close of the last cen-
tury, is still felt ; and several establishments, especially in the
town of Mansfield and vicinity, show what might have been done
through the whole country had the same perseverance been mani-
fested, in spite of early discouragements, and the same willingness
to be contented with moderate profits. The experience of that
little town warrants the belief that is expressed by some of its in-
habitants, that " the time is not far distant when we, as a country,
shall raise our own silk and manufacture it, and ultimately compete
with foreign nations." From Massachusetts we learn that '* the
country has taken hold of it in earnest ; each year, for some years,
has doubled on the preceding. Last year (1842) 400 or 500 were
engaged in that business in Massachusetts, -iWid more than double
that number in New-England." Several establishments for its
manufacture are found in this state in successful operation. In
parts of Vermont there are also individuals who are devoting con-

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 157

siderable attention to the production of silk ; but, as the climate
is so much colder here, and in Maine and New-Hampshire, than in
any other New-England states, they are less favorably situated for
the business. It is, however, increasing, and among other things
on this subject, it is stated that several thousand dollars worth of
the eggs of the silkworm have been sent to the West Indies. There
is a bounty given by the state government ; and one person ex-
presses his opinion that "five acres of trees, of the age of four
years from the seed, will produce more net profit than can be rea-
lized from 200 sheep, or a dairy of 20 cows; and he adds, "I
trust the day is not far distant when the raising of silk will be
considered as profitable a business as that of raising wool."

In New-York, the number of persons who are waking up to the
importance of this subject is increasing. At the fair of the New-
York State Agricultural Society, the crop of nineteen persons in a
single district of the country was 2,150 lbs. In Monroe county, the
quantity offered for the state bounty was said to be 2,256 lbs.; the
year before, it was 1,695 ; in 1841, 1,539 lbs.

There are two or three fine establishments for the manufacture
of silk in New- Jersey, and for some time there was formerly pub-
lished a paper relative to this subject in this state.

Pennsylvania formerly gave a bounty on the production of co-
coons or silk, but the law, it is said, has been repealed. This has
exerted some unfavorable influence, and probably prevented the
progress of the crop as much in this large state, as would have
been the case had the encouragement been continued. The fol-
lowing statement shows what has been the progress of the silk
culture at Economy, in five years, commencing in 1838 :

Years. No. of lbs. of cocoons.

1838, 1,400

1839, 1,800

1840, 2,400

1841, 4,400

1842, . . , , 5,500

In five years, 15,500

The largest crop raised at one establishment in Europe, 200
years after the culture of silk was introduced, it is said, was 3,000
lbs.

In Maryland are some ardent friends of this object ; and though
some have been unsuccessful in past years, in respect to the mul-
ticaulis, yet the belief is expressed that the silk business is yet
destined to do well.

For the southern states this business of silk culture is admirably
adapted, and yet comparatively little has been done with regard to
it there. The climate is so much milder, and the means of taking

158 (QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

care of the worms are so abundant, that there is every facility for
raising large crops. On this subject we have the opinion of some
residents in that part of the country. One of them writes thus :
" The great difficulty in all matters of improvements in the south,
is, it is too small a business — too much trouble, or too long to get
the return. My own opinion is, that it is to us of the south the
greatest business that has ever presented itself. An old negro,
competent to feed young children or chickens, with the aid of a
few small chaps from four to eight years of age, can make as much
as grown hands can in the field, and this without any expense of
gin-house and machinery." " It seems to me a business peculiar-
ly appropriate for the south. We can commence feeding on the
20th of April, (this year on the 16th — last year on the 24th.)
We can feed without taking our field hands, or any extra building ;
and what is done thus is entire gain." In Georgia we are inform-
ed to this effect : " One family has made thirty yards of beautiful
silk, and has made it up into ladies' dresses, and it is not inferior
to the best Freiich or English in appearance." One of the mem-
bers of Congress from this state also informs us that he has a suit
of silk of the manufacture in South Carolina. An experiment is
mentioned as commenced in Louisiana, at Baton Rouge, by a gen-
tleman from France, which seems to promise success. The amount
of silk cocoons the past year in Tennessee is estimated by one con-
cerned in the manufacture at from 20,000 to 25,000 lbs. In 1840
it is said that there were raised in that state but 1,237 lbs. A fine
manufactory here, under the superintendence of an experienced
silk-weaver from London, is said to have produced splendid speci-
mens of satin. It is also said that one hundred hands could now
be employed in manufacturing the quantity of cocoons produced ;
and the opinion is expressed that " ultimately no other business
will equal it." Governor Jones, of that state, has been presented
with a full suit of domestic silk, by the silk-growers there, in ac-
knowledgment of his efficient services to the cause of American
industry.

In Kentucky we notice, in one of the journals, that five hundred
skeins of beautiful sewing silk have been manufactured in one
family ; and it is evident that the attention to it is greater than
formerly.

Ohio has one of the finest establishments in the country, which
manufactures one thousand bushels of cocoons annually, with a
capital of $10,000, and employing from forty to fifty hands. The
amount of cocoons produced in the Ohio valley is estimated " at
least sufficient to keep two hundred reels in operation."

Much attention likewise is paid to the silk business in Indiana ;
and the success experienced justifies the expectation that the cul-
ture of silk will hereafter become a <ireat business there.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 159

In Michigan, Mississippi, and Wisconsin, also, by the accounts
given, the attention is more directed to this crop than heretofore.
The whole crop is estimated at 315,965 lbs. of cocoons.
The resolutions passed by the convention at New-York on the
subject, express the strongest confidence in the prospects of the
silk culture. Arrangements were made for collecting a fuller ac-
count of the state of the business the next year, by issuing a cir-
cular embracing a great variety of items ; the results of which
effort will, doubtless, be more cheering than any heretofore attempt-
ed. More than one hundred and fifty witnesses have given their
testimony, which is embodied in the pamphlet to which reference
has already been made. The questions which were put and an-
swered for the convention, related to a great variety of particular
points connected with the culture and manufacture of silk. Some
of the results it may be well to notice at this time.

1. Varieties of the 'mulberry tree. The Canton, Brosa, Al-
pine, Italian, multicaulis, and common white mulberry, are all
mentioned, and preferences are variously expressed. The Canton
seems to be quite a favorite in the state of Massachusetts, and the
northern climate generally. The silk worms are stated by one
person to leave the other varieties for the Canton. The soil and
climate are said to be "peculiarly adapted, and more congenial"
to its growth " tl^^n even China, its native soil," as remarked by
Dr. Parker, missionary to China. " The tree grows more in this
continent than in China. It is said there to attain only about four
feet in the season, while in our country it grows six to eight feet
in a season, after being headed down in the spring, and growing
in a dry soil enriched by the decomposition of the foliage on its
surface." " I do not know," says one who has great experience,
" of any compost so enriching as the foliage of the Canton mul-
berry." In the middle and western states the Italian and multi-
caulis seem to be preferred, while some judges seem to think very
highly of the white mulberry. One, whose opinion is entitled to
much weight, says: "I cultivate them as I do corn, and replant
the multicaulis every three years." The mode of planting is of
considerable importance. In a trial made by one of the most
ardent friends of the cause, after laying his trees " the whole
length in the furrow, manuring them with a cheap compost made
principally of peat wood properly prepared," they were destroyed
by the frosts of winter ; but on being " set deep, one root in a
place, in dry, sloping land, (or ridged, if flat,) rich enough to
make good extended roots," the plants went safely through the
winter. Thus managed, he says, " they are essentially safe from
the perils of winter anywhere between Canada and the gulf of
Mexico." It is not the degree of cold that docs the injury in this
and similar cases, but " freezing and thawing." " Trees, too.

160 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ought not to be so thick as to prevent the sun from reaching their
leaves, and the air to circulate freely among them."

2. As regards the Jd?ids of worms, the preference is very deci-
dedly given to the peanut variety, and next to the sulphur. The
sulphur are larger than the other. One person mentions that in a
trial he made, he found that it took four thousand four hundred
peanut cocoons, or two thousand two hundred of the sulphur, to
make a bushel. The former gave twenty-two ounces, and the lat-
ter fourteen ounces of raw silk. The peanut bushel weighed fif-
teen pounds — the sulphur nine and a half pounds ; and it took
three hundred peanuts, or two hundred and forty sulphur, to
weigh a pound. The four thousand four hundred peanut gave
twenty-two ounces, and the four thousand four hundred sulphur
twenty-eight ounces of raw silk. He says he generally obtains
one hundred pounds of cocoons from an ounce of eggs. The
number of cocoons for the pound varies from two hundred up to
four hundred : the peanut variety is said to require three hundred.
By another, the peanut is said to take four thousand to make a
bushel w^eighing fourteen pounds ; of the Nankin peanut three
thousand six hundred, weighing thirteen pounds ; and of the mam-
moth sulphur three thousand, weighing ten pounds nine ounces.
The thread of the silkworm has been found to be from eight
hundred to nine hundred yards on a single cocoon.

3. The causes of faihcre in raising the silkworm are generally
attributed to the want of ventilation, as one writer remarks : " The
failures in feeding, that came under my observation, in a propor-
tion of ninety-nine to one hundred, have been for the want of suf-
ficient ventilation." Another says, " I consider the diseases of
silkworms to be produced by vicissitudes in the weather operating
upon the moist effluvia from the worms and the litter. The reme-
dy is the free circulation of air, and the free use of lime." Again,
another observes : " I have seen all the diseases that the silkworm
is subject to ; and I believe the nearer we get them to a state of
nature the greater the success." Another likewise says : " I am
more convinced than ever that water does not hurt the worms. I
believe if I had sprinkled my leaves with water this season, when
the weather was very dry and hot, I should have saved my
worms." And yet another : "I am inclined to think the cause of
failure in many, perhaps in most cases, where the multicaulis is
used for feeding, arises from using leaves that have not sufficient
growth or thickness, and are not ripe. The young and under
leaves have not sufficient nutriment, or in other words, not suffi-
cient material to produce silk. The worm fed on such leaves
passes through its various and wondrous changes, lives the time
prescribed by nature for its existence, then either stretches itself
out and dies, or winds a thin indifferent cocoon, because it has not

EXTRACTS FOKEIGN AND DOMESTIC. 161

silk enough to wind a better.'''' " 1 consider unslaked lime a power-
ful disinfector of disease among silkworms ; and very (I would
say absolutely) necessary to be used in warm weather." In an
other case, when the worms were dying by thousands, of the yel-
lows, they were put out ; and, says the informant, " I let it rain
on them two days and two nights ; let them chy, covered them with
lime, and they commenced eating." The use of lime in another
case is mentioned with success in staying the disease. The remark
is made in another communication : " Some of my worms this
season were wet by the rain leaking through the roof, but I could
not see that they were injured by it. Care was taken, however,
to dry their food in rainy weather as much as possible." Another
recommends that, if attacked by the yellows, they should be
placed in the open air.

4. As respects the mode of feeding., there are several points
very clearly established ; that tlie practice of feeding in the open
air, or open feeding, (as it is termed,) early feeding, in contrast of
late feeding, and, in most climates, the 07ie crop system, axe import-
ant particulars to be regarded. The following remark is made in
a communication from Vermont : " And now I have come to the
conclusion that these three things are indispensably necessary for
the successful culture of silk : 1. Plenty of feed — it matters not
so much what kind, whether white or multicaulis ; 2. Plenty of
fresh air ; and last, though not least, cleanliness and plenty of
room. And with them there is no more difficulty in raising silk,
than there is in raising sheep or pigs." Another from the same
state says : " The worms were fed in an open building — so much
open, that the wind would frequently blow the leaves from the
shelves where the worms were feeding." The testimony on this
subject is almost universal. One says " I have found, on close
observation, that nothing imparls such vigor to the worms as a
good dry breeze of air. A most excellent authority, with refer-
ence to this subject, speaking of his own experience, says : " The
result of the whole is, in ray judgment, the more air the better ;
only guarding against sudden gusts of wind, that will disturb your
leaves or bushes. As to ordinary turns of cold weather in our
summer months, their eifect is to render the worms torpid. Of
course, they will not, in this state, eat and grow ; and there is loss

Ef time in getting them through ; but this is the only loss to be
pprehended. Upon returning warmth, they revive and go on
..'ith their wondrous labors, apparently uninjured by their tempo-
rary interruption." It is also said : " We think there is a decided
advantage in using finely-chopped leaves the first two or three
rt'eeks — the whole leaves appear to smother the worms." A cor-
espondent from Mississippi remarks : " This season I fed worms
.vith leaves well wetted with dew — so much so, that shaking them
n the floor would pretty well sprinkle it, which wee^eneraHv /■I'-',

VOL. I. NO. 1. V

162 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Heretofore, we gathered dry leaves in time, or even wiped them
dry ; but it was so tedious, we resolved merely to shake the water
off, and our worms grew apparently more rapid than they ever had
before. As a fact to prove this, they began to wind the twenty-
fifth or twenty-sixth day." An experienced hand mentions that,
particularly at the time of moulting, it is very necessary to avoid
disturbing them by noises or sudden starts — such as throwing their
food on them, or loud talking and laughing, &c. — as it injures
them. A similar universal testimony is given in favor of early
feeding. The one crop system is likewise very generally approved,
though a number of crops are successfully raised in the warmer
climates. By the use of Gill's feeding and ventilating cradle,
and the tent system, it is said the expense is lessened one-half,
while the amount produced is double. As to the kind of wood to
be used for the winding, one person remarks that, after a variety
of experiments, he found the bass wood the best of the whole j \
" the leaves are large and do not curl much ; and, by setting them
up close, the worms will crawl in between the leaves, and deposit
their cocoons frequently four or five on a leaf, so that it is very ,
easy gathering them. The floss comes off very clean ; and, there
being plenty of room, there are very few double ones." Another
recommends paper, folded in a fan-like shape, suspended over the
worms — the wide-spread part within their reach. Small bundles
of straw of about the size of the wrist, crumpled and bent so as
to stand out, spread out dow/iu'arrf^, tied within the feeding frames^
near the lower end, are said to be excellent for the purpose.

5. In regard to the method of preparing silk for the manufac-
turer, the following considerations are deemed of importance : A
silk-dyer says : " Most people clean the silk with soft soap — de
stroying the native gloss in freeing it of its gum, owing to the
vegetable alkali the soap contains. Many dyers use nothing but
the best of white soap. About twenty-five pounds of good white
soap dissolved in sufficient clean soft water, is used for one huri'
dred pounds of silk ; put the silk loosely in thin bags, boil gently
two and a half hours, cool and wash it well in a running stream
and beat occasionally to free it from all impurity." The Piedmont
reel seems to be considered the best of any of the reels in use, and
great consequence is attached to a uniformity of reeling. Otc
who had great experience on these subjects remarks : " "While on
the subject of reeling, perhaps I shall be excusable for mentioning
what, to me, proves a source of deep regret. I mean the inexperi
ence of those in different sections of our country, who reel their
own silk without knowing the necessity of its being done in a par-
ticular manner to suit the manufacturer. Lots of silk are offered
for sale, which, to look at it, appear perfectly good ; but, on ex-
amination, are not saleable at any price, because they cannot be
worked." Another, also, alluding to the same thing, says : " R?w

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AKD DOMESTIC. 163

silk must be reeled only in large quantities, of a uniform quality
and fineness, in order to be employed in manufactures." " The
proper business of families, and the only business adapted to them
in the silk culture, is the feeding of worms and the production of
the cocoons." Again : a gentleman well versed in the business of
silk, asserts that " two reelers shall each take one bushel of the
same parcel of cocoons, and one shall produce from her portion a
pound of silk worth $6 ; while the other shall produce the same
quantity worth only $3 — the latter being not even the value of the
cocoons before she began to reel them." The establishment of
filatures in great central points, which shall furnish a near market
to those who grow the cocoons, is most desirable. Already there
are a number in successful operation.

6. The mamifadure of silk has been carried to great perfection.
It is said : " A large establishment in Baltimore manufactures im-
mense quantities of silk and worsted vestings, employing some
fifteen or twenty Jacquard looms, and working up large quantities
of domestic silk j and yet they dare not let it be known that their
goods are manufactured in this country." But there are other
manufactories in various parts of the country which furnish sew-
ing silk, fringe, tassels, gimp, satin, velvet, and other silks. The
uniform testimony of those employed in these establishments,
(some of whom have followed the business for twenty or twenty-
five years in England,) is, that they never saw finer, or as fine silk,
as the American when carefully prepared. It is said to give a
stronger thread than foreign silk, and, by many manufacturers, is
altogether preferred. The experiment of making paper from mul-
berry leaves, which is said to have been successful in France, is to
be fully trietl in this country the present year. It is said that a
discovery has been made that pongee silk is produced from the
fibrous bark of the mulberry, and that it has never passed through
the silk worm. It is also said, on the same authority, that " there
is nearly one hundred per cent difference in the use of foilage in
raising cocoons. That, to produce one hundred weight of cocoons,
from twenty to twenty-two hundred weight of foilage of grafted
trees, propagated by grafting buds, cuttings, or layers, is necessa-
ry ; while from twelve to thirteen hundred weight of leaves from
seedlings will accomplish the same result."

The jprofit and feasibleness of the raising and manufacture of silk
are also fully established. One person, who produced raw silk,
says that his net profit w'as equal to $60 per acre. At a large
establishment in Massachusetts, the profits are estimated at thirty-
seven and a half per cent. To show the kind of manufacture, and
the amount of capital invested, and nature of expenses, we insert
the following account with reference to a fine manufactory in
Ohio : "My factory is in full and successful operation, producing
more goods than at any time previous. Our operations, as per

164 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

factory books, and account stock taken August 8th, for the past
sixteen months, is as follows, in a condensed form, viz :

Cash value of factory buildings, $1,340

do do machinery, engine, and permanent fixtures, 4,060

1,067 bushels cocoons purchased, 3,600

280 pounds reeled silk purchased, 1,400

Contingent expenses, &c 604

Wages paid factory hands, &c * 3,lo2

Dyeing, dyes, &c. ^^ '

Wages paid weavers, 1,610

8,000 bushels of coal, at five cents, • • 400

$16,773

In buildings, • $1,340

In machinery, &c 4,060

Manufactured 3,731 yards of velvets, vestings, dress, and

other silks, &c 6,324

1,006 cravats and handkerchiefs, 1,396

850 pairs of gloves and stockings, 8'^5

70 pairs of shirts and draw^ers, 325

10 pounds of sewings, 1^^

Contingent credits, • I5OOO

Cocoons, reeled and other prepared silk, warps in looms

and other stock, coal, &c., per invoice, 3,180

$18,6001

7. As to the adaptation of our country for the object^ the evi-
dence is equally clear. An able advocate of the enterprise remarks
that " the climate of our country approximates closely to that_ ofl
China in the same parallels of latitude ; our geographical position
is similar to that country ; the boundaries of our land and sea are
like theirs ; and our prevailing winds in summer are like their
land winds. The dry warm atmosphere of both countries in sea-
sons is well adapted to the growth of silks ; in fact, (to say J
great deal in a few words,) this and China are the only legitnnatf
silk growing countries. In Europe artificial means can only giv«
to the eggs the forwardness which the atmosphere here gives
Throuo-hout Europe the question is, 'How shall the eggs b«
hatched V Here it is, ' How shall they be kept back until we ar
ready for them V England may compete with us in the manufa"
ture of silk, but she can never grow a pound." " All that
needed is the enterprise and industry of the people of the country^
to bring silk into the list of American staples." Another says:
" I fully believe that this precious and invaluable product may be
cultivated anywhere and everywhere in our extended country and

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 165

i'ontinent wherever our favorite Indian corn can be grown."
\nother also : " I cannot doubt that the business is destined short-
ly to become a great and important branch of national industry,
and a vast and inexhaustible source of national wealth." Another
still, remarks : " Our experience is, that the silk culture is much
the most profitable of any branch of husbandry in this section of
country ; and we feel confident that it will, ere long, spread.
through the Union, and become second to none except the cotton
I owing interest, even if it does not take the lead of that also."
• It may be associated with the farming business of the country ;
and females and children can attend to it, so that it may be carried
oil without interfering with either domestic or agricultural con-
cerns ; while they will give at little expense a very considerable
added profit." In France, ladies have done much in this enter-
prise. It is to be hoped that the whole country will soon be led
to awake to the importance of the subject ; and that, instead of
silk being found among our list of imports, it will, ere long, occu-
py a place among the staples exported to our foreign markets, and
producing additional wealth to our extended country.

[From the last Report of the Comr. of Patents.]

WATER-ROTTING HEMP.

The subject of hemp, in all its management, is one of decided
interest throughout the west. At present, Russia furnishes most
of the hemp for our navy ; not because it grows more luxuriantly,
or that the fibre is better than the growth of this country, but be-
cause it is better prepared for manufacturing than in this country.
It is to the interest of the farmer, manufacturer, and the nation,
that we produce at least enough for our own consumption ; and
what we lack is mainly in the mode of rotting and cleaning. It
is decided, by universal experience, that water-rotted hemp is bet-
ter for perhaps every purpose than dew-rotted. The communica-
tion from the pen of the Hon. H. Clay, here annexed, contains
most valuable information ; and we ask our many readers to give
it a careful perusal, and endeavor to put themselves in possession
of the advantages afforded.

Ashland, May 28, 1843.

Dear Sir — I received your letter, requesting information as to
my method of preparing my water-rotted hemp for market. I
water-rotted last winter and this spring, eight or ten tons, in vats
fifty feet long, twelve feet wnde at the bottom and fourteen at the
top, and four and a half feet deep. The hemp is first put in the
vats carefully, the water then introduced, and when the hemp is

166 QUAKTERLY JOURNAL.

sufficiently rotted the water is let oflF. It is very buoyant, and
requires great pressure to keep it immersed in the water. It did
not succeed well at first, and I am not now entirely satisfied with
my contrivance. Weights of logs or stones, or both, will answer ;
but are inconvenient to remove. I think the best plan will be to
sink posts at the distance of six or eight feet apart on each side of
the vats, but along side of them. At the bottom let there be hooks
in the posts, on which should be laid a log or beam, and then
cover them up with earth to the top of the vats. At the top of
the posts let there be also hooks, to receive logs passing across the
vats from one post to the opposite post. I know that this arrange-
ment, if properly executed, will keep the hemp down in the
water.

The length of time of the immersion of the hemp depends upon
the temperature of the water ; it will remain in cold water six or
seven weeks ; whilst in very warm weather six or seven days, or
less, will be sufficient. You can only determine when the hemp is
sufficiently rotted by experiment — taking out a handful, and,
when dry, applying it to the brake ; but you will soon learn to
decide on that point.

When the hemp is rotted enough, it should be spread on the
ground to dry — or, which is better, on short grass. If it be not
sufficiently rotted, the process may be completed by the rain and
dew, w^ithout injury. After it is rotted sufficiently, it is broken
out in the same old method that has long been practised with dew-
rotted hemp. There are now in progress in my neighborhood
various experiments to save labor, by breakmg out hemp with
horse power ; some of which, I think, will succeed.

I am not yet able to inform you of the best mode of handling
and preparing the article for market. I have just sent (for the
first time) three or four tons to the eastern market, as specimens ;
and I shall know what is the best method when I hear how they
are received. I had the hemp put in bales of two or three hun-
dred weight, pressed by a powerful screw, and covered and tied up
with cotton bagging. One parcel was hackled so much as to take
off one-fourth in tow, but this tow is not lost ; the other parcel I
sent off as it came from the brake, clean, and divested of showers.

I intend to engage more extensively this year in water-rotting
my crop, and I am very sanguine of success. American hemp, as
prepared, is undoubtedly as good as Russia hemp.

Wishing you great success in your enterprise,! am, respectfully,
your obedient servant.

H. CLAY.

Bernard Myers, Esq..

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 167

THRIFT, OR NOTHING IS USELESS.

FROM THE GERMAN OF ZSCHOKKE.

John Schmid was an old soldier with a wooden leg: he was
so poor, that for some years he was obliged to solicit alms from
door to door in the villages near to that in which he lived, which
was situated on the lake of Constance. Now, however, old John
Schmid sits at his ease in his arm-chair ; he is in independent cir-
cumstances ; yet few people guess how he came by his wealth.
One affirms that he discovered a secret'treasure ; others have gone
so far as to hint that he made a compact with the Evil One.
When such hints are dropped in my presence, I fail not to re-
prove the speakers. I know better the means by which the old
soldier got rich, and I will tell you how it was.

John Schmid had three sons, whom he had brought up well in
spite of his poverty ; for he not only furnished them with good
advice, but with a good example, and suftered many privations
that he might send them to school. One morning in spring, as the
old man was dividing amongst them the bread which was to break
their fast, he said, ' My children, you are now old enough to gain
your own livelihood ; but you must not beg while there are other
means of obtaining it — that would be taking bread out of the
mouths of those who may want it more than you. Pierre,' he
continued, turning to the eldest, ' you are fourteen years old, and
have sharp eyes — use them to seek employment. You, Gabriel,
though a year younger, have strong arms, set them to work. You,
George, though only eleven, have stout legs, profit by them.'

' But what,' exclaimed the three boys at once, ' would you have
us to do ]'

John Schmid answered, ' I know that you have neither land to
cultivate, wood to fell, nor flocks to tend ; but there are many
things that are thrown away as useless, but which with a little in-
dustry may be collected and made profitable. By and by I will
show you how. Do not spend the money which you will earn in
obedience to your wants, but economise it for the necessities of the
future, be it ever so little. Could you save only a balz a day,
each would amass at the end of the year, twenty-four florins.'

Upon this John Schmid set about showing his sons how they
might earn their bread. He desired ihem to go in dilferent direc-
tions to collect the following articles : first, bones, the largest of
which they could sell to the turners, who made them into various
useful and ornamental articles, while the smaller were required by
farmers for manure. Secondly, pieces of broken glass, to be dis-
posed of to the glass-workers for recasting. As it was spring, he

168 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

charged them to get together all the rose-leaves and elder-blos-
soms which fell in their way, and for which apothecaries give good
prices. He also reminded his sons, that by a little inquiry, the
chemists would point out what other plants and roots they re-
quired. Upholsterers would purchase cows' hair, saddlers, coach-
makers and chairmakers, horse-hair. Besides these articles, he
mentioned rags for paper-makers, bristles for brush manufactures,
quills, pins, hedge-wool, bird-weed, and several other things
which might be turned into money, with no other trouble than
that of seeking out and collecting them.

The sons did as they were desired, under the guidance of their
father. During the spring and summer they collected and sold
with such success, that their profits daily augmented.

When autumn came, they sought things of a different kind.
Wherever they could obtain permission, they gathered wild fruits,
some of which could be made into vinegar and other useful arti-
cles. From the woods they obtained quantities of acorns and the
seeds of other species of trees, for which they obtained a good
price, sometimes from foresters, at others from grain-dealers. They
also got together heaps of horse-chesnuts, and took them to the
mill to be ground. The miller thought they were going to eat
this bitter flour, and made himself merry at the expense of their
curious taste ; but John Schmid's sons let him laugh, and took
their horse- chesnut flour to the book-binders, card-board-makers,
and others who make use of paste, the glutinousness of which it
increases. Immediately after a warm shower, the young Schmids
sought for mushrooms, which they sold to the epicures in the neigh-
borhood.

Having saved a quantity of birch twigs, rushes, and osiers, the
old man and his sons occupied the winter months in making brooms,
chair-bottoms, and baskets, so that their cottage appeared both like
a warehouse and a workshop. In this way the spring returned^
and old John Schmid thought it advisable to see what had been
gained during the year. On opening the box in which the cas
was deposited, he found that each of his three sons had contribu
ted more tlian a batz a day of savings, for the money-box con
tained one hundred and four florins and twenty-three kreutzers.
At the sight of the hoard the sons were delighted, for they had
never before seen so large a sum at once. John Schmid immedl-,
ately carried the money to a wholesale tradesman in a large townj^j
and deposited it with him at interest.

John Schmid, now no longer a beggar, employed himself solely
in helping his sons sell oti" tlie merchandize they had collected.
This went on for four years, during which the family had amassed
six hundred and fourteen florins ! As, however, their riches in-
creased, the young men grew independent in their manners, and
disputed amongst themselves ; one accusing the other of not work-

EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 169

ing hard enough, of selling too cheaply, or of extravagance in
treating himself to a cup of wine rather too often. Poor old
Schraid ! — do all he could, he was unable, on some occasions, to
settle these discussions*. Nothing seemed likely to cure the evil
but separation ; and addressing his sons, he said, ' Take each of
you one hundred florins, and seek your fortunes in the world ; in-
dustry and economy always prosper. The rest of the capital
shall remain in the hands of the banker, in case that any unfore-
seen misfortune should fall on any of us so as to need it. But
while it remains untouched, the interest will be added to the prin-
cipal.' To this the young men agreed; and taking each his ap-
portioned sum, bade adieu to their father. They took their depar-
ture, each in a ditferent direction. Pierre went eastward, Gabriel
westward, and George towards the south. John Schmid grieved
to part with his children, but he knew it was for their good, and
bore his regrets in silence.

Years rolled on. John Schmid grew old and weak, but he
would not touch a kreutzer of his children's capital. At length
he fell ill ; and some of his neighbors, pitying his lonely state,
sent him relief; others declared they had poor enough of their
own to support, and though he had lived in their village for twenty-
one years, threatened to send him away as a stranger. Upon this
old John wrote to the merchant who held the money, saying,
* Send me three hundred florins of the capital I deposited in your
hands ; for I am aged and weak, and for fourteen years I have not
heard of my children. Doubtless they are dead. It will not be
long ere I follow them to the grave.'

The honest merchant promptly replied to the old man's de-
mand. ' I return youj' he wrote, ' the sum you ask. The balance
remaining is perhaps greater than you imagine. It has increased,
by little and little, to more tlian one thousand florins.'

When the money arrived, the peasants stared with wonder, and
declared that John Schmid must be a conjurer. But the old man
l^imself, in spite of his riches, was unhappy. He wished to join
his sons, whom he thought to be no more. He would often ex-
' claim, ' I shall die in solitude ; no son is left to close my eyes.
However, he recovered from his illness, and it was destined that
lie should not die alone.

One Sunday evening he was seated with other peasants under a
linden tree, when a servant on horseback rode up, and inquired if
any one could direct him to the cottage of John Schmid 1 The
villagers, full of astonishment, replied, ' You need not seek him in
his house for he is here.' As they stared and whispered inquiries
to one another as to what was to come next, two handsome carria-
ges entered the village, and stopped before old Schmid's door.
Three well-dressed gentlemen and two ladies descended from the
Loaches, and as old John made his appearance, threw themselves

VOL. I. — NO. 1. W

170 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

successively into his arms. 'My dear father,' said the eldest, ' can
it be possible that you have forgotten us *? I am Pierre. I have
become a wholesale grocer at Varsovie, in Poland, and this lady is
my wife.' Then the second spoke : — ' I am your son Gabriel, and
also bring you a daughter-in-law. I, too, reside at Varsovie, and
deal in corn.' Presently the third son came forward. 'I,' he
said ' am George. I have recently returned from India, where I
made a fortune by commerce. Seeing by the Gazettes that my
brothers were in Poland, I joined them, and we all agreed to travel
hither to seek you, and to make you happy for the rest of your
life.' Poor John Schmid was quite overcome, and shed tears. He
invoked blessings on his children. 'To you,' exclaimed one of
them ' we owe all our good fortune. Had you not taught us that
nothing, be it ever so despised, is useless — had you not made us \
industrious, persevering and economical, we should still have been
mendicants.'

The rest of John Sclimid's life was spent in happiness, for one •
or other of his sons always remained with him. The money, which '
had accumulated during their long absence, w^as drawn from the^
merchant in whose hands it had so much increased, and employed t
in building a school for the gratuitous education of poor children. i1

To those who, like me, were aware of the means by which thei
Schmids grew rich, their rise in the world is known to be the cer^
tain result of integrity, industry, and perseverance in turning to«j
account things generally considered useless. Spite, however, (rfJ
all I can urge, one or two of the most prejudiced villagers shruj
their shoulders when John Schmid's name is mentioned, ar
insinuate that he must have made a compact w^ith a certain name-
less person.

SOURCE FROM WHENCE PLANTS DERIVE THEIR
INORGANIC MATTER.

M. M. Wiegmaun & PolstorfF instituted the following experi-
ments for the purpose of determining the source of the inorganic
elements in vegetables. The plants upon which the experinunts
were made, were the vicia sativa, hordeum vulgare, or barley, poly-
gonum fagopyrum, nicotiana tobaccum, or tobacco, and trifolium
pratense. Two kinds of soil were employed ; the first consistinti
of sand in which all the soluble and inorganic matter was removed
by heating and dry solutions. The second, a mixture of this sand
and the following substances, and in the proportion stated.

Fiq. i.

Fid !i.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 171

Sand, 861 .26

Chalk, 10.00

Alumina, 15 . 00

Oxide of iron, 10.00

('arbonate maG;nesia, 5 . 00

Phosphate of lime, 15 .00

Oxide manganese, 2 .50

Anhydrous sulphate of lime, 1 . 25

Sulphate of potash, 0 . 34

Humate of potash, 3.41

Soda, ; 2 .22

Humate of ammonia, 10 .29

" lime, 3.07

" magnesia, 1 . 97

" alumina, 4 . 64

" iron, 3.32

Humine insoluble in water, 50.00

The plants in the sand were moistened by distilled water, be-
sides being protected from external influences by being covered.
Germination, growth, and sometimes flowering took place, but all
were stinted and imperfect, and none produced seed. The plants
in the mixed artificial soil grew luxuriantly and produced ripe
fruit.

In order to determine the elements of the plants which grew in
the sand, they were dried and burnt, and for comparison a quan-
tity of seed equal in weight to that which had been planted was also
burnt to ashes and its elements also determined by analysis. The
results were that the elements of plants which grew in the sand weigh-
ed twice as much'as those of the seeds sown — while the elements of
the ashes of the plants which grew in the mixed soil w^ere twice and a
half times greater than those which grew in the sand ; and in the
tobacco plant five times greater. To account for the additional
matter found in the plant over and above that originally contained
in the seed sown, the sand in which they grew was analysed
after being well washed in boiling water. It contained

Silex, or flint, 97.900

Potash, 0.320

Lime, 0.484

Magnesia, 0 .009

Alumina, 0.876

Oxide of iron, 0 . 315

The same sand was then exposed to water during a month
through which carbonic acid continually passed. The solution
was then analysed, when it was found to contain silica, potash,
lime and magnesia. To prove that the additional matter of the

172 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

plants over and above that contained in the seeds sown, M. Wieg-
mann sowed seeds of cresses in fine platinum wire, in a platinum
crucible, and watered them with distilled water. They grew well,
but the ashes of the cresses contained only the same weiglit of in-
organic matter as the seed which had produced them, a result which
it will be seen, differed from that of plants growing in the sand,
which contained at least twice as much inorganic matter as the seed
from which they were grown. The sand used in this experiment
was not pure silex or quartz, but a soil probably derived from
granite, but from which not only all the vegetable matter had been
removed by ignition, but all the free lime and alkalies by acid and
full washing afterwards by water.

The results of these experiments go to prove,

1st. That inorganic matter is essential to the perfect plant, as no
fruit was produced w^here it was totally wanting or even deficient
in quantity.

2d. That plants by their roots possess the power of decompos-
ing the compound of inorganic matter, as in the experiment with
the sand from which all the free soluble matter had been removed
as stated above,

3d. That the opinion which has been advanced by some physio-
logists that the elements may be formed in plants, is incorrect, as is
shown by their absence in the cresses w'hich grow in the platinum
wire.

It is supposed, however, that all the inorganic matter is not ne-
cessary to the perfection of the plant, but that some elements may
be substituted for others, as soda for potash, magnesia for lime,&c.

NEW BOOKS.

The Farmer's Manual, a practical treatise on the nature and value of mnnures,
&c. By F. Falkner, Esq. To which is added. Productive Farming, by Joseph A.
Smith. D. Applcton & Co. N. Y. G. S. Appleton, Philadelphia.

These two works in one volume contain much practical infor-
mation for the farmer. The object of the first work, as stated in
tlic ])reface, is " to explain the nature and constitution of manures
generally, to point out the means of augmenting the quantity and
preserving the fertilizing power of farm-yard manure, the various
sources of mineral and other artificial manures, and the causes of
their frequent failure."

The second part is a compilation from the various agricultural
writers of the present day. We give below an extract from the
first on the management of manures.

" We have already said that plants in a dry state, such as straw, hay, &c., consist of
carbon, hyilrogen, and oxygen, a very small portion of nitrogen, and of about six
parts in 100 of alkaline and earthy salts; and that the former elements are placed, by
the operation of the vital principle, under a different arrangement with regard to each
other from that which their chemical affinities give them a tendency to assume.

The combustion or burning of vegetable substances is nothing more than a rapid
and violent action of those affinities or attractions, in which oxygen plaj-s (he princi-
pal part. When they are heated to a certain degree, both the oxygen of the air and
that already contained in the substance are brought into action, and the result will be
easily understood from what has been previously stated of the nature of the elements
concerned. The oxygen unites with the carbon to form carbonic acid gas, and with
the hydrogen to form water, while a small portion of the hydrogen unites with nitro-
gen to form ammonia, or (though subject to some doubt) passes off uncombined. Car-
bonic acid gas is the most abundant of these products, water the next in quantitj% and
ammonia by far the least. These all escape as gases, and the ashes that remain consist
of some or all of the oxides, or bases, before described, united with some or other of
the mineral acids — as alkaline and earthy salts, which difier very much, both in kind
and quantity, according to the plants from which they are derived. As these salts, or
mineral substances constitute an essential part of ail plants, they are themselves capa-
bie of acting powerfully as manure. The most valuable, and generally the most
plentiful of them, are the salts of potash, and the phosphates of lime and magnesia;
not that the other salts contained in ashes are less essential ; as, for instance, muriate
of soda {common salt) and sulphate of lime (gypsum,) but because the latter are more
liberally supplied to the soil by the hand of nature.

If, instead of being burnt, plants are accumulated in heaps exposed to the weather —

174

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

as in a tlung-j'ard — a similar action to burning, though of slower operation, takes
place; which indeed may be called a tardy combustion, in which the elements of the
water present take an active part. The greater portion of the carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen, with nitrogen, are thus dissipated; the sulphates and phosphates are decom-
posed, producing stinking gases; and if in the mean time water be allowed to soak
through the mass and drain away, it carries with it the soluble salts, ultimately leaving
a black mass, consisting chiefly of carbon, with asmallquantity of hydrogen and oxy-
gen, and some insoluble earthy salts. If, therefore, decaj^ be allowed to proceed to
its greatest extent, it produces a much worse effect than absolute fire; inasmuch asal-
most all the soluble salts are lost. Vegetable matter reduced to this state is humus, or
that black vegetable matter contained in all rich soils, and those of old pasture land.
The only difference is in the mode of their production, the one having been produced
by the decay of plants on the surface, and the other from the decay of the roots and
leaves of, plants both above and beneath the soil. They operate in the same way in
the nourishment they yield to plants, namely, by the salts they yet retain, by attract-
ing moisture and ammonia from the atmosphere, and by slowly yielding carbonic acid
gas to the roots of the growing crop.

If the quantity of water which mixes with the heap be limited, it is often evapora-
ted by the heat produced by the fermentation ; the chemical action in a great measure
ceases; 'and the heap, when opened, exhibits that appearance which is commonly
called "fire-fanged." When in that state, it will be found to have lost more than one-
half of its value ; but, if due care be taken to regularly mix the layers of dung, without
too much intermixture of horse-litter, there will be no danger of the dung made by
the cattle in the j^ards being overheated by fermentation, even in the warmest wea-
ther. Should that danger, however, be apprehended, an addition of road- scrapings,
or earth of any kind, will prevent it; and, in the winter, the cleanings of the cow-
house, as being of a cold nature, will answer the purpose.

When plants and their seeds are consumed by animals, nearly half their weight in
a dry state is given out from the lungs and by perspiration from the skin in a gaseous
form, chiefly as carbonic acid gas and water, with some nmmonia; the remainder of
their substance, together with the effete, or dead matter of the animal organs, are re-
jected, as dung and urine, except that portion retained as nourishment by growing and
fatting animals. The solid excrement contains the woody fibre, the insoluble animal
matter and salts, and the urine, the more soluble sails and substances rich in nitrogen.
If no care be taken of the urine, and it be allowed to run about the 5'ard, it soon pu-
trefies— its nitrogen flies off in the shape of ammonia; its salts are carried away by
every shower of rain; and, although a portion of it may be saved bj^ its mixture
with the dung of the cattle, yet the greater part of its valuable contents are evaporated
by the action of the atmosphere. If it be allowed to drain into a tank or other recep-
tacle, it there also rapidly undergoes putrefaction; and, if this be not checked, a con-
siderable part of the ammonia produced will escape with the sulphur and phosphorus,
resulting from the decomposition of the salts containing those substances: occasioning
the intolerable stench observed in such cases. Now the ammonia, and the alkaline
and earthy salts, arc by much the most valuable part of farm-yard or stable dung, and
the former is always more abundant when cattle are fed with corn, oil-cake, and other
rich food. Without ammonia no seed could be produced; and without alkaline and
earthy salts, neither seed nor plants could exist.

It is the deficiency of some of these substances, where moisture is not wanting,
which is the cause of the land producing poor crops ; and it is the almost total absence
of some, or all of them, which is the cause of complete sterility. Instances may al-
most every where be found of land which, though abounding in humus— such as hea-
thy and peaty soils— are, notwithstanding, incapable of bearing grain. If the valuable
substances above mentioned be wasted in the manner described— which is too often
the case, to an enormous extent— the crops will be very deficient; and if to this waste

NEW BOOKS. 170

be atlded the carrying away of large portions of tlie produce— as wnen hay and straw
are sold, and no manure returned — the land will soon cease to bear crops. To in-
crease tlie quantity of manure raised on the land should, therefore, be tlie constant aim
of every farmer: hay shouki never be sold, unless two tons of stable litterare returned
for every load sent ort" the farm ; and, unless the fai'm containsa large jiortion of rough
pasture, tlie horse-teams sliould be kept in the stable, and soiletl during the summer
and autumn on green food; every portion of apparent])' refuse vegetable and animal
matter should also be carefully collected and added to the ilung-heap; and, in this
manner, it is inconceivable what ailditional quantities of excellent muck may be i)ro-
duced. The manure thus made, and not fermenteil, is generally applied, either in its
fresh state, or only partially turned, to clay land fallows which are to be sown with
•wheat; as being of a colder nature than winter-made dung, it will not occasion the
crop to be so hastily pushed forward as to occasion straw instead of corn.

If attempts be made to supi)ly the place of farm-yard dung by any one salt, or, in
other words, by two ortliree only of the elementsof plants— nitrate of soda, or nitrate
of potash, or sulphate of lime (gypsum) for instance— it will succeed only where all
the others happen to be present on the soil, by the effect of previous manuring; and
will inevitably fail where those other needful substances are either absent or very de-
ficient. Now, it is extremely difficult to ascertain in what salt the soil is really
deficient; care must, therefore, be taken in the application of artificial manures, that
they contain all the elements includcil in the muck for which the)- are substituted.
These are all usually found, more or less, in the dung-lieap; how needful, therefore,
is it that the farmer sliould take good care of that manure produced uponhisown land,
which certainly contains all the elements of plants, and upon which he knows he can
safely rely !

It has been stated before, that the most efficient part of farm-yard dung is that small
portion, invisible in themass, which consistsof earthy andalkaline saltsand ammonia.
The other ingredients which constitute the greatbulkof manure, consisting of carbon
and the elements of water, are abundantly supplied by the atmosphere to the growing
plants, and therefore a loss of these by needless fermentation or neglect is of little im-
portance, were it not that their loss is unavoidably accompanied with the waste of the
more essential substances in the manner described. It should be the object of the
farmer not only to prevent the waste of such precious substances by every means that
knowledge and ingenuity can devise, but also to make every addition to them that
nature or local circumstances have placed within his reach.

These desirable purposes he will be the better able to carry into effect when he
fully understands the nature of the manure he has under his management, and by that
means he can exercise a sound discretion in adding to its quantity and effect.

Let it not be alleged against any inquiry by the farmer into the constituent nature
and chemical properties of his manure, that he has no ideas attached to the several
terms used to designate the substances of which it is said to consist. He is obliged to
learn the names and uses of the several implements he employs in the cultivation ; and
upon what principle, we may ask him, should he refuse to make himself acquainted
with the names and general properties of the produce he raises ? But little effort is
required to obtain a precise knowledge of the several elements, or substances at
least, by the employment of which he is enabled to raise and increase his crops, and
is it not pleasant to learn, as well as most useful to understand, the reason of their
value to him ? Nor is this limited degree of chemical knoAvledge of difficult attain-
ment. Every farmer has seen wood ashes, and also seen water poured upon them for
1 the purpose of extracting a something; that substance is chiefly potash, which may be
I seen by evaporating the clear water, which leaves the alkali behind, and the dregs
which remain at the bottom consist for the most part of earthy phosphates — a similar
substance to the earth of bones. Soda is now so commonly used as to be known at
sight to most persons; lime and magnesia are still more familiar; ammonia is the

176 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

common pungent salt of smelling-bottles; sulphuric, muriatic, anl nitric acids, are
extensive articles of commerce, and, with phosphoric acid, may be found at any che-
misfs shop, and these acids, as well as their bases — potash, soda, lime, and magnesia —
may be had for a trifle, either separately or combined as salts. When, therefore, the
appearance and more obvious qualities of these several substances have become fa-
miliar, their efficacy as manure may be proved, by mixing them thoroughly with two
or three hundred times their weight of mould, and applying the compost to garden
plants. The farmer might in this easy way soon become acquainted with the name,
character, and properties of the invaluable substance contained invisibl}' in the muck
of his yards; and would be the better able, and more desirous, to prevent their stealing
away from him."

Lectures on the Application of Chemistry and Geology to Agricpl-
TURE : By Jas. F. W. Johnston, M. A. F. R. S. Published by Wiley & Putnam,
New-York. Price 31i cents.

This IS part the fourth of this series of Lectures, which we have
hailed with great pleasure, as they have successively appeared.
These are decidedly the greatest addition that has yet been made
to the Farmers' Literature, written in a manner that makes them
entirely comprehensible to any one who reads them. This part is
" On the products of the soil, and their use in the feeding of ani-
mals." The following extract will give a good idea of the work,
and will be interesting to those engaged in raising and fattening
animals :

OF THE KIND AND QUANTITY OF ADDITIONAL FOOD REQUIRED BY
THE FATTENING ANIMAL.

" In the animal which is increasing in size or in weight, the food has a double func
tion to perform. It must sustain and it must increase the body. To increase the body,
an additional (juantity of food must be consumed, but the kind or nature of this addi-
tional food will depend upon the kind of increase which the animal is making or is
intended to make.

One of the important objects of the stock farmer is to make his full grown animals
lay on fat, so that they may as quickly as possible, and at the least cost, be made
ready for the butcher. To effect this object, he adjusts the kind and quantity of the
food he gives, to the practical object he wishes to attain.

We have already seen reason to believe, that the natural and immediate source of
the fat of animals is in the oily matter which the food contains. If we wish only, or
chiefly, to lay on fat, therefore, we ought to give some kind of food which contains a
larger proportion of fatty matter than that upon which the animal has been accustom- (
cd to live. This is what the practical man has actually learned to do. To his sheep |
and oxen he gives oil-cake or linseed oil mixed with chopped straw, to his dogs |
cracklings,* to his geese and turkeys Indian corn, which contains much oil, and tO i
his poultry beef or mutton suet.

• Cracklings are the skinny parts of the suet from which the tallow has been for the most
part squeezed out by the tallow chandlers. Might cattle not be fattened upon cracklings
crushed auJ mixed with their other food? Might not some cheap varieties of oil also be
mixed with their food for the purpose of I'atteuing.

NEW BOOKS. 177

Many experiments are yet wanting to determine with accuracy (lie proportion of
fat contained in all the different Ifindsof food usually consumed by animals. Nearly
all we yet know upon this subject is exhibited in the tabular view of their composi-
tion to which 1 have already directed your attention on page 5.31.

One thing-, however, of considerable practical value has been recently ascertained,
—that the oily matter of seeds exists chiefly near their outer surface— in or immedi-
ately under the skin or husk. This fact is shown in the case of wheat, by the follow-
ing results of the examination of two varieties of this grain, one grown near Dur-
ham, the other in France. The result as to the French grain is given by Dumas :

PER CENTAGE OF FATTY OIL.

Eits^lish. French.

Fine flour 1.5 1.4

Pollard 2.4 4.8

Boxings 3.6 —

Bran 3.3 5.2

This fact of the existence of more fat in the husk than in the inner part of the grain

explains what often seems*inexplicable to the practical man — why bran, namely,

which appears to contain little or no nourishing substance, should yet fatten pigs and

other full grown animals, when given to them in sufficient quantity along with their

I other food. It also explains why rice dust should be found to fatten stock,* though

1 the cleaned and prepared rice contains but little oil, and is believed, therefore, to be

I unfitted for laying on fat upon animals with any degree of rapidity. No doubt the

dust from pearl-barley and from oats, as well as the husk of these grains, might be

economically employed by the stock feeder where they can readily be obtained.

KIND AND QUANTITY OF ADDITIONAL FOOD REQUIRED BY A GROW-
ING ANIMAL.

The young and growing animal requires also that its food should be adjusted to its
peculiar wants. In infancy the muscles and bones increase rapidly in size when the
1 food is of a proper kind. This food, therefore, should contain a large supply of the
I phosphates, from which bone is formed, and of gluten or fibrin, by which the mus-
j cles are enlarged. Some kinds of fodder contain a larger proportion of tliese phos-
phates. Such arc corn seeds in general, and the red clover among grasses. Some
1 again contain more of the materials of muscles. Such are beans and peas among our
usually cultivated seeds, and tares and other leguminous plants among our green crops.
Hence the skilful feeder or rearer of stock can often select with judgment that kind
of food which will specially supply that which the animal, on account of its age or
rapid growth, specially requires — or which, with a view to some special object, he
wishes his animal specially to lay on. Does he admire the fine bono of the Ayrshire
breed ?— he will try to stint it while young of that kind of food in which (he phos-
phates abound. Does he wish to strengthen his stock, and to enlarge their bones ? —
|he will supply the phosphates liberally while the animal is rapidly growing.

An interesting application of these principles is seen in the mode of feeding calves
adopted in different districts. Where they are (o be reared for fattening stock, to be
sold to the butcher at two or three year old, they are well fed with good and abundant
ifood from the first, that they may grow rapidly, attain a great size, and carry ranch
mesh. If starved and stunted while young, they often fatten rapidly when put at last
upon a generous diet, but they never attain to their full natural size and weight.

When they are reared for breeding stock or for milkers, similar care is taken of
|them in the best dairy countries from the first, though in some the allowance of milk
is stinted; and substitutes for milk are early given to the young animals.

•Rice dust is very good food for fattening pigs, makes excellent pork, and is very profitable
vhen given along with whey.

VOL. I. NO. 1. X

178 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

But it is in rearing calves for the butcher that the greatest skill in feeding is ilis-
played, where long practice has made the farmers expert in this branch of husbandry.
To the man who has a calf and a milk cow, the principal question is, how can I, in
the locality in which I am placed, make the most money of my calf and my milk ?
Had I better give my calf a little of the milk, and sell the remainder in the form o^
new milk— or had I better make butter and give the skimmed milk to my calves— or
will the veal, if I give my calf all the milk, pay me a better price in the end? The
result of many trials has shown, that in some districts the high price obtained for
well fed veal gives a greater profit than can be derived from the milk in any other
way.

While the calf is very young — during the first two or three weeks— its bones and
muscles chiefly grow. It requires the materials of these, therefore, more than fat,
and hence half the milk it gets, at first, may be skimmed, and a little bean meal may
be mixed with it to add more of the casein or curd out of whicli the muscles are to be
formed. The costive effect of the bean meal must be guarded against by occasional
medicine, if required.

In the next stage, more fat is necessary, and in the third week at latest, full milk,
with all its cream, should be given, and more milk than the mother supplies, if the
calf requires it. Or, instead of the cream, a less costly kind of fat maybe used. Oil-
cake, finely crushed, or linseed meal, may supply at a cheap rate the fat which, in the i\
form of cream, sells for much money. And, instead of the additional milk, bean 4
meal in larger quantity may be tried, and if cautiously and skilfully used, the best i
effects on the size of the calf and the firmness of the veal may be anticipated.

In the third or fattening stage, the custom is, with the same quantity of milk, to give 4
double its natural quantity of cream — that is, to supply in this way the fat which the ♦
animal is wished chiefly to lay on. This cream may either be mixed directly with
the mother's milk, or, what is better, the afterings of several cows may be given to
the calf along with its food. For the expensive cream there might no doubt be sub-
stituted many cheaper kinds of fat which the young animal might be expected to ap-
propriate a=i readily as it does the fat of the milk. Linseed meal is given with econ-ij|
omy. Might not vegetable oils and even animal fats be made up into emulsionstl
which the calf would readily swallow, and which would increase his weight at aiw
equally low cost ? A fat pease-soup has been found to keep a cow long in milk ; might 1
it not be made profitable also to a fattening calf ? I

The selection of articles of food which will specially increase the size of the bonei
in the growing animal, by supplying a large quantity of the i)hosphates, is at presenl
limited in a considerable degree. The grain of wheat, barley, and oats is the soun
from which these phosphates are most certainly aud most abundantly supplied to th(
animals that feed upon them. But in many cases corn is too expensive a food, ani
those kinds of corn which contain the largest proportion of the phosphates sup]
only a comparatively small quantity in a given time to the growing animal,
should not bone-dust or bone-meal be introduced as an article of general food for grow-
ing animals ? There is no reason to believe that animals would dislike it — none thi
they would be unable to digest it. With this kind of food at our command, we mij
hope to minister directly to the weak limbs of our growing stock, and at pleasure
provide the spare-boned animal with the materials out of which a limb of
strength might be built up.

Chemical analysis comes further to our aid in pointing out the kind of food w<
ought to give for the i)urpose of increasing this or that part of the animal body.
Thus in regard to the same growth of bone, it appears that, while linseed and other
cakes are mainly used with the view of adding lo (lie fat, some varieties are more fit-
ted at the same time to minister to the growth of bone than others are. Thus four va-
rieties of oil-cake examined in my laboratory, contained rcsjieetively of earthy phos
phatesand of other inorganic matter in 100 lbs. the following quantities :

NEW BOOKS. 179

PER CKNTAGE OF

Earthy phosphates. Other inors^anic mailer.

IJritisii liiisecil cako 2.86 '2.S(i

Dutch do. 2.70 2.54

Poppy cake 5.22 1.24

Dodder cake 6.67 3.37

The numbers in the first column, opposite to popp)' and dodder cake, show that
I these varieties of oil-cake contained a much larg'cr proportion of the piiosphates than
j the others ilid, anil consequently that an equal weight of tlicni would yield to growing
I stock more of those substances which are specially required to build up their increas-
ing bones.

Familiar Lettp:rs on Chemistry, and its relation to Commerce, Phvsio-
LOGY AND Agriculture : By Justus Licbig, M. D. &,c.; Edited by Joel Gardner,
M. D.— James M. Campbell &- Co. Philadelphia.

An interesting series of Letters, by Professor Liebig, on various
subjects and sciences, in which is to be found much information.
His peculiar opinions are of course very prominent. The Twelfth
Letter will be found below.

My Dear Sir — Having now occupied several letters with the attempt to unravel,
by means of chemistry, some of the most curious functions of the animal body, and,
as I hope, made clear to you the distinctions between the two kinds of constituent
elements in food, and the purposes they severally subserve in sustaining life, let me
inow direct your attention to a scarcely less interesting and equally important subject
1 — tlie means of obtaining from a given surface of the earth the largest amount of pro-
iluce adapted to the food of man and animals.

Agriculture is both a science and an art. The knowledge of all the conditions of
ihc life of vegetables, the origin of their elements, and the sources of their nourlsh-
iiicnt, forms its scientific basis.

From this knowledge we derive certain rules for the exercise of the art, the prin-
•iples upon which the mechanical operations of farming depend, the usefulness or
lecessity of these for preparing the soil to support the growth of plants, and for re-
moving every obnoxious influence. No experience, drawn from the exercise of the
irt, can be opposed to true scientific 'principles, because the latter should include all
he results of practical operations, and are in some instances solely derived therefrom.
Theory must correspond with experience, because it is nothing more than the reduc-
ion of a series of phenomena to their last cause.

.V field in which we cultivate the same plant for several successive years becomes
larren for that plant in a period varying witli the nature of the soil : in one field it

f'ill be in three, in another in seven, in a third in twenty, in a fourth in a hundred
cars. One field bears wheat, and no peas ; another beans and turnips, but no tobacco :
third gives a plentiful crop of turnips, but will not bear clover. What is the rea-
m tliat a field loses its fertility for one plant, the same which at first flourished there?
Vliat is the reason one kind of plant succeeds in a field where another fails?
These qneslions belong to Science.
j What means are necessary to preserve to a field its fertility for one and the same
|lant? — what to render one field fertile for two, for three, for all plants?
These last questions are put by Art, but they cannot be answered by Art.

180 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

If a farmer, without the guidance of just scientific principles, is trying experiments
to render a field fertile for a plant which it otherwise will not bear, his prospect of
success is very small. Thousands of farmers try such experiments in various direc-
tions, the result of which is a mass of practical experience forming a method of cul-
tivation which accomplishes the desired end for certain places; but the same method
frequently does not succeed— it indeed ceases to be applicable to a second or third
place in the immediate neighborhood. How large a capital, and how much power,
are wasted in these experiments ! Very different, and far more secure, is the path in-
dicated by science; it exposes us to no danger of failing, but, on the contrary, itfur-
nishes us with every guarantee of success. If the cause of failure — of barrenness in
the soil for one or two plants — has been discovered, means to remedy it may be
found.

The most exact observations prove that the method of cultivation must vary with
the geognostical condition of the subsoil. In basalt, greywacke, porphyry, sand-
stone, limestone, &c., arc certain elements indispensable to the growth of plants, and
the presence of which renders them fertile. This fully explains the difference in the
necessary methods of culture for dilTerent places; since it is obvious that the essential
elements of the soil must vary with the varieties of composition of the rocks, from
the disintegration of which they originated.

Wheat, clover, turnips, for example, each require certain elements from the soilf
they will not flourish Avhere the appropriate elements are absent. Science teaches u»
what elements are essential to every species of plants by an analysis of their ashes.
If therefore a soil is found wanting in any of those elements, we discover at once the
cause of its barrenness, and its removal may now be readily accomplished.

The empiric attributes all his success to the mechanical operations of agriculture;
he experiences and recognises their value, without inquiring what are the causes Ofv
their utility, their mode of action: and yet this scientific knowledge is of thehighes
importance for regulating the application of power and the expenditure of capital—
for insuring its economical expenditure and the prevention of waste. Can it be
imagined that the mere passing of the ploughshare or the harrow through the soil— »a
the mere contact of the iron— can impart fertility miraculously? Nobody, perhapa^j
seriously entertains such an opinion. Nevertheless, the modus operandi of these me.
chanical operations is by no means generally understood. The fact is quite certain
that careful ploughing exerts the most favoaable influence; the surface is thus me.j
chanically divided, changed, increased, and renovated; but tlie ploughing is onlyJ
auxiliary to the end sought.

In the effects of time, in what in agriculture are technically called/aWoirs — the re-
pose of the fields — we recognise by science certain chemical actions, which are con-
tinually exercised by the elements of the atmosphere upon the whole surface of our
globe. By the action of its oxygen and carbonic acid, aided by water, rain, changsg
of temperature, &c., certain elementary constituents of rocks, or of their ruins,
which form the soil capable of cultivation, are rendereil soluble in water, and conse-
quently become separable from all their insoluble parts.

These chemical actions, poetically denominated "the tooth of time,'' destroy all
the works of man, and gradually reduce the hardest rocks to the condition of dust.
By their influence the necessary elements of the soil become fitted for assimilation
by plants; and it is precisely the enil which is obtained by the mechanical operations
of farming. They accellerate the decomposition of the soil, in order to j)rovidea
new generation of plants with the necessary elements in a condition favorable to
their assimilation. It is obvious that the rapidity of the decomposition of a solid
body must increase with the extension of its surface; the more points of contact we
offer in a given time to the external cuemical agent, the more rapid will be its ac-
tion.

The chemist, in order to prepare a mineral for analysis, to decompose it, or to in-

NEW BOOKS. 181

crease the solubility of its elements, proceeds in 'the same way as the farmer deals
with his fiekls — he spares no labor in order to reduce it t9 the linest powder; he se-
parates the impaliiable from tlie coarser pai-ts by washing, anil rejieats his mechanical
bruising and trituration, being assurcvl his whole process will fail if he is inattentive
to this essential and preliminary part of it.

The mflucnce which the increase of surface exercises upon the disintegration of
rocks, and ujion the chemical action of air and moisture, is strikingly illustrated upon
a large scale in the operations pursueil in the gohl mines of Yaquil, in Ciiili. These
ai'C described in a very interesting manner by Darwin. The rock containing ihe gold
ore is pounded by mills into the finest powiler; this is subjected to washing, which
separates the lighter particles from the metallic ; the gold sinks to the bottom, while a
Stream of water carries away the lighter earthy i;arts into ponds, where it subsides to
the bottom as mud. When this deposit has gradually filled up the pond, this mud is
taken out and piled in heaps, and left exposed to the action of the atmosphere and
moisture. The washing completely removes all the soluble part of the disintegrated
lock; the insoluble part, moreover, cannot undergo any further change while it is
1 overed with water, and so excluded from the influence of the atmosphere at the bot-
tom of the pond. But being exposcil at once to the air and moisture, a powerful che-
mical action takes place in the whole mass, which becomes indicated by an efflores-
cence of salts covering the whole surface of the heaps in consiilerable quantity. After
being exposed for two or three years, the mud is again subjected to the same process
of wcshing, anil a considerable quantity of gold is obtained, this having been separa-
ted by the ciiemical process of decomposition in the mass. The exposure and washing
of the same mud is repeated six or seven times, and at every washing it furnishes a
new quantity of gold, although its amount diminishes every time.

Precisely similar is the chemical action which take« place in the soil of our fields;
and we accelerate and increase it by the mechanical operations of agriculture. By
these we sever and extend the surface, and endeavor to make every atom of tliC soil
accessible to the action of the carbonic acid and oxygen of Ihe atmosphere. We thus
produce a stock of soluble mineral substances, which serve as nourishment to a new
generation of plants, and which are indispensable to their growth and prosperity.

The Amekican Poulterer's Companion : By C. N. Bement. Published by Sax-
ton & Miles. 12 mo. 319 pp.

The value of this book is very clearly indicated by the rapid
sale of the first edition. We cannot but add our testimony also
to its value, after a pretty careful examination of its contents. It
is the book which not only every farmer should possess, but also
the mechanic, or every one who has a spot of land large enough
to accommodate a dozen or two of fowls. In the publicalion of
this w^ork Mr. Bement has certainly performed a very important
service to the community, and the subject cannot be considered a
small one, when it is knowm that the value of poultry in New-
York alone, amounted, according to the last census, to $2,373,029,
and that in the states and territories it amounted to the sum of
$12,176,170.

182 QUAKTERLY JOURNAL.

Mrs. Rundell's celebrated Cook Book. A new system of domestic cookery.
Philadelphia, Carey &. Hart.

Professes to be founded on principles of economy, for the use
of private families. It contains 250 pages of directions for cook-
ing, &c., but is quite out of our line of experience, as we are better
qualified to pronounce upon the articles after they have gone
through the process. The ladies will find abundance in it to prac-
tice upon, and all for 25 cents.

The Economy of Waste Manures : By John Hannam, Esq. Philad. Carey *j.
Hart. Price 25 cents.

This is a pamphlet of nearly one hundred pages, on " The Nature
and use of Neglected Fertilizers" — written for the Yorkshire Agri-
cultural Society, England, but useful every where.

The Berkshire Jubilee, celebrated at Pittsfield, Mass., Aug. 22, and 23, 1844:
Publishers, WeareC. Little, Albany; E. P. Little, Pittsfield.

We do not know how it is, but there are some movements of
the mind which bear the impress of inspiration, they are so much
like the immediate communications from the Divine Intelligence
that we would fain regard them as such ; or they possess at least
some of those characters which belong to communications which
have been made, when men " speak as they were moved." They
are, to change the thought a little, immediate perceptions of a
beautiful idea, free and spontaneous in its inception, and happy
in its end. Such appears to have been the idea of the Berkshire
Jubilee.

The book before us relates the sayings and doings of this occa-
sion. The more important of the formed consist of a sermon by
President Hopkins of Williams college. A poem by the Rev.
Wm. Allen, D. D.; and an oration by Joshua A. Spencer. The
minor parts of the book consist of speeches and odes, from which
we get something of the spirit of the occasion, and not only the
spirit of the occasion, but we see in them the strong traits or fea-
tures which belong to the New-England character. Some may
say the character is strongly egotistic, so be it ; nevertheless, it is

I

NEW BOOKS. 183

the egotism \vc like : we hope it will live. It is the egotism of a
sentiment worthy to be cherished, and where it prevails we may
be assured also of the existence of a principle coexisting without,
which will rally together the same spirit when outward or inward
dangers threaten the safety of our country or our institutions. We
take the liberty of copying one of the poems by our friend Wil-
liam Pitt Palmer, entitled the " Response of the Home-Comers."

RESPONSE OF THE HOME-COMERS.

*'Hail, Land of Green Mountains! whose valleys and streams
Arc fair as the Muse ever pictured in dreams;
Where the stranger oft sighs with emotion sincere, —
Ah, would that my own native home had been here !

Hail, Land of the lovely, the equal, the brave,
Never trod by the foe, never tilled by the slave;
Where the lore of the world to the hamlet is brought,
And speech is as free as the pinions of thought.

But blest as thou art, in our youth we gave ear
To hope when she whispered of prospects more dear.
Where the hills and the vales teem with garlands untold.
And the rainbow ne'er flies with its jewels and gold.

Yet chide not too harshly thy truants grown grey

In the chase of bright phantoms that lured us astray;

For weary and lone has our pilgrimage been

From the haunts of our childhood, the graves of our kin.

Nor deem that with us, out of sight outof mind,
Were the homes and the hearts we left saddened behind;
As the hive to the bee, as her nest to the dove.
These, these have been ever our centre of love.

Yes, when far away from the Land of our birth.
We have mused mid the trophies and Tempes of earth.
Our thoughts, like thy spring-birds flown home o'er the sea,
Fn day-dreams anil night-dreams have still been with thee."

ERRORS.
Page 6, seventeenth line from the bottom for " discussion," read " digression."
Page 3, sixth line from the bottom, for " phosphate of lime," read " phosphates."

184 QUARTERLY JOURNAL..

TO THE SUBSCRIBEES OP THE JOURNAL.

We have the pleasure of saying that we haA'e already several
important articles for the April number. We intend that hereaf-
ter the work shall appear promptly at the time it is due. Una-
voidable circumstances connected with the printing of the present
number has delayed its appearance two weeks beyond the time we
had intended.

In conducting this Journal we propose to pursue a method which
we think will be of great importance to our patrons. Instead of
furnishing them with single articles upon important subjects, we
propose giving a series in successive numbers, in order that all
which relates to any given subject may be put within their reach;
for example, we propose furnishing something upon insects injurioui
to the vegetable kingdom ; instead of limiting the communication^
to a single essay, we propose follo\ying up the subject until it is ^
exhausted, or until the separate communications form a tolerably
complete work ; so of Agricultural Geology, the food of animals and
plants, &c., one number of which we have already given. By
pursuing this course we shall place within the reach of every agricul-
turist all the information he will require upon those subjects, and
it is scarcely necessary to add, that if we are sustained in this effort
we shall be able to make the Journal superior to most of the peri-
odicals of the kind in this country. Our subscribers will remem-
ber that we labor under a disadvantage on account of postage,
which the monthly periodicals do not; on this account we art
desirous always to forward the work by some cheaper mode than
the mail. If we are unable to forward it by the regular express,
we hope our subscribers may point out to us some mode of con-
veyance which shall be satisfactory to them and which will dimin-
ish to the least possible amcmnt, the expense of conveyance.

I

AMERICAN

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

OF

AGRICULTURE AND SCIENCE.

Vol. I. APRIL, 1845. No, 2.

FOOD OF ANIMALS.

BT THOMAS HUN, M. D.

We find in nature two classes of bodies. The one compre*
hends inorganic substances, which may be simple, or composed of
two, or even three or four elements, united in such a way that by
ordinary chemical processes they may be analyzed, and again re-
produced by the combination of their elements.

There is another class of bodies called organic, which are only
found in the vegetable or animal kingdom. They are never simple,
but are always composed of at least three, and sometimes of four
elements, and the elements are united in such a way, that though
the chemist can analyze these substances, he cannot reproduce them
by bringing together the elements of which they are formed. Or-
ganic matters, or proximate principles^ as they are called, are form-
ed only in the laboratory of the living plant, under conditions
which the chemist cannot imitate.

The elements of which proximate principles are composed, are
carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. The three first are pre-
sent in all, the last in only some of them.

On this is founded a distinction of the highest importance in
animal and vegetable physiology, namely, into uon-nitrogenized
and nitrogenized proximate principles.

VOL. I. — NO. II. A

186 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Of the non-nitrogenized principles, there are some which are
composed of carbon united with oxygen and hydrogen, the two
latter elements existing precisely in the proportion for forming
water. They may, therefore, be considered as compounds of car-
bon with the elements of water, and are called neutral principles.
The most important of them are starch, gum, and the different
kinds of sugar. These substances differ from each other only in
the proportion of the elements of water contained in them. They
have been considered by some chemists as hydrates of carbon, but
this denomination is of questionable propriety, since it is by no
means generally admitted that water actually exists in them.

There are other non-nitrogenized principles which are also com-
pounds of carbon with oxygen and hydrogen, but these latter ele-
ments are not in the proportion to form water, the hydrogen or
the oxygen being in excess. They are called non-neutral com-
pounds. The principal of them are fat, wax, acids, &c.

The nitrogenized principles are albumen, fibrin and casein. They
all contain a substance called protein, consisting of carbon, oxygen,
hydrogen and nitrogen ; and this protein is combined with minute
proportions of sulphur and phosphorus. As regards their chemical
composition, they differ from each other only in the proportion of
sulphur and phosphorus combined with protein. They possess,
however, different properties, not depending merely on their che-
mical composition.

There is a fourth nitrogenized principle called gelatine, found in
the bones and cellular tissue, which does not seem to be a com-
pound of protein. Its chemical constitution is still uncertain.

The following table exhibits the proximate principles, and their
relation to each other :

Non-nitrogenized
principles :

["starch =12 carbon -f 10 water,
neutral, ' S^ni =12 carbon + 11 water,

[ sugar = 12 carbon +11 water,
fat,
non neutral, { wax,

l^ acids.

! albumen = protein + S. + P.
fibrin = protein +2 S.+P.
casein = protein +S.
gelatine — chemical constitution doubtful.

FOOD OF ANIMALS. 187

Besides these organic matters, there are certain inorganic con-
"stituents, saline and earthy, deposited in vegetable and animal tis-
sues. They are called the inorganic constituents of vegetables and
■animals.

These proximate principles are, at the present time, produced
exclusively by vegetables. Ordinary chemical processes cannot
form them from their elements, and animals can, indeed, in some
cases, transform one principle into another, but cannot create any of
-them from inorganic matters. I say at the present time, because
geological observations demonstrate that there was a time when no
organic matter existed on the earth. At a subsequent period, ve-
getables, and then animals appeared, produced under conditions
and by the operation of causes which we cannot point out, and
which certainly do not exist at this day, for there are now no in-
stances of the formation of vegetables or of animals, except from
pre-existing beings of a like nature.

In a former article I have undertaken to show how the water,
carbonic acid, and ammonia, existing in the soil and in the atmos-
phere, undergo transformations in the living plant, by which they
are converted into starch, gum, sugar, and other proximate princi-
ples. The materials out of which these principles are formed, now
exist both in the soil and atmosphere, but they may all be ulti-
mately traced to the latter source. The water of the soil originally
existed in the atmosphere in the form of va.por, and has been deposi-
ted by rain, dew, &c. The carbonic acid and ammonia of the soil
are generated by the decomposition of vegetable and animal sub-
stances, but these substances themselves were formed from the
carbonic acid and ammonia of the atmosphere. Consequently, all
the organic matters of plants may be traced to the atmosphere as
their ultimate source. The vegetable kingdom is formed from the
-atmosphere.

The exception to this is found in the inorganic constituents of
I vegetables, which are derived from the soil by the disintegration
I and decomposition of the rocks, under the influence of various
physical and chemical agencies.

An acquaintance with the composition and mode of nutrition of
vegetables, is a necessary introduction to the study of nutrition in
animals, because animals derive the matter of which they are
formed from vegetables.

188 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. ^m2

Animals cannot produce organic from inorpjanic substances.
All the organic matter entering into their composition is derived
primarily from vegetables, then converted into organized tissue, and
finally decomposed and restored to the atmosphere in the form in
which it entered the plant.

The vegetable kingdom is, then, the grand laboratory in which
the food of animals is prepared.

Herbivorous animals live on organic matters as found in vege-
tables. Carnivorous animals live on the flesh of the former ; so
that ultimately, both classes draw their nourishment from vegeta-
bles.

Just as all the elements of the proximate principles of plants
once existed in the atmosphere in the form of water, carbonic acid
and ammonia ; so all the organic tissues of animals once existed
in vegetables. Thus we trace the matter of which animals are
formed, to the vegetable kingdom, and this again to the atmos-
phere ; so that ultimately we find that all the matter now making
part of vegetables and animals, may be traced to the atmosphere,
where it existed in the form of water, carbonic acid and ammonia.

If we would determine what was the composition of the atmos-
phere before plants and animals existed, we must restore to it all
the carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen now existing in living
animals and vegetables, and in their remains, whether fossil or
others. The result of such a calculation would not, however, be
altogether true, for the reason that carbonic acid and ammonia are
constantly passing into the atmosphere from volcanic and other
sources, and it is impossible to estimate the activity of these agen-
cies in past times.

The great problem of nutrition may be thus stated : To trace
the water, carbonic acid and ammonia through the various pro-
cesses in the vegetable kingdom, by which they are converted into
organic matters; to trace these organic matters through the pro-
cesses in the bodies of animals by which they are converted into
organized tissues; and finally, to trace this same vegetable and
animal matter in its decompositions until it is restored to the atmos-
phere in the form of water, carbonic acid and ammonia.

These preliminary observations were necessary to prepare for
the explanation of the process of nutrition in animals.

AH the organized tissues of animals contain the four elements.

FOOD OF ANIMALS. 189

Carbon, ox3'gen, hydrogen and nitrogen. With the exception of
the gelatinous tissues, about which chemists are not agreed, they
are all compounds of protein.

During life these tissues arc continually undergoing a change
of matter. An act of composition and decomposition goes on
within them, so that, while their form remains the same, the mat-
ter of which they are composed is continually changing. This
composition and decomposition of the tissues constitutes the act of
nutrition.

The body of an animal thus changing its materials, while its
Ibrm remains unchanged, has been compared to the waters of a
lake into which streams are emptying and from which other streams
are flowing, while its smooth surface reveals nothing of the changes
going on within its depths.

Let us see now w'hat is the composition of the streams flowing
into the animal (its food,) — what are the changes they undergo in
its interior, and what is the composition of the streams as they
issue from it — (the excretions.)

Nutrition takes place by a reaction between the blood and the
organized tissues. From the blood are derived the materials out of
which the organs are formed, and the product of their decomposi-
tion enters into the mass of this fluid before it is thrown from the
system by the excretions. The loss thus sustained is made up by
the products of digestion absorbed from, the surface of the stomach
! and intestines.

From the fact that all the organs are formed from the bloody
I this fluid has been called liquid Jlesh, and the flesh liquid blood.
Composition of the Blood.

The blood, which to the naked eye looks like a homogeneous
ifluid, is seen under the microscope to be composed of an immense
number of circular, flattened disks of about 3 ^„ , of an inch in dia-,
meter, floating in a transparent colorless liquid. In these disks
is contained the coloring matter of the blood, and it is on them that
the air acts in the process of respiration. They arrive at the pul-
inonary capillaries loaded with carbonic acid which they there give
off", and then absorb oxygen, which they carry to the different
prgans.

The transparent fluid in which the disks float is called liquor
Sanguinis. It consists of two parts — serum and fibrin.

190

QUAKTERLY JOURNAL.

The fibrin is the constituent of the blood on which its property
of coagulation depends. So long as the blood circulates in the
living vessels, the fibrin remains dissolved in the serum; but when
the blood is drawn, the fibrin coagulates and entangles in its meshes '
the red disks, so that the clot is composed of the fibrin and red I
disks. Coagulated fibrin, free from red disks, is a straw colored I
tough, stringy mass.

When, by the act of coagulation, the red disks and the fibrin i
have been abstracted from the blood, there remains a colorless,
transparent fluid, in which the coagulum floats. This is the serum.{
It resembles in appearance the liquor sanguinis, but as it contains^
no fibrin, it does not coagulate at the temperature of the atmos-
phere. Serum consists of water, holding in solution the saline in-
gredients of the blood, and albumen. When serum is heated to
167° F. the albumen it contains coagulates, but not in a fibrous
form like fibrin. The white of egg presents a familiar example of
albumen. It is a protein compound, nearly identical in composi-
tion with fibrin, and like fibrin, it coagulates, but not in exactly
the 5.<ine circumstances. As we shall presently see, albumen has
to pass through the form of fibrin before it can be converted into
organized tissue.

The following table shows the ingredients of the blood :

red disks.

Blood, composed of, {

liquor
sanguinis.

fibrin.

f albumen,
serum, < salts,

( water.

Or the following diagram of Dr. Mandl, ingeniously shows t
composition of the coagulum :

Blood.

R. Disks.

Coagulum.

FOODOF ANIMALS. 191

There are also in the blood some colorless globules, which I will
speak of hereafter.

It now remains to point out the uses of the several ingredients
of the blood.

To explain the use of the red disks, it is necessary to premise
that the decomposition of the tissues, which constitutes one element
of the nutritive act, requires the presence of oxygen. Now the of-
fice of these disks is to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere, during
their passage through the pulmonary capillaries, and carry it to the
other system of capillary vessels, which permeate all parts of the
body. Here the oxygen combines with the living tissues, and the
result of its combination with their elements is the production of
carbonic acid and of the elements of the bile and urine. This
carbonic acid thus formed, again combines with the red disks
which have just parted with their oxygen, and is carried by them
back to the pulmonary capillaries, where it is thrown off with the
expired air.

The office of the red disks is thus twofold ; 1st, to carry oxygen
from the pulmonary capillaries to the general capillary system,
where the oxygen combines with the tissues and promotes their de-
bomposition ; and 2d, to carry the carbonic acid here generated back
to the pulmonary capillaries, where it is rejected from the body.

One word as to the mode in which the remaining products of
ihe decomposition of the tissues are disposed of. The bile con-
.ains a large portion of carbon in combination with hydrogen, but
IS this is re-absorbed after serving its purpose in digestion, it is not
properly an excretion. The carbon and hydrogen it contains are
iltimately discharged by the lungs in the form of carbonic acid and
A'ater.

The elements of urine contain the nitrogenized products of the
jlecomposition of the tissues, chiefly in the form of urea, which
leadily passes into carbonate of ammonia, by exposure to the air.

We have now explained that portion of the nutritive act, which
lonsists in the decomposition of the tissues. Oxygen is brought
y the red disks; this causes their decomposition; the results of
tiis decomposition are : 1st, carbonic acid, which is carried back
3 the lungs by the red disks, and then thrown off; 2nd, urea
Ind lithic acid, which are compounds of nitrogen and the other
Icments of the tissues, and which are rejected by the kid-

1,92. QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

neys ; and 3d, the elements of bile, which contains a large propor-
tion of carbon united with hydrogen, and which after answering
a particular purpose in digestion, is re-absorbed with the food, and
finally rejected in the form of carbonic acid and water.

To complete this account of the excretions, it is only neces-
sary to add, that the saline ingredients of the blood are also thrown
off by the kidneys.

We now pass to the examination • . those constituents of the
blood which serve for the composition of . tissues.

The fibrin of the blood is the nutritive atter out of which the
tissues are formed. This substance, whi' is in a state of solution.^
while circulating in the vessels, becomes ffused through the walls*
of the capillary vessels, and thr is bro'ight in direct contact w'thd
the organized tissues. Here cfc/lain changes occur in it ; first, i^l
assumes a granular appearance, these granules aggregate togeth
to form nuclei, and around th( e nuclei membranes form by whic
they are converted into cells. These cells, constitute the primi-
tive condition of all organized tissues, and by various transforma-J
tions are converted into the particular tissue in the midst of whic!
they are formed. All the organs are then formed from the fibril
of the blood, and in proportion as a particle is removed by the a
of decomposition to which I have alluded, it is replaced from thi
fibrin circulating through the capillary vessels. Whence is th;
fibrin of the blood derived ? and how is the constant supply ke
up?

The albumen dissolved in the serum is the ingredient out of
which the fibrin is formed ; it is the shape which nutritive matter
assumes before it becomes fibrin. The similarity of composition
between albumen and fibrin has been already pointed out, but
there is a further difference of which their chemical constitution
gives no explanation. Fibrin coagulates, has a tendency to be-
come organized ; it is albumen more highly elaborated and vitaliz-
ed. The conversion of albumen into fibrin takes place in the
blood by means of colorless cells, which differ from the red disks
both in their structure and properties. I have already briefly allu-
ded to them.

The saline ingredients of the blood enter into the composition
of some parts, as the bones, and also seem to have other uses
vithich are not yet well understood.

FOOD OF ANIMALS. 193

I have now given the uses of the different constituents of the
blood. The red disks carry oxygen to the interior of the tissues
and thus lead to their decomposition, and carry off a portion of
the products of their decomposition, the carbonic acid ; the nitro-
genized products being carried off by the kidneys in the shape of
urea and lithic acid. The fibrin is the plastic matter out of which
the tissues are formed. T-^ proportion as it is consumed it is re-
placed by the albumen, v^^^ich in the colorless cells, is converted
into fibrin. The loi> ; of tne albumen is itself supplied by the
food. II,

We are now prepai/; 1 for examining into the nature of the
food of animals. , ,,

, One great object of food is t,,, s'upply the blood with a portion
of albumen, to replace tl^at whiu^ disappears by its conversion in-
to fibrin and finally into organized tissue. Since animals are inca-
pable of forming proximate princo^esfrom their elements, the food
must contain albumen ready formed.

The simplest form of nutrition is that presented by carnivorous
animals, and I therefore begin with it as it takes place in them.

Living on the flesh of animals of the same composition as
their own, they simply dissolve this flesh in their digestive canal
and convert it into an albuminous solution. The earthy matters
contained in bones, being insoluble in the gastric juice pass
along the intestinal canal and are rejected as foeces, which in these
animals consist almost exclusively of the earthy portion of bones
with hairs and other insoluble matters.

The albuminous solution resulting from the digestion of the
flesh is absorbed by the lacteal vessels, and enters the mass of the
blood, to replace the albumen which has been converted into fibrin,
and finally expended in the nutritive process.

A portion of the tissues is then decomposed and ultimately re-
jected from the system, in form of carbonic acid and urine ; a cor-
responding amount of matter is withdrawn from the blood to form
new organized tissue, and a corresponding amount of nutritive
matter is introduced into the blood to compensate for this loss.

We ought then, to find in the excretions of the animal, the same
amount of matter and the same elements differently combined, as in
the food ; not that the food is directly converted into these excre-
tions, for it has first to pass through the state of organized

A2

194 QUABTEKLY JOURNAL.

tissue, but this organized tissue is itself exactly replaced] by the
food, so that the result is the same as though the food itself
were at once converted into the excretions*

In the above exposition, I have taken the simplest form of ani-
mal nutrition, that of carnivorous animals, and in order to pre-
vent complication, I have represented this as more simple than it
is in reality, for I have omitted one essential ingredient of their
food, the fat.

What becomes of the fat contained in the food of these ani-
mals 1 What is its use ? It is not found as fat in the excretions ;
it does not make part of the body of the animal, for in general,
carnivorous animals are remarkably destitute of fat.

Nor can it contribute to the formation of the organized tissues,
for they all contain nitrogen, and fat is a compound of carbon,
oxygen and hydrogen. We cannot suppose that it abstracts nitro-
gen from the albuminous principles of the food, for these prin-
ciples contain nitrogen precisely in the necessary proportions for
the formation of the tissues.

The fat is absorbed with the albuminous products of digestion,
passes into the chyle and ultimately into the blood. A portion is
in some cases deposited in the cellular tissue as fat, the rest disap-
pears. What becomes of it 1 What form does it assume '?

The oxygen, introduced by the red disks, is not all consumed by
the decomposition of the tissues. A portion of it remains, which
combines in the blood with the carbon and hydrogen of the fat
and forms carbonic acid and water. The fat is thus burned in the
blood by the oxygen, and is thrown off in the shape of the two
compounds just named. It thus contributes to generate animal
heat, for by this slow combination as much heat is generated as
by their rapid combustion, attended with flame and light, when it
takes place in the air or in oxygen. Heat is also generated by
the union of oxygen with the carbon liberated in the decomposi-
tion of the tissues, but this decomposition is not in general suffi-
ciently rapid to liberate carbon enough to generate all the heat
required.

Fat, then, is not a supporter of nutrition. It does not contri-
bute to the formation of organized tissues. It is a supporter of
respiration ; a means of generating heat.

FOOD OF ANIMALS. 195

The principles of the food are therefore divisible into two clas-
ses :

1. Supporters of nutrition, which are the albuminous matters or
protein compounds.

2, Supporters of respiration — fat.

To resume. The food of carnivorous animals is composed of,

1. Water ; which acts only as a solvent and not as an element
of nutrition, and is rejected as water by the lungs and kidneys.

2. Saline and earthy matters : they contribute to the for-
mation of the bones, and enter into other tissues and perform
other uses not understood. They correspond to the inorgmiic
constituents of plants. They are rejected by the urine and fceces,
and render these matters so valuable as manures.

3. Albuminous matters : Protein compounds, supporters of nutri-
tion. These are dissolved, converted into fibrin, and constitute
the nutritive principle of the food. After becoming organized they
combine with oxygen, and are rejected as urea and carbonic acid.
The urea, by exposure to air, is speedily converted into carbonate
of ammonia.*

4. Fat : supporter of respiration ; generator of animal heat ;
combines with oxygen and is rejected as carbonic acid and water.

5. Oxygen : which is not usually called an article of food, but
is introduced by the lungs rather as a means of waste than of re-
pair, and is rejected in the combinations already mentioned.

I pass now to the nutrition and food of herbivorous animals.
I The mode of nutrition in herbivorous animals differs less from
Ithat of carnivorous animals than a\tis formerly supposed.

Recent chemical discoveries have established the fact that pro-
tein compounds, albumen, fibrin and casein, which are the sup-
fiorters of nutrition in carnivorous animals, also exist in vegetables
eady formed. Consequently herbivorous animals replace the al-
bumen of their blood by the albuminous matters derived from ve-
getables, and so far their nutritive process does not differ from that
jf carnivorous animals.

The different forms of fat, oils, &c., are found in vegetable as
ivell as in animal food, and herein herbivorous animals are nour-

I •Gelatine is a nitrogenized principle but not a compound of protein, which is found
Q the bones and cellular tissues of animals. The mode in which it is disposed of, and
s nutritive properties are involved in so much doubt, that I have thought it best to
void the question in this papers

196 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ished like the carnivorous. The only difference is, that in the for-
mer a larger share of fat is stored up than in the latter.

In vegetable food, besides the albuminous and oleaginous prin-
ciples, there is a third principle which is not found in animal food;
this is the saccharine principle, comprehending starch, gum, sugar,
and the whole of the non-nitrogenized neutral compounds of which
I spoke in the beginning of this paper.

This principle, containing no nitrogen, cannot contribute to the
formation of the organized tissues. Its uses are analogous to those
of fat. Its carbon combines with the surplus oxygen, and is con-
verted into carbonic acid, thus generating animal heat. For this
reason the saccharine principle is, by Liebig, classed with fat,
among the supporters of respiration.

The oleaginous and saccharine principles of the food are not,
however, in all cases at once consumed by oxygen, introduced by
respiration. When the animal takes but little exercise, and the
respiration is consequently inactive, these principles find no sur-
plus oxygen to combine with, and then the oleaginous principle is
stored up as in the cellular tissue as fat, and the saccharine prin-
ciple by a change in its elements, gives off a portion of its oxygen,
and is converted into fat, which, as will be remembered, is a com-
bination of the same elements in different proportions. This is the
only instance in which one proximate principle is converted into
another in the animal body. This conversion, first maintained by
Liebig, was denied by Dumas, who undertook to show that in the
food of herbivorous animals there was sufficient oil to account for
all the fat of the animals, but I believe the point has subsequently
been abandoned by Dumas himself. It seems indeed very impro-
bable, that the grass eaten by a milch cow contains as much oil as
is found in her milk.

It follows from this that in proportion as an animal takes more
or less exercise, will the oleaginous and saccharine principles be
consumed in the body or stored up as fat for future use.

Let us now turn to the difference between the food of carnivo-
rous and herbivorous animals. Both contain the albuminous and
oleaginous principles, and the latter contains, in addition to these,
the saccharine principle. The foodof carnivorous animals is made
up of a large proportion of the albuminous principle, united with
a small portion of fat ; that is, of a large portion of the supporter

FOOD OF ANIMALS. 197

of nutrition with a small portion of the supporter of respiration.
The food of herbivorous animals is made up of a small portion of
the albuminous principle or supporter of nutrition, and of a much
larger portion of the oleaginous and saccharine principles which
are supporters of respiration. There is a corresponding difference
in the nutrition of the two classes. In carnivorous animals the
change of the tissues take place with rapidity, and a large supply
of albumen is required to take the place of that which disappears
in the formation of the tissues. There is sufficient carbon thus libe-
rated to saturate the oxygen introduced by respiration, and to main-
tain the animal temperature ; the small portion of fat in the food
saturates any surplus of oxygen. In herbivorous animals the change
in the tissues is slower ; less albumen is therefore required, and
more of the non-nitrogenized principles or supporters of respira-
tion are required to saturate the oxygen introduced by the lungs.

The supporters of nutrition in food are, the protein compounds
albumen, fibrin and casein, as found in vegetables and animals.
'J'hey are destined to repair the waste of the tissues, and by their
decomposition give rise to carbonic acid, W'ater and urea, which,
by the addition of water, becomes carbonate of ammonia.

The supporters of respiration are the different kinds of animal
,and vegetable fat and oil, constituting the oleaginous principle
and the neutral non-nitrogenized compounds, sugar, gum, starch,
constituting the saccharine principle. These principles are either
istored up as fat, or consumed by oxygen, and in both cases are
ultimately thrown off in the form of carbonic acid and water.

The organic matters of the food are then ultimately thrown off
in the form of water, carbonic acid and carbonate of ammonia.
The saline matters pass off in the urine and foeces in the form in
which they are introduced.

Thus the animal restores to the atmosphere by the lungs, and
to the soil by the urine and foeces the compounds which serve as
food for plants.

Vegetables convert inorganic compounds into proximate princi-
ples ; animals convert these proximate principles into inorganic
compounds.

There is but one substance produced in nature which contains
ill the elements of the food of animals so mixed as to be capable
jf serving permanently as an an article of food. That is milk.

198 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

An examination of the composition of milk will serve to con-
firm and to illustrate the preceding remarks.

When milk is allowed to stand it is found to separate into two
partSj the cream which floats on the surface, and a clear fluid un-
derneath. This cream consists of globules which may be easily
seen by means of the microscope, and are composed of oil. They
are mechanically suspended in the milk, and rise to the surface on
account of their lesser specific gravity. When heated, or when
beaten for a certain time, their envelope is broken and they form
butter.

Milk is thus found to be composed of fat, existing in the state
of globules and floating in a thin fluid. This recalls to a certain |
extent the composition of the blood.

If we add to the skimmed milk an acid, it separates into two
parts, a coagulum and w^hey. Here again is an analogy with the
liquor sanguinis.

The coagulum is composed of an albuminous matter called
casein, the composition of which has already been explained. It
is a compound of protein with sulphur.

The whey is composed of water, holding in solution a kind of
sugar, called sugar of milk, and also phosphates and other saline
ingredients.

In milk, we thus find, besides the saline ingredients and water,
an oleaginous principle, an albuminous principle and a saccharine
principle, that is, the three great staminal principles of the food.
The albuminous principle serving as a supporter of nutrition, and
the oleaginous and saccharine principles serving as supporters of
respiration.

In butter we have the oleaginous principle separated from the
others. In cheese we have the casein united with the butter, as
in fat cheese, or separated in a great measure from it, as in skimmed
milk cheese. In whey we have the sugar alone with the saline
ingredients.

It was remarked by Prout, before the views of Liebig concerning
the nature of the food were published, that milk contained the three
great staminal principles of food, and that whatever might be the
nature of the food it was necessary that at least two of these prin-
ciples should be present in order to support life for any length of

FOODOl" ANIMALS. 199

time. Thus, although the albuminous principle is all that is required
to replace the fibrin of the blood consumed in the act of nutrition,
yet animals fed on white of egg alone, perish after a certain time
of starvation. For a still stronger reason, animals fed on pure
sugar, or gum, or starch, or oil alone, die of starvation, for these
substances contain no materials for repairing the waste of the tis-
sues. In the simplest kind of food, as that of carnivorous ani-
mals, there is a mixture of the albuminous principle with fat. In
the food of herbivorous animals there is a mixture of the albumi-
nous with the saccharine, and with a smillor portion of the oleagi-
nous principle.

"But," says Prout, " it is in the artificial food of man that we
see this great principle of mixture most strongly exemplified.
He, dissatisfied with the productions spontaneously furnished by
aature, culls from every source, and by the power of his reason, or
rather of his instinct, frames in every possible manner, and under
n cry disguise, the same great alimentary compound. This, after
ill his cooking and art, however he may be inclined to disbelieve
t, is the whole object of his labor, and the more nearly his results
ipproach this, the more nearly they approach perfection. Thus,
rom the earliest times, instinct has taught him to add oil or butter
0 farinaceous substances, such as bread, which are naturally de-
■ective in this principle. The same instinct has taught him to fat-
en animals with the view of procuring the oleaginous in conjunc-
ion with the albuminous principle, which compound he finally
onsumes, for the most part, in conjunction with saccharine prin-
iples, in the form of bread and vegetables. Even in the utmost
sfinements of his luxury, and in his choicest delicacies, the same
.reat principle is attended to ; and his sugar and flour, his eggs and
'utter, in all their various forms and combinations, are nothing
lore nor less than disguised imitations of the great alimentary pro-
j)type — milk — as presented to him by nature."
i From what precedes, it will be seen that there are three great
aminal principles of food :

1st. The albuminous, which is destined to repair the loss of the
ssues in the act of nutrition ; that is, destined to be converted into
iganized tissues.

2. The oleaginous principle, containing a large proportion (60
1 r cent) of carbon united with hydrogen and oxygen, but not in

200 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the proportions to form water, the hydrogen being in excess. This
principle is destined to combine with the oxygen introduced by re-
spiration into the blood, and by the combustion of its carbon and '
hydrogen to generate heat. When there is not enough of oxygen
introduced to burn up all the fat of the food, this principle accu-
mulates in the cellular tissue.

3. The saccharine principle, including sugar, gum, starch, and
all those substances composed of carbon, combined with oxygen
and hydrogen in the proportion to form water. The use of this
principle is nearly the same as that of the oleaginous ; it serves for
generating animal heat, but in a less degree, for it contains less
carbon, and the other two elements are in such proportions as to
have satisfied their affinities, and no surplus hydrogen remains to
be burned. The saccharine principle undergoes conversion into
fat, when there is a deficiency of oxygen for its combustion.

Let us now apply these principles to determining the propor-
tions in which these principles should be combined, in the food oi
man and of animals under different circumstances.

Tn proportion as the waste of the tissues is greater in nutrition
will a larger supply of the albuminous principle be required in th(
food to replace the fibrin abstracted from the blood. Muscula)
exercise contributes to an increased activity of the nutritive act
and thus renders a larger proportion of this principle necessary.

In proportion as the surrounding atmosphere is colder will \h
body be required to generate more heat in order to preserve its uni
form temperature. This increased heat is generated by exercise anc
by proper diet. Exercise generates more heat in two ways : 1st
by accelerating the circulation and respiration, it introduces men
oxygen into the blood ; 2d, by increasing the activity of the de
composition of the tissues in nutrition, it liberates more carboi
which is burned by the oxygen. The diet of one taking activ.
exercise in a cold air, should contain a large portion of th'
albuminous principle, to replace the waste of the tissues and of th-
oleaginous principle to be burned by the surplus oxygen. A mai
or animal laboring in a cold air requires food rich in these twt.
principles and soon sinks under a diet composed of a large portioii
of the saccharine principle — such as rice, fruits, &c. A starvinj
man freezes if exposed to cold, and the same thing happens to .
man well fed but kept at rest. The former freezes because, thougli

FOOD OF ANIMALS. 201

he has oxygen enough in the blood it finds no fuel to burn ; the
latter because, with plenty of fuel there is not enough oxygen in-
troduced to consume it.

Alcohol is also ranked by Licbig among the supporters of respi-
ration. Its composition very nearly resembles that of fat, being a
compound of carbon with oxygen and nitrogen, the latter being in
excess. Its action is two-fold ; it is a supporter of respiration and
a special excitant of the nervous system. In the latter mode of
[action it is altogether different from any oleaginous compound.
As a supporter of respiration its action is exceedingly prompt,
from the rapidity with which it is absorbed and from the avidity
with which it is burned by the oxygen. In this way it warms the
body suddenly, but by exhausting the oxygen of the blood it leaves
the system more exposed to the cold than before, unless by active
'jxercise the introduction of oxygen is kept up in a degree propor-
ionate to its consumption. The blood of drunkards is remarkably
)lack, in consequence of being loaded with carbonic acid.

If we examine the diet adopted by inhabitants of cold and hot
liinates, we find it to correspond with th^ principles just laid
■own. In arctic regions where active exercise is necessary in or-
'er to resist the cold and to provide food, the diet consists mainly
f animal flesh, with a large quantity of fat. Europeans read with
stonishment the immense quantities of meat and fish oil consum-
d by the Esquimaux, and which are rendered necessary by their
3vere climate. Exposed to an atmosphere below zero, imperfect-
T protected by their miserable huts, they are compelled to burn
le fuel by which their temperature is maintained, within their
ivn bodies. Hence too, the avidity with which they seek after,
id the impunity with which they bear large quantities of ardent
)irits.

In tropical climates, nature provides abundantly for the wants
: men, with littk labor on their part. With this diminished ne-
«}ssity for muscular exertion, the temperature of the atmosphere
i such as to require little animal heat to be generated, and con-
^quently but little activity of the respiratory functions. Dimin-
iied muscular effort is attended with diminished waste in nutri-
<)n, and hence a small amount of albuminous matter in the food
offices. At the same time the moderate activity of the respira-
i'y function renders the more active supporters of respiration,

VOL. I. NO. II. B

202 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

such as fat and ardent spirits, inappropriate. The diet of the ii>«
habitants of these countries consist therefore mainly of the sac-
charine principle, united with small proportions of the other two,
The rice and fresh fruits which constitute the repast of the Hin-
doo, offer as striking a contrast with the flesh and train oil of the
Esquimaux, as the warm skies and lazy life of the former do to i(
the snow huts and hunting excursions of the latter.

If we would produce a great muscular development with little
fat, much exercise is necessary and a diet composed of albumi-
nous matter, with little of the oleaginous or saccharine princi-
ple. This is the diet on which carnivorous animals subsist, and
the hardness of their muscles and absence of fat are well known.
This is also the diet on which men are put when trained in Eng-
land for prize fighting. Jackson, a celebrated trainer^ stated to
John Bell that he usually began the system by an emetic and two
or three purges. Beef and mutton, the lean of fat meat being
preferred, constituted the principal food ; veal, lamb and pork he
found less digestible. Fish was said to be a " watery kind ol
diet," and is employed by jockeys who wish to reduce then
weight by sweating. Stale bread was the only vegetable food
allowed. The quantity of fluid permitted was 2h pints, but fer-
mented liquors were strictly forbidden. Two full meals with j
light supper were usually taken. The quantity of exercise em
ployed was very considerable, and such as few men of ordinary
strength could endure. The effects of trainers' regimen are hard
ness and firmness of the muscles, clearness of skin, capability o
bearing continued severe exercise, and a feeling of freedom am
lightness (or " corkiness") in the limbs.

If instead of great muscular development we would favor th<
production of fat with tender muscular flesh, we must adopt a dif
ferent regimen. First of all, we must secure rest, for exercis«
develops the muscles, and by giving activity to respiration it llt\
troduces more oxygen, which burns up the fat. With this w
must have a somewhat elevated temperature without which rest i.
impossible. The diet should consist of a small proportion of All
albuminous principle with a free use of the oleaginous and stilt
more of the saccharine principle. With such a regimen the fa'
of the food finds no oxygen to burn it, and is stored up in th
cellular tissue, while the saccharine principle, for the same reason

FOOD OF ANIMALS. 203

is converted into fat and is likewise stored up. Thus it is, that
Turkish women, shut up in the harem, without exercise of mind
or body, living on a farinaceous diet, acquire the embonpoinment
so highly prized as an element of beauty in their country ; and
mdeed, it is to this cause that women in general owe the softness
of muscle, their roundness of outline, which contrasts so strik-
ingly with the muscular development and angular contour of men.

The application of these principles to the feeding of animals
accordmg to the object we have in view, is sufficiently obvious.
If we would simply fatten an animal and prepare it for being
,eaten, we keep it at rest in a warm stable, and give it food con-
tainmg an abundance of the supporters of respiration, so that its
muscles may become tender and that the oleaginous and saccharine
prmciples of the food may not be consumed in warming the ani-
nal but may be deposited as fat. If on the other hand we wish
0 procure hard and strong muscles, as in a race-horse, we keep
iini in exercise and give him food containing more largely of the
dbuminous principle. Contrary to a common opinion, food rich
n albuminous matter does not contribute to the production of
,at. It is not very unusual for persons who wish to repress a dis-
position to obesity, to avoid animal food and restrict themselves
0 vegetables, and find to their surprise that the accumulation of
at takes place more rapidly than before.

The use of alcoholic drinks dispose to obesity, unless they are
bused to such a degree as to give rise to a derangement of diges-
lon, which prevents the introduction of nutritive matter into the
lood. Although the composition of alcohol is analogous to that
f fat, it is not probable that it undergoes conversion into fat in the
ody, but rather that, by combining rapidly with the oxygen of
le blood, it leaves a larger portion of the saccharine and oleagi-
ous matters of the food to be converted into and deposited as fat.
fermented liquors contain a quantity of saccharine matter, and are
|»r this reason particularly apt to cause obesity. Indeed, any cause
|hich consumes the oxygen of the blood, or prevents its introduction,
ksatendency to produce an accumulation of fat. Want of exercise
icrates in keeping the respiration sluggish, and thus preventing
e mtroduction of oxygen. Asthma, and diseases of the heart,
1' obstructing the circulation through the lungs, have a similar
Itidency.

20i QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

When a person who has taken exercise freely in the open air,
and has lived on a diet of animal food with alcoholic drinks, changes
his habits of life and becomes sedentary, and continues the same
diet, he falls into disease. The large proportion of albuminous
matter of the food no longer finds its use in repairing the waste of
the tissues in nutrition, and hence accumulates in the blood. This
fluid becomes too rich in nitrogenized principles ; there is an in-
flammatory state of the system produced ; the formation of urea
and still more of uric acid, becomes excessive, and hence arises a
disposition to gravel, gout, or rheumatism, three diseases closely
allied to each other. They all seem to be connected with an ex-
cess of nitrogenized principles in the blood, though this does nofi
always arise from the same cause. -

The lungs and liver have functions analogous in this respect, thati'
they both separate carbon from the blood ; in the former it is com-
bined with oxygen ; in the latter with hydrogen. There is a cer-
tain degree of antagonism between these glands, the inertness of the
one being compensated by an increased activity of the other. In
cold climates the lungs are most active, and are hence disposed to
inflammatory affections. In hot climates, when the lungs separate
the carbon imperfectly from the blood, the liver is thrown into in-
creased activity, and hence its diseases are here most common. Er
ropeans who pass to tropical climates, and continue their diet rich
in fat, with free use of alcoholic drinks, inevitably bring on disease
of the liver by overtasking this organ. The same thing happens to
those who in temperate climates indulge in such a diet, while they
lead a sedentary life in warm houses. Drunkards, almost always
induce disease of the liver by surcharging the blood with carbon and
hydrogen, and thus keeping the liver in a state of constant excita-
tion. This explains also how persons leading an active life can re-
sist the eff'ects of alcoholic drinks, even when taken in excess, so
much better than those who are sedentary. The former work ofi
a part of the alcohol by their active respiration ; in the latter the
whole labor falls on the liver.

CLIMATE OF NEW-YORK. 205

CLIMATE OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK.

One of the most important problems to be solved in deter-
mining the agricultural capabilities of any country, is its cli-
mate. Common observation and experience is perhaps sufficiently
exact to establish the truth of the proposition in a general way.
A hasty examination, for example, of the natural productions of a
valley and of the adjacent mountain, of a marshy or an arid dis-
trict, of the shores of a sea, lake, or large river, of a warm and a
cold region, and of an inland position, will show that they differ
materially in their products ; a difference which, without doubt,
will be attributed to what is termed climate. The word is here
ised in its widest sense, and may be defined the character of a
ilace, as determined by observations on latitude, height above the
;ea, vicinity to water, prevalent winds, position and slope of lands,
lature of the rocks and soil, and degree of cultivation. If cli-
natc, then, is determined by these conditions, it will be well to
ccupy a few moments on each of them, taken singly. 1st. Cli-
Qate does not depend wholly upon latitude, for observation proves
hat two places upon the same parallel neither agree in tempera-
ure, nor in any two of the other conditions which determine its
haracter. If they agree in the mean temperature for the year,
ley may not agree in the temperature of their seasons. One, for
istance, may enjoy cool summers, the other may be hot and com-
aratively dry. So, one may have a mild winter, while at the
ither it is severe and rigid. Under these characters Paris and
ituebec have often been contrasted. Again, two places in the same
Ititutle, but of different heights above the level of the sea,
ill differ in climate. If, for example, one is five or six hundred
jet higher than the other, it will be from one to two degrees
plder than the other.

The other conditions which modify climate are not of equal con-
:jquence with the two preceding ones. Vicinity, however, to
rge bodies of water, may be, perhaps, of equal consequence,
'he winds also exert a perceptible influence. In this country
te northwest winds are cold, and where from the shape and con-
'tur of the surface they prevail, the temperature will from thia

206 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

cause alone, be slightly reduced. Then, again, a southern expo-
sure is more favorable to vegetation than a northwest exposure.
The color and composition of soils, too, cannot be overlooked in
the list of causes which modify climate. These, however, are
iiLore local and less general, unless, indeed, the area is greatly ex-
tended.

Places which are known to enjoy an equal temperature are
called isothermal^ signifying merely an equal temperature. Ima-
ginary lines connecting such places, are called isothermal Xmes.,
We have already said, in effect, that these cannot coincide with the
lines of latitude drawn upon a map, or a terrestrial globe ; thej]
therefore intersect them at various angles, and form by themselves
a peculiar system of lines approaching only to parallelism among
themselves — ^for example, those which are drawn upon a map ol
Europe, do not coincide or run parallel to those of America;
as the line of equal temperature in the two continents runs twelvi
degrees farther north in the former than in the latter.

Another result which has been obtained by careful observatioi
is, that two places may receive an equal amount of heat, during j
part of the year only ; that is, it will enjoy an equal summer or ai
equal winter temperature. Lines or curves, representing thes"
facts, are termed isotheral and isocheimal lines ; the former refeB^I
ring to equal summer, the latter to equal winter temperature. '

The temperature of the atmosphere is influenced by, and de

pends upon, the heating power of the earth, the rays of the su:

passing through it without imparting their caloric directly to it

particles. On being received, however, upon the surface of th

earth, it becomes heated, and then imparts a portion of its tempe

rature to the stratum of air in immediate contact with it. This, ii

consequence of its expansion, has its specific gravity diminished

and hence rises and gives place to another stratum, which in it

turn also ascends. By these changes of place then, the body o

the atmosphere is heated and its temperature elevated. But thi

process only expends a part of the heat received from the sun

The remaining heat is conducted downwards from particle to par

tide, diminishing of course according to the distance from the sur

face, till finally we reach a depth which is unaffected by the sun'

rays. The superficial temperature of the soil of any given plac

'will vary as well as that of the air ; the color of the soil, itsna

CLIMATE OF NEW -YORK. 207

ture as it regards composilion, height, slope, etc., all have their
influences in a greater or less degree.

. There are a few other general considerations in regard to cli-
mate, which it may be well to state in this place. We notice first,
the globular figure of the earth. A body of this form receives the
greatest number of rays from the sun on a given space, when they
fall vertically upon it. In the second place, the space over which
the sun approaches to verticality is increased by the obliquity of
the earth's motion in regard to the plane of the equator. By this
arrangement the sun apparently travels over a broad zone, equal
to 47° in breadth. Then again, the diurnal revolutions of the earth
produce the agreeable changes of day and night and an innumera-
ble number of other important modifications of temperature.

It is perhaps impossible to conceive of all the results which
must have followed had these several arrangements been different-
ly disposed. If, for instance, the axis of the earth had been placed
perpendicular to the plane of its orbit ; in this case, the sun would
have been always vertical to the same places and those places
would have been, as a consequence, burnt, or parched with heat,
but in consequence of the obliquity of the axis, the extent of the
temperate zones has been produced far towards the poles, and
has thereby rendered most of the earth's surface a fit abode for ani
mals and plants.

The atmosphere also, from its great mobility, is an agent for
distributing heat ; it not only rises upwards, but is impelled for-
wards i moving over the surface of the earth with rapidity in some
instances, and at the same time bearing along and distributing the
'caloric imparted to it from the earth.

The temperature too, of the current itself, is modified by the sur-
face over which it passes. Traversing a low, sandy plain, it be-
icomes hot and dry ; over the sea, damp and chilly ; and over
jhigh mountains, cold and pinching.

Such are some of the causes which operate generally in modify-
ing climate.

Leaving these general views of climate, we pass to the conside-
ration of the climate of New-York. In pursuing this subject, it is
perhaps unnecessary to say, that it is also modified more or less by
ill the circumstances which have been enumerated. But in order
hat we may have a full understanding of the climate of the state,

208 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

it is necessary that we should possess some knowledge of the face
of the country under consideration, as the climactic features are
inseparably connected with physical characters. Mountains, or
high lands condense upon their sides the vapor of the atmosphere,
which, if approaching the line of perpetual snow, will freeze, and
become a source of cold by absorbing the caloric of the warmer re-
gions, whether near or remote. They increase too, the supply of
water in their vicinity, and tend greatly to preserve an equality in
the streams which issue from them during the whole year. They 'I
modify the direction of winds, and shelter the products of their
sides in some cases, while in others the exposures are increased by
receiving the direct currents which move over them without miti-
gation. Dwarf and shrubby productions are always found on the
exposed mountain sides — an effect which is not due to elevation
alone.

The most important mountain chain of high lands in New-York
is north of the Mohawk valley. These high lands may be con-
sidered as rising near Little-Falls, where, taking a north east course, j
they terminate partly upon Lake Champlain, and partly in thei^
Canadian plains.

This belt of country is 70 miles widcy and is in fact table*
land, which, upon an average, is 1,000 feet above the level of the
sea, or the tide water at Albany ; but a portion of it is from 1,500
to 1,800 feet above the same level. From this table-land a great
number of peaks or ridges rise, which attain a height of from 1,2001
to 3,400 feet. These are steep and precipitous, and worthless asi
lands for tillage. But they will supply eventually an immensei
quantity of lumber and wood. The valleys are high and narrow,
with scarcely an interval of half a mile. From this high and bro-
ken country most of the rivers and creeks which supply the statt
with water, take their origin — as the Hudson, Mohawk, Blackl
River, De Grasse, Racket, Salmon, Saranac and Ausable.

From these facts it appears that in the limits of New- York, and
south of the latitude of 45 degrees, the land is sufficiently high toi|
modify the climate very perceptibly. The highest points furnish
an Alpine vegetation, and probably every night during the sum-
mer, water is congealed upon the exposed parts of their tops. The
diminished temperature of this part of the state is seen in the hus-
bandry; corn or maize is a precarious crop, and even wlieat ha»

CLIMATE OF NEW-YORK. 209

been cut off by frost in August, at the base of the highest of the
Adirondacks.

East of the Hudson there is another belt of high land, ranging
nearly north and south, which is laid out in narrow ridges, which
geologically consist of slate and limestone. These are prolonged
into Canada, They probably present a medium height of ] ,000 to
1,200 feet, but rising occasionally to 3,500 feet. The vegetation
npon the top of these ridges, when they rise above 1,000 ft., shows
merely the effects of the northwest wind, in the diminished height
of the trees and their more shrubby growth; but they produce no
where an Alpine vegetation. South of the Mohawk valley a hilly
country prevails in all that region which is commonly called the
Heldcrberg. South of this hilly range^ and west of the Hudson,
the Catskiils form another important mountain chain, though less ele-
vated by 1,800 feet than the Adirondacks. As a whole, then, New-
York presents a surface greatly diversified — in some portions rising
into very respectable mountains, in others it is depressed and tra-
versed by long parallel valleys j only a small portion of the sur-
face is of that character which can be denominated level.

With these remarks, we proceed to speak of the temperature of
New-York, and in this connection it is proper to remark that the

suits which are given in the following pages were obtained prin-
■ipally from the Regents' Reports, and from a paper prepared by
Mr. James H. Coffin for the agricultural survey of the state, now
in progress. These reports are made up from the returns of fifty-
eight different localities, at which meteorological observations have
been kept. These localities are scattered over a great variety of
surface, and hence they indicate pretty fairly the climate of the
state, or rather the meteorology of the state. The mean tempera-
ture of the fifty-eight places at w^hich observations have been made
for seventeen years, is forty-six degrees forty-nine minutes, but, as
already remarked, the relative temperature of different sections of the
state, while it depends chiefly on latitude and elevation, is modified
by the circumstances already stated.

From numerous observations made within the limits of the state,
It is very satisfactorily determined that the rate of decrease in tem-
perature amounts to 1° for 350 feet of elevation ; from some ob-
servations the rate is greater, and in some less ; but as this is near

1

210 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the mean for all the observations which have been made, it appears
sufficiently exact for all our purposes.

In order to obtain a correct expression of the leading characters
of the climate of New-York, it is essential that its territory should
be divided into districts, inasmuch as an expression for the whole
state, taking the mean temperature, for instance, as that expression,
will only approximate to the object sought. We propose, there-
fore, to divide the state into the six following districts : 1. Long-
Island J 2. Valley of the Hudson ; 3. Valley of the Mohawk ; 4*
District north of the Mohawk, extending from the east line of the
state to Lake Ontario ; 5. District southwest of the valley of the
Mohawk, extending from the valley of the Hudson to the vicinity
of the smaller lakes ; 6. District west of the smaller lakes.

The climate of the state may be examined in reference to its
mean temperature — the extremes of heat and cold — the length and
forwardness of the seasons, and the progress of vegetation. By
obtaining the results of each of the districts, and comparing them
with one another, and with that of the state at large, we shall ob-
tain all the important facts in regard to its climate. The length
and the forwardness of the seasons, and the progress of vegetation,
is determined by the appearance of robins, and other birds of pas-
sage : the blooming of trees and plants j the ripening of strawber-
ries ; the commencement of the hay and wheat harvest, and the
first killing frost. The mean time of these for the whole state for
fifteen years, ending with 1842, and also the mean temperature,
and mean of the annual extremes, is shown in the following table,
which may serve as a standard of reference in examining the same
kind of facts in the different sections of the state :

I

CLIMATE OF NEAV-YORK

211

Robins first seen,

Shailbush in bloom,

•Peach in bloom,

Currants in bloom,

Plum in bloom,

Cherry in bloom,

Apple in bloom,

Lilac in bloom,

Strawberries ripe,

Hay harvest commenced,.
Wheat harvest do.

First killin,? frost,

First fall of snow,

Mean Date.

March 19

May 1

« 2

i( 4

" 6

" 7

" ]5

" 15

Mean temperature,

Mean annual maximum,.
Mean annual minimum,.
Mean annual ransre

June

July

«

Sept.
Nov.

12

8

25
23

5

4b" 49'

92° 00

12° 00

104° 00

44
48
57
58
52
52
59
45
58
34
45
57

59
59
59
59

b-^

«^

266
168
175
269
264
250
374
151
210
127
186
471
536

577
550
551
550

1st District — Long-Island. Observations have been made at
Oyster Bay, Easthampton, Jamaica and Flatbush. The feature
which distinguishes the climate of this section is the uniformity of
its temperature, occasioned by the equalizing influence of the
ocean. The places at which observations have been made, are all
at a low level, in the extreme south part of the state. The great-
est heat of summer is 1 J° less on an average, than in other parts of
the state which are further north, and more elevated. On the
contrary the extreme cold of winter is less by 10*^ to 18®, and has
been so uniformly, every year for the past fifteen years. It is worthy
of notice, that the temperature of Easthampton and Jamaica, is
considerably less than is due to latitude and elevation. The for-
mer place, it is 2°. 55, which is a greater difference than at any
other place in the state. This fact is also indicated by the back-
wardness of the seasons. The trees bloom there later by a week
I than they do in the interior of the state, and two weeks later than
' at the west end of the island. The spring is but a little earlier
than on the Black river, in Lewis and Jefferson counties. But
I notwithstanding the lateness of vegetation in the spring, agricul-
'ture does not appear to be so much retarded. Strawberries ripen,
and the wheat harvest commences there earlier than the averao-e of
the state, though considerably later than at the west end of the

• The peach is considered the mean for the middle and south part of the state only,

212 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

island. Farther, the time lost by the lateness of the spring, ap-
pears to be made up in the fall. With scarcely an exception for
the last fifteen years, the first killing frost in autumn has occurred
much later at Easthampton, than at any other place in the state
which has been reported. The average time has been a full month
later than the average of the state, and nearly three weeks later
than at Jamaica or Flatbush.

2d District — The valley of the Hudson. In this district, ob-
servations have been made at Mount-Pleasant, North-Salem, Go-
shen, Montgomery, INewburgh, Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Redhook,
Hudson, Kinderhook, Albany, Lansingburgh, Cambridge, Salem
and Granville. The mean temperature of Albany is found to be
1^.98 higher than the mean temperature of the state, as deter-
mined by observations for fifteen years. The extreme summer
heat of this valley is greater by several degrees than in any other
section of the state, and particularly has the thermometer risen
higher at Montgomery, Poughkeepsie and Lansingburgh ; and the
latter place is equally remarkable for the extremes of cold in the
winter. Kinderhook is also remarkable for its extreme cold in
winter. North-Salem is subject to early frosts, having occurred
there ten days sooner than the average of the state, and more than
fourteen earlier than in the valley of the Hudson generally. As
we ascend the Hudson, the opening of spring becomes gradually
later, the difference between New-York and Albany being about a
week. The climate at Cambridge, Salem and Granville, becomes
more rigid both from elevation and latitude. The extreme cold of
winter is more intense by 10^, than at any other place on the Hud-
son south of Lansingburgh, and the spring opens several days
later.

3d District — Valley of the Mohawk. Locations at which obser-
vations have been made, are Schenectady, Johnstown, Canajo-
harie, Fairfield, Utica, Whitesborough. AtUtica the temperature
due to latitude and elevation is 46° .20, and the mean temperature
is one degree less than the mean of the state, and at Fairfield it is
2°. 98 less.

The average mean temperature of this valley is lower by one
degree than the average of the state. The winds of this valley
have been shown by Mr. Coffin to be more northerly at Utica and
Whitesborough than in other parts of the Mohawk valley. At

CLIMATE OF NEW -YORK. 213

Schenectady and Canajoharie, vegetation advances more rapidly
than the average of tlio state, and at Johnstown and Fairfield less
^o. The difference between Canajoharie and Fairfield, though
only about 20 miles distant, is about a fortnight, which is owing
to the elevation of the latter place. Utica may be considered
a fair representative of the climate of the state. The vegetation
at Utica agrees within a day with the average forwardness and its
progress through the state.

4th District — North and northwest of the Valley of the Mohawk.
Places where observations have been made, are Mexico, Belville,
Lowville, Gouverneur, Ogdensburgh, Potsdam, Malone and Platts-
turgh.

The mean temperature at Ogdensburgh is 44*^ . 27. Gouverneur,
ihe same; Plattsburgh 44*^.65. These are temperatures due to
latitude and elevation. In this whole district we have the charac-
teristics of a more rigid climate ; low mean temperature, extreme
cold in winter, great range of the thermometer, backward seasons
and early frosts. Gouverneur is colder by over one degree, and
appears to be the coldest place but one in the state from which
records are received. It stands unrivalled as it regards extreme
cold in the winter. Ogdensburgh is less liable to extremes of heat
and cold than the average of the state, from its vicinity to a large
body of water.

5th District — Embracing a region south and southwest of the
Valley of the Mohawk. Observations have been made at the fol-
lowing places: Pompcy, Homer, Cazenovia, Hamilton, Bridge-
water, Oxford, Hartwick, Cherry-Valley, Delhi. Mean tempera-
ture atPompey, for 14 years, was 44°. 9 ; Cherry-Valley, 44°. 20 j
Delhi, 44°. 92. These temperatures are due to elevation and lati-
tude. Pompey is the coldest place reported in the state, being 3°
.52 lower than the average of the state. It is situated on high
ground, and yet the thermometer does not sink so low in winter^
nor do the autumnal frosts occur so early as in the state generally.
At all other places in this district the thermometer sinks lower
than the average of the state by 4° to 11°, and the autumnal
frosts occur earlier by four to thirteen days. Robins appear earlier
in this part of the state, the vegetation is uniformly backward,
though less so than at places in the northern parts of the state which
have the same mean temperature.

214 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

6th District, or the Western part of the State, embracing Onon-
daga, Auburn, Aurora, Ithaca, Prattsburgh,Canandaigua, Palmyra,
Rochester, Henrietta, Middlebury, Gaines, Millville, Lewiston,
Buffalo, Springville, Fredonia, Mayville.

Mean temperature of Buffalo, 46^ . 23 ; Rochester, 45° . 65 ; Au-
burn, 45°. 97 ; Canandaigua,46°.42,which are all due to latitude
and elevation. The temperature of this section of the state does
not differ greatly from the mean for the whole state. It is par-
ticularly characterized for its uniformity. The average annual
range of the thermometer is 96°, while in the state generally it is «
104°. The greatest cold in the winter at Rochester, Lewiston and
Fredonia but little exceeds that of Long Island or New-York city.
Vegetation in the spring is a few days earlier than the average of f*
the state, and about the same as at Albany. The winds of thig
section are 11° more southerly than the mean for the state.

The facts developed by observation in this district, show a i
change in climate which is probably due to a variety of circum
stances. East of this district, for example, 27 places out of 32 show ij
a lower mean temperature than is due to elevation and latitude ;
while here, all but two show a higher.

There is a great uniformity in the extreme heat of summer
throughout the state. But 5 places out of 55, show a difference of
over three degrees from the mean of the state, which is 92°. The
average time for the whole state, from the blooming of the apple
trees to the first killing frost in autumn, is 174 days. On the west
end of Long Island it is twelve and a half days more, and in St.
Lawrence county twenty-two less ; the difference between the two
latter, being consequently thirty-four and a half days.

The following table is annexed for the purpose of enabling the
readers of this journal to make a more general comparison of the
temperature of the different places spoken of in the article, with
those at a distance. The allowance for elevation of the place
above tide water is at the rate of one degree for 350 feet.

I

CLIMATE OF NEW -YORK

215

PLACE OF OBSERVATIOxN.

Nain, Labrador,

Quebec,

Plattshurgh, N. Y.,

Cambridge, N. Y.,

Lansinpburgh, N. Y.,

I Albany, iN. Y.

1 Kindertaook, N. Y.,

I Hudson, N. Y.,

Redhook, N Y.,

1 Kingston, N. Y.,

1 Poughkeepsie, N. Y.,

Newbiirgh, N. Y.

Mounl-Fleasant, N. Y., ••

Flatbush, N. V.,

Williams College, Mass.,-

Salem, Mass.,

Newport, R. Island,

Philadelphia Fa.,

Cincinnati, Ohio,

, Washington, D. C,

j Natchez, Miss.,

1 Havana, Cuba,

Cumania, S. A ,

Quito, S. A ,

•a

3

t)

J

eT^os'

46 47

44 42

43 01

42 47

42 39

42 22

42 IS

42 02

41 65

41 41

41 30

> 41 09

40 37

42 43

43 31

41 30

39 66

39 06

38 63

31 2S

33 10

10 »7

0 13

M

3on,

340
105

fcoo

30
103
125
180

t60
180

fso

160
125

40
800

60

30

30
510

30
180

30

30
9610

26042'
37 19
43 97
46 39
48 17
43 27
46 91

48 29

49 36
49 46
61 65
49 96
49 33

61 25
45 69
48 08
60 65
63 42

63 78
66 57

64 76
78 03
81 96

62 00

" C'S ni

V a >
_ o «

c --a-

t26''61'
38 45
44 73

47 522

48 33

49 64

47 73
43 75

48 95
60 97
60 83

49 69
60 44
51 31

}47 83
i49 83
t50 64
i63 51
}35 24
56 66
}65 27
i78 17
{81 95
•{83 75

a 3

36»46'
41 50
44 95

47 67
43 05
49 26

48 71
43 90

49 27
49 44

49 81

60 10

50 66

61 63
43 16
48 47
50 10
54 01

53 92

54 26
65 60
76 39
83 87
85 48

3

14

16

17

13

10

12

14

11

13

11

17

23

33

10

0

8

0

8

8

8

0

. * Reduced by Humboldt's observations.

t Height estimated. When a place is said to be at the level of tide water, the height of
the instrument is assumed at 50 feet.

{ Mean temperature as observed, reduced to the level of the sea.

Note. The observed temperature of Nain, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Natchez and Ha-
Tana, was taken from a table in the Rridgewater Treatises; that of VVashington and New-
port from the Meteorological Register of the U. S. A ; that of Quito from Rees' Encyclopae-
dia, and that of places in New-York from the Regents Report.

BEDS OF OYSTER SHELLS ON THE HUDSON RIVER.

Having occasion to visit Rockland county not long since, I went
ashore at Slaughter's Landing, near the great ice depot. The
shore at this place is quite steep, and closely skirted by the great
range of greenstone columns, resting upon, and interlaminated
with beds of the new red sandstone. This place is interesting on ac-
count of the effects which the greenstone has had upon the subja-
cent rocks, particularly for the remarkably distinct signs of pow-
erful igneous action. But the facts which I propose to speak of,
are the beds of oyster shells some sixty or seventy feet above the
nver. These beds are just below the surface of the soil in which

216 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

the large trees of the forest still remain. On inquiring of some of
the gentlemen who are residents of the place how the oyster shells
came here, they remarked that the common opinion was that they
were brought here by the aborigines. Although the remarkable
state of preservation in which we find these shells seems to favor
this opinion, still, other facts go to prove that it is erroneous.

1. The shells exhibit no proof of having been burnt — the mar-
gins are entire, except where they have disintegrated from the ac-
tion of the weather ; both facts throw considerable doubt over the
only inducement which would have led the Indians to have brought
them to this place, viz. for food.

2. Among the oyster shells we find many smaller shells of dif-
ferent species, which are never consumed for food. But then, if
we reject the common opinion of the inhabitants, what answer can
be given to the question which will belter explain their present po-
sition 1

As the Hudson river at this placf is not sufficiently saline to
perfect the oyster now, it appears highly probable that these beds
have been elevated above the waters of this estuary in a compara-
tively modern period ; that the oysters lived and were associated
in the same beds where we now find them, only they have been
transferred from a lower to a higher level.

Oysters, it is true, still grow at this place, but they are so insipid
that they are never used for food, but when taken up and convey-
ed to New York bay, or waters sufficiently saline, they become
palatable food in the course of four years. There is no necessity
for supposing that the oysters of this locality were always insipid.
Let the coast be depressed sufficiently to immerse these beds, and
the river from New- York up to this point would be converted into
a bay whose waters would be as saline as those on the shores of
Long-Island. In connection with other facts, these beds prove
that within a very recent period great changes have taken place
in the levels of the country skirting the sea, the coast of^ew-Jer-
sey, and in fact along the whole northern and southern Atlantic
board. It is not our purpose to go into a full proof of this posi-
tion at this time. Facts from various quarters favor this view.

These shells, so far as they go, may be used with profit and ad-
vantage upon the land as a manure. If fully exposed to the at-

EXPERIMENTS. 217

mosphere by spreading them upon the soil they will fall to an
earthy state in a few years, and as their solution will take place
slowly, they will furnish lime for a long time. In using them,
however, it ought to be borne in mind, that if sufficient lime exists
'in the soil, no immediate effect will be observed from their use,
especially from the outer portions of the bed where the shells have
lost a large portion of their animal matter.

EXPERIMENTS.

Experiments in farming are generally made and conducted in a
very blind way ; so much so that they are not only worthless, but
requently injurious. Among our farmers in this country, and per-
haps more or less every where, experiments are instituted from
hearsay; for instance, it is reported that farmer B. has been very
successful in the use of lime. But the reporter of these successful
rxperiraents, gives merely his results in connection with its use,
ind it appears surely that lime is a wonderful substance ; and it no
where appears but that lime may be used as well upon one piece
^f ground as another, and hence hundreds perhaps, are led to its
.ise on the first opportunity. Out of this hundred, ten probably
- ';vill receive benefit from it, while the ninety wnll perceive no
lilference in the crops upon which it is employed. What is the
iause of this discrepancy in results 1 Probably no question is of
preater importance to the farmer than the settlement of this, and
pther questions of a similar character j and to this point we ask the
ittention of the reader for one moment.

1. If lime already exists in the soil, no perceptible effect will
)e observed when an additional quantity is added.

2. In order that perceptible effects may follow from the appli-
;ation of lime, it is necessary that organic matter should either
xist in the soil, or else it should be applied with it. These two
lositions we believe may be considered as established. Now the
armer who has been successful in his experiments with lime, attri-
utes all the good effects which follow its application to this sub-
lance alone ; he does not give the previous composition of the land

VOL. I. — NO. II. C

r

218 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

upon which it is employed, nor the circumstances under which he has
conducted the experiments. He has barely stated a naked fact,
and it is left probably wdth others to find out the reason why,
under some circumstances, this substance is sometimes useful, and
sometimes apparently useless.

Again, one of the farmers, and perhaps many of them, give their
testimony against lime, for they have tried it, and it was with
them entirely worthless. We recollect the President of the New-
York State Agricultural Society gave his experience on the use of
lime. He had employed it both upon a clay soil and upon a sandj
soil, and in both instances there was a signal failure, and, in our
opinion, this failure in both instances was due to the causes we
have already stated. In the clay there is already a sufficiency of
lime — in the sandy soil there is a want of organic matter.

We have made these remarks, not so much on account of the
lime, as for the purpose of calling the attention of farmers to the
great importance of conducting and reporting their experiments in
a systematic way, or in other words, understandingly. Now this
cannot be done unless they know something about the composition
of the soil. This cannot be done in a way to benefit others unless
they state also the controlling circumstances under which a particu-
lar experiment has been made. But there is one condition under
which experiments have been made, which is most frequently omit-
ted ; it is that of the weather, whether the season has been wet or
dry, hot or cold. It is unnecessary to dwell a moment upon the
importance of noticing these facts, for the most unlearned farmer
has learned that the weather influences, above all other conditions,
the cultivated crops, and that whatever may be done under unfa-
vorable circumstances of temperature and moisture, a crop will fail,
at least in part, let him cultivate it in the best possible manner.

Then, again, the nature of the surface, independent of the com-
position of soil, will influence very materially the result of a par-
ticular mode of culture. So, also, a particular manure is of excel-
lent service to a particular product : but from this it does not fol-
low that it will benefit all products.

In farming, as in medicine, there are no specifics or universal rem-
dies. There is no manure which is adapted to every vegetable.
Though it is true that carbon forms a large proportion of all vege-
tables, yet we may get the carbon in all cases and yet not get the

PHOSPHATE OF LIME. 219

crop we desire, for the sole reason that one or more special substances
are wanting. From these views we advise all who are disposed to
experiment, first of all to ascertain, approximately at least, the
composition of the soil ; 2d, to keep a register of the weather, and
3rd, to state the nature of the surface of the laftd — what exposure
it has, and whether it is level, a side hill, or a valley, or a position
between two adjacent hills.

There are many other facts and circumstances which ought to be
taken into the account, but what we have said is probably sufficient
to answer the end of these remarks. But lest it may be thought
that we are finding fault, or are disposed to be captious, we say, in
conclusion j make the experiments and give them to the public.

■PHOSPHATE OF LIME AND OTHER FERTILIZERS IN
THE OLDER ROCKS.

In the first number of this Journal, we gave a very brief ac-
count of the phosphate of lime, and a few other substances as
they are found in the older rocks. The remarks referred to, were
offered for the purpose of turning the attention of farmers to the
existence of these substances simply as materials important in an
jeconomical point of view. We may however, view them in ano-
her light. They may be considered — in fact are considered — as
special provisions made prospectively to meet the wants of organ-
ized beings. It is not in the province of these beings to create an
element j all we know of their functions, proves that they only
■modify and combine elements. Hence that their anterior creation
had a reference to future use, is certainly not unphilosophical, and
if we can discover in created things prospective adjustments,
:hey are manifested as clearly in the composition and structure
Df the older rocks as any where else. Coal beds are often
bited in proof of the doctrine we have just stated ; yet its
iemonstration is equally clear in the for mer, as in the lat-
er instance. There is one fact not noticed by writers, which

4

I

220 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

is perhaps as important as any other. It is the wide diffusion
of these essential elements. If phosphate of lime was confined
to veins and beds, and those only of the limited extent
which we usually find them, this material would rarely exist
in the soil. It might abound in some places, but it would be j
very deficient in others. What is especially required to meet the Hi
wants of every living being, is that those essential materials should
exist every where, should be universally distributed. Such is
eminently the case with those four gaseous bodies which enter, it
may be said, into every living thing, viz : oxygen, hydrogen*
nitrogen and carbon. Oxygen, is the controlling element,
its peculiar properties rendering the three others subservient to
organic wants ; hydrogen entering into bodies in water, nitrogen
in ammonia, and carbon in carbonic acid. The diffusion of car-
bonic acid is an important fact — important as a provision. The
atmosphere always contains it. If it is disengaged from volcanoes^
it is speedily and equally distributed through the body of the atmos-
phere by the law of the diffusion of gases, and by winds. In
consequence of its ready solubility in vapor, it is brought to the
earth where it may be appropriated to the uses of plants. That there
should be no want of this substance, it is largely stored up in lime-
stones, which are not of themselves insoluble, like silica or sand.
From the air, and from both ancient and modern rocks, carbon is
furnished in undiminished quantities, and such is the arrangement
that the sources will remain and go on furnishing all the carbon
required ad infinitum, though every part of the earth may be cul-
tivated and be made to produce double the amount it now pro-
duces.

There is still another point worthy of attention, as well as ad-
miration, it is the condition which fits it for organization. For
example, by way of illustrating the thought, had carbonate ot
lime been employed as the material for constituting the bones ol
animals what would have been the result 1 From the tendency of
this substance to crystallize, it is believed that this form of lime
would not only have formed bones of little strength, but it would
requently by this property, injure the softer structures as it can-
not accommodate itself to the delicate animal fibres.

We have spoken of prospective arrangements ; we now remark
that of all the arrangements termed prospective, all yield in im-

I PHOSPHATE OF LIME. 221

Portance to that one which requires industry for securing the good
the absolute good, which they are capable of bringing The
I tendency of the most important fertilizers is to escape and pass off
into the atmosphere, or else they are insoluble or in a condition
not fully adapted to the wants of vegetables. In the former case
there is ammonia, which very soon passes off from the yard where
animals are confined and gets beyond the reach of the owner, and
we must, when this has taken place, consider it as abandoned pro-
perty or a lost material to ^vhich he has no better claim than his
neighbor. To preserve it requires industry of two kinds. 1st, thaJ
of acquirmg knowledge how he may best secure it; and 2d, manual
industry, which consists in putting in execution the means he may
have devised after he has acquired a full knowledge of the proper-
ties of the substance which he wishes to save. There is an indus
try which expends itself unprofitably, which consists in a continual
doing but not intelligibly, and hence is wasted and consumed in
niere motion. Effective industry knows beforehand what is want-
|€d, and It proposes to itself an end, and devises means to secure
Ithose end.. The result usually turns upon the amount of know-
ledge which IS made to bear upon those means and ends While
.then, we find materials for the construction of organized beings
|abundant, suflScient in quantity, it is the part of the husbandman to
|work up these materials to the best advantage ; and the fact that it
irequires ceaseless activity of mind and body, need not on this
laccount be considered a faulty arrangement, inasmuch as it brings
jliealth and life m the highest degree by the fulfilment of the requir-
ed conditions by which both may be possessed.

222 QUARTEELY JOURNAL,

EDUCATION OF THE AMERICAN FARMER.

BT HENRT S. RANDALL, CORTLAND VILLAGE.

[We are happy to give a place in our Journal to the following article. The
gentleman who thus favors us has been a county superintendent of common
Bchools since the passage of the law creating that office ; he is moreover a pracO"
cal farmer, and therefore we consider his views and opinions in regard to educa-
tion, as worthy of the highest consideration.]

In the January number of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture,
are submitted certain views, editorially, in relation to the topic
indicated in the heading of this article, which, in the main, and
especially so far as the enunciation of general principles is concern-
ed, are, in my judgment, eminently just and seasonable. The
present day is one of bold discovery and speculation. A blinr
veneration for antiquity no longer shields ancient dogmas ani
ancient institutions from investigation, and when necessary, fron
consequent rejection or abrogation. The true philosophy — th(
philosophy of progress, has become the motto of the age.

All this is well. But the progression principle should be tern
pered with a certain degree of conservatism. The advancing cur
rent, if kept within due bounds, will carry on its bosom a constant
ly meliorating civilization ; if swelled to a furious torrent whicl
spurns all control, it will, p era d venture, overturn and sweep awa;
that which exists.

In casting off old abuses, we should be careful not to conside
age and error as necessarily synonymous. Our forefathers war
wise in their day and generation as well as ourselves. We are no
to condemn anything because it is ancient. I go a step further,
hold, as Blackstone does in relation to certain ancient laws, tha
anything which has stood the test of time, which has been sanoj,
tioned by generation after generation of the human family, is to Wj
presumed good unless it can be clearly shown to the contrary
Stability is one and a strong proof of rightfulness. Otherwise n
belief can attach to that most consolating and hopeful of all max
ims, that "truth must prevail."

Let us not forget that were we to turn our backs with self-com
placent arrogance on all the labors of the past, we, instead of o«

EDUCATION OF THE FAllMER. 223

CUpying our present position, would roam the plains and the for-
ests nomadic hunters — rude barbarians! In an esthetic civiliza-
tion, the ancients absolutely surpassed us; in Imuch that constitutes
modern civilization, in moral, intellectual, political and physical
science, we stand in the same relation to them, that the grown up
child does to the parent. The child aided by the parent to a cer-
tain point, ought, in obedience to the law of progress, to advance
beyond that point. Each succeeding generation is bound to con-
tribute its quota to civilization. But let not the last therefore
spurn its predecessors, or lightly overthrow their works !

I have been led into these reflections by considering some of
those propositions, ill-advised I cannot but consider them, for an
improvement in our system of popular education — which also sug-
gested the remarks of the Quarterly Journal.

It has been much the fashion, latterly, even in high places, to
advocate a material education — an education having for its end the
investigation of the law of physics, to the nearly utter neglect of
those of psychology, ethics, and social polity.* This has been
done in obedience to the maxims of a certain narrow utility ; an
futility wdiich refers everything to the standard^ of pecuniary profit
and loss ; wdiich regards" man as an animal, whose prime object
and chief good is to be well fed, well clothed, and well lodged ;
and w'hich would therefore train him with nice care to so apply his
energies and means to the attainment of these, that no jot or tittle
of those means should be lost or mis-applied.

Our phase of this materializing tendency in reference to educa-
tion, in the public mind, is exhibited in that assumption so popu-
lar among farmers, (since the impulse received from agricultural
Bocieties and journals has roused them into attempts to improve
Itheir knowledge of their art,) that our system of elementary edu-
cation should be "practical," — that is, that it should give them
^and those in other avocations of industry ?) that direct knowledge
)f the scientific principles upon which the processes of their art
hould^be conducted, that they will derive tangible and "practical"
)ecuniary benefits from it in after life. I recently had the honor,

• I have said in " high places.'' In the State Normal School, where teachers are
ducating to mould the whole young mind of our state, neither of the last named sub-
lets, are, so far as I am advised, taught. But singing-- '■''■'"'^"'' r'—'-'-'- - " -
re taught, carefully, and well taught !

224 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

officiallyj to receive a circular most respectably signed, and en-
dorsed by a county agricultural society, urging an appeal to the
legislature to establish a State Agricultural School for the educa-
tion of agricultural teachers, male and female j a county school
" for the education of town and district teachers," of the same kinc
male and female ; and lastly, " similar district schools for the edu-
cation of the great mass of the people." The requisite sums to .
carry these several institutions into effect, to be borrowed from thei
common school fund. The circular urges that uniformity in teach-
ing the various branches would thus be secured, and " the bless-
ings of a thorough and ^practical ' education would be more gen-
erally and sooner disseminated." Other benefits and reasons areij
urged which there is not room here to transcribe.*

Now if " three-fourths of the effective laborers of our country]
are engaged in agricultural pursuits," as is alleged in the preamble
ot the above propositions, and if " the blessings of a thorough ana
practical education would be more generally and sooner dissemi-
nated" by these schools, why borrow from the common school
fund 1 Shall that vast fund, the property of all, be left to educate
the few — one-fourth of the people — and thus render the schools
free to that one-fourth, (as it assuredly would, if they alone re-
ceived the avails of it,) while the other three- fourths shall borrou
a pittance from it for their education — to be repaid with " inter-
est"— the " farms and buildings (of the agricultural schools) mort-
gaged to secure the payment of said loan" — the state and county
agricultural societies held responsible for the annual interest !'"
Why not appropriate the avails of the common school fund at once
to the support of these agricultural schools, and let the minon^
borrow and give securities for repayment 1 Or rather, why not
convert our State Normal School into a State Agricultural Normal
School, our common schools into district agricultural schools, as
could be done, by changing the course of studies ! What equita-
ble or valid objection could be urged against this metamorphose,
if dXi agricultural education is really the proper and necessary ele-
mentary education of a vastly preponderating majority of our peo-

• Among them, one of perhaps questionable interest to at least a portion of th«
medical faculty ! One of the benefits which it is claimed would result from the course
of study proposed is that " it would give such a knowledge of chemistry, anatomy,,
physiology, and the laws which govern the animal economy, that quackery in the
iiealing art would cease, and many valuable lives would thus be saved !

EDUCATION OF THE FARMER- 225

pie, male and female ? It would be more democratic, and certainly
more feasible ! So long as we find it a matter of such extreme
difficulty to provide suitable teachers, fixtures, &c., to efTectually
carry on one system, aided by the whole avails of the common
school fund, it would scarcely seem expedient to create another
system, designed to meet the wants of three-fourths of the people,
which should live by horrowing — pledged to repay the uttermost
farthing !

But, after all, is our present system of education, or the course
of study pursued in our schools, unnecessary 1 Is that course de-
fective, only in not embracing enough 1 Could one of the studies
included in it, be omitted in acquiring the most rigidly " practi-
cal," or agricultural education 1 Is not reading, spelling, writing,
geography, arithmetic and grammar, necessary to a farmer, or a
"practical" man in any department of human labor? If so, our
present system is good enough as far as it goes. Does any one
wish it to go further ? Then why not add to it, instead of over-
throwing it, to substitute in its place something which must, after
all, begin at the same starting point, and cover the same ground,
before it can profitably advance further ?

Most enlightened men are ready to concede, that the present
system does not go far enough — that more should be taught in our
elementary schools, to prepare our people adequately for their
" practical" duties and responsibilities, as men and as citizens of a
free government. Now practical utility, as well as practical good
sense, would certainly require that all studies shall be taken up in
the order of their importance, if equally adapted to the understand-
ing of the pupil. So long as the pupil is liable at any time to be
removed, by fortuitous circumstances, forever from the school, he
should first secure that which will be of most use to him. In de-
ciding then, what additions should be made to the present course of
idur popular instruction, we must decide what studies rank next in
limportance. Are those next studies chemistry, and the cognate
Iphysical sciences, which go to make up the science of agriculture'?

Before answering this question, it may be well to pause, and
ask what is the true theory of education — what its end and object?
In selecting the word " education"* to express that training which
prepares a man for the duties of life, our forefathers showed that

• " From e an<l duco to draw from, or draw forth. Why not write it " eduction ?"

226 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

they considered it a drawing forth of the human faculties; and
it extends to all the faculties, moral, intellectual and physical ; in
a Word, all that ^oes to constitute, so far as this world is concerned,
a perfect man. Practically, this order is often, I might say gene-
rally, reversed. The process of educating is made in-ductive in-
stead of e-ductive — a filling in, instead of a drawing out. The
mind of the child is treated as a piggin of certain dimensions
which is to be filled with knowledge, and when so filled, the object
is attained. Teachers forget that the mind, like the body, requites
not only food but exercise. Should we, to further a physical ue-
velopment, constantly stuff the body with nutritious viands, nol
requiring any exercise, nay, keeping up a state of repletion thai
would incapacitate it for exercise, what would be the effect 1 A
morbidly precocious development for a period, perhaps, but spee-
dily ensuing debility and premature decay, beyond all question
Now although analogies between mind and matter are at best bu
fanciful, do we not oftentimes find the young mind suffered to re
main inactive, and filled, through what we may consider itsoesoph
agus, the memory — nay, crammed, as you cram a turkey with pel
lets of meal and treacle, until it exhibits similar phenomena! Doe
not a stupid and dull obesity as certainly supervene, after such in
tellectual as after such physical treatment ! The mind, instead o
being a work-shop where materials are carefully and methodicall;,
stored, with sharp, bright, and befitting tools well arranged t
work them, is a garret filled with lumber promiscuously piled i
where that which is wanting can never be got at. We often se
these men of knowledge instead of wisdom — these " book-worms"
whose vast stores of erudition is as of little use to them as thi
pannier loaded with gold is to the ass w^hich carries it ; am
which, in some instances, seems absolutely to incapacitate them fo
any thing like an effective discharge of the duties of life. Liki
the ass, they sink beneath their load, even though that load be gold
Like the Roman Tarpeia, they are crushed beneath the ornament
they have rashly sought! Scott well paints (though perhaps ver^
ing on caricature,) such a character in his Domine Sampson—
whose " pro-di-gi-ous " good qualities of heart, however, some
what conceal, as with a drapery, the ridiculousness of the rest©
the figure. Cowper, with his usual felicity, contrasts in clean am
well cut relief, the bare possession of knowledge, with that ful

EDUCATION OF THE FARMEER. 227

development of all the faculties, the exercise of which constitutes
wisdom.

" Knowledge anil wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofltimes no communion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
'Till smooth'd, and squar'd, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.''

-We have not enough of education in this country to have many
Dominie Sampsons ; but we have much of the same education in
kind, the cramming system, on a small scale. I was shown a lit-
tle prodigy a few days since, who could, to the astonishment and
delight of parents and teachers, repeat the contents of his geogra-
* phy from beginning to end. A specimen of this recitation was
vouchsafed me. He stated of some country, " that its climate
was salubrious and its soil fertile." I asked the lad the meaning
of the word " climate." The reply was, "I don't know, sir !"
" What does ' salubrious' mean '?" " Don't know, sir !" What
" fertile ?" " Don't know !" Our schools are filled up with such
prodigies, our country with such parents and teachers.

The great object of education is not to fill the mind with bare
facts — abstract knowledge : it is to train the mind, to discipline
it, develop all its energies and resources, as the body is trained
Wid disciplined and developed in the gymnasium, until every sinew
is firmly knit, every muscle hardened and strengthened to its ut-
most limit. Knowledge is a valuable incident in this course of
mental training, but it is not the first object nor the main object.
In selecting a study w^e should certainly, other things being equal,
make choice of the one which would unite valuable knowledge
with mental discipline. Arithmetic, English grammar, and many
others belong to this class. But to sacrifice the great and primary
object, for the purpose of obtaining what is miscalled a " practical '^
education, namely, a knowledge of the processes of the art which
is to constitute the future occupation of the learner, is to consult a
narrow utility. It is penny wisdom, and pound foolishness. This
knowledge should be superadded to mental and moral culture. Its
importance can scarcely be over-estimated in such connection.
National and individual wealth and comfort much depend upon it,
and it supplies the pecuniary means necessary to upbuild institu-

ill

228 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

tions even for mental culture. But which is of the most impor-
tance, in the economy even of this world, the man or the work-
man— the mind or the purse 1 Do we live only to go unceasingly
through one constantly recurring round of labor, like the miserable
beast in the bark-mill, and are we to be trained only beast-like to
perform that duty well, or do we live to enjoy those higher attri-
bates of intellect which has allowed us to ascend to a position
" but a little lower than the angels !"

Most fully do I concur with the editor of the Quarterly Journal,
that the lawyer, the mechanic, and the farmer, all require a similar
elementary training in kind — and to this I would be glad to add,
in degree. The same preparatory discipline is requisite to give to
the farmer or mechanic a vigorous and well balanced mind, that is
to give it to the lawyer or clergyman. And is it less necessary *?
Is any farmer prepared to subscribe to the humiliating doctrine
that education, beyond that necessary to fit him to labor advanta-
geously, and transact business decently, is of no avail to him — thatij
it is his business to go through life uninstructed only in his handi-
craft, a sort of a food-producing machine for another class, who
are to think for him — to legislate for him — in short, to use him as
a voluntary helot — a sort of upper or privileged beast of burthen ?
If there is such a farmer, he deserves to occupy the position
which his downward aspirations so grovellingly claim !

Why shall not the farmer's habitation be the abode of taste and
intelligence % Why shall not Bacon and Shakspeare come and
converse with him 1 Why shall not history and poesy and sci-
ence, shed the informing and refining influence over his domestic
circle 1 Are these Utopian dreams ? The farmer has but to will
it so, to have it so ! He is the tax-payer — he can he the legislch
for I

But whether it is by legislation, or other means, that our schools
are to be brought to a condition to confer such a culture on the
farmer, the first step must be to add to instead of subtracting from
his mental culture — to enlarge, instead of diminishing his course
of disciplinary studies — to build up and extend and improve insti-
tutions having such culture and discipline for their object, instead
of overthrowing them in quest of that pseudo utility which places
dollars and cents before intellect — ^before the dignity of human
nature.

i

EDUCATION OF THE FARMER. 229

Make our schools what they ought to be. Place them under the
direction of competent instructors. Have the branches now taught
in them taught philosophically-taught as they should bo. Intro-
duce into them other necessary studies-studies which will still
: further tram and discipline the intellect. Add to these those which
will cultivate the taste. Introduce moral culture, and, finally,
teach young republicans political science-the science of govern-
ment, political economy, and political ethics. All these are more
important to the man and the citizen, particularly the citizen of a
republic, than the knowledge of any or all arts or handicrafts.
, Ihus I answer the question propounded in the preceding part of
this article-" whether the next study to be engrafted on the pre-
^sent course of instruction in our schools, should be agriculture?
Ij But when we have formed the ma7i, it is assuredly well to form
and instruct the work-man. After the farmer has attained the
sound thorough education, e-ductive and in-ductive, above hinted
at, It certainly behooves him to acquire the science of his own art
How shall this be done ? Shall the study of agriculture be en-
grafted on the course of common school education 1 Not yet • per-
haps never. It will take a long period to bring teachers and schools
|in a ht condition to teach, or to learn it, without sacrificing that
[Which is more important. More erudition than is now contained
,m our common schools, would be necessary to understand even
the terms of Liebig, Boussaingault, Paen, &c. Even the'common,
the necessary elementary branches now taught in ther^, are not
generally well taught. They are taught by rote, as the parrot is
made to repeat its phrases. If we would play the part of true re-
formers, and not of men run away with by a hobby, let us beo-in
at the foundation. In spite of those swelling eulogiums which it
[sthe fashion of Executives and Heads of Departments to lavish
g this branch of our polity, he who has made himself familiar
i^th the schools in any extended section of our country, in the
< by places" as well as the « high places," cannot but feel the
feed, the deplorable need of reform. Scarcely a tithe of the scho-
ars who receive their only education (so far as schools are con-
■erned,) from our common schools, ultimately leave those institu-
lons any thing like thorough proficients, even in the branches now
ommonly taught in them, viz : reading, spelling, writing, geo-

230 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

graphy, arithmetic and grammar ! In what condition then are such
schools — such teachers and scholars — to take up a science, the
study of which involves the study of many, if not all the natural
sciences ? In what condition are they, for example, to discuss and
decide upon the rival theories of Saussure, Paen and Liebig 1 "Make
them capable," is it said ? This must be a work of time ; I fear
not a short time. Even when those indispensable elementary stu-
dies above enumerated, are thoroughly taught and acquired in our'
schools, there are still, if preceding positions are not false, other
branches of instruction which would claim precedence of agricul-
ture, as superadditions to the present course. Is it said that we
should not wait for perfection either in the tuition or acquisition of
present branches, before we introduce others which are concededly
necessary 1 This is granted. But would it do to add all that are
necessary at once 7 Does any one hesitate to decide that such a <
procedure, supposing it possible in the present state of public feel-
ing among the proprietors of the schools, would lead to inextrica-
ble confusion — utter inefficiency 1 Then let us make our additions!
to the present course of study gradually, seasonably, and in the or-
der of their importance. Let agriculture wait its " turn." We
may be permitted to hope that turn will ultimately come, and per-
adventure, if the proper means are employed, not tardily. If we
would accelerate the period, those means are obvious ; our path is
a plain one. We cannot do it by a zeal which embraces but one,
out of all the benefits sought. We must unite in a vigorous and
continuous effort to improve our common schools in all respects —
to raise them to that pitch that they can take up the study of agri-
culture understandingly, and without the sacrifice or neglect of any
thing more important.

The next point to be discussed is whether the study of agricul-
ture can be profitably introduced into our higher schools — our col-
leges and academies — by the institution of professorships, as pro-
posed by the editor of the Quarterly Journal 1 Of this there can
be no doubt. These institutions are not elementary in their cha-
racter. They have, or should have, the necessary chemical appa-
ratus, geological specimens, &c. The scholars in them, it is to be
presumed have finished their rudimentary education, or if not, that

EDUCATION OF THE FARMER. 231

under the regulations of such institutions,* they will take up stu-
dies in their proper order.

The question now occurs, can these institutions, by the estab-
lishment of the proposed professorships, do all that can be properly
now done-all that is feasible, in the premises ? Differinjr from
the editor of the Quarterly Journal, I think not. I see no objec-
tion in theory or practice to the establishment of a State Agricultu-
ral School, with an experimental farm. There can be no more
impropriety in legislating and appropriating the public funds,
to instruct our people in an art from which three-fourths of them
directly derive their subsistence, than to teach a few of them a pro-
fession.! The theory of legislation would be in both cases the
same, to wit : the promotion of the general good. No one in his
senses, surely, will deny that whatever tends to promote that
branch of industry which gives food and raiment to man, which
physically, at least, sustains and lies at the bottom of all the other
avocations of industry, promotes directly and tangibly the general,
the universal good.

With such a school— with the proposed professorships in our
higher institutions-and with the agricultural press, I would at
jpresent leave the work. Knowledge is diffusive in its tendencies,
lespecially in a republic. If the means proposed do not enoucrh,
we can gradually add to them. Eut let no rash hand attempt^'to
overthrow our present system of elementary education, to build up
m its stead a system having for its object specially the education
of those of any art, or trade, or profession ! To adopt the senti-
ment of" gifted son of New England,| let our common schools
f-emain the broad platform where the sons of the rich and the poor
-those of all arts, trades and professions, shall start in the career
if honor and usefulness together.

; 'Our academies do'not prescribe coursesof study. But there is an influence gene

+ n.fr"i'^^"'f be always, exerted by their teachers, which results in the same thing.
T Uur medical colleges are directly endowed by the State.
t Heniy Barnard, 2d, Esq. of Rhode Island.

232 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Geological and Agricultural Report of New -Hampshire, by C. T. Jackson, M. D.

This report, which is published by order of the Legislature, is
in one quarto volume of 375 pp. It is very well printed on good
paper, and is illustrated by maps and diagrams. Dr. Jackson has i
executed his work with ability, and the Report itself shows upon
its pages that he is a thorough field-geologist, and can master all I
the intricate local questions in this department, as well as those i
general problems of geological dynamics, which are often so diffi-
cult and perplexing. We should not, however, do justice to thc'
author of this work, if we failed to state, that we consider the<
Report as eminently practical ; and is, especially on this account,
of great value to the farmers of New England, or wherever it
may circulate. We therefore propose to give a pretty full analy-

sis of the work, that our readers who are not able to procure it,
may be put in possession of some of the important results of this
survey — especially the agricultural part of it — a part in which
they will probably feel the most interest. *

The rocks of New-Hampshire, as it appears from this report, be-
long almost entirely to the primary class ; or to that class which
is destitute of organized bodies. So far as Dr. Jackson's inves-
tigations go, petrifications are not found in any rock, except in the
tertiary class, which occasionally appear on, or near the coast.
The argillaceous slate, a rock of sedimentary origin, and resting
upon gneiss and mica slate, is found in Hinsdale, Winchester, Ches-
terfield, and a few other towns. On the Vermont side, it furnishes
roofing-slate, which, though not so smooth and fissile as those ol
Maine and New York, yet, are very strong and durable. Still
higher in the series is a conglomerate, the new red sand-stone, of an
era just posterior to the coal-formation ; it however only bor-
ders the slate, without crossing the line. It is found in North-
field, Mass., near the south-western corner of the State. Wt
have no more to say, at this time, of sedimentary rocks.

From these few facts, it will at once appear, that the great in
terest in the geology of New Hampshire, lies in the valuable
minerals associated with primary rocks. Of those minerals, Dr

NEW PUBLICATIONS- 233

Jackson has selected the most common, and given their composi-
tion— for the purpose, in part, of showing the necessary composi-
tion of the soils — for it is from their decomposition that the soils
of the state are entirely formed.

Thus, by knowing the composition of the mica, feldspar,
quartz, and hornblende, we obtain a proximate knowledge of the
soil which the rocks containing them will certainly form by de-
composition. Thus, feldspar contains silex, alumine, iron, and
potash, and sometimes soda and lithia — an alkali analogous to
soda. Mica, also, contains one of the alkalies. Soils, then, de-
rived from those bodies, will probably contain — at least in their
original condition — those elements, nearly in the proportion in
which they exist in the rocks, or in the minerals composing the
'•ocks.

The most important metallic minerals of New-Hampshire are
he oxides of iron, sulphate of zinc, copper, and arsenic ; and
)xide of tin. Iron has been profitably manufactured at Franconia,
rom the magnetic ore. In Bartlett, very large veins of this ore
lave been discovered. Zinc, though it has never been made in
his country, Dr. Jackson has very satisfactorily proved may be,
t a moderate profit, at least. The tin ores have been dis-
overed in Jackson in sufficient quantities to repay the expense of
xtraction. The tin ores are in veins, and are the first, and in
act, the only ones which have been discovered in this country,
t is a mineral which is very liable to be overlooked, from its want
f that strong metallic lustre peculiar to most metals and ores,
t always occurs in the primary rocks, and hence a very large pro-
ortion of New-York may be set down as entirely destitute of
lis valuable substance. In fact, there is very little probability
f its occuring at all, even in our primary formations.
Among the earthy minerals which are profitably wrought, are
ica, granular quartz, soap-stone, lime-stone, novaculite or hone-
ate, granite and gneiss. The number of localities at which these
:jinerals occur, produces an industry and enterprise quite com-
}|endable, and it is interesting to know, that in formations simi-
)r to those of New-Hampshire, that the sources of revenue are
Ute numerous. One great error, however, is in the disposition
overlook and undervalue all objects, except those which look as
they might contain gold or silver. The geological surveys,

VOL. I. NO. II. D

234 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

however, in all the states, as well as in New-Hampshire, have had
a tendency to break up gold-hunting, and to turn the attention of
landholders to those substances which, though far less showy, are
more useful and profitable, if explored upon the right plan. If
no other objects have been gained by geological surveys, the facts
and information which have been freely communicated, are worth
to community as much as they have cost.

In addition to the geological information, Dr. Jackson has mea
sured most of the mountains of the state, with great care ; anc
has, without doubt, obtained very accurate results. The follow
ing are the heights of some of the most important mountains o
New-Hampshire :

Feet.

Mount Washington, 6,226

Camel's Rump Mountain, 3,615

Gunstock " 2,447

Carr '^ 3,381

* Chocarua " 3,358

Piquaquet " 3,358

Ossipee " 2,361

Red Hill, 2,000

Connecticut Lake, 1,624

We subjoin the following list of minerals, which we believe wi
be interesting to the lovers of this department of Natural Histor
Acworth. Beryl, rose quartz, albite, tourmaline.
Westmoreland. Sulphuret of molygdena, phosphate of lime, o:
ide of molybdena in the small cavities of the mass.

Alstead, mica, tourmaline. Charlestown. Andalusite and sta'
rolite made.

Unity. Sulphuret of copper andiron, in a vein in gneiss, rui
ning N. 10° E., titanium, chlorophyllite, (n. s.,) octahedral iro
green mica, actynolite, garnet.

Jackson. Oxide of iron, in veins running N. 80° W. and I
60° E.

Hanover. Almandine. Wilmot. Beryl.
Oxford. Clove brown tourmaline in large crystals, and in radi
ted masses. Piermonf micaceous specular iron ore in veins, ru:
ning N. 15° E., in which are masses of barytes, and green, whi
and brown mica, and phosphate of lime.

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 235

Haverhill. Copper and iron pyrites, blende, native arsenic and
arsenical pyrites, large crystals of garnet, and magnetic and white
iron pyrites.

Franconia. Magnetic iron in veins running N. 30° E., 3 J to 4
feet wide, manganesian garnet, hornblende epidote, copper py-
rites Eaton. Vein of blend six feet wide, running N. 27° E., ga-
lena, containing silver in the proportion of one pound to one thou»
sand pounds j copper pyrites. Hillsborough. Graphite.

Francestown. Soapstone. Dimbarton. Arsenic in a vein. Ran-
dolph. Andalusite made.

Amherst. Pargasite, egeran and cinnamon stone, garnet in lime-
stone, amethyst, magnetic iron. Richmond. Soapstone, quartz,
I feldspar, phosphate of lime, pinite, rutile, pyrites, garnet, horn-
blende, anthophylite, iolite.

Having stated some of the facts relating to the geology and
mineralogy of New-Hampshire, we pass to that part which treats
;of agricultural geology and chemistry. We omit, purposely, a
inotice of the part which treats of metallurgy, at this time, in-
|tending to furnish our readers with some of the information upon
ithis subject, in a future number. Agricultural geology and che-
mistry is divided into five heads. Under the first. Dr. J. treats of
ithe mineral ingredients of soils, and of their distribution j under
the second, of the nature and origin of the organic matter of soils
ind the saline ingredients accompanying them ; under the third,
pf the substances found in plants ; under the fourth, of those ta-
cen up from the soils by the crops ; and fifthly, of the best me-
ihod of restoring fertility to exhausted soils. Under the first head,
't is maintained that soils originate from the rocks by disintegra-
ion and decay, and that the nature of the rock determines that of
ihe soil ; and as an illustration of this position. Dr. J. refers to the
oil of mica slate, as differing from a granitic soil ; the former
leing far more silicious, more highly charged with alkaline ingre-
jients, and as being warmer and more retentive of moisture.
^he following is the composition of a fine mica slate, and granite
Dil:

Mica Slate Soil. Granitic Soil.

Water, 3.6 6.8

Vegetable matter, 5.4 1.8

Silica, 79.2 84.4

236 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Mica Slate Soil. Granitic Soil.

Potash, 2.2 trace.

Peroxide iron and alumina, .... 5.6 6.8

Soda, 2.5 "

Lime, 3.2 0.3

Magnesia, 1.2 0.8

Loss, 0.1 0.0

100.0 100.0

Hornblende and sienite make, also, a much better soil than gra
nite, and trap rocks, than either, as it decomposes more rapid!]
and furnishes the alkalies, potash, soda, lime and magnesia j whild
at the same time, it is warm and light.

Argillaceous rocks give origin to a tough blue or brownisf
colored soil, and is cold and heavy ; but is capable of being im-
proved, by underdraining and admixture of sand. Limestone soils
differ from the above, as much as the nature of the rock itself dif
fers from it ; though the lime is often removed by filtration and so-
lution, and by the action of plants, when it contains principall)
the silicates and alumina.

Under the second head, it is maintaiied that those plants whicl
abound most in inorganic matter, were first formed, as lichens
ferns and the grasses. These plants laid the foundation for organi(
matter in the soil, as they would consolidate a sufficiency of car
bon to furnish the mould for other plants. Plants of the highe
orders, when grown in pulverized quartz, with saline matter only
do not produce seed, though the foliage grows well. When th'
plant dies, a mould or humus is formed, and the next crop perfec
their seeds. Peat has a similar origin with mould ; that is, fron
the death of plants, as the mosses, growing in water togethe
with the leaves, stems and roots of other vegetables. Peat pre
serves wood and even animal matter from decay when wholly sub
mersed ; but w^hen atmospheric air has access to those matters
they decay. Peat contains nitrogen, phosphate of lime, and some
times phosphate of magnesia. Sometimes peat spread upon soil
exerts an injurious effect, from the presence of free acids. Som
salts, as copperas, and sulphate of alumina, are present in excess
these exert an injurious effect. These facts explain to us why i
is, that some farmers are justly prejudiced against peat as a ma

NEW PUCLICATIONS. 237

nure ; but we see, however, that the difficulty is easily remedied
by the alkalies, as lime, soda and potash.

3. Organic Matters of Soils. Vegetables, by decay, undergo
in the process a species of fermentation, and are ultimately con-
verted into acids, which combine with the leaves and earths in the
soil. This is a different result than that obtained when the decay
takes place in bogs, as here there is rarely an alkaline or earthy
base with which they may combine. In a pure silicious soil, those
salts are not found ; and in those we see the necessity of adding
ashes, lime, ammoniacal manures, &c. The turning in of green
crops does not suffice in these cases. The following organic mat-
ters, according to Dr. J., are always present in soils, having ob-
tained them from soils procured in every quarter of the world.

1. Crenic acid and crenates. 2. Apocrenic acid combined with
bases. 3. Humic acid. 4. Humin, or undecomposed vegetable
jmatter. 5. Extract of humus. 6. Another extract, not named j
jmd 7. Phosphoric acid combined with lime, alumina, or magnesia.
I Origin of Saline Matter in Soils. These are traced distinctly
:o the mineral kingdom. The vegetable acids which form soluble
salts in the earth, are formed from the constituents of the atmos-
jahere and water — as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen.

The saline matter of plants having mineral bases, are always

present, but vary their proportions in different parts of the same

iilant, as w^ell as in different kinds of vegetables. These saline bodies

ire derived solely from the soil. The following analysis shows the

elative quantities of those bodies in two very different plants :

I Red Raspberry Bush. Indian Corn.

Ashes. Ashes.

Silica, 0.25 38.45

Phos. of lime, 3.65 17.27

Carb. lime, 3.40 2.50

Potash, 5.24 13.82

Soda, 0.50 trace.

Oxide manganese, 1 . 00

Carbonic acid and loss, 2.16

Phos. of potassa, 2,25

Carb. magnesia, 2.1G

Sulphate of lime and magnesia,. .. . 0.79

Silica, mechanically present, 0.0 1.70

Alumina and loss, — — 165 .

238 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The phosphates, which are always present in corn, are, how-
ever, distributed unequally in the kernel. The chits, for instance,
contain a larger proportion than the other parts ; thus the chits
yield, on analysis —

Phosphate of lime, 2.4

" mao-nesia, . . . , 0.8

Phosphoric acid and a little silica, potash, and oxide
of iron, 3.2

6.4

Ey soaking a kernel in various chemical solutions, the different i
elements may be tested ; thus the tincture of iodine colors the starchi
blue, sulphate of copper colors the phosphatic portions a pale«
green, forming with them a phosphate of copper. In this way Dr.
Jackson has tested directly the presence of the most importantiBj
bodies in Indian corn. A colored lithographic plate is given upon
which this new and interesting mode of analysis is very satifacto-
rily shown. The proximate elements differ in quantity in the dif-
ferent kinds of corn, or maize. Tuscarora corn contains the most
starch, and rice corn the least. Rice corn contains the most oil.
and Tuscarora corn none. The small Canada corn ranks next to
the rice corn in this particular. The presence of oil confers the
property of popping, as it is called. The oil serves to preveni
fermentation in the grain — Tuscarora corn meal sours very soon—
whereas, the meal of flint corn will keep sweet for years ; the for-
mer forms a good light food for horses, but not for fattening hogs
Too much oil in corn makes a dry bread, and hence requires th(
presence of gluten to stick it together. The proportions of oil ir
corn vary from six to eleven per cent. From the presence of th<
above elements, it is seen why corn is such an excellent food.

1. It has abundance of starch for respiration and sustaining ani-
mal heat.
. 2. An oil for the fattening of animals.

3. Phosphate for the bones. We see too, from these facts, lioi«
horses may be overfed by the rich grains ; the phosphates whicl
they contain being supplied in greater quantities to the system, i
is deposited as extraneous matter in the limbs of the animal.

On the Improvement of Soilft. — To reclaim a soil from barren
ness, or to improve one of moderate fertility. Dr. J, remarks, re

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 239

tjllires an insight into the nature of those agents most active, and
universally present in fertile soils. The ingredients which occur
in the most minute proportions, are those upon which its fertility
depends. Silica, alumina, lime, magnesia, oxide of iron, and man-
ganese, potash, soda, phosphoric acid, chlorine, and a certain pro-
portion of disorganized and partially decomposed organic matter,
appear to be the most common and universal constituents of soil.
But the state in which these bodies are combined, and the condi-
Ition of the organic matters, decide, not unfrequently, between bar-
renness and fertility. Light sandy loams need a heavy top-dress-
ing of leached ashes, after which, they will produce abundant crops.
When a soil is properly charged with a limed compost, gypsum is
an excellent fertilizer, and should always be sown broadcast, with
clover, which serves to retain the ammoniacal matters disengaged
from nitrogenized manures by the action of lime.

Pulverized granite is a good amendment to clayey soils. When
here is a deficiency of lime, it may be supplied in a compost with
()t'at, either in the form of marl, or of slacked lime.

The alkalies are best introduced by means of ashes in a peat
compost.

Magnesia is to be employed in combination with an acid, as the
sulphate, or phosphate. Magnesian earth may be applied with
profit to soils containing an excess of the sulphate of iron arising
from the decomposition of pyrites.

A mixture of peat, urine, a little epsom salt, lime, and gypsum,
will make an excellent fertilizer to almost all kinds of soil.

Salt acts as a powerful fertilizer, especially on soils remote from
he sea. It causes an increased growth of foliage, and gives the
plant more strength, so that a much larger crop of grass is obtain-
jd where it has been spread. It should not be used in larger
juantities than from three to four hundred pounds to the acre, and
t is best to mix it into compost while adding the recently slacked
ime, for it will serve to retain the ammonia.

Phosphates of soda, potash, magnesia, ammonia, and lime, are
all powerful manures, and enter largely into the composition of
slants. Phosphate of lime is obtained from burnt bones.

In noticing this report, we have perhaps exceeded the proper
imits ; but as few copies only of the work are printed, we were

2iQ QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

anxious to extend the information it contains. We now take otrr
leave of it for this time, intending, however, to take another
opportunity for completing our analysis of its contents.

VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION

Republication, by Wilet & Putnam. 12mo. pp.291.

** He has sometimes hinted that man might perhaps have been naturally a quadruped
and thinks it would be very proper that at the Foundling Hospital some childre»^
should be enclosed in an apartment, in which the nurses should be obliged to walk
half upon four and half upon two, so that the younglings, being bred without the pre-
judice of example, might have no other guide than nature, and might at last come
into the world as genius should direct, erect or prone, on two legs, or on four."

The Idler.

That curiosity which prompts us to search into the nature of
those agencies which have been concerned in arranging the con-
stituent materials of the earth, or the character of those laws
which preside over the development of animate bodies, ought not
to be styled frivolous or vain. That such inquiries often carry us
beyond the pale of experiment and observation, is freely admitted j
still, if we are within the province of reason, we may get from her
those responses which can n&t be given by an experimental phi-
losophy. She may, it is true, give us indistinct replies ; or, her
answers may not remove every doubt , yet we may be assured that
they will be neither absurd, nor conflict with experiences well de-
termined.

As a mind once awakened, though perhaps only partially en-
lightened, will rarely fall back into a state of apathy j so, one that
is fully aroused can hardly be expected to tread the beaten track ;
yet, it seems to be true, that there is less occasion for running into
absurd speculations now, than at any former period. In some
minds, however, the imaginative powers are so largely developed,
that they preponderate over those of sober observation ; and hence^
the equipoise between them being destroyed, they are prone to
mistake speculation for demonstration ; or else, are easily satisfied
with a very few facts hastily snatched up by the way.

We d5> not deny, however, that we are often pleased in the pens-
sal of speculative works, even though they belong to that class
which may be styled unproductive j yet we prefer that they should

NEWPUBLICATIONS^, 24 1

be drawn up in the language of inquiry, and that they should be
compatible with common sense. With these characters, we will
not object to them, though they may land us upon what may be
considered, by some, as heterodoxical ground. As with flint and
steel the latent fire is stricken outy so, by the collision of minds^
truth is elicited ; hence, we say, strike ! burn your tinder, that per-
ftdventure your blaze may illuminate those spaces where light has
never before penetrated.

The " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," is the title
of an English publication, which has recently been re-printed in
this country, the perusal of which, in our case, has excited a vari-
ety of emotions, of which the pleasurable have, upon the whole^
preponderated. The design of the author in this work, is to over-
throw the commonly received doctrines of the origin of man, and
the numerous species of living beings which people the earth, the
air, and water ; or, perhaps, it is more agreeable to the general
tenor of the work to say, that it calls in question the validity of
the prevailing opinions upon this subject.

The main points which are attempted to be established j are, that
la series of changes in animals and plants has taken place^ by which
Ithey have advanced from lower to higher grades ; that these
changes have been effected by the influence of physical agenciesj
and in which they were controlled in their upward progress by the
jconditions of the medium in which they were immersed. Man,
for example, came first into existence as a monad or simple cell ;
but has since advanced by ordinary generation from this humble
rank to his present exalted station, having passed through a series
of changes, the different stages of which are represented by the
molusca^ fish, reptile, and quadruped.

The proofs adduced in support of this hypothesis, are derived
mainly from geology ; especially from those observations which
>eem to favor the doctrine that the beings entombed in the rocks^
;aken together, form a series of advancing types from the simplest
0 the most complex ; from the low to the high, when viewed as
0 time — the most advanced belonging to the period just anterior
0 the present, — the simplest and lowest, to the period most re-
note.

Having stated thus briefly the design of the work, and the foun-

242 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

dation upon which it mainly rests, we proceed, more in detail, to
consider some of the data upon which the doctrines are based, that
we may estimate the value of the author's positions, and determine
for ourselves how far they are entitled to belief.

The first 44 pages is a preliminary cTiposition of the arrangements
of the universe of matter, in which he treats particularly of the
bodies in space-^of their formation^-of the depth to which the
earth has been penetrated^of its outer envelopes or coats, as the
primary rocks denominated granite, gniess, niica slate, etc. Thus
far, the doctrines of ihis work agree with those of the best informed
observers of the day, and may be passed over without comment.
The next section-, however, entitled " Commencement of organic
life — sea plants, corals," etc., demands a passing notice. The
position assumed in this section, is, that carbon appeared upon the
earth simultaneously with organic beings, as the following extracts
show, page 45 : " Limestone is a carbonate of lime, a secondary
compound of which one of the ingredients, carbonic acid gas, pre*
sents the element carbon^ a perfect novelty in our progress,:"
Again, page 46 : " It is not easy to suppose that at this period
carbon was adopted directly in its gaseous form into rocks ; for, if
so, why should it not have been taken into the ■earlier bodies alsor

" Again, it is stated from Delabeche, that the quantity of carbo*
nic acid gas locked up in a cubic yard of limestone, is equal to
16,000 cubic feet---and the quantity locked up in coal is also enor-
mous— ^and it is supposed that if this enormous quantity was disen-
gaged, or set free, it would prOve destructive to animal life — but,
says our author, a large proportion of it must have been, at one
time, in the atmosphere. The results which we observe, are per-
fectly consistent with, and may be said to pre-suppose, an atmos-
phere highly charged with this gas, from about the close of the
primary non-fossil iferous rocks, to the termination of the carboni-
ferous series, for there we see vast deposits (coal) containing car-
bon as a large ingredient, while at the same time the leaves of the
Stone Book present no record of the contemporaneous existence of
land animals."

Two important affirmations are made in the above passages ;
1st. That carbon and organic beings appeared simultaneously upon
the earth. 2d. That the atmosphere, during the period included

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 243

between the formation of the primary rocks, and the termination of
the deposits of the coal rocks, was so loaded with carbon as to
have been incompatible with the existence of land animals.

First, as it regards the contemporaneous appearance of carbon
and organic bodies — on this point, we say, that there is no element
so well entitled to the character oi primary^ as carbon. In New-
England and New-York, it exists in combination with lime, form-
ing with it limestone, which, if position is proof, is one of the
oldest of our rocks. Immense beds of this material are every
where associated with granite, hypersthene rock, and gniess, and
under these conditions, which by no rational interpretation can be
referred to the era of the sedimentary rocks containing fossils ; in-
asmuch, too, as these beds are often revealed by their destruction,
where they appear locked in between beds, or masses, declared
on all sides, as the primary rocks of the globe, and hence the lime-
stone beds, their associates, have the same title to the appellation
of primary, as any of the deeper rocks composing the earth's crust.
What is there in limestone, which, as a rock, makes it incompati-
ble with the primeval condition of the earth? Why should it not,
like granite, form a constituent part of the primeval globe? We
wish it to be understood, then, that what the author asserts in
regard to the contemporaneous appearance of carbon and organic
1 beings, has no foundation in facts. The geology of New York
'bears us out in an unqualified contradiction.

Having disposed of one of the points at issue, we proceed to the
second, viz : that a far greater quantity of carbonic acid existed in
the atmosphere in the interval between the primary schists, and the
termination of the coal formation, than in the subsequent periods.
On this point, we feel a greater difficulty in finding the direct
proof which is calculated to silence a caviler, than the first ; for
many persons seem ready, and even determined to believe any
thing, provided, it is sufficiently marvellous.

As our author, however, has based his doctrines on statements
which pass for truth in England, all we have to do, is to make
known what has been discovered in this country j which, when
iinterpreted by his own rule, if it does not establish a position di-
rectly the opposite, will, at least, take away the whole force,
point, and bearing of his argument.

It is assumed, for instance, that all the carbon now taken up

244 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

in the coal beds, existed in a free state in the atmosphere during
the whole period antecedent to their formation; and hence, the at-
mosphere was rendered irrespirable by land animals. The main
fact, and probably the only one, which favors this doctrine is, the
the supposed non-discovery of the remains of these animals ih
rocks of the coal series, or those which are nearly cotemporaneous
with them. It will be admitted, no doubt, on all hands, that it is
dangerous, in all cases, to found a position on a negative ; espe-
cially, in the observational sciences, for we know not how soon
some fortunate discovery, or it may, perhaps, be called unfortunate
in one sense, will entirely upset the best constructed theory ; cer-
tainly such is the case in regard to this part of the author's as-
sumption. If the supposed absence of land animals in the rocks i
just referred to, is sufficient in itself to give weight to the view, that '
the atmosphere was irrespirable previous to the period of the coalli
deposits, certainly the discovery of facts proving their existence,
ought at least, to nullify the assertion, or take away all weight
and value to an argument formed upon such a premise. But, be
that as it may, the existence of land animals is as clearly proved
in the coal era as in that of the new red sandstone. "We allude
now to the discovery of foot-marks of birds and quadrupeds deep
in the rocks of the carboniferous series, in Pennsylvania, by Dr.
King. The observations seem to have been made with proper
care, and to be as much entitled to our belief as those which have
been made in the system of rocks above them, viz : the new red
sandstone of the valley of Connecticut river. From this repre-
sentation, then, we do not perceive that there is sufficient ground
for what the author asserts in regard to the condition of the at-
mosphere, in the period referred toj and hence, so far as such a
view may be considered as bearing favorably on the hypothesis of
organic progress, as developed in the vestiges of creation, we can-
not for oursehes, see that it has much if any Weight. We dwell
no longer upon the points specified above, inasmuch as it is suf-
ficient for our purpose, to show that in this country carbon appear-
ed as a constituent of the rocks, long anterior to organic beings ;
and that so far as the condition of the atmosphere is concerned,
we have no occasion for basing an hypothesis on a negative posi-
tion, in as much as we have that proof which warrants almost the
assertion that the atmosphere was as respirable in the period of

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 245

the coal deposit, as in the succeeding era, that of the new red
sandstone.

It will be inconsistent with the plan of the Journal to notice in
detail the views of the author, as they are successively developed
in his sketch of the progress of animals and plants. It is sufficient
to say, that, in all that portion of the work which treats of the
organic developments in the eras of the old red sandstone, carbo-
niferous, and new red systems, and also the oolite, cretaceous, and
tertiary formations, we find nothing sufficiently erroneous to call
for special remark, except in one or two facts, from which it
appears that fish occur in older rocks here than in England. The
bearing of this fact upon the author's hypothesis, is, to destroy that
coincidence which he supposes may exist between the develop-
ment of the foetal brain and that of animal life as it has appeared
upon the globe.

We now pass to the chapter which treats of the origin of the
animal tribes, where we find that the author's view of one subject
at least, calls for remark. It is the view which he presents of
aboriginal or spontaneous production of living bodies, wherein he
has assigned a production independent of generation. The first
position assumed is, that the lowest types of organization, the in-
testinal and visceral worms, (entozoa,) for instance, are produced
spontaneously, or at least independently of the ordinary process of
generation, within those structures which they inhabit. The neces-
sity of resorting theoretically to this mode, is the difficulty of
gaining access to these structures by any thing from without ; par-
ticularly by ova or eggs, from which insects invariably arise. It
is supposed that any minute particle of organized matter, as a flake
of lympth, may, under favorable circumstances organize itself; that
is, not only maintain an independent vitality, but may create viscera
and organs so far as to constitute an individuality. The proximate
cause of life in the vestiges of creation is electricity ; hence, with-
out the impulsive electrical force, no atom can be vitalized so far
as to become a specific being ; from this it follows, that all similar
structures must be vitalized by electrical forces also, for, in all ani-
mal bodies, are entozoa or worms. We are aware that the subject
is one deeply obscure and profound ; and we do not profess to
know anything at all of matter, and yet we have a right to inquire,
whether, since there are so many cases where it is proved that

246 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

worms are conveyed into the system from without, and are gene-
rated in the ordinary way, ought we not still to adhere to the
common notions ; the hot, in the horse is a good example, whose
production may illustrate in a general way what takes place in any
given instance.

The second position assumed, is, that production and organiza-
tion is the result of an electro-chemical force. To sustain this
view of the origination of vitality and of an organized structure,
he has recourse to the electrical experiments of Mr. Crosse, in
England, under whose eye insects appeared in a saturated solutioi
of silicate of potash, (flint dissolved in potash.) The remarks of
the author are exceedingly curious, and we think he will say soi
himself when he comes to reflect upon them. We transcribe theml
from page 141: " In the apparatus, the silicate of potash became^
first turbid, then, of a milky appearance ; round the negative wires
of the battery dipped in the fluid, there gathered a quantity of

GELATINOUS MATTER A PART OF THE PROCESS OF CONSIDERABLE

IMPORTANCE, CONSIDERING THAT GELATINE IS ONE OF THE PROXIMATE
PRINCIPLES, OR FIRST COMPOUNDS OF WHICH ANIMAL BODIES ARE

FORMED ! !" Silicate of potash turned into gelatine or glue ! This
exceeds the expectations of the alchymists of old. The transmu-
tation of the baser metals into gold, would not have been half so
marvellous and wonderful. Whether the author intended to de-
ceive, or lead astray for the purpose of giving plausibility to his
doctrine, we cannot tell; certainly, so far as we have learned, none
of the philosophers of England have ever gone so far as this, or
have given such an interpretation oi Mr. Crosse's experiments.

We have now reached that part of the work for which all that
precedes it, seems to have been preparatory ; and which was required
to enable the author to give a plausible exposition of his peculiar
views of organic progress on the globe.

This part is termed " Hypothesis of the development of the ve-
getable and animal kingdom." Wc have already anticipated some
of the main points of this hypothesis ; still, it is necessary to ob-
serve that it is based partly on physiology and partly on geology.
Geology is supposed to furnish the following facts, viz : that the
older rocks abound in fossils ; they all belong to low types of or-
ganization, but they never contain the higher, in virtue of certain
changes upon the earth favorable to their production. But let the
Vestiges of Creation speak for itself, pages 153-4 : " The whole

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 247

train of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the
highest and most recent are, then, to be regarded as a series of ad-
vances of the principle of development, which have depended up-
on external physical circumstances, to which the resulting animals
are appropriate." The nucleated vesicle* is the fundamental form
of all organization. The first step in the creation of life upon this
plant was a chemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal
vesicles were produced. The first step being taken, an advance
was made under favor of peculiar circumstances or conditions,
from the simplest forms of being to the next more complicated,
and this through the medium of the ordinary process of generation j"
that is, if we understand the author, any individual of a species,
may, or all simultaneously under peculiar conditions, generate a
species a step higher in the scale than themselves, or in other
words, create a being — for certainly it is a creation. At the first
view, such an idea bears the aspect of impiety — but the author
softens very materially this construction in preserving the agency
of Deity by the instrumentality of law, through which, the creation
proceeds — a law, emanating from the great Architect of worlds.

The author, by this law, avoids the common notion of creation,
which seem to suppose that in every creative act there has been
an immediate instrumentality of Deity, like that of man, in his
works. We do not charge impiety upon the author in this hy-
pothesis. If, however, other readers know more of creative
power, or of the modes by which species have been created, or
of the reason why they have appeared successively upon the earth,
by this hypothesis, they are more highly favored than ourselves.

Anatomical considerations militate against the law of develop-
ment proposed by the author. In the calculating machine which
changes its law after the 100,000,001, there is a special construc-
tion and adjustment of the machine by which the law is changed,
I at this stage of its action, and these special parts of the machine,
' whereby the law is changed, may be seen within it; it is a part
^ of the original workmanship. But no provision can be discovered
I in the human machine for changing the law of production and
generation.

If the calculating machine, by its owm mechanism, can gene-
rate the special apparatus for changing its law, then we might infer

• A vescicle containing granules of matter, which are successively advanced in
their turn to vessels also.

248 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

that the human frame, as a machine, might at any time generate
within itself those parts which would raise it to a type specifically
higher or lower than itself. But we know of no such provision.
Whenever a species stanJs above or below another, though in the
■same group, it is supplied with additional parts, or else there is
a modification of parts unknown to those near to which it stands.

In a machine which can change its law by the development of
•structures within itself, it would be impossible for any finite mind
to know what it might produce — its law could be understood
only by infinite intelligence ; certainly, the human machine is
not intended thus to work. The development of sex, does not
come within this form of the law ; the change of stamens into
petals, by feeding, and other analagous changes, is a very different
matter from that of change from species to species. The devel-
opment of the queen bee, by an instinctive management of the
workers, is but a part of the economy of the bee ; the queen of
the bee is produced, but they cannot produce a queen of any other
species of bee : much less a wasp or hornet.

The work, from the 179th page, and onwards, to its conclusion,
is devoted to an exposition of the Macleay system of animated
nature, the early history of mankind, the purpose and general con-
dition of the animated creation, and the mental constitution of an-
imals. We can cheerfully recommend those subjects to the reader ;
they are well treated and worthy of a careful perusal.

We have, however, in conclusion, a few remarks which we
have reserved for this place. We take upon ourselves the respon-
sibility of saying, that geology lends only a feeble support, if any,
to the peculiar views of the author so far as they relate to organ-
ic progress.

There are some analogies in the vegetable and animal kingdom,
which may be brought in incidentally, which have a remote bear-
ing upon the subject. Thus a barren soil first produces a green
mould ; next, mosses, and the larger plants of this class, and
finally shrubs and trees. So, in the earlier periods, the seas pro-
duced (it may be) only the humbler animals, which vegetated, as
it were, like the mould and the mosses of an unfertile spot of earth.
But what does this amount to, if proved 1 Mosses and mould, as
well as well polypi and monads, are the humble tenants of the
soil and of the waters now ; and the great and the humble com-

NEW publicatio:ns: 249

sBingle now in the same medium, both are products of the present.
He who assumes that the early inhabitants of the seas were unfit-
ted for the present, assumes what he can by no means prove. It
is merely a bold assumption. We say again, what we have said
on former occasions, that, because certain animals do not consume,
apparently, as much of some of the elements as others, it does
not follow that, if the atmosphere or water contained less, they could
exist in one or the other ; it is certainly an inquiry of great con-
sequence. In the Vestiges of Creation we find no less than five
important assumptions which are erroneous. 1. That carbon and
organized beings appeared simultaneously. 2. That limestone was
first laid down -in the lower part of the Silurian system. 3. That
the condition of the atmosphere, anterior to the coal era, was
loaded with carbonic acid. 4 and 5. That land animals and dry
land appeared only subsequently to the coal. Contrary to the
above assumptions, we have found vestiges of land plants, at least
as early as the Oriskany sandstone. And besides, though we have
high authority against us, we believe that in no period in the earth's
history has dry land been wanting. In fact, we are inclined to
adopt the opinion that the seas of the earlier sedimentary matters
iwere deeper than the present ; for how, on other grounds, can we
(account for the great thickness of the slates and subordinate rocks
of the Cambrian or Taconic system 1

This book contains a few facts practically important to the far-
mer. They are such as prove that the perfection of all animals,
is dependent upon proper conditions — upon a sufficiency of light,
lair, nourishment and temperature. The lower animals do not pass
through their proper metamorphosis if deprived of light. The
tadpole, for instance, does not become a frog, if submersed too
ideep in watei : the absence of light and a lower temperature, both
pombine to prevent the natural development- The human fam-
ily, in fact, when occupying unwholesome places and are poorly fed,
produce a larger proportion of monsters, or of imperfectly devel-
)ped offspring, than when surrounded by comforts, and living in a
:)ure atmosphere. Domestic animals, in their turn, must suffer
rom similar causes. Fine horses become blind and are often lost
)y being kept in badly lighted stables. Economy and humanity,
hen, require the farmer to guard his animals against disease and
mperfection by suitable provisions for their comfort, sustenance,

VOL. I. — NO. II. E

250 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

and convenience. It is by following out the law of deveTojy-
ment that perfection in breeds is attained ; which consists mainly^
in providing for such wants as the nature of the animal demands.
Or to be more specific, in furnishing an abundance of food suita- I
blc to the age, and giving it at the same time, air and exercise ;
exempting it from hardships which prey upon the physical powers^
surrounding it with luxuries compatible with its organization, and
finally, combining with all, a kind moral treatment.

INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION— No. 1.

We commence with this number a series of articles upon the
insects which are injurious to vegetation, with the hope and expec-
tation that we shall be sustained in this new feature in an agricul-
•tural journal. We do not mean to say that insects have not beeo
the subjects of investigation before,, nor that they have not been
"written upon ; but we niean to say that suitable descriptions, with
correct and colored figures, have never been given in any of our
agricultural publications. For ourselves, we believe this is the
only mode which can be eminently and extensively useful. We
need say nothing of the importance of the subject, for we are sure
that there can be only one opinion, viz : that it is ©ne of the most
practical, useful, and important subjects to the agriculturist, espe-
eially when it is known that the number of injurious insects increa-
ses, and that they extend their ravages wider and wider every
year. To counteract their ravages, we must first know them ;
then, their habits must be studied and well understood. We are
then prepared either to destroy them, or evade their attacks upon
our property.

Genus ^ Saperda, Lat. Plate III. fig. 1. Head vertical, a?
broad as the thorax, flattened, body cylindrical ; inferior lip straighl
without notch or remarkable fissure j thorax cylindrical, without
lateral spines ; antennae filiform, and terminating in an elongatei
joint.

S. tripunctuta. — Color,'deep black ; fore part of the breast, loj

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 251

of the thorax, rusty yellow, and two black elevated dots on the
middle of the thorax, and a third dot on the hinder edge close to
the scutel ; wing covers are coarsely punctured, in rows on the
top, and irregularly on the sides and tips, each of which is slightly
notched, and ends with two little points.*

Observations. This insect finishes its transformation towards
the end of July, and lays its eggs early in August, one by one, on
the stems of the blackberry or raspberry. The grubs burrow
directly into the pith. The plant withers and dies the same sum-
mer.

S. hivittata. — Fig. 7. Upper side of the body marked
with two white longitudinal stripes, between three of a light brown
color ; face, antennae, under side of the body, and legs, white.

Observatio7is. This insect is the great pest of the apple tree,
quince, mountain ash, hawthorn, and shadbush. The larva have
been found in the trunks of all these trees, and the insect itself
feeding upon their leaves.

That our readers may see the importance of watchfulness over
their orchards, we subjoin a few extracts of a letter of the late
Jesse Buel, upon this pest, of May, 1825.

Mr. Buel says that he was sent for a few days ago, by Mr-
Heartt, of Troy, to witness the devastation made in a fine young
orchard, by a grub hitherto unknown to farmers, and which cor-
rectly to know, and to be able to guard against, is a matter of
great public interest.

It appears from this letter, that the orchard was injured much
more seriously in that part which had a warm southern exposure
and was situated upon a steep declivity. The whole damage which
was done to this single orchard, was estimated by Mr. Heartt. the
owner, at $2,000.

The larva, in this instance, entered the sap-wood just beneath
I the surface, and then cut its way upwards. The grub, after having
undergone its transformation, which requires about three years,
escaped through the bark by a perforation about thirteen inches
above the surface. Sometimes they were so numerous in a single
Itree as to destroy the whole circle of sap-wood.

•A large proportion of the specific descriptions ami observations are copied directly
from Harris' Massachusetts Report. The editor has no merit, except in giving ac-
curate figures of the insects.

252 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The larva are fleshy, whitish grubs, nearly cylindrical, and
tapering a little from the first ring to the end of the body ; head
small, horny, and brown. It comes forth from the trunks of the
trees a perfect insect, like No. 7, early in June, making its escape
in the night. In the day time it is at rest among the leaves of the
tree which it devours.

Dr. Harris considers the constant re-appearance of this borer in
our orchards and nurseries is owing in a great measure to the care-
lessness and inattention of individual owners. Old trees are suf-
fered to remain, which are full of the insect in its larva state ; or,
they suffer the suckers to choke the base of the tree, and furnish a
harbor so long as they remain unpruned.

Two or three methods have been resorted to for destroying this
insect. 1st. By a wire thrust up into its hole. 2d. Cutting it
out with a gouge. 3d. Plugging the hole with a piece of soft
wood, to which Dr. Harris advises the use of a few grains of cam-
phor. The first method is the safest. The gouging, if resorted
to, ought to be performed with great care. In all cases, however,
the suckers ought to be cut, removed from the field, or burned.
The worst of cases we have seen of the ravages of this pest, have
been those where the tree has been shaded and choked by suckers.
The dampness, together with the exclusion of light, seem peculi-
arly favorable for the increase and propagation of this insect.

tS^. calcarata. — Body covered with a close short nap ; color, fine
blue-gray punctured with brown, and with four ochre-yellow lines
on the head, and three on top of the thorax ; wing covers tipped
with sharp points.

Observations. This is the largest of our Saperdas. The grubs
infest our native, as well as the Lombardy poplar, which last it
has nearly destroyed. They are of a yellowish white color, except
the upper part of the first segment, which is of a dark buff. When
fully grown, they are two inches long ; body thick, and larger
before than behind, and consists of twelve segments separated from
each other by deep transverse furrows.

The beetles may be found on the trunks and branches of the
various kinds of poplar, in August and September ; they fly by
night. (Harris.)

Gen. clytus. — Body elongated ; antenna^ shorter than the body.
Thorax globose, unarmed ; hind legs clavate.

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 253

t7. speciosus. — (The beautiful clytus.) Head yellow j thorax
black, with two yellow transverse spots on each side, or rather
"parts of bands ; wing covers § black, the rest yellow ; the black
curiously banded with yellow, in the form of W, and the inner
parts of the same letter ; besides these, a yellow spot on each
shoulder, and complete yellow band convex downwards ; the yel-
low part banded black, convex upwards, with two dots, one on
each sitle.

Observations. This is the largest known species of the genus cly-
tus. Its larva destroys the sugar maple, by perforating its trunk.
The eggs are laid upon the trunk of the maples in July and August j
the grubs, as soon as hatched, penetrate the bark j the next year,
they penetrate deeply into the wood, forming many sinuous pas-
sages.

In order to destroy the grub, Harris says they must be sought
for in the spring, when they may be detected by the saw-dust from
their borings, before they have penetrated deeply into the wood,
when they may be destroyed by thrusting a wire into their holes j
or by the judicious use of the knife. When young maples are
seen to languish and loose their thrift, let them be examined for
this insect.

C. pictus. — Body, black, ornamented with transverse yellow
bands, three on the head, four on the thorax, and six on the wing
covers ; tips also edged with yellow ; the third band is a W ; the
others may be described as zig-zag — or all looking more or less
like a W ; legs, rusty red.

Observations. In September they gather upon the locust-trees,
when they pair ; after which, the female deposits her snow-white
eggs in crevices in the bark. The eggs are soon hatched, and the
grubs immediately burrow into the bark, (he inner side of which
they soon devour; there they remain torpid during the winter ;
when the spring opens, they penetrate the wood, in irregular
winding passages. Their works may be known by the saw-dust
cast from their holes, and the oozing of sap. The effect of the
wounds caused by these grubs, is to produce swellings in the trunk
and limbs, and s\ich a weakness of the woody texture, that it is un-
able to maintain a resistance to the winds. The grubs attain their
full size by the 20th of July, when they soon become pupse,

254 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

and then beetles, and finally they are ready to leave the tree in
September.

The principal means for destroying this insect, seem to be that
of gathering it in September, when they congregate upon the lo-
cust tree, to pair. Mr. Harris expresses the opinion, that an hour
devoted to this business for a few days, would be sufficient to rid
us of it ; and if followed up for a few years, would be the means
of saving this excellent tree from ruin. Heading down the tree,
in some instances, may be necessary.

C. caprea, fig. 5. P. III. Fuscous ; thorax, with the anterior
edge, yellow ; elytra with four bands and tip, yellow. (Say).

Observations. The elytra at base are marked O. O. The two
remaining bands arched upwards, and all at equal distances from
each other ; two yellow dots at their tips.

Say remarks, that the bands are sometimes white. The larva,
like the preceding species, are supposed to live in wood.

Desmocerus, P. III. fig. 6. Cerambyx of Forster : Stenocorus
of Fab. Eyes lunated, surrounding the base of the antennae ;
bead sloped before ; palpi terminated by a large joint, in the form
of a reversed, elongated, compressed cone ; labrum very apparent j
maxillary larger than the labial palpi ; thorax almost square, or
cylindrical — generally spinous or tubercular on the sides ; antennae
long and setaceous. (Stark.)

D. palliatus. — Color, deep violet, or Prussian blue ; nearly one
half of the wing covers orange-yellow ; antennai have a knotted
appearance.

Ohservaiions . The larva live in the lower part of the stem of
the elder, and devour the pith. This insect is rather useful than
injurious, by destroying this troublesome shrub.

Fig. 2. PI. ITT. Purpuricenus : Dejean. "We are unable to give
a satisfactory account of this insect ; it will therefore be noticed
in some subsequent number.

Note. — The valuable plates accompanying this number of the
Journal, were engraved by our friend J. E. Gavit, Bank Note En-
graver of this city, which — considering that it is the first attempt
in this line of business — does him much credit as an artist.

1

./ f'/rt//mfiytu utt/irts
2 I'upa
'i l4iirva
4 t\(ii/f Antffinir

S Ftmali . \nltnntr

(i Wint/

7 (l,i//or'( ' sa//ris

)

ISofierda tripunetata S Clytus c aprta

2 6 Dtsmoeerus pcdUatua

3 Clytus ■speeiosus 1 Saperda bnittatcL

4 " pictMS 8 " calcarata

3a3b 3c details oF C <speclosus

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 265

INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION— No. 2.

(NSECTS OF THE GENUS CECIDOMYIA, INCLUDING THE HESSIAN AND

WHEAT-FLY^

«Y ASA FITCH, M. B^

It is the tleslgn of the articles, of which the present forms the
t^ommencement, to lay before the reader as full and accurate an ac-
count as the writer's investigations and means of information will
enable him to do, of a genus of insects, which, in consequence of
the ravages which some of its species annually commit, justly ranks
first in importance in the consideration of the tillers of our soil,
This design consequently embraces a precise statement of the differ-
ent marks which characterize each species in the several stages of
Its existence ; its habits and instincts; the depredations which it
commits upon the particular kind of vegetable which it inhabits ;
the most approved measures for lessening or preventing its depre-
dations, together with a description of the natural enemies of each
species, which aid in keeping it from becoming excessively multi-
plied. In the course of these communications, it is hoped, that
some contributions may be made of interest and value, both to the
.ause of agriculture and of science.

-INSECTS ALLIED TO THE CECIDOMYliB.

Preliminary to entering upon a consideration of the particular
species of this genus, it is important that we ascertain with preci-
sion what characters belong to the group of insects with which
this IS classed, and what aTe the marks by which an insect pertain-
ing to this genus may be clearly distinguished from its closely
•alhed associates. Though nothing original will be embraced under
this head, it is presumed that what it contains will still be valuable
to those persons residing in rural districts, and therefore most fa-
vorably situated for making observations, but who at the same time
have access to no large public library, containing those works on
natural history from which full information respecting the natural
alliances of these insects may be obtained. Any one not well
acquainted with, or overlooking these .generic and family marks^

256 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

will be very liable to consider a number of insects to be cecido-'
myiffi, which in reality belong to some of its kindred genera.

The genus cecidomyia belongs to the order diptera, of system-
atic works. This order includes all those insects which have bat
two wings, and which are known in our common language by the
names " flies" and " musketoes." Gnats, midges, and some other
names, are given locally to some of these insects, but are not irti
general use in our country, and consequently convey no definite'
ideas to the great mass of our citizens.

All the insects of this order undergo what is termed a perfect^
metamorphosis— their eggs hatching to footless larvce^ commonly
called maggots or grubs, and these having attained their full growth
change to pupce, in which state many of them resemble a seed or
an egg, and some surround themselves with a kind of silk-like
cocoon. From these pupse the perfectly formed and fully grown
flies eventually come out.

A laro-e number of the insects of this order are obnoxious to man
in a variety of ways. Some suck his blood, their poisoned wounds
producing pain, succeeded by an itching and swelling of the part.
Some teaze and torment him, by pertinaciously alighting upon the
uncovered parts of his body,' or swarming upon the viands spread
upon his table. Others deposit their eggs upon his domestic ani-
mals, that their larvee may live upon or within their bodies ; as,
the horse-fly, bot-fly, sheep-fly, ox-fly. Others still, produce larvffi
which injure vegetation to a greater or less extent ; as, the radish-
fly, onion-fly, cabbage-fly, pear-flies, fruit-flies. But, as if to coun-
terbalance for these pests, this order also furnishes many species
which render us special services, by feeding upon and destroying
noxious species — by devouring putrid animal and vegetable sub-
stances, which might otherwise poison the air we breathe, &c.
How forcibly do such facts portray the importance of our becom-
ing acquainted with this class of beings, that we may know which
are our friends and which are our foes — which to cherish and which
to destroy.

Of the several family groups comprised in this order, the genus
under consideration pertains to that named Tipulidje, being com-
posed of those insects originally embraced by Linnaus in his ge-
nus Tipula, a name in use among the ancients to designate some
kind of water-spider, and not inappropriately bestowed upon these

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 257

insects, their long legs being analogous to those of the spider,
and their light airy structure enabling many of them to alight and
walk upon the surface of water, without sinking into it.

This family, in many respects, closely resembles that of Culici-
dce, to which the insects which we call musketoes belong. 13oth
these families are distinguished from all other two-winged insects
by their antenna:; or horns, Avhich are somewhat long ami thread-
like, that is, of much the same diameter throughout their entire
length, and composed of at least six, and generally, as many as
fourteen or sixteen joints — the other two-winged insects^ which
would all be designateil as flies, in common parlance, have on the
other hand but two or three short, thick joints to their antennge,
with a small but conspicuous bristle usually proceeding from the
side or tip of the last joint. The long and slender body, small^
round head, and legs remarkably long and slim, are other marks
by which the Culicidae and Tipulida are readily known. They
fly, moreover, both by night and day, but when by day, mostly
in shady and moist situations. When flying, their legs are gener-
ally extended for the purpose of balancing the body, though this
renders their progression slow, compared with that of most other
insects when on the wing. Many of the smaller species are ac-
customed to collect together in swarms in the air, and flit about
in a kind of dance.

The Culicida^ are furnished with a long, projecting, thread-like
proboscis, or sheath, containing a sucker composed of about five
minute needles, enabling them to pierce the skin and suck the
blood of the larger animals. This is the prominent distinguish-
ing character between them and the Tipulidse ; the latter having
no proboscis, or but a short and feeble one, bent downwards to-
I wards the breast, and incapable of being advanced forwards and
•serving the purpose to which it is applied by the musketoe.

The Tipulidffi then, possess at most only a muzzle or short pro-
boscis, containing but a pair of needle-like threads, so weak that
this organ seems only adapted for sucking up the exposed, or but
(i islightly covered fluids of particular vegetable tissues. The per-
(J jfect insect, in reality, exhibits but a slight inclination for food of
any kind. The family appears to be well marked, and natural 3
its several members presenting an aspect strikingly analogous to
each other, and resembling that of the well known musketoe. Of

258 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

its subdivlsionSj proposed by diflferent authors, those of Lalreille "
appear to be the most natural, and are the ones most referred to at
the present day. He divides the Tipulidte into five subordinate
groups, each differing somewhat from the others in the form of
the perfect insects, and still more in the habits of the larvae.
These groups are briefly characterized, as follows :

1. Aquatic iTipulides. Antennae entirely covered [with hair. Larvae live in the
Water.

2. Terrestrial Tipulides. Head elongated into a muzzle. Larvae inhabit the earth|
mostly living on the roots of plants.

3. Fungivorous Tipulides. Two or throe ocelli ; trochanters elongated ; tibif
strongly spurred. Larvte feed on mushrooms.

4. Tipulides of gall-nuts. No ocelli : trochanters of ordinary length ; liead no
prolonged to a muzzle ; antennee moniliform, clothed with short and scattered hair
Larvce generally feed in galls formed on vegetables.

5. Floral Tipulides. Antennae short, perfoliated, of from only eight to tweh
joints; legs of ordinary length. Larva in dung-hills ; perfect insects on flowerSj
said to eat their buds.

GENERIC CHARACTERS.

It is to the fourth of the above groups that the insects under
consideration pertain. All the insects comprised in this group
are distributed in the following genera, the mogt prominent distinc
tive characters of each being appended.

CERATOPOGoNk AntennjB with a tuft or bundle of hairs at their base.
PsYCHODA. Wings furnished with numerous nervures.
Cecidomyia. Wings with but three nervures.

Lestremia. Like Cecidomyiaj but antennae only fifteen-jointed, and the first far^
sal joint elongated.

The wings and antennae, then, it will be perceived, furnish the
characters by which the genus cecidomyia is distinguished from
all the other Tipulidse. The antenncB are always longer than the
head, and frequently as long as the body ; they are slender and
thread-like, and composed of sixteen joints or more, each joinl
being of a rounded and often globular form, and, at least in tiie
females, verticillated with short hairs; that is, having a number
of hairs placed in a row around the joint, like the spokes of a
wheel in its hub. In the males, the number of joints is commonly
twenty-four, and these are clothed with minute hairs, but not al-
ways verticillated.

The wings^ when the insect is at rest or walking, are not in-
clined in the form of a roof, as they are in the genus Psychoda;
but repose upon the back in a horizontal direction, like those of

I

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 259

the common house flics, the inner edge of one wing lapping over
that of the other. Another yet more distinctive mark is found in
the nerves or ribs of the wings- These are but three in number,
running lengthwise of the wing, diverging from each other as they
proceed backwards, and giving off no smaller or subordinate
branches or veins. In most of the species, these nerves termi-
nate before they reach the edge of the wing. This neuration of
the wings appears to distinguish the Cecidomyisc and Lestremiae
from all other insects, a genus of the Terrestrial Tipulides, named
Lasioptera, being the only one allied to them in this character,
I that possessing but two similar nervures.

Other characters may be mentioned as more or less common to
ithe Cecidomyiae. The head is hemispherical in its form ; the pal-
pi or feelers are short and inconspicuous ; the eyes are crescent-
shaped ; the two first joints of the antennas are often perceptibly
jshorter than the others ; the wings are generally transparent,
shining and glass-like, reflecting the tints of the rainbow ; the
legs are long and slender ; the tarsi, or feet, consist of five joints,
lof which the first is quite short, and the second long.

Habits. — The females of most of the species, have the body
iterminated by a sharp point ; in several, it is prolonged into a
tube or ovipositor, the joints of which shut into each other, like
those of a telescope. By this instrument, it is enabled to pierce
the young leaf or flower buds of trees or plants, and place one or
naore eggs therein. Each species is led by instinct to a particular
Dart of a certain kind of plant, which alone it selects as a home
'or its young. The egg hatches into a footless larva or maggot,
;vhich subsists upon the juices, or upon the substance of the bud,
ind the irritation which it produces, causes an increased flow of
he fluids of the plant to this part, which thus grows to an extra-
)rdinary size, and forms a kind of excresence, called a gall.
They agree in this part of their habits, with the Cynips, a family
of four-winged flies, one of which produces the well known nut*
^alls of commerce. In the interior of this excresence the maggot
Iwells, and having acquired its growth, it becomes a pupa, and
ike most other insects in this stage of their existence, takes no
ourishment, but lays dormant in its cell for a definite period of
ime, at the end of which, it changes to a fly, and makes its pas-
age out of the gall. Some of the species, probably, leave the

260 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

galls, and enter the ground, ere they assume the pupa form. Tke
larvae of a few, which infest grains and grasses, do not produce
galls, but lie concealed between the natural clefts of certain parti
of those plants.

It is a singular and interesting fact, that these minute creatures
all so nearly alike in their colors and appearance that the nake(
eye can scarcely detect any difference between them, will go fortl
and each select for itself a particular part of a particular plant, ii
which to deposit its eggs ; one choosing a leaf-bud, another ;
flower-bud, another the tender bark of the young twigs, am
another it may be, the bark of the roots, or the petiole, or th
nerves of the expanded leaf. Equally singular is it, that the eggs
all minute as grains of sand, and often precisely alike in forir
color) and substance, will from one species, produce an exert
scence always of a globular form, like a grape or bullet ; anotht
ovate, or shaped like a bird's egg ; a third oval ; a fourth knobbe
and warty ; here with a smooth surface, there prickly j now so
and succulent, again hard and stony ; being thus so exactly marl
ed in every instance, as to enable the naturalist to tell with ce
tainty the particular species that will proceed from any particul;
gall that presents itself to him. 0 Jehovah, quam ampla et m
randuj sunt tua opera !

FOREIGN SPECIES.

Twenty-six different species of cecidomyia are enumerated \
Mr. Stephens as occurring in Great Britain. Most of these, ar
others in addition to them, are found upon the continent. A sho
account of the habits of some of these cannot but be interesting
the general reader, and will be particularly valuable to the agi
culturist, as giving him a more enlarged acquaintance with a grou
some of which yearly inflict upon him such severe disasters, ar
all of which rank among those insects which are injurious toveg
tation.

One of these species (C Jwiiperina,) infests the common juD
per of Europe, forming its galls at the tips of the twigs. The
galls are composed of six leaves, the three outer ones being large
and enveloping the three inner ones. Baron De Geer has studit
out and described the mode in which the galls come to be thusco
structed. He observes that the natural leaves of the juniper a
always placed in rows around the stem, each row being compos*

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 261

)f three leaves, and that the tips of the young shoots always end
n three leaves, these last often inclosing three others which are
mailer, and which envelop the bud which is destined to produce
. new shoot. Within this bud the cecidomyia deposits its egg.
rhe larva that comes therefrom subsists upon and destroys the bud,
\it spares the leaves by which it is enveloped, which leaves, by
leoeiving a portion of the juice destined for the bud, become deve-
Dped to an extraordinary size. The galls thus formed, boiled in
lilk, are a popular remedy for the whooping-cough among the
jeasantry of Sweden, who hence name them kik-bar, i. e. cough-
'erries. Though these galls arc found at all seasons of the year,
is only during the cold months, from September till May, that
ley contain the larva. This is a footless worm, about the twelfth
if an inch long, of a bright orange color, rather broader posteriorly,
iid composed of twelve rings. It changes to a pupa in May,
ihich retains the same color, but is shorter and broader, being of
1 oval form, and its head is furnished with two small conical emi-
jnces like horns. The perfect insect crawls out of the gall, at a
laall opening formed at the tips of its inner leaves. It is of an
j;h-gray color, with white wings, the margins of which are fringed
ith hairs.

. De Geer also discovered the pupae of two other species, which
jere enveloped in cocoons attached to the leaves of the pine. One
\ these cocoons was composed entirely of a yellowish-white silk,
id suspended by threads of the same kind j the other had, in addi-
)n to the silky envelope, an exterior coating of a resinous and
hite substance. The larva by which this is formed, differs from
;ost of the larva of this genus, in having two rows of pointed nip-
]es resembling feet, to the n'^mber of fourteen. To escape from
1e cocoon, the pupa detaches from one of its ends a small portion
Ice a lid.

iThe lotus, the vetch and the willow, are others of the European
I'ants which often exhibit those singular monstrosities, the galls
( the cecidomyise. The flower-buds of the lotus swell and expand
tl they resemble bladders with a pointed apex, yet their petals
rker appear. The young branches of some willows have irregular
ecrescences formed upon them, sometimes rounded, sometimes
emgated ; in short, varying considerably in their external appear
ace, and of a ligneous or woody texture within. Their surface

262 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

exhibits the shrivelled vestiges of some of the buds which have
failed to expand their leaves, and have withered in consequence of
all the juices destined for their growth having been absorbed by
the gall. These remains of buds form small holes, which commu-
nicate with the interior of the gall. The pup© pass the winter
season enveloped in cocoons within these galls, and when about
to change to their perfect or fly state, glide by little and little
along the channels produced by the perforations of the buds, to
their mouths, whence they emerge upon the wing. The extremi-
ties of other twigs of the willow, stung by another species of cecido-
myia, shoot forth a dense tuft of leaves, resembling a double rose
in their appearance, though retaining their green color, or like the
fruit of the hop. These singular appendages were very perplex-
ing to the earlier botanists, some of whom regarded the trees on
which they grew as distinct species from those on which they do
not happen to occur. Gerarde thus characterizes one of the English
willows as bearing something like roses, which make " a gallant
show — being set up in houses for the decking of the same, and
yielding a most cooling aire in the heat of summer."

AMERICAN SPECIES.

Hitherto but two species appear to have been noticed in this
country, to wit : the Hessian fly, scientifically named and descri-
bed by our accomplished and indefatigable naturalist, the late
Thomas Say — under which name, however, the recent inves-
tigations of Miss Morris seem to render it not improbable that
two distinct but closely related species may have been heretofore
confounded — and the wheat fly, probably identical with the C
tritici of Europe, but which has not as yet been so accurately
traced out and described in this country, as its importance de-
mands. But that there exist within our boundaries a number oi
other species, no one acquainted with our Entomology, an.l con-
sequently aware of the little attention that has been as yet be-
stowed upon our Dipterous insects, will doubt. Their minute
size, the short period of their existence after attaining their per-
fect state, the obscurity of their retreats, and their seldom being
much upon the wing during the day time, are circumstances that
have enabled them to elude the researches of those few individu-

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 263

als who have devoted their attention to collecting and describing
our American insects.

At the commencement of the past summer, an early species of
grasSj called " June grass," in this vicinity, was in several situa-
tions prematurely destroyed, soon after flowering, the stalks from
some one of the joints upwards, withering and turning to a straw
color, and to such an extent that one person informs me, on casu-
ally approaching his meadow one morning, it presented so white
an appearance, that his first thought was that it was covered with
hoar-frost. The connection of the stem immediately above the
joint, seemed to be entirely destroyed, so that the slightest force
withdrew it from its sheath, by which alone it continued to be
sustained in an upright position. From the analogy of this affec-
tion, to that produced by the Hessian fly in wheat, I infer it to
have been probably caused by a kindred species of cecidomyia.

Though my attention has not been directed to the detection of
additional species till since the commencement of the present
year, three species have already occurred to my notice. The
larva of one of these inhabits the buds of our common alder ;
another occurs upon the sides and the third upon the tips of wil-
low twigs, each of them producing those excrescences denomina-
ted galls. I have not as yet succeeded in forcing forward into its
perfect state, and am therefore prepared to give an adequate
account of but one of these.

CECIDOMYIA SALICIS. (pL. II. FIG. I.)

Black ; hirsute ; wings lurid, inner margins ciliate ; beneath, abdomen white-
pubescent, legs lurid.
Length 0.18. Wings expand 0.35.

Description. Head oval, transverse, scarcely half the width
of the thorax, with a ruffle of fine velvet-like hairs surrounding
jits base. Jlntennoi shorter than the thorax, moniliform, slightly
and gradually diminished in diameter towards their tips ; joints
twenty in number in the males, each with a few very minute hairs
Idirected forwards, in females sixteen, each verticillated with
longer and coarser hairs. JVec/c in recent specimens chesnut-yel-
low, distinct and slightly elevating the head as though on a pedi-
cel. Thorax broad-ovate, the length and breadth equal and the
anterior part slightly narrower ; two impressed longitudinal lines
on the back, slightly converging posteriorly, and densely set with

264 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

minute hairs ; intermediate space glabrous ; sides with longer
hairs most conspicuous and thickly set forward of the wings ;
posterior edge depressed into a deep impressed transverse line
intervening between it and the seutel. Abdomen long-ovate, its
broadest part nearly equalling the thorax, posterior edge of each
segment marked by a lighter tinge ; beneath chesnut-brown,
thickly covered with short white hairs of a silky lustre ; abdomen
of females somewhat broader and shorter, terminated by a slight-
ly exserted two-jointed ovipositor of a cinnamon-yellow color.
Legs glabrous, long and slender, hinder ones extending twenty-
seven hundredths of an inch, of which the tarsi measure 0.13 ;
blackish above, beneath light lurid brown ; femurs slightly longer
and conspicuously broader than the tibise, cylindric, somewhat
contracted at their bases ; tibia cylindric-clavate ; tarsi black,
first joint very short, third longest and most slender, fourth and
fifth broadest. Wings smoky-brown, translucent, broadest across
the middle; nervures, except the anal, rectilinear; mediastinal
confluent with the costal at the middle of the exterior margin ;
postcostal strongest, running direct to the tips of the wings ;
medial scarcely confluent with the inner margin at three- fourths
the distance from base to tip, towards its base becoming a mere
plait-like trace upon the wing, and at a first glance seeming to be
a branch of the anal nervure ; a?ial most developed towards its
base, suddenly curved inwards and joining the inner margin near
its middle, giving to the anal area a rhomboidal contour.

Larva. PI. II. fig. 3. This is a small worm of a bright orange
color, with the anterior extremity often red. It measures about
twenty hundredths of an inch in length, and 0.08 in diameter,
being of a cylindrical form, very slightly tapering towards, and
obtusely rounded at both ends, more so at the posterior than the
anterior extremity. A slightly projecting point is perceptible at
the apex of the anterior end, and two similar projections at the
opposite extremity. The larva is composed of but nine segments,
each well marked by a contraction inteiTening at the joints. The
anterior or head segment is the longest, and near the tip on its
under side are two small, black lines, slightly diverging from each
other as they proceed forwards; when closely examined under a
magnifier, a dorsal row of deep pink-colored spots are seen of a
square or trapezoidal form, one on each segment, reaching from its

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 265

anterior edge about a third of the distance across the segment.
The stigmata or breathing pores, are also perceptible, and often a
very slender pink-red line is seen reaching backwards from each
pore across the segment, and a similar line running backwards
from each of the dorsal spots. Traces of other lines of the same
color are often visible upon the surface, sometimes branching and
anastomosing with these, like blood vessels.

Pupa. PI. II. fig. 2. The dimensions of the pupa do not percep-
tibly difTer from those of the larva. The abdominal segments re-
tain the same orange color which they possessed in the larva state,
but the future head, thorax, and wings are sanguineous, red, and
lustrous, as though wet with blood. The embryo legs reach far
down upon the front, or under side of the abdomen, but are free,
or not connected with it, as shown in the wriggling motions made
by the pupa w^hen removed from its cell. In short, the whole of
jthe parts acquired by the change seem to be like a cap or helmet
idrawn over the head of the larva.

I Galls. PI. II. fig. 7. These are formed at the tips of the twigs of
|5everal willows that grow to the size of shrubs and small trees.
They are of an oval or long-ovate form, from three-fourths of an
nch to an inch and a half long, and nearly three-eighths of an inch
n diameter at their broadest part. Externally, they are of a red,
fellow, or greenish-brown color, being the same as that of the
^articular species of twig on which they grow. Some of the natu-
•al buds of the shrub often occur upon the surface of the gall, as
bright and vigorous as those on the unaffected branches, and fre-
quently one, two, or three twigs grow from its sides, appearing so
veil nourished and thrifty through the winter season, that we
hould scarcely deem they were destined to perish the coming
ummer, did not an inspection of the old galls, some of which may
requently be observed on the same shrubs, show their similar
hoots almost invariably withered and decaying. About three-
eighths of an inch of the upper end of the gall, is in all cases dry,
rown, and brittle, curving to a point, and appearing like a kernel
f ergot or spurred rye protruding from the gall, a well marked
Ine of separation occurring at the junction of this dead with the
3wer living portion. Within, the substance of the gall is of a
reenish white color, and a soft woody texture. A cylindrical
janal, the tenth of an inch in diameter, runs from the base of the

VOL I. — NO. II. F

266 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

gall, to the apex of the brittle horn at its summit, within which
canal the larva lies. A beautiful provision of nature is here observ-
able. The extreme tip of the horn at the top of the gall is so
slender and brittle, that it is easily broken off by the slightest
touch of the wing of a bird, or a contiguous twig agitated by the
wind. It is therefore rare that it is found entire. But in break-
ing off, the edge of the part below, which thenceforth forms the
apex of the horn, generally splits into several short, slender, elas-
tic teeth or valves, the points of which converge so as to leave but
a slight orifice into the canal below. The inclosed maggot, when
ready to leave its cell, easily crowds these valves apart, and makes
its exit — w^hilst any enemy attempting to insinuate itself into this
orifice, only draws them more closely together. But that this
curious structure sometimes fails of accomplishing the purpose for
which it seems so admirably designed, will be rendered probable,
when we come to speak of the enemies of this insect.

But little account is made in our country at the present day, of
any of our several species of willow. That which in an economi-
cal point of view is probably the most valuable, is the species ori-
ginally described by Muhlenberg, under the name of rigida. The
very long, wand-like character possessed by the } ounger shoots,
combined with the toughness and flexibility which is peculiar to
them, have caused this to be esteemed more than any of our other
native species, for the manufacture of baskets and other articles of
willow-work. This, and its allied species salix hicida, (Muhl.,)
seem to be the ones most preferred by the insect under considera-
tion, though it also infests two or three others to a less extent.
But upon our tall tree- willows it is never found — it may be, be-
cause their much more slender twigs would not alTord sufficient
nourishment for the insect, and the very slight articulations of
these twigs would be incapable of sustaining the additional weight
of these galls, without snapping off and falling to the ground with
the first gust of wind. Of course those twigs of the rigida or
American basket- willow, on which the galls are formed, become
worthless for the use above alluded to. Their onward growth is
arrested ere any of them attain that length which renders them
valuable, and in the course of the following summer, most of them
die entirely down to their origin.

Should it ever become an object to diminish the numbers of this

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 267

«pecies, beyond what is accomplished by its natural enemies and
destroyers, this might readily be effected, by selecting out the
galls in the winter season, when they show conspicuously upon
the leafless twigs, gathering them, and consigning them to the
flames.

Habits. — From an inspection of the galls formed by the C. Sa-
licis, it would seem that their growth is caused in the following
mode. The parent deposits an egg at the tip of a twig of the
willow, when it is growing vigorously, and is of a succulent tex-
ture. Probably this is in the month of June. The larva, on
I hatching, gradually eats its way downwards in the pith of the
I -shoot, entirely consuming this as it advances, and thus forming the
canal which runs longitudinally through the centre of the gall.
This consumption of the pith causes the extreme and tenderest
part of the twig where the young worm begins, to wither and die,
jforming the horn-like siunmit of the gall. The juices of the plant
now flow to this part more copiously, either in consequence of the
irritation produced by the worm, or (if we may consider this to
jhave any analogy to what takes place in the animal economy un-
ider similar circumstances) an inflammation excited to produce a
'separation between the gangrened and living textures, or both
these causes combined. The part hence receiving an unusual
quantity of the nutritive fluids of the plant, becomes preternatu-
ifally developed into the fully formed gall, with its woody texture,
Iforming a secure residence for the worm during the winter season
which ensues. And often, one, two or three of the buds upon the
sides of the gall are also stimulated into activity, and shoot forth,
forming small branches implanted upon its walls.

At or near the bottom of the canal within the gall, the larva
lies during the winter season, with its head upwards. The perfect
.insects are readily obtained at this time, by placing a few of these
^lls in a tumbler coveied with paper and kept in a warm room.
Thus situated, their metamorphoses are completed in eighteen or
:wenty days — scarcely one of them failing to produce a fly.

A thin, white, membraneous-like partition^ is placed across the
bpper part of the canal within the gall, with its edges reflected
lownwards, and lining the inside of the cavity for a short dis-
ance ; when ready to undergo its final change, the pupa, by a wrig-
gling motion, crawls upwards, and rupturing this partition, ascends

268 Q.UARTERLY JOURNAL.

through the horn-like summit of the gall, and almost entirely ouft
of the cleft orifice at its apex. Thus exposed to the air, its super-
abundant fluids rapidly evaporate ; the parts within the outer filift
which envelops its body, contract and become more firm, and the
fly gradually withdraws itself from the pupa skin, like a hand
drawn from a tight glove, and floats forth upon the wing, leaving
the blanched relicts of its pupa state adhering to the jagged teeth
at the apex of the gall.

Enemies and Destroyers. PI. II. fig. 8. Upon this topic, my in-
vestigations are as yet too limited to give but a few facts, leaving
a more complete elucidation of it to a future occasion.

A larva quite different from C. Salicis, is occasionally found
within the canal of these galls. It is of a dull pale greenish
brown color, rather larger than the Cecidomyia maggot ; its body
broadest anteriorly, moderately tapering towards the tail, and com-
posed of thirteen segments ; the head is darker and polished ; the
mandibles blackish, tinged with chestnut brown j each of the three
segments following,, bears a pair of legs terminated by black feet.
Viewed from above, it has a rugose or warty appearance, caused
by a row of slightly elevated and darker colored spots on each
side of the back, one being based upon the posterior edge of each
segment. Lower down, oh each side, is another similar row, the
spots being upon the anterior edge of each segment. This worm
is sometimes found in the upper part of the canal of the gall,
with the larva of C. Salicis occupying its usual place in the lower
part. But much oftener, at least in the latter part of winter, it is
found in the lower part of the canal, the larva of the C. Salicis
having disappeared. The presumption is hence strong, that this
worm is carnivorous, devouring for its final meal, as it would seem,
before it changes to its pupa state, the defenceless larva of the C.
Salicis. What are its previous habits — on what it subsists to at-
tain its present size, and how it obtains an entrance into the cell
of the C. Salicis 1 are interesting inquiries, requiring a more ex-
tended series of observations than I have as yet been enabled to
bestow. About one-tenth of the galls contain these larva.

But the Cecidomyia appears not always to die unavenged. I
thrice observed the tenant of the willow gall to be a minute,
glassy-white, footless grub, 0 .08 long, and about a third as broad ;jli
oval, minutely pubescent, composed of thirteen segments. Thes€,|a<

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 269

1 conjectured, were infantile larva of the C. Salicis, until a fourth
occurred apparently feeding upon a dead and considerably shrivel-
led larva of the kind just described. Hence the inference arises,
that it may be some species of the Ichneumonidaj, that kills and
subsists upon the Cecidomyia's destroyer.

A day since, on opening a withered and but half-grown gall,
like «ome passed by before without examination, I discovered with-
in its cavity, what appeared to be a dead and distorted larva of the
C. Salicis, and as such, laid it beside other fragments to be cast
into the fire. But happening to pass a magnifier over this, after-
wards, it was shown to be a cluster of minute^ oval, orange-colored
pupa, some six or eight in number, each one seemingly formed
within a separate segment of the larva's body. A tiny Ichneumon
will probably prove to be the insect which thus lives parasitically
within and eventually kills the larva of the C. Salicis.

Remarks. — The writer is not certain hut the species of Ceci-
domyia now described, may prove to be identical with the C. Sali-
,cina, which infests the willows of France. Being able to refer to
|but a meagre description of that species, he is unable to determine
this point decisively. That, however, is said to form its galls from
the huds of the willow, and if this statement be correct, the spe-
cies is, doubtlass, distinct from the one above described.
Salem, N. Y., March 4, 1845.

All attempts to confine the blessings of religion, science, and
iberty, have been visited by judgments. Every aristocracy has
)een broken down, and all attempts to enslave, have resulted in
he ruin -of the author. The only safe course which a community
:an follow is, to extend far and wide every privilege, and dis-
jeminate every where the elements of knowledge.

270 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

FARMEKS' MISCELLANY.

ON THE PROPER TREATMENT AND MANAGEMENT
OF MEADOW LAND.*

BT JESSE RTDER.

What I mean by meadow land, is that whicb, from the nature
of the soil, is more natural to grass than grain, so much so, as to"
make it desirable to keep it all the time in grass. It also includes
the light moist soil which is good for either grain or grass. As
permanent meadow land, the same treatment applies to it all. And
be it understood, I have reference to upland merely. To such
land as, when poor, or the grass becomes thin upon it, is covered
with a red moss, and frequently mouse-ear, being reduced to the
production of bull's-eye, or white daisy, all of which are the effect,
and not the cause of the absence of grass.

Those temporary meadows on dry land, which come of a rota-
tion of cropsy where the grass is renewed after tillage, and remains
in but a short time,- do not come within the purview of this article.
The very dryness of the soil, which compels frequent ploughing,
increases the profits of the farmer ; his land is enriched by the easy
and simple means of seed and plaster, in conjunction with the ma-
nure of the farm, and, as a general thing, such is the most profitable
of all land.

But a far different system should be adopted with land which
is too heavy and wet for grain^ without manure.

From the nature of things, it requires manuring highly to in-
sure a crop of grain, and the fertility of the soil cannot be main-,
tained in tillage husbandry, by the cultivation of clover, as is thatij
of dry land.

Where the soil of a farm is all of that nature, there should be
no more ploughed than can be manured sufliciently to give good

• Note by the Editors. — The writer of the article above, in a private note accom
panying it, says : " Had I possessed the information herein contained ten years agoyji
I should have been more thajione thousand dollars better ofl tlian I now am."

farmers' miscellany. 271

assurance of every grain crop sought to be obtained therefrom.
Consequently, that portion of the farm under tillage should be
small in comparison with that of the same number of acres of dry
land. Eut with the treatment which such land usually receives,
the amount of manure made from the produce of the farm is too
insignificant to maintain, much more to increase, its fertility. The
common practice is to plough it up when the grass runs down,
and take from it several meagre crops of grain, before it is again
laid down to grass ; then succeed two or three middling crops of
grass, before it degenerates to the old standard, again inviting or
compelling the owner to renew his impotent efforts to increase its
fertility.

But such management is all wrong. The attempt to manage
hpavy land, the same as though it was dry, in order to renew the
crop of grass upon it, necessarily involves frequent ploughing,
I with the application of little or no manure to the greater part of
; it, from the insufficiency of the supply; consequently, the land
grows poorer and heavier by the operation. For soils which are
naturally too stiff, but have been lightened by vegetable matter,
speedily degenerate under tillage, and become less porous as the
vegetable matter works out ; leaving it compact, and heavy, and
unfitting it for the growth of plants ; so that it requires a very suc-
cessful new seeding with grass, to again lighten it up and restore
it to its former good estate. Such a system, then, should be
adopted with such land, as will not diminish the amount of vege-
table matter upon the surface of the sotl. If it is desirable to
plough the land, let it be up but one season as a summer fallow,
and sown early with winter grain, and seeded with timothy in the
fall, and clover in the spring; that enables the young grass to feed
up the old, so that by the time the old roots are decomposed and
appropriated to the use of the new crop, a more luxuriant growth

jis obtained, and the amount of veo;etable matter in the soil in-
. ... . .

creased ; or, in other words, its fertility, or power of production is

increased, which must be attributed to the large share of nourish-
ment which plants derive from the atmosphere (being, according
|to Liebig, nine-tenths of the whole,) that makes the old roots a
oasis for nine times their weight of vegetable matter to be grown
apon, or in the soil. This new estate can be maintained without
aaanuring, as I shall show hereafter. Such, in my opinion, is the

272 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

extent to which land not fitted for a succession of grain crops may
be ploughed.

But a far better way than ploughing exists, in ray opinion, to
renew the grass upon old meadow land. There are two ways in 1
which it may be done without ploughing ; one through the agency
of red clover, the other by top-dressing with manure, of which the
one most important to be understood, because the easiest, and
cheapest, is that which is effected by clover.

Strange as it may appear to some, clover is to stiff clayey soils
when kept constantly in grass, and rightly managed, the same
source of fertility that it is to dry land in a judicious rotation of
crops.

Although it generally succeeds but poorly on such land in a
new seeding, after tillage, owing to the roots being drawn out by
frost, it by no means follows that such soils are incapable of pro-
ducing it. On an old meadow matted with other grass, there is
but little freezing and thawing of the surface to draw out the
roots of clover, and the multiplicity of other grass roots tend to
bind them to the soil.

But it requires peculiar management of meadow land to pre-
serve in it a succession of clover so as to maintain the fertility of the
soil, and renew other grass upon it, so as to increase its burthen,
like to a new seeding.

By observation, I have been enabled to discover the circum-
stances which govern the production of clover on old meadows^
which might be called an inductive theory of its operation. To
secure its benefits, one general principle is to be observed, which
is, to always let the rowen clover go to seed, before cattle are
turned on to pasture the after crop.

The operation is simply : this suppose an old meadow that is
running down to blue grass. Timothy and other grasses are
dwindling to a light crop, and there are plants of clover scattered
over the land, which are permitted to spring up after mowing,
and go to seed. The seed sheds abroad over the surface in the
fall and winter ; in the spring it comes up very early, and is
protected from frosts by the old stubble and moss which is upon
the land. The crop of other grass being light gives the young
clover a chance to grow, which consequently brings the land
round to clover, the old grass preserves the roots during the win-
ter, the next year it is up betimes, and takes possession of tbtf

FARMERS ' MISCELLA NY . 273

ground by getting the start of other grass, provided the seeding
j was thick enough. If not, it seeds thicker the next fall, clover
being on the increase, and thus it gets possession of the ground
partially smothering other grass, and killing the 'moss. The
jland becomes completely renovated, but what becomes of the
clover ? The year it gets possession, there is naturally a great
deal of seed grown in the fall, which scatters over the ground in
great profusion ; it comes up the next spring, but circumstances
are now very different, there being a full growth of other grass,
the young clover is nearly all smothered in turn. The old clover
I dies and the soil is further ameliorated by its roots, and timothy,
red-top, and white clover take possession, in a rejuvenescent
state, young clover is more or less killed until the timothy and
red top dwindles again ; and thus by proper management is clover
imade the agent of the farmer in fertilizing the soil, and increasing
his crops, without the aid of manuring, or ploughing, vegetable
matter accumulates on the surface, the soil becomes more open
land friable and pervious to air, heat, and moisture, and this is all
done for a soil that is naturally wet and heavy without manure.
But these changes of grass are not periodical.

The shortest that can be made are once in three years a crop of
clover, but they are generally irregular, owing to the vicissitudes
iof seasons, affecting the young clover for good or ill.
! There are many who suppose it necessary to leave the second
growth of grass undisturbed, to rot on the ground, in order to
preserve the fertility and maintain the productiveness of old
meadows in grass, where top-dressing with manure is not resorted
to. But such management is not only unnecessary, but oftentimes
extremely hurtful, and the injury is proportioned to the amount left
antrodden and unfed. If the amount left standing, or laying loose
apon the surface be considerable, it, in the first place, makes a harbor
'or mice, which will, under cover of the old grass, intersect
jJie surface of the land with paths innumerable, from which they
liut all the grass that comes in their way, more especially the
Towns of the clover plants of which they seem especially fond.

In the second place, the loose covering of old grass seems to op-
:rate to shade and smother the young grass in the spring, that the
oung mice may have left, more especially the young timothy,
nd the result is that a meagre crop of what is here called spear

QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

grass, or June grass, shoots up through the old grass as through a
brush heap, in lieu of the good burthen of the year before,

I will here subjoin some general directions for the management
of meadow land so as to secure a succession of clover, and conse
quently maintain the fertility of the soil.

1st. Always let the rowen clover go to seed.

2d. Always mow early, so that, if the season be dry, the clovei
may have a chance to get to seed. The hay will also weigh more
and be of better quality.

3d. If the season be. favorable and the second growth large
turn in upon it as soon as the clover seed begins to shed, in ordei-
that it may be sufficiently fed off and trampled down before winter
otherwise mow it the second time after sufficient seed has shed up-
on the ground.

4th. If the after-growth be light, so as if left upon the land,il
will not endanger the next crop by shade and mice, do not pastuFK
it at all.

Such treatment of meadow land is generous and good, and thaa
generosity will be returned. It does not admit of turning catth
upon meadows as soon as they are mowed, to bite the grass dowr
to the roots, killing some kinds and injuring others. Timcth]
grass, for instance, generally requires the balance of the scasoi
after mowing, in which to recruit, so as to put forth its best elTort
the spring following.

The more kinds of grass there are growing on the same ground
the greater the weight produced, and the thicker the growth
Each kind is supposed to require some specific food, not appro
priated by the others, therefore they can feed together withou
robbing each other, and therefore it is that old meadows can b(
made to produce much more weight of grass than those newl)
seeded.

White clover is an important grass on flourishing old meadows
It grows very thick at the bottom of the other grass, although ir
a good season it will grow to the height of from twelve to sixteer
inches. It should be cut early or it will diminish fast, and in t
dry season entirely disappear.

Red clover on old meadow will grow well when the ground is
so wet as to hold water on its surface for two or three months in
the spring. I have seen it in low spots completely covered foi

farmers' miscellany. 27&

weeks together. Therefore land which produces abundant crops
of grass would require extensive draining for grain, and seeing
that ploughing such land destroys its life it is far better to keep it
in grass continually.

I now come to treat of top-dressing meadow land with manure^
lo promote the growth of grass.

Where hay is much of an object of culture, and manure can be
had, it possesses the following advantages over the clover culture,
in renewing the crop :

1st. The crop can be kept more uniform in amount by manuring
whilst it is still fair, and before it runs out to blue grass, which
gtncrally precedes the change to clover — for, in the clover culture^
one or two middling crops must be expected in a round of from
three to six years.

2d. If the hay is destined for market, clover is not as saleable
IS other grass, and it can be kept in a minority by pasturing the
iioadows close after mowing, and top-dressing with manure.

3d. Heavier crops can be obtained by top-dressing than by any

other system of management, the clover system seldom giving over

jtwo tons of hay to the acre, at one cutting — new seeding with timo-

ithy, three tons — when top-dressing gives three tons and upwards.

Three and a half tons to the acre, obtained by top-dressing, will

stand up as well as two tons of timothy newly seeded, being so

much thicker at the bottom, and growing so many more kinds of

nuss. I have obtained three and a half tons to the acre in a good

peason, by spreading ten two-horse wagon loads of fresh livery

ktable manure to the acre, in February, on a stubble principally

timothy the year before, when a portion of the meadow not dressed

lave but two tons. I have spread fifteen loads of manure to the

icre on poor, wet, heavy, meadow land, in the fall, where about

half a ton of white daisy grew to the acre. The next year the

rop was about one and a half tons of daisy and other grass, par-
,iicularly red clover ; the year following timothy began to getpos-
isession — crop about the same in weight. In the fall I put on
ibout ten loads more to the acre, of swamp manure, that had laid
Dne year in the hog pen ; the result was full three and a half tons
of hay to the acre of timothy, and some white daisy of equal heighty
jind very tall. The next year there was a very heavy growth of
' timothy without daisy, which w-as now mastered and killed. Two

276 QTJARTERLy JOURNAL

things I have ascertained by top-dressing, which may be useful for
some farmers to know. One is, that it is the only way to exter-
minate from meadows daisies and weeds, and be paid for doing it,
instead of paying for having it done.

Bull's-eye or white daisy, does not grow on my meadows, after
the yield comes to exceed a ton and a half to the acre, except th« i
year following the application of the manure— the growth beinj
promoted for one year as much as that of other grass.

Another thing useful to know, is, that it pays better to manure |
good land than poor, when in grass ; the limit being where th«
effect is neutralized by the grass lodging early, and rotting at thi
bottom — at least, such is my experience.

As concerning the time in the year when manure should or'
ought to be applied to grass ground, it is, or must be varied by cir-
cumstances. But this much I will say, that it may be done as soon
after mowing as is convenient, and not later than the first of March
in this latitude.

If the land be naturally wet, so that in the spring months it is
saturated with water, the manure should be applied as soon as pos*
sible after it is mowed. By so doing, the rain which falls in the
dry part of the season soaks into the ground, and carries with it
the strength of the manure, which is thus secured for the benefit of
the land. If on such land it be put on in the winter, the spring
rains float off a great part of its substance, and the effect is com-
paratively trifling.

I have seen as good effects from manuring in the summer, spots
so wet that nothing but wild grass grew, as I have from manuring
land that is esteemed dry enough ; it causes red-top to grow in
such places most luxuriantly.

Another case where the manure should be applied early, is where
the land is so poor that the grass is weak and thin. In such cases
it should be applied immediately after mowing, so that the grass
may have time to thicken up in the fall, for the year following.
The greatest effect from the manure will then be observed in the
first crop of grass. If it be put on late, the greatest effect will not
be observed until the second crop is obtained. Early spreading is
generally the best on any meadow land. I prefer unfermented
stable manure, with the litter undecomposed, to the same manure
in a rotten state j and hot, dry weather, in summer, forms no ob*

i

I • farmers'miscellany. 277

jections in me to applying it immediately. In the dryest weather,
the grass will soon spring up through the manure, when it will not
grow at all on the parts adjacent.

The manure should be spread very evenly over the ground j if
lit be long manure, it should be shaken fine off the fork. There are
but few hired men who are willing to perform the work aright.

I have used earth from the road-side, swamp manure, swamp

manure with leached ashes spread on it after it was applied to the

jland, and leached ashes alone for top-dressing, of which the swamp

manure and ashes together produced the greatest effect, being fully

equal to stable manure, and will no doubt be much more lasting.

The rich earth from the road-side, on the second year, more than

four times paid for its application. Ashes alone show a decided

good effect. The swamp manure alone has been on for two years

|(vithout having effected much change — I suppose, because of its

j.nsoluble state, and the grass roots not having got hold of it — but

i[ do not despair of its ultimate good effects. I think that, as a

jtanure, it should always be applied to the surface, that it may be

dissolved by the gases that float in the atmosphere, aided by the

i'oots of the grass when they have taken possession of it. I know

l:hat it is extremely favorable to the growth of timothy when it is

bnce appropriated to its use, and that the crop is maintained for a

ong time. Rich earth, from the sides of the fences, where it has

jeen washed or ploughed in, would be excellent for top-dressing;

jiever mind if the bushes are killed by it. In top-dressing with

stable manure, I make it a point to sow plaster upon it as soon as

|[ can after it is applied, and the more manure I put on the more

blaster I sow, more being required to arrest the ammonia in its

;scape.

As I do not think that mowi.ig without manuring necessarily
mpoverishes the land, and as I think that my meadows are rich
imough, I shall hereafter depend on clover, and top-dressing with
my substance that will lighten the surface soil, to kill the moss
md renew the grass.

As an instance of the effect of clover, I will mention that I know
. meadow which twenty years ago was a barren waste — the soil
leavy, and the water, in the spring months, escaped from it by
lowing over its surface — no grass grew upon it. It was summer

278 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. •

fallowed and sowed with rye, timothy, and clover seed ; a little
manure was put on a part of it. It has never been manured since,
except by plaster ; the hay from it has always been sold, and ave-
rages about two tons to the acre ; it is in clover about one quarter
of the time, and is managed as I have directed in this article ; the (
soil is now very light, and the water soaks away freely.

When will farmers stop murdering their meadows, and kee|
more stock ? which they may do under a better system. Better so'
the cattle with green corn, sown for that purpose, or clover, than
to pasture so close.

i

^EFFECTS OF MENTAL IMPRESSIONS DURING PREGNANCY.

I propose to enquire whether strong mental impressions made
upon the mother, at particular times, will produce any effect upon
her offspring.

This is not, as might appear at first sight, a question of curi-
osity alone, but is of practical value to every breeder of stock.
If strong impressions made upon the female during heat, at th(
time of conception, or during pregnancy, are communicated t(
her young, it is highly important that those who wish to raise i
pure breed, should at such seasons, prevent unfavorable impres-
sions being made.

It is a fact well established in regard to the human female, tha
violent passions, or other strong mental impressions, may and of
ten do cause the death and premature birth of the child. It i;
further argued and asserted by some, yet generally denied, tha
such impressions may also be communicated to the offspring
during pregnancy, in such a manner, as to modify and even direc
its organization. This opinion is founded upon a few, but wel
authenticated cases, in which there was an obvious recognizei
object, making a powerful impression of a disagreeable kind, com
plained of at the time, and followed by an effect in perfect cor
respondence with the previous cause. These facts are no
denied, but arc explained as coincidences; but in some of the in

farmers' miscellany. 279

stances referred to and one of which is known to me personally,
there is between the cause and effect, a similarity so perfect, that
it is not easy to suppose it could have been accidental. Such are
the views of men w^ho have examined the subject as a mailer of
science, but among the uneducated, the belief is almost universal,
that the imagination of the mother during pregnancy, bus a
strong controlling influence over her offspring. Indeed, the ori-
gin of this opinion is coeval with our earliest records, and
ilthough this alone should not be taken as proof, yet when we
5ind a belief prevalent, not only in a single neighborhood, or even
1 single nation, but wide spread as the family of man, and this
jelief still further substantiated by occasional instances, occurring
inder our own observation, it requires a strong degree of skepti-
;ism to deny utterly its truth.

This influence is also claimed to operate upon the brute orders

)f creation, and although we cannot for a moment suppose ani-

Qals to possess that same degree of sensitiveness as we claim for

|»ur own race, we cannot deny to them tender affections and sym-

itathies, through which the causes here spoken of must operate.

I No one circumstance connected with the history of the influ-

i'.nce we are here discussing, has so effectually contributed to its

termanency as a popular opinion, as the successful stratagem of

iacob to secure to himself the " ring streaked " cattle from the

locks of Laban. It is urged, however, that the effect here pro-

iuced, was an indirect interposition of God in favor of Jacob,

ind against the crafty Laban. It would appear, however, from a

jareful consideration of the narrative, that Jacob only availed

iimself of knowledge, he had previously acquired as an expcri-

pced herdsman ; yet, it is freely admitted that the extent of his

access, was far greater than could have been anticipated from the

iifluence of his motley rods alone. It is thus related. " And

acob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and ches-

jut tree ; and pilled white streaks in them, and made the white

pear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had

lied before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs

hen the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when

ley came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods,

280 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

and brought forth cattle ring-streaked, speckled and spotted."*
Other instances of a similar description, are recorded by modern
writers, clearly proving that the feelings of the mother may in-
fluence at least the color of her progeny. A striking case of the
kind is given by Sir Everard Home.f An English mare, which
had never been bred from before, was covered by a quagga, — a
species of wild ass from Africa, which is marked somewhat like
the Zebra. This happened in the year 1815, in the park of Earl
Morton, in Scotland. The mare was only covered once, and the
produce was a hybrid, marked like the father. The hybrid re-
mained with the dam four months, when it was weaned and remo-
ved from her sight. She probably saw it again in the early part
of 1816, but never afterwards. During the four years following,
she had three foals by a black Arabian horse, (having missed
once.) They were all marked more or less, like the quagga, and
in two of them the resemblance in color, and in the hair of their
manes, was very strong. They were distinguished by the dark
line along the ridge of the back, the dark stripes across the fore-
head, and the dark bars across the back part of the legs. Mr.
Mayo,| mentions that a similar instance was observed by Mr.
Giles in a litter of pigs, which resembled in color, a former litter
by a wild boar.

Similar facts are frequently observed, and many such are alluded
to by modern writers. Mr. Milne,§ tells of a pregnant cat be-
longing to him, the end of whose tail was trodden on with sc
much violence, as to cause intense pain. She had five young onei
perfect in every respect except the tail, which was in each of them
distorted near the end, and enlarged into a cartilaginous knob.
Haller || remarks, that the young foal of a horse, from a man
which, previously, had a mule by an ass, has something asinim
in the form of its mouth and lips. Beecherll says, that when i
mare has had a mule by an ass, and afterwards a foal by a horse
the foal bears evident marks of the mother having retained som(
ideas of her former paramour, the ass.

• Genesis, chap. xxx. verses 37-8-9.

t Philosoph. Transac. 1821. p. 21. and Lect. on Comp. Anat. vol. iii., p. 307.

X Outlines of Physiology, p. 376.

^ Transac. of Linnten Soc, of London.

H Element. Physiol, viii., 104.

U Physic. Subterran. Lips., 1073.

farmers' miscellany. 281

The above cases related by Home, Haller, Beecher, and similar
(ones by others, are attempted to be explained on the principle, that
the connexion with the male produces a physical impression, not
merely upon the ova which are ripe for impregnation, but upon
others which are at the time immature. This explanation will not
ipply, however, to the case of the cat, related by Milner, nor to
Lhe following. Mr. Boswell* says, " one of the most intelligent
areeders I ever met with, in Scotland, Mr. Mustard, of Angus, told
ne that one of his cows chanced to come in season, while pastur-
ng on a field which was bounded by that of one of his neighbors
j)ut of which an ox jumped, and went with the cow until she was
|)rought home to the bull. The ox was white with black spots.
Old horned. Mr. Mustard had not a horned beast in his posses-
ion, nor one with any white on it. Nevertheless, the produce of
he following spring was a black and white calf, with horns."

Now, if this be true, as above stated, and I am not aware that
,t has been denied, it shows that a strong impression made upon
|he imagination even of so dull a beast as a cow during heat, can
reduce an evident effect upon her calf. If careful observations
fere made it is highly probable similar results would be obtained
irequently.

Mr. Blaine, as quoted by Walker,t relates two cases occurring
1 the dog tribe. He says, " I had a pug bitch, whose constant
lompanion was a small and almost white spaniel dog, of Lord
tivers' breed, of which she was very fond. When it became ne-
essary to separate her, on account of her oestrum, {heat;) from
^s, dog, and to confine her with one of her own kind, she pined
jxcessively ; and notwithstanding her situation, it was some time
jefore she would admit the attentions of the pug dog placed with
er. At length, however, she did so j impregnation followed ;
,nd, at the usual period, she brought forth five pug puppies, one
jf which was elegantly white, and more slender than the others,
■he spaniel was soon afterwards given away, but the impression
:mained -, for at two subsequent litters, (which were all she after-

ards had,) she presented me with a white young one, which the
iJiciers know to be a very rare occurrence."

• Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, vol i., p. 28.
t Walker on intermarriage, p. 246-7.
VOL. I. — NO. II. E

282 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

" The late Dr. Hugh Smith used to relate a similar instance,
which occurred to a favorite female setter that often followed his i
carriage. On one occasion, when travelling in the country, she
became suddenly so enamoured of a mongrel that followed her, ,
that, to separate them, he was forced, or rather, his anger irritated i
him, to shoot the mongrel, and he then proceeded on his journey.
The image of this sudden favorite, however, still haunted the
bitch, and for some weeks after, she pined excessively, and obsti-
nately refused intimacy with any other dog. At length she ac-
cepted a well-bred setter; but when she whelped, the doctor was
mortified with the sight of a litter which, he perceived, bore evi-
dent marks, particularly in color, of the favored cur, and they
were accordingly destroyed. The same also, occurred in all her
future puppings ; invariably the breed was tainted by the lasting
impression made by the mongrel."

Such, then, are a few of the facts, in relation to this matter, and
they would seem to warrant the inference, that the maternal ima-
gination may strongly mark her offspring. The time during
which this effect may be produced is not so well established. It
would appear, however, to take place during heat, or any early
period of pregnancy. To apply this principle to a useful end, is
well worthy of careful experiment. This could be done by any
farmer, of sufficient knowledge, and possessed of moderate resour-
ces, without expense and with very little trouble. The nature o)
such experiments and the manner in which they should be conduc-
ted, will be suggested at once, to any intelligent, thinking mind.

Jfewburgh, March 1, 1845.

J

farmers' miscellany. 283

YELLOWS IN PEACH TREES.

BY A. SAUL.

The fatal malady termed "yellows" in peach trees, has of late
aroused horticulturists to institute more than ordinary inquiry
into the cause that produces it. In most of our Agricultural and
Horticultural Journals, the subject has been discussed by men of
experience and observation, and so puzzling is the subject, that
scarcely two persons appear to come to the same conclusions, nor
has any one individual, so far as I am aware of, satisfied himself
I that he has ascertained the cause of this disease. In the Febru-
jary number of the Cultivator is an article from Mr. Darling, of
•New Haven, Conn., placing before the readers of that journal what
Ihe calls, and w'hat in my opinion is, a clear, unmistakable descrip-
tion of this fatal disease, with a view of awakening universal re-
; search, in the hope of finding some clue to the cause of this epi-
{demic. And, although his positions, on the whole, so far as I am
able to judge, are correct, I have never seen, in my comparatively
limited opportunities of observation, suflScient to warrant me in
lagreeing with him in the conjecture he has hazarded, (to use his
own words) that it is derived from some unknown insect. Nor
do I think, as is generally supposed, we have evidence sufficient
to justify the conclusion that the disease is contagious, and is
communicated from tree to tree, while they are in blossom. The
fact, that when the disease commences in a plantation containing
a number of peach trees, it does not attack the whole at once, but
.breaks out in patches or parts of one or more trees, which are pro-
Igressively enlarged in the next and ensuing years, till eventually
all the trees become victims to the malady, is not of itself enough
to settle this point j there must be something more detected in
connection with these circumstances, to establish the theory that
the disease is contagious.

Without attempting to prove that the debilitated state of trees
having the yellows is caused by exhaustion, from excessively luxu-
riant and vigorous growth, and the consequently superabundant

284 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

crops that follow, there are many circumstances that I have noticed,
that inclines my opinion in that direction. In England, where
the peach tree is subjected to artificial management, rendered ne-
cessary by the humidity and deficiency of solar heat in that cli-
mate, to bring the fruit to perfection, either on walls or under
glass, the "yellows" are not known. It is true, there are many
insects, parasites, fungi, and other epidemics peculiar to this
country, not known in Europe, and vice versa, that are very de-
structive to the cultivation of fruits and fruit trees. Consequently,
this circumstance of itself is no proof. But the fact that in Eng-
land, where peach trees are subjected to a regular routine of treat-
ment, (of which I shall have a word or two to say in conclusion)
the " yellows" are unknown, caused me in the first instance to look
in that direction ; and, although the instances afforded me for ob-
servation, and experiment, are but few, yet so far they bear out
the theory which I have ventured to advance, that much of what
is called yellows, is caused by exhaustion, and the entire neglect
of a systematic routine of pruning, trimming the superabundant
fruit crops, &c.

In 1839, there were among other fruit trees at this place (the
establishment of A. J. Downing, & Co.) some old peach trees in
bearing, part of which had the " yellows," and nearly all of which,
(only two or three being left) have since disappeared, in the usual
manner that trees do having the " yellows," or getting the disease
from whatever cause. In the spring of that year, there were some
young trees planted out, as standard trees, that have been pruned
regularly every spring since ; they have borne fine fruit for the
last two years, the vigor of the trees at the same time being unim-
paired, and show no symptoms of the yellows as yet. In the
spring of 1840 and 1841, some trees were planted out for training
in the manner of wall-trees, some of which were sorts known to
be diseased, and consequently have since died ,• t^e others, thad
were of thrifty stock, have grown well, and have been pruned and
trained in the usual manner as practised on wall-trees in Great
Britain, &c. Some of them bore magnificent fruit last season, and
are in a most luxuriant and healthy state. Again, peach trees
with entire leaves, which are sorts not subject to mildew, are gene-
rally the greatest bearers, and generally most affected by the "yel-
lows j" while, on the contrary, peach trees with serrated leaves

I

farmers' miscellany. 285

ere generally the more moderate bearers, and are the sorts mostly
affected with mildew, and seldom with the yellows. There may
be a few exceptions, but this is generally the rule. The inference
to be drawn from this is, in the case of serrated leaved, mildewed
varieties, the shoots affected with mildew perish as far down as
I diseased, and answer, to a certain extent, the purpose of pruning,
«ind generally these sorts have very dark green foliage, and seldom
have the " yellows j" whereas, on the contrary, the entire leaved
varieties, not being subject to mildew, ripen their jshoots to the
very extremities, and bear fruit to the same extent when not
pruned ; the consequence is, the complete exhaustion of the vital
powers of th€ tree in the production and maturing of such im-
mense crops of fruit, so frequently seen on young and vigorous
trees for the first year or two after they commence bearing.

It is well known that peach trees raised from healthy stock,
grow very thrifty for the first four or five years, or, until they
first bear fruit, and seldom or ever show symptoms of the yellows
[until they have borne fruit, unless taken from diseased stock. Con-
■sequently, the first and second crops are generally of fair quality
and immense quantity, and it has never been matter of surprise to
Ime, to see trees allowed to grow and produce in this manner, show
signs, if not of the ^' yellows," of a state of exhaustion equally bad ;
Ifor in nineteen cases out of twenty, trees are treated, or rather allowed
to maltreat themselves as above described. Now, I ask, is it not
as reasonable to look to the cause of the debility manifested in
peach trees that have what is termed the " yellows," in the ex-
hausted state of trees above mentioned, as to the disease being
communicated from tree to tree while in blossom, as supposed by
many] The fact of healthy trees seldom or ever showing any
symptoms of the malady before they blossom, has given rise to the
idea of its being communicated while in blossom ; but it will be
borne in mind that trees rarely bear fruit before they blossom, and
seldom show signs of the disease until the fruit is half grown, or
more, and the symptoms become more evident as they approach
baturity, and at no time previous is it so visible as at that stage
when the tree is ripening its fruit, when the whole resources of
he tree are called into action to perform the important offices re-
juired at that eventful period.
Mr. Darling cites an instance oi buds being taken from a tree

286 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

in fruitj (I suppose before the fruit was ripe) which grew antf
made vigorous trees, while the old tree, after ripening its fruit,
showed the yellows. This would appear to bear out the opinion
that the disease is caused at the time of ripening its fruit more '
than at the period of the tree being in blossom, for it is well knowju
that buds taken from trees having the yellows, if inserted in stocks
ever so healthy, the disease will manifest itself in the tree pro-
duced by the bud, for in the vegetable as well as the animal king-
dom there is a limit set, beyond which disease, when neglected,
becomes incurable, and when such stock is propagated from, no
matter whether from seed, buds, or any other way, the parent will
entail on its oTspring its constitutional infirmities.

I promised to say a word on the subject of pruning, in conclu-
sion. The length of this communication already, will necessarily
compel me to be more brief than the subject demands. On^ trees
which bear on the last year's wood, like the peach, there is a ne-
cessity for annually shortening the branches, in order to provide
a supply of new shoots for bearing the next season. The proper
time for this operation depends a great deal upon the season, but
as a general rule, about the middle or end of March is soon enough^
and in late seasons, the beginning of April, or any time before the
blossom expands, and trees of very vigorous growth may even be
pruned in full blossom, as to cut the wood late in the spring is
one of the remedies for excessive luxuriance. Weak trees should
be cut as soon as the buds show the first symptoms of swelling m
the spring.

In pruning the peach tree, the first thing to be attended to, is
to cut out all weak and superfluous branches, such as are inclined
to cross each other, and those that are wiry and sapless, and in old
trees, thinning out decayed branches, and worn out bearers, and
retain all the best shoots, selecting those that are short-jointed and
most fertile, rejecting alike the over luxuriant, with the w^eak and
sapless. Those retained, should stand at such distances as to allow
the foliage and young shoots plenty of room to grow without
crowding each other, then shorten those branches from half to a
fourth, according to their strength, always bearing in mind to
prune the luxuriant branches or trees least, and the weaker ones
most. Were the strong tree much cut, it would produce shoots
so disproportionately large, as are alike bad for wood and fruit,

farmers' miscellany. 287

while the weak tree, unless relieved by pruning short, would not
long continue to bear at all. A great deal may be done during
the summer in the way of pruning, disbudding ill-placed and su-
perfluous branches, wood buds, &c. Indeed were this part pro-
perly attended to, there would be little left for spring pruning,
except shortening the branches. But when there is so little atten-
tion paid to spring pruning, it is hardly to be expected that sum-
mer management will be attended to.

Trimming the fruit is another operation that claims more atten-
tion than is paid to it. When the trees have set their fruit very
thickj they should be partially thinned, as soon as they are fairly
set, reserving the] final thinning until the fruit is done stoning ;
that is, till the shell is quite hard, and the kernel formed — for most
trees drop some of their fruit in the time of stoning, especially
those anywise unhealthy, so that the thinning had better be per-
formed at two or three different times, always observing to retain
the fullest, brownest, and best formed fruit. With respect to the
quantity or number of fruit proper to be left on the tree, mu&h
must depend on the size of the fruit, and vigor of the tree, large
varieties requiring to be thinned more than small varieties of fruits ;
full grown healthy trees, too, being allowed to bear more than
young and feeble trees, &c. The mistaken idea, than which nothing
can be more absurd, entertained by many, of losing so much of
their fruit, in carrying out the above directions, I know is the
great obstacle to their adoption. Any person having peach trees
about bearing the coming season, may convince himself by com-
parison. If they have two trees of a kind, both healthy, and as
near as possible alike in size, and all other respects, let the one be
treated according to the above directions, and let the other pro-
duce as it has been wont to do. It will be found that the tree
[treated in the above manner will produce an equal, and if the sys-
|tem be moderately carried out, a greater w^eight of fruit, and these
much finer and of higher flavor, consequently w^orth a great deal
more ; while, at the same time, the tree is preserved in a healthy
and vigorous state, and I think, prevent much of what is called the

"yellows."
Highland Horticultural Nurseries, JVcu)&wrgA, March 10th, 1845.

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

IMPROVEMENT OF STOCK.

It is highly important that more attention should be given by
the agricultural community generally, to the improvement of
stock. Now and then, among our native cattle, an animal may
be found of more than ordinary good qualities. But as a gene-
ral thing, we are poorly off in this respect. It is a fact that aston-
ished us not a little, when we first made the discovery, that the
farmers, in some of the best parts of this country for dairying,
sell off their cows every fall to avoid the expense of wintering
them, and buy a new stock in the spring. Now if their cattle,
were such as they ought to be, they would not do this.

We do not profess to understand thoroughly the principles of
breeding. But we are inclined to believe that almost every far-
mer knows enough of them, to improve his breed of cattle very
much. The best and most improved breeds of the present day,
have all been produced from the common native cattle, by judi-
cious management. And if farmers would supply themselves with
good stock, they would not be willing to put them away every
fall.

We think the agricultural societies are at some fault in this
matter. Their attention has been too much directed to imported
breeds, and thus our native breed has been neglected. Out of a
large number of premiums offered at the last fair of the New-
York State Agricultural Society, a very small number only, were
offered for native cattle. Under such circumstances, there is no
inducement to do any thing, except what the individual enter-
prise of any man may prompt him to. And such enterprise is
not very abundant in this country. We cover such an extent of
surface, and embrace such varieties of climate, that we cannot ex-
pect the breeders of Britain to supply us with animals suited to
all parts. We must do something ourselves.

But since so much dependence is placed upon imported cattle,
it becomes a matter of some importance to determine the best for
particular climate or soils in this country. We do not compre-
hend the differences existing between the different breeds, and
have no preferences founded on fancy or prejudice, and of course

farmers' miscellany. 289

can say nothing by way of recommendation. But whenever we
hit upon any thing, which appears to us worthy of notice, on
this subject, we shall lay it before our readers, that they may be
aided in forming a judgment. It is with this in view, that we
make the following extracts, from English papers. The first is
from a speech of a celebrated breeder, W. Fisher Hobbs, Esq.,
before the East Essex Agricultural Society.

" When he first became a farmer, he was determined to have a
good breed of cattle. He first tried Short-Horns, because he
thought they were the best ; and at a sale in Suffolk, he pur-
chased several, better than which could not be obtained. He also
purchased some Herefords, and kept them together for twelve
months, and the result was most decidedly in favor of the Here-
fords. He was therefore compelled, contrary to his own wishes^
to give up the Short-Horns and take to Herefords ; and he had
from that time continued to do so, being satisfied that with his
soil and climate, they paid the best. {Hearj hear.) He trusted
the farmers whom he was addressing, would do as he had done,
and judge for themselves w^hat description of stock was best suited
to their farms ; and when they were satisfied that they had a breed
which would prove most profitable to them, he would advise them
to keep to them ; and if they came here to exhibit them and were
occasionally unsuccessful, he would advise them to go home, with
a determination of meeting with more success on a future occa-
sion."

The following is from the " Hereford Times."

" IMPORTANT TO DAIRYMEN HEREFORDS AND SHORT-HORNS. "

" A gentleman in Leicestershire, who keeps a large dairy of
Short-Horn cows, wishing to make a comparison between them and
the Herefords, bought a Hereford cow at the Rev'd J. R.
Smythie's sale in 1839. He soon found that the Hereford gave
less milk than many of his Short-Horns, but, as she was a fine look-
ing cow, and a good breeder, he continued to use her in his dairy.
In the spring of 1843, he determined upon making a more exact
comparison as to the quantity and quality of the milk given by
the respective breeds. For this purpose a short-horned cow was
selected of the same age, and which calved within two days of
he same time as the Hereford. The milk of each, "was carefully

290 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

measured ; the Short-Horn was found to give mne and the Here-
ford six quarts at a meal. The milk was set up and churned se-
parately ; that from the Hereford produced nine pounds, and the
Short-Horn not quite Jive pounds of butter per week. They
stood in the same stall — were fed on the same description of food,
and had been kept alike previous to calving. It has also been
proved that two quarts of milk from a Hereford, will produce as
much curdzs three from a Short-Horn cow. The gentleman is now
crossing his Short-Horn cows with a Hereford bull, with a view
of improving the quality of his milk,"

POTATOES.— EXPERIMENTS.

I

During the coming season judicious experiments ought to hi
made with the potatoe, to ascertain, if possible, more of the disease
which has made such ravages in it for the last two years, and alsc
the best mode of curing or preventing it. And to do this, Ic)
every farmer bestow particular attention upon all the circumstance!
connected with planting and cultivating them, such as the follow
ing : — whether they are most affected in old tilled land, or tha"
which has been lying still in fallow or in grass for some years—
whether in manured land or that which has not been manured—
whether one kind of manure seems to be better for them thai
another — the effect of saline substances as nitrate of soda, saltpetre
lime, plaster, ashes — whether they succeed best in shaded land o:
that which is exposed to the sim— in di-y or moist land — and the
peculiarity of the soils in which they arc most and least diseased

We can conceive that great practical good may result from sucl
observations, if generally and carefully made. The date upor
which the disease is first observed should be noticed — the tempe-
rature of the air for a few days about that time, and the tempera
ture of the earth, both on the surface, and about four inches be
neath it. Such observations are attended, it is true, with somt
extra trouble, but if they are followed up systematically, the trou
ble will not be thrown away. Let every thing be noted down ot

I

farmers' miscellany. 291

paper at the time it is observed, and forwarded to us when the
crop is lifted, and we will make up the result. It would be well
for young farmers to form the habit of making such observations.

We would also suggest the making of some careful experiments
on the general cultivation of this crop. It is not by any means a
settled point whether they should be planted whole, in pieces, or
whether the eyes or buds arc not as good as either. As far as our
experience goes — and we have made a number of careful experi-
ments— we think there is no difference. But we think tubers of a
good size are better than small ones. We may state one fact.

In the spring of 1844, we received from a friend one potatoe,
just brought from Antwerp. It contained eight buds. The tuber
was carefully divided, so as to include one bud in each piece, and
each one planted in a separate hill. In the summer, before earth-
ing them up, a shovel full of stable manure was thrown on each
hill, and covered. The produce of the eight hills was 110 pota-
toes of good size — or nearly half a bushel. At the same time, we
ihad a crop from whole potatoes, and another from mere eyes, and
,we could see no difference in the quantity or size of the produce.
If it be a fact, that there is no difference, in a winter of scarcity^
jthe seed end of the tuber may be cut off and preserved for plant
|ing, and the rest eaten.

The history of this useful plant is somewhat curious. It is
doubtless a native of this continent. Its original locality seems to
have been, as far as can be ascertained, in the mountainous regions
of South America, near Quito. From that country they were in-
troduced into Spain, early in the sixteenth century. From Spain
it appears to have spread slowly through the southern parts of
Europe, and in the latter part of that century reached Germany.
A.bout this time it was brought into Britain.

i Sir Walter Raleigh first planted it on his estate near Cork, in
'Ireland, whence it was soon carried over into England. They
j^ere considered rather as a delicacy than an article of common
food — and as to potatoe eaters, it is certainly amusing to read such
iccounts as are given by Parkinson, that " the tubers were some-
imes roasted and steeped in sack and sugar, or baked w^ith mar-
'ow and spices, and even preserved and candied by the comfit-
nakers."

It was a century and a half however, before they became gene-

292 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

rally known and cultivated in that island, since which time they
have become a general article of food.

The numerous varieties of the potatoe vs^hich we have at the
present day, have been produced from seed. The method of doing
this, is as follows : The balls or apples, are gathered when the
vines begin to die in the fall. They must be broken and the seed
washed out, or pressed out through a sieve, and separated from the
pulp and dried. In the spring, they may be planted in drills, and
carefully cultivated through the summer. In the fall, each vin^
will be found to have a few small tubers attached to it. These
may be separated, those belonging to each vine being kept by
themselves, to be planted the next spring. At the end of the
second season some will have attained sufficient size, to try their
quality. But out of the whole quantity there may not be one ol
good character enough to preserve. If there should be any, they
can be selected, and the others thrown away.

SELECTION OF SEED.

If much depends, in order to secure a good crop, upon the plough-
ing and manuring and after tillage, much likewise depends upoE
the kind of seed. Every one is not probably aware that new varie-
ties in the vegetable kingdom are produced by crossing, just as
they are among animals. If two kinds of plants of the same gene-
ral family, be grown near each other till they produce seed, their
seed will probably be " mixed" as it is called, and neither will
produce the same kind of plant again. This is often seen in Indian
corn, or in peas raised in the same garden — 'in cultivated fruit, and
various plants. When, therefore, a good variety is grown, great
care should be taken that no poor kind is grown near it, lest it
should degenerate. The most of garden vegetables have become
mixed in this way, so that it is difficult to find pure seed now.
"We think that farmers would do well to devote a portion of land
'every year, separate from his main cfops, to the raising of seed for
the next year. The extra cultivation he might bestow upon it,

farmers' miscellany. 293

would do much to improve the seed. In saving seed, that which
is the most prolific, and which ripens earliest, should be chosen.
By this means much may be gained.

Mr. Loudon states that in the spring of 1823, he selected a
wheat plant, from near the centre of a field, which produced sixty-
three ears, and yielded two thousand seven hundred and forty-three
Trains. These he planted, and the fourth harvest brought him
.hree hundred and twenty bushels of sound grain. Any farmer,
n this way, from one seed of a good kind, could in a few years
•aise enough to sow his w^hole farm. The same author in this con-
lection, makes the following statement, showing the advantage of
•hoosing the most prolific seed :

" The number of fertile joints in the spike of the wheat gener-
.lly cultivated, varies from eighteen to twenty, and the inhabitants
if Great Britain and Ireland amount to about the same number of
aillions ; therefore, as the wheat produced in those islands has
■een of late years sufficient, or nearly sufficient, to supply the in-
.abitants thereof with bread, it is evident that a variety with two
dditional fertile joints, and equal in other respects to the varieties
t present in cultivation, would, when it became an object of gene-
al culture, afford a supply of bread to feed two millions of souls
Irithout even another acre being brought under cultivation, or an
dditional drop of sweat from the brow of the husbandman." En-
yclopedia of Agriculture ^ Art. 4861.

DEGENERACY FROM BAD TILLAGE.

, The evils of bad cultivation do not consist in bad crops alone,
i'here are other and still greater evils to be avoided, and which
jiould be a great inducement to every farmer, to use any effort to
erfect himself in his art. And not the least of them is degene-
icy in the character of the plant cultivated. In this respect, if
I no other, there is a sort of analogy between the animal and the
igetable. An animal of any of the best and most improved
eeds, if badly cared for when young — if scantily or insufficiently
pplied with food, and exposed to all kinds of weather, and lefl

294 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

to its own chances of support, will grow up a scurvy, ill-shaped,
unsiglitly thing ; and one or two generations will bring it back to
even a worse creature than its most distant sire.

Just so it is with the plant. High cultivation has produced all
our valuable plants. Some of them, at least, have sprung from an
apparently worthless vegetable, but by proper care and culture,
they have been made the necessary dependence of man. But let
them be left to the starving, slovenly methods of poor farmers, and
it is impossible to tell how soon they may be utterly lost. They
must be fed — they must be kept free from thieving weeds that rob
them of their food — they must have all circumstances made the
most favorable, in order to retain their present state. The con-
stant tending is to degenerate. We have s(»me drawings of plants
which show this tendency in a remarkable degree. We hope at
some future time, to lay them before our readers.

The effort of the farmer should be not only to raise the greatest
quantity to the acre, but to make that quantity at the same timt
the most valuable for the purposes for which it is intended.

GARDENING.

A good garden is an essential part of the comfort of a family
and is generally too much neglected by the farmer. He woul
find himself largely repaid if he would pay more attention to thi
branch of his business, and set apart a small portion of land fo
the cultivation of those vegetables which require more attentio.
than the ordinary farm crops. And in villages, every one who ca:
obtain it, has a high estimate of his garden spot. The relaxatio
it affords, for a few moments in the day, to the professional man-
the exercise before breakfast, and after the business of the day i
over — the luxury of vegetables, fresh from the ground, and th
fruit of his own labor, are all considerations of no little conse
quence. The cultivation of the soil, even in a small way, is a
improvement to the body and the mind, and a man whose heart i

farmers' miscellany. 295

seared over by the constant toil and the pecuniary afTalrs of life,
feels it grow green and young again, when he turns back to this
employment. As the season approaches to commence gardening,
we venture a few hints 'in relation to it.

' Do not be sparing in the application of manures. You may
have as handsome and good a spot for your garden as you can se-
lect, but unless it is well manured you will have nothing handsome
or good in it, nor profitable. Unless vegetables are well supplied
with food they will amount to nothing. The manure should be
well rotted, so as to break up fine and incorporate easily with the
soil. Poudrette or guano, if judiciously used, will be found pecu-
liarly fitted for the garden. But if stable manure is used, it should
be spread evenly over tha surface, and then the ground spaded
lecp and well pulverised. No matter what you intend to plant,
Jiis is a point of great importance. It serves to give a free circu-
lation of air about the roots of plants, and also, if the season
;hould be dr}'', in a considerable degree prevents the effects of
Irought, by allowing the moisture to ascend from below. The
•cots of the plants, too, can extend easier and farther in a loose
Iioil, than in a heavy one, and the more room they have, the bet-
er will be the growth of the plant. If the soil is not naturally
leep,it should be dug from twelve to eighteen inches deep and be
nade very rich with manure, which process will soon produce a
:oil of sufficient depth. We advise the use of the spade in all ca-
;es, even where ploughing might be done. It goes deeper, divides
he earth more perfectly, and mixes the manure more uniformly
vith it, and the extra expense will be more than repaid in increas-
ed products. Where the soil is principally clay, it will be mate-
ially benefited by applying a few loads of sand. This, put on
•efore the ground is dug, will make it much more loose and easier
,0 cultivate. If sand predominates, clay may be added. Heavy
joils will also be improved by having the manure mixed with
jwice its bulk of peat or sv/amp muck, and lie in a pile two or
hree weeks before it is used. The quantity of manure would be
icreascd by that, and the soil made light and warm.
I Throughout the season the garden should be kept free from
feeds. Not one should be suffered to live. They rob the plants
f much nourishment. The soil should be frequently stirred about
ae roots of plants, but never immediately after rain. Do not

296 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

throw weeds away, but dig a small pit in the corner and there de-
posit them, with the scrapings of the walks and the soapsuds and
waste liquids from the house. In this way a considerable quanti-
ty of valuable manure may be saved for the next year.

All these remarks apply no less to the flower garden — a most
delightful addition to the comforts and taste of any — even the
humblest residence. There is no difference in the preparation of
the soil — and when this is ready we should be glad to see more of
our ladies engaged in the active labor of taking care of its future
success. The exercise might serve to transfer some of the bloom
of the flowers to cheeks that have been blanched and paled by
too much housing. Neither plants nor ladies thrive well shut up
in a close room, away from the free air and the light of the bles-
sed sun. If we were young — as we used to be — we would dis-
course more at large on this latter topic, but we have reached that
age when it " don't do " for us to say much about " love among
the roses."

AGRICULTURAL STUDY.

Before agriculture in this country, reaches the degree of perfec-
tion which it has already attained in other countries, our farmer;
must devote themselves more to the study of their art. This, w«
believe, they have begun, very extensively, to feel. The disposi-
tion has heretofore been, to demand from writers on the subject
nothing but what was purely practical — not in the true sense o
the word — ^but in a false sense — that is, they must have the ver]
processes described to them which others have used, and then witl
the whole actual result before their eyes, they could venture upoi
a trial of them themselves. Had this been the case with all wh(
are engaged in the business — had there been none more willing
than others to take the first step, agriculture would have been a
an amazing low ebb. But some who have been bold enough t(
think for themselves, have taken the lead, and to this we owe thi
present condition of farming. But these means are, in our view
and we believe, in the view of all thinking men, utterly inadequatt
to the present demand. A more general information is necessary
Farmers must read and study and think for themselves. There i;
no practice in the whole range of agriculture whose fuundation i:
not laid in reason. Farming is not, in its foundation, practical

farmers' miscellany. 297

as that term is generally understood, but it is, in the first place, a
science which the mind must comprehend, before the hand can ex-
ecute it.

FRUIT TREES.

Instead of continuing the old practice of having alternate bear-
ing and barren years, for fruit trees, those who cultivate them would
do well to note this fact: When young trees come into bearing for
the first time, about the time the fruit is setting, if the most of it
is taken off, and this continued for a few years in succession leav-
ing every year about the same quantity on the trees, they will, by
the time they have become of sufficient size to be profitable, ac-
quire the habit of bearing ever j^ year.

A FRAGMENT.

We may estimate the worth and truth of any system of philoso-
phy by the value which that system places upon life ; or we may
estimate it by another standard, and may ask what are its tenden-
;ies ; if its tendency is to exalt God, the maker and ruler of the
miverse, then a priorij we should say of that philosophy, that it
s true. Again, if the tendency of a system is also such that it
»romotes the happiness of man, its truth may also be considered
s at least probable. If the life of man, if the interests of man, if
he interests and happiness of man is valued in it, and promoted
,iy it, we can scarcely be justified in charging upon such a philoso-
phy a foundation in error. Inquire then, within yourself, what
iffect a system of philosophy or creed has upon your views of
rod, of the happiness of man, whether it has lessened or whether
tends to lessen him in your estimation and make you reckless of
fe and happiness 1 then we believe, by this test, you may render
n answer both as to its value and its truth.

VOL. I. NO. II. H

298 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE FLOWER GARDEN.

PART I.
BT M . SUTTER.

I HAVE never been ashamed to confess that I love flowers.
They are the Poetry of Agriculture, and I thank God that He
made them, and implanted in my heart the love for them.

I have been accustomed, all my life — even when I was a man
of study, as well as since — to devote a portion of my time, in the
season, to the culture of flowers. I have found it a delightful oc-
cupation, and of great use to my heart, if not to my purse. And
I always feel a sort of pity, when I see flowers made a traffic of,
unless I buy them myself, and turn them out in the open garden,
for every body to admire. For it seems to me that they are, and
should be, nobody's property. I never kept them to sell, but al-
ways to give to my friends and to little children, in abundance.

I am gratified to see a growing taste throughout the community,
for this branch of agriculture. Almost every lady has her beauti-
ful exotics in her window, and the poorest cottager has her gera-
nium or her monthly rose j yet, through the winter, there are al-
ways to be seen some who seem to be waiting with great patience
for better times. The cultivators of them are ignorant of the
care they ought to have, and how to manage them. For such per-
sons, the following pages may be of use.

The farmer neglects this branch of his art too much. There is
no earthly reason why his garden should not be ornamented witl
flowers ; but the fact is, he is too utilitarian in his notions. We
hope his daughters will read these articles and profit by them ; 1
did not write them because I was ambitious of being an author,
and especially in this department. They are the fruits of my owr
experience and reading, and were written down in this form at thf
earnest request of a respected friend and his lady, for their use.
But being entirely practical, I thought they might be of use, il
printed, to others.

I. OF THE SOIL.

All soil is formed of decayed rocks, and its fertility, of course
largely depends upon the particular rock from which it has its ori-
gin. But one great source of fertility is the vegetable and anima

FARMER S' MISCELLANY. 299

substances which are constantly accumulating and undergoing de-
composition, upon or beneath the surface. These form a part of
all soils, and none will be productive which contains less than two
parts in a hundred of these matters ; and on the other hand, a soil
cannot be in a proper condition, to produce healthy plants, which
contains too much of them. Those soils which contain from three
to ten per cent of them, are the best. To those which arc defi-
cient, they may be added, in the form of the various manures
which are used.

The soil for a flower garden is in no respect different from that
of the kitchen garden, and should be prepared in the same manner.
If the soil is too stiff and clayey, a few loads of sand may be added,
according to the size of the garden ; and if, on the contrary, it
contains too much sand already, a proper quantity of clay or good
stiff loam mixed with it, will soon bring it to a proper consistency.

After these preliminaries have been properly attended to, the
ground should be spaded deep, and well pulverized ; this will
serve to make the earth open and light, so that the roots will meet
iwith no obstruction, and it will also allow the free circulation of
the air through it, which is very necessary for the health of plants.
The deeper it is worked, the deeper will the roots strike, and, of
course, the better will be the growth of the plant. This will also
serve to prevent, in a considerable degree, the effects of drought,
by giving a free chance for the water to rise from beneath.

The texture of the soil is not a matter of small importance. It
should be such as will retain a proper quantity of water, and at
the same time will drain off that which is superfluous. It should
not contain so much clay as to bake in the sun and to crack open,
nor so much sand as to become parched and dry. The power of
retaining moisture depends upon the proportion of clay the soil
contains, as the water cannot, even by great heat, be entirely ex-
ipelled from this substance. But if there is too much, it will be-
come hard and crack, and the roots cannot penetrate it freely.

Artificial soils are made for plants growing in pots, by a mix-
ture of different substances, in order to imitate, as nearly as pos-
sible, the natural soil in which they grow. This is the plan gene-
rally pursued by gardeners and florists ; but it is doubtful, in most
:ases, if any necessity requires it. If a loose soil from the gar-
len, with a little addition of sand be used, and well mixed with

300 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

fine manure, it will be found the most convenient, and probably as
good for plants. A little wood ashes may also be used. The ar-
tificial soils are made by mixing loam, peat, decayed leaves —
forming what is called leaf mould — sand, and manure.

Loam is the mixture of clay and sand, constituting the soil of
a garden, or old pastures, and should be taken from the surface,
or just beneath the sod.

Peat is formed in low ground, by the decay of leaves, roots and
stems of plants which have grown upon the spot for centuries.

Leaf mould is taken from the surface of the ground or rocks in
forests, and should form an important part in the soil.

Sand should be taken from some place where it has had long a
free exposure to the air.

Manure should be two or three years old, and well rotted, so as
to be easily reduced to fine particles.

These substances, mixed in proper proportions, will form a soil
suitable for any plants. Some naturally grow in a soil more sandy
than others — some in a. soil principally or wholly of loam, and
others of mould ; and in these we have the means of suiting the
native habits of each. They should be well pulverized, and inti-
mately mixed, and always ready for use.

It is often convenient to combine the flower garden with the
kitchen garden. In such a case, the best arrangement that can be
made, is to lay out a broad walk through the most convenient part,
and on each side of it a border about three feet wide for flowers.
This may be slightly raised by shovelling the earth which is taken
from the walks into these borders. Others may, if necessary, be
made around the sides or in the middle, by devoting a suflicient
space for the purpose, which can be laid out according to the fancy
or taste of any one. By having the two combined, a neatness and
grace is added to the utility of the kitchen garden, and both can
be taken care of together. No particular directions can be given as
to the form and plan of such a garden. Much will depend upon the
size of it, and more upon the taste of the one who takes care of it.

II. OF MANURES.

Let the soil of the garden be what it may, and let it possess all
other natural advantages, without the free application of manures,
the labor bestowed will meet with a very small return. If these
are necessary in the kitchen garden to insure a good growth of
vegetables raised there, they are no less important in the flower-

farmers' Miscellany. 301

garden. It is from them that plants derive their food, and they
live by food as well as animals. Many seem to have an idea that
if plants are freely supplied with water, they have all that is ne-
cessary to promote their growth ; but this is a great mistake. Wa-
ter is essential to the life of plants, but at the same time there are
very few which will not die soon if they had no other food. In-
deed, this can scarcely be considered as food, being principally neces-
sary to dissolve those substances which are their proper nutriment.
It is only in this form that they can imbibe nourishment, and too
free a supply of water becomes injurious to the life of vegetables.
Hence the necessity of draining land which does not admit an easy
passage off for the water.

The dung of animals must always be the chief dependence in
the article of manures. This consists of both animal and vegeta-
ble matter, and contains all the elements of plants. To prepare it
for use in the flower garden, it should be well rotted by lying in
heaps for two or three years, so as to be reduced to fine particles.
In this way it will incorporate readily with the soil, and many of
its parts will dissolve in water easily, and afford a rapid supply of
food. Good manure from the stable-yard, well rotted, is as good
as any that can be used.

Poudrette is a manufactured manure, possessing very powerful
qualities, and would probably be found very valuable in the flower
garden. It is prepared for this purpose, and put up in boxes so as
to be easily transported. It may be applied to the whole surface
of the soil, and then incorporated with the rake, or, which is pro-
bably the preferable mode, it may be applied to the roots of the
individual plants. A small quantity placed upon the seeds when
they are sown, is said to cause them to germinate with great vigor.
GuanOj imported from tropical islands, is a most powerful manure,
and requires much care in using. A very small quantity is suflH-
!cient for a whole flow^er garden. It may be conveniently used by
dissolving it in water, and applying it around the roots of plants
twice a year.

Much valuable manure may be saved by collecting all the weeds,
leaves, twigs, and dead plants, &c., which are taken away from
;he garden, and forming a small compost heap with them. To do
;his, whenever a quantity of these materials is added to the heap,
:hey should be covered with a layer of earth, or stable manure,
ivhich is better, and so by adding to the quantity continually, in

302 QUAKTERLY JOURNAL.

the course of the season a large pile will be formed. A vast'deal
is wasted by not being economical in what appear to be small
things.

Too much cannot be said in favor of liquid manures. In all coim-
tries where gardening is carried to any perfection, this practice is
found to be of great service. The manure is thus applied directly
to the roots, and in a state to be immediately taken up by the roots.
It throws a surprising degree of vigor into them. The Chinese.
who are celebrated for their skill in horticulture, apply their ma-
nures principally in this form. It is only necessary to pour watei
upon any of the common manures in a convenient vessel, and aftei
it has stood for a day or two, dip it off, and water the plants witl
it, taking care to apply it only to the roots. Soap-suds will b(
found a very powerful and useful manure of this sort, and may bi
used freely.

Charcoal, wood ashes, and soot, have very valuable qualities a
manures, and should not be neglected. The first should be reduce
to a fine powder before it is used, and the last should only be ap
plied in small quantities. The ashes may be used freely upon a!
soils with great advantage.

Plants will thrive well and vigorously in finely powdered chai
coal, and it has been thought to add beauty and depth of cole:
both to the foliage and flowers. Cuttings of plants will rot soone
in pure charcoal, or when it is largely mixed with earth, than i
earth alone ; but it must constantly be kept wet. It will be foun
a useful application to soils in all cases ; applied about the roo'
of diseased plants, the most beneficial results have been obtainec

The manure in a flower garden, should not be spaded in ver
deep. After the ground has been well dug and pulverized, let i\
manure be applied, and worked in to a moderate depth with
spade, and well mixed with the soil. Or a portion may be turne
in deep, and the rest well mixed with the surface.

In speaking of manures, those salts should not be omitted whic
have of late excited no little attention. Many of them act ;
powerful stimulants to the growth of plants, and others are usefi
as actually affording nutriment. Among these, the most importai
are saltpetre and the nitrate of soda. They may be sown broai
cast upon the surface, to be dissolved and washed down with tl
rain, or they may be dissolved in water at the rate of one ounce t

farmers' miscellany. 303

a gallon of water, and then applied as other liquid manures. Great
caution is however necessary in the use of these substances, as too
much of them will destroy the life of plants. They should not be
applied more than once or twice during the season. The princi-
pal benefit from their use, is found in their producing a rapid
growth, and giving a fine rich color to the foliage.

The free use of manures cannot be too strongly urged. All suc-
cess in the cultivation of flowers, as well as all kinds of plants and
vegetables, will depend upon this. Neither animal nor vegetable
life can be sustained without food. And the flowers which orna-
ment the garden, are no less dependent on it for the exhibition of
their beauty, than those plants which are grown for use, for their
perfection.

III. OF THE CARE OF THE FLOWER GARDEN.

No littk care is necessary in order to keep the flower garden
I Heat and clean. The walks should be kept free from weeds and
grass, and covered with gravel not very coarse, and if possible
should be made solid with a heavy roller. A handful of coarse
salt applied to any tufts of grass which may be seen springing up,
iwill soon destroy them. If the walks are through a grass-plat,
I the edges should be kept cut evenly with a sharp spade, as also the
edges of the flower borders.

Not a weed should be suffered to appear among the flowers, and
as soon as one appears, it should be immediately exterminated by
the roots. In this way, by a little watchfulness and attention, in
a short time they will cease to appear. But if one is suffered to
go to seed, it will scatter its offspring through the whole garden
in a little while.

The earths in the borders and about the roots of the plants
should be frequently stirred with a hoe or a gardener's trowel, that
.the roots may have every chance to extend. The looser the soil
jis kept, the better they will grow, and the beauty and perfection of
the flowers depend upon the strength and healthiness of the plant.
By this process also, the soil is drained of superfluous moisture,
and a free circulation of air is produced about the roots. It should
be done very often, and especially in dry weather, and not after a
shower or rain.

All dead branches should be cut off carefully from the plant^

304 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

with a sharp knife, and not rudely torn off, as is the practice with
some careless persons. When any annual plant has done flower-
ing, unless it is wanted for seed, it should be removed and another
put in its place. For this purpose, a reserve bed may be kept in
some part of the garden, where plants can be raised to be trans
planted to supply vacancies in the regular borders.

Decayed flowers should be taken off, as they are unsightly ob-t
jects in a neat border, and the stems of bulbous plants and othetf
should be cut down when the flowers have gone. Plants whicl
grow tall and slender, should be carefully tied up to neat stakes tc
support them, and the shrubbery neatly pruned.

A spade, shovel, large and small hoe and trowel are alwa;
necessary in the flower garden, and should be always ready fo;
use. Pine sticks, cut smooth, and pointed at one end, should h
always in readiness for marking the names of plants, and also neaf
rods for tying up plants. Bass matting makes the best strings

IV. PROPAGATION.

The natural way of propagating all plants is by seed. Unde/
favorable circumstances, these are always produced by all plants|j(
but a change of climate and soil often prevents it, when we musj
resort to artificial methods. I

In selecting seeds, great care should be taken to choose ihom
which have not lost the power of germination, by being kept toi
long, or by being exposed to unfavorable circumstances. SomI'
retain this power for an indefinite period. Wheat, which wai
taken from the covering of an Egyptian mummy, and which ha{^
lain for thousands of years, was found to have retained this poweifi
and germinated and ripened its seed when planted. Others loseij '
after a few years, and some even in a few weeks. As a genera
rule, the seeds of the last season only can be relied on with safety

Seeds should not be gathered till they are perfectly ripe; veri '
few seeds will germinate unless they are mature. t

With regard to the depth at which seeds should be planted, n< i
particular directions can be given. This will depend in a greai j
degree upon the size of the seed and its ability to force its vfZ] i
through the ground. Small ones require but a small covering 0 j]
earth, and should be planted thick, whilst large ones may be buriei i

farmers' miscellany. 305

deeper and more scattered. As a general rule, no seed should be
planted deeper than one half inch below the surface.

Seeds should not be sown in the open ground till it has become
warm and the weather settled. As almost all annual plants may
be expected to bloom in from eight to ten weeks after they are
sown, there is no reason for inordinate haste in getting them into
the ground. From the first to the middle of May in this climate,
■will be soon enough. They may be sown in drills or patches, so
that when they come up they can easily be distinguished from the
weeds. When large enough they can be thinned out, and those
that will bear it can be transplanted. Those which will not bear
it, must, of course, be left in the spot where they grew. As a gen-
eral thing, except in cases of severe drought, no artificial water-
ing should be given to seeds, but they should be left to the natural
moisture of the ground. Many, however, may be soaked with
advantage in warm water before they are sown.

The process of transplanting should be performed with care,
as the plant depends upon its roots for its supply of nourishment,
I and especially the tender fibres which form their extremities, and
! are their proper mouths. If any of these are injured or broken
I off, it will take some time to recover from it, or the plant may
die. It is, of course, a bad plan to pull up the plant by force.
It should be carefully raised up by a trowel or sharpened stick and
taken with as much earth as possible attached to the roots, and re-
moved to the place where it is to be deposited, and there placed
in as natural a manner as possible, and the earth pressed gently
around it. A little water may be given to settle the earth about
the roots. Transplanting should be done in cloudy weather and
the plants protected for a few days from the direct rays of the
sun.

, As some plants do not ripen seed, and others do not reproduce
jtheir own kind, artificial methods have been devised for propagat-
ing them. This may be done in several ways.
I 1. By gums, bulbs or offsets. Some plants, such as the lily
Itribe, the capen and bignonia, produce in the axil of the leaf, a
small conical bulb or gum, which, if planted, will take root and
grow. Bulbous roots throw out offsets from their sides : these,
whether growing from the stem or root, should be planted as soon

306 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

as they are separated from the main plant, about their own depth
in a good soil.

2. By dividing the plant. It is taken out of the ground, all
the earth shaken from the roots, and then separated in such a way
that a portion of root may be left to each part. Some may be di-
vided without removing from the ground, with a sharp spade or
the trowel.

3. By runners. These are slender shoots that spring out from
the roots of some plants, and wherever a joint comes in contact
with the earth a root is produced. All that is necessary is to let
the joint become well rooted before it is removed. Similar to
these are the suckers which start out just above the roots of some
plants, and send down roots into the soil.

4. By cuttings or slips. These are only small portions of the
branch, which are removed and planted separately, and inasmuch
as the propagation of a great many of our most ornamental plants
depends upon this mode, it may be well to give more minute di-
rections with regard to it. Many annuals which do not ripen their
seed, are thus continued from year to year, and form some of the
chief ornaments of our flower gardens. Such are the beautiful
varieties of the verbena and pelunia, salvia splendens, and many
others, which enliven our borders through the whole season. In
this way also, varieties of flov/ering plants are perpetuated, tk

seed of which will not reproduce the same kinds,
monthly roses and most plants which are grown
in pots.

Slips should be taken from wood of the latest
growth which has become hardened, and where it
is possible, with a collar of the old w^ood, (fig. a-)
If not, they should be cut off with a sharp knife,
making a smooth surface immediately below a
leaf bud and as close as possible to the foot of the leaf, (fig. h.)\
The length of the cutting is of little consequence, but it may con-
sist of three or four joints or
jjiS^'^^aE-j^^^ ^ \| buds, and the leaves near tke|

^g;^^ ^^^6^^^ jl upper end may be left on. But

great care should be taken to
make a smooth cut, as, if the
bark is torn or jagged, it will
most certainly fail. Some plants

farmers' miscellany. 307

may be produced from cuttings, taken off without reference to
the bud. But this is the surest way. Sometimes a mere bud taken
off with a portion of bark attached to it, will take root, (fig. c.)

Cuttings of some plants will root freely if merely placed at a
proper depth in any good soil, but on the other hand, the greater
number require more or less care, and some are made to root
with great difficulty. Such can only be grown to advantage in
a green-house. Many require the artificial heat of a hot-bed, in
which the pots must be sunk ; and indeed all will root sooner
in this way. But they should be removed as soon as they are
well establi^ed in their growth, to the open air.

The best soil for cuttings is a tolerably rich one, with a free
mixture of white sand, to prevent its becoming packed and hard,
and to assist in draining it. A large proportion of powdered
charcoal will be found of great service. Indeed, it will be found
that in pure charcoal kept constantly wet, cuttings will grow more
jsure than in any other way, sometimes becoming rooted in a few
lays. Cuttings of some plants root better in pure sand. Fill a pot
ivithin an inch and a half of the top with earth, and on this place an
nch of sand. Through this sink the cutting, till the end just
;ouches the earth.

The pots in which cuttings are planted should be well drained,
50 as to carry off all superfluous moisture. For this purpose, a
)iece of broken pot should be placed over the hole in the bottom
ind a layer of the same upon it. On the top of this the earth
;hould be put, to within a half inch of the top. In this the slips
ire to be planted, either in the centre, or which is better, at the
;ides, so that they will touch the inner surface of the pot through-
)ut the whole length. This being porous will retain moisture,
md part with it slowly, so that there is little danger of drowning
hem.

The following is an excellent plan : in the bottom of a large pot
)lace a layer of broken tiles, so deep, that a small pot set upon
hem in the middle, will be level at the top with the large one.
The bottom hole of the inner one is to be stopped tight with a
|;ork. Having placed them thus, fill the space around with good
oil in which the slips are to be planted, with their ends cut slant-

308

QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ing SO as to fit against the side of the
small pot, (fig. e.) This is to be kept
full of water which will pass through
its pores in sufficient quantities, so
that none need be given to the earth
itself. The pots themselves, must
of course, be unglazed.

To preserve a uniform moisture,
and to prevent excessive evaporation.
a large tumbler or bell-glass, is ol
use, placed over the cuttings am
pressed gently into the ground arounc
them. This should be occasionally taken off, to allow a supply ol
fresh air to enter. They should be kept free from the direct lighl
and heat of the sun, but where they can have a good supply of light. '
Sinking the pots in the ground will be useful in order to secure i
uniform moisture of the earth in them.

No cutting should be planted deep, though large ones may b<
deeper than small ones. If they are sunk down to the second buc
it will generally be deep enough. About midsummer is the bes
time for planting cuttings, as the wood is then usually ripe.' Ai
soon as they have rooted well, they should be transplanted sing!}
into pots, or the places where they are to remain.

5. By layers. This consists simply in turning down a branch
fastening it with a hooked stick, and covering it with earth. Th(
advantage in this method is that the layer has the benefit of a con-
nection with a parent plant till it has become rooted. Some plants
will send out roots if a joint happens to be upon or near the sur-
face of the moist ground. There are several modes of layering
plants, of which the following are the most convenient :

farmers' miscellany.

309

With a sharp knife make an
incision half way tlirough the
branch to be layered, at or just
below the bud or joint. Then,
turning the edge of the knife
upwards, towards the top, split
it through the bud a short dis-
tance j say half an inch or
more. At this point then, it
is to be buried under the ground,
the end being placed as nearly
as possible upright, so as to
keep the split open. They
must be fastened down with
; hooked stick, to prevent their being disturbed before they have
ken root. After this has taken place, they should be care-
illy separated from the old plant, and in a few days removed
their places.

Another mode is to take out
a notch just below ^a bud, as
deep as the centre of the
branch, which is then to be
treated as above. Where a
viole branch is layered, if the notch is made at each bud, a num-
rmber of plants may be obtained.

Ringing, or taking off a
small ring of the bark, quite
around it, and down to the
wood, is another method . This
must be done also just below
a bud or joint. The Chinese
grow a great many dwarf fruit
ties in this way. They select the fruit bearing branches, and
riging them, bind on the ring a ball of rich earth, which is kept
distantly wet by water dropping from a vessel placed above.
1 ey become rooted in a few weeks, when they are removed to
p s. The orange and lemon may be propagated in this way with
SI cess ; or the branch may be thrust through a hole in the bottom

310 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

of a pot, which can be filled with earth, and kept wet in the same
way J or, instead of ringing, a few holes pierced through the
branch with an awl, will answer as well.

6. In arching — another method of propagating some kinds of
flowering plants, consists in uniting two branches whilst attached
to the parent stem. But as this cannot be practised generally,
except under the most favorable circumstances, it will be passed by.

7. Budding is a process which can be performed by any one,
and thus much beauty may be added to the flower garden. This
is done by making an incision about one quarter of an inch in
length, across the branch and through the bark. Perpendicular to
this, another incision is made downwards, an inch or more in
length, also through the bark. The bud is prepared by taking it
from the last year's growth of wood, which hasbecome hard, with
about an inch, or even less, of the bark below, and a half an inch
above it, cutting it off" smooth down to the wood, or even with a
small piece of wood attached to it, which may afterwards be care-
fully removed, or left at pleasure. Now, with a flat piece of ivory,
like a narrow paper-folder, loosen the bark on both sides of the
incision that was made, and carefully insert the bud, pressing it
down till the bark attached to it is nearly all in, and then cut ofl
the upper end of this bark even with the transverse incision. Ti(
the bark down moderately tight with a soft woolen yarn, botl
above and below the bud, passing it several times around. Th(
bass matting used by florists is still better than yarn. But this i:
mentioned as being easily procured. In three or four weeks th<
bud will have taken, when the string must be removed.

Budding may be performed from July to September, and in th<
following spring the stem should be cut off close above the bud.

8. New varieties of flowers are produced by impregnating th(
flower of one plant with the pollen or dust of another of the sann
family. All that is necessary, is to to cutoff", with a sharp pointec
scissors the stamens of the plant to be operated on, and withafini
camel's hair pencil take the dust from the one with which it is t(
be impregnated, and deposit it on the pistil of the former. Thi;
is to be done in general, shortly after the flower opens. After th'
seed ripens, it is to be sown as usual. In this way the endles
varieties of flowers which adorn our gardens, are produced.

farmers' miscellany. 311

» MANURE.— NO. II.

MANAGEMENT AND APPLICATION.

It has appeared to \iz better, before examining the causes in-
luencing the action of manures, to make our remarks assume a
noce practical form, and direct the attention of our readers to the
nanagcment and application of those substances which arc com-
Qonly used for supplying the food of plants. These are points
vhich — let objectors say what they may — are capable of being,

0 a great degree, settled. Experiment, if correctly pursued, will
le found to confirm whatever theory suggests. And in advocating
cOnomical farming, it is necessary to have a good understanding
f the way in which manures may be made to exert their utmost
fFect and suffer the least loss. But we do not theorise only — we
epend upon what is already known from experience in some mea-
are, and shall attempt, in as brief a manner as possible, to lay the
latter in a clear light before the reader. If in doing this, we say
luch that some already know, we are certain they will excuse us,
/hen they reflect that we write for the ignorant, that they also
iiay know.

1 The first consideration then, claiming our notice, is the saving
f manure. We read in ancient mythology, of the uEgean stables,
nd their purification ; but we realize something of it, when we
Be the mountains of manure which the Wolga bears away every
pring, on its ice — the accumulations of the neighboring farm-yards
-or when, " on the borders of the Roman Campagna, we see
hole hills of dung — the long accumulating refuse from the stables
f the post-house." Such an exhibition might excite surprise in
le most slovenly and wasteful of our farmers ; and yet, among
,ie best of our practical agriculturists, instances are not rare, of
1 disregard of saving, which, if not exactly parallel to these, are,
) say the least, equally deplorable. We have ourselves travelled
irough a large portion of our new states, and witnessed much of
lis evil. Vast piles of manure are suffered to go to waste, or even
irted out in the spring and thrown into some pond-hole — the en-
re straw of numerous harvests left to rot on the spot where it
as threshed, or turned on the same spot, are some of the evi-

312 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

dences of ignorance and sloth, which have often met our eyes.
In those new settlements, men do not seem to look forward be-
yond the present fertility of the soil — to its slow, indeed, but cer-
tain, deterioration ; .and we can regard such practices there, with
some pardon. But when we find the same disposition manifested
— though not so palpably, perhaps — in the old, and already worn-
out sections of the country — the little care that is taken to increase
the quantity and improve the quality of manures — in suffering {he
whole drainage of the farm-yard to run off into some stream or
pond, and such like waste, we cannot suppress the expression of
our surprise. It would often seem, indeed, as if the-dung hill were
placed intentionally where every thing should be most favorable to
secure for it the most thorough washing, from the rains falling
upon it, and all atmospheric aid in becoming completely dissi-
pated. Let us employ, then, a short space in investigating the re-
sources of the farm for its own maintenance.

1. The farm-yard ought to be the mine of wealth to every one
who appreciates the value of manure. Here are collected the
excrements of all the domestic animals — the litter of the stalls —
the straw and refuse of the farm, and all those substances which
have once constituted a plant, and are, of course, the very materi-
als necessary to supply food to others. We will consider, here-
after, the means of preserving these manures, and bringing them
to that condition in which they will most efficaciously promote
vegetation. We wish, now, to impress upon the minds of everj
tiller of the soil, the great importance of collecting in one spot,
every thing which will in the least degree promote the growth ol
a plant, or the maturity of a seed. Its construction should bt
such, that no particle shall ever escape from it,. and capacity sc
great as to hold all that can be accumulated in it. And the mair
source of waste is generally found in the passage that is allowec
for the liquids to flow off. This should be prevented by the con-
struction of tanks which will receive it ; and from these it shoulc
often be pumped out and distributed on the solid contents of tht
yard. There, also, should be collected the liquid excrements oi
animals — a species of manure which is ordinarily little regarded
or entirely wasted, but which is, in fact, far more powerful in its ac-
tion than the solid. It is in the attention which the farmer bestows
upon this subject, that his enterprise and intelligence appears, anc

farmers' miscellany.

313

a good opinion may commonly be formed of the man, by the con-
dition of his farm-yard. Those countries which have excelled in
agriculture, have always been those which have used the greatest
diligence in the collection of every thing which could act as a

manure.

2. Aside from the farm-yard may be found much that, rightly
managed, will add greatly to the fertility of the soil ; but all ought
to be gathered in there. The contents of the piggery— of the
3oultry-house— night soil— the waste of the house, and all the
^eeds of the farm, if added to the general stock, would swell the
mount considerably. Thoroughly scientific farming, may suggest
he application of particular manures to certain crops ; but the
imount of knowledge we now have on this subject, and the
oethod of farming in this country, preclude this for the present.
Ne must be content to supply food to different plants, from the
ommon stock of manure, till we understand more of the particu-
ir wants of each.

I We may mention, in this connection, the vast bodies of marl
nd of peat, which exist in every neighborhood, and on almost
;very farm. In these is to be found a source of fertility almost
iiexhaustible ; and yet it is wonderful how few are aware of their
alue. We stated, in a previous article, the composition of plants,
nd from that it will be evident, that whatever has once helped to
institute the body of a plant when living, is capable, after death,
f being resolved again into that form in which it may be again
dfen up by a new plant, in the shape of food. All animal bodies
re derived from the same source, and are capable of the same
lange. Whatever, therefore, on the farm, has ever been once a
)mponent part of a plant or an animal, should be carefully pre-
;rved and prepared, to be applied to the soil, to increase its fer-
lity. The annual waste of these substances, in every neighbor-
i3od, is enormous, and indeed, upon every farm that is not con-
'icted upon principles of economy. We are led, then, directly to
le consideration of the preparation and management of the ma-
ire on the farm.

The idea has been advanced in years past by writers, in speak-

g of the distinction between plants and animals, that one point

j difference is to be found in the form in which they receive

eir food. Animals require food of a highly organized form,

YQL. 1. NO. II, I

314 Q.UARTERLY J au R N A L,

which by the powers of the alimentary canal, is converted intoj
nutriment for their bodies. On the other hand, plants require i
their food in quite an opposite condition — that is, in order to fit it
for their use, it must be decomposed and reduced almost to its
elementary state. In our former article, we partially dissented
from this opinion, and expressed the idea that they as well as ani-
mals, have the power of converting organic matter into nutri-
ment, after they have absorbed it. One thing is, however, be-
yond dispute — that all their nutriment which they receive by
their roots, must be in a fluid form, and all substances must be
reduced to a soluble state, before they are fit for absorption by
them. It will be the object of the farmer then to convert all his
manures into this state. But at the same time, let it be remem-
bered', that during the changes which take place in animal and ve-
getable matter, while passing into this condition, it is liable tc
experience a great waste, which is to be carefully guarded against
What this waste consists in, will readily appear upon referring
to the constitution of plants. During the process of fermenta
tion which takes place in most manure, those elements called or
ganic, enter into various combinations, which being very volatile
are borne into the air and mingle with it, to be distributed fa
and wide over the earth. Those parts which are fixed and nc
volatile, if in a soluble state, are liable to be washed out by th
rain falling upon them, and in these two ways alone, a manur
heap may speedily be converted into an almost useless masi
Again — if the fermentation goes on too rapidly, and without pre
per precaution, it will soon have gone through a process equivt
lent to, and in fact the same as combustion, and little else wi
remain except a heap of ash.

We do not hesitate boldly to dissent from the theory, that ma
nures may be too much decomposed for beneficial application t
the soil. But let it be remembered that the decomposition mu!
be carefully conducted, and under such circumstances as to secui
against waste of any of the useful matter. We have long entei
tained this opinion, and are confirmed in it by experience. Tl
experiments of Mr. Campbell of Scotland, of soaking seeds i
solutions of salts, adds great weight to our position. The fu
growth and vigor of a plant is very much affected by the vig(
of germination, and the plentiful supply of nutriment, at an earl

farmers' miscellany. 315

period of its life. It is thus enabled to send out numerous roots
into the soil, and to expand its leaves rapidly to the light and air,
and prepare itself to thrive at a period when food is less abun-
dant. Precisely such M^ill be the effect of thoroughly decompo-
sed manures. But when applied in their raw state — that is, with-
out fermentation — depending upon adventitious causes to promote
those changes which they must undergo — at one time furnishing
an abundant supply, and at another scarcely any — and exercising
their least influence at the period of germination, and directly af-
terwards, when the young plant requires all possible nourishment
md aid to est?iblish its vital powers — they cannot be supposed to
Droduce as strong an effect as in the other case. It is indeed a
generally admitted fact, that manures do not have so much effect
he first year, as the year following that in which they are ap-
plied. If we were to reason by analogy, from the animal race,
lie position will be farther substantiated. We cannot deny, that
inhere the common imprudent attention to, and reckless disregard
)f the principles upon which manures act, is followed out in the
litter neglect of all care to secure them against injury or waste,
he unfermented state is the best. For when once in the ground,
'hey are safe from so much loss. The mere practical farmer
ivould therefore do well to apply his manures in their fresh state,
tnd plough them in — the rational farmer will prepare them be-
brehand, so as to secure their greatest effect. And we shall
•onclude this paper with a few practical directions for the care
Jid management of farm-yard manure.

We have stated already that all kinds should be collected in
he yard. By this means a mixture is obtained, promising in a
legree the qualities of all, and proper to be applied to any crop.
Che yard should be made sloping from the sides to the centre, so
s to prevent any liquid from escaping, and the bottom should be
jovered with a thick layer of peat, or swamp muck, or vegetable
patter — or, in the want of any of these, a quantity of earth may
\e used. In the lowest part a tank should be sunk, capable of
ontaining many hogsheads of water, and into which all the drain-
igs of the yard should be conducted. During the season in which
jattle and horses are stabled, all the manure and litter must be
pmoved from the stables and spread over the surface of the yard,
5 be trodden down and mixed with the substances already placed

316 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

there. Thus a compost is formed, which by the addition daily ol
new materials, is partially excluded from the air, and by the treacfei
ing of cattle is so condensed, that the decomposition which ensuel
is slow and gradual, and equal through the whole mass. Thi
gases which would otherwise escape, are arrested by the peat, m
earth, which was added, and the salts are taken up by the wata
which passes through, and carried with all other soluble substaa
ces to the tank. From this the liquid should be frequently pump
out, and distributed over the contents of the yard. To this sami
tank the liquids from the stables should be led, to be used in thi
same way. Under such treatment, the whole mass will be speedi
ly reduced to a fine and powerful manure, and the smell of am^
monia, so often discovered about the dung-heap will be entirely
wanting, and the presence of that substance will not be indicate*
in the adjacent atmosphere by the most powerful tests. The ua
of charcoal, gypsum, and other salts, has been often recommend
for the purpose of arresting the ammonia generated in manun
heaps. If conducted as recommended above, they may be dii
pensed with for this purpose, although they would be valua
additions to the manure. In fact,]all substances which are capab]
of furnishing food for vegetables should be gathered into this pi
as the storehouse of the farmer's hopes.

The formation of compost heaps, we regard as still better thi
the above. In this case the management for the foundation
the heaps should be the same as that recommended for the yan
and also for the preservation of the liquids, both from the manui
and from the stable^;. Every fresh addition to the heap should h
spread on evenly, and not thrown upon it carelessly, for the
ject is to promote an equal and uniform decomposition. To sec
this also, and to prevent a rise of temperature, and consequent!;
too rapid fermentation, the heaps should be made quite soli
This may be effected by the feet of the workmen who construct ii
by rolling, or by driving the teams over it as the fresh portio;
of manure are added. As the heap increases in height, whi
should never be more than three or four feet, every few inches
layer of peat or earth may be made, which will be found high!;
useful in absorbing the gases which may be found, and thus the
substances will be converted into manure as good as the rest. Th(
liquid from the tank should be frequently distributed over t

farmers' miscellany. '317

heap to keep it from becoming too dry. All the substances which
would be added to the mass of the manure in the farm-yard may be
in the same way added to the compost heap to increase the quantity
IS well as improve the value of it.

We had proposed to defer the consideration of the application
3f manures to the soil, to a future article. We will, however,
venture one or two remarks on that subject here. Are not ma-
lures too generally buried too deep for obtaining their full influence
ipon growing plants ? There are two sources of loss to be avoid-
■d— one is the tendency of the gases to escape into the air, and
he other the tendency of the soluble portions to be washed down-
•ards into the earth ; and these in practice stand directly opposite
) each other. But, w^e believe, the downward tendency is the
lost to be avoided. A very slight covering of earth, from its po-
)us nature, is capable of confining all the gases. But the rain
lling upon the earth and passing directly through the soil, must
evitably, in its passage, carry down too low for the roots of
ants, all the soluble portions of manure. Allowance must be
ade for difference in soils; we refer to the general principle,
hich will be examined more at large hereafter.

NEV BOOKS.

Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry and Geology. " The profit of the earth is fo
all ; the King himself is served by the yield." — Eccles, v. 9. By James F. W. Jobs
ston, M. a., F. R. S. S., L. & E., etc. With an Appendix. Republished b
Wiley & Putnam. 619 pp., besides the Appendix of 89 p. Price, 12s.

The American publishers of this work have performed an
ceedingly important service to the American farmer, by givii
these lectures of Prof. Johnston in a compact and cheap form-
for cheap they are, considering the amount of matter which thi
contain, and the great interest of the subjects which are discuss
in them.

There is only occasionally a work so opportune as this ; on
which the times required, and without which, a blank would ha^
been very obvious to every intelligent agriculturist. We hav
in fact, very rarely studied a work which came up to so high
standard of excellence as this, and which of itself forms what mi
be truly styled " the Farmer's Text BookP The lectures a:
plain and simple, yet full, and though the subjects themselV'
would excuse the use of many technical terms, yet there are nor
of which the farmer can complain.

The author has divided them into four parts, taking up ai
treating the subjects in the order of their simplicity. He con
mences with the elementary principles which belong to the su
jects, and proceeds to those which are more complex, and farth
removed from the common attainments of gentlemen who ha-
not made chemistry and its kindred sciences special subjects
cultivation. By this disposition of the matters treated of, tho
obscurities are really avoided which may seem to exist, when tl
more advanced part of the course is reached, and are taken i
without reference to what has preceded, or what has been alreat
explained. The reader will see from the following brief synops

NEW BOOKS. 319

^f the subjects treated of, the whole range and scope of the lec-
I tures as they were delivered.

"Tlie first part is devoted to the organic elements and parts of plants, the nature and
sources of those elements, and to an explanation of the mode in which they become con-
verted into the substance of plants ; the second to the inorganic elements of plants, com-
prehending the study of tlie soils from which these elements are derived, and the general re-
lations of geology to agriculture ; the third to the various methods, mechanical and chemi-
cal, by which tiie soil may be improved, and especially to the nature of manures by which
soils are made more productive ; and the fourth to the results of vegetation, to the kind and
value of the food produced under different circumstances, and its relation to the growth
and feeding of cattle, and to the amount and quality of dairy produce^"

It will be perceived that this synopsis of subjects covers a wide
jrange of matter ; in fact, the whole field of domestic economy,
jThat the reader may have some idea how the distinguished lecturer
.handles his subjects, we give one extract at random.

" Why Lijie must be kept near the surface. — Nor will you fail to see the important
reasons why lime ought to be kept near the surface of the soil — since

1st. The action of hme on organic matter is almost nothing in the absence of air and
jmoisture. If the lime sink, therefore, beyond the constant reach of fresh air, its efficacy
lis in a great degree lost,

. 2d. But the agency of the light and heat of the sun, though I have not hitherto spedally
'insisted upon their action, are scarcely less necessary to the full experience of the benefits
which lime is capable of conferring. The light of the sun accelerates nearly all the che-
(mical decompositions that take place in the soil — while some it appears especially to pro-
imote. The warmth of the sun's rays may penetrate to some depth, but the light can
'only act upon the immediate surface of the soil. Hence the skill ul agriculturist will en-
deavor, if possible, to keep some of his lime at least upon the very surface of his arable
land. Perhaps this influence of light might be even adduced as an argument in favor of
the frequent application of lime in small doses, as a means of keeping a portion of it al-
ways within reach of the sun's rays ; and this more especially on grass lands, to which no
mechanical means can be applied for the purpose of bringing again to the surface the Erne
that has sunk.

There are, at the same time, as you will recollect, good reasons, also, why a portion of
ihe lime should be diffused through the soil, both for the purpose of combining with or-
ganic acids already existing there, and with a view of acting upon certain inorganic or
mineral substances, which are either decidedly injurious, or by the action of hme may be
rendered more wholesome to vegetation-

In order that this diffusion may be effected, and especially that lime may not be unnecessarily
wasted where pains are taken by mechanical means to keep it near the surface, an efficient
isystem o; underdrainage should be carefully kept up. Where rains that fall are allowed to
(flow off the surface of the land, they wash more lime away ihe more carefully it is kept
jamong the upper soil — but where a free outlet is affurded to the waters beneath, ihey
carry the hme with them as they sink towards the subsoil, and have been robbed again of
pe greater part of it before they escape into the drains. Thus, on drained land, the rains
Ithat fall aid lime in producing its beneficial effects, while in undrained land they in a
greater or less degree counteract it."

320 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Chemistry as Exemplitsinq the Wisdom and Beneficence of God : By George Fownev \
p. H. D. New- York, Wiley & Putnam. Philadelphia, J. W. Moore. 1844, pp. 158^ '
12ino* Price 50 cents.

This work is a Prize Essay, prepared by the author in fulfilment
of an appointment by the President, Managers and Members of the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, a committee, charged witb|
the execution of a bequest of jeiOOO, the interest of which is tc
be devoted septennially as a prize for the best essay, illustrative
of the wisdom and benificence of the Almighty,* The subject I
selected for the first essay is announced in the title page- as abovCrj
' The range and foundation of the argument demonstrating the
goodness and benevolence of God, as illustrated in the chemistry of
organic and inorganic substances, may be seen in the special sub-
jects of the essay. The order in which they stand is as follows :

1 . The Chemical History of the Earth and the atmosphere.

2. The peculiarities which characterize organic substances gen-
erally.

3. The composition and sustenance of Plants.

4. The relations existing between plants and animals.

The critical notices of this work have been uniformly kind and
flattering to its author, both as to value of its matter and the clear-,)!
ness of the argument and the simplicity of its style.

For an illustration of its character, we give the following quo-
tation from the 106-7 pp., almost at random, on the cause and
source of animal heat :

" Carbon and hydrogen are burned in the blood, and this to an extent which will strike
with surprise, and at first, incredulity, those unaccustomed to such considerations. Many
ounces of carbon are, in every individual, daily rejected from the lungs as carbonic acid.
It ia impossible that combustible matter can thus be disposed of without the evoludon of a
vast amount of heat ; as much heat, in fact, as if it had been burnt in a fire grate.

This heat is manifest in the elevation of temperature which the animal frairie always
possesses above that of the surrounding medium; an elevation of temperature always in
the direct proportion to the amount of nervous and muscular energy ol the animal, and
the vigor of respiration, but never in any single case altogether absent.
The internal capillary combustion is the sottrce of anivial heat.

Thus much for the body. Every part where blood-ves.-els are to be found ; every part,
where nervous influence is perceptible ; every organ, every tissue ; muscle, and brain, and
Uerve, and membrane, waste away hke a burning taper, consume to air and ashes, and
pass from the system, rejected and useless ; and where no means are at hand /or repair-
ing these daily and hourly losses, the individual perishes — dies more slowly but nut less
anrely, than by a blazing pile. He is, to the very 1 ttcr, burned to death at a low tempera-
ture; the various constituents of the body give way in succe-sion ; fiist, the fat disappears ;

* This fund owes is existence to the Uberality of the late Samuel Acton, Esq.) of Euston
Squaret Eng.

NEW BOOKS. 321

this ia the most combustible ; it is to be sacrificed ;f then the muscles shrink, and soften
and decay. At last the substance of the brain becomes attacked, madness and death
close the scene. This is starvation."

Rural Economy, in its relations with Ciicmistry, Pliysicsand Meteorology, or Chemistrt
appliedto AuRicui.TDKE, by J. B. Boussaingault, Member of ihelnsiitute of France, &c.
Translated, with an introduction and note?, by (ieorge Law, Agricultuiist. New
York, D. Appleton, & Co. Philadelphia, George S. Appleton, 1845.

This work needs no commendation from us. The author's name
is enough to insure it a careful perusal by all who look to science
as the handmaid of agriculture. It contains a full system of farming
in a summary way, the first part treating, in the words of the au-
thor's preface, " of the physical and chemical phenomena of ve-
getation— of the composition of vegetables and their immediate
principles — of fermentation — and of soils. The second comprises
1 summary of all that has yet been done on the subject of ma-
lures, organic and mineral — -a discussion of the subject of rota-
.ions — general views of the maintenance and economy of live
jjtock — finally, some considerations on meteorology and climatej
imd on the relations between organized beings and the atmosphere."
' We hesitate not to commend this work to all who seek the aid
)f science in the noblest and best of all pursuits, and we do it the
Qore cheerfully, because we are heartily rejoiced whenever we see
I work for the farmer, from a man who has devoted himself as
las M. Boussaingault to their interests. He is a practical farmer,
s well as an experienced and careful chemist, and it is not by fol-
owing the opinions of any one man that the farmers are to suc-
eed- They might read and think, and compare and reason in
latters relating to their business, and in this way only can they
,ecome the class of men they ought to be in this country, and
Vhich we believe they are ere long destined to be.
The gentlemen Appletons have got this work up in excellent
yle.

sTTEt States Exploring Expedition.

We received from Lee & Blanchard, Philadelphia, but too late
r our January number, specimen sheets of this truly great work,
f Charles Wilkes, U. S. N., Commander of the Expedition, &c.

■322 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The letter-press and engravings are in superior style. The work
consists of " five magnificient large imperial octavo volumes —
containing sixty-eight large steel engravings — forty-six steel vig-
nettes— three hundred wood cuts — thirteen maps and charts, and
twenty-five hundred pages letter-press. Price $25,00 to subscri-
bersj done up in beautiful extra cloth binding*

The Parmer's Mine, or Source of Wealth, being a compilation, with the addition ol
new and important information on the subject of manure, together with the most ap-
proved methods ior the manufacture of vegetable manure, by which the farmer can ob-
tain, in the shortest possible time, as much manure of the richest qualify as he pleaset
^to whicli is added Productive Farming, by Joseph A. Smith. By Henry Hear-
mance. Revised and corrected by A. B. Allen, Editor of the American Agriculturist.
New- York, published by Henry Heermance, and for sale by Saxton & Miles, office o:
the American Agriculturist, 205 Broadway. 1845.

This book, with this tremendous long title, containsa great deal
of practical information for the farmer on the subject of manures
and is a compilation of the views of various authors on that sub-
ject.

The Chemistry of Vegetable and Animal Physiology, by Dr. G. T. Mulder, Professo
of Chemistry in the University of Utrecht. Translated from the Dutch, by P. F. H
Fromberg, First Assistant in the Laboratory of the Scotch Agricultural Chemistry Ab
sociation, of Scotland. With an introduction by Professor J. F. W. Johnston, F. R. S
S., L. & E.

First authorized American edition, with notes and corrections by B. Silliman, Jr. Vol. 1
Part I. No. 1. New- York, Wiley & Putnam. 1845, Price, 20 cents.

We have read the first number of this work with attention, ant
have come to the conclusion that, thus far, it is the most philoso
phical treatise iipon vegetable and animal physiology which ha
yet appeared. It is not a repetition of the views of Liebig o
Boussaingault ,or of any preceding writer. It is a work which stand
by itself, and is made up of the matter and thctught of Miilde
with all the aid which cotemporary laborers can give in this pro
lific field of research. The names upon the title page are th'

NEW BOOKS. 323

strongest testimony to the value of the publication which can be
given. We like especially the size and typographical execution
of the work. The paper is white, and the printing uniform and
beautiful.

Catalogues. — We call the attention of our friends to a series of Catalogues, by Wiley &.
Putnam, Publishers and Importers of Foreign Books, 161 Broadway, New- York.

They are published in four divisions, viz :

I. Science, Natural History, Useful and Fine Arts.

II. History, Biography, and General Literature; Greek and
Latin Classics, Philology, <fcc.

III. Theological Literature.

IV. Medical Literature, with copious appendices.

The subjects are classified, and each book has its price affixed.
A list of all the Periodicals is subjoined, with their prices per an-
num. These catalogues are of great value as well as convenience
to the reading community ; they may be had gratis on applica-
tion to the publishers.

Stable Economy, a treatise on the management of Horses in relation to Stab! ng, Groom'
ing. Feeding, Watcrmg and Working. By John Stewart, Veterinary Surgeon, author
of "advice to purchasers of horses," and lately Professor of Veterinary medicine in the
Andersonian University, Olasgow. New- York, D. Appleton, & Co. Philadelphia,
G. S. Appleton.

This work was received too late for us to give it a perusal, but
the name of A. B. Allen, editor of the American Agriculturist,
who has prefaced it and adapted it to the wants of this country,
will be sufficient recommendation of it to all who are interested in
I Ae use of that noble animal, the horse. In preparing it, Mr. Al-
len states that he has taken the liberty to correct many errors of
the author, and in some instances to suppress " whole pages, all of
which were either quite erroneous In matters of fact, or totally in-
applicable to this country." We like this. Too much of import-
ed knowledge is often unhesitatingly adopted in this country, and
thus great mistakes committed.

I

EXTRACTS \

PBOM

DOMESTIC AND FOEEIGN JOUEMLS.

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MINERAL SUBSTANCES, ,
IN INDIVIDUAL ORGANS OF PLANTS.

BY DR. A. VOGEL, JUN.*

It has been ascertained by direct experiment, that the quantity
of inorganic matter assimilated by plants differs raateriallyin the
different organs to which it has been distributed. Hertwig,
at the suggestion of Prof. Liebig, demonstrated that the earthy
matter of the tubers of the potatoe plant, differed from those of
the stalks, or the herbaceous parts. V ogel, Jun., in order to set at
rest the question generally, undertook the examination of several
species of plants, the results of which have established the fact,
that the inorganic matters of the root, differ from those of the
trunk, both in kind and quantity. The following may be stated
as an example of the results which have been obtained by an ana-
lysis of the ashes of the different parts of a vegetable ; the one
employed was a species of pear. (Pyrus spectabilis.)!

1. From the trunk, Vogel obtained from the ashes 82 per cent
of carbonate of lime. And 8 per cent of the insoluble phos*
phates of lime and magnesia, with a slight admixture of magnesia.

2. The ashes of the leaves contain about 7 per cent of soluble
alkaline carbonates, with traces of sulphate of potash, chloride of
sodium, (common salt,) and phosphate of potash. The carbonate
of lime, is 10 per cent less in the leaves than in the trunk.
While the phosphate of lime and magnesia amount to 10. The
quantity of magnesia is nearly twofold ; 4.9 per cent, it is now
9.76 per cent.

3. The ashes of fruits contain of soluble parts 33 . 1 per cent.
The quantity of carbonate of lime has diminished from 82 per
cent, to 37 per cent, whereas the phosphate of lime and magnesia,
has augmented to 18 per cent ; the phosphoric combinations taken
together, amount in the fruits to over one third, or to 36.38 per

* Annalen der. Chemie and Pharmacie, July, 1844.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 325

cent. The quantity of iron too, diminishes from the trunk to the
fruit.

GENERAL SUMMARY.

Trunk. Leaves. Fruit.

Alkaline carbonates, 4.6 6.80 1.90

Carbonate of lime, 82.2 72.90 37.00

Alkaline phosphates, traces 14.10

Carbonate of magnesia, 4.9 9.76 5.52

Phosphate of lime & magnesia, 8.8 10.50 18.60

Silica, 3.70

100.5 99.96 97.92

[From Chambers' Edingburgh JouraaJ.]

NUTRIMENT.

I

IComparative quantity of nutriment in the various articles used for food among all
I nations ; derived from a report of Messrs. Perey and Vanquelin, and presented to
the French Minister of the Interior.

I The result of the experiments of Messrs. Perey and Vanquelin
IS as follows : — In bread, every 100 lbs. are found to contain
30 lbs. of nutritious matter ; butchers' meat, averaging the various
sorts, 31 lbs. ; French beans, 80 lbs. ; pease, 23 lbs. ; lentiles, 94
lbs. ; greens and turnips, 8 lbs. ; carrots, 14 lbs ; potatoes, 25 lbs.
According to this estimate, 1 lb. of good bread is equal to 2 1-2
)r 3 lbs. of the best potatoes ; and 75 Ibs.^bread and 30 lbs. butch-
jfs' meat, are equal to 300 lbs. of potatoes ; or again, 1 lb. of rice
)r of broad beans, is equal to 3 lbs of potatoes, while 1 lb, pota-
•oes is equal to 4 lbs. of cabbage, and to 3 lbs. turnips. This
•calculation is considered perfectly correct, and may be useful to
"amilies, where the best mode of supporting nature should be
idopted at the least expense.

1 One remark seems to be called for in connection with the
|bove extract, viz : That it is rarely, if ever, proper to
fring the condition of food into a concentrated state, so as to oc-
tupy the least possible bulk — or, in other words, to separate the
utritious from that which is not of this character. Some bulk is
bsolutely essential to health, and even to satisfy the cravings of
be appetite ; still, this comparative view of the different nutri-
lents, is highly important, and not only worthy the attention of
fiose who are charged with the duty of supplying food for fami-
es, but to those who feed stock ; and we have no doubt, but the

326 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

real value of the different kinds of butchers' meat, depends great-
ly upon the food upon which the animals were fattened ; and
that there is at least one third difference between the value of
meat fattened upon Indian corn, and the best of the roots which
are generally substituted for it. — Eds.

SULPHUR IN PLANTS.

We do not speak of the existence of sulphur in plants as a new
discovery, still it is a highly interesting fact, and deserving ol
careful investigation. Dr. Vogel, Senior, of Munich, has very re-
cently called the attention of chemists to this subject. It appears
that the cruciferoe as mustard, scurvy grass, &c., contains sulphur as
a constituent principle, particularly the pepper-grass (Lepidiuir
sativum.) It had been supposed that this substance was admittet
into the plant from the soil, but from the experiments of Dr. Vo-
gel, it appears that even when all substances containing sulphur
are excluded from an artificial soil in which pepper-grass ha;
grown, and when watered with distilled water, that it still con
tains sulphur. This apparently puzzling fact, seems however, ti
be explained on the ground that plants obtain it from the atmos
phere. If this conjecture is true, it leads to the establishment o
the fact, that one or more of the compounds of sulphur exis
constantly in the atmosphere. This compound is supposed to b
sulphuretted hydrogen, which exists in all mineral water, termc'
hepatic, and also in all animals and vegetable products in a stat
of decay.

EXTRACT S F OREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 327

MEMOIR ON THE DISTRIBUTION OR APPROPRIATION
OF LANDS.*

BT PROFESSOR LIEBIG.

The most attentive investigations concerning the animal bodies
have shown that the blood, the bones, the hair, &c., as well as all
the organs, contain a certain number of mineral substances. If
these were not present in the food, their formation could not take
place.

The blood contains potassa and soda, as well as compounds of
these bases with phosphoric acid. The bile is rich in alkalies ; the
substance of the muscles contains a certain quantity of sulphur ;
the red coloring matter of the blood contains iron ; the most impor
tant principle of the bones is phosphate of lime ; the nervous and
3elebral substance contains phosphoric acid and alkaline phosphates;
Ithe gastric juice, free hydrochloric acid.

' We know that the free hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice,
imd a portion of the soda in the blood, arise from chloride of so-
liium ; and that, by the simple privation of this salt,^ we put an
end to digestion and life.

If we give for nourishment, to a young pigeon [Chossafy Cumpfes
'Rendus de VAcademi des Sciences, June, 1843), grains of wheat,
\n which the most important principle of its bones, phosphate of
lime, is wanting, and if it be prevented from procuring elsewhere,
the lime which is necessary for it, we perceive that its bones be-
;ome more and more thin and fragile, and that the continued de-
privation of this substance produces death. If we suppress the
carbonate of lime in the nourishment of birds, they lay eggs de-
srived of the hard protective shell.

If we feed a cow with an excess of tubercles and roots, such as
)otatoes and beet-root, which contain phosphate of magnesia, but
^)nly traces of lime, the animal experiences the same fate as the
iroung pigeon.

j If we remove daily from the cow in its milk, a certain quantity
j)f the phosphate of lime, without repairing this loss in its nourish-
nent, this phosphate must be taken from its bones, which gradu-
illy lose their strength and solidity, and finally become incapable
)f supporting the weight of its body.

If we add to the nourishment of the pigeon, grains of barley or

• Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie.

328 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

peaSj or to that of the cow, barley straw or clover, which are rich
in salts of lime, the health of the animal is sustained.*

Men and animals receive their blood and the principles of their
bodies from the vegetable kingdom, and an inscrutable wisdom has
ordained that the life and the vegetation of the plant should be
connected by the closest links with the absorption of the same mi-
neral substances that are indispensable to the animal organism.
Without those inorganic matters which we know to be principle
of their ashes, it is impossible to form an idea concerning the for
mation of the germ, of the leaf, of the flower, and of the fruit

The quantity of the principles serving for the nourishment o;
animals is extremely unequal in the cultivated plants.

There is a much greater relation between tubercles and roots,
with respect to their chemical principles, than with the seeds. The
latter have always a similar composition.

Potatoes, for example, contain from 75 to 77 per cent of water,
and from 23 to 25 per cent of solid substance. By means of a
mechanical operation, we can decompose the latter into 18 or 19
parts of starch, and three or four parts of dry, amylaceous fibre.
It is easy to see that the two combined, weigh almost as much as
the dry potatoes themselves. The two hundredths which are
wanting are formed of salts, and of the sulphuro-nitrogenous sub-
stance known under the name of albumen.

Beet roots contain from 88 to 90 per cent of water, 25 parts of
beet roots contain very nearly the same elements as 25 parts of
dried potatoes. We found from 18 to 19 parts of sugar, and 3 or
4 parts of cellular tissue ; half of the two hundredths which are
wanting is formed of salts ; the rest is albumen.

Turnips contain from 90 to 92 parts of water. From 23 to 25
parts of dry turnips contain from 18 to 19 parts of pectine, with
very little sugar, three or four parts of cellular tissue, and two
parts of salts and albumen. Sugar, starch, and pectine contain no
nitrogen ; they are met with in plants in the free state, never in
that of combination with salts or alkaline bases. These are com-
binations formed by the carbon of the carbonic acid, and the prin-
ciples of water, whose elements take the form of starch in the po-
tatoe, that of sugar in the beet-root, and that of pectine in the
turnip.

We have as a sulphuro-nitrogenous principle, in the seeds of
cereals, vegetable fibrin; in peas, beans, and lentils, casein; in the

• The workmen, in the mines of South America, whose daily work (perhaps the
hardest in tlie world,) consists in raising' on their shoulders, from a depth of l-Rim. 178,
a charge from the mine of the weight of from 5)0 lo ItX) kil., live only on bread and
beans; they would prefer bread alone for their nourishment; but their masters, who
have fountl (hat they cannot work so hard with bread alone, treat them like horses, and
force them to eat beans, [Darwin, Journal of Researches, \i. 324.] But beans contain
proportionally, much more of the eartliy substance of the bones than bread.

]

EXTRACT S — F OREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 329

seeds of oleaginous plants, albumen^ and a substance greatly resem-
bling casein.

The vegetable fibrin of the seeds of cereals is accompanied by
starch. This same body is a principle of the pods of leguminous
plants. In the oleaginous seeds the starch is replaced by another
nitrogenous principle, analogous to oil, butter, or wax.

It is evident that, according to the object of culture, and accord-
ing to the principles which we wish to obtain, we should present
to plants the conditions necessary for their production. Sugar
and starch require the addition of other substances than the sul-
phuro-nitrogenous principles.

To furnish to the potatoe and the beet-root the necessary princi-
ples of their leaves, that is to say, organs destined for the absorp-
tion and assimilation of carbonic acid, is to fulfil the conditions of
the formation of starch and sugar.

The juice of all vegetables rich in sugar and starch, and most
Df the ligneous plants, is rich in potassa, soda, or the alkaline
;arths. These alkalies and alkaline earths cannot be considered as
iccidental principles ; we must suppose that they answer certain
)bjects in the organism of the plant, and that they are absolutely
lecessary for the formation of certain combinations. I have said
iiat they are combined in plants with organic acids which charac-
erize some kinds of vegetables, so that they are never wanting.
The organic acids themselves should be the intermedia of certain
dtal functions in the organism of the plant. Now, if it be borne
n mind, that fruits, before arriving at maturity, grapes for exam-
)le, are not eatable on account of their great quantity of acid, that
hese fruits act absolutely like leaves in the solar light, endowed, as
hey are, with the power of absorbing carbonic acid, and of elimi-
lating oxygen (De Saussure); that the augmentation of the sugar
;oincides with the diminution of the acid, we can scarcely help
hinking that the carbon of the organic acid in the fruit, before its
Qaturity, becomes a principle of sugar in the ripe fruit, that it is
bus, by an elimination of oxygen, with an assimilation of the ele-
Qents of water, that the acid is converted into sugar.
The tartaric acid in grapes, the citric acid in cherries and goose-
erries, and the malic acid in summer apples which ripen on the
fees, are, therefore, the intermedia of the conversion of carbonic
cid into sugar ; deprived of the proper temperature, and of the
ction of the solar light, they would not undergo the changes of
bis metamorphosis.

Now, we see in the sorb apple of bird-catchers {sorhier des oise-
eurs^) the tartaric acid replaced by malic acid, the more oxyge-
ous acid by the acid containing less oxygen ; we see the malic
cid gradually, almost completely disappear from these fruits, and
'e find in its place gum and mucilage, which did not previously
sist in them, and, consequently, we have reason to admit the con-

VOL. I. NO. II. K

330 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

version of the carbon of the tartaric acid into that principle of
malic acid which succeeds to it, a transformation not easily involv-
ed in doubt, as much as we have to attribute it to the metamor-
phosis of those acids into sugar.

The opinion that a plant assimilates carbonic acid, that this car-
bonic acid takes in its organism the forms of tartaric, racemic, and
citric acids, only to be finally converted into carbonic acid ; this
opinion, I say, cannot be reasonably sustained.

If this mode of view relative to the part which organic acids
take in the formation of sugar be confirmed, it should have the
same value relative to the formation of all the other non-nitroge-
nous substances of similar composition ; the formation of starch,
prctine, and gum, is not, therefore, immediately produced, without
transition, by the carbon of the carbonic acid, and the elements oi
water ; but a gradual transformation is operated in consequence ol
the production of coml^inations which become, by degrees, more
poor in oxygen, and richer in hydrogen. The formation of oil o:
turpentine cannot be represented without the production of analo-
gous intermediate bodies.

But if the organic combinations, rich in oxygen, the acids, an
the intermedia of the production of those which contain less oxy
gen, sugar, starch, &c., it is clear, that in cultivating plants, i)
which the acids are rarely in the free state, but in which they ordi
narily exist under the form of salts, the alkalies and the alkalin
bases should be regarded as the conditions of the production of th
non-nitrogenous principles. Without the presence of these base:
an organic acid may, perhaps, be formed ; but, without the acic
neither sugar, starch, gum, nor pectine, can be formed in the orgc
nism of these plants. In the fruits and seeds, in which the orga
nic acids are free, that is to say, not in the state of salts, such i
citric acid in lemons, oxalic acid in chick-peas, sugar is not form
ed. Sugar, gum, and starch, are produced only in the plants i
which the acids are found combined with bases, which are met wit
in plants.

Whatever may be the value which may be accorded to th
opinion concerning the part performed by alkaline bases in ll:
vital act of vegetables, the positive fact that, in young shoots, th
leaves and buds which are developed, consequently in the parts (
the plants in which the faculty of assimilation is observed in i
greatest force, the proportion of alkaline bases is most considerab
that the vegetables most rich in starch, are not less distinguishej
by their richness in alkaline bases, and in organic acids ; thisobseil
vation, I say, cannot, on account of this view, lose its value i
rural economy.

If we find sugar and starch accompanied by salts, formed t
organic acids, and if experience demonstrates that, without alkjj
line bases, all the development of the plant, the formation of sugaii

EXTRACTS— FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 331

of Starch, and of ligneous fibre, are found restrained : that their
presence gives activity to, and augments, its vegetation, it is clear
that if in culture a maximum of product should be attained, it is not
by an excess of carbonic acid and humus that it can be effected if
we do not present to the plants, in great quantity, and in a stLte
appropriate to absorption, the alkalies which are the principal con-
ditions of the conversion of carbonic acid into sugar and starch,
wha ever may be the manner in which they may contribute to this

The oxalic, tartaric citric, and malic acids, &c., are produced
in^the organism of the plant : their carbon arises from carbonic

We find, in vegetables, these acids combined with potassa, lime
md magnesia m the state of salts, the smallest parcels of which,
ibandoned to themselves, follow their own attractions, as is seen
n their tendency to crystallize.

, It cannot be doubted that these combinations do not possess the
[.haracter of organic life, precisely because the force which appears

0 be in activity in them is not the vital force, but the force of co-

JTptalHzabr'^ ^"''' '^' ''""' ^''^ '"^"'' ^^''^ ''^ ^^^^^i^'
i We should suppose that the smallest parcels of the products,
vhose formation IS due to carbonic acid, are subordinate to the acti-
;'ity which, in the living plant, reacts on them, like the smallest
parcels of carbonic acid itself; that, thus, the carbon of the oxalic
.nd tar aric acids, &c., should possess the faculty of becoming the
.irmciple of an organ endowed with vital force.

1 It is easy to pursue this metamorphosis in the organic acids If
ee represent 12 equivalents of our carbonic acid as losing (in pre-
ence of a base, and under the influence of light, in consequence of
he action of the vital force of its elements), the fourth of its oxv-
en, we have oxalic acid. This acid may be imagined in the anhy-
rous state, by supposing that the carbonic acid has not given rise
5 it in any other manner : — ^

C-02^-0«=:C'20'«=6 eq. of anhydrous oxalic acid.
j The oxalic acid does not exist in the anhydrous state. In the
'ate ot hydrated oxalic acid, it contains 1 eq. of water ; the salts
I potassa, lime, and magnesia, likewise contain water. Hydrated
Kalic acid is formed of : —

C-0-+6 eq.=C-H«0'^=6 eq. of hydrated oxalic acid.

It is easy to observe that carbonic acid and hydrated oxalic acid

nrelf "] T^} I'^'^'^r ^^ °^ ^^^g""- ^^ "^^>'' therefore, here
present hydrated oxalic acid as carbonic acid, into the coraposi-
mot which a certain quantity of hydrogen enters.
n the continuation of the influence of the activities eliminates

332 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

from oxalic acid fresh portions of oxygen, we have tartaric on
malic acid. Tartaric acid is formed by the elimination of 9 equi^
valents of oxygen : the separation of 12 equivalents of the samej
element gives rise to malic acid.

Hydrated oxalic acid C'*H*0'*^ — 0*=3 eq. of tartaric acid.
» " " C«^H«0"—0"=3eq. of malic acid.

It is by a simple separation of water from the elements of malic
acid that citric acid is formed ; we know, that by the sole influence
of heat, we can produce, with citric acid, aconific acid, and with
malic acid lichenic and maleic acids.

Malic acid C'«H«0'=^— Aq=:C'2H^O"=3 eq. of citric acid.
» C''H«0'=*— 3 Aq=C»=^H^O» =3 eq. of lichenic acid

We may now consider the tartaric and malic acids as combina
tions of oxalic acid with sugar, gum, ligneous fibre, or their ele
ments.

Tartaric acid. Oxalic acid. Dry grape sugar.

So that, consequently, by the addition of new quantities of hydrc
gen, all these acids may contribute to the formation of suga:
starch and gum. In this metamorphosis, the alkalies, which wei
combined with the acids, should, as is self-evident, be set at libert)
they should recover the faculty of again performing the same part
It may, therefore, be believed that one equivalent of alkali ma
serve for converting 10, 20, and even 100 equivalents of carbc
into a principle of the plant. It is by time alone that the quantil
of the base present produces any difference.

If a living evergreen plant assimilates, throughout the year, wi
the assistance of a given quantity of potassa, a certain quantity
carbon under any form whatever, a summer plant requires near
four times as much potassa to assimilate the same quantity in on
fourth the time.

Gay Lussac fiirst observed that oxalic, tartaric, and citric acid
and sugar, ligneous fibres, &c., are brought to the state of carbon
acid by the contact of an alkali, at a high temperature.

This course of decomposition is precisely the inverse of th
which occurs in plants. In the latter, the elements of water a
added to the combination of carbon to the carbonic acid, oxali
and tartaric acids, &c., are formed, owing to a separation of oxyge

In the chemical operation indicated, the elements of water
presence are added to those of the oxalic and tartaric acids, &c
they are brought to the state of carbonic acid by a separation
hydrogen.

Without disengagement of any gas, from the fact of the presen
of an alkali, the tartaric and citric acids are already divided^ at

EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 333

iemperature of 392° F., into oxalic and acetic acids. But the
mhydrous acetic acid contains carbon and the elements of water
Drecisely in the same relative proportion as ligneous fibre (Peligot)
.vhich, in perfectly similar conditions, also gives acetic acid.

This mode of decomposition has led a distinguished French che-

nist to admit the existence of oxalic acid ready formed in tartaric

At all events, its elements are formed in it by the side of a

lecond body, which, like sugar, gum, and ligneous fibre, may be

egardcd as a combination of carbon with water.

Every part, every principle, of the animal body is derived from
)lants. It IS by the organism of plants that the combinations
s'hich serve to sanguification are formed; it cannot be doubted
hat the parts of the plants serving as food contain, not only one
j»r two, but all the principles of the blood.

I We cannot believe in the possibility of the formation of blood
,1 the body of an animal, or of milk in that of a cow, if there be
/anting m their food one of the principles which should be re-
arded as conditions of equal necessity for the sustenance of all
le vital functions.

The sulphuro-nitrogenous substances, as well as the alkalies and
lie phosphates, are principles of the blood ; we cannot conceive
16 passage of the former into this fluid without the presence and
loncurrence of the latter.

The faculty possessed by a portion of the plant of sustaining
18 lite of an animal, and of increasing the mass of its blood and
esh, IS, then, in direct ratio with its richness in the organic prin-
ples of the blood and with the quantity of alkalies, phosphates
lid metallic chlorides (chlorides of sodium or potassium) necessa-
[i^ to their passage into the blood .

I It certainly is a highly remarkable fact, and of great value to
Yiculture that the sulphuro-nitrogenous vegetable substances,
hich we have designated as organic principles of the blood, are,

all the parts of plants in which they are found, always accom>
anied by alkalies and phosphates.

I In the juice of potatoes and of beet-roots the vegetable albumen
' accompanied by alkaline salts and soluble phosphate of magne-
a ; we have in the seeds of peas, lentils and beans, and in those
! cereals, alkaline phosphates and earthy salts.
I The seeds and fruits in which the organic principles of the
ood are found in greater abundance, contain also a predominating
lantity of the inorganic principles, the alkalies and phosphates 5
}A m the other substances, such as potatoes and roots, which are
:oportionally so poor in the former, the latter exist also in a
;uch smaller quantity.

. The simultaneous presence of the two classes of combinations
> so constant, that an intimate connexion cannot be doubted It
< extremely probable that the production and formation of the

334 QUART ERLYJOURNAL.

I

organic principles of the blood in the organism of the plant, are
connected by the strongest ties with the presence of the alkalies
and phosphates. j

We should suppose that even with the introduction of the great»'i|
est quantity of carbonic acid, of ammonia and of the sulphates,
which furnish the sulphur, the organic principles of plants would
not be produced in the form appropriate to their conversion into
blood, if the alkalies and phosphates by which we always find them.13
accompanied were wanting.

But even admitting that they might also be produced in the o^
ganism of the plant, without the concurrence of these substance
they could not be converted in the body of the animal into eithc
blood or flesh, if the mineral principles of the blood were wantii
in the part of the plant given as food.

Apart from all theoretical considerations, the judicious agricul
turist should then, with relation to the objects he has in vie^
proceed precisely as if the production of the organic principles'
depended on the presence of the inorganic principles of the blood
(the phosphates and alkalies) ; he should give his plants all the
principles necessary to the formation of the leaves, stems, and
seeds ; and if he wish to attain on his fields a maximum of blooc
and flesh, he should add in greater quantity those of their princi-
ples which the air cannot furnish.

Starch, sugar, and gum contains carbon and the elements 0:
water : they are never found associated with the alkalies ; they dc
not contain phosphates. It may be believed that in two varietie
of the same plant, by the addition of an equal quantity of thi
mineral elements, very unequal quantities of starch or sugar ar<
formed, that from two equal surfaces of land prepared in precisely
the same manner, and sowed with two varieties of barley, W'
might collect on one, one and a half, or even twice, the weight 0
seeds on the other ; but this excess of product can have relatioi
only to their non-nitrogenous, and not to their sulphuro-nitroge
nous principles : for an equal quantity of the inorganic principle
of the blood added to the soil and passed into the plant, ther
should be formed in the seeds a quantity of inorganic principle
which corresponds to them ; in short, it cannot be found more ii
one than in the other.

It will be only the introduction of a less quantity of nitrogei
into a plant during the lapse of time given, which will produce ;
difference : it will be owing to the want of ammonia that a cor
responding quantity of the inorganic principles of the blood wil
not find employment.

Of two kinds of different plants which we cultivate on a fiel<
of the same nature, that one will remove from the soil the greatjj
est quantity of the inorganic principles of the blood (phosphates)||
in the organization of which will be produced the greatest quan|i

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 335

tity of the organic principles of that fluid (sulphuro-nitrogenous

I compounds). °

j One of the plants will exhaust the ground of these principles,
whilst with the same conditions of culture for the other, which
has removed from it a smaller quantity of phosphates, it will still
remain fertile for a third kind of plant.

This is, therefore, the reason why with the development of cer-
tain parts of plants which, such as the seeds, much exceed all the
others in their richness in the organic principles of the blood, the
soil loses much more of the phosphates, and is exhausted much
more than by the culture of herbaceous plants, or of tubercles and
roots which contain very little of them in proportion

Besides, it is clear that if two plants which require in equal
times the same quantity of the same principles, grow side by side
3n the same ground, they will partake the principles of the latter.
Ihat which one of them introduces into its organism, the other
:»nnot appropriate.

If the soif on a limited space (surface and depth) contain not
nore of these inorganic aliments than ten plants require for their
pomplete development, twenty of the same plants cultivated on
he same surface will attain only half their development: the
Immber of their leaves, the strength of their stems, and the num-
)er ot seeds should present a difference.

Two plants of the same nature should be reciprocally injured, if
.rrown within a certain distance they find in the ground or in the
iitmosphere which surrounds them a less quantity of the aliments
ijrhich are necessary for them, than they require for their complete
ievelopment. There is no plant more injurious in this manner to

II plant of wheat than a second plant of wheat, or to a potatoe
)lant than another potatoe plant. We find, indeed, that cultivated
)lants greatly excel at the border of the fields, in strength and in
lumber of seeds and tubercles, those which grow in the middle.

Hut the same case should be reproduced, in a perfectly similar
Qanner, if we cultivate the same plant no longer by the side of
he other, but one after the other during several years on the same
oil. Let us admit that the soil contains a quantity of silicates
nd phosphates sufficient for 1,000 crops of wheat, it will be sterile
f the same kinds of plants after 1,000 years. Let us represent
|he surface of this field as exhausted to the bottom which nourishes
he roots of the plants of the first crops ; let us replace the bot-
om by the surface, and the surface by the bottom, and we then
■ave a new surface, which, being much less exhausted, again en-
ures us a series of crops : but this state of fertility also has
imits. ''

, The less rich the soil is in these mineral aliments, so indispensa-
tle to plants, the sooner will the period of exhaustion arrive • but
- is clear that we restore it to its primitive state of fertility by

336 QUAKTERLY JOURNAL.

reestablishing its original compositionj and consequently, by r&»
turning to it the principles which we had reaped and removed inii
the plants.

Two plants may be cultivated side by side, or one after theil
other, if they require unequal quantities of the same principles in
unequal times ; they will not be injured, and their vegetation will
be beautiful, notwithstanding their proximity, if they require for
their development different principles of the soil.

The investigations of M. de Saussure and many other natural-
ists, have shown that the seeds of the Viciafaba of the Phaseoltis
vulgaris, of peas and garden cress {lepidium sativum,) germinate
and are developed to a certain degree in wet sand, and in horse-
hair kept in a state of humidity ; but when the mineral substances
contained in the seed are no longer sufficient for the further de-
velopment of these plants, they begin to droop ; they sometimes
flower, but they never produce seeds.

Wiegraann and Polstorff made plants of different kinds vege-
tate in white sand boiled with aqua regia and freed 'from acid bj
careful washing ;* barley and oats sown in this sand, and suffi-
ciently moistened with water free from ammonia, reached th(
height of 0m487 ; they flowered, but produced no seeds, am
perished after flowering. The Vicia sativa attained the height o
0m27, flowered, and produced husks ; but they contained no seed

Tobacco sowed in this land presented a perfectly normal de
velopment ; but from June to October, the little plants attaine(
only the height of Oml4 : they had only four leaves withou
stalks.

The examination of the ash of these plants, as well as the an
alysis of the seeds, showed that this land, sterile as it was by it
self, and poor as it was in potassa and soluble principles, never
theless yielded to them a certain quantity of these substance
which had served for the development of the stalks and leaves
But these plants could not bear seed, because evidently there wa
a complete absence of the substances necessary for the formatioi
of the principles of the seeds.

In the ash of most of the plants grown in this sand, might th
presence of phosphoric acid be demonstrated ; but it correspondei
only to the quantity of that acid introduced into the soil by th^
seed. In the ash of tobacco, whose seeds are, as is known, si
small that the phosphoric acid which they contain eludes analysis
it was impossible to detect any trace of it.

• This sand contained in 1,000 parts :

Silica 979.00

Potassa 3.20

Alumina 8.76

Peroxide of iron 3.15

Lime 4.84

Magnesia 0.09

EXTRACTS — -FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 337

Wiegmann and Polstorf demonstrated the accuracy of the theo-
retical opinions relative to the cause of the sterility of ihis sand.
They took the same sand, and prepared with it, by the addition
of salts obtained in a purely artificial manner in a laboratory, a
soil likewise artificial ; they sowed in it the same plants, and found
them to thrive in it very well. The tobacco shot forth a stem
more than a metre in height, and many leaves j it flowered on the
25th June, produced seeds about the 10th August, and on the 8th
September ripe capsules were collected with perfectly developed
seeds.

Barley, oats, buck-wheat, and clover were developed in a per-
fectly similar manner : they all came up well ; they flowered and
produced ripe and perfect seeds.

It is quite certain that the fine vegetation of these plants in this
sand, previously quite barren, depended on the salts added. This
artificial soil owed its equal fertility for all these plants to the ad-
dition of certain substances whose presence might be demonstrated
in the perfectly developed plant, in the stem, leaves and seeds, and
whose existence in the soil and in the vegetables, puts beyond
doubt their necessity for the life of the plant.
I We can, therefore, give the most barren soil the greatest fer-
'tility for every kind of plants, by furnishing to it the principles
which are necessary for their development. In fact, to endeavor
to render fertile, according to these principles, a completely barren
'sand, requires neither trouble nor expense ; but by applying them
to our ordinary lands of culture, which already contain in them-
selves a great number of these substances, it is sufficient to furnish
those which are wanting, to increase those which are found in them
in too small quantity, and to give to the soil, by the art of agri-
. bulture, the physical properties which render it permeable to the
humidity of the air, and permit plants to appropriate these prin-
ciples of the soil.

Diff'erent kinds of plants require for their vegetation and com-
plete development, the same inorganic aliments, but in unequal
quantity or unequal times ; or else they require different mineral
substances. It is to the difference of the aliments necessary to
their development, which the soil presents, that it must be attri-
outed, if certain kinds of plants, growing side by side, are mutu-
illy arrested in their development ; and if others, on the contrary,
|n the same condition, present a rich vegetation.
' If, indeed, we compare the principles of the ash of the same
^lant which is developed, in different soils, we find only very
slight differences in its composition. We have, as an invariable
jrinciple, in the straw of the graminacse, silicic acid and potassa,
md in their seed phosphates of potassa and magnesia ; in the
straw of peas, and in clover, an abundant quantity of lime is

338 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

found. We know, besides, that in certain kinds of plants, potas- 1

sa may be replaced by soda, and lime by magnesia.

It results, moreover, from the investigations of M. Boussaingault

{Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 3** Serie, t. i. p. 242), that on

an equal surface (4 acres [ID of the same field manured once,

there will be removed from the soil, by five successive crops : —

Principles of

the soil.

1st year, by a crop of potatoes (tubercles without stalks or leaves) .. 246.8 lb.

2d " *' wheat (straw and grain) 371.0 "

3d " " clover 620.0 "

4th I " wheat* 488.0 "

^ " peeled turnips.. 108.8 "

5th " " of oafs (straw and grain) 215.0 •*

By a crop of beet-rootsf (roots without leaves) 399.5 "

" peas (seeds and straw) 618.0 ••

rye , 284.6 »

*' artichokes (hel. tuberosus) 660.0 ♦*

Of these numbers which express the quantities of inorganic
substances extracted from the same soil by different plants, and
extracted or removed consequently in the crop, it results that diffe-
rent plants introduce into their organism unequal weights of these
principles of the soil.

The attentive examination of the principles of their ashes
shows, moreover, that they differ essentially with respect to their
quality. 1000 parts of beet roots, potatoes, or turnips, leave, by
cultivation in the dry state, 90 parts of easily fusible ash, contain-
ing a great quantity of carbonate of potassa and salts, with alka-
line bases. Of these 90 parts, 75 dissolve in cold water.

2000 parts of dried fern likewise give 90 parts of ash ; but oi
these 90 parts, nothing dissolves in water, or only a trace is dis-
solved. (Berthier.)

It is the same with the ash of wheat straw, and those of barley,
peas, beans, tobacco, &c. With equal weights to their ash, very
unequal quantities of its principles dissolve in water. Some ashes
are completely soluble in water ; some are only half soluble in
it ; and again others contain only traces of principles soluble in
water.

If we pour an acid — hydrochloric acid, for example — on th€
portions of ashes insoluble in water, we find that with a great
number of plants, the residue left by the water is completely so-
luble in the acids (beet roots, potatoes, turnips, &,c.) • that with
others, only half of these residues are dissolved in the acid, whilst

• In a second and third assolement.

t In the quinquennial crop above referred to, \Vheat is mentioned twice. In th«
second year, by a crop of wheat, 371 lbs., and in the fourth year, 488 lbs. of inorganic
principles were removed from the soil. This dilTerence is owing to the unequal
quantity of straw and grain which were collected in these two years. In the one,
the combined weight of the straw and grain was 8,7J)0 lbs . ; and in the other, on the
contrary, 10,8o8. Tlic relative proportion of these ashes was absolutely the same
as these numbers.

EXTRACT S — F OREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 339

the other half finally resists ; that with others, only one-third, or
less, is dissolved.

The principles of the ashes of plants which are soluble in cold
water, are formed, without exception, of salts with alkaline bases
{^pofassa and soda) ; those soKible in the acids, are salts of lime
and magnesia. The residue insoluble in the acids is silica.

The unequal portion of these principles, which are so different
in their mode of acting with water and the acid, enables us to di-
vide plants in culture into plants containing potassa, which con-
tain more than half their weight of soluble alkaline salts ; into
plants contahiing limej in which the calcareous salts predominate ;
and into plants containing silica, in which there is a predominance
of silica. These are precisely the principles which are necessary
to them in very great quantity for their development, and which
essentially distinguish them from each other.

[Continued from number 1, page 137.]

|EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRO-
DUCTION OF BUTTER.

BY PROFESSOR TRAILL.

Series 1.
I The comparative value of the first and last portions of the milk.

For this purpose a cow was selected which had calved five
weeks before, and the experiments were begun on Monday, 26th
May, 1806.

No. 1 was the first pint milked.

No. 2 was a pint of the whole milkingy after the separation of
No. 1 and No. 3.

No. 3 was the last pint of the milking, or afterings.

As in previous experiments, scalding the milk was found to
favor the more perfect separation of the butter, after the three
portions were allowed to remain twenty-four hours in the milk-
house. They were at the same time placed in earthenware basinSy
in a pan of water heated to 180° Fahr. They were removed with-
in an hour from the water, when the milk had acquired a temper-
ature of 130°. They were replaced for ten hours in the milk-
house, and then examined. No. 1 then showed scarcely any indi-
cation of cream. It formed a very thin pellicle only; and the
quantity, being too small to be churned, was estimated from other
:omparative trials, to be no more than equivalent to five grains- of

340 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

butter. No. 2, was evidently richer to the eye, but the cream wat
pale-colored, and, when churned, yielded 181 grains of firm but-
ter. No. 3, the cream, before churning, had a rich yellow tint j
the butter produced was well flavored, and weighed 551 grains.
The difference between the richness of the first milk and the after-
ings, in a cow yielding about fifteen pints of milk at each milk
ing, is thus as 1 : 110.

When a cow has calved less recently, the difference betweei
the first milk and afterings, however, appears not so great. O
the 9th of Aug-ust, the milk of the same cow, which then yielde
fourteen and a half pints at a milking, was subjected to expert
ment in a similar manner.

The three portions were placed in similar basins in the milk-'
house for forty hours, and were then scalded till the temperature
of the milk rose to 145^^. The milk was drawn off next day from
below the cream by means of a siphon, and the three portions
were churned, in glass vessels, at the same time, for thirty minutes.
The butter was soft and very white, although it was allowed to
remain for twenty-four hours after churning in cold water. This
probably arose from the heat of the weather ; the thermometer
in the shade then standing as high as 73°. When the butter was
•washed, and worked to free it from water,

No. 1 yielded 31 grains.
No. 2 " 252 "
No. 3 " 416 "

Here the proportion between the first and last milking is as
1 : 13.42 nearly, or 1 : 13|.

On this occasion, we took the opportunity of repeating an ex-
periment formerly made on the proportion of caseine or curd in
each of those portions of milk, by coagulating small but equal
parts of each by means of rennet, and also by sulphuric acid,
which we had found to afford a larger and more firm curd than
rennet. Two ounces of each poition of the milk, after the cream
was removed, were measured out, (that is, one-eighth of an Eng-
lish pint ;) a teaspoonful of filtered rennet was added to each ; to
equal quantities of the same milk forty drops of sulphuric acid
were added ; and the six cups were placed in boiling water for
some minutes. They were all firmly coagulated. The curd was
separated from each ; and, when equally dried, in a heat about
that of boiling water, each was accurately weighed.

With Rennet. With Sulphuric Acid.

No. 1 gave of dry curd 14 grains. ... 18 grains.

No. 2 " " 13 " ... 18 "

No. 3 u u 14 " ... 19 "

3
1

This shews that, though the quantity of oily matter differs ma-

I

EXTRACTS FOREIGN A N D D O M ES T 1 C . 341

terially in the first milk and the afterings, the proportion of caseine
or curd differs but little.

The experiments shew the caseine obtained from each pint to
be equal to —

With Rennet.

With Sulphuric Acid.

No.

1

. . 112 grains of curd.

144 grains.

No.

2

.. 104 " "

144 "

No.

3

.. 112 " "

Series 2.

171 "

Comparative quantity of butter yielded by

No. 1. Sweet cream churned alone.

No. 2. Sweet milk and its cream churned together.

No. 3. Sour cream churned alone.

No. 4. Sour milk and its cream churned together.

No. 5. Scalded cream, or Devonshire cream, churned alone.

On the 24:th May, 1807, the milk of four cows was drawn in
the same vessel, passed through a strainer, and then divided into
five portions of six English pints each, which were placed in simi-
lar basins of earthenware, in a milkhouse, the temperature of
which ranged from 55° to 60*^ Fahr.

Monday, 25th. — The temperature of the air was very hot, 76°;
but that of the milkhouse, by constant evaporation of water, was
kept about 60°.

Tuesday, 26th. — Thirty-nine hours after the milk had been
drawn from the cows, it was removed from below the cream of
No. 1 and No. 3, by a siphon ; and we immediately began to churn
the cream of No. 1, and the milk and cream of No. 2, in glass
vessels.

No. 1. Sweet cream churned alone. — Having previously found
that the addition of a small quantity of cold water to thick cream
facilitated the separation of the butter, half-a-pint of water was
added to the cream, and it was found that the temperature of the
mixture, at the commencement of the churning was 62°. In fif-
teen minutes, butter appeared in grains ; the churning was contin-
ued for twelve minutes longer, i. e. twenty-seven minutes in all,
when the temperature of the whole had risen to 70°. The but-
ter was now collected into one mass ; but, from the warmth of
the weather, was very soft. It was, therefore, put into cold wa-
ter, and placed in the milkhouse until the morrow, when it was
worked and washed in the usual way, and weighed 1386 grains.
It was of a good color, and perfectly well flavored.

No. 2. Sweet milk and its cream churned together. — The mix-
•ure of sweet milk and cream was churned at the same time ; but,
hough cold water was here added, after one and a half hour's

be

i

342 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

churning, no butter was to be seen. The churning was continued
for as long, (in all for three hours,) but without our obtaining a
particle of butter.

No. 3. Sour cream churned alone. — On Thursday^ 28th May^
the cream of No. 3, which had been separated on Tuesday, and
placed in a milkhouse, was now slightly acid, and was churned,
after half a pint of cold water had been added to it. In twelve
minutes butter appeared ; and in eight minutes more, it had unitedi
into one mass. During the churning, the temperature of the
cream had risen from 54° to 63°. The buttermilk was very poor,'
fit only for pigs. The butter, when well washed, and worked tOi
separate the watery part, weighed 1756.5 grain?-. The colon
and taste were very good.*

No. 4. Sour milk and its cream, churned together. — On th
same day, 2Sth May, the milk and cream which had become aci
were churned together, and half a pint of cold water was adde
It was fully fifty seven minutes before any butter appeared ; anj
before the churning seemed to be completed, one hour and fift
minutes had elapsed. This shews that much more time is require(
to churn milk and cream together than to obtain the butter fron
cream alone. The butter was, in this instance, diffused in smal
grains, and, when washed and worked as long as any color wa;
communicated to the water, it weighed 1968 grains. Its cole,
was rather paler than the last, but its flavor was good.f

No. 5. Clouted cream churned alone. — On Tuesday 26th, t
milk and cream of No. 5 were placed in a vessel of warm wat
until the temperature of the milk rose to 156°. In these expe:
ments on scalded cream we had the assistance of a Devonshii
dairymaid, to superintend this part of the process. She gener;
ly placed the vessel containing the milk among the embers of
low fire ; but we preferred water as the heating medium. S:
judged of the due degree of heat merely by dipping her finger i:
the milk, and the wrinkling of its surface ; and we found that t"
heat considered by her sufficient generally ranged from 135
156°, and was occasionally as high as 160° or 162° Fahr, T
milk was drawn from below the cream by a siphon ; and the lal
ter was placed in the milkhouse, until the following day, before
was churned. It was churned on Wednesday, the 27th.
milk of this portion was very poor, had a scalded taste, and woul
have been unsaleable.

I may here state that, by churning the milk of No. 1 and
No. 3., we could obtain a few^ more grains of butter, on some oi

•The buttermilk from cream alone was poor and thin, in this and in all our
perimenfs, whether water had been added to the churn or not.

t The buttermilk from No, 4 — that is, from churning milk and cream togethe^
when slightly acid, is a bland, agreeable fluid, containing much albumen or casein*
It finds a roatly market in towns, and is much used in Lancasliire as an article of dielj
It is, therefore, a valuable product which ought to be considered in an economi '
pont of view.

I i- X T R A C T S — F OREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 343

casions ; but we never could obtain the smallest quantity of but-
iterfrom the milk of No. 5 — so completely docs the scahling pro-
cess separate the butyraceous matter from the milk. The butter
of No. 5, when well worked and washed, weighed 1998 grains.
It had a rich yellow color, tasted agreeably, and was quite free
from the peculiar scalded flavor of the milk.

Series 3.

This scries, a repetition of the preceding experiments, on the
milk of four other cows, was commenced on Thursday the 2oth
of June.) 1807, or a month after the last series. As before, the
whole milk was mixed, strained, and divided into five equal por-
tions, of six pints each, which were ti'cated as the last.

No. ]. Sioeet cream churned alone. — On the 26th, or in Iwenty-
ifour hours after the milking, the milk of No. 1 was drawn off by
:he siphon. The temperature of this portion, at the commence-
nent, was 62°; and when the churning was finished, had only
ittained to 6f)°. The churning required forty-five minutes. Wa-
er had been added as before, and the butter was obtained in grains
ike peas. When well worked and washed, it weighed 1147
grains. Its color was good and its flavor excellent.

No. 2 Sweet milk and its cream churned together. — The sweet
Inilk and cream churned together afforded no butter.
' No. 3. Sour cream churned alone. — On the 29th of June, the
;ream, which had become sour, was separated by the siphon and
;hurned. The temperature at the commencement, was 58° — at
he end, it was 65°, The butter was fully formed in forty min-
ites, and united into one mass. Well worked and washed, it
veighed 1247 grains. Its taste was good as was its color.

No. 4. Sour milk and its cream churned together. — At the same
ime, the sour milk and cream were churned, with the same pre-
•autions as before. The churning occupied two hours; when the
emperature had risen from 58° to 68°, or nearly 69°. When
yorked and washed, the butter weighed 1447 grains. The qua-
jities equalled that of No. 3.

] No. 5. Clouted cream churned alone. — The cream of this por-
jion was scalded on Friday, the 26th June, by being heated to
.60°, which temperature it attained in one hour, the usual time
icquired for this operation. On Saturday, the 21th, it was churn-
d in forty-five minutes ; during which process the temperature
f the cream rose from 58° to 64°. When well washed and
worked, it weighed 1591 grains. The butter in the mouth had a
ranular feel, which we attributed to the heat rising, by accident,
DO high ; by which an unusual portion of caseine appeared to be
5parated with the cream. The butter had, however, no peculiar
avor from the process ; although the milk would have been un-
ileable, from a strong taste of scalding.

344 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The general result of these experiments, confirmed by manj
similar trials is, that the largest quantity of buttter is produces
from the scalded or Devonshire cream ; the next in quantity froi
the method of churning the milk and cream together, when thej
have become slightly acid ; the third in quantity is afforded h\
cream kept till it is slightly sour ; the smallest quantity is obtain!
ed from the sweet cream. We were unable to obtain butter froi
churning sweet milk and cream together ; and in several other sc
ries attempted it no more.

In one series of experiments we used as much as 1 H English
pints of milk in each experiment ; but we then had to churn in
vessels of tinned iron ; and we did not find the results so uniform
as when operating on smaller quantities in glass vessels.

Series 4.

This series was intended to decide on the qualities of the butter
obtained by the four processes above detailed, as to keeping fresh.
These experiments were made, as those of the next series, on the
butter obtained in most of our experiments. No. 1 always remain-
ed, when exposed freely to the air, longer without any rancid taste
than any of the other kinds of butter. No. 3 and No. 4 were
nearly on an equality in this respect ; if there was any difference
it was in favor of No. 3. No. 5 became rancid more quickly that.
No. 3 or No. 4.

Series 5.

Equal quantities of butter obtained by the four processes wc
Salted with equal quantities of salt, then spread thinly on glaS
plates, and exposed to the air in a dry room. They were inspec
ted from time to time, and it was ascertained that the taint of
cidity always appeared in the following order, commencing wU
that which shewed it first : —

In No. 5, or butter from scalded cream.
" No. 4, " " a mixture of sour milk and its crea
" No. 3, " *' sour cream.
" No. 1, " " sweet cream.

The cause of this difference in their power of resisting dec
was believed to depend on the varying proportions of caseine,
curdy matter, in each. To determine this point another series c1
experiments was undertaken.

Series 6.

Two hundred grains of each kind of butter were kept liquifio
by a moderate heat, in glass capsules ; the oily matter was take
up by bibulous paper successively applied, as long as any oil
stain was perceptible ; the watery liquid which remained belo^
the oily matter was evaporated, and the solid residue, after beinf

EXTRACTS— FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 345

well washed, squeezed between folds of blotting paper, and dried,
Lvas carefully weighed. Unfortunately I have been unable to re-
cover the details of this series of experiments j but the following
ire the general results- which decidedly shew that the presence of
he greater quantity of caseine in butter coincides with its greater
cndency to become rancid. The four kinds of butter afforded
;aseine in the following order, commencing with that which yield-
id the most : —

No. 5, butter from scalded cream.

No. 4, " from acid milk and its cream.

No. 3, " from acid cream.

No. 1, " from sweet cream.

Experiments had been made in October, 1806, which proved
hat overchurmng — that is, continuing the process after the full
eparation of the butter— was very injurious to the quality of the
utter, although it increased ils weight ; and these, though made
efore the experiments detailed above, shall now be indicated, as

Series 7.

The cream of six English pints of milk was separated by a si-
jhon, and churned in a glass vessel. The butter was formed in
JDOut half an hour ; but the churning was continued for half an
bur longer, when the butter had lost its fine, yellowish, waxy ap-
earance, and had become pale and soft, while very little liquid
?mamed in the churn. This butter was so soft that it could not
e washed and worked, until it had remained some hours in cold

^ol'c ^^ ^^^ P^^^' ^^^^* ^^^^^^ ^°^^' ^"^'' ^^^^ weighed,
= 2566 grams. That this was beyond the due quantity of good
Utter, from such a quantity of cream, was apparent, when the
i)mparative experiments on the same quantities of the same milk,
It only churned till the butter was well formed, gave the follow-
i§ results ; —

No. 1, The sweet cream, overchurned, yielded = 2566 grains.
No. 3, The acid cream duly churned, " = 2187.5 "
No. 3, The acid milk and its cream, do. " =2397.5 "
jNo. 5, The scalded cream, do. " = 2671. "

JThe butter of No, 1 tasted insipid, never became firm, and soon
rned rancid. It was found to yield a very unusual quantity of
Uh caserne and of watery fluid, which could only be separated bv
ijltmg the butter. j r j

Similar experiments were repeatedly made, the results of which
sewed that overchurning is very injurious to the quality of the
ctter; but it adds considerably'to the weight of the article; and
1 appears to be frequently practised in Lancashire, especially in
cmufactunng/resA butter for i.nmediate sale.

VOL. I. — NO. II. L

346 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

It is a common opinion in Lancashire that considerably more'
butter is obtained by adding hot water to the churn than by using
cold water. We had invariably found that the addition of a small
quantity of cold water, especially in summer, greatly facilitated
the separation of the butter, and rendered it more easily washed.
But a dairyman informed us that the same quantity of cream,
which will yield 14 lbs. of butter with cold water, will afford 15
lbs., or even 15 i lbs., with an equal addition of hot water. This
formed the subject of

Series 8.

On the 15th of JYov ember, 1807, we took, from the mixed milli
of four cows, two portions of six English pints each, and set then
aside in a milkhouse, the temperature of which ranged from 59'
to 52°. On the \lth JYovember, the cream was removed fron
each by the siphon, and churned at the same, in circumstance
as nearly equal as possible, except in the addition of water. Th
temperature of the cream, at the commencement of the churning
was 55°.

No. 1. To this portion an ounce and a half of water, at terr
perature 45°, was added. After churning for eighteen minute
the butter began to appear ; two ounces more of water, at 45'
were added, and the churning was carried on for five minutes men
The butter was then worked and washed.

No. 2. To this portion of cream one ounce and a half of wate
at 105°, was added ; butter began to appear after churning fi
thirteen minutes, when two ounces more of water, at 105°, we
added, and the churning was continued for five minutes more, <
eighteen minutes in all. The temperature of the contents of tl
churn was 71°, This butter was very soft, and, therefore, co
water was added, in which it was worked and washed.

Unfortunately, the note of the weight of the butter in tl:
series has been lost ; but I find it stated that the butter of No.
was rather more bulky, and weighed a little more than that
No. 1 ; that it neither was so firm nor of so rich a colour as t.
butter of No. 1 ; and that, on pressing it next day, some wate
fluid escaped from it. From this we inferred that the quality
the butter was deteriorated by the addition of hot water ; ai
that the quantity obtained by this practice, of marketable butt(
is not so great as is commonly alleged in Lancashire, althouj
the time of churning is thus somewhat abridged.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 347

[From the Albany Daily Advertiser.]
OTICES OF THE WINTERS AT NEW YORK FOR THE LAST
FORTY-TWO YEARS, AND OF THE DATES AT WHICH THE
HUDSON WAS FROZEN OR WAS OBSTRUCTED OR CLOSED
BY ICE AT ALBANY.

/"SO — 1790. A very mild winter. The mildest January since
1781. River open till 3d February, though occa-
sionally obstructed by ice before.

j'90 — 1791. Very severe weather in December, but more mod-

I erate in January and February. River closed on

' the 8th December. Lowest degree of ther-

mometer, this winter, 5° above zero.

!91 — 1792. A very severe winter. River closed on 9th De-
cember ; uninterrupted and severe frost for four
weeks ; lowest degree of thermometer, 1° above
zero.

J92 — 1793, A very mild winter ; river open all winter to
Poughkeepsie ; though it closed at Albany on the
12th December.

1)3 — 1794. A mild winter with but little snow ; river closed on
I 26th December.

li)4 — 1795. A very mild autumn and December ; river closed
! on the 12th January ; no ice till 3d January, and

but little cold weather and snow this winter.

1 )5 — 1796. Another very mild autumn and December ; no ice
till 21st December ; river open till 23d January.

1;)6 — 1797. Early winter and severe till 12th January ; river
closed on 28th November, intensely cold on 23d
and 24th December ; mercury at zero in the mor-
ning.

r'7 — 1798. Very early and severe winter ; river closed on 20th.
November ; lowest degree, 3° above zero.

ri8 — 1799. Very early, long and severe winter ; though the
weather was moderate for about three weeks
in January j river closed on 23d November ;
lowest degree, 2° above zero.

1''9 — 1800. A mild winter ; river closed on 6th January, but
obstructed by ice before.

1^0 — 1801. A mild winter, with but little snow ; a very mild
December, river closed on 3d January.

18l — 1802. A remarkably mild winter ; river open till 3d Feb-
ruary, though obstructed by ice occasionally be-
fore. In January the mercury generally ranged
between forty and fifty degrees, and no snow of
any consequence fell till 22d February.

348 QUARTERLYJOURNAL*.

1802 — 1803. A mild and variable winter with but little snow ;

river closed on 16th December.
1803 — 1804. A very mild December ; some severe weather and
deep snows in January and the latter part of Feb-
ruary ; river open till 12th January ; lowest de-
gree, 42° above zero.
1804 — 1805. A remarkably cold and variable winter, deep snows
and heavy rains with high winds ; lowest degree*
2° above zero ; river closed on 13th December-
much distress among the poor.
1805 — 1806. Generally cold in January, though very mild in De
cember and February ; river closed 9th January
and opened on 23d February.
1806 — 1807. A severe winter ; river closed on 11th December

lowest degree, 4° above zero.
1807 — 1808. A mild winter ; December very mild ; river close'

on 4th January.
1808 — 1809. A long and severe winter, with much snow
river closed on 9th December ; lowest degre*
6° above zero.
1P09— 1810. Remarkably mild till 19th January, when the riv(
closed, and the weather was intensely cold f(
several days ; very little snow this winter ; lov
est degree, 1° above zero.
1810 — 1811. Much snow in February, though not much seve
cold this winter. This season was remarkab
for a severe snow storm on the 2d Novembei
river closed on the 14th December.
1811 — 1812. A severe winter ; river closed on 20th Decembe

lowest degree, 2° above zero
1812 — 1813. A severe winter ; river closed on 21st Decembei

lowest degree, 4° above zero.
1813 — 1814. A severe winter ; river closed on 22d Decembe

lowest degree, 8° above zero.
1814 — 1815. A very severe though variable winter ; river clos
on lOth December ; lowest degree, 1° above zei
1815 — 1816, A variable though not severe winter ; river clos

on the 2d December.
1816 — 1817. A very severe winter, though it did not set in 1
the middle of January ; river closed on 16th I
cember, thermometer on 15th February ■«
6° below zero, and the first time since 1788 ti
it has fallen below zero in this city. As cold
in January, 1765, when the mercury sunk
the same degree ; which the papers state to ha
been the coldest weather experienced in this c
in fifty years.

IXTEACTS— lORElGN AND DOMESTIC. 349

1817—1818. Generally moderate in December and January
though severe in February ; river closed on 7th
December, opened on 14th, and closed again on

ftiQ 1Q1Q c ^^'^ I>eceraber ; mercury fell to zero this winter.

.bib— 1819. Severe weather for two weeks in December • river

! closed on the 14th ; generally very mild in Jan-

uary and February.

819-1820. A severe winter ; several deep snows; river closed
on 13th December, though obstructed by ice ba-
son 1Q0 1 T .,' °'''^'^ "^"^Sree, 3° above zero.

»>iU— 1«J1. Intensely severe weather during the greater part of
January, though mild in February ; river closed
on the 13th November, opened on 20th and clos-
ed agam on 1st December ; the mercury fell on
2oth January, to 7° below zero, one degree
lower than in February, 1817; as cold weather,
probably, as was ever experienced here. The
Hudson was crossed on the ice between this city
and Powles' Hook, for several days. • During
the last hundred years, the river has been passa-
ble on the ice, in the same way, only four times,

•01 7Q00 A ""'^ '' '" ^^^^-^h 1764-65, 1779-80, 1820-21.

,.^1— lb22. A severe winter with but little snow ; river closed

: on 13th December; mercury as low as one de-

gree below zero.

.122—1823. No very severe weather till February and March;
river closed on 24th December ; lowest degree'
3 above zero.

;23— 1824. Very mild winter; river closed on 16th December;

194 iQor n/r-°P^" ^" January for a short time.

u^—lb2b. Mild winter with but little snow ; river closed on
3d January.

]25— 1826. Weather generally very mild, though there were
t\vo or three excessively cold days this winter.
December 14th was a remarkably cold day ; ther-
^^ometer, at 8 A. M., 3°, and 10 P. M. indicated

lafi—iQoT A ^ ' ^° ^"^ ^° ' "^'^"^ closed on 13th December.

j-io 1627. A severe winter ; river closed on 24th December ;

L Q Q . lowest degree, 3° above zero.

iff'— 1828. A very cold and blustering November, followed by
the mildest winter since 1801-2 ; river closed
only about three weeks at different times through
the winter. The mildest February since 1778-9,
when vegetation commenced, and flowers were
gathered in the woods, and in Pennsylvania,
peach trees blossomed in this month.

350 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

1828 1829. A long, severe winter ; river closed on 1st January

and opened on 29th March; lowest degree, 6i
below zero. Much suffering among the poor i
February.

X829— 1830. Weather generally mild, till 23d January, when tb
river closed ; weather then very severe for sevi
ral weeks. As much ice in our harbor as i
1826-7 ; lowest degree, 3° above zero.

1830 1831. A very severe winter, with several deep snows

ground covered with snow from 6th January ■
the 28th February, a longer period than in ar
winter since 1808-9. Severe and uninterrupti
frost for upwards of five wrecks ; during whi.
time, there was but three days in which the mt
cury rose as high as the freezing point ; lo\v(
degree, 5° above zero. Much distress amoi
the poor. River closed on 23d December, ope
ed again by heavy rains, and closed again
16th January.
1831. December 10th : thus far the coldest December sin<
1786 ; lowest degree, 14° above zero ; ri><
closed on 3d December.

[From the Baltimore Sun.]

COLD WINTERS AND DEEP SNOWS.

The recent heavy snow storms experienced both east and w
of the mountains, have had the effect to bring out, m seve
newspapers, some cold weather reminiscences. The United Ma ■
Gazette has accounts from 1681 to 1840, of cold weather at J
in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. We take a few of the
stances given. In December, 1704, snow fell to the depth of th i
feet. In 1725, it fell in one night to the depth of two feet. J :
winter of 1737, was intensely cold ; many persons were frozen .
death. The winter of 1751, was so cold that many cattle il
deer were frozen to death ; bread stuff and provision were so sea :
and dear, that many persons in the country had to subsist on :
deer found dead. As late as the 19th of April, the snow lay uj i
the ground to the depth of three feet. On the 9th of Janua ,
1773, the mercury was 9^ below 0. 1780 was a memorable c J
winter ; the ice in the Delaware was three feet thick ; squiri i
and partridges were found in the woods and fields frozen to des .

In the spring of 1789, fires were necessary until the first
June. The winter of 1790 was so mild and warm, that on t

EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 351

pd of January, the boys went into the Delaware to bathe. The
winter of 1797 was intensely cold. The mercury frequently sunk
from 10° to 13° below 0. A gill of brandy was put into a saucer,
and placed in an open lot north of the city, on the 9th of Janua-
ry, and a ring of ice formed round the edge an inch broad. A
gill of water, placed near, froze solid in ten minutes. The winter
of 1815 was very cold, and fuel scarce. Oak wood sold at from
twelve to fourteen dollars a cord. The winter of 1821 was ex-
cessively cold. The mercury, several times, fell to 10° below
zero. On the 24th of January, three cows froze to death near
the city. The Cincinnati Republican, after alluding to the snow
!;torm experienced there on the 4th, 5th and 6th of this month, as
the most severe that had visited the south part of Ohio for several
r^ears, gives, from old files of papers and documents in the pos-
session of the editor, some account of the great New-England
now storms of the last century. Among these, the tempest of
717, known in history and tradition, as The Great Snow, is men-
ioned. The weather was mild until the beginning of Februarys
»ut on the 18th of that month, the storm commenced, and con-
inued, with short intervals, for nearly a week. The northeast
vind, in fierce gusts, drove the descending snow into drifts that
;bliterated the roads, covered the fences, and in some places, even
ihe buildings.

j In Boston, the snow lay in the street six feet deep. Multitudes
i.f animals perished in the drifts. A letter from John Winthrop,
f New-London, to Cotton Mather, says : "We lost at the island
nd farms, about 1100 sheep, besides some cattle and horses in-
erred in the snow ; and it was very strange, that eight days after
he storm, the tenants at Fisher's Island, pulled out of the ruins,
00 sheep, out of one snow bank in a valley, where the snow
'ad drifted on them sixteen feet, and found three of them alive
*i the drift, which had lain on them all that time, and kept them-
felves alive by eating the wool off the others, that lay dead by
^em. As soon as they were taken out of the drift, they shed
heir own fleeces, and are now alive and fat." The winter of
'741 was intensely cold. Deer were found dead in the woods,
Jid some even ventured to the farmers' houses and fed on hay with
he cattle. In January, 1780, wood sold in the village of Wor-
5ster, Massachusetts, at sixty dollars a cord. The roads were
) blocked up with snow, that no fuel could be brought from the
)rest. The snow was four feet and a half deep in the woods on
level. Fences and low buildings were buried beneath the drifts ;
id the inhabitants of contiguous houses, reached each other
irough arches hollowed under the snow banks. The sufferings
f the people of New-England, especially in the small villages,
ere very great.

352 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION, NEW-YORK.

A few weeks ago we alluded to the importance of establishing
an agricultural association in this city independent of every other
organization and specially devoted to the improvement of agricul-
tural science. Such a society has just been organized, with the
following officers r

President. — Hon. Luther Bradish.

Vice Presidents. — Hon. Theodore Freylinghuysen, James Len-
nox, Esq., James Boorman, Esq. , A. H. Stevens, M. D., Thomas
A. Emmet, Esq., Hugh Maxwell, Esq., Stephen Whitney, Esq.,
Stephen Knapp, Esq., Vice-Chancellor McCoun, Cyrus Mason,
D. D., W. A. Seeley, Esq., J. S. Livingston, Esq.

Honorary Consulting Officers. — Major Le Conte, U. S. A., F,
L. S., Entomology and Zoology. Professor Renwick, LL. D.,
Mechanical Philosophy. W. G. Redfield, Esq., Geology. Pro-
fessor Torrey, M. D., Physiology. John Johnson, Esq., Rural
Architecture. Professor Loorais, Meteorology. D. P. Gardner.
M. D., Chemistry. D. J.Browne, Esq., Arboriculture.

There was a large and spirited meeting of this association — the
fourth that has been held since its formation for the despatch ol
business — in the Library of the Historical Society. Seven o'clock
was the hour named for commencing the proceedings ; but as ai
that hour the greater number of those who attended had not ar-
rived, a delay of more than half an hour took place. At length

The Hon. Luther Bradish called the meeting to order, and
after inviting all those gentlemen who had accepted their nomina-
tions to offices to be seated at the table, said : —

Gentlemen : On entering upon the discharge of the duties yoi
have been pleased to assign me, I cannot refrain from offering you
and the friends of agriculture generally, my cordial congratula-
tions, as well upon the numbers, as the character of those whc
compose this meeting. This indicates a concern of the right kinc
which exists for the great interest of our country — that of agri-
culture. As the cultivation of the earth was the original, soil
was, and is still, the most general, the most important, and tht
noblest occupation of man. To improve this great interest — tc
introduce into its practical operation all the discoveries and im-
provements in science — thereby improving and beautifying thif
earth of ours, and increasing all the necessaries, the comforts, tlu
embellishments of life ; these are objects worthy of the attention
and efforts of every friend of his country and his kind ; these are

EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 353

the objects of the American Agricultural Association ; these are
objects this society propose to pursue, with reference to the
present state of scientific knowledge and actual condition of the
world. Among the remarkable characteristics of the age in which
we live, there are two prominent ones ; first, the great develop-
ments in natural science — and, secondly, the application of tliese
new discoveries to the practical business of life, and the great in^
lerests of society. Scientific knowledge is not now what it once
was. It is no longer confined within the magic and mystic circle
within which it was deemed forbidden for all but the initiated to
enter. It no longer dwells within the college or the schools,
but it has come forth among the people, mingles in the affairs of
the world, and directs its practical operations. Principles are no
longer valued merely because they are ingenious, or adapted to
lend brilliancy to some theory, but they are valued as of practical
utility, and as they subserve the great interests of mankinil. Ours
is eminently a utilitarian age. Now, what the American Agricul-
tural Society proposes, is, to follow this manifest spirit of the age^
and introduce into agriculture, as far as is practicable and may be
useful, the discoveries and improvements of modern science. In-
deed, we hold the opinion that no system of agriculture can be
iconsidered as enlightened but in proportion as it may prove useful.
'What, for example,- would you think of a physician — I do not
|now speak of those geniuses who accomplish wonders by the force
iof instinct, who are not only equal with, but in advance of science
— but I speak of those learned gentlemen who really cure disease.
What would you think of the learned doctor who would prescribe
for a disease without any knowledge of its character, its symptoms
— or, without any acquaintance with the materia medica, from
which he professes to derive his remedy ? So it is with agricul-
ture ; without a knowledge of the elements of active agents in pro-
iuction — the qualities of the soil — ^and whether that soil contained
ill the properties necessary for that production ■ if not, what ma-
lures and composts are suitable for invigorating it, or restoring
he different agents — without this knowledge, no system of agricul-
ure can be enlightened or perfectly successful. In illustration,
et me sup[)ose a case : — A practical farmer wishes to produce a
Jertain crop from a particular field under cultivation. Now, if he
knows what agints are necessary for the production of such a crop,
ind also that his field is deficient in any of those agents, he ought
0 supply them, and thus render the power of his soil complete.
But without this knowledge, the usual error is to manure general-
y, by which, if the farmer has supplied the deficient agency, he
nay have added others in which the soil abounded. In this case
le will obtain his crop, but it generally happens that those neces-
ary agtnts are not supplied — in which cr.se, he will not only have
ailed in his crop, but be subjected to additional expense. Now

354 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the great object of the Improved system of agriculture, is not mere-
ly to enable the farmer to produce more, for that he may learn
from the fancy cultivator, with his expenses, appliances, and care-
lessness of economy— but to enable him to produce, and by that
production to make money. That system of agriculture, there*
fore, is best, which enables the farmer, on a given amount of capi-
tal, to produce the greatest amount of profit. Profit, then, in
agriculture, is the grand test of perfection ; and these objects the i
American Agricultural Society propose, not only most fully, but
only to obtain by the union of scientific knowledge with good pro-
ductive husbandry. To ensure this union, and its legitimate re-
sults, is the great object of this association. But I may here be
asked, perhaps, where is the necessity of a new agricultural Asso-
ciation ? Have we not already sufficient number of institutions
for the proinotion of this object? Have we not, even in our
midst, the American Institute with its agricultural department 1
In answer to this I would remark here, in the first place, that, as
regards the American Institute, I never can, here or elsewherCj
speak of that noble and patriotic institution but in terms of the
warmest respect and regard ; and as a citizen of the United States,
I am happy to avail myself of this occasion to express my acknow-
ledgments for the great good they have already accomplished,
and, I trust, the greater good they are yet destined to achieve.
But with objects so numerous and extended, the American Insti-J
tute cannot give agriculture that attention it demands. Mr. Bra-
dish concluded in a few words, illustrative of the wide field there
was for the co-operation of their new association to promote the<
end proposed.

Mr. Meigs returned thanks for the complimentary allusion oi
the President, to the American Institute, and expressed himseli
delighted to see the formation of the new Association in a cause
dear to him and all true friends of the country ; after which.

The Secretary read the minutes of the last meeting, held on
January 22d, which were adopted.

A report from the Visiting Committee having been read, ano-
ther of a more important character, from the Executive Committee,
was introduced by the Secretary. Accompanying the report, was
a draft of the constitution and by-laws of the Association, which
the Executive Committee submitted for the approval of the meet-
ing. They were unanimously adopted, after a few alterations
suggested by Professor Mason and Dr. Stevens, one of which made
the President and Secretaries ex-oflficio members of the Executive
Committee, to which the constitution assigned the power of dis-
posing of the unappropriated funds of the Society.

W. A. Seeley, Esq. read an admirable and elaborate paper to
the Society upon Organic and Agricultural Chemistry, in which

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 355

the importance of science to agriculture was shown in a masterly
manner — it elicited warm marks of approval.

The meeting was then addressed by Dr. Stevens, Dr. Underhill,
and Professor Mason, when the thanks of the Association were
voted to the Historical Society for the gratuitous use of their
rooms ; and the meeting adjourned till the first Monday of next
month.

PERUVIAN AND AFRICAN GUANO.

" Resolved, That the Association cause an analysis to be made
of the cargoes of guano from Ichaboe and Peru, now in the mar-
ket, for the use of members and all persons in the neighborhood ;
and that a report be drawn up with the analysis, containing sug-
gestions for the application of the manure ; the whole to be pub-
lished as early as practicable in the agricultural papers of this city
and vicinity."

PERUVIAN GUANO.

Uric acid 10.5

Ammonia 19.0

Phosphoric acid 14 . 0

Lime and magnesia 16.0

Salts of soda and potash 6.0

Oxalic acid, with carbonic and muriatic acids. . . 13.0

Water = 13 .0

Sand 2.0

Volatile and organic matters 6.5

100.00

ICHABOE GUANO.

Ammonia 13.5

Humic acid 4.0

Phosphates - . 25 . 0

Oxalic, &c., acids 20.0

Salts of Soda, &c 7.0

Water and volatile matter 27 .5

Sand 3.0

100.00
Prices and Relative Value of the Peruvian and African Gua^
no. — T'hese specimens are both very fair, and represent the pecu*
liarities of the tw^o kinds of guano. The absence of uric acid in
the African variety, is the cause of its inferiority ; for that body
I decaying gradually in the soil, continues to yield carbonate of
ammonia for a long time, so that the stimulating effects of the
guano are seen the next year, whilst the African is more fleeting.
The prices of the two are, for Peruvian $45, and for African $35

356 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

per ton, for quantities amounting to five tons ; and this may he
considered, all things being taken into account, a fair representa-
tion of their Value in agriculture.

The African being soluble to the extent of 40 percent, is better
adapted for watering plants, and where very rapid growth is want-
ed. The Peruvian, on the other hand, acts for a longer time, and
is better calculated for crops which continue to grow vigorously
during many weeks. The two will probably produce very similar
effects for one crop ; but the Peruvian is much more active on the
second crop.

Crops to which it is Applied. — It is hardly necessary to state,
that the application may be made to every crop, for experiments
are already multiplied with nearly every common plant or tree :
to enumerate a few is sufficient. Wheat, corn, grass, the cerealia,
sugar-cane, tobacco, apple, pear, and other fruit trees, flowers,
cabbages, turnips, and other cruciferous plants ; the experiments
are fewest on leguminous plants. But the effect of guano will
not be equal on all j for those plants requiring most stable manure,
such as tobacco, turnips, and corn, are more benefited than grass,
oats, or such as require less — the chief effect of the manure being
due to the quantity of the ammonia it contains. The reason gua-
no is serviceable to all plants, arises from its containing every sa-
line and organic matter they require as food.

Kitids of Soil to which it may be Applied. — It has been used
beneficially on all soils ; for as it contains every element necessary
to plants, it is independent of the quality of the soil — one great
point being attended to, that the land be in good tilth ; for, other-
wise, the tender roots of the vegetable find an obstruction to free
growth, and are crippled. Poor, well-tilled soils exhibit most in-
crease by guano, for in them, some essential to the growth of
plants is more likely to be absent.

Amount to he Applied. — On wheat, 250 lbs. per acre will be
an average for a fair soil ; 300 lbs. per acre for one that is poor,
and 200 for a good soil. Corn, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, and
garden vegetables, will require 300 lbs. in fair lands j but the
amount may be dimished by 50 lbs., if two applications are made
instead of one. For grass, rye, and oats, 200 lbs. will be enough.

Time and Mode of Applicatio7i. — Seeds may be prepared by
soaking in a solution of two lbs. of guano to the gallon of water,
and this will answer for a first manuring, if they arc left sufficient-
ly long to exhibit signs of germination. Wheat and other small
grains should be steeped in this solution about sixty hours, corn
about one hundred hours. Thus steeped, the seeds of smut will also
be destroyed. Half the quantity per acre to be applied when the
plant has fairly started, and is in second leaf. By this timely ad-
dition, the effects of many insects arc avoideil, and the seedling at
once takes on a robust habit. The remaining half should be ap-

(

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 357

plied to the small grain crops when they are throwing out
new stems, or tillering ; to corn, as the tassel appears, or at
the second hoeing, and so with other hoed crops. This ap-
plication should be made, therefore, at the latest period of
working, and as nearly before flowering as practicable. The
guano should be sowed with a mixture of fine soil, gypsum or
charcoal, to give it bulk, and divide the particles. No lumps
should be thrown amongst the plants, for they burn them ; and
where an extensive application is to be made, it is better to screen
the manure and pound the lumps. In sowing, reach the soil,
if possible, for it is unserviceable to sprinkle it on the plants, and
frequently destroys them. Select a season when the land is wet
or moist, or when rain may be expected ; for in dry weather the
guano does not answer well, or even does injury, by acting as a
'' caustic on vegetation. But if the crop suits, always prefer manu-
ring the plant or hill ; do this whilst hoeing ; less guano is thus
! used, and more certain effects result. One tablespoonful to the
i hill of corn, tobacco, potatoes, &c., is an abundance for each ap-
j plication. If a solution be preferred, mix one pound in ten gal-
j Ions of water, and water sparingly with this on the soil, and not
I on the pla7}tSj at the times before mentioned, taking care to stir up
I the insoluble portion when applied. For this purpose, the African
j variety will be most suitable. Or, where rapid growth is wanted,
irrespective of seed, the clear solution may be applied ; the inso-
luble matter (phosphates, &c.) being reserved for wheat and corn.
Guano may be composted with common soil, or anything but lime
and unleached ashes ; for these liberate the free ammonia, and thus
diminish the effects of the manure.

Value, compared with other Manures. — So far as the experi-
ments in England and Scotland may be adduced, one cwt. of gua-
no is equal to about five tons of farm-yard manure on an average ;
but it is much higher for turnips than for grass, &c. It would be
advisable that in the very different climate of the United States,
comparative experiments be made on this point. Let twenty single
cart loads of stable manure be used per acre on wheat, corn, &c.,
and contrasted with four cwt. of guano. It would also be of ser-
vice to the agricultural world, that some experiments were made
on the value of the organic and inorganic portions of guano. A
plot of ground, eight square yards, may be divided into two parts,
one half manured with the ordinary guano, and half with the
ashes remaining after burning. In this way, the proportionate ef-
fect of the organic and saline parts would be estimated, and the
conclusion be serviceable, insomuch as the saline matters can be mix-
ed into a compost for a trifling sum, and thus the expense of gua-
no avoided. D. P. Gardner, M. D.

J\''otice. — This publication is made by the American Agricultural
Association, not that parties may be induced to purchase guano,

358 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

but that attention may be called to the varieties for sale, and other
particulars, for the diffusion of correct information. It is their in-
tention to examine all available manures, and make them known
publicly, as well as the results of careful experiments in agricul-
ture, horticulture, and the management of stock, and to issue not
only information from time to time, but a series of Transactions,
embodying the particulars of their experiments, analyses, &c.
All those wishing to advance the cause of improvement are re-
spectfully solicited to become members, and forward suggestions
for the advancement of agriculture. Letters or communications
to be addressed, post-paid, to the Secretary of the Executive Com-
mittee, Dr. D. P. Gardner, 412 Fourth-street, New-York. By
order of the Executive Committee.

R. L. Pell, Chairman.
March 12, 1845.

THE ALPACA.

Wf desire to direct the attention of our wealthy farmers to the
following extract, from the British Cultivator. It will be seen,
on its perusal, how much interest this animal is exciting in England
and Scotland ; and, may we not hope that an equal amount of in-
terest may be excited also in this country, especially in the state
of New-York. Probably there is no climate, nor any range of
country better fitted to the natural habits and wants of this ani-
mal, than the northern section of this state. Mountainous and
broken, as much of it is, and yet producing a great abundance of
the food which is adapted to the constitution of the Alpaca, and
at the same time furnishing a most ample extent of country which
is fitted only for grazing, it seems that a better combination of
circumstances does not exist where such an enterprize as the intro-
duction of this animal bids so fair for success.

" For most of our cultivated plants, and, indeed, for many of
our domestic animals, we are indebted to other countries. With
regard to the former, the history of their introduction is, in many
cases, well established in detail ; but it is so long since the latest
of them — the potatoe, the turnip, or the mangel-wurzel, or carrot,
for instance — was first cultivated in our country, that farmers have
fairly settled down into the belief that they must make the best of
the subjects they have on hand, for that Nature has nothing fur-
ther in her stores suited, in our climate, for the wants of man or
beast. And with regard to the latter, the introduction of the very
latest dates so far back, that we must estimate the prejuilice as
stronger still, which scouts at the idea of any further addition being
made to our stock of domestic animals from the lists of other coun-

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 359

tries. Of course, in speaking of this universal prejudice, we allude
simply to the generality of those who at present occupy and cul-
tivate our soil, and who form their opinion, probably, without very
well knowing the grounds upon which it rests.

There is every probability, notwithstanding the general notion
to the contrary, that a useful addition will shortly be made to our
stock of domestic animals. The alpaca, from the experience of
it which has been compiled from various quarters in this country
by Mr. Walton, really seems likely hereafter to play an important
part in the stock-farming of the hilly districts of the kingdom.
This animal is indigenous in the mountainous regions of Peru,
where two domesticated species of it occur. The one receiving
the name of llama, is used as a beast of burden ; the other, the al-
paca, to which we at present allude, is a wool-bearing animal, and
of it large flocks were formerly possessed by the Incas, sovereigns
in former days of that country, and by other wealthy inhabitants
of it. The climate of the districts in which this animal flourishes,
is described by Mr. Walton as follows :

' The woolly natives possess a hardiness of constitution, and a
peculiarity of structure, admirably well adapted to the nature of
their birthplace. There, during half the year, snow and hail fall
incessantly ; whilst in the higher regions, as before noticed, nearly
every night the thermometer falls below the freezing point, anil
the peaks, consequently, are constantly covered with an accumu-
lation of ice. The wet season succeeds,' &c.

On the applicability of the alpaca to our soil and circumstances,
we quote the following remarks :

' The hardy nature and contented disposition of the alpaca cause
|it to adapt itself to almost any soil or situation, provided the heat
lis not oppressive, and the air is pure. The best proof of its har-
diness is its power to endure cold, damp, hunger, and thirst — vi-
cissitudes to which it is constantly exposed on its native moun-
tains ; while its gentle and docile qualities are evinced in its gene-
ral habits of affection towards its keeper. No animal in the crea-
tion is less affected by the changes of climate and food, nor is there
any one to be found more easily domiciliated than this. It fares
well while feeding below the snowy mantle which envelops the
'summits, and for several months in the year clothes the sides of
the Andes. It ascends the rugged and rarely trodden mountain
path, with perfect safety ; sometimes climbing the slippery crag
in search of food, and at others instinctively seeking it on the
heath, or in rocky dells shattered by the wintry storm j at the
same time that, when descending, it habituates itself to the wet
md dreary ranges on the lowlands, so long as it is not exposed to
the intense rays of the sun.

' Many of our northern hills would try the constitution of any

360 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

sheep, and yet there the weather is never so inclement or so vari-
able as on the Cordilleras of Peru. With so many advantages,
why then, shall not the alpaca have an opportunity of competing
with the black faced sheep, the only breed that can exist in those
wild and inhospitable lands 1 Of the two, the stranger would
fare best on scanty and scattered food ; at the same time affording
to the owner a far better remuneration.'

The alpaca wool is at present used largely in British manufac-
tures. Mr. Walton estimates the quantity hitherto consumed,
since its introduction in 1S32, at 12,000,000 lbs. The price of it
varies from 1a". 8d. to 2s. 6d. per pound, and the average weight
of the fleece may be put at 10 pounds. Were the animal fairly'
naturalized on some of our bleakest hill districts, such land would i
soon increase in value from the increased worth of its annual pro-
duce in alpaca wool. And it appears from the experience of seve-i
ral gentlemen who have small flocks, that, when its habits shall bei(
thorougly understood, little difficulty will be experienced in doingi
so. The following is a statement by Mr. Stirling, of Craigbarnet'
place, Lennoxtnwn, Glasgow, a gentleman better qualified to speakl
on the subject than any one we could name :

' I can have no doubt that, when the subject is better under^<
stood, the animal itself better known, and a more expeditious me-<
thod contrived to bring them to Britain, we shall have thousands!
of them. When known, their docility, their temperate habitsJ
their hardiness, and, I may add, their easy keep, will, ere long,J
bring them into general notice. I can answer without the fear oil
being contradicted, that they will thrive and breed in Scotland]
equal, if not superior to our native black faced sheep.'

To those who would laugh at the idea of bringing over here,
and domesticating on our hills, a Peruvian camel or sheep, (for the
alpaca has properties in common with both,) we would point to
Australia, a country which not many years ago possessed no qua-
druped but the kangaroo ; and yet notwithstanding its many pecu-
liarities of climate, is now thickly peopled with our sheep and ox-
en. But the question must not be left to generalities of this kind.
The experience of a few short years, on the larger scale whcih ex-
pected importations will enable, will determine it satisfactorily;
and if, as in all probability will be the case, the alpaca should be-
come one of our domestic animals, the best thanks of the countrj .jj
"will be due to Mr. Walton for the persevering energy with which
he has pressed the subject on public attention. His book is an ex-
ceedingly interesting and nratly got-up little volume, and will,w<
doubt not, prove a useful publication."

'1

h

1

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 361

)N THE FORMATION OR SECRETION OF CARBON BY
ANIMALS.*

BT MR. ROBERT RIGG.

The scientific world is at present much occupied with the appli-
ation of chemistry to animal and vegetable physiology ; and it
aay be interesting to some of your readers to know, that by a few
ery simple experiments they may satisfy themselves upon that
ranch of the subject which relates to the formation of carbon by
nimals.

Suppose an animal, which comprises in its whole system 50
larts by weight of carbon, to be kept for five days, during which
t consumes other 50 parts, it is evident that if during the five days
t gives to the atmosphere 60 parts, and at the end of that time it
5 found to have increased its weight of carbon by 10 parts, there
5 a positive gain of carbon equivalent to 20 per cent.
: The experiment may easily be made upon young small animals,
^ake two of these so nearly alike that there can be no material
iflFerence in the weight of the carbon they comprise. Kill one of
liese, and expose it to a temperature not exceeding 220°, for two
r three days; it may then be powdered, and by subjecting an
iverage sample to analysis with oxide of copper, the weight
|f carbon comprised in the entire animal may be determined
!rith the greatest certainty. The other being supplied with food,
tie weight and chemical constitution of which is ascertained, should
e kept in a limited atmosphere, which must be tested and changed
very one, two, or three hours,f the increased proportion of car-
onic acid of that atmosphere will show the quantity of carbon
liven off by the animal in the course of the experiment ; and the
icrease or decrease of carbon in the animal itself may be ascer-
iined in the manner above mentioned.

In this manner I have experimented upon many animals ; and
dthout taking account of the carbon which passes off otherwise
lan by respiration, the result has invariably been a great increase
jf carbon — an increase which cannot be accounted for, unless we
jonclude that carbon is secreted by animals.

Amongst my best experiments, are those made with young mice.
. healthy young mouse, weighing 200 grains, comprises in its
pnstitution from 25 to 30 grains of carbon ; when fed daily with
0 grains of bread moistened with water, containing about 16

rains of carbon, it increases in weight, and imparts to the atmos-

here from 20 to 26 grains of carbon, the quantity varying gene-

• Medical Gazette, Aug. 23, 1844.

t The health of animals appears to be affected by aa atmosphere eontaining more
an 5 per cent, of its volume of carbonic acid.
VOL. I. NO. II, M

362

Q.U ARTERLY JOURNAL.

rally with' the quietness or the habits of the animal. A kitten,
from six to ten weeks old, when supplied daily with four fluid
ounces of skim-milk, containing 66 grains of carbon, will increase
in weight, and impart to the atmosphere from SO to 110 grains of
carbon.

Either of these two animals may be kept without food until they
give off by respiration a weight of carbon equal to 80 per cent,|i
and retain from 60 to 70 per cent., of that which they comprised
at the commencement, showing that a weight of carbon equal taj
40 per cent, had been secreted. The experiment may also be'
made with birds supplied with little or no food. A tomtit waj
placed under experiment without food ; the bird was violent anc'
restless during its imprisonment. In sixteen hours it imparted t(
the atmosphere 65 per cent, of carbon, when it appeared to die o:'
exhaustion, and retained 77 per cent of the weight of carbon i
originally contained ; showing a secretion of carbon in sixteei
hours, when under violent exertion, equal to 42 per cent.

On making the carbon in the food, and that in the air respiret
by a full grown person, the basis of our calculation, we obtain re
suits which favor the conclusion that carbon is likewise secrete*
by man. Physiologists estimate the weight of carbon in the ai
respired by an adult at from 5,000 to 6,000 grains per diem.
have subjected to analysis many articles of food, and found thi
weight of carbon far to exceed that in the food consumed by raos
laboring men, who may be supposed to impart to the atmospher
the greatest weight of carbon. A person eating each day afte
the following rate, will consume 6,000 grains of carbon :

Rump steaks 1 lb. containing 1,050 gr. carbon.

Bread lido. " 2,830 "

Potatoes.... 4 do. " 310 "

Porter 2 pts. " 760 " M

New milk.. 2 fl. oz. " 57 » inl

Butler i oz. " 320 " .'.

Cheese .... 1 do. " 150 " f

Sugar 2 do. " 350 " 4*1

Coffee 1 do. " 96 " ^|

Tea 1 do. " 80 »

6,003

This weight of carbon is not more than is consumed by som
persons who are actively employed, but it far exceeds that in th
food of our laboring population ; and on comparing it with th?
allowed for each adult in the difierent workhouses, &c., we hav
in the dietary of the —

Per Cent, of this 6,000.

City of London Union 75

Brentford do 50

' EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 363

Percent, of this 6,000.

I Uxbridge do 55

Aylesford do. 56

Macclesfield do 44

Westminster New Prison 57

Milbank Penitentiary 80

House of Correction, Clerkenwell 53

Hanwell Lunatic Asylum 75

nd if wc make the carbon in the food of some of our agricul-
i;l laborers the subject of comparison, we tind the deficiency
r,ter than in any of the above mentioned dietaries.

could add to these many other experiments, which furnish, in
ropinion, irresistible evidence of the secretion of carbon by ani-
ls;. If an animal be kept without change of circumstances, or
f iet, except as to the quantity of food, it will be found that the
^tjht of carbon in the air respired, does not vary in proportion
3 lat consumed in the shape of food. On the contrary, the de-
cacy of carbon supplied seems to be met by an extraordinary
(fit of the animal system, as appears from the following results
f pcurate observation : —

la the food. In (be air respired,

fi; animal in the first 24 hours )
]|S a plentiful supply of food, / 80 grs. of carbon 100

ijere is )

n le next 24 hours a less quantity 70
" " a sparing do. 60

" " a small do. 60

" " a very small do 40

m if the animal, instead of having its quantity of food variedj
held be sometimes left in a quiescent state, and sometimes excit-
(1 I great activity, the weight of carbon given off will be found
0 iry in proportion, within certain limits, to the activity of the
lals of the animal, and the exertion called forth-

I the carbon in the food be represented by 100

"jiat given off by an animal of easy habits will be 110

'liat given off by an animal of active habits, will be. . . 130

Ij). do. when under exertion ., 140

1)). when under great exertion 150

lithe animal be both stinted of food, and excited to great acti-
•tjthe (lifTerence between the carbon comprised in the food and
tairiyen off by the animal is as follows :

I la the fooiL Ciiven ofll Difierenee.

' Crbon 100 120 20

' 80 105 25

' 60 90 30

5)

94

3?

87

)5

78

?J

65

)

50 85 35

•e^-i

364 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Hence food is a substitute for expenditure of animal strengtl;
To this may be added, that when an animal is distressingly exe
cised, the weight of carbon in the carbonic acid given off by resp
ration is at first increased^ afterwards gradually diminishes, ar
becomes much less when the animal is in a state of exhaustio
Rest alone is not then sufficient,, but rest and food soon restore tl
strength of the animal j and with its strength its power of score
ing carbon — a power which I conceive to be essential to anim
life, and which will probably furnish a solution to some of t
most difficult problems of animal physiology, including that oft
generation of animal heat.

[From the Glasgow Argus. 1

DINNER IN HONOR OF PROF. UEBIG. ,

We doubt not that many of our readers will be pleased w
the remarks of Prof. Gregory at the Glasgow dinner, in Octol
last. They give a succinct view of the labors of this distinguisl
man, and the contributions he has made to science. For this r
son, they are deserving of a place in our columns. It is true, t '
this speech contains a few words which may not be intelligible <
all our readers ; still, by far the greater part is, and may be p
sented with profit and pleasure.

" Professor Gregory, on risng, was loudly applauded. My L '
and Gentlemen, he said, in proposing, as I have been requester
do, ' The Progress of Organic Chemistry,' I may perhaps
allowed briefly to direct yaur attention to its recent history, m
especially in connection with the name of our honored gu '
(Cheers.) Before his time, the analysis of animal and regets
bodies was a most tedious and difficult operation. By his
provementSj and especially by his admirable invention of the j
ash apparatus for determining the proportion of carbon, he i
dered organic analysis so easy and so sure, that the chemist can r
undertake, and complete in a few weeks, researches which wc I
formerly have demanded years of labor. (Cheers.) A glano t
the former and at the present state of organic chemistry wc I
give the best idea of the value of Liebig's improvements ; ^
it ought to be specially noticed, that, although his methods h '
been now and then objected to, they are at this day, universi
employed by chemists. (Applause.) Armed with the powe 1
weapon of a sure and easy method of research, Liebig, in 16 >
took the field in organic chemistry ,• and the trophies of his pro\» *
are seen in an uninterrupted series of the most splendid orig 1

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 365

^searches in that department, from that date to the present time.
3;rmit me briefly to allude to the more important of these, con-
f ing myself, however, chiefly to the subject of general organic
teraistry. The services which Liebig has rendered to agricultu-
T. and physiological chemistry will, I doubt not, receive due
■8 ention from other speakers. The researches of Liebig, then, em-
hce, among numerous original discoveries of new compounds,
t3se of hippuric, onauthic, and amygdalmic acids ; of chloral and
alehyde ; of melon, melane, and a host of allied compounds, in-
culing two artificial alkalies, melamine and ammeline ; and in
tnnection with his illustrious fellow-laborer, Wohler, that of the
^)nderful and interesting series of compounds derived from uric
^id. In addition, however, to his actual discoveries of new com-
junds, Liebig has made vast contributions to our knowledge of
t)se previously described. Thus, he has studied with the most
1; lliant success, all the important organic acids, as well as the in-
t esting class of organic alkalies^ he has developed the true nature
( alcohol and of ether, and of the important process of acetifica-
tn, or the making of vinegar ; he has given us much new and
iluable information on the different kinds of sugar ; he has done
iDre than any other chemist to extend our knowledge of the
t nnpounds of cyanogen ; and has cleared up the theory of the
uy important manufacture of prussiate of potash, and placed
t s branch of industry on a much improved and secure founda-
t n. Along with Wohler, he has, I might almost say, exhausted
t3 extensive subject of uric acid; he has clearly developed the
iture and relations of these three isomeric bodies — cyanic, ful-
mic, and cyanuric acids ; and, by the demonstration of the exist-
ice and chemical relations of benzoyle, established the doctrine
T compound radicals, the most valuable and fruitful additions yet
ude to the theory of organic chemistry. This may appear, to
liny of those whom I address, merely a catalogue of names, but
te chemist will fully appreciate their value ; he will remember
lit there is not one of the discoveries I have enumerated which
Is not exerted a beneficial influence on the progress of science,
id that in them is often to be found the germ of those beautiful
Teas, the successful application of which to practical purposes, in
triculture and physiology, has made us feel it a duty to assemble
ire this day, in order to express our admiration and our grati-
1de. But the labors of our val\ied guest have led to many other
jactical improvements; as, for example, in the preparation of
tying oil for the painter ; in the manufacture of vinegar, of
■Jussiate of potash, of soap, of beer, and, what I am sure
^u will rejoice to hear, of wine ; in the preparation of lactic
lalic, and formic acids, with many others ; not to speak here of
1e immense benefit which agriculture and physiology are daily
^ riving from the application of his views. In organic chemistry-.

366 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the name of Liebig is, moreover, associated Avith several of
most important theoretical speculations, among which may
mentioned the now prevalent views, originally started by the
gacious genius of Humphrey Davy, of the true nature of at
and of salts ; accortling to which, acids, instead of being, as j
voisier supposed, invariably compounds of oxygen, are rat
compounds of hydrogen, the latter element being the true acidi
ing principle ; while salts are compounds in which the hydro{
of the acids has been replaced by metals. The doctrine of pc
basic acids, that is, of acids requiring more than one equivalenl
alkali to neutralize them, and the neutralizing power of which
measured by the proportion of replaceable hydrogen they conts
owes its development entirely to Liebig j and the same may'
said of his profound and beautiful views on the process of :
mentation, putrefaction, and decay. Were I asked to point
a good example of Liebig's researches, without particular re}
ence to agriculture, I would select; out of many equally valual
his researches on aldehyde and on the origin of acetic acid,
all know that no fermented alcoholic liquor can be produced
cept from the vinous fermentation of sugar ; and also that all :
mented liquors, under certain circumstances, are changed i
vinegar, or, in common language, undergo the acetous fermei
tion ; in more exact terms, the alcohol they contain is convei
into acetic acid. Now, if we compare the composition of ao
acid with that of alcohol, we find that the former contains less ':
drogen and more oxygen than the latter. It was therefore nei
sary to study the action of oxygen on alcohol ; and Liebig, pui
ing some observations of Doebereiner, soon found that this act
constituted two stages. In the first, oxygen removes part of
hydrogen of the alcohol, forming with it water, and leaving al
hyde, a pungent volatile neutral liquid ; and in the second, an
ditional quantity of oxygen combines with the aldehyde, convert
it into acetic acid. This discovery at once cleared up the wl
theory of the formation of vinegar from alcohol, put an enc
the fancy of acetous fermentation, the process being one sim
of oxidation ; and, by detecting the source of loss in the pro(
followed abroad for obtaining vinegar from brandy, (which i
shown to be the escape of aldehyde unoxidised from a defici
supply of oxygen,) enabled the manufacturer to improve {
economise his process. (Loud cheers ) ]3ut if I were cal
upon to selct, out of the ideas suggested by Liebig in agric
tural chemistry, those which do him the greatest honor, <
which have added^ and will add, most to our knowledge, I kn
not that I could do better than refer to his doctrine of
uses of the phosphates and of the alkalies in plants and animi
(Cheers. What is the use of the phosphates ? of those s
stances which are never absent in a fertile soil : and which, ac

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 367

I nulated in the form of dung, of bones, or of guano, we restore to it

) is manure 1 We find them in the ashes of plants, but the ques-

\ ion is, what purpose do they serve ? A few years ago the

nineral elements of plants were supposed to be accidental ; but,

ly exact analysis of the ashes of the different parts of plants,

jiebig discovered that the phosphates are invariably found in

he largest proportion in the seeds ; and, pursuing the inves-

igation, he showed that the phosphates are essential to the ex-

5tence of those vegetable products which are capable of con-

ributing to the nutrition and growth of animals — of albumen,

brine, and caseine ; which bodies, as is well known, are chiefly

3und in seeds, but are present also, in all nutritious roots and

iices. Hence he drew the conclusion that the phosphates are

idispensable to the life of vegetables ; not merely, as he showed^

1 being essential to the formation of seeds, but also for a wise

nd beneficent purpose, namely, that animals should find in the

egetables they consume, (such as grass, hay, oats, and turnips)

[Ibumen, fibrine, and caseine, the materials of which their blood,

lat is, their bodies, are formed. In animals, again, it is notmere-

r their bones, but every part of their structure, that requires the

Dntinued supply of phosphates, while the phosphates not required

)r nutrition are discharged in the dungand urine, andin that form

jstored to the soil, again to contribute to vegetable life, and from

ants again to pass into the bodies of animals. It is impossible

i) imagine a more beautiful display of the divine wisdom and pow-

il: than is thus laid open to our view. (Cheers ) Again, what is

18 use of the alkalies which are always found in the ashes of

lants, generally in the form of carbonates, indicating that they

ave been, in the fresh plant, combined with vegetable acids ?

he idea of Liebig is, that the alkalies, being supplied by the soil

> the young plants, not by fixing carbonic acid from the atmos-

tj here, which, along with the elements of water, under the com-

ined influence of the vital force of the plant and the chemical

jgency of the alkali, passes first into oxalic acid, then into malic,

;vtric, and tartaric acids, and finally, into sugar, gum, starch, and

roody fibre, which have all essentially the same composition.

liaving served this important purpose, the alkalies, in the shape

'^f vegetable ashes, or of animal manure, are again restored to the

' )il, again to run the same unceasing course of usefulness, and to

. cc.ite our wonder and admiration of that infinite wisdom which

) IS devised such beautiful arrangements for our benefit and happi-

?ss. (Cheers.) I cannot here refrain from mentioning, in proof

' \he continued activity of Liebig, that he published in May last

paper on the urine, which, for the importance of the subject, the

gaiiiy displayed in its investigation, and the beauty, as well as

e practical value of the deiluctions arrived at, is, in my opinion,

ititled to the very highest place among all the modern writing on

•

368 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

physiological or medical chemistry. I earnestly recommend this
invaluable paper, a translation of which has appeared in the Lan-
cet, to the careful study of my medical brethren. The chemist
■will also be glad to learn that, still more recently, Liebig has pub-
lished a most valuable memoir on mellon, confirming and extend-
ing his previous discoveries on that subject. It is not, however,
only as the indefatigable investigator, the sagacious discoverer, or
the profound philosopher, that Liebig has promoted the progress
of organic chemistry. His sympathetic writings on the subject,
especially his organic chemistry, written for the posthumous edi-
tion of Greigerh Manual, have greatly contributed to produce the
present flourishing state of this branch of science. (Hear, hear.)
The lectures on organic chemistry, now appearing in the Lancet,
are still more interesting, as embodying his most recent views. I
need say nothing of his two works on Agricultural and Animal
Chemistry. These works are at least as well known and as highly
appreciated here as in Germany ; in fact, it is as the author of
these works that we have met to do him honor ; and it is pleasing
to reflect that they have been so well received in Scotland..
(Cheers.) But perhaps it is as the teacher that Liebig has donei
most. Look at the scientific journals of the last fifteen years, andi
you will find that three-fourths of the researches on organic che-.
mistry which they contain have issued from the school of Giessenj
Indeed, so valuable and extensive are the additions made to science;

by his pupils, working under his eyes, profiting by his advice, and
enjoying, as all who have been there will bear witness, the most
kind, liberal, and utterly unselfish encouragement on his part, that
even if we owed to him none of his great works, and none of the
fine original papers he has given us, we should still be compelled
to recognise in him, as a teacher, the greatest benefactor to organ-
ic chemistry, through the many distinguished chemists he has
formed ; a large proportion of whom -are now Professors in all
parts of Europe. Among the distinguished pupils of Liebig, Glas-
gow can claim a full share. The late Robert Campbell was a na-
tive of Glasgow, and the names of Dr. Robert D. Thomson, and
of Dr. John Stenhouse, are now knowm throughout the scientific
world. (Applause.) My Lord and Gentlemen — I have detained
you far longer than I could have wished to do ; but, as a pupil ol
Liebig' s — as one who has, from an early period, devoted much
attention to organic chemistry — above all, as one who has experi-
enced, in its full measure, the unwearied kindness and the true
friendliness of his nature — I could not well say less than I have
done. I am sure you will join me in drinking, with deep gratitude
to Justice Liebig — " Success to Organic Chemistry." The toast
"was drunk amidst great applause.

EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 369

NEW METHOD OF OBTAINING CREAM FROM MILK : BY
G. CARTER, OF NOTTINGHAM, LODGE NEAR ELTHAM,
KENT.

A PECULIAR process of extracting cream from milk) by which a
superior richness is produced in the cream, has long been known
and practised in Devonshire ; this produce of the daries of that
county being well known to every one by the name of " clotted,'
or " clouted" cream. As there is no peculiarity in the milk from
which this fluid is extracted, it has been frequently a matter of sur-
prise that the process has not been adopted in other parts of the
kingdom. A four-sided vessel is formed of zinc plates, twelve
inches long, eight inches wide, and six inches deep, with a false
bottom at one-half the depth. The only communication with the
lower apartment is by the lip, through which it may be filled or
emptied. Having first placed at the bottom of the upper apart-
ment a plate of perforated zinc, the area of which is equal to that
of the false bottom, a gallon (or any given quantity) of milk is
poured (immediately when drawn from the cow) into it, and must
I remain there at rest for twelve hours. An equal quantity of boil-
;ing water must then be poured into the lower apartment, through
the lip. It is then permitted to stand twelve hours more, (i. e^
twenty-four hours altogether ;) when the cream will be found per-
fect, and of such consistence that the whole may be lifted off by
the finger and thumb. It is, however, more effectually removed by
gently raising the plate of perforated zinc from the bottom, by the
I ringed handles, without remixing any part of it with the milk be-
low. With this apparatus, I have instituted a series of experi--
ments, and, as a mean of twelve successive ones, I obtained the
following result :

Four gallons of milk, treated as above, produced, in twenty-four
hours, four and a half pints of clotted cream ; which, after churn-
ing only fifteen minutes, gave forty ounces of butter. The in*-
crease in the cream, therefore, is twelve and a half per cent, and
of butter upwards of eleven per cent.

The experimental farmer will instantly perceive the advantages
accruing from its adoption, and probably his attention to the sub--
iject may produce greater results.

MISCELLANIES.

THE PRETTY BIRDS — COMPLIMENT RETURNED.

Our readers will remember that we recently published a good
article headed " Spare the Birds," at the same time expressing a
hope that it would be heeded by every man and boy in the land.
tt was an earnest plea in behalf of the feathered tribe, based upon
their natural rights, their usefulness in the destruction of insects,
the gratification to the eye afforded by their plumage and motion,
and to the ear by their music. The claims of humanity were also
urged.

This publication was made on Wednesday morning last ; and in
the course of the day it was scattered far and wide. The joy and
gratitude which it diffused among the birds, may be estimated from
the fact, that on the following morning they waited upon the wri-
ter's family in a body, at his residence in New-Haven, — the num-
ber present being, as nearly as could be calculated, from 2500 to
8000. The blue-birds sent the largest delegation ; next, the
robins ; then the canker-birds, snow-birds, &c. As it was impos-
sible for so large a number to be received in person, the greater
portion of them very considerately took their positions on the dif-
ferent trees and fences about the yard, while a sub-committee of
about 250, comprising, say, 100 blue-birds, 75 robins, 40 canker-
birds, and 35 snow-birds, with perhaps small representations from
other tribes, presented themselves near the window of the sitting-
room, most of them gathering around, upon, or among the branches
of a young cedar 25 feet distant j and such a chirping, fluttering,
and cooing, — such pretty colors and motions, have rarely been
heard and seen before. Not only the sub-committee, but the whole
delegation, from every tree and shrub and picket, raised a grand
chorus, such as was never heard before, nor anything in compari-
son to it, by any who witnessed the celebration. The only
mortifying circumstance is, that the writer was not present^ (other-
wise we should probably have a speech to report,) having been
engaged at his usual drudgery in New-York. The sub-committee
were however entertained in the best manner which circumstances
would permit ; an ample repast being provided for them,- — for the
cedar was covered with berries, — which they partook of with an

MISCELLANIES. 371

excellent relish, and appeared to enjoy the interview quite as much
as did their honored guests. It continued for about two hours j
when fearing that they should be bur'lensomc, they withdrew, but
repeated the visit on the following day, much in the same manner.
The robins were uncommonly large and fat, and in fact the whole
delegation, and especially the members of the sub-committee, were
highly respectable in appearance, as we have no doubt they were
in reality. They have our best wishes for their continued health
and happiness. — Jour, of Commerce.

AMERICAN CHEESE.

At a meeting of the South Derbyshire Agricultural Society, on
Saturday week, Mr. Colville, M. P., who filled tlie chair, drew the
attention of the farmers to the import of American cheese, for the
purpose of calming their fears. He showed that, although the
import of American cheese had considerably increased, it liad dri-
ven the Dutch cheese out of the market. He produced a table,
which showed, that from 1831 to 1840, the importation from Ame-
rica had fluctuated, without any regularity, between nothing and
fifty hundred weight ; from Holland or Belgium the importation
had increased, in the same period, from 133,397 hundred weight
to 224,957 humlred weight ; from other European countries the
supply had remained insignificant and nearly stationary — 1,049 in
1831, ],464 in 1840: the aggregate importations advanced from
134,459 in 1831 to 226,462^ in 1840. The last figures of the table
^ne take as they stand : they show the imports of cheese, in hun-
dred weights, from the places named for the last three years.
Year. America. Europe. Total.

1841 15,154 254,995 270,149

1842 ...... 14,098 165,614 179,748

1843 42,312 1-36,998 .... 1'^9,.389

The importation of cheese had decreased during the last ten
years by nearly 32,000 hundred weight, while the population has
mcreased by 2^300,000 mouths.

eOW FEED.

M. Dumas made a report on some experiments made by M<
Boussaingault, relative to the feeding of cows with beei-root and
potatoes. M, Boussaingault states, that two cows which were fed
exclusively on beet-root, fell off in flesh in seventeen days, nearly
one-sixth, and their milk diminished from eight to ten litres per

372 QUARTfiRLV JOURNAL*

day to five litres. They were then turned into pasture, and sbDn
resumed their former weight, and gave the former quantity of milk.
They were next fed exclusively on potatoes, when they fell off
still more in flesh than they had done with beet-root, and the milk
was reduced to two litres each per day. On being placed on a
mixed food of hay, chopped straw, beet-root and potatoes, they
again recovered their flesh, and gave the former quantity of milk.
The conclusions of this gentleman are, that beet-root and potatoes
do not perform the part usually imputed to them, of fattening cat-
tle, or increasing the quantity of the milk of cows. His experi-
ments show that this is the case, when this food is given to the
exclusion of all others. — -London AthencBum. -

I

SALE OF AMERICAN HAY. 1

On Wednesday last, a sale of American hay, per the Liverpool,
from New-York, took place on the north quay of the Waterloo
Dock. The attendance was not numerous, though the bidding
was, on the whole, tolerably spirited. The hay was considered of
rather inferior quality. The quantity offered was 210 bales, divid-
ed, for the convenience of purchasers, into 21 lots, of 10 bales
each. The first lot went off at 7 id. per stone ; the next seventeen
were knocked down at 7d., and the three remaining lots at 7 id.
Tare was allowed at the rate of 25 lbs. per bale ; and parties were
to remove their purchases on the day of sale. It was stated that
there had been a loss by the sale of from 30 to 40 per cent. It
will be seen, by reference to our London market reports, that ano-
ther sale of American hay took place on Friday last in the metro-
polis. There, as here, the hay w^as not permitted to enter a bond-
ed warehouse, owing to its being a combustible matter, which, in
case of fire, occurring from spontaneous ignition or otherwise^
would vitiate the insurance policy.

i

INDEX.

Page.

Adaptations of Nature, 109

Agricultural Study, 296

Alpaca, 358

American Agricultural Association 352

American Cheese, 371

American Poulterer's Companion, 181

Animals, food of 101

Analysis of Rice — Rice Straw, 123

" Cottonwool, 130

" " Seed, 132

" Indian Corn, 133

Beds of Oyster Shells, 215

Berkshire Jubilee, 182

Birds 870

Charcoal, 112

Climate of New York, 205

Cold Winters and Deep Snows, 350

Cow Feed, 371

Culture of the Grape-vine, 143

Degeneracy from bad tillage, 293

Dinner in honor of Liebig, 364

Disease in Potatoes, 102

Draining, 83

Economy of Waste Manures, 182

EducatioB of a Farmer, 36, 222

Effects of Mental Impressions, 278

Experiments, 120, 137, 217, 290

Extracts, 122

Farmers' Manual 173

Farmers' Miscellany, 83, 270

Fertilizers in the Rocks, 62, 219

Flower Garden, 298

Food of Animals, 185

" Plants, 9

Formation of Carbon by Animals, 361

374 INDEX,

Page.

Fruit Trees 297

Fragment, 297

Free Martins, 39

Forsyth, (Rev.) Claims of Agriculture, 39

Gardening 108, 296

Geological Report of New-Hampshire, 232

Germination, 110

Grubs and Wire Worms, 121

Guano, 355

*' Peruvian^ 355

" Ichaboe, 355

** Analysis of 355

" Price and value of. 355

Hun, (Prof.) on Food, 9, 185

Incubation, 150

Inorganic parts uf Plants, 1 14

Injection of Warm Water, 116

Insects, 250, 255

Improvement of Stock, , 288

Jackson's Report, 232

Johnston's Lectures, 176

Jubilee of Berkshire, 182

Lectures, 176

Letters on Chemistry, 179

Liehig's Letters, 179

Management of Meadow Land, 270

Manures, 51, 311

Means for Improvement, 117

Method of obtaining Cream, 369

Model Farms, 148

Monell on Free Martins, etc 65, 278

Mrs. Rundell's Cook Book. 182

Necessity of Air, IIS

New Books 173

New Publications, 71, 232

Notices of the Winters at New- York, 347

On Soaking Seed, 146

On the Waste Pieces of Land, 139

Over Ripened Seed, 117

Oyster Shells, beds of. 215

Phosphate of Lime, 219, 60

Ploughing, 105

Practical directions for the Flower Garden, 298

Potatoes, — Experiments, 290

" Diseases, 91

Rankin's Experiment, 119

Rearing Cattle, 152

Road Wastes, 1 20

Ryder on Draining, etc , 83, 270

INDEX. 376

Pa;e.

Sole of Amprican Hay, 372

Selection of Seed 293

Silk, 155

Saul on the Yellows in Peach Trees, 2<S3

Soaking Seed 146

Source of Inorganic Matter, 170

Sour Soils, 47

The relation of Clay, &.C., 118

The Claims of Agriculture, 39

Theories, 118

Thrift, 167

Water Rotting Hemp, 165

What is to be done for it ? — Agriculture, 23

Yellows in Peach Trees, 233

AMERICAN

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

AGRICULTURE AND SCIENCE.

CONDUCTED BY

Drs. E. EMMONS and A. J. PRIME.

TOL.UITEE II.

ALBANY :

PRINTED BY CARROLL AND COOK.
1845.

J

TO OUB PATRONS.

We take this opportunity to inform our Patrons that our year is com-
ipleted with this number. We hope the Journal has been conducted so as
to satisfy the majority of our readers. We have received many flattering
expressions of regard for it. We shall continue it another year on the
same plan, and with increased efforts to make it what the farmer needs.
We shall be gratified if most of our present subscribers make up their
minds to patronize us the next year : if so, they may, if they please,
forward their subscriptions as early as convenient, say by the middle of
December. If they do not patronize the work, we shall esteem them just
as well. Whenever we find it is not wanted by a sufficient number to
support it, we shall stop it short at the close of the year ; for we have
something else to do than to beg for its life, and it shall not, while in our
hands, be suffered to taper off to the little end of a pipe stem. We seriously
contemplated reducing its price to two dollars, but found we could not,
and furnish such illustrations as the work demands. For further informa-
tion, we refer to the Prospectus. We would also call attention to a new
arrangement commencing with the present number, namely, the introduc-
tion of a division termed "Spirit of the Monthlies;" under which we
propose to make regular selections from the various agricultural periodi-
cals, whereby our subscribers will be furnished with much that is useful
and interesting, and which they could not obtain otherwise than by greatly
extending their subscription lists. A. J. PRIME.

Albany, October 20, 1845.

VOL. II. NO. II.

CONTENTS.

VOLUME II.— NUMBER 1.

Agricultural Geology : By E. Emmons —

1 . Soils from decomposition of rocks 1

2. Classification of rocks 3

3. Composition of simple minerals 9

4. Character of granitic rocks 12

5. Drifted soil 13

Relations of vegetables and animals 15

Odd Spells • By Giles B. Kellogg —

1. Thefarmer 21

2. The temperance reform among farmers 23

Drift and changes in the position of soils : By E. Emmons 26

Manures, their action —

1. Efficacy of organic and inorganic 34

2. At what period to be applied 36

3. How to be applied . 38

Guano: By E. E , Jr.,.. 40

How plants absorb carbonic acid : By William Partridge 45

Agricultural science, education, etc. etc. : By N. S. Davis 50

Supposed Zeuglodon cetoides : By E. Emmons 59

farmer's miscellany.
Husbandry in Central New- York, in Letters to John Koon, Esq., of Albany :
By one of the Editors —

Letter 1 . Hop culture 64 ,

— 2. CortlandviUe and Randall's farm 69

— 3. Randall's stock 72

— 4. Farm and farming of Mr. Hopkins 76

— 5. Culture of the teazle 79

— 6. Gleanings from Cxi-eatfielil 83

— 7. Wool in its structure, with figures 86

Practical Directions for the Flower Garden : Part I. —

5. Management of plants 89

6. Bulbous roots, tubers, etc 90

7. Carnation rose, etc , 94

8. Plants kept in rooms 98

Animals useful to the farmer 101

Improvement in agriculture 104

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Wood's Class-book of Botany 107

Transactions of New- York State Agricultural Society 109 ]

Farmers' and Emigrants' Handbook 117

Rheumatism, acute and chronic 118 |

Farmers' Library and Monthly Journal of Agriculture US

CONTENTS. m

CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANY.

Experiments with manures and electricity : By J. E. Muse 119

Philadelphia and horticulture 123

Analysis of soils, in reply to D. S. Howard 12fi

Letter from J. H. Coffin, and the Editor's remarks . 127

— — S. P. Rollo " " " 12S

— — W. Case " " " 129

Greatest iron mine in the world 129

Lead, silver and gold mine, in North Carolina 130

Artichokes 130

Hens 131

EXTRACTS, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.

Proceedings of the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists, with

remarks by one of the Editors 132

Report of James W. Gowen's farm 170

American cheese 176

Germination under colored glass 177

VOLUME n.— NUMBER 2.
)n the agricultural adaptation of that portion of the Taconic region which
comprises tlie counties of Dutchess, Columbia, Rensselaer and Washington
in the State of New-York, and Berkshire in the State of Massachusetts :

By E. Emmons 179

The Lost Races : By E. Emmons 199

iieat American Mastodon : By A. J. Prime 203

education of the American farmer : By E. Emmons 212

)n the study of entomology : By Hon. J. Barlow 218

V birdseye view of the vegetable productions, climate, soil and agriculture of
the different countries of the American continent : By C. N. Bement. . . . 221

lomething about manure and its application : By Jesse Ryder

nsects injurious to vegetation : No. 3. —

The wheat-fly : By Asa Fitch, M. D 233

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

'ravels in North America, in the years 1841 - 2, with geological observations
on the United States, Canada and Nova-Scotia : By Charles Lyell, F.R.S. 265

'ransactions of the New-York State Agricultural Society 271

he Botanical Text Book : By Asa Gray, M. D 281

► Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer : Containing topographical, statistical and
' other information of all the important places in the known world, from
the most recent and authentic sources, with a map : By Thomas Baldwin,
assisted by several other gentlemen 284

farmer's MISCELLANY.

usbandry in Central New-York : A series of letters —

Letter 1 286

— 2. Fair at Utica 288

— 3. Onondaga county 290

— -1. " " continued 291

— -5. Cold and compact soils 294

— 6. Mr. Geddes's farm 295

— 7. Wool, etc 298

— 8. Mr. Fuller's farm 301

— 9. Corrections and additions to former letters 203

•tter from J. H. Estabrook, M. D., Camden, Maine 304

r. Prentiss's free martin : By E. Emmons 205

I Hopkins, Esq., his opinion of the transformation of wheat into chess 308

' manures : By A. J. Prime , 309

i

IV CONTENTS.

NEW BOOKS.

The American Shepherd : by L. A. Morell 314

First Annual Report of the Geology of the State of Vermont : By C. B. Adams,

State Geologist ... 315

EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC JOURNALS.

Foreign : From the London Atheneeum.

Transactions of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 316

Chemistry , 316-318

Zoology and Botany 318

On mineral manures 319

Ashes of narcotic plants 319

Ethnology 320

Zoology 320

Appropriations of the British Parliament 323

Mean height of continents above the sea 324

Domestic :

Agricultural items > 324

Wealth of a nation 326

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES.

Farmer's Library :
Fall ploughing 328

How to ati'ord the necessary supply of air to the roots of plants 330

Albany Cultivator: '■

Specimens of soil from Wisconsin ... 336

Gestation of cows . 337

Self-acting pump 339

Foot-rot in sheep 341

Ohio Cultivator :
Planting strawberries 345 (

American Agriculturist :

Root-grafting 346 1

Fences 348 n

The swinny 350 jj

Fatting swine 352

Incubation 353

Prairie Farmer :
Breeds of cattle for the West 355

Maine Cultivator :
Soapsuds compost 357

Farmers' Cabinet :

Management of hens 35i

Preparation of seed 35£

To make good butter 361

Boston Cultivator :

Raising of peaches 36v

Propagation of fruit trees 36-1 ,

Cultivation of cranberries 36^

MISCELLANIES.

Zeuglodon cetoides of Owen 3(jt

Ammonia destructive to insects 36'

Native lamellar iron 36'

Oxide of Copper 36"

Veins of hematite 36'i

Conglomerate of the granular quartz 36!i

A farm cultivated by the insane 36t|

The young pliilosoplier 36'

Moral ])ower of a kind spirit 37i|

TheFreedBird , 37

i

TO OUR READERS.

Under the new Rates of Postage, this Journal will be charged,
0 those who receive it by mail, by the ounce, and by this means
vill amount to no more than the postage on a weekly newspaper.
Phe Postmaster General has made provision for transmitting
aoney to Editors, but we will not trouble the department with
'ur business. Subscribers will oblige us by transmitting their
ubscriptions to us by mail and we will pay the postage.

We have been gratified with the expressions of unqualified ap-
robation with which the Journal has been received thus far, and
0 effort will be wanting on the part of the Editors to sustain its
haracter, and make it the first Agricultural Journal in this coun-
*y. And we would ask the efforts of our friends to add to our
st of subscribers. We have not yet undertaken to praise our-
jlves, but we might cite a large amount of recommendations,
ioth from individuals and from the public press. Still it is our
I'ish to stand upon the actual merits of the Journal, and of these
ar readers will judge. We think it will recommend itself to every
itelligent agriculturist. By that class of farmers who are already
)o wise to learn, we do not expect to be read.

We are requested to notice the following errors in our lastnum-
it: Page 284, 18th line, and page 287, 9th line, for trimming
:ad thinning.

Page 302, 23d line, for rot read root.

Downing's " Fruits and Fruit Trees of America," was received

0 late for notice.

Some obscurity seems to exist in the explanation of the draw-

gs on page 86. A millimeter is about 3^ of an inch. The

visions of the attached scale represent hundredth parts of a mil-

neter — each division, consequently, is equal to 2 jVo of an inch.
y applying this scale, therefore, to the drawing?, the exact degree

fineness may be seen.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.— NO. 1.

Agricultural Geology —

1. Soils from decomposition of rocks, 1

2. Classification of rocks, 3

3. Composition of simple minerals. 9

4. Character of granitic rocks, 12

5. Drifted soil, 13

Relations of Vegetables and Animals, 15

Odd spells, by Giles B. Kellogg —

1. The farmer, 21

2. The temperance reform among farmers, 23

Drift and Changes in the Position of Soils, 26

Manures — their Action —

1. Efficacy of organic and inorganic 34

2. At what period to be applied, 36

3. How to be applied, 38

Guano: By E. E , Jr., 40

How Plants Absorb Carbonic Acid : By Wm. Partridge, 45

Agricultural Science — Education, &c., &c. : By N. S. Davis, 50

Supposed Zeuglodon Celoides : By one of the Editors, 59

farmers' miscellany.

Husbandry in Central New- York, in Letters to John Coon, Esq., of
Albany: By one of the Editors,

Letter 1, Hop Culture, 64

" 2, Co. tlandville and Randall's farm, 69

" 3, Randall's stock, 72

" 4, Farm and farming of Mr. Hopkins, 76

" 5, Culture of the teazel , 79

" 6, Gleanings from Grealfield, 83

" 7, Wool and its structure, with figures, 86

Practical Directions for the Flower Garden — Parti.

5. Management of Plants 89

6. Bulbous roots — tubers, &c. , 90

7. Carnation — rose, &c., 94

8. Plants kept in rooms 98

Animals useful to the farmer 101

Improvement in agriculture, 104

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Wood's class book of Botany 107

Transactions of New-York State Agricultural Society, 109

IV CONTEXTS.

Farmers* and emigrants' handbook, 117

Rheumatism — acute and chronic, 118

Farmers' Library and Monthly Journal of Agriculture 118

CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANY.

Experiments with manures and electricity: ByJ.E. Muse, 119

Philadelphia and horticulture, 123

Analysis of soils, in reply to D. S. Howard, ^ J26

Letter from J. H. Coffin, and the Editor's remarks, 127

" " S. P. Rollo " " '•' 123

" '•' W. Case, " " " 129

Greatest iron mine in the world 129

Lead, silver and gold mine, in North Carolina, 130

Artichokes, 130

Hens, 131

EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC,

Proceedings of the American Association of Geologists and Natu-

ralists, with remarks by one of the Editors, 132

Report of Jas. W. Gowen's farm, 170

American cheese, 176

Germination under colored glass, 177

i

The Jldirondack Pass.

AMERICAN

QUAKTERLT JOURNAL

or

AGEICUITURE AND SCIENCE.

'•^^- JULY, 1845.

No. 1.

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY.

.eral obsorvations on the soils derived from the decomposition of different rocks
lass.ficafon o rocks. Analysis of simple minerals : felspar and aU^eXZdo
. ; hornblende; hypersthene; serpentine; basalt and greenstone Dx^ftedsot.'

Soils derived from the decomposition of different rocks.
I h the pursuit of an important object, it is wise and proper to
ad ourselves of all the aids within our reach to secure its at-
itament ; and it is an imperious duty so to do, when the object
tcbe obtained is surrounded with difficulties, and where every
re of light IS wanted to illuminate dark and obscure points
Udh agriculture all the modern sciences send their licrhts some
m|-eand some less- all, however, impart something" and lend
t ,.r aid to its promotion. Ln this office geology is behind none
0^.1^ unkss It be chemistry, whose range is not only great, but
m;u e, affecting every and all departments. A great many facts,
stp^tly geological, have an important bearing upon the subject
be-re usj such as the nature of the rock, its structure and posi-
tK, Its composition, its relations to moisture, and liability to solu-
te Ihe position of the rocks of a district, as will be seen in
ti.sequel is always an important point, and in some cases all that
sentially requisite; for it often adds value to their possession

■>L. II. — NO, I. A '

-KO. I. A

2 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

even when they cannot be turned to account directly in the culti-
vation of the soil. .|i
Under the influence of these considerations, and others of mij,
nor importance, which it is unnecessary to state, I propose to giv ■ (
first of all a recapitulation of the geology of New-York, with ;
view of applying all the facts which bear upon agriculture to it .
illustration. For the convenience of description, I shall pursu,
the plan adopted in the geological reports, namely, that of d( ;
scribing the rocks in the ascending order ; and this will lead me 1 t
speak of them in the order of the districts which I have alread.; ,
briefly described, and into which the state has been divided.*

The six districts coinciding nearly with six groups of roclsi /,

each of these groups respectively imparts to the overlying scq

some of its distinguishing characters, or in a good measure mafc^ J

it what it is. Modifying influences, however, independent of t 'I

geological formation, have done something as diluvial ortrai,|

porting agents, by which soils originating and formed at a distanj,!

have been brought to and distributed over adjacent districts. Sf^;

it will be found on examination that the underlying rocks h^

given a stronger character to the soft materials than has usuaj,

been supposed, leaving out of view some areas in every disti<((i

where drift has lodged in deep beds. 1 1

In estimating the amount of soil furnished by groups of roc ,|

we are necessarily obliged to observe the nature of the masj^,

Many of the shales and slates, and they occur in almost ev f

group, disintegrate rapidly, the action being favored both by wjr

and frost: the first, penetrating between the lamincc, partially sef

rates them ; and in some instances no other agent is requirec

eff-ect an entire destruction of a stratum, especially where weti

and drying alternately occur. In other cases, the assistanw

frost is required to eff-ect a complete reduction of the straff

soil. • 1 u 1

Limestones are liable to a constant loss of material by sol
properties of rain water, which holds carbonic acid in solutt
and this operation is favored by a rough or uneven surface, w
the water stands for a time. On a polished surface, the actio
water and other agents is very slow and inconsiderable even i
the lapse of several years, as is proved by the durabihty_ot
• See article Temperature, No. 2, vol. I.

AGRICULTURALGEOLOGY. 6

narbles used in the construction of monuments, and by that of
)ther rocks when carefully smoothed ; whereas upon the exposed
iurfaces of quarries, the sloping sides are often deeply grooved by
he water which slowly trickles over their surfaces.

Granite and gneiss disintegrate and decompose from their pecu-
iar chemical composition, and the presence of alkalies in the fcd-
'par and mica exert a powerful influence in these changes. High
rranitic peaks in the region of frosts undergo a rapid decay, and
n consequence furnish upon the slopes and in the valleys beneath,
heir peculiar soils, which are well adapted to grass and grain.
The alkalies in these rocks, if completely insulated, would pass
iflf rapidly through the soft materials, and be lost to vegetation.
They are, how^cver, so combined wnth silica, that they are com-
laratively unaffected by the common solvent, water, and hence
re retained in the soil for the use of plants.

Other kinds of rocks liable to decay, are the siliceous limestones,
ne of which is the calciferous sandstone. It appears from cxami-
ation that the lime is dissolved out, leaving upon the surface the
ilex in grains, which falls off by its own weight, or else is rubbed
fF by friction. The dissolved lime, however, does not all pass
ito and remain in the soil, but is carried down, and forms very
•equently with other materials a hardpan^ a puddingstone, or con-
retions, the lime acting as a cement j in other instances it perco-
ites into and through the rock, and forms stalactites, veins or
ther deposits. The same action or power which dissolves the
arbonate of lime in solid rocks, dissolves also that w'hich may be
liffused through the soil. This takes place where the surface is
fequently stirred, as in cultivated fields. Thus this element is re-
lieved both by vegetation and by the ordinary action of rain
'ater, and hence its deficiency in most of the soils of New- York
id New-England.

^ 2. Classification of rocks.

The classification of rocks has been a most perplexing study to
:ologists. They have not disagreed, however, so much as to
e planes where lines of separation should be drawn, as in the

signation of the masses. The ancient names, primitive^ transi-
on and secondary, have ;dl been objected to, and have been aban-

4 QUARTERLY JOURNAI. .

doned by many of the European writers. In consequence of thii
others have been proposed as substitutes, and have been adoptflM
in part; but the j^roposed names are about as objectionable as th
old ones, and hence much hesitancy has been manifested in the:
adoption. Without attempting to decide which nomenclature :
best, I shall use that which the public is most fc miliar with.

The word primary is a term whose meaning is well fixed in thi
country, being applied to those masses which were consolidated m
fore the creation of organic bodies. This term, then, will be used t
designate a class whose existence was anterior to that of organ:
beings. It is true that some masses belonging to this class ha'
been in a liquid or fused state since the existence of organi
bodies ; still, so far as observation extends, the great mass or cr
of the earth is made up of granite, gneiss, mica slate, hornble
serpentine and primary limestone; and doubtless these mai
were consolidated anterior to the period spoken of.

The word sedimentary is another term, the meaning of whi
cannot be misunderstood or misapplied. It will be used to de
nate those masses which are really consolidated sediments,
will often be used as synonymous with the word stratified^ ina
much as all sediments are disposed to arrange themselves in laye
or strata. The materials in this case lie in parallel beds, varyh
greatly in thickness ; all, however, separable from each oth
through the planes of deposition, each of which may be disti
guished by lines upon the faces of a ledge, by some diversity
the materials, or difference in the colors of two adjacent bee
Other lines, however, appear both upon the ends or surfaces
beds, which are not indicative of bedding planes. Thus, wh<
we find regular forms as rhomboids marked upon rocks, they a
not to be taken at all as the result of deposition. No differe
of materials or difference of color can be discerned along t
lines. Such regular forms are therefore the effects of crystaliz
tion. In some masses, however, both kinds of planes may
found. If the beds are horizontal, the upper and lower plan
are those of deposition ; but they may lie in any other directio
as the vertical, or oblique in various degrees. The other lin
course along upon the planes of deposition, and produce rhoi
boids or other mathematical forms. In other cases, again, a/f-t)

I A G R I C IM. T U R A L G E O I. O G Y . 5

. )lanes are the effects of crystalization. Those which appear in
granite, in trap, serpentine and primary limestone, are never planes
)f deposition. The forms which these rocks give us are more ob-
usethan those in slates and shales; they are frequently nearly
quare blocks. All these planes serve an important purpose ; and
hough they are really produced by the operation of a constant
aw in the inorganic world, yet they bear the impress of design :

: bey facilitate the dissolution of the mass, and by that means as-

■ 1st in preserving a due balance in matters above and below water ;
^ |iey are highly important as a means of separating and raisino^
' |ie layers from their beds, and thus aid in quarrying. Withou^t
■- iem, it would be impossible to raise stones for flagging, and for a

■ jiriety of other useful purposes.

i JThe first great division of rocks, then, is into Primary and
-- \edimentary. The former are divided into two kinds : those
jhich are inassive, or destitute of planes analogous to planes of
- ^position, as granite; and those which are stralified, as o-neiss
ft ica slate, etc. » j

It is proper, however, to observe in this place, that all rocks

'^•ide by different kinds of planes. Those which are not the

] incs of deposition, are termed joints ; and hence a rock is said

: l,be jointed, when planes exist in a direction different from that

(!• the planes of deposition.

Sedimentary rocks are subdivided into several systems. By the
-t,m system, is meant a series of rocks formed and deposited in
;.tp course of a single period or era, during which nearly the same
,: (^ers of organic beings existed ; each system being marked, both
aits coming m and going out, by some great change in the con-
dion of things. The outgoing and the incoming of a system is
iiticated by changes in the sediments, in their position, and in
iM character of the organic beings of the time and place. It will
bie-onceived, then, that the lines of demarcation between systems
a^ the most important of all. The most instructive study is that
Oi^he diversity of these systems ; as from it we learn the history
oithe earth, its revolutions and changes. We are not, however
toreccive all the doctrines which are. advanced in relation to
cringes and revolutions as fully proved. At the time when or-
g£nc beings first existed, certain essentials in organization were
nt^ssary. A physical system was then established, and to this

6 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

system organic beings were to be adapted. There were controlling
acrents Of these, the atmosphere was one, and caloric another
and these have continued and will continue to control the types o
organization to the end of time Vary the present standard, i
only in a narrow compass, and but few if any of the present race
would continue to exist.

In view of this subject, I hazard the assertion that the compc

sition of the atmosphere was never essentially different since tt

mreites of the Taconic system were created ; and also that tl

temperature has never been greater than it is now, since that p.

riod This is going back as far as it is possible with organ

beings ; none older are now known to exist. Because a lizard >

crocodile does not consume so much oxygen as an ox m a giv.

period, it does not follow that in the era of the Lias, an era of li

ards, the atmosphere contained less oxygen or more carbomc ao

than it does now ; for with their respiratory apparatus, we hayi

rio-ht to infer that if the proportion of oxygen was less than it

at^'present, they would not be supplied with that material, a

enouo-h could not be obtained if less existed in the atmosphe

When we speak, therefore, of the changes which usher in a n

system, it is not intended to inculcate the doctrine that they w

so great, or of such a character, as would be incompatible ^

the present ; or that organic beings would be unfitted organicc

for any other period or era in the world's history.

Systems are subdivided into grotips ; the groups holding
same relation to a system, as the system to the totality of the c
solidated sediments. The beginning and end of a group is mar.
by some important change, such as the disappearance of affili^
tribes and species. It is then by observations of this kind,
divisions and subdivisions of the sediments are obtained. JN:
which are supposed to be appropriate at the time, are confer
^,pon the systems and groups. They may subsequently, hoWe.
be demonstrated to be inappropriate ; the progress of disco,
outo-rowing and thereby rendering obsolete the nomencla
Thi's is an^evil ; and one who is disposed to cavil, might lay 1
of the fact to the prejudice of the science of geology, on
ground that nothing is settled ; that it is a subject of opinions
speculations, and not of facts and principles ; of endless de

4

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 7

and fanciful hypotheses, which every man has a right to invent for
ihis own or his neighbor's amusement. But such cavilers belong
to a race too lazy to observe, too self-conceited to profit by facts,
or too bigoted to look at truth when they fear it may conflict
with their own notions. They are too obstinate to be reformed ;
and if they were reformed, they would be of little use to science
in any of its departments.

The primary rocks, comprehending granite, hypersthene, pri-
mary limestone, serpentine, gneiss, mica and talcose slates, horn-
blende, sienite, trap and greenstone, require our attention first of
ill. They may be tabulated as follows :

/"Granite Composed of quartz, felspar and mica.

iGXEOcs \ Hypersthene rock.

j Primary limestone.
^ [Serpentine.

p5 r Greenstone and trap.

<J { Plutonic \ Basalt.

S (Lavas

2 r Gneiss Composed of quartz, felspar and mica.

ft Mica slate Quartz and mica.

Stratified.. . i Talcose slate. . Quartz and talc.
Hornblende... Simple.
. Sienite Composed of hornblende and felspar.

Those portions of the state over which primary rocks prevail,

,re the northern and southern highlands. Most of the masses

Inumerated above are found in both these districts. In the north-

jrn, which is by far the largest and most important primary dis-

rict,that peculiar variety of granite denominated hypersthene rock

(revails very extensively : it forms the highest parts of the county

f Essex. Surrounding this mass as an irregular zone, are beds

t granite, primary limestone, and a granitic gneiss. This im-

iiense mass forms a large portion of the great triangle north of

|ie Mohawk valley. It is here that our granitic soils are formed.

'he beds, however, of granite and other felspathic rocks which

disposed to decomposition are not very extensive. We have

pne of the sandy varieties of gneiss or mica slate, which become

lable on exposure to the atmosphere, and crumble readily and

ipidly into soil. Neither have we much of that peculiar granite

hich forms porcelain clay, or it is so limited that mere local

pets are observed. Primary limestone, associated with granite,

U even incorporated with it, exists also, but within such narrow

jnits that it is imnecessary to notice the peculiar soil which is

us jointly formed. The rocks on the highest parts of the Adi-

8 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

rondacks disintegrate very rapidly, and form deposits on the side
of these mountains, which in the progress of time find their way

to the valleys.

In estimating the extent of granitic soil, and taking into account

all the causes which act in distributing it over the state, I am led

to adopt the opinion that it exists only in the immediate districts

underlaid by the primary beds, in such quantity as to give th«j

leading characters of a granitic soil. Diluvial action has undoubfe

edly swept over these districts, and carried to the south some ot

the soil which once rested upon the mountains and in their val|

leys, and it has intermingled with other soils more or less ; stU

the quantity bears but a small proportion to that derived from ser"

mentary rocks. It is true that the materials of these rocks w<

in many instances of granitic origin, and it is easy often to discj

undecomposed felspar in them. Notwithstanding all this, I (

not ready to subscribe to the doctrine that all soils are essential'

derived from one origin, and that a granitic one ; for most of tl:

alkalies are lost in the course of the changes to which the hi

particles are subjected. No one, who has observed the soi!^ ■

New-York, will hesitate to admit that the slate soils are qui

different from those of the highland districts.

The same remarks might be made in regard to the Southei

highlands. Granitic soil must be confined to the fields underlai

by primary rocks ; those which contain felspar and mica, ai"

which furnish by decomposition one or more of the alkalies^

alkaline earths. Beside? felspar, there are other minerals wluj

are agriculturally important ; thus, albite (another variety of t)

felspar family), mica and hornblende, are each important mmeia

to be known, or to be sought for in the rock, if we would lea

approximately the composition of the soil of a primary distri.

Thus in Gouverneur and the neighboring towns in St. Lawr^l

county, a granite occurs, containing considerable albite. This su

stance contains soda in the place of potash ; and hence we mig

expect this element in granitic soils, especially as this kind of g<

nite is rather disposed to disintegrate. f

agricultural geology. 9

§3. Composition of simple minerals.

The composition of felspar and alhite^ together with that of
me of the other more common rocks, it may be well to state in
is place. The two first named consist respectively of

Felspar. Albite.

Silica, 65.21 69.09

Alumina, 18.13 19.22

Potash, 16.66

Soda, 11.69

100.00 100.00

In attempting to distinguish these minerals from quartz, or flint
i5 it is often called, we are to notice their hardness. Felspar and
Ibite just scratch common window glass, but quartz does not.
Ibite is always white ; felspar is white or flesh-colored, and each
I ves a strong reflection of light from the planes of the crystal ;
hile quartz has the lustre of glass, or more of a vitrified appear-
ice in the mass.

Another kind of felspar is the labradoritc, which abounds in the
cks of the Adirondack mountains. The rock itself, as already
itecl, is termed hypersthene rock^ from a small quantity of this
iiieral which it contains. The whole mass is mostly labradorite ;
id by decomposing, it has formed in some places an imperfect
prcelain clay. Its composition is as follows :

Labradorite.

Silica, 55.75

Alumina,.. 26.50

Lime, 11.00

Iron, 1.25

Soda, 4 . 00

98.50 Klaproth.

This species is usually smoke-grey, though the exposed surface
cthe rock is grey or greyish w^hite : it appears to be bleached.

Mica^ another mineral found in granite, gneiss and mica slate,
1 > a composition much like that of the felspars, or at least is
ailogous to them, as containing two alkalies, potash and magne^

6 ; thus,

PoTAssic mica. Magnesian mica.

Silica, 46.10 40.00

Alumina, 31.60 12.67

Protoxide of iron, 8.65 19.03

Potash, 8.39

Magnesia....... .... 15.70

rOL. II. — KO. I. B

10 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Together with a variable proportion of oxide of manganese am

fluoric acid.

Hornblende, which often replaces mica in the granites, is usual]

a dark green substance, and extremely tough in the mass. It

commonly crystaline, and more or less fibrous. It differs essen

tially from the micas and felspar, in containing larger proportioil

of lime. It consists of

Hornblende.

Silica, 42.24

Alumina, 13 .92

Lime, 12 . 24

Magnesia, 13.74

Protoxide of iron, , 14 . 59

Oxide of manganese, 0 . 33

Fluoric acid, 1.50

98.56

All these substances are termed silicates ; the silica uniting wi'

each of the principal elements as an acid, and forming therel

silicates of alumina, potash, magnesia, and iron. In the northe

as well as the southern highlands, pyroxene or augife enters large(

into the constitution of the primary rocks. Its composition dd

not differ materially, so far as its effects upon a soil is concerna

from that of hornblende ; thus,

Pyroxene.

Light colored. Dark colored.

Silica, 55.32 54.08 ■(

Lime, 27.01 23.47 p

Magnesia, 16.99 11.49

Protoxide of iron, 2.16 10.02

Alumina, 0.28 0.14

Manganese, 1.59 0.61 J^i

103.35 99.81 Rose.

To the same family belongs the hypersfhene, which gives na
to the rock forming the highest grounds of Essex, namely, /I
persthene rock. This substance contains less lime than hornblenjBli
or augite, and hence is less favorable as an element of soil ; in fa*
it is remarked, that where it exists in sufficient abundance to ini'
ence the nature of the soil, it is quite barren. It is composed ol

HYrERSTHENB. Bl

Silica, 51.35

Lime 1.84

Magnesia, 11.09

Protoxide of iron, 33.92

Water, 0.50

P).

98.70

i

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 11

At the north, however, this substance existing in but a small pro-
portion in the hypersthene rock, has but little influence upon the
uality of the soil ; besides, being mixed largely with labradorite,
1 rhich contains both lime and alumina, the soil formed therefrom
lay be considered as good for grains and grass. Quartz or silex,
)0, is extremely scarce in this rock ; and hence there is no ex-
ess of sand in it, as there is usually in a pure granitic soil,
[ypersthcne, upon the whole, may be considered as rather a rare
liiu ral in New-York. It is found in gneiss in Johnsburgh, but
I siuh small quantities that it has no influence upon the soil.

Serpentine is another primary rock, disposed to crumble into

111. It is one in which magnesia is the characteristic element.

consists of

Serpentine.

Silica, 40.08 42.69

Magnesia, 41.40 40.00

Water, 15.67 16.45

Protoxide of iron, 2.70 1.00

99.85 Shepard. 100.14 Vanuxem.

•Serpentine may be known by its softness, and yellowish green
I lor. It is easily cut by a knife, or easily impressed, and it is
jlvvays found softer upon the outside than upon a fresh fracture ;
1'e color, too, is much paler on the weathered surface.

In foreign treatises on agricultural geology, serpentine is set
j|Wn with those rocks which make a poor soil. Thus, Johnson
feaks of the soil at the Lizard in Cornwall, as being far from fer-
Ic, and so retentive of water as to form swamps and marshes;
cd even when drained, it rarely produces good grass, or average
dps of corn. It is the opinion of the same distinguished writer,
tit the barrenness is due to the small quantity of lime contained
i the soil ; serpentine, as will be seen from the above analysis,
t|ing destitute of this element. In New-York, and part of New-
lli gland, it would appear that the serpentine exists under different
iilitions. Thus, in St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Essex and Warren
canties, it is intermixed with lime, and the lime disintegrates
ri)re rapidly than the serpentine ; the soil, therefore, must con-
tn a sufficient quantity of lime. However this may be, there is
avays a luxuriant growth of vegetables about these beds. The
s pentine hills of New-England are not so productive as those of

12

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

New- York. I allude more particularly to the hills of Chester an-
Middlefieldj along which the great Western Railway passej
Still, I have seen good crops of rye growing there, though th
soil may have derived a beneficial- influence from the decompoi
tion of the neighboring rocks composed of hornblende and sieniU
Here is also a peculiar vegetation: the Ilex canadensis^ and so:
other herbaceous plants, are only found here, and this is the onh
place where any thing like a pine grove has been planted bj
nature. For localities where serpentine prevails, see the Repo:
of the Second Geological District.

In this connection, it would be proper to state the compositio
of basalt and greenstone^ although in New-York they do not for;
very extensive beds.

Basalt. Greenstone-

Silica, 46.50 57.25

Alumina, 16.75 25.50

Lime, 9.50 2.75

Magnesia, 2.25

Soda, 2.60 8.10

Iron and manganese, 20.12 3.50

Water, 2.00 3.00

99.72 100.10

The composition, however, of these varieties of rock is m
tremely variable, but all are known to contain the alkalies
alkaline earths ; and it is owing to this fact that the greenstoij
soils are remarkably fertile, so much so that they may often"
employed to increase the fertility of less favored ones.

§ 4. Character of granitic soils.
Returning once more to the consideration of granitic soils, 1]
mark, that they are too siliceous and porous when derived pui
from granite. Position, however, alters their character ; for whe
they lie upon sloping surfaces, sand predominates ; but in the vi
leys, the fine alumine or clay of the felspar accumulates and fori
an admixture of clay and sand, which is more favorable to 1
support of grass and grain. On reviewing the composition oft
minerals which enter as elements in rocks, we find that the m(
abundant of them contain the proper proportions for a good sc !l •
Silex rarely forms less than one-half- the remainder is made

i^i

M

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 13

alumina (which is essential to the consistency of the soil,)
me, potash, soda and iron, some containing riiore and some less
f each respectively, the alkalies being the most essential, and
jmdering a soil rich, as it is termed, in proportion to their amount.
\\ addition to the fact here stated, I may observe that the tendency
h decompose is also increased in proportion to the percentage of
le alkalies contained in the mineral: a rock of pure quartz is
;ted upon very slowly, while one in which felspar and mica exist

umbles rapidly.

In applying the preceding facts, it is easy to see how farms and
itates should be selected in a primary district. The depth of
:il is an important fact, as is well known, but its derivation is

I other equally important. For its determination, the outcrop of
jcks upon hillsides may be examined, and their nature ascertained;
Mether their exposed or weathered surfaces are bleached, and softer
lin that of a recent fracture ; or whether they are crumbly, and
<;posed to disintegrate. If the rocks are hornblende or pyroxenic
jeenstone, or a coarse granite with large masses of felspar, we
s|ill expect the soil to contain the alkalies or alkaline earths ; and
i )y cultivation they become exhausted, we may expect that by deep
c, subsoil ploughing a fresh quantity can be brought to the surface
f ■ the use of vegetables, and thus a constant reproduction of them
ctained from the decomposition of the coarser particles now inter-
Exed wuth the deeper soil. Greenstone and trap, from their more
r.dy disposition to undergo change, may be ranked among the
hit materials for a foundation soil, and possess all the requi-
s:?s desired for the cultivation of grains and fruits. They are not
Siporous as the granitic sands that are termed leechy ; nor so com-
P-t as many of the argillaceous soils, many of which retain the
i^jter in pools upon the surface.

§ 5, Drifted soil.
V farther consideration of the causes which have distributed
tl soil and spread the debris of rocks at a distance, is of some

II )ortance while treating of the northern counties ; as it may ap-
p<r to those who are familiar with the drift or diluvial theories,
tit little reliance can be placed upon our instructions for
derraining the character of the soil by observing the rocks be-

14 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

neath. It is true that we find the debris of distant rocks in mo
of our soils ; yet we find that their essential character is, wit
some exceptions, derived from the rock near by. On the northei
and northwestern slope of the highlands in Franklin county, mart
boulders of Trenton limestone may be found, which, togeth*
with some of the finer matters, were brought from the Cana<
side, and probably this transported debris exerts some influence
still there is a predominance of soil from the Potsdam sandstom
the underlying rock of a great part of the county, particularly tl
northern part. In the neighborhood of Malone, immense dri
beds have been accumulated, in which the boulders of this sanf
stone always predominate. They have also been transported sout
and lap on to the primary masses, and modify the soil of the gr
nite and gneiss ; but when we penetrate deeply into this great pi
mary region, its distinguishing characters are derived from tl' '
masses beneath. In some instances the drift current has left*
thing but loose boulders, which, resisting decomposition, allj
soil we now find is of modern or recent orierin. Narrow for
tions, whose strike is east and west, will usually be covered wi '
a more distant soil than those whose strike is north and south,
this fact, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Little need be said of the northern highlands in regard to stni
ture. The country being either mountainous or hilly, almost lj
the whole surface is properly drained, or else is easily drair
where, from local causes, water may be retained in the subsc
The valleys are narrow, the hills abrupt, and there is no necess
of searching the peculiar structure of the rock to open a pass
for stagnant water. The spontaneous growth of grass is the m
interesting fact ; the country being best adapted to pasturage,
the keeping of stock for wool, butter and cheese.

This district is, however, broken by the steepest and high
precipices in New- York, or indeed in all the Atlantic or Mid'
States. The Adirondack pass is a giant precipice. It is fee'ljlf
represented facing this chapter, for it is only a feeble rep' '"
sentation which the pencil can give. To be conceived, it m^.
be seen. Many minor precipices break up the country at |fii
sources of the Hudson, and thus diminish its value as an agrit"-
tural district.

I

VEGETABLES AND ANIMALS. 15

RELATIONS OF VEGETABLES AND ANIMALS.

The world in which we live may be considered as naturally
eluding two great classes of bodies, viz : Animate and Inani-
ate. The latter class consists of the atmosphere around us,
' e various bodies of water, and the earth with its mineral con-
■Ints. To the former class belong all those various forms of living
Ifings which swarm upon the earth and teem in the air and water,
i|cluding the plants, which form, in one respect at least, the con-
itcting link between the animate and inanimate — the living and
1e dead. Whatever life may be — whether an abstract and
I illscoverable principle or essence of the metaphysicians — whe-
t M- it be the product of a number of forces acting in conjunc-
l II — or merely and simply chemical action — whatever it may
1— one thing is certain, we know it and recognize it only in
i effects. No one can say of the egg or acorn that it is
aive, except by presumption, for it gives no sensible evidence of
iL But let either be subjected to the action of certain circum-
Bjnces, and they grow warm and active with life. The chick in
i\t time breaks forth from its prison a living and breathing ani-
ffl, and the oak in due time spreads the shade of its broad " bun-
ded arms" far over the land, and we say they live. This is all
V know as yet of life.

iBut of living beings we know more. We can tr^ce the power
ojthe vital principle by its effects upon matter in giving to it forms
ail functions, which unaided mere matter could never assume.
Tese changes we can follow in the acorn or the Qgg^ from the
fiit moment that life begins to mould them, till the perfect plant
ai animal are produced. We cannot sefe how they are produced —
wean only see that they are.

Ne cannot imitate the products of life. Very many of the
rCfjibinations and changes which take place in inanimate nature we
' npy, or by resources in our power we can produce the same
--.Its. We can separate the elements of water and ascertain its
ccjiposition — and we can take the same elements and reunite
thn, so as to produce water again. We can analyze the most
inicate of the products of life, but we cannot reunite even the
siiplest, so as to form the same compound. Here the art of the

16 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

chemist is baffled, and the wisdom of the wise is proved foolish
ness.

The chemical composition of plants and animals is precisely th
same. This will be readily seen when we come to consider th
fact that the animal is fed by the vegetable, not only by simpl
eating it, but because the particular and individual parts of th
animal are first prepared by the plant before they can becom
available for the food of the former. While for a Ions timi
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon were considered the so^
necessary constituents of animal matter, the so called inorgan
parts being regarded as only accidental, the same substances we;
viewed as the constituents of vegetables, with the exception
nitrogen, which was supposed to be present in but very few plant
But the fact is well established now, that the component elemen
of both are the same, and that nitrogen is always present in t
vegetable as well as in the animal.

It has been attempted to establish some sort of analogy betwe ,
plants and animals, which does not exist. The only point
which they resemble each other, is in the possession of life, butt)
is employed in the production of very dissimilar results, and t
vital action is developed in essentially different ways.

Animals require food of a highly organized character to supp
life. They are provided with a digestive apparatus of an intric
construction, by means of which the food when once received,
partially disorganized, and prepared for the building up of ■
body. They are incapable of appropriating or assimilating •
elements which they require, in an unorganized form.

Plants, on the other hand, require food entirely disorganizi
The construction of their organs of digestion, if they may
called so, and especially their mouths, is such that they can rece#i||i
no nutriment till it is so much decomposed as to be reduced t ■ '
fluid form by solution. The spongioles of the roots are the pro
mouths of plants. These are pierced by numberless small h(.^i\\
or pores, which are the extremities of their circulating vess'i
Into these pores nothing solid, although never so finely divide
can enter. Fluids only are capable of entering, and in this fclj^^l,
plants receive all their nourishment. Within these vessels, un f
the influence of light and heat, very powerful chemical afhni,s
are continually at work, by means of which, changes of an inMiHi

H

I

VEGETABLES AND ANIMALS. 17

ate character are produced. The most wonderful of the powers
|f animal life are small, compared with these.

Animal bodies are constantly undergoing change. From birth
\ death, the animal is subject to a continual waste. Every mo-
on, the most trilling as well as the most powerful, is accompanied
^ a loss of matter. Every breath we exhale carries away its
lare of our bodies. The lungs — the skin — the intestines — are all
/enues by which the particles which compose the animal struc-
[^re are thrown off and separated. So that it is true that in
He ordinary length of human life, the entire body is several times
Jtirely changed. This will be easily understood, when we
idect, that by means of the lungs alone, during the process of
i^piration, a full grown man will daily discharge several ounces
( carbon.

We have no evidence of any such waste in vegetables. From
t.' moment of germination through the whole life of the plant,
t>re is a constant accumulation of matter. There is no time
\ en it ceases to grow, till it ceases to live. As a general rule,
1 re is a limit to the growth of the animal, when it has reached
vlich, all the vital force is expended in maintaining the bulk it
h; attained. After a time, it is insufficient to support this, and
tl! disposition to waste predominates, and for the remainder of
li the body progressively diminishes, till death supervenes upon
til worn-out forces. But there is no fixed limit to the growth of
Trctables. Supply them with the requisite food and they con-
to grow and add yearly to their bulk. The natural period
>■ for some is but one or two years, and they have attained
full size, and die. But as far as is known, perennial plants
■. ithout limit to their life, and do not die of old age. * Trees
t this day growing upon this earth which are many hundred
old, and yet seem to flourish with perpetual youth. How-
ihis may be, as long as plants live, they constantly are add-
ii!lo their size.

it ditferent as animals and vegetables are in these and other re-
s, they are, to a great degree, mutually dependent upon each
: for life. If the animal kingdom is supplied with food by
ther, by the constant waste which is going on in its organiza-

le reader is referred in connection with this subject, to an extract on another
if this No. J on the "Duration of Varieties of Fruit Trees." — Eds.
L. II. — NO. I. C

18 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

tion, it restores this same food to the atmosphere or the earth, toi
be again absorbed by the plant and reconverted into food, thuj
going an eternal round. But we will examine this subject mort
at large, and shall thus be enabled to perceive more distinctly th»
intimate and mutual relation those two great kingdoms of natun
sustain to each other.

A large part of the food of plants consists of carbonic acid
which they absorb largely by their leaves. Though they are no
utterly dependent upon animals for this, yet from them they ar
always receiving a large supply. It has been stated already the
a full grown man discharges from his lungs, daily, several ounctJ
of carbon ; the larger animals, of course, a greater quantity. Bil
this is not in the form of pure carbon. The process of respiratic
consists in inhaling oxygen of the atmosphere into the lungs, wh(
it unites with the waste carbon of the body, and is exhaled as ca
bonic acid. Should this process be continued for a long period- '
a very long one it is true would be required — and were there i ' •
provision for the removal of this acid from the atmosphere, '
would ultimately become so abundant as to poison the whole ra '
of animals. But it is absorbed by the leaves and roots of gro"
ing plants, to sustain their life, and thus the atmosphere is pu
fied.

By the continual consumption of oxygen by the respiration
animals, the apprehension would be perfectly reasonable that
process of time this gas, so essential to their existence, would I
come so much diminished, as to be inadequate to their war
This would in fact be true, were it not for the compensating pov '
of plants. The carbonic acid which they have absorbed, wh.'
passing through their circulation is decomposed, the carbon &^ Jll
in the vegetable system, and the oxygen, again liberated by
leaves, is restored to the atmosphere. Thus is completed one
in the unending chain of organic life. ' «|

It is not the carbon exhaled alone which becomes the foodji iJis
the vegetable. All the solid and liquid excrements of animals 5 a
applied to the same use. The body itself dies, and passes to ^ Jit
cay. It mingles with the atmosphere and the earth, and becoiMis
the food of plants, to be by them converted into food for the r ^
mal. And here the remarkable difference, hinted at above, ,• ^^
tween the two kingdoms, becomes evident. The chi-nges in ^' '%

i

VEGETABLES AND ANIMALS. 19

niraal are in a descending scale. The food eaten is in a highly
Irganized form. It enters into the structure, only to pass soon
irough a change which entirely disorganizes it. In this state, it
fit to become the food of plants, when in them the ascending
ale commences. The unorganized materials are, by the plant,
['oduced in an organized form. That the living vegetable has the
Wer of decomposing certain compounds cannot be doubted. The
.|.rbonic acid, ammonia, and water are separated, each into their
ildividual elements, before they are incorporated in the structure.
'he metallic and earthy salts are readily decomposed by the vital
lirce, and again recombined in new forms. The vegetable and
ijimal substances applied to the soil as manures, are not reduced
1j their simplest forms before they are taken up by the plant. All
iat is necessary is that they should be soluble. Thus they are
(Ipable of supplying carbon in other forms than that of carbonic
ijid. The fluid extracts of vegetable substances are capable of
Ijing absorbed, and we know nothing which would contradict the
fpt of their being decomposed in the system, and placed in the
llsues.

|The food of animals is in all cases highly organized. The ani-
i.l has not the power, like the vegetable, to assimilate unorga-
|]:ed matter. And upon this point modern science has thrown
g?at light. The plant is the laboratory in which all the food of
a^mals is first prepared. The fat — the material for the formation
01 the muscles — the salts for the bones, &c., are formed in the
p.nt, either in the same state as they exist in the animal or in
si;h a form as to require but a slight change to bring them to such
aitate, so that the process of digestion would seem to be little
Hire than reducing the materials consumed by an animal to a so-
Ivlon, in order that they may be taken up by the vessels and car-
riil to be deposited in their proper places, to build up the body
ojcompensate its waste.*

(Thus again the two are dependent upon each other, the animal
dbrganizing the food it eats, for the nourishment of plants, which
inheir turn again organize it for the use of the animal. The
pint is in reality the producer, and the animal the consumer.

A. gentleman extensively engaged in the investigation of the medicinal properties
of lants, has lately informed me that in the cold infusion of vegetables he has dis-
co red globules corresponding in all but color to the molecules of the blood.

20 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

Were this the proper place, it would be interesting to carry oul
these views farther. But for a more extended view we must refei
the reader to the late works on organic chemistry and physiology
where they may be examined at large.

From these facts, some practical hints may be derived, of grea'
importa&ce to the cultivator of the soil, and to the improving
and growing of stock.

1. The amount of crops upon a given extent of soil must de
pend upon the amount of food they receive. The quality of thi
crop may, and probably does, depend upon the quality of the food
The excrements of animals being composed of those substance
which once formed the vegetable, and the bodies of animals bein|
the same, are of course capable of affording to plants the very foo
they need to bring them to the greatest perfection. And this ha
ever corresponded with practice, the greatest effects being show
when the purest animal manures are used. Let it then be remeir
bered, that every particle of animal matter that is wasted and nc
applied to the soil, is so much robbed from the productiveness of tfc '
earth. If all that is taken from the soil and used for animal foe
were restored to it, the land would never become impoverishei
and in proportion as more or less is restored, in such proportic
will the land retain its vigor and capacity to produce more.

2. All plants do not furnish the same animal food, nor in tl
same quantity. It is desirable then to adapt the kind of food
the effect intended to be produced. If fat is required, those.kin
of food which yield the most oil, and starch, &c.j and so in r
ference to other parts. Enough is not at present known to esta
lish any rules, and it is desirable that in this the practical farmi
would unite with the chemist in investigating the matter. 1 1

We have but just stepped upon the threshold of science. Vf
believe the same of practice, especially in agriculture. Whil!
the whole range of arts beside has owed the proud stand they
present occupy to the aid of their handmaid, science, farming h(
presumed to go alone, and if we may believe the evidence of h
tory and of our own senses, has rather degenerated than improve)
At any rate it has advanced none. Improvements which wei
suggested half a century ago, are neglected, and are now just h
ginning to be employed. Till within a few years nothing u
known of the relations of animals to plants, or of plants to the s(i

ODDSPELLS. 21

they grow upon. And at the present clay, how few compared
kith the great mass of practical farmers, know any thing of the
principles of this noblest of human arts. Much remains to be
<nown, but enough is already understood, if properly applied, to
jidd immensely to the productiveness of the soil and the happiness of
)ur race.

ODD SPELLS.

BY GILES B. KELLOGG.

I. TiiE Farmer.
•' The best part of the population of a country are the cultivators of the soil
idepen dent farmers are every where the basis of society, and the true friends of
jberty." — Andrew Jackson.

I love to contemplate the quiet life and the honorable occupa-
on of the farmer. What pursuit is more useful than his .? Dili-
ence in his business reaps the promised rewards of charity— a
puble blessing. He cannot be useful to himself in his calling
fithout bemg useful to others. The faithful discharge of his du-
;es has a reflex and self-improving action. The influence of his
bmple IS contagious and beneficial on others. On the products
f his industry depend for subsistence the larger portion of the
uman family. With his prosperity is identified the prosperity of
/ery other branch of labor ; and the well being, the advancement,
le power of the country, may be measured and pretty accurately
itermmed by the position and the influence which he occupies
id exerts. As a general fact, no nation ever became wealthy,
)werful and great, whose cultivators of the soil, the men who
med and held the plough, were ignorant, degraded and servile ;
■id an enlightened, industrious and prosperous farming commu-
-ty never conferred other than a high character on its nation.
And then again his occupation is one of moral dignity. His
'iployments are among the creations of the great Architect of the
i,ime-work of nature, and intimately associated with His wisdom,
godness, power and constantly superintending care. In the pur-
suit of his labors he becomes a co-worker with that great and
^od Being, of his dependence on whom he is constantly reminded,

22 QUART KIILY JOURNAL.

in the promotion of the happiness of his fellow men. In the
vegetation of the seed he has committed, in confidence of a harvest,
to the ground— in the blade of grass that springs up at his feet-
in the flower that smilingly meets his eye along his pathway— ic
the birds of the field and forest that welcome him to his dailj
toil— in the cattle grazing upon his hills, he recognizes a wisdon
and a care for which nothing is too high or too minute. " N(
occupation is nearer heaven. The social angel, when he descende.
to converse with men, broke bread with the husbandman beneatl

the tree."

And on the farmer the country relies for assistance and safet
in times of public danger and calamity. He it is who furnishe
the means of defence— who supplies the sinews of war— whos
strong right arm guards the hearths and homes of the country, an
whose reliable patriotism shines brightest when patriotism is pi
to the severest test. The farmers of our Revolution were men .
no common honesty, of great intelligence, and of more than R.
man virtue ; and in no small degree to them it is that we owe tl
achievement of our liberties. "Not a blade of grass sprmgS'
Saratoga, but takes to itself a tongue to proclaim the success
valor of patriot husbandmen." And in every crisis of our d
tion's existence it has been the farmers who have stood by the-
of our safety and carried it triumphantly through the storm.

Jefferson was a close observer and discreet judge of men, a
his opinion of this important and honorable class of our comraui
ty is entitled to great weight. " Those who labor in the eartl
he early declared, " are the chosen people of God, if ever he ha.
chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar depositc
for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus m which
keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape fir.
the surface of the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of c
tivators, is a phenomenon in which no age nor nation has foundi
example. It is the mark set on these, who not looking up
heaven, but to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandm.
for their substance, depend on the casualties and caprice of c
tomers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suftoca)!
the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of am
tion Thus the natural progress and consequence of the arts, .
sometimes, perhaps, been retarded by accidental circumstanc-

OUDSPELLS. 23

3ut generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the
JDther citizens bear in any state to that of its husbandmen, is the
proportion of its unsoiuul to its healthy parts, and is a good enough
)arometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption."

II. The Temperance Reformation among Farmers.

" So, when our children turn the page,
To ask what triumphs marked our age,
What we achieved to challenge praise,
Through the long line of future days,
This let them read, and hence instruction draw —
Here were the manj' blessed,
Here found the virtues rest,
Faith linked with love, and liberty with law ;
Here industry to comfort led,
Her book of light her learning spread ;
Here the warm heart of youth
Was wooed to temperance and to truth ;
Here hoary age was found,
By wisdom and by reverence crowned,"
' Charles Sprague.

I No reform of our day has been more marked and beneficial than
lie effect of the temperance movement among farmers. From the
loint in the progress of this cause which we now occupy, we look
'ack with a shudder at the effects produced by intemperance —
Is bounded by no particular territory and confined to no par-
cular class, but spread every where and affecting alike the high
lid the low, the rich and the poor, all ages and both sexes, every
ink, station and condition of life. We saw this monster of evil
Ivade the splendid abodes of the wealthy and overcome its in-
'ates by his fascinations. We saw him creep into the hovels of
e poor and make desolation still more desolate. We saw him
jeaken and paralyze the arm of labor — put out the light of learn-
Ig — strike down the loftiest genius — change the immortal
istiny of man, and degrade woman from her pure and exalted

ttion. We saw him mar the face of youth and beauty —
ylay the path of usefulness — nip in the bud the unfolding
jlomise of manhood, and drag down to the tomb in disgrace
l|e white locks of matured old age. We saw him the worshipped
winity of every nation, and every community, the household god
( every abode from the palace to the poor-house, at whose shrine
vre offered up the morning, mid-day, evening, and midnight sacri-
fe. We saw him robbing the generous sailor of his last farthing

24 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

— pilfering the hard earnings of the industrious mechanic — plun-
dering the adventurous merchant by wholesale — stealing au^ay the
products of the labor of the husbandman, and bringing under the
terrible power of his fascination the high in station, the learned,
the accomplished and the venerable. In short, we saw the evils
he entailed upon his immediate victims — to quote another — to be.
*' self-reproach, mental anguish, enfeebled intellect, brutalized
passionSj poverty, crime, infamy, disease, despair, madness and
death ; to their dependent families, shame and mortification, with-
ered affections, blasted hopes, misery and want, reproaches anc
violence ; in fine, disgust, loathing, and unspeakable wretchedness
to the public bad example, neglected duties, violated laws, the
streets filled with beggary, and the courts with offenders, crowdec
alms-houses and prisons, the industry of the country burthenec
and oppressed, the general morals vitiated, public virtue degraded
and the very foundations of government weakened and endan
gered."

And who can wonder at this awful extent of vice and misery
when he remembers how all-pervading and firmly established wa'
the use of intoxicating drink? This offspring and agent of perdi
tion was the inmate of the drawing-room and the kitchen ; h
was domesticated into a nurse of children ; he worked in tb
fields with the farmer — helped him harvest his crops, and alwa)
went with him to market, or met him there ; he was the princ
pal personage at births, marriages and funerals ; he was the gettei
up of most quarrels, and no quarrel could be settled without h
friendly interference. At anniversaries, at civic celebrations, i
military displays, at social entertainments, at religious observance;
at the farmers' bee, and the ladies' tea-party, he was always fir:
and foremost — the most busy and the most noisy. Freemen coul
not properly remember the day of their country's birth, withoi
getting independently drunk, and acknowledging allegiance to
power far more despotic, more heartless, more cruel and exacting
than any of the race of Tudor, or Stuart, or Brunswick. H,
helped to elect the candidate to office, and then while he rejoiccj
with his friends over his success, with an equal largeness of hear
sympathized with his opponent at his defeat. He was present c
all occasions, whether of joy or grief, sacred or secular, ready 1
furnish the inspiration suited to the occasion, and in the requisi

ODDSPELLS. 25

quantity. He welcomed friends on their arrival, and dismissed
libera on their departure. Hospitality, without an introduction to
him, was considered boorish, and he who declined an acquaintance
with the master-spirit of the house, was sure to insult the host.
He was the patent quack of the world — his nostrums a sovereign
balm for all " the ills that flesh is heir to" — would restore to health
when sick, and ward off disease — would keep in the heat in win-
ter and keep it out in summer — would induce to sleep when neces-
sary, and when necessary drive it away. He was the rewarder of
every trifling service W'hich had no pecuniary value — the solace ol
ithe idle and the companion of the laborious — helped prepare the
idiscourses for the pulpit and then inspired a mighty eloquence in
their delivery. While robbing the poor of their last cent and
finding them out in eternal servitude, he made them believe they
were richer than Croesus. Soldiers, under his command, were " in-
pxicated into valor,"

** And their hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, were beating
Funex-al marches to the grave."

j'Age, with his white locks and tottering frame — manhood, in
lis fullest strength — youth, in his freshest bloom, and beauty in
ler sweetest charms," were all stricken down together, by this
nhuman spoiler of the race and great ally of death.

But, thanks to an enlightened humanity, to labors of the bene-
actors of their race, to sterling common-sense, and, above all, to
he blessings of an over-ruling Providence, the progress of this
lighty evil has been stayed, and the farmers of our country de-
erve no little credit for their agency in the good work. The im-
rovement among them is manifest. It has been found that the fruits
■f the earth can be better cultivated, turn out more abundantly, and,
fhen ready for the garner, can be more securely gathered in,
mhout the aid of this unnatural and noisy co-laborer — this ex-
iting god, the sacrifices at whose shrine are, loss of sense, and
amage to the farmer's estate. It is not, as it used to be, so much
le custom to pour out libations of manufactured poisons at his
jirine. And the result has been, increased prosperity, better
2altb, clear heads, stronger and steadier arms, constitutions better

VOL. 11. — NO. I. D

26 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

fitted to encounter toil and endure fatigue, and hearts more suscep-
tible of being inspired with gratitude to " that universal Provi-
dence which watches over the seed time and matures the har-
vest."

ON DRIFT AND THE CHANGES WHICH HAVE BEEN

EFFECTED IN THE POSITION OF SOILS; Etc.

[Communicated to the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists, May
1844, by one of the Editors.]

Scarcely a more interesting or important fact has been brough
to light by geological research than this, that in the northern re
gions at least, there has been a general movement of all the loos
materials covering the surface of the earth. This movement is highl;
interesting from the consideration of the nature of that force b;
which it was effected, as it is by no means one of those ordinar
occurrences in the history of the earth, the precise and exact natur
of which geologists have not as yet been able to determine ; bf
sides, so wide and general was the movement that it involves in i'
consideration a force whose operation extended in this countr
from the base of the Rocky Mountains to the shores of the A , ,
lantic. . W

It is highly important, then, from the above considerations, th;
this movement which has influenced so widely the nature and fe
tility of the soils, has mixed and mingled them in proportions vei
different from what could have been effected by the slow and ordi'
nary operations of nature, should be fully understood. In son
instances those soils which were naturally barren have been carrief
and spread over those of a more fertile character; in other ij'
stances the latter have been spread over or mingled with tl
barren, so that probably upon the whole the general effects hav
been favorable to husbandry, and that upon a great scale, thei'
has been an equalization of benefits, or like all the great operatioi
of nature, the universal good has been effected by the instrume)
tality of general operation. Having alluded to the fact of mov
ments as indicated and proved by observations on every side, v'
may now state definitely one or two established points which great '

DRIFT, ETC. 27

'increase the importance and interest of the phenomenon here al-
'luded to. The first and most important fact is, that soils have been
icarried from north to south, and that in no well authenticated in-
stance in this country has this movement been from south to north.
From this fact, then, follows an easy, though practical application
of the fact, viz : that in searching for certain peculiarities of a
^iven soil, we must go north ; for the rock itself which has fur-
lished originally the material composing the soil will probably be
bund only in this direction. Take, for example, the distribution
)f the Onondaga limestone, which forms the surface rock from the
iudson to Lake Erie, and where do we find its fragments ? We
j',ertainly never find them a mile north of the outcropping edge of
he rock ; but they are every where found south within a limited
ange, and wherever they are found in numbers they do modify
he soil ; — and wherever we travel, if we find the boulders or the
ravel of a certain character, we may, without experiment or even
irther observation, form some exact and definite conclusions in
egard to the nature and properties of the soil. These considera-
ons, then, show us one very important practical geological fact —
ne which every agriculturist ought to know, and which we are
jssured may be often applied in investigations upon the nature and
pmposition of soils in this country, and which will explain some
icts in husbandry which otherwise would remain inexplicable.
Again, the course or direction in which the drift or soil has been
ansported is determined by furrows upon the rock beneath*
hese furrows correspond in direction with the course of the drift,
hat they are made by gravel and sandstones passing along over
le rocks, is proved by actual observation ; for example, a boulder
often found at the extremity of the furrow which it has been
strumental in forming ; it is precisely in the position in which
,e farmer leaves his plough in its furrow when he unyokes his
am at the sound of the dinner horn, and its course for a limited
"Stance may be traced with equal certainty. On this fact rests
le statement which we have just made in regard to the agents
uich have scored the strata.

We now proceed to give the language of the paper which we
jepared on the subject of drift for the Associntion of Geologists
Ed Naturalists. The remarks we have already made do not form
a)art of this communication, but were deemed necessary in this

28 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

place in order to show the practical bearing of the subject • and
inasmuch as those who till the soil are constantly meeting with
phenomena illustrating this interesting and important subject, they
ought especially to be well versed in all the facts which bear
directly or indirectly upon the subject.

During the past year, (1843,) the field of my observations on
drift, have been confined to the western part of Massachusetts, tht
eastern counties of New-York, and a belt of country extending
from the Hudson to Buffalo, on the line of the Erie canal. 0
my observations as a whole, I will in the first place remark, tha
they go to establish most of the great principles in relation to drif
and diluvial action, which have been heretofore presented to th
Association — those for instance which relate to the scoring c
rocks, the course in which drift was transported, the materials c
which.it is composed, the period of its transport, the great pow€
and force expended in its transportation, and partly in regard to il
organic remains.

As it regards the direction of grooves upon rocks, and the kin
of materials of which any drift bed may be composed, the gener
law is, that the first have a direction varying but little from nor
and south, and the latter show that the materials also were deriv(
from the same direction. But occasionally an important exceptic
to this law is found ; for, where a powerful barrier lies in the dire
tion in which drift was transported, it is always deflected from :
course ; thus, both the grooves upon the rocks and the drift itse
near the base of the Catskill mountains, show a deflection of tj:
current of drift to the east, or, through the present valley of Catj
kill creek which flows in an easterly direction, and the bouldf
derived from the northern outcrop of the Helderbergh rocks, £
transported across the Hudson at Catskill and lodged upon t
eastern bank of the river, in Columbia county. These facts go
show that the Catskill mountains, of sufficient height to forn
barrier, existed at the period of the drift, and operated as a b;
rier to those drift currents : and another fact, having the sai
bearing, is, that no foreign boulders are lodged far up the sides
upon the summits of the Catskill. I*

My observations, however, on this last point are limited. I-
the general law that drift had a northern origin, is finely illustratjl .
in all the drift beds which lie in a belt of country from the C(i- ^

DRIFT, ETC. 29

eCticut river at Springfield, Massachusetts, to Bulialo, on the line
If the western railroad and Erie canal. Thus, on this belt I find
[ve distinct kinds of drift, differing according to the kind of rocks
yhich exist in places to the northward of the points of observa-
ion.

First. Towards Springfield on the east, the boulders and grarel
eds are composed of gneiss and mica slate.

Second. In Berkshire, and eastern part of New-York, of the rocks
f the taconic system ; and so well defined is the latter belt, that
here is no intermingling of the rocks of the two adjacent
ystems, except upon their very borders.

Third. In the valley of the Hudson river, the drift beds are com-
losed of rocks of the Champlain group.

I Fourth. In the valley of the Mohawk, thirty miles west of Albany,

It Amsterdam, 1 find a great abundance of the northern primary

pcks, and particularly the hypersthene rock — which is confined to

small space of country directly north ; and finally, another belt

jjwards Rochester and Buffalo, in which the harder layers of the

jledina sandstone, the harder parts of the Niagara limestone, to-

iether with primary boulders — among which I think I can discern

lie hypersthene rocks of Labrador — together with some foreign

loulders whose origin I have been unable to determine.

Again, of the direction of the grooves, and of drift, when com-

ared with the direction of valleys, I would remark, that although

find frequently a parallelism, still there are some notable excep-

ons, even when no apparent barrier existed to the course of the

rift currents. Thus, the western face of Petersburg mountain is

:ored upon a slope of 30° or 35° upwards ; and again, in many

realities I have found scorings upon the perpendicular faces of

pcks parallel with the valleys in which they lie.

; As it regards the organic remains of drift, I am forced to differ

i part, from the views of Mr. Lyell, as given in a late No. of

lie Journal of Science. Mr. L. maintains that the tertiary of

(hamplain, which I have described in ray New-York Report, is

rift. From this view I beg leave to dissent, for if any formation

irnishes stronger evidence of having been deposited in quiet

aters, I know not where it is to be found ; but towards the close

f the period in which this formation was deposited, we have

30 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

strong and undoubted evidence of disturbance and of transport (
the materials of which it is composed. And it is in the transport€
beds of sand and coarse gravel, that we sometimes find the brok€
shell'- of the mya and saxacava. The boulders which are four
at Beauport, in Canada East, in the midst of shells, were ui
questionably dropped from icebergs, for it would be contrary
reason and fact, to suppose for a moment, that the delicate ter
bratula psittacea could have been moved with the drift or disturbi
by currents, and maintain their perfect integrity.

I will state farther, in this connexion, that I am forced to diff
from Mr. Lyell and some other geologists, as it regards an esse
tial change of temperature at the period of the tertiary or drii'
But I do not propose to state my objections, in this place. I ha-
but one subject more which I wish to bring before this Associ'
tion, viz: the immediate agent which was instrumental in f'
transportation of drift. On this subject, I would speak with d
deference to the opinions of others. But I will observe, geneicA
ly, that I believe no one agent — no one cause — no one theory, w(
be found adequate to the explanation of all the phenomena of ti
drift of this country and of Europe — applying the word drift '
all accumulations of sand, gravel and boulders, except those whi
are now forming by rivers.

The observations of Agassiz and Prof. Forbes, go to show ti
the movements of glaciers are, and have been, causes. Obser^
tions of most navigators show, that for transportation, icebergs
causes — and all may see, that waves in shallows do wash up ridg
of sand and gravel parallel to coasts. But what agent transport
the great mass of the drift of New-England and New-York. (
this point, I maintain that moving water in a given direction,
the essential element of our reasoning. This moving water ma
or may not, transport ice — ice, if moved, must be moved by watilf
Starting with this element, and taking into view all the phenomf
na of drift and of scorings of rocks, I find no agent or power ad
quate to the solution of these phenomena, hut the rush of^
northern sea, or waters over a part of this Continent, produced i
a subsidence of land, and aided, perhaps, by the rise of the bottc^^j
of the sea to the north. By this power, all the loose materic
were pushed forward, en masse, and transported south, both scorin ^^

I

D R I F T , E TC . 3J

. pd breaking up those surfaces of the .cdid strata, over which it
• assed.

Proof that this theory has a foundation, is found in the fact
lal analogous changes in the relative position of sea and land

jas taken place ; and also that immediately subsequent to the
, eriod when the rocks were scored in the manner now well known

> all geologists, those northern waters did stand upon, and cover
ige areas of New-England and New- York. I refer to that
>nod when the tertiary of Champlain, of Lubec, Portland,
e., and other places, were deposited j a period of quiet which
.mediately followed that of drift, oceanic action and transporta-

pn.

Immediately succeeding the period of quiet, another one of
■I'vation must be recognized, during which some disturbance of
ije loose materials occurred ; but in consequence of the wide area

i|er which this elevatory action operated, the shape and contour

<j the surface has been preserved,

|l am aware that high authority is adverse to the admission of

i|vertical movement ; yet, adverse as it is, I know not how to

ijioncile facts and phenomena on this ground.
|Such, then, are briefly the facts and conclusions which I have

aived at, in my investigations during the last year. That there

a- many points which are not cleared up, and that much more

Eght be said, I readily admit. But what I have thrown out is

Sjticient to answer the object of this report,

A^o^e.— Since the above was communicated, observations in the
sjie field have been continued, and so far from abandoning the
tJoretical view which is here advanced, we see every day facts
^ich sustain it. The important fact, which we have frequently
sted on other occasions as well as in this report, that New Eng-
ied and New-York, as well as the wide extent of territory west
ai north, has been submerged, and was evidently submerged just
P'terior to the great drift period, never ought to be lost sight of

s fact IS substantiated by the marine deposit of Lake Champlain^
a ^posit filled in many places with marine shells ; and what is to
f^pomt, this marine deposit rests immediately upon the grooved

32 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

and scored rocks. We are to put these two facts together, an

when put together what do they teach us 1 first, that at a certai

period some general agent was in force producing this very sc(

ring, and which may be seen from the Atlantic to the Rock

Mountains. Then immediately follows this marine deposit upc

the grooved surfaces of these rocks. Now, then, this whole ecu:

try is beneath an ocean. Submergence has taken place, and tl:

portion of the earth is quiet beneath the waters, and deposits a

going on ; shell fish of the same species as those now living up.

our coasts occupy the bays and estuaries of this great sea. Then

it regards a vertical movement, nothing need be said. The sea

which this marine deposit was formed has retired, the plough ft

rows those reclaimed fields, and maize grows where the My a sa:

cava, scalaria and other shell fish lived and multiplied. Such ;

some of the facts which, to say the least, bear favorably upon t

hypothesis. And then again, by the admission of a vertical mo^

ment since the drift period, we certainly remove those obstructic

which oppose the passage of an ocean over the tops of our hi^i

est mountains in New-York and New-Hampshire, the scoring'

whose rocks prove the passage in question.

Mote 2. In connection with the above, we take thisopportur
to state that we have observed very interesting phenomena of ^
kind which forms the subject of the above remarks, at Plattsbu^
and Cumberland Head, on Lake Champlain. On searching
fossils at Plattsburgh, in August, 1844, in company with
friend, Ransom Cook, Esq., we had occasion to split off a tl :
layer of the Trenton limestone. On examining the lower surl ;
of the removed portion, we found it covered with relief li)i,^
which led us to examine the surface from which it was ta)ih
when we found it scored with lines which corresponded with tl:
of the pieces which we had taken up. The scorings run east
west, or at right angles to those which we find on almost e\
rock'in this state. So interesting did we deem these ancient m?
that we determined to search for them at other localities ; and)
are pleased in being able to state that we were successful in fp
ing the same stratum at Cumberland Head, four miles east, -t
both of these localities the rock is not only scored, but polis d
and worn down, showing conclusively the consolidation of jj,

ll

DRIFT, ETC. 33

jock at the time when it was thus scored. Notwithstanding this
jact seems so well determined, and moreover that a suspension for

time of a deposition of the peculiar materials of this rock, still,
he layers which succeed the worn and polished surface are those
if the Trenton limestone. In Plattsburgh we find surfaces with
|ie ancient and modern scorings within ten feet of each other, and
ly comparison on the spot no one can observe any difference in
le character of the markings themselves ; though the former, as
as been stated, run east and west, while the latter run north and
)uth. I had observed similar phenomena at Essex, several years
lefore this observation at Plattsburgh, and so stated the fact in
pe of our annual geological reports ; but subsequently, fearing I

id committed an error in my statement, made what I intended a

)rrection in a subsequent report. This, however, seems to
|ive been unnecessary. But as the facts seemed to me so extra-
I'dinary, and had not at the time been noticed by any geological
jriter, I deemed that course right when there appeared some doubt
j to the correctness of the observation. Mr. James Hall has pub-
|;hed in the reports, and elsewhere, an essay on mud furrows,
'aese present phenomena in part similar to the scorings of rocks
if diluvial action ; still, in no instance which he has given, nor in
iiy which we have observed, is the rock beneath polished. In
ijis case there is a hard, sandy rock, the inferior surface of which
ij marked in relief by parallel ridges ; the surface upon which
lis reposes is a fine and soft argillaceous mass, and was probably in
t|2 state of mud when the marked stratum was deposited ; but it
iinot polished, nor does it appear that the phenomena in the two
cses are produced by causes of the same nature. All these facts
a^ so many incidents in the history of the earth. We may truly
s/ that wherever we go, or on whatsoever side we turn our eyes,
tere we find interesting changes ; these changes reveal many of
tt; former conditions of the earth. The collection and recital of all
tl'se phenomena will be hereafter formed into a complete and per-
f<|t history ; and the rapid accumulation of facts within the last
qirter century, indicates that the time is not far distant when this
htory will be written.

ilbany, June 1, 1845.

OL. II. — NO. I. E

34 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

MANURES— THEIR ACTION.

We know of no subject in the whole field of agriculture wher«
judicious and well conducted experiments are more needed, thar
in reference to this. The absolute use of manure is denied by m
intelligent farmer at the present day, but nothing definite or fixec
in relation to their mode of action — the manner and the prope:'
time for applying them so as to produce the greatest effect — tb
kind proper to be used upon different crops — in fine, we may say
nothing at all is known in regard to their specific use. Leadinj
agriculturists have been greatly at fault here. Agricultural societie
have not directed that attention to the subject which they ought
Every man who tills an acre of land owes it to himself and to hi
own interest, setting aside his duty to the general interest, to in
vestigate the matter in the most thorough way he can. Experiment
only can determine the question, and they have not been madf
In the absence of facts then, we shall indulge a little in theorizin
upon a few points in connection with this subject, hoping the
something may be suggested which will lead to practical results.

1. Do manures owe their efficacy to their organic or inorgam
portions ? * This may seem to many a small matter, or one d<
serving no notice. It seems so to us, we are free to acknowledgt
in a practical point of view. But since many men of no sma
eminence have decided, some in favor of one portion and some (
another, we may be pardoned for noticing it. Ever since tH*
theory has been upheld by the professed followers of Liebig, th;

• We use these terms in their ordinary acceptation. But we must confess that v
have never been able to unilersland why lime or potash should be called inoTgan
any more than oxygen, k.c. Their relations to the organs and in the organs
plants are all similar. The one class are as necessary component parts of the pla
as the other. We presume the names have arisen from the old idea, that the so call'
organic substances were all that actually constituted the i)lant, the inorganic beii
only accidentally present. We would therefore suggest the adoption of somethii
like the following alteration:

a. Inorganic matter — all simple substances found in the composition of living bodi
—potassium— sodium — oxygen— carbon, &c. &c.

b. Organized matter — the parts of living bodies composed of these simple substanc
— woody fibre— bark — muscle — nerves, Sic.

c. Organic mattei — the products of organized matter — sugar — gum — oil — starch
&c. &c.

This appears to be a much more consistent nomenclature.

II

MANURES. 35

lants derive all their carbon from the atmosphere, the tendency
jas been with them to attribute the sole power to the inorganic
iatter. Indeed, Liebig himself gives credit to the organic portions
ply for helping the plant to dispose of the inorganic portions of
j5 food, which he seems to consider the most essential part of its

ructure. That it is possible for the atmosphere to supply the

.rbon and oxygen and nitrogen to plants in suflicient quantities,
■ere may be no question ; but does it? is one which it is not so
• sy to answer.

When one hundred pounds of wheat are burned, a quantity of
jlhes amounting only to a little more than one pound remains.
.11 the combustible part, or that which was consumed by the fire,
(insisted of organic matter, or oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and
<rbon. The remaining ash is the earthy and saline portion of the
^|ieat. The very smallness of the quantity contradicts the notion
C the superior use of these materials in the food which has fur-
iihed them, and the large proportion of the other ingredients
ijght seem to warrant the belief that they were the efficacious
zmis. Such reasoning might be carried still farther, and the
1st quantity of any one ingredient present in the necessary food
cj plants be considered the controlling power in relation to the
\iole.

But such reasoning is false in its whole extent. We know no
r son why we should attribute peculiar virtues to one more than
a)ther. A plant is a compound body, and all plants of the same
kid consist invariably of the same constituents, in the same or
nirly the same proportions. Each one must be regarded as
eiially necessary in the vegetable economy, and the food must
citain all, or the plant will not thrive. The different quantities
rmisite during the progress of the plant will be noticed hereafter.
Bt what has been stated is the true philosophy of farming. It is
tnupply to the growing plant the whole food it requires to perfect
itjwhole structure. If the soil already contains sufficient, no more
n«|d be given— if not, it must be furnished by manures. If any
oil ingredient is wanting, that one must be applied, and so with
tl: whole list. The soil may be rich in vegetable matter and yet
n( produce good crops, because it is destitute of salts. Supply
thje and its vigor is restored. And on the other hand it is well

36 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

known that to be fertile a soil must contain a certain proportioi
of vegetable matter.

That soils become exhausted of the saline portions more rapidl:
than of the other, cannot be wondered at, when it is remember
that these substances are restored in much the least proportion
in ordinary cases. The solid excrements of animals which consti-
tute the mass of manure commonly applied, contain but little ol
them, whilst the liquid excrements which abound in them are suf
fered to run to waste. The thorough, rational farmer will alway;
restore what is taken away.

We might carry this idea out to a greater extent, by turning t(
the animal and reasoning from analogy, which will hold good, W'
think, in this point. The same materials are necessary in th
animal economy as in the vegetable. Yet no one will pretend t
say that one class of substances is more useful to the general lif'
and growth of the animal than another. All must be supplied i
their due proportion.

We conclude, then, that neither the inorganic nor the organ),
portions of manures determine their value — that lanraonia, suppose
to owe its efficacy to its nitrogen, an almost undiscoverable quar
tity in most plants, and by many called " the life and soul of m;
nure," is not the controlling force — but that each substance nece
sary to the plant has an equal effect in perfecting its structure ar
promoting its growth.

The simple experiment that would set this matter at rest, wMj
suggest itself to any reflecting mind, and it is to be hoped th:|'
some one will make it.

2. At what period should manures be applied 1 The questicj
which we have just briefly examined, we have attempted to answf
upon the general principle. But in replying to this we might vol
naturally be led into the consideration of special manures, becauiiB,
from the facts in the case it is unquestionable that at differe:
periods of growth, and also according to the kind of product tol;
obtained, plants must be supplied with different food. By refei
ring to the first volume of this Journal, page fifty-three, tables wi'
be found giving the different quantities of ash left by burning di|
ferent parts of the same plants. It will then be seen that whe|
straw leaves 3.51 lbs. in 100, whilst the grain leaves but 1 . 18 Ibj
Now these unequal quantities in the different parts show beyondl

MANURES. 37

tloubt that at one period of growth, a greater proportion of inor-
[ranic matter is necessary than at anotlier — that the straw and the
jeed, although requiring the same materials, at the same time
[equire the different elements in different quantities. The well
tnown fact that the soil is more exhausted during the formation of
he seed than at any other period of the growth of the plant, is
■xplained upon this principle.

From the analysis- of Sprengel it appears that the ash from 1000
hs. of wheat contains more than 2 lbs. of potash, and 4 lbs. of
ilica, whilst the straw contains but one-fifth pound of potash and
iiearly twenty-nine pounds of silica. The great quantity of the
atter substance in the straw is necessary to give strength to sup-
lort its burden of grain. The variation is similar in other grains,
nd a like variation is seen in all the elements, in comparing the
institution of the straw and the seed.

i The practical inference from all this would seem to be, that by
ccommodating the manures to the demands of the plant at different
eriods of growth, the straw or the grain might be improved at
leasure, or that we might at least expect a great control over the
evelopment of one or the other. How far this may be true it is
ppossible to decide, without more full and true experiment,
[his would consist in its simplest form in applying the same
ianure to two portions of the field at different times, to one por-
on when planted and to the other just before the crop goes to seed.
j The experiments of Mr. Campbell, of soaking seeds in saline so-
Itions, are very interesting in this connection. His object is to
turate the seed with the solutions, and, if v^e understand him, to
lus supply them with all of those substances that they need for
^e, for he tried the experiment without the use of other manures,
id in another instance in pure sand. It is to be presumed, bow-
er, that his expectation of reaping a tenfold crop by this means,
j conjunction with other manures, has not been fulfilled, as we
jive never seen any statement of such a result. It has been sta-
ll before, that the probable good effects arise in this case from the
"gorous start given to vegetation in the outset, by which the plant
i| early placed in a condition to appropriate large quantities of
ibd, and also to obtain it under unfavorable circumstances.
If such is the case, great practical use may be made of the prin-
<^le, and especially when in other respects, such as preparation

38 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

of soil and manuring, the future wants of the crop are abundantly
cared for. And if the principle is true, it will go far against the
use of unfermented manures, particularly' when the seed has not
been previously prepared.

It is highly important that experiments should be tried on the
effects produced by manuring at different periods of the growth oJ
plants. Very little is in reality yet known of the principles whicb
determine the action and force of manures, and consequently z
greiat want of economy in the use of them, may be the result. B}
adapting the manure both in kind and in quantity to the wants o '
growing plants, great saving may be effected.

3. How ought manure to be applied ? This question was briefly'
noticed in the last number of this Journal, when it was stated tha'
manure is generally buried too deep in the soil. Since that time'
we have met with an article in one of the monthly journals, ij'
which the w^riter attempts to show that the great loss to be guard
ed against, is not downward but upward. And he reasons in thi
way. Fill a barrel, whose head has been knocked out, with sane '
and pour upon the top of the sand, any kind of manure stirred u
in water. After it has passed through the sand, it will be foun
to be almost pure water. Here the writer reasons only from th
sense of sight. He has forgotten that all that is of use for tij
nourishment of plants is dissolved in the water and invisibl
whilst the dirt which floats in it is useless, and is all that is sepi
rated by filtering. If he had examined the fluid which had pasS4
through the sand, he would have undoubtedly found it laden wif
the most fertilizing properties.

The tendency of the gases produced during the decompositio
of vegetable and animal matter under the soil, to escape upwan
is in our opinion very slight. The soil, like all other porous be
dies, has a strong attraction for some of the gases, and holds thej
with great force. It is a fact well known, that the carcase of 8
animal when covered with only a thin coating of earth, will ni
dergo decay without tainting the neighboring atmosphere, Tl'
gases generated, do not escape into the air, but are held in the pt
rous earth. But the rain falling upon the soil and passing throug.
has the power of extracting these gases, which it must inevitab'
bear with it in its downward passage. Nothing which is solub
in water can be separated from it by filtering, and these solub

MANURES. 39

pbstances are the very materials, in the proper form to nourish
|ie vegetable. We might state some very striking facts, showing
lat manures in solution are carried to great depths into the
le ground. Such are wells which are often rendered useless by
iie leaking of neighboring sinks and dung heaps.
We would not be understood as advocating the application of
anures to the surface, but that they should be thoroughly incor-
prated with the soil on the surface, or just below, and not buried
. the ordinary depth of the furrow, which should not be less than
ght mches. The roots of very few cultivated crops ever reach
■j that depth in the soil, and consequently if buried so deep the
]3nure is to all intents lost. If well mixed with the surface soil,
ijis easy of access to the superficial roots, and deeper ones are sup-
]|ied by the descending water charged with their food. Thence the
jod effects often experienced from top dressings to crops, of well
<|Composed manures.

iThe question however, would not be answered even thus, if the
(anions of those are correct, who make the atmosphere the store-
l,use of all the organic food for plants. If they are right, manure
spuld not be buried at all, but suffered to decay upon the surface,
yre all the volatile portions would mingle with the atmosphere.'
y cannot, however, subscribe to the opinion that even the carbon
ijiow or has been at any previous age of the world, derived from
tl,t source ; and it might be easily demonstrated, we think, that if
tl present existing carbon, which is now or has been at previous
p lods since the creation in an organized form, were converted
im carbonic acid at the expense of the oxygen of the air, an
atiosphere would be formed in which no plant could exist. And
wdeem it only wild and groundless conjecture that either 'plants
or;inimals have existed at a former period, which have not analo- ^
gi at the present time, and none now exist which could flourish
m,n atmosphere containing a much greater proportion of carbonic
ac, than the present. The practice of the farmer is however cor-
re; in the main. The roots are the proper mouths of plants, and
tUT food is taken in mostly through them. That the leaves have
anmportant office to perform is also true, but they cannot be re-
ga ed as of so much consequence as is attributed to them by the
ad )cates of this theory.

' conclusion we would say, that it is very important that expe-

40 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

riments should be carefully made in regard to the use of manures
in reference to the points we have been considering, as well a
others, and especially the economical employment of them. Ther
is no doubt a great waste in the way in which manures are conn
monly applied. Spread over the whole surface and then plough©
in, especially if not partially fermented, their action is not confine
as it might be to the crop only, and what benefit is derived froi
them is "slow and weak. They do not furnish sufficient foodi
produce a vigorous growth at any one time. Their efficacy is di
fused, small as it is, through the whole growth of the crop, and i
best a precarious support is afforded through the whole period.

Our soils after a course of tillage, become impoverished. Mu
we expend large quantities of manure upon them to keep them up
Or may we not compel the soil annually to produce all it will, ti
it becomes exhausted and then by the proper application of pr.
per manures to the crop itself, still force a poor soil to bring fon
rich harvests '? The example of China speaks loudly in favor.;
this— a nation living within itself and separated from all others
increasing to an almost incredible extent— employing implemer
the most rude— destitute almost of cattle and horses— and pr
forming all their labor with their own hands— yet patiently cdl
vating their soil and stimulating it to productiveness, they ha
forced it to yield a support to a population of three hundred m
lions. And this they have done by adapting their manures to \
wants of plants.

GUANO.

Guano has acquired a celebrity among the leading agriculturi^
in England and this country truly surprising, when it is consider
that its introduction is so very recent. For although a speciic
was analyzed so early as 1804 or 5, by Sir H. Davy, and reco
mended by him as a manure, yet it was not until 1840 that att.
tion was directed to it by the excellent publications of Lieb
During that year a small quantity was brought to England, _w
which experiments were made testing its qualities as a fertilizi
agent. So beneficial did it prove, and so sanguine were the -
pectations in relation to its becoming an article of considera

I

GUANO

41

T^de, that a company was formed for its importation. This com-
[)any succeeded in obtaining an exclusive privilege from the Peru-
vian and Bolivian governments. Within the last five years tke
;iemand for guano has increased from a few tons to such an ex-
^ent that it is estimated that in '43 and '44 there were upwards
;; bf 1000 vessels, of large class, engaged in transferring this manure
, rem its barren places of deposit to the ports of Europe ; a small
. )roportion only was landed in the United States. Guano is con-
;! ined, so far as discoveries have been made, to the west coast of
1 iouth America and the southwestern coast of Africa. It occurs
1 1 beds varying from thirty to sixty and somctiihes one hundred
set thick, upon the islands and rocky promontories that skirt the
oast. It is the product of birds— flamingoes, pelicans, &c., which
aving been in possession of these islamis for ages, in innumerable
umbers, their droppings have accumulated to the enormous extent
ist mentioned. This depth is undoubtedly increased by the car-
! ises of dead birds and seals, as the bones are found in great
i uantitics at all depths. These birds are found frequenting the
)asts and islands of all latitudes in as profuse numbers, but as
tin or moisture would dissolve and render useless all deposits'
om them, and consequently prevent any accumulation, we find
ue guano confined to those regions which are comparatively free
cm rain. The western coast of South America is, with the ex-
ption of some few points, almost barren, consisting of rocky and
luly deserts. Almost a total immunity from rain Is a character-
-ic of this coast, consequently the dung of the birds has been
reserved in great purity. Among the deposits already opened
le Iquique, latitude 20° 20' south, Babellon de Pica, St. Lohos
itie miles south of Pica, Isle of Torricella, Islay, Jesus, the
lands^about the port of Arica, latitude 18° 20' south, longitude
16' west from Greenwich, the Chincha islands in latitude 14°
i;' south, longitude 76° west from Greenwich. These last are
ijiorted as bearing beds 900 feet thick and of the best quality.
[Although so lately introduced to us, yet this substance is noticed
along the earliest accounts given by the Spaniards of South
Aerica. The Peruvians, and various Indians inhabiting that
cimtry have been accustomed from time immemorial to the use
olguano. So great was their estimation of this manure that
gat care was taken not to molest in any way the birds which

»"0L. II. — NO. I. F

24 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

they were aware produced the manure. Laws were prescribed bj
the Incas, and heavy penalties were attached to the offence of kill-
ing the birds. They made use, however, of the recent dung only
which was gathered annually, at a certain season of the year ; tbii
is undoubtedly better and stronger than the older deposits, whicl
have thus been left to be opened by modern enterprise. Nor is i
surprising ihat the Indians should esteem the guano so highly.

The soil generally, as before stated, is very thin and poor, pre
senting almost nothing in whole districts, but barren wastes. Ye
notwithstanding all these disadvantages, the natives contrived t
raise good crops, and with care were always sure of an abundan
return for their labors ; but always with the aid of guano. By th
application of this manure, fields of sand, where, only a few stunte
weeds could find root, became as fertile as the richest of soil:
It is said that the natives con.e from the interior, one or two hui
dred miles with one lama to obtain the small amount that anim;
can bear, and consider their long journey well rewarded.

The first specimens of guano were brought from the weste)
coast of South America, and all the guano used was from th
locality until 1843, when by the enterprise of Mr. Rae of Live
pool similar deposits were discovered upon the southweste
coast of Africa, and vessels were immediately despatched to tl
new treasure. The island of the most importance as regar!
quality was Ichaboe.

The extent of the manure upon this island was, in 1843, es
mated at one thousand feet long, five hundred feet broad a:
thirty-five feet deep, containing from seven to eight thousand loi
which recent accounts state to be now entirely exhausted. Sevei'
other islands have been opened, some off Angru Peguina, butt'
guano seems to be of an inferior quality to the Peruvian. Tl
is attributed to the fact that rains are more frequent upon the Af
can coast than upon *he American. It is quite probable ma
deposits remain ab yet undiscovered.

This manure has been analyzed by some of the most emin(
chemists of Great Britain. The average of those by Dr. Ure,
genuine Peruvian guano, gives

1. Azolized animal matter, including urate of ammonia, together capa-
ble of affording from eight to ten per cent of ammonia, by slow
decomposition, in the soil, ^ >

GUANO. 43

Water, 1!.0

}. Phosphate of lime, 25.0

Phosphate of ammonia, ammonia, phosphate of magnesia, together

containing from five to nine per cent ammonia 13.0

Silicious sand, 1.0

100.0
\.nalysis of a specimen of African guano by Dr. Ure, gives

. Saline and organic matter containing ten parts pure ammonia, 50.0

L Water 21.5

1. Phosphate of lime and magnesia and potash, 26.0

'. Silica, , 1.0

. Sulphate and muriate of potash 1.5

100.0

Many other analyses might be given showing the composition
f the different varieties, as it varies considerably from diff'erent
Dcalities, even in different cargoes, from the same deposit ; but
lie general results of these analyses show the guano from the
'acific to be superior to the African.

In order to determine the purity of guano it is only necessary
l> mix a small quantity of guano with about ten parts of chalk
jid one part of quick lime, let them then be intimately blended,
hen they should give off" a strong smell of ammonia ; next, moisten
[glass rod with muriatic acid, this held over the mixture should
'•oduce a strong evolution of white vapor. This will determine

e presence of ammoniacal salts. In a crucible heat to redness
iismall quantity ; this should reduce it to a white ash, when if
ipod, the ash will be nearly soluble in dilute muriatic acid.
IThe diff'erent analyses of guano show it to be composed, in an
ainent degree, of those substances considered as most useful in
lanures.

(Numerous experiments have been made in England, for the pur-
jise of determining the value of guano as compared wdth other
Janures ; both as regards the beneficial effects upon the soil, and
te relative cost of the application. These experiments have been

ried and tried upon all crops raised in England and Scotland,

d by scientific men, and have the merit of authenticity. The
rmlts seem to establish guano, in relation to other efficient
nnures, such as bone dust, barn-yard manure, &c., as four of the
f -mer to five of the latter.

The most approved method of applying guano, is to mix it with

1

44 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

good earth — care being taken that they should be intimately blend-
ed and sown broadcast, in the proportion of about three hundrec
weight of the guano to the acre. Another method is to drop il
in the drills ; but, if guano alone is used, care should be taken tha*
it does not come in contact with the plant, as it will kill the plan
almost as surely as fire.

It should also be applied, if possible, just before the coming
of rain ; for if left dry upon the surface, the volatile salts wil
soon evaporate. Thus, in a dry season, guano has been known ti
fail entirely — producing no effects whatever.

The natives of South America are obliged, from the dryness o
the atmosphere, to irrigate their fields by artificial means, i
very beneficial mode of using is, to make a solution of guano, an
let it stand in a vessel, ready for use ; this will do only for garde
and pot plants ; although it might be pursued, perhaps, advantage
ously, upon large fields. Extraordinary effects have been produce
in this way. One mentioned in third No. of Colman's " Europea
Agriculture, &c. :"

" In Scotland, last autumn, two shrubs were shown to me, swee
briars, growing in front of a two story house, and trained upon i
sides ; one at one, the other at the other end. The soil in whi(
they grew, the aspect and other circumstances, were the same.

" One, in the season, had grown six or seven feet; the oth«(
nearly thirty feet! It actually climbed to the roof of the hous;
and turned and hung down, reaching half the distance down fro
the roof to the ground. I judged this could not have been le
than thirty feet. This had been repeatedly watered with liqu
guano, by the hands of its fair cultivator ; for this was another e:
periment by a lady, (which I hope my American friends will bear
mind.) The other had received no special care or manuring."

The minutiiE of many experiments might be given, to showth
the value of guano has not been over estimated, so far as regards ififc
use in Great Baitain. Experiments in this country have not pr
duced such striking results, although it has been used here with '
good deal of benefit, especially on house plants.

A friend of ours has used it upon his garden vegetables, with excf '
lent results, this season ; beets, tomatoes, tScc, were watered with
solution of guanoj with very marked results. The proportions

GUANO. 45

le material used were, one lb. of guano to one gallon of water,
nd almost a wine-glass of the solution poured around each plant.
I solution a little stronger than this, destroyed some of the toma-
bes. It will be seen that those who have been in the habit of
ising a shovel full of manure to a hill of corn or potatoes, would
lery likely fall into a fatal error, in the use of this substance, by
jccessive doses ; and from facts in our possession, we are confi-
ent acres of corn have been destroyed in this way.
I The belief has been expressed by some, that there was guano
lOugh in the world that could be obtained, to supply all demands
or a thousand years at least. This, so far from being true, a little
llection will show that a few years, at the present rate of its use,
|ill serve to exhaust all deposits known of this substance ; and, of
lurse, from its source and well known mode of production, can
ver be renewed so as to form, hereafter, an article of commerce.
I Our farmers, then, will direct their attention to other sources of
janure, to supply the wants of their farms, and will not expect,
I least, to obtain it in any considerable amount, after one or two
■a;s at farthest.

HOW PLANTS ABSORB CARBONIC ACID.

BY WM. PARTRIDGE.

iThe first number of the American Quarterly Journal, contains
?' article by Thomas Hun, M. D., on the food of plants, wherein
1 quotes Liebig, page 15, as follows — " the great value of the soil
k vegetation, depends on its earths and alkalies, which seem to
jpply the inorganic constituents of plants. The humus or mould
ijComparatively unimportant, except at certain stages of vegeta-
tjn, in furnishing carbonic acid to the roots."
Again, p. 17, 18 — " Carbonic acid is derived from the soil,
"Mere it is generated by the decomposition of vegetable matter,
.£i from the atmosphere. The main source of carbonic acid, is,
Ijwever, the atmosphere. How can this be otherwise, when the
.€prraous quantities of carbon which trees, the growth of centu-
Js, for example have laid up, are contrasted with the very limit-
€ extent to which their roots extend. Very certainly where the

46 :^ QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

acorn, from which sprung the oak that is now our admiration, ger
minated a hundred years ago, the soil where it fell, did not con
tain the millionth part of the charcoal which the oak now incloses
It is the carbonic acid of the atmosphere which has furnished a'
the rest ; that is to say, almost the whole mass of the noble tree.

" But what can be more clear or conclusive upon this subjec
than the experiment of M. Boussaingault, in which peas sown i
sand, watered with distilled water, and fed by the air alone, nevei
theless found in this air all the carbon necessary to their develoj
ment, flowering and fructification."

" If then the plant is vegetating in a soil which furnishes n
carbonic acid to the roots, the whole supply must he derived fro',
the atmosphere by its leaves J^

I believe that Mr. Liebig is in error in supposing that the leave
by absorbing carbonic acid, supply trees or other vegetables wil
the principal portion of their carbon. I shall offer some fact
which I think will go far to disprove this assertion.

I am aware that it is up-hill work to call in question any theoi
of Liebig's, for so great is the confidence of his readers in h
opinions, that it is considered mere querulousness to call any
them in question.

I am also aware that my own positions may be erroneous. C
this point, I have only one request to make, that any error I m:
fall into, may be shown, not merely asserted ; and if the objectio;
are well founded, I will readily acknowledge the error.

Man is a theoretical being, and those who can produce the mo
splendid and imposing theories, are sure to stand on the pinnae
of literary fame. It is of little consequence whether the hypoth
sis on which a theory is raised be well founded or not, provided
be specious, for few men are capable of testing it by the touchstot
of truth ; and it is so much easier to believe than to investigat
that any thing, however absurd, when supported with talent, wi,
be sure to meet with a competent number of proselytes. •

We look with contempt on the theories of past centuries, whi
we are deeply absorbed in those of the present day, which in the,
turn will become the objects of disproof by succeeding generations
but theories, like governments, will some of them leave a splend
train in their rear, whilst others will be thrown down and forgottf
almost as soon as they are formed.

HOW PLANTS ABSORB CARBONIC ACID. 47

In tracing the operations of nature, I have always laid it down

a rule, to endeavor to discover the intentions of the Supreme
Find, in the qualities and in the appliances of the objects of in-
estigaiion. In tracing the operations of carbonic acid, we find it
j) possess great weight, a weight much greater than any other gas ;
) great that it may be poured from one vessel into another, with-
it mixing with the surrounding atmosphere. If this gas were in-
nded to feed vegetation through the leaves, then would its pon-
^rosity be adverse to such appliance. If, on the contrary, the
is were intended to feed plants through tho roots, then would this
niderosity cause it to descend to the ground, and there supplying

e necessary food by means of the roots.

The atmosphere is found by analysis to be always and in every
juation the same, to afford in the diseased cell, in valleys, and on
ills, the same results ; yet we know that various gases are conti-
] ally pouring into it ; but is is evident they do not chemically
<mbine with the atmosphere. Most of the gases are much
ll;hter than the atmosphere ; these ascend beyond our reach, and
(iscend again in rain and snow storms. Carbonic gas, the princi-
jil food of plants, being much heavier than the atmosphere, must
I'cessarily fall to the ground, where it would afford nourishment
tj vegetation. Carbonic gas is called by the miners choke-damp •
a'd when in moderate quantities, is always near the ground. If a
dg, or other animal that holds down its head, pass into it, it is im-
E'diately killed by inhaling the noxious fluid, whereas the work-
D'n, whose heads are above the gas, sustain no injury from it.*

Were the gases suspended in the atmosphere within the reach
0 animals, it would soon become totally unfit for sustaining ani-
nl life. This would be peculiarly the case with carbonic gas,
vich instantly destroys life. How wise, then, is the arrange-

,Our correspondent seems here to forg'et the fact, of which he is certainly aware,
til in all i)arls of 'he atmosphere the carbonic acitl is equally distributed. The ex-
aination of portions brought from the greatest height to which man has ascended
hi given the same quantity as is found near the surface. This arises from two
CJjes— first, the constant motion of the air by winds, which would mix the different
gi;s — and secondly, the tendency which all gases have to comingle even when at
re, Thus, if a vessel containing hydrogen — the lightest of all gases — be inverted
Uji a vessel containing carbonic acid — the heaviest gas — and kept in a state of per-
fe rest for a few hours they will be fouml mutually difl'used through each other, and
th although the communication be only th' jgh a very fine tube. We say this only
to )rrect a matter of fact, and not as bearing upon the point which our correspondent
«8 scussing.— Eds.

48 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ment of the Supreme Being in giving it such weight that it shi
fall to the ground, and be absorbed by that portion of organic
ture to supply whose wants it has been created.

Some twelve months since I gave to Mr. Maynard, who kee
a raultiflora garden in Brooklyn, a number of papers, each o
taining from one to three scruples of supercarbonate of ammoni
and requested him to apply them to his greenhouse plants; t<»
small pot one scruple, to the largest three scruples, and to info:
me of the result. In a short time he called on me to notice
effects on a hydrangea. I found the leaves were of a deeper gr
and larger than any others, that the flowers were larger, of a richi
color, and every way superior to all others. The contrast w^as
striking, that all who saw it were desirous of purchasing that ph
at an increased price. Now as one pound of supercarbonate
ammonia can be bought at tw^enty cents, and is sufficient for o
hundred and twenty-two plants, I know of no application that
cheaper, and certainly none so efficacious. This fertilizer y)
stirred into the soil — a proof that the carbonic gas w^as taken
by the roots — thereby producing its rapid and beautiful eSi
This salt contains about fifty-five per cent of carbonic gas.

Mr. Steane, apothecary and chemist, 184 Fulton street, Broi
lyn, informed me that he applied some to a rose plant, which i
peared to be drooping, and that he could see the spongioles of 1
roots come up to the surface and take it down. My attention v
first drawn to this effective fertilizer by an observation made
Mr. Steane.

I requested Mr. Leeds, an amateur in greenhouse plants, dru
<Tist, corner of Atlantic and Court streets, Brooklyn, to apply spj
of the salt, in solution, to a rose plant that appeared in the 1
stage of decay, having lost its leaves, and collected a large <
crescence at the roots. He dissolved about two scruples of l
supercarbonate in an eight ounce phial of water, and gave I
plant a little every day. In a short time the buds began to apper
and the last time I saw it the plant had produced some full gro i
leaves, and a great many buds were putting forth.

Mr. Leeds has had a monthly rose in a large glass jar, plan>
in the usual soil. This jar is hermetically sealed, and yet '
plant has flourished, its leaves being of a healthy green, and
grew faster and blossomed sooner than any similar plants expos

1

HOW PLANTS ABSORB CARBONIC ACID. 19

0 the atmosphere. It is evident that this rose tree obtained its
Iced from the soil in which it was planted, and not from the at-
losphcre. It has been kept several months in this state, and I
(resume will flourish so long as it can be supplied with sustenance
rem the soil.

1 I know not how others may construe the facts I have given ;
Tit I view them as conclusive evidence against the theory of Lie-
ig, " that the carbon of the plants is principally obtained by the
eaves absorbing carbonic gas." Nor do I consider the experiment
If Boussaingault as affording the least proof in favor of this theo-
^j as the result would be the same whether the carbonic gas of

: le atmosphere where taken up by the roots, or absorbed by the

laves, Mr. B. must have known, I presume, that sea sand has

?nerally more or less of broken shells in it, and that silicious sand

mally contains about four per cent of carbonate of lime as one

. 1" its components.

Before quitting this subject I would suggest a new application

those who keep greenhouses — one that I believe cannot fail to

educe a very decided improvement in all their plants ; and as

ie cost will be but rifling, I am confident will be applied by some

;tiateur; and should the result answer my expectation, will soon

universally employed. I would suggest that an apparatus be

jaced immediately outside of the greenhouse to engender carbo-

. n gas, that the gas be passed through a tube into the greenhouse

( an evening after closing up for the night. Any vessel, either

sme ware or metal, would answer the purpose, there being no

isistance to the dr^ivery of the gas. Some machine can be placed

aithe end of the tube, inside the house, like a ventilator, by which

: ikns this ponderous gas could be thrown over the wLjle mass of

. pints. It would be a cheap operation, as nothing but chalk or

lliestone, and oil of vitriol water, would be required to engender

;■ t* gas. In discussing this subject at a meeting of the Brooklyn

; Ijtural History Society, our venerable president, Augustus Gra-

■ Ip, Esq., suggested that the burning of charcoal inside the

g!:enhouse might answer every purpose, and as this would be the

'. nlst simple and least expensive, it would be well to give it a

tid.

"OL. II. — NO. I. G

50 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE, EDUCATION, &c-

BY N. 3. DAV13. ' .
i

The present i\^e is generally characterized as one of great, nay

of unparalleled progress in every thing pertaining to man's phy^i

cal, moral, and intellectual condition. For while space and tif

are alike robbed of their ancient powers, by the steam engine aiif

the electric telegraph ; the almost numberless schemes for socw

reorganization, and the quite numberless plans for universal into

lectual cultivation and education, each and all represented by the

respeciive advocates as capable of elevating the whole race, aj)

speedily ushering in the millennial dawn with all its resplendfei

glorits, would almost make us forget that more than four thousaj

convulsive, struggling, heaving, toilsome years have rolled aw>

since man began his career on earth, and still three-quarters of t|i

earth is covered with darkness, moral, physical and intellectiu

darker even than at the beginnir g ; while of the inhabitants oft

remaining quarter, not one-fourth have ever caught even a glii

mering ray from the light of science, or a sip from the Pierw

spring. And yet this tact, plain and palpable as it is, shoi

make us hesitate and reflect, before we attach too much importam

or look too sanguincly to the results of any of the thousa

schemes for ameliorating the condiiion of mankind. We woi

not .leny our faith in human progress; neither would we sa)

discouraging word to the warm-hearted philanthropist, wlio,in 1

ardor of his zeal, would regenerate a world in a day, if he,. 1:

Archimedes, could only find a fulcrum on which to rest his lev

But we would look at the past and learn to be h\imble.

We acknowledge that the present is, in a moral and physi
point of view, an age of convulsion, innovation and chmge,
not of improvement. It is a time when, on the other side of
Atlantic, the deep, and ever deepening tones of misery from Ic
oppresseil humanity, are rising with volcanic power, beneath i
totte-ing towers of regal tyranny, and demanding redress.

And in our own boasted land, there seems to be a spirit of n
le^s innovation in all the relations of man, which portends
near approach of an important era in the history of our race. J

,

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE, ETC. 51

vhy all this restlessness ? Why this clashinnr of interest with interest
-of section with stetion? Why this mingling of wealth and pover-
. jr; of menf huzzas ami oppression's waitings; of ignoranee and
nowledoe ; of degrading vice and exalleil virtue ; of endless strug-
les after the most exalted attainments, an:l the tamest submission
) indolence and physical degradation. Alas! we fear it is because
'6 have yet to seek out and establish a system of legislation and
'iucafion which will develop all the powers of man. But we ate
idely digressing irom our object, which is simply to offer some
iggestions on a subject of engrossing interest, at the present
'oment, in our own State; and which we are glad to find occupy-
g a conspicuous place in the American Journal of Agriculture
il Science, viz: the agricultural education of the present and
ng generation of our own citizens. There is, probably, at the
■nt moment, a greater sacifice of time, labor and money, in
c cultivation (>f the soil, than in any other department of humj^n
i lustry. Of this, every intelligent observer is fully aware ; and
llnce the imperious demand which has gone forth for the speedy
i plication of an appropriate remedy. Through the agency of
Mte and county agricultural societies, an interest has been
rakened in this subject, which pervades, to some extent, every
t.vnshlp in the State. Concerning the nature of the remedy to
b applied, there is, also, no dispute. All agree that it consists in
t' application of scientific knowledge to practical farminc-.

Cut concerning the time, phce and mode, of preparing our
a-icuhural population to make such application, the greatest
d ersity of opinion exists. One says, give us a state agricultural
8(ool,wiih a model farm attache I, supported from the pub'ic
tiasury, where the science and practice of farming can be tauo-ht
ai.he same time, to young men from every part of the StJte.
Aother says, away with your great drains on the public treasury
-)nly popu'arize the study of science-banish your technical
>. anil give us texl-books in the true vernacular tongue, and
ii4rict schools will be fully adequate to our wants. W'hile a
11 'I discards both of these, and points to the numerous acade-
ms distributed over the State, as the only proper place to corn-
mice and carry on this much needed work,
^hat there is a strong and perhaps increasing feeling in favor of
th establishment of a well endowed State Agricultural chool

52 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the transactions of the State Agricultural Society, and the doing;
of the State Legislature during its recent session, as well as th
published opinions and addresses of individuals, abundantly show
But would such a school fulfil the expectations of its friends
Would it be able to call the class of young men on whom we mus
rely from remote sections of the State to any one location whic
can be chosen ? Would it diffuse the greatest amount of agricu^
tural science among the people with the least expenditure of tim
and money ? Finally, would it be able to maintain a perman
existence amidst the endless changes of party, and fickleness
legislation which characterizes our State 1

Doubtless if such a school were established, with an expendit
of money sufficiently lavish, not only to make the tuition free,
also to pay the greater share of the board for those who wou!
attend, a respectable number could be gathered in from some qui
ter. But we may seriously doubt whether it is necessary, in tli.
country, to hire our youth to be educated. And even if it wer
we believe a more economical mode of doing it could be devisi
than this. For the annual appropriation of $8,000 or $10,000
sustain such a school, would well sustain a separate professorsh
in at least ten institutions already established in different parts
the State, and thereby extend instruction to more than five tim^le
the number that could be gathered into one place. But we are t
that a model farm is as necessary as a school ; and that the theo
and practice of agriculture must be taught together, and therefc '
a State institution is necessary. A model farm, if we understa ■
the term, is a tract of land on which the various branches of hw
bandry are carried on according to the strictest principles of scieni'
But where shall it be located ? in the valley of the Mohawk
Genesee, or on the hills of Herkimer 1 Shall it be on a sane
clayey, or alluvial soil ? We are very much inclined to thi
that a model farm in one location, or on one soil, would be V€
different from a model farm in another and on a different soil,
is true, the same principles might govern the practice in be
places, but the difference in the circumstances under which lh|<;|
would be applied would make a wide difference in the practiiiMJn
aspect of the farms. Again we doubt the propriety of thu^ -f
templing to connect the study and practice of agriculture ir|
school designed for youth. For what is the real object of edu(

■

eo*'''

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE, ETC. 53

on, whether general or specific, legal, agricultural, or medical ?
k it to learn a routine of furms, recipes, and arbitrary rules, or is
to expand and discipline, and then store the mind with princi-
les and facts 1

I If we wished a young man to become eminently qualified to
jractise law or physic, we should by no means send him to Yale
lollege to write out blank deeds, mortgages, &c., or to New-York
university to make pills. But we might with propriety send him
• these seats of learning for the purpose of giving him a complete
1(1 profound knowledge of the principles or general rules, and
its which constitute the basis of all intelligent practice in either
' these professions. Precisely the same rule applies to an agri-
iltural education. Take the young man whose mind has been
■vcloped and disciplined by a thorough study of the elementary
anches of education, and teach him the principles or laws which
vein the decay or decomposition of vegetable and animal mat-
is, for example, and if he possess an ordinary share of common
i|nse he will never be at a loss to find some mode of applying
osc laws to the practice of preparing barn-yard manure. These
rts teach him that in all such cases much gaseous matter is form-
( which must be retained by some absorbent ; also that caloric
< heat is developed which must not be allowed to rise too high ;
III finally that the most valuable products are soluble in water,
al therefore liable to be washed away and lost by rains, &c.
nd hence he will not need a model farm to teach him that a cover
( some kind is necessary for the protection of his manure. But
\iether that protection shall be a barn cellar, or a shed, must de-
jnd on the situation of himself and his barn. We believe one of
t3 greatest errors in the present popular idea of education is, that
iinust be practical, meaning thereby that it must consist in the
s.dy of such things only as are directly reducible to practice in
t ■ ordinary pursuits of life. Such an education is directly the
rj'erse of practical, in any proper acceptation of that term. It
Djy indeed make a man of prescribed rules, and forms, and routine ;
t.j mere creature of circumstances.
, But the really practical man, is one who makes rules, forms,
al circumstances his creatures, and himself their master, to
c inge and mould them according to his will. To do this he
. ttjst be educated to think: and to be capable of deep, continuous

64 QUARTERLY JOLRNAL.

and expansive thought, the mind must be disciplined by the patiei
and thorough study of all t[ie elementary branches of scienti
For practical purposes, a fully ileveloped and well disciplin
mind is of infinitely more value, than all the skimming, steal
pressure models of development which can be devised.

But we again digress from our object. We not only think t
establishment of a State Agricultural School bad economy, and
well calculated to answer the expectations of its friends ; but
the present unsettled state of the public mind, and the sleep!
jealousy with which it would be viewed by a respectable portio
citizens, renders it very doubtful whether it could maintain a
existence beyond the political lifetime of its founders. The oppi
site idea that any process of simplification in regard to text boo!
on agriculture, can render the district schools alone adequate t
the wants of our agricultural population, is also fallacious. The
seem to be some very indefinite notions, even in high places, concon
ing the condition of a great majority of the district schools in ia
country. Thence we hear men of high standing talking abd)
catechisms of agricultural chemistry and geology, so simple as
be readily comprehended by " every child of twelve years oK
and therefore " admirably ailapted for study in the common schod
of the State." But do such men know that nineteen-twentieU
of the children in our district schools, at the age of twelve yea(
have scarcely commenced the elementary studies of geograpW
arithmetic and grammar. Surely not, or they would never
talking about introducing to their notice the complicated and exte
sive study of agriculture. Such children might indeed learn lb<
catechism of agriculture in the same w^ay that we formerly learni
our catechisn\ of Theology ; that is, as the parrot learns to &
^^ pretty Polly,'''' but who would be the wiser thereby '? Now, we sal
with all due deference to high authority, sustained as it may bei
the Jive Irish prodigies from the Larne school, that agriculture is
science requiring a discipline of mind, and a power o! thoug
ar.d reflection for its useful comprehension, altogether beyond 1
capacity of G?iy boy of ten, twcivc, or fourteen years of Eg
And hence to urge such a study iipon them would only serve
divert their attention from those indispensable elementary stud:
which ought ever to form the foundation of all education.

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE, ETC. 5&

There is, however, in all our district schools, a small class of
lore advanced scholars, who have arrived at a more mature age, and
hose attention cannot be turned too speedily to the careful study
f agriculture as a science. But we should object to placing in
le hands of this class a text-book on any science, simplified and
luted down to the capacity of hahes and sucklinr;;s. For we hold
I the dottriiic of St. Paul, that when children, we may think and
leak like children; but when we become men, we should put
\ray childish things.

We are continually prone to consider education as little else
an a loading of the memory with words and facts; and hence
e more biief and simple these are rendered, the better, because
e easier for the memory to retain them. The acquisition of

Is is indeed necessary ; but it is equally necess'^ry that the judg-

nt be developed ; the powers of reasoning, the ability to com-
i're faci with fact, to seize on circumstances, however varied, and
Veld them for the accomplishment of a given end. In a word,
t agriculturist not only needs to understand the facts and princi-
jiis of the science, but he must have a judgment as fully deve-
Iped and well trained to apply those facts and principles under
si the various circumstances which the eaith presents, as the legal
avocate at the bar, or the judge on his bench. To think of thus
Sjengthening, m:ituring and disciplining the youthful mind, by the
c!:essive simplification of text-books, is very much like teaching
ahild rhetoric by repeating to him hahy talk.

,But technical terms, at least, must be banished. If we mean by
ti'hnical terms, merely long, high sounding words, meaning no-
;, then we also go for iheir banishment. But if we mean
tl reby the names which make up the nomenclature peculiar to a
pticular science, as the names of oxides, alkalies and acids, in
c mistry, then we totally object to this innovation also. For in-
stid of being a hindrance to the learner, they are nearly all so ar-
nged as to indicate either the composition or properties of the
SI stance named ; and hei ce, to learn their names is to a certain
e:ent to learn the science itself; and to banish them, for others
in:oramon use would be to go, at least, one century backward in
0' progress. Thus, suppose we set the student to learning the
Cdmon names of oil of vitriol, copperas, plaster of Paris, or gyp-
si i, glauber salts, &.C., &,c., he not only gains nothing beneficial,

56 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

but he suffers a positive loss in acquiring at least two or three false
ideas. For who ever spoke the name copperas, without receiving
the impression that copper entered into its composition, or plaster
of Paris, without the thought of its coming from Paris. On the
contrary, sulphuric acid, sulphate of iron, sulphate of lime, and sul-
phate of soda, are names not only more easily learned, but every
one of them indicates the composition of the thing named. Be-
sidto, we should remember that all names, whether common oi
technical, are alike new, and to be learned by the scholar. Hence
he would not only gain nothing, but positively lose much by th(
proposed banishment of names. But we have perhaps already ex-
tended our censorious remarks too far, and the reader maybe
ready to inquire what we would do, and how we would do it '
Doubtless the first thing to be done is to prepare teachers for thit
w^ork. For this purpose the stud}/ of agricultural science shouli
be immediately introduced into the state normal school, and inti
all those academies where young men and women are trained fo
district school teachers. Again, at every session of the teachen'
institutes, in the several counties, suitable persons should be en'
gaged to give a course of lectures, exhibiting in plain and familiai
language the nature and importance of the study, and the h&
modes of illustrating it. To accomplish all this, those who sen
young men to our academies and teachers' institutes, have onh' 1
ask it, and it vviU be done. For all these institutions dependin/
on their patrons for support, will never long resist the expressc
will of those patrons in regard to any particular study. Let th,
be done, and its introduction into all those district schools wheii
there are scholars of sufficient age and attainments, would folloi
as a matter of course ; and then the whole work will have be€j
accomplished. It will be seen that we ask for neither new legi
lation, nor aid from the public treasury. And why should we
There are already academies, seminaries, institutes, scattered ovi'
the state, almost within sight of every man's door ; and all ei
tirely subject to the control of the people. Then would it Dv
be infinitely easier, more economical, and wiser, to make thei
what they should be, than to thrust them aside for the establis
ment of new ones, involving the expenditure of thousands of dc
lars. Indeed, we are sure that half the money and less than haj
the number of speeches which would be required to get a law fj s

J

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE. 57

he establishment of a State Agricultural School through both
iranches of our legislature, would, if judiciously appliedj^^procure
he successful introduction of the study of agriculture into every
chool in the state, where there were scholars sufficiently advanced
0 study understandingly. But we hope the day will be far dis-
ant when the science or profession of agriculture, or indeed any
ther profession, shall be urged upon the minds of our youth he-
ore they have laid broad, deep, and thorough, the foundation of

good general education.

Binghampton, June 6, 1845.

'OL. II. — NO. 1. U

58

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

Teeth of the Zciiglodon.

ZEUGLODON CETOIDES, 59

1 ON THE SUPPOSED ZEUGLODON CETOIDES, OF PROF. OWEN.

BY ONE OF THE EDITORS.

In 1843, I received from Alabama the vertebra of a large fossil
animal, supposed to belong to the same species which had been
described by the late Dr. Harlan, in 1832, under the name of Ba-
silosaurus j and in 1839, was described and refigured by Prof.
Owen, under the name which stands at the head of this article.
These bones had remained till this spring in the boxes in which
they were packed, but having time and opportunity to give them
an examination,! took them from the boxes and placed them in the
State geological rooms. I then commenced removing the matrix
or rock in which the parts of the head were enveloped. In the
performance of this work, I soon perceived that the teeth were
quite dissimilar to those of the animal which had been described,
[first by Dr. Harlan and subsequently by Prof. Ow^en. The teeth,
las will be seen by the annexed cuts, (by those who have seen the
drawings of the above named gentlemen,) are very unlike theirs ;
and indeed, it seems impossible that these differences should arise
from imperfection in the specimens, inasmuch as most of the
broken teeth in my possession exhibit the peculiar forms I have
represented, either by themselves or the casts upon the matrix.
Besides, the figures in the London Geological Transactions repre-
sent the margins so entire in all the specimens of the teeth there
agured, that provided Dr. Harlan's animal was the same, this pecu-
iar margin could not have existed. For these reasons, I am
rery much inclined to believe that the animal in my possession
s quite distinct, especially when it is taken into the account that
he Zeuglodon had a long tail and a short neck, in which last
characteristic it was supposed to have been similar to the Dugong ;
livhereas, these vertebrae demonstrate, that the animal had a short
-hick tail and an extremely long neck, the heavier portion of the
mimal being towards the posterior extremity. In form and model,
herefore, it resembled, generally, the Pleiseiosaurus, as represent-
;d in the restored skeletons. It is true, that it seems not a little
emarkable that two such enormous animals should be found exist-

"^

GO QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ing upon the same plantation, still that is a matter we have nothing
to do with except to describe accurately what we find.

But the very interesting and important observations of Profj
Owen, on the anatomical structure of the Zeuglodon, apply alsc
to many of these bones, viz : the solid double fangs oi the molar
teeth — their implantation in separate and distinct sockets ; and tot
the jaw", which is hollow.

But some other important facts I have been able to deter-
mine by the specimens in my possession, viz: the convexity oi
the condyle, the inward curvature of the angle of the jawJ
which projects beyond the condyle, in a manner not very dissim'h
lar to that of our hystrix. The angle, the condyle and the coro-
noid process of the lower jaw, then, all form one continuous|
portion of bone ; thus proving very conclusively that the animan
did not possess a jaw of the composite kind or structure.

It would be interesting to institute a comparison of the jaw o i
this animal with the Thylacotherium, unless indeed, the jaw 0((
the latter is supplied with molars too far removed in form an(|j
structure to furnish grounds for the admission of affinity — hw*
in the figures which are given in Buckland's Bridgewater Treatises
the molars are not very dissimilar to those of the seal family.

There is another fossil whose teeth, especially the crowns, re
serable those in my possession ; I allude to the Iguanodon. Boti
have serrated edges, but with this character the resemblance ceasesi
But as the Iguanodon is supposed to have been a vegetable feeder
this resemblance is interesting, inasmuch as it may throw som!
light on the nature of the food of our animal ; but still, it is sup
plied with large canine teeth, so as seemingly to balance the pro
bability of its feeding upon vegetables. Connected too wnth th
bones of the head, is a large rounded bone, like the palatine bonef
of a fish ; a provision for a more perfect mastication than coul
have been made by the cutting grinders as represented in th
figures, — provided that this palatine really belonged to the anima
in question. It will be seen from the above facts, that w'e hav
some very interesting combinations — some anomalies which ar
quite as rare as any which have been furnished since the discover
of the remains of the sauroid fishes.

I now proceed to the main object of this paper, viz : to describ
the teeth of the animal under consideration.

ZEUGLODON CETOIDES. 61

1. Teeth of two kinds ; molars and canine. The first are has-
tate, or of the general form of an arrow-head, or of a spear. This
form, however, appears under a modification, as will be seen by
reference to the figures. The second variety is that of the ordi-
nary canine tooth, or tusk. Molars, greatly compressed, margins
serrated or lobed, and edged, terminated by a middle central lobe
md rather rounded, and standing directly over the arch formed by
wo solid fangs. Cementum, (enamel) extending over the crowns
ind fangs, but thickest up the crown and but slightly wrinkled.
The transverse wrinkling upon the fangs (see fig.) appears only
vhen the first coat of cementum (enamel) has scaled off. Fangs
uperficially grooved, grooves varying in number on the two sides.
:he number of lobes, or crenatures vary : in the one figured, there
re four j yet in another tooth only three can be seen, and in the
Dwer tooth which stands by itself, there are three only ; but the
biddle lobe is serrated on the anterior edge as in the figure, and it
Itands obliquely to the arch upon which its base rests, or in other
rords, backwards. Fangs nearly parallel with each other.

Canine tooth solid, compressed, tapering towards each extremi-
ky widest just within the alveolus, or socket. Cementum finely
mnkled longitudinally over the part external to the alveolus, but
xtends thinly over the fang, concealing the transverse wrinkles.
. shallow, wide groove on one side of the fang extends to the
')wer end, on the opposite side ; it is traversed by three or four
arrow but shallow grooves with intervenino- ridoes
Measurements.

Largest molar, 3|- inches Avide at its insertion into the alveolus, or
w; 2i inches high from the bifurcation to the termination 'of
.e middle lobe. Canine, 5 inches long and 1 h in its widest part
: Distance between the first and second canine, 2 inches ; between
e second and third canine, 2 1 inches. Breadth of the jaw at the
sertion of the second canines, at their inside insertions, 3 inches
eight of the jaw from the angle to the top of the coronoid pro-
Iss, 13 mches. The passage for the spinal marrow of one of the
'irvical vertebra has a transverse diameter of 4i inches, while the
irtical is only 2J.

It is difficult in the present state of our knowledge to determine
'lether this animal, whose teeth have been particularly described
■ould be considered a distinct genus, or species, from the one de'

62 QUARTER LVJOURNAL,

scribed by Dr. Harlan and Prof. Owen. If the figures given b}
these gentlemen are correct, then there is no doubt of ours being
quite a different animal and ought to receive a distinct designation
But the vertebra and ribs figure, by Prof. Owen, are accurate repre
sentations of ours, and taking all circumstances into consideratior
the writer strongly suspects it is the same animal ; and, admitting
that the teeth have been described and figured so imperfectly befori
and that they cannot be identified as parts of the animal to whicl
they belonged, still we should not, in this case, wish to chang
the name. To Prof. Owen belongs the 'merit of pointing out th
position which this animal holds in the animal kingdom, and th
name Zeuglodon is a good one, though the specific name cetoidet
is questionable. This we infer from the great length of the neck
Of the bones beside the vertebrge, we have a femur, a huraerusi
and the ulna and radius, with a portion of scapula ; a portion of a
enormous pelvis, several ribs, two or three bones corresponding t
the wrist, and both extremities of the lower jaw and the extremit
of the upper jaw and many other fragments of some importancr
The vertebrae extend in a line about 65 feet. We shall give ii
the next number drawings and descriptions of such as are the mo
important.

Before we close, it is proper to notice Dr. Gibbes' new fosfi
teeth described in the proceedings of the Academy of Naturi
Science of Philadelphia. The general form of these is much t]\
same as those figures w^e have given. Two important differencf
according to the description, exist. Dr. Gibbes' teeth are all hcj;
low, which denotes an approach to the saurian type; the angle
bifurcation of the fangs is quite different ; the fangs of his teed
stand out at quite an angle ; while in mine the fangs are neairi
parallel. If from any accident then, the teeth described by E
G. lost their interior, or were solid, this evidently would make the
two different species. If those teeth were solid, there is such a rj|
semblance in the teeth that the animals to which they belongn
were of the same genus, but of different species. Then again, E
Kock, who has been to Alabama for the express purpose of pr
curing these bones, believes that his are entirely different fro
those in our possession, and this may be so. The formation
which these fossil bones belong, is the superior portion of the cr'
taceous group. All the fossils, with one or two exceptions, beloi;

ZEUGLODON CETOIDES

63

:o this formation and not to the Eocene, as has been supposed

Mongthemare,anthophyllumatlanticum,p]agigostomadumosum,
nodidacretacea, etc., all of ^vhich will be noticed in a succeeding
aumber. A few particles of the green sand are disseminated
Sparsely through the matrix. The order of beds associated with
he zeuglodon stratum, is as follows : 1, alluvium ; 2, nummulite
.eds, 40feet; 3, ferruginous layer, 1 foot; 4, zeuglodon bed,
rom5 to 10 feet; 5, lignite; 6, beds of clay with sharks' teeth
ndlea^-es of dicotylednous plants; 7, lignite ; 8, beds with abun-
ance of oyster shells, 70 feet-this is represented as a hard rock •
S green sand and marie, material soft, 10 feet. This section was
irnished by Dr. Kock. We had, however, previously been able
) determine the age of the zeuglodon from the fossil in our pos-
;ssion. ^

FARMERS' MISCELLANY.

HUSBANDRY IN CENTRAL NEW-YORK,

In letters to John Coon, Esq., of Albany. By one of the editors.

I. Hop Culture.

Waterville, May 23, 1845,
My Dear Sir — I know that you will agree with me when
say, that what a man tells us in a set speech is comparatively
little consequence ; at least, it is worth much less than what
tells us in his daily and familiar intercourse, for in the latter C8
he is less disposed to make a display, and has fewer motives i
exaggeration. The best way to get knowledge is to visit him
his farm, or in his workshop. We then see how he handles .1
tools, what he really produces, and how labor and strength mi
be applied to the best advantage, or so as to secure the most pi
fitable result. If he is a mechanic, his shop tells a true story of
owner. If he is a farmer, his fields and his flocks are witnesse
and no palaver of words can conceal his defects, or hide and coi
up his ignorance ; if he is a slouch or a sloven, they show itj
he is a man who is up and doing with the dawn, they declare
It is a poor place for a farmer to discourse largely on the beaut
and profits of scientific farming, when his corn is smothering
pig-weeds and thistles ; or his onion beds are growing up
burdocks. The unmentionable one might just as well attemp'
prove himself a pious man, or a rhinoceros that he is a beaui
from the length and shape of his snout, as such an one to say tl
he is a good farmer. If you see him at his plough, but oi'
scratching the epidermis of his corn field, instead of going into
bowels, you may surely make up your mind that he is eithe
very worthy member of the society of lazy fellows, or else is '''
tally ignorant of the value of the subsoil itself. Impressed "Wi

farmers' miscellany. 65

; he truth and importance of these sentiments, I determined to visit
|ome of the leading farmers in central New- York, that the various
ranches of husbandry might come under my own inspection, and
. Is you have manifested so much interest of late in farming, and
're introducing the improved modes of culture, I determined I
-ould occasionally give you the results of my observations. I
■It Albany on the 22d of May, and made a continuous journey
) Utica, or into the heart of Oneida county, where my observa-
ons commence ; and here I remark, that Utica and its immediate
icinity is underlaid by a peculiar black slate, eminently subject to
I JBComposition. The soil thus formed is distinctly argillaceous
• jit is unquestionably excellent of its kind. Passing up the val-
I !y of Oriskany creek, in the direction of Sangersfield, a succes-
i;;Dn of rocks is passed over, comprising the entire Clinton group,
ihich consists mainly of thin bedded shales, passing into sand-
ones, and upwards through other silicious deposits, until we
ach the Onondaga limestone, which passes through Sangersfield
.jadison, Waterville, and thence westward through a belt of coun-
Y five or six miles wide, to Lake Erie. The modifying influence
the different rocks is not very distinctly seen at all places, in
• nsequence of the thick beds of northern drift which are spread
1 er some fields to the depth of one hundred feet. In this section
( country diluvial hills are constantly met with, and it is by their
irmation that the country is of that character which is denomi-
ilted rolling. They are sometimes conical, and sometimes in the
i-m of low, rounded ridges, forming in all those cases excellent
Ifids for pasturage, and in many instances, land well adapted to
tiage, and particularly the growth of corn. Although I have
marked that the influence of the underlying rock is not always
flrceptible, yet, in the region of Sangersfield and Waterville, and
aielt of country from six to fifteen miles wide extending east and
VjSt, we have to all intents and purposes a calcareous soil. It is
fi)duced by an immense number of boulders and vast quantities
Ojsand and gravel, in which there is a large proportion of calca-
T'ius matter. The calcareous matter is derived partly from the
lanton and lower limestones which form the surface rock in the
nrthern part of the county, and the Onondaga limestone which
ulerlies a part of the southern towns. Many excellent farms
h along the valley in the route firora Utica to Waterville, but as

OL. II. KO. I. I

e

66 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

1 was obliged to take passage in the stage on account of the rair

I was unable to learn as much of the character of the soil as ]

wished I was quite fortunate, however, and fell in company witt

a gentleman, Mr. Gurdon Avery, of Centreville, who has been en

gaged in the hop culture over twenty years. From him I receive.

a polite invitation to visit his vineyards and see his mode of cul

ture Accordingly, the next morning I went through all of hi

fields, and became intimately "xquainted with the whole manage

ment of this vegetable, until it is fully prepared for our neighboi

John Taylor's big stew-pan, where I propose to leave it, not beiD'

yet sufficiently acquainted with the rather mysterious process (

converting it into a kind of drink commonly called beer. The hof

I will just say is rather a difficult article to cultivate, or I may sa

difficult to bring to a high state of perfection. Any person, to t

sure, can grow a vine at the gable end of the house, where m

grandmother always had one growing, or in some corner of tt

garden, yet it is quite another thing to cultivate from two to te

acres and secure a good yield, and bring the produce out m ame

chantable state. .

There are two principal departments in the hop business ; hn
its cultivation, and second, its preparation for market :

1 Jts ctdtivation. Hops require a rich, calcareous loam, ligl

loose and deep, which will permit the roots to penetrate deep

and widely in search of food, that the vine may grow rapidly «

the first part of the season ; for the more vigorous the start, t

better the hop and greater the yield, all things being equal. 11

field on which hops are to be sown or planted must not ha

been under the culture of this plant for at least twelve or fourteW

years The field, if it is in turf or green sward, must be plough

in autumn. Early in the spring let it be manured with rich bai

yard manure, and ploughed again. Early in April as possib

layers or slips of the hop are planted in rows six feet apart m o

way and eight in the other. This year it is not expected to j

a crop of hops. The field in the intermediate spaces is plan*

with corn, and the vines are suffered to run about the ground

on to the corn as they please. Early the next season, liowev

the field, as soon as it is sufficiently dry is broken up with the cu

vator. The cultivator for this purpose requires a set of teeth ab^

two inches longer than that which is used for corn. Tins bei

farmers' miscellany. b/

inished, the next step is to set the poles, using for this purpose an

nstrumont like a common bar, but which bulges out into an oval

brra at the lower end, the largest part of which is about two inches

a diameter. Two poles, about fourteen to sixteen feet long, are

lequired for each hill, and they are set about eighteen inches apart.

phe combined strength of both is necessary to support the weight

jf the vine securely. The hop comes up in numerous shoots, and

j/hen some of them are eighteen inches they require to be well

loedj and at the same time two of the most thrifty are secured to

ach pole by a woollen thread ; the others are suffered to grow a

mile, or until the cultivator is sure that the two selected will

irove to be good vines, or have escaped some dangers incident to

le young state. The other vines are then broken off at the root,

1- lour only allowed to grow. Usually the proper time for ex-

rpating the supernumerary shoots is when the selected ones arc

X to eight feet long ; these then receive the whole strength of

le root. The weather most favorable for the growth of the hop

tliat which is warm and showery. Cold, dry winds are unfa-

jiable, or those which have now for some time prevailed.

The hop requires hoeing five times in the season. It must be

■pt free of weeds ; and this you will see is quite essential, as ne

ecds ought to ripen in fields which are cultivated for successive

asons. The best poles are white cedar, and they should be two

ul a half to three inches in diameter at base. Such poles cost

cm ten to twelve dollars per hundred.

The time for picking hops is when the flower is perfect. The

oma and medicinal properties of herbs are in perfection at this

age, and so is grass, which is the true and proper time for cutting,

secure it in its highest state of perfection. In the case of hops

IS quite essential that the whole crop should be secured while in

is state. In large vineyards, therefore, many hands are required

secure it before it passes the perfect stage. The picking is

ually performed by females, and this part of the work requires

tlncss J stems and leaves or vines should not be mixed with the

■To secure the necessary neatness as well as uniformity in pick
i^', Mr. Avery uses a large wooden box divided into four equal
'mpartments; the box is supplied with four arms, one at each
< rner, for transportation.

68 QUARTERLYJOURNAL.

As the hop is picked, it is carried to the drying house, where ii
is cured. This constitutes the second part of the business of ha
growing.

The drying house consists of one and a half stories. The uppe
story is for spreading the hops, and the lower for furnaces, Th(
furnaces which Mr. Avery has found after a great many trials to b
the best, are constructed somewhat like a large oven, but hoppe:
shaped ; the base opens upward, so as to permit the hot air tc
communicate with the hops above. Mr. A. has four rooms side b;
side of twenty-five square feet each. The floor of each room ii
covered with gauze of hemp, with meshes which are one-twelfth oi
an inch in diameter. These form the surfaces upon which the hops ai
spread, about four or five inches thick. To supply the hot air
good maple coal is the best material. It is burnt in furnaces below
in one or two shovels full at a time, and such a bed kept burni$j
in the six fumaces for twenty-four hours is sufficient to dry th
roughly a charge of hops. The hops are then removed througj
a lateral door, into another room below, where they are strong!
pressed in bags like bales of cotton, when they are ready for mai
ket. The labor attending their culture is not yet finished ; Hi
poles require to be arranged for winter. This is effected by stacl
ing them on the field. They are brought from a number of hilj
and placed with the large end slightly in the ground in a leanir
position, in a circle. The tops are brought together and the
bound by the refuse vines, by which they are secured again
winds. They must never lie upon the ground as they would decs
much sooner than if preserved in an upright position.

The present price of hops does not vary much from seven
eight cents per pound, formerly they were worth twenty-fii
cents.

Hops may be continuously cultivated on the same field for ten «
twelve years. By this time a grub which feeds upon the root h
multiplied to such an extent that the whole root has become di
eased, and incapacitated to fulfil its functions, and the crop nece
sarily fails. There is no other reason why its cultivation mig
not be continued longer, as the soil is manured every year, ai
preserved in a rich mellow state. The hop, therefore, leaves tl
field in a good condition for corn, which usually succeeds, andm«
be continued two or three years in succession. The worm whi<

ffi

farmers' MISCELLANY. 69

las destroyed the hop root does not attack corn or barley, nor any
j»f our cultivated vegetables.

I shall not attempt to add any thing more, for I fear I have
Iready tired your patience.

I say at once, therefore, that I an

Yours now and ever,

E.

II. CORTLANDVILLE, AND RaNDALl's FaRM.

Cortlandville, May 27.

My Dear Friend — I write you, as you perceive, from Cortlaud-
ille, one of the finest villages in central New-York. I came
•re Monday morning, having spent the Sabbath at De Ruyter.
y the way, I may state (though it is perhaps out of season by the
me this is received, to speak of the weather) that Saturday pass-
g through Georgetown on my way to De Ruyter, it snowed, but
)t sufficiently to whiten the ground, though it was quite cold and
icomfortable even with an ordinary winter dress. But Sunday
orning. May 25th, there was a hard snow-storm ; the whole coun-
ly, both hill and valley, was white ; still the fruit was not injured ;

. ;iit subsequently the more tender fruits, such as grapes, were killed,

^cther with beans, corn, &c., which were cut to the ground.

Cortland is situated in a pleasant plain, with sufficient variety of

jrface to give beauty to a landscape. The plain is bounded by

i perfect terraces, as if formerly it had been occupied by a lake,

, \iich has been drained by a passage through the southeastern
lis, in the direction of Onondaga creek. To the southwest, the
vlley extends six or eight miles, forming an excellent farming
cantry, with meadows and hills which are adapted to most kinds
f husbandry. Two or three miles in this direction, are some
\ y important deposits of fresh water marl. These are, however,
;i the bottom of a very interesting chain of small lakes which
adn to the north. The marl, as you w^ell know, is very valuable
f farming purposes ; it is extremely fine, white and beautiful,
a 1 is burnt pretty largely for domestic use, being dug out in
SMimer when the water is low, and then moulded, like brick,
a 1 laid up in kilns and burnt, precisely like brick. The value of

70 QUARTERLY JOURNAl..

these marl beds has not been appreciated as yet, inasmuch as now

of the farmers in the neighborhood have used the material upor

their lands. The subsoil of Cortland is a gravelly drift, perviou-

to water ; though the soil cannot be said to be leechy. The sur

rounding hills a^re well rounded, and extremely well adapted to al

kinds of farming except wheat, which for several years has ne

been cultivated extensively. Cortland, you will perceive, is sout)

of the wheat shales and limestones ; and among the drift, there '

not a sufficiency of calcareous gravel, nor of the debris of shale,

give character to the soil. It is therefore made up of the harde

sandstone rocks, and the shales of the rock beneath, which i

almost entirely destitute of lime. I may here say that it will com

to this finally, that farmers in this part of the State will requii

lime and ashes to renovate their lands. Springs of excellei

water gush out in numerous places in the plains about Cortland

but it is an interesting fact, that in the southwest extension of t]

valley, it is quite difficult to procure water, probably in cons

quence of the drainage towards the village, or to the northeas

and the depth of the pervious stratum of drift. Farmers shou

always have an eye to the drainage of the country, and thi

should be able to determine in connection with this pomt, whetb

there is an impervious stratum near the surface, to throw out t

water. This is very essential where there are no living spria

in the immediate neighborhood of a proposed settlement.

would please me in this connection to speak of the excell^

social and religious qualities of the people of Cortland, but iti

rather out of my sphere of observation, which I have prescrib

myself. It is proper to say, however, that Cortlandville, as w

as Homer, a mile and a half northwest, are settled mostly

New -England people, and have all their institutions in the m^

flourishing condition— churches, schools, academies, &c.

Immediately after my arrival. Judge Bartlett, our present Sei.
tor, gave me a warm reception, and though laboring under
health, took me in his carriage to all the interesting spots witJ
six miles of the village, and what was worthy of commem
dation, waited with great patience for me to gather the rocks a
their characteristic fossils, and which it may be well to say, i
those of the Chemung group.

As soon as I had taken this general survey of Cortland.

farmers' miscellany. 71

mted upon our mulual friend H. S. Randall, Esq., whose elevated

nd correct views of education, joined to his activity as county

uperintendent of common schools, has secured him a fame and

onor which extends beyond the bounds of the State. But it is

s an agriculturist that I visited him, and it is in this sphere I

ball speak of him. But I will only say at this time — as I have

Ircady spun a long yarn — that his farm is one mile from Cort-

iiulville, and is sufficiently elevated to overlook the village,

11(1 from it you have a fine landscape, though not sufficiently bold

) call forth strong admiration ; it is beautiful but not romantic,

1(1 sufficiently hilly to be free from monotony or taraeness. The

auty, however, is increased by a number of valleys which open

ito the plain in different directions, and by the contrast of wood-

nd and meadow, and a thickly settled village with its streets, and

luntry mansions scattered upon the distant slopes. In some

rcctions you have long, vista-like views, and in others, the view

limited by the wood-clad hills, which always rise up in even,

ihroken slopes, and which are based by imperfect circular ter-

s. The soil of the farm is (and in speaking of this farm I

-peaking of a class of farms, and not an individual farm,) a

avelly drift, in part with sufficient clay to give consistence, and

sufficient degree of tenacity to prevent leeching ; it is, strictly

caking, a grain and grazing farm ; that is, it produces excellent

irley and maize and is, of course, excellent for grass. Good

heat can now^ be raised, yet it is not so profitable as other crops

111 other kinds of husbandry. The farm is divided into lots of

(derate size,by excellent stone fences, banked up by earth eighteen

twenty inches on each side, which arrangement increases greatly

e durability of the fence. In cultivating grains, Mr. R. inform-

' me that he follows, usually, a three course system ; first, Indian

Mn and roots after grass — second, barley — third, w^heat with

s seed. The first and second crops sometimes reversed in

ii order. When a fourth grain crop is determined upon, Mr. R.

!ys he never sows wheat after corn and roots, as the amount of

iinure applied to them, will not allow the straw of the succeed-

i^' crop of wheat to stand until ripening. He rarely sows oats,

id these only on the poorer and more humid portions of the

fm.

'This is the result evidently of experience, and may, without doubt.

72 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

have a general application to most farms in this particular range and I
this particular geological formation. The animal manures of the J
farm are applied exclusively to hoed crops, and usually ploughed j
under. Mr. R. is now attempting a series of experiments in ordei t
to test the comparative advantage of ploughing under or dragging <
in on the surface. When dragged in, it is rotted in heaps and th(
drag follov^'s the cart. The night soil is manufactured into poudretti
by placing it, early in the spring, in alternate layers with gypsum
earth, leeched ashes, coal-dust, &c., &c. This is intended to bi
applied to the turnip crop. In addition to these natural resources
Mr. R. purchases as many bushels of gypsum as there are acres o i
cleared land, and in addition to which, he has purchased thi )
spring, one-half of the ashes of an extensive ashery. By thiil
course of treatment, it is evident that Mr. R. intends to maintai
the fertility of his lands.

Mr. R. 's roots were sown at the time of my visit. May 26
In addition to potatoes, he cultivates the ruta baga, mangel wurze)(
and carrots. He received the two premiums on turnips last yearil
the yield amounted to eight hundred and fifty bushels to the acre
which was the lightest crop for several years. The previous yea:
his crop was nine hundred and fifty bushels, and drew the firti
premium of the State society. The roots are stored in a roo
house, and fed throughout the winter to the cattle.

I have now spoken somewhat at length of Mr. R. 's farm
its management, I now deem it high time to close,

By expressing my wishes for your prosperity.

E.

III. Randall's Stock.

Cortlandville, May 28, 1845. |

My Dear Friend — In my last I was speaking of the managi,
ment of Mr Randall's farm, his crops, rotation, etc. I now pr(,
ceed to speak of Mr. Randall's stock, which appears to be wel||
cared for, his cattle being provided with warm stables and h
sheep with sheds ; and for feeding, all his arrangements ai
made with an eye both to comfort and economy. Considering h
farm as strictly a stock farm, all his straw and coarse fodder

I

farmers' miscellany. 73

.equired to be consumed there. His cattle, he informs me, are
Supplied with turnips and straw, which are sliced and fed at 5i A.
M. through the winter. Two other feeds are dealt out during the
,^lay, viz : one of straw and another of hay. The sheep last win-
;er were fed three times a day, besides a gill of oats and oil meal

I head, mixed in equal parts. Every animal is required to con-
ume the whole of its fodder, or else it is forthwith shortened.
The cattle are all Durharas, or their crosses. The crosses are with
he Ayrshire, New Leicester, Holderness, Holstein and Native.

saw about thirty head together. They were all compact and
lardy-looking animals, and some of them are animals of great
leauty. The stock bull is a superior animal, (admitting that I am

judge,) by Col. Sherwood's "Archer," out of Mr Waddle's

Gazelle." In breeding and raising stock, Mr. R. is governed
y the principle, that fashion nor long pedigree alone, shall induce
jim to raise or keep a delicate animal, or one whose constitution
15 not vigorous. The cows must be milkers ; failing in these re-
pccts, any animal is put unhesitatingly to the knife, though its
edigree may be as long as a monarch's.

Of swine Mr. R. raises the pure breed, but believes that the
alf bred animals are the best for slaughter.

I now pass to Mr. R's sheep. I have not omitted his flocks

II now because I considered them of the least importance. I
jither consider this topic as more important than those which
lave preceded it. It is all-important, in the first place, that sheep
lould be hardy, then, superadded to this, they should carry a heavy,
ae fleece ; or in other words, those sheep which endure the cli-
ate well, and which shear the greatest weight of fine wool, are

,ie best adapted to the interior of New- York. Taking this view,
ferinos are, according to Mr. R., the best variety. A person
^rhaps, might well inquire of me, where are those to be obtained,
jnce the Saxon mania has almost extinguished them ? However,
.at we may be satisfied that there are pure bred flocks which have
iscended from the importations of Livingston, Humphrey, Jar-
s, etc., recent publications seem to assure us ; and here I may
•J in passing, that one of these pure bred flocks is owned by Mr.
• This opinion, which I first formed after seeing them, was after-
ards confirmed by the attested pedigree published some time
:ice. There is a question, however, which appears to me of some

VOL. 11. — NO. I. K

74 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

moment ; it is this — have the flocks preserved their original charac-
teristics, or have they degenerated ; and if the latter, should new
importations be made 1 As it regards degeneration, I barely re-
mark, that the test must be found in the fineness and weight oi
wool. It appears from statements submitted to the State Agri-
cultural Society last winter, that Mr. R.'s flock averaged nearly
Jive and a half j)ounds of wool. This was sold for 48 cents pei
pound. I have compared samples of it with those from the Meri-
nos imported by Seth Adams into Massachusetts, and to the eye
the staple of the former is superior to that of the latter. Mr. R
thinks his wool will average better than that of the originally im
ported sheep, of which he showed me many samples ; and wha
imported flock ever approximated to the average weight of fiviiL
?nd a half pounds of washed wool ? As it regards fineness, I pror
pose to test the quality directly by measuring when I return ; fo
I find different persons' eyes and judgments differ very materially.
As this flock has become so celebrated by carrying off the first pre,
mium of the state society, and the society's gold medal, as the bes
managed flock, I will give some additional information of hi
flock, which I have derived directly from the owner. It consisi
of about one hundred breeding ewes, mostly Paulars, but contair
some other varieties of the same breed. After a moment's inspec,
tion I could readily distinguish the Paulars by their heavier an.
more compact carcase, shorter legs, more wrinkled skins and dark<
crusted wool. I

I saw some rams and ewes got by a Rambouillet ram, which wj,
a choice one of the variety ; their dams, prime Paular ewes. Tl,
half blood Rambouillets, were lighter colored, longer legged, \&\
heavy in the fleece, and altogether bearing no inconsiderable r.
semblance to a cross between the Paular and Saxon. Many ewf
were shown me which though they were only coming two or thn
years old, sheared last year from 5 to 6ilbs. of washed wool pi
head ! It seems, to be sure, almost incredible, still, when yc,
examine the density of the fleece and its fibres, as it stands on tl
skin, and then stretch out the ample folds, the whole story is told
it is no longer incredible, for one of those skins seem to be cap:,
ble of covering a carcase twice as large as the one to which it bi|
longs. On many of these sheep there is not an inch of skin fro)|
the nose to the tail, which was free from folds and wrinkles ; bi|-,..

farmers' miscellany. 75

■specially are these folds ample upon the sides. These corruga-
ions form no obstacle to shearing as might at first be supposed, as
hey can be drawn smooth enough for the shears to pass over them,
believe it has been erroneously supposed that the Merino owes
jiuch of its weight of fleece to its gum. There is, it is true, a con-
iderable crust upon the surface, or the extremity of the wool,
;hich does not readily wash out in cold water ; but the oil
iside of the wool where there is no concrete gum, washes as
.\T(lily from the Merino as the Saxon. Indeed, the distinguished
iianufacturer, Samuel LaicrencCy Esq., of Boston, in answer to in-
quiries addressed to him last year, stated the fact that the shrink-
re in scouring, between Merino and Saxon wool both washed in
le ordinary manner was only seven per cent. Mr. R. considers
le outer crust a decided advantage, as a protection from cold and
orms, but objects entirely to any inside concrete gum which he
inks of no use — or only of use to take in the inexperienced pur-
laser; a course as injurious to the ultimate interests, as to the
(putation of the wool grower. I observed that the wool of all
is sheep opened free from this gum.

I saw in addition to the above, six reserved rams, some of which
e intended to be used as stock rams, and others to carry cut
me small experiments in crossing. Two were Paulars, the third
ied by Francis Rotch, the fourth from Consul Jarvis' stock
(Ihrough the Sandford buck,) and the other two, the half blood
limbouillet stock already alluded to. Some of these were choice
< imals ; but the two Paulars (one of them the prize ram,) were really
sperb animals. The oldest now coming three, sheared 8 lbs. for
h first fleece, about 10 lbs. for second, and Mr. R. is confident
1; third, or present fleece, will exceed 12 lbs. of washed wool!
l)r does the Merino attain his full Aveight of fleece until four. For
crease, weight and quality of fleece, with all peculiar character-
ises of the Merino, I never have seen an animal which excelled
m ; and the other Paular, a yearling, bids fair to equal the first,
c prize ram.

To secure confidence in all Mr. R.'s statements, in regard to
"vight, Mr. R. adopts a plan worthy of imitation. At shearing,
Sne individual of well known character is invited to bring his
oin steelyards, and he weighs and makes a minute of each fleece
ait is taken from the sheep. It is true, such testimony is not

76 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

strictly necessary, but it is satisactory to strangers, and it silences
those low caA'ilers who are ready at least to affect to discredit re-
sults which they lack both enterprise and skill to bring about.

Mr. R. has reared about 100 per cent of lambs the present
season, which, taking into consideration the number of ewes under
proper breeding age, was certainly quite unusual ; a fact which
speaks well of the skill and mode of luanagement. But one Pau-
lar lamb perished. All are indelibly numbered on the day of their
birth according to Von Thaer's method, and their pedigree re-
corded.

So much for the sheep, and as this seems to be a proper place
for closing this letter, I now subscribe myself,

Yours, &c. E.

IV. Farm and farming of Mr. Hopkins.

Auburn, May 30, 1843.

My Dear Friend — It was my design when I came to this place
to have called at once on our friend Mr. Sherwood, the formeii
great lull' i Admiral of New-York, for the purpose of seeing his
fine stock of cattle and sheep ; but I found he was absent on i
tour to the west. I must therefore wait for another opportunity.

But now, as cattle and sheep cannot form the subject of m}
letter, I will speak of Auburn, though I do not expect to giv(
you much information of the place, which is not already in youi
possession. Auburn is located about centrally between Albanj
and Buffalo, on the great railroad thoroughfare ; it is nine mile;
east of Cayuga Bridge, at the termination of steamboat naviga
tion of Cayuga lake, and which opens a communication south, o.
forty miles, and through an excellent farming country. Its locatioi
though inland, is highly advantageous, whether we regard it as ;
place for business or social intercourse. But what gives Auburr
superior advantages for business, is the water power upon the
outlet of Owasco lake, which passes directly through the village'
The creek issuing from this lake descends rapidly five or six miles
or to be more particular, it falls in fourteen miles — that is, fron
Auburn to the canal — two hundred feet, and between seventy-fiv(
and one hundred between Auburn and the lake. By this descent i

farmers' miscellany. 77'

forms a site for mills at every half mile, from its source to the
Inal. The lake is a body of water twelve miles long ; it is a
eat reservoir, not liable to fluctuations during the year, and it has
,e advantage of a comparatively high temperature during the
'inter. In addition to the above, good quarries of limestone have
•en opened, which furnish excellent stone for building. The

. ' <saries of life, too, must be comparatively cheap ; what may
. imed the common elegancies of life, are free to all. The
I'Untry itself, though not romantic, or marked by bold and striking
;itures, is yet sufficiently diversified with hill and dale, cultivated
fids, with tasteful farm-houses and noble woodlands, to make it
;1 that can be desired for a country residence. All the fruits of
; temperate clime grow here, or may be grown, in perfection.
.3ple, pear, peach, plumb, are sure to thrive if they but receive
immon attention, as is proved by their abundance in all ordinary
iiasons.

jIn my rambles about the country, I was quite fortunate in being
i|rown into the company of Mr. Ira Hopkins, a successful and
i|telligent farmer, who kindly showed me his farm and gardens,
ijd introduced me to his son in Mentz, who also holds the
jjough and sows his fields and conducts his farming on scientific
]|inciples. He has been eminently successful in the cultivation
( the teasel^ and in my next, I will give you an account of his
lode of raising and curing it for market.

But to return to my new friend, Mr. Hopkins, senior. He first
icompanied me to his farm three miles north of Auburn. On
(r way, he called my attention to a large field of wheat, which
Id been very badly managed by the owner. There was certainly
^ry striking evidence of a want of intelligence and practical
fill in its management, which I suspect is not uncommon in difFe-
mt degrees. The field in question, when taken in hand, was in
ij full strength, as appears from the fact that it bore a heavy crop
(| timothy when first ploughed. It was broken up last spring and
sjsved to oats ; but, contrary to advice, it was ploughed when wet,
j|d so wet, that the water followed the plough in the furrow ; the
tnsequence was a return to its original compact state ; or rather,
£>tate worse than compact — a hard, lumpy condition. The crop
c oats, as had been foretold, was less than one-half the ordinary
)M. After the oats were removed, it was again ploughed and

78 Q U A R T E R L Y J O U R N A L .

sowed to wheat ; and now, June 2d, it is a spotted concern-
here a bunch of spindling wheat — there a patch of rough nakec
ground — and certainly the prospect of success is no better that
with the oats the preceding year.

Among many other things relating to agriculture, Mr. H. gavi
an account of a singular experiment which he had tried. It wa:
to see whether winter wheat could be treated as spring wheat, b;
which a crop could be obtained the first season after sowing. I
had been said that it could be, and said with so much confidence]
that Mr. H. determined to test the point by trial.

Accordingly, following the precise directions, Mr. H. prepareij
a bushel or two of wheat by first moistening and then rolling it i]|'
plaster and a few ashes, and then wetting the whole so as to secui
its germination, when it was put away into his chamber and su;
fered to freeze. In this state it remained till near the time foi
sowing spring wheat, when it was again taken in hand and se
rated, the roots and plumulas being an inch or two in length ah
forming a dense interwoven mat. It was again rolled in plastt
and sowed on land well prepared for wheat. It soon appeare
green, or grew well, and looked flourishing, and with a prospect c
success for a time ; but after a while it ceased to grow, stoo
stone still, and only here and there did a stem consent to send up
slender, spindling head. It was therefore an unsuccessful exper
ment. It must, however, be conceded that there was soraethin
in the proposal which had a show of reason in it, a possibility, afx
hence it was well to put it to the direct test.

Fearing I may not interest you, I will close by giving you on
or two results of Mr. H.'s success in farming. On one field <
about ten acres which I visited, this gentleman raised eighty buclil
els of corn to the acre, and this without extra labor or extra ti.
lage. The crop was preceded by wheat, on land which is usual!
termed a clay loam. I do not speak of this as any rcmarkabl
yield; I only speak of it as a profitable crop. Again, Mr. H
has raised forty bushels of spring wheat to the acre without goin
out of his ordinary mode of culture. The facts go to prove wha
I stated in the commencement of this letter, viz : that Auburn an
its vicinity has a rich soil. This is due in a great measure to th
gypseous shales which crop out from beneath the Onondaga limt
stone. These shales are brought up by a slight uplift or fractor

.1

i

FARM ERS' M I SCELL AN Y. 79

hich extends several miles to the northeast. This overlying
|mestone is fissured and probably cavernous, and a large propor-
|0n of the surface water sinks into the rock, collects, and forms
aderground streams, which issue at ditferent points in the form of
jrge springs. The most remarkable of these is at Springport.

Yours, &c., E,

V. Culture of the Teasel.
iMy Dear Friend-I now propose to fulfil my promise given
my last, to describe to you the culture of the teasel, as con-
. cted by my friend, Mr. Hopkins, to whom reference has been
ude.

But first I will speak of the teasel itself. Eotanically it is an
1 cresting plant. In books its generic name is Dipsacus, which
s;nifies thirst, in allusion to a quantity of water which collects in
<|j axils of the leaves, which being concave give a lodament at
tbse places, and what perhaps is not very singular, is, this fluid
€||oyed the reputation of being a good cosmetic, though in reality
ijis nothing but pure water.

There are two species of the teasel, one, called the sylvestris,
fm Its inhabiting woody places ; the other, /..//onwrn, referring
lithe class of men by whom it is used, viz : the fullers. Now
D'St persons scarcely distinguish them apart • they regard both
aone, and this is not very remarkable, as they look very much
a*ce; but an inspection of the hooks of the scales or chaff of
t]j flower heads will set one right ; the latter has hooks bent out-
VTds, while in the sylvestris they are straight. It is by the bent
al exceedingly fine points of these flower scales or chaff that they
a, fitted for the office in which they are employed, viz : that of
r^ing a nap upon woolen cloths ; and so important are they,
tU not a piece of broadcloth can be made without them No
achme or process has yet been devised which can perform this
^rk, though many attempts have been made to supply their place
le teasel forms a natural family of plants by themselves. Their
Kves are either opposite or stand in circles (whorls) around the
St Q. Their flowers are situated at the end of the stem, and are
c<lected in an elongated oval head. Some persons probably con-

80 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

sider them as a kind of thistle ; but their heads are really differ
ent, though the family stands next to the great family of plant
known in botanical treatises as the composita—a. family in whio
the thistle tribe is found. The teasel is a biennial plant, or re
quires two years to come to perfection. It is hardy, belongs t
the temperate climate, and bears frost well. It is not difficult f(
thorough-going farmers to cultivate it. It may be cultivated o
almost any kind of soil, provided it is not too rich ; the be
teasel is, however, raised upon a rather stiff clayey loam. Tl
ground is to be broken up early in the spring ; the seed is sow
in drills three feet apart, and may be put into the ground any tin
from the first of April to the first of June. It is better, howeve,
to sow as soon as the field is sufficiently dry, as the young plant
not injured by frost, should it occur, and an opportunity is giv.,
for a wider extension of its roots. The seed, when sown early i
April, will require first hoeing by the middle of May, or wh^
the leaf is about two inches long. Without entering upon :
exact detail of what is to be done, it will be sufficient to state tb
the plant will require much the same treatment as maize or Indi i
corn ; or that during the whole period it will require to be ke ■
free from weeds. Attention so as to secure the growth of t
plant is not so difficult as curing the teasel and putting it in a cc
dition for market. This part of the business I will now speak

It may be considered as ready for picking when it has just p ,
flowering ; or when the petal (flower leaf) is ready to drop. Hi|
is an important fact to be noticed ; the crop must be attended
and gathered at once; for at this stage only are the heads a ,
awns of the floral leaves sufficiently elastic and tough to be adapt:
to the fuller's use.

If, then, a careless farmer attempts to raise the teasel, he w
ten to one, lose his crop, or let it injure, for want of immedl
attention at the precise time at which it is required. But thia
not all ; the teasel being gathered at the proper time, would still
lost without careful drying ; for at this time it is not like the(
head of the wild teasel which we see in the autumn, but it
full of the juices of the plant ; and these must be evaporated
a mode which will prevent mould or mildew, and at the sa
time preserve the elasticity of the hooks. To eff'ect this, Mr. Hi
kins has erected a number of buildings in form and size of '

farmers' miscellany. 81

'ommon corn-house or corn-crib, only the spaces between the thin
cantlings are a little wider, in order to admit of a freer entrance of
jir. In the interior, temporary scaffoldings are put up about two
3et apart, which are also formed of scantlings laid upon supports,
■nth inch spaces between each. Upon these platforms the teasel
; laid to dry. Here, being freely exposed to currents of air pass-
ig through the building, the moisture speedily evaporates and is
irried away ; and being at the same time in the shade, the mate-
al preserves its elastic property as well as flexible state, upon
hich its great utility in cloth dressing depends. From these re-
larks, it will be seen that the requisites for raising and curing
!)od teasel, are first to cut it at the proper time, and second to dis-
pate the moisture without injury to the head ; and farther, that a
zy farmer is not the man to raise teasel. Such is not Mr. Hop-
Ins. His teasel commands the price of the imported article, and
; fact is the best sent to market. An acre, well managed, yields
iion an average, 75,000 heads. Their price in market varies from
(ijht to tw^elve shillings per 1,000. Ten shillings is about the
jjjdium price. This plant is not supposed by Mr. Hopkins to
<|haust the soil, but rather to benefit it, partly by the mechanical
jtion of the roots, which being somewhat of a tap form pene-
lite deeply, and hence divide it ; and thereby it is better prepared
ic corn and other crops. Without doubt a large proportion of
tij matter of the plant is strictly derived from the atmosphere
trough the intervention of the soil ; still, like all other vegetable
Idies, it has its inorganic constituents, which must be derived
f m the soil itself, and hence, thus far, the plant must impoverish
t; soil. So much then, for the teasel, which will probably always
bir a fair price and pay for cultivation ; yet, comparatively few
sm disposed to grow it, either from the care which they are
Uiwilling to bestow in curing it, as well as on account of the time
J uired for the article to grow ; as nearly two years must elapse
b'bre there is a return for the labor and expense incurred in its
clivation.
^ly subject being exhausted, I must close.

Yours, &c., E.

uburn, June 5, 1845.
OL II. — NO. I. L

82 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

VI. Gleanings from Greatfield.

Aurora, June 6, 1845-
Dear Friend — I have just returned from a visit to Davi
Thomas. Now if I consulted ray feelings only, I should brea
out into something which you would call his praise. There ar
however, some strange customs in society : for instance, you m£|
talk as wickedly of a living man as you please, especially when!
is a candidate for an office. You must not, however, speak in k
praise, unless you intimate at the same time, or before you clof
that after all there are some indications that he may be a hyp
crite, or a great scamp. The contrary, however, becomes therv
when a man dies. You must then show your charity by givbi
at least a thin coat of whitewash, though the individual wi
notorious thief. The latter may be very well on some acco
still, truth is a little too precious to be trifled with, and too valrl
ble a commodity to be sacrificed on any occasion. But let us
turn to David Thomas, not however to praise, but simply to spe
of his pursuits. David Thomas then, is, strictly speaking, a bo
nist of the first class. Not, however, one of those who has 6i
studied the characters by which plants are named and distinguit
ed, he is not one who has guzzled down and stored in his mem
a multitude of strange words ; but he is one who has studied
affinities of plants and has made this knowledge highly useful
their cultivation. It is for this reason that he is the best pomolo§
in this State. He has made it his great object to settle a few gij
and important problems in fruit growing. His object is to diet
mine v;hat is the best mode, the easiest and shortest mode of p
curing fruits ; what kinds are upon the whole the best, and b
they may be improved. These are great problems, andalqi
industrious life is full short enough for their settlement.

Before I proceed with my gleanings of Greatfield, I will sa
few words of the soil of Aurora and of its vicinity. Two ki
mainly predominate. Near the lake, and especially towal
Springport, a drab, stiffish clay predominates. It is a pale fajj
color, though sometimes a deep annatto red. The other is ratjj
a calcareous loam, not however, as a general rule, with sufficin
lime to effervesce with acids. It is a drift mainly, having b|
derived from the sandstone, shales and limestone immedialii
north. The first, or drab colored clay, is derived from the gyi^

farmers' miscellany. 83

us shales below the water lines ; the red slate which reposes upon
le Niagara limestone furnishes the coloring matter to this import-
it deposit. These shales give the wheat growing character to
lis region, and this particular soil diminishes as you go up the
l.ke. There is one great advantage in this soil, it will produce
: [heat as long as the world stands. I will at any rate stake my
Imputation on this -assertion, that this particular soil will endure
fr this particular culture longer than any other wheat soil in the
Inited States. You need not ask me now of the grounds upon
ihich my opinion is founded ; this I will state at some future
'iportunity. I believe that I have already stated that farmers
pposethat wheat is a peculiar favorite of the limestone re-
on ; limestone however, is not, in this case, the element, the im-
>rtant element of the soil of the wheat region ; or the element
liich is mainly instrumental in giving this character so much
ominence in wheat growing ; but the peculiar slates and shale
mg between the Onondaga limestone (in this part of the State)
■ d the Niagara limestone. They seem to have the proper ele-
lients for this crop. What I have called the calcareous loam,
lloduces, it is true, very good wheat. Nevertheless it is mecha-
J^ally at fault, it cannot hold the root of the wheat ; hence it
ipers often from frost or freezing, and is raised out of the
^bund.

iThis is the case, for example, as far from the lake as Poplar
Idge, where the soil has a large proportion of foreign drift, and
tiere it is not less than one hundred feet deep. It is here that
t- influence of the drab clay is mostly lost. Poplar ridge is 670
t-t above Cayuga lake, which runs parallel with it. From this
rige the country slopes very uniformly to the lake, though several
tep ravines are formed into the Hamilton slate and shales, by the
sieams which flow across them. Though it is rather a common
enervation that large bodies of water protect from the frost, still,
tUgh common, I will state that this year has furnished a very
rbarkable instance in confirmation of this common opinion. The
fjsts of May and June for instance, have done little or no damage
ci the borders of the lake, while 300 feet above, at the distance of
anile and a half, grapes were cut off.

^Setting out trees, trmisplanting herbaceous plants, whether
Mrs, fruit, roots, ^-c— Every person is interested in trans-

t

84 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

planting vegetables, and for a matter of so much importance it is

rather singular that so little is known of safe and secure methods

of performing it. David Thomas pursues the following. Remove

the plant with as little disturbance to the roots as possible, then

mud them, that is, cover the roots with a thick paste of tenacioui

mud, and close the operation by sprinkling sand on the outside, o

dust them over. This preserves the roots effectually. They nei

ther dry, nor are they so liable to injury, by abrasion, &c. Anothe

method, where large trees are to be transplanted, is the following

In June, cut a narrow trench at a proper distance from the trunk c

the tree, sufficiently deep to divide the roots ; the distance will dt

pend upon the size of the tree, for the great difficulty in transplan

ing large trees is their weight ; but at any rate, take in this trenc

as much as can be transported with the tree. Let the tree star

till late in autumn. Then transplant the whole. During summ.

the mass of earth enclosing the large root will be filled with ne

fibres and small roots ; the tree when thus removed, goes on wi

its growth with little interruption only.

Grafting.— The wax used by David Thomas is spread thin
upon muslin, like adhesive plasters. These plasters, cut into prop
shape, are wound around the stock and at the junction of the gra
In order, however, to secure certainty of success, wind the scid
also, to a point near its extremity. The great benefit of tlj
mode arises from the moisture or sap which is retained by the impj
vious plaster. This method of grafting is also extremely n.|

and elegant.

Pndt.— There is a very wide difference in the time required '
grafts to bear fruit. The Bergamot bears in from twelve to fift(
years, requiring a pretty large part of a man's life before he can p
take of its fruit. Some others will begin to bear in one or t
years, producing fruit equally valuable with those which requ
a greater length of time. Dearborn Seedling, David Thomas o
siders among the best of our pears, if not the best.

Our friend has succeeded in engrafting the Rohinia hispida uj
the common locust ; he, however, considers the calcareous soil:
Aurora as unfavorable to the growth of the locust. Some tn
he says, have but little choice in the selection of their food; oth
are very fastidious, and this is a case of the latter.

David Thomas finds that manuring shrubs and trees is of

farmers'miscellany. 85

Quch consequence as that of grain. A very striking example was
;iven in that of a pear, which for many years had produced exe-
,rable fruit, but which, on being hoed and manured well, produced
pQmediately fruit of the highest flavor. Superior flowers also
jesult from similar treatment.

To transplant cabbages and similar plants, David Thomas suffers
'hem to be set in water twelve hours before putting out. They
arely wilt down when thus treated, especially if set near the close
|f the day.

j To prevent plants from heaving by frost, press the earth strongly
ind closely around the root, — especially let plants be treated in
his way, which are set out in autumn.

Many other modes of treating particular plants were detailed to
le ; but as I have already trespassed, probably, on your patience,

will close by stating that an Agricultural Institution is growing

p in Aurora, under the immediate supervision of Mr. Young and
,)r. Thompson, gentlemen who are every way qualified for this
interprise, and with which David Thomas is connected as coun-
jellor. Aurora is an excellent township, and the farm of the Insti-
lute is very pleasantly located, overlooking the Cayuga lake.
1 I am yours, &c. E.

■I

VII. Wool and its Structure.

My Dear Sir — Having given you a pretty full report of the
arm and stock of Mr. Randall, embracing many details also in
he several branches of husbandry, I now propose adding a few
v'ords as an appendix to that report. I gave some intimation
\rhen speaking of the fineness of the wool of Mr. R.'s sheep,
dat on my return home, I would furnish something more exact as

test for fineness than the naked eye. In fulfilment of this inti-
lation, I have been engaged since I returned, in measuring the
iameter of the different staples which I procured while at Cort-
mdville, and which I have compared with others obtained of our
lutual friend, Luther Tucker, Esq., of the Cultivator.

The different kinds are indicated by numbers. I have prepared

scale which is equal to 100 millimeters; a millimeter is equal to
'.039 of an inch. The hundredth of a millimeter, and the fibres

f wool, are all subjected to the same magnifying power of an

86

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

excellent Chevalier's compound microscope. The comparison is
both absolute and relative ; but it is highly interesting to see the
perceptible difference between the different fibres of wool. The
microscope also reveals other differences ; some of the fibres appear-
ed rather uneven, or flattened, and destitute of a clear and distinct
pith or tube ; and in fact I may remark, that the microscope is
really the best method of testing the real quality of wool. Bji
this instrument I shall be able, at any time to make other experi
ments which may serve as standards of fineness.

No. 1, Mr. Randall's ; No. 1 a, fibre of Mr. Randalls' prize Paular Merino bui
No. 1 h, fibre from one of Mr. Randall's fleeces ; No. 2 and 2 a, fibres from Mr.
Adams' wool; No. 4, Remilles' wool, Shoreham, Vt. ; No. 5, fibre of S. O. Eurchard
fine wool, Shoreham; No. 3, fibre of Charles L. Smith's wool, Shoreham; No.
fibre from Collins' Grandee. The last five were token from wool left at the Ciiltivati
office. In all the fibres examined, there is a very great uniformity in the parcel
only slight dififerences, in fact, could be detected inthe several diameters. No.7shov
the structure of wool as seen under tlie microscope. In the corner is the scale
measurement. The finest fibre, as magnified in this cut, is equal to about eighte«
hundredths of an inch in diameter.

Another inquiry equally important with the preceding, came u
in this place: What is the strength of a single fibre of wool, an
is the coarser comparatively stronger than the fine 1 I set aboi
answering those inciuirics at once, and now give you the resu
below:

farmers' miscellany. 87

, Mr. Randall's No. 1 &, on three trials, supported on an average,
62 grains ; or, rather, broke when tried with the weight of 62
grains.

Mr. R. 's No. 1 a, broke with 57.1 grains.

The fibre from Collins' Grandee, on three trials, supported on
m average, 84.6 grains.

Mr. Smith's specimen of Shoreham, Vt., on three trials, gave an
iverage of 67.6 grains.

Fibres of wool present rather a smooth surface and a cylindrical
brm, or a flattened cylindrical form. There are no serratures, as
iias been represented, but the fibre is not of an equal diameter
hioughout ; it presents also, projections which seem to be owing
0 disease. It is probable that the characters of the best wool
ire roundness and equality of diameter, and freedom from the pro-
ections here referred to. The fibre is traversed by transverse septa,
II divisions, and probably when the wool is growing vigorously,
hey are at equal distances. Under the microscope these partitions,
l)r septa, are often interrupted, or project only halfway across the
lollow part of the fibre. From the experiments which I have
Inade on the strength of the fibre, it appears generally, that the fine
Ivool is proportionably stronger than the coarse — though I found
n some experiments, that the strength was in a direct proportion
0 the size or diameter. Further experiments seem to be required
0 settle conclusively these interesting and important inquiries.

There seems, however, to be some diversity of opinion as it re-
gards the form and structure of a fibre of wool. I have examined
jhe fibre often under a microscope, but still I have not yet seen
pat sharp, serrated structure, which good felting wool is represent-
[d to have. There is no greater difficulty in observations upon
Ihe fibre of wool and hair, than any other small object. To give
, ou my opinion of the structure and mode of growth, I have only

> say, that, like all other organized tissues, it is composed of
jells ; but in wool, hair, &c., the cells are arranged in a single
low, like a string of beads. The newest cell of the root or bulb

ushes out the hair — or in other words, it grows at the base.

'liese cells have a slight conical shape — the lowest one jutting

ver or inclosing the base of the one next above. This gives in

nne cases a ringed appearance. The rings, too, in many cases,

^ those of a hair, for instance, resemble those on the horn of a

88 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

sheep. These rings are farther apart or sharper, or are bettei
defined in fine furred animals, such as the otter and beaver, than ir
the wool of sheep.

In concluding this letter, let me suggest a practical and no
difficult method of registering wool: Let a wool-grower deter
mine with the microscope (using always a given power,) the diame
ter, structure and form, of the fibre of the wool, from the standan
parts of the fleece. This would require not more than three o
four specimens. These are to be drawn on a card of a convenien
size, in the mode I have represented in the wood cut. To this, le
small locks or specimens of the wool from those parts be perma
nently attached ; let as many samples as the breeder or avogI
grower wishes, be treated in this way ; or fill up the card. Jt i
easy to see that when this is done, it gives a permanent c
durable record of the fineness and other qualities of the wool (
every sheep whose fleece is thus registered. All the change ,
which may take place in the offspring, or in subsequent breeding |
may be immediately determined by the microscope. What woul
still add to the value of such a mode of representation, the cai
or plate can be put on copper, and multiplied indefiniteh
Friends, manufacturers, wool-growers, &c., might in this way \
supplied with the best kind of registers of the flocks in this coui,
try. The person, to be sure, would have to attach a small lock tj
the wool to each sample of the measured fibre ; but this might ||
done in a few moments. The great utility of this method, is tl
certainty of the results. We may, to be sure, judge of fineni
by the eye, and determine with a low degree of satisfaction, oihi
properties also. But men after all, will diff'er • your eye will
probably fit into the socket of my own ; and then when you
guage a thing as a cask of liquor, what's the use of guessing?
us then have the wool guaged and registered, and not go throug!
the world guessing and guessing, and after all, never fully satisfid j_^ ,

I am, yours, &c.,

E.

Mbany, June 25, 1845.

t:

hi

FARMER s' MISCELLANY. 89

'RACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE FLOWER GARDEN.

PART II.

BY M. SUTTER.
v.— MANAGEMENT OF PLANTS IN THE FLOWER GARDEN.

Having spoken in general terms of the care and proper atten-
on of the flower garden, it may be serviceable to attend more par-
cularly to some particular kinds of plants which are generally
iltivated. These may be divided into annuals, or those which
row from seed, flower and ripen their seed and die in one year ;
cnnials, those which flower and die in the second year after be-
-T sown, and perennials, which live for a number of years and
nver every season.

Annual flower seeds should be sown in the open borders as soon

the weather has become settled and warm in the spring, and not

■fore. As they will generally flower in about two months from

c time they are sown, there is no need of hurry to get them into

e ground early. Disappointment will generally attend such

^.ste. Those kinds, however, which will bear transplantino-, may

li sown m pots in the house, or in a hot-bed, whence they can be

limoved to the open ground in proper season. Those which will

M bear it, should not be sown till they can be safely trusted in

te spot where they are intended to grow. Some, like the cypress

^N, will not germinate until the earth has become very warm

».d such should be soaked in warm water, before sowing them a

i^ hours. But artificial watering should not be resorted to after

lanting, except m case of severe drought.

After they have come up, when they have attained the heio-ht
can inch or two, they should be carefully thinned out so as not
t stand too thick and crowded, the earth stirred and loosened
<:out the roots, and kept perfectly free from weeds Their growth
< beauty will be increased by an occasional watering with liquid
imure. In want of showers, free use of rain water from the
Mtermg-pot should be made every evening. The ground should be
tquently stirred with the hoe and every means used to promote a
rnd and healthy growth.

There are some annuals of great beauty, the seed of which does
"t come to perfection, or whose seed, if sown, will not produce

VOL. II. NO. I. J\J

90 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the same kind. Such are the verbena, petunia, pansies,&c. Thesd
must be propagated from cuttings, taken in the fall and kept i
the house through the winter. Those mentioned, as also the annul
phlox (drummondii,) dwarf larkspur, and many others shoul
occupy a bed by themselves. As they trail along the ground thi
will in a few weeks entirely cover the bed with their rich and varie
colors. Others may be sown in drills, circles or patches, accordin
to the taste of the cultivator.

Vines should be provided with proper frames to climb upoi
These may, with a little taste, according to the kind of plant, hi
made to present a beautiful appearance, giving them the form of
fan, bell, pyramid, cone, lyre, &c.

Some hardy kinds of annuals may be sown in September, whic
will bring them so forward as to flower very early in the followin
spring.

The treatment of biennials is in general the same as that of annual
They should be planted in a bed by themselves the first year, ar
in the autumn or spring of the following removed to their pla«
for flowering. Many of these can best be propagated by laye
or cuttings, taken off in the summer. A great deal of troub
often attends the cultivation of annuals and biennials, but many
them will amply repay all the care bestowed upon them. *,

Perennials are plants which live from year to year. Some wA
flower the first year they are sown, while others require from OJ^^
to several years to reach perfection. No particular directions ne
be given for their cultivation. But some of them, which requi
peculiar treatment will be considered individually.

In planting the flower garden, those plants which grow to the le8||
height should be placed in advance so as not to be excluded frc'
view by the taller kinds. Considerable taste may be exercis
also in the arrangement of colors to produce the greatest effect 1
contrast. ««

VI. OF BULBOUS ROOTS, TUBERS, &C. ,

These form a very valuable part of a well provided flower gJ

den, and as they require, in some respects, a peculiar treatment,| -^

section is devoted to them. Many of them require to be taken i| .;j

every year, and kept out of the ground for a few weeks, and th( in

replanted. They all require a light, rich and deep soil to flowi ,y

i I
I

farmers' miscellany. 91

|i perfection. Some need not be taken up oflener than once in
hree years. They should then be separated and planted again
fter the soil has been well manured. None should be removed
or any purpose whilst the leaves are green. As a general rule,
ley may be taken up when their leaves begin to decay, and
ept out of the ground from one to four months, and then replanted
fter the offsets have been removed. The flowers should be
inched olf as soon as they begin to decay, as the root loses its
rength by going to seed.

When bulbs have been a long time out of the earth, and their
lUil energy is weakened, they should be planted in a perfectly dry
,)il, and not have a particle of water till they begin to grow.
Ihen it may be given in very small quantities till the leaves are
vo or three inches long, and appear of a good healthy color, when
ey may be watered freely. In this way they will be revived in
year or two.

As a general thing, bulbous roots appear the best when planted
a bed by themselves. When scattered about the borders they
■;ow to very poor advantage. The earth should be dug a full
ade deep, well pulverised and made very rich with rotten ma-
ire. The beds should have a southern exposure, and the centre
the bed, or the north side, should be raised a few inches the
:ghest. At the setting in of winter they should be covered with
dayer of straw, litter or leaves two or three inches deep.
Bulbous roots are propagated almost entirely by offsets. In
jme they increase very rapidly, whilst others send out but one or
1^0 a year,

AMARYLLIS.

There are numerous varieties of this bulb, some of which, as
4 formosissima or Jacobean Lily, produce flowers of exceeding
llauty. Most of them may be cultivated in pots, although many
I; well in the open ground. When grown in the former way they
sould not be planted till the flower-bud shows itself, and then
sould receive but little watering till they have become well
sirted. They should not be covered more than half with earth ;
£|d whilst in flower should be watered freely, but less afterwards.
S'il — fresh loam largely mixed with leaf mould or peat and sand —
ce-half loam, one-third sand and the rest leaf mould or peat. If

92 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

they are planted in beds, it should be done about the last of April
or first of May, in rows one foot apart, placing the bulbs six inches
apart, and not quite covering them with earth. In October take
them up, and keep them in a dry room through the winter. Pro-
pagated— by offsets, which are not to be removed from the main
bulb till just before planting. These will flower the second year.

CROCUS.

These should be taken up as soon as the foliage is decayed, anc
in October planted in fresh soil — loamy sand — foliage not to b(
jemoved till decayed. These may be grown in pots in the wintei
in the house, and the flowers, which close every evening, will oper
in a strong lamp-light at night — propagated by offsets.

DAHLIA.

As soon as the sprouts begin to start in the spring the root
should be carefully divided with a sharp knife, leaving one or tw(
good buds attached to each root ; set them in pots in light, ricl
earth, in a warm room, and water them well. About the middl
of May or the first of June they may be transferred with the ball o
earth entire to the open ground. If they are not turned out til
June they will display their flowers after the hot season is over.

The soil for dahlias should be very rich and deep. A hoi
should be dug a foot or eighteen inches deep, and filled with fres
earth mixed with one-third good manure.

When the plants are turned out, good stout stakes of sufficier
height should be placed in the ground by the side of them, t
which they should be tied as they grow, to prevent their bein
broken down by the wind.

When the tops are first injured by the frost, they should be ci
down within six inches of the ground, and the roots covered wit
a thin layer of straw or litter, and left to ripen. In a week the
may be taken up, shaken clean from earth, and packed in dry san
and in a warm room for winter. By not suffering them to ripe
well in the ground before taking them up, many people lose thei
dahlias in the winter.

DAFFODIL, JONQUIL, NARCISSUS.

Select such bulbs as are rounded towards the base, with fu!
round tops — not mouldy nor with decayed fibres at the bottoir'

farmer's miscellany. 93

Plant six inches deep and eight inches apart, in August or Sep-
tember. They should not be taken up oftener than once in three
years. Some of them are very pretty grown in pots during the
winter. These should be planted in October. Soil, light fresh
loam, mixed with very rotten cow dung, and dug deep. Propa-
Tated by offsets.

GLADIOLUS OR SWORD LILY.

Plant them in pots in March or April, and turn them out as soon
is the weather is warm. Give very little water till they start,
ifter which they should have an abundant supply. Take them up
n the fall, and keep in a warm room. Soil should be very rich
:nd well worked. Propagated — by offsets, which are very abun-
lant in some species. These are to be taken off and planted sepa-
ately. By seed, sown in peat and sand in the spring, and well
yatered before and after they come up. In October the young
■ulbs should be taken up and dried, to be planted in the spring.
?hey will flower the second or third year.

HYACINTH.

; These bulbs should be planted in a dry, airy part of the garden,

lie earth to be dug to the depth of a spade or more, and mixed

Irith one-third its quantity of sand, one-fourth of rotten cow dung

nd peat. These are to be well mixed together, and the bed made

idth a slope of several inches tow^ards the south. Plant the last

f October, four inches deep, and put a little sand in the hole on

Dp of the bulb. Cover in the winter with straw or leaves. Lift

lem about five weeks after done flowering, or when the stem is

alf decayed. Dry slowly and by laying root to root and covering

ith a slight layer of earth. Keep till ready to plant in close

rawers or dry sand. Propagated from offsets.

To flower them in glasses, put them in, in October, the water

30ut half covering them. Keep in a cool dark room till started,

hen they should have the warmest room in the house and all the

ght possible. Change the water at least once a week.

TIGER FLOWER.

Plant in pots in March, or in the open ground in May. Lift
lem in November and cut off the stalks, dry them and keep in dry
ind till time to plant. They must be kept carefully from frost

94 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

in the winter and also from too much warmth. Soil must be light,
rich, free, sandy and dug deep. Propagate from offsets, to be sepa-i
rated a few days before planting.

TUBEROSE.

Same treatment as Gladiolus.

TULIP.

The bed for tulips should be made in an open, airy place, thre«
and a half or four feet wide. The bulbs to be planted in the enc
of October seven inches apart, four inches deep, and half an incl
of sand on each bulb. When in flower, tie up the stems to nea
rods. They should not be allowed to go to seed, as it weakens th
bulb. When the foliage begins to become of a yellowish browj
color, and the top dies, is the precise time to take them up. Lii
them carefully, and place in a dry, airy situation till August o
September, when the brown skins, except the last one, and th
fibres and offsets are to be taken off, leaving the last brown ski
till time to plant, when that, also, is to be removed, leaving th
bulb perfectly white.

Choose such bulbs as have not lost the brown skin, nor are mou ,
dy nor soft at the root end ; full, solid, and rather pointed at tl'
other. Soil, three-quarters good loam, one-quarter leaf-mould (
peat, one-sixth two year old horse dung, one-eighth sea sand, we
mixed and made two feet deep. They will do very well in a vei
rich common soil, well pulverized and deep. Propagated fro:
offsets.

VII. CARNATION, ROSE, &C.

The following plants are noticed here, in order to excite, if po
sible, a more general attention to them. The almost endless var
eties of each, which have been produced within a few years, wou
form a beautiful garden of themselves. But a proper selectic
made from them, and placed in every garden, will add greatly
its beauty and variety.

ROSE.

Of the summer rose there are many varieties, embracing almoj
all colors. They may either be disposed at proper interval
throughout the beds and borders, interspersed with other plants,',
they may be planted as shrubbery, scattered throughout the lav

farmers' miscellany. 95

pr grass plat. Many of the taller kinds will appear better in the
atter way ; whilst those which are more dwarfish in their growth,
ivill show better in the borders. The varieties of trailing roses,
nake an elegant appearance on trellice work, or trained in front
)f cottage porches. These grow very rapidly, and require proper
jruning, as do all summer roses.

The moss-rose in its different varieties may be successfully bud-
led upon other stocks, but is inclined to run out in a few years
,nd fail, unless great care is taken to destroy all the shoots that
We up from the root, and which consume the nourishment of
he bud. It does better, propagated from layers. Yet those
"ludded upon other stocks, stand the winter better. The wild
■Weet-brier makes about the best of native stock for budding ro-
les upon. It is itself a good addition to the shrubbery, giving out
's it does, particularly after a shower, its powerful but delightful
'erfume. It sends up from its roots long and stout shoots, which
liay be budded high with hardy monthlies, and make beautiful
Itandards.

' A great many of the monthly roses, are hardy or half hardy, and
•ill stand the winter perfectly well, with a slight covering of
i;raw. These kinds of plants are not so much injured by severe
old, as by sudden thawing, when the sun shines upon them in the
Winter ; and if they are protected from the direct rays of the sun,
ley will survive the winter very well. Those which grow tall
bd erect, may be bound up with straw, and the shorter ones may
e laid upon the ground and covered there. The covering ought
) be removed as soon as the spring opens.

Monthly roses, for the most part, produce their flowers from the
pw growth of wood, and those shoots which spring up nearest the
bound, are always the strongest. It is advisable to cut the old
jies down in the spring, in order to encourage the production of
ese shoots. Soil for roses should be made rich with manure, as
ey are what are called gross feeders. For those grown in pots,
lod fresh loam, with leaf mould and manure and a little sand.

Propagation. Summer roses are usually propagated by layers,

dividing the root. Layers should be put down in the summer,
Ihen the young wood has become partially ripe, and the next year
jey will be ready to remove. They may be raised from cuttings
;om young wood. Dig a hole of proper dimensions, one foot and

96 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

a half deep, and fill it with fresh stable manure ; over this, place
five or six inches of good sandy soil. In a few days it will be
ready to receive the cuttings. If it is desired to raise trees, the
lower two buds ought to be cut out. The cuttings may be four
or five inches long.

Monthly roses may be grown from layers or cuttings planted
according to directions given under the head of propagation ol
plants. Put them out in July and August, and remove as soon as
rooted.

CARNATION *. PINKS.

No family of flowering plants is more deserving of cultivation
than that of the pink. The splendid varieties of the Carnation am
Picotee, rich in color, and of most delightful perfume, should b<
found in every garden. They are very easy of cultivation, the grea
care necessary for them, being in their propagation, as they rui
out in two or three years, if not renewed. Choice kinds shoul(
be grown in pots, well drained. The jalants, whether grown ii
pots or in the open borders, should be tied up to neat rods, eacl
joint being tied as it grows. Soil, for those grown in pots, equa
parts of rotten manure, one year old, and fresh, sound loamy eartl
and one-sixth coarse sea sand. These are to be mixed in the fall
frequently turned through the winter, and in the spring it will b
fit for use. The soil for those in the open ground, should be mad
very rich, if possible about the same as the above ; and they wi
make a better appearance if they occupy a bed by themselves, tha
if set out singly among the flowers.

Propagated by layers. Stir the earth around them, and have
quantity of fresh earth to put over them. Keep them regularl
moist and shaded, and they will take root in three or four week;
when they should be cut off with half an inch of old wood, and a
ter a few days removed to their place, or they may be left ti
spring before removed. The best time for layering the Carnatioi
is whilst in full flower or very soon after. They may also be pr(
pagated by cuttings ; but this requires more care ; and is not so ce:
tain of succeeding. The Paisley pink can be easily propogated i
this way.

By seed. The seeds should be selected from the choicest kim

•I

farmers' miscellany. 97

if half double varieties, sow it in the sprinf^ in drills, and when
iie plants have attained the height of twd inches, transplant them
nto beds for flowering the next summer. Very few need be expect-
d to be double varieties ; but those which are good may be se-
gcted, and the rest thrown away. The seed from half double '
nes is said to produce the best flowers. Endless varieties are
roduced from seed.

PANSY OR VIOLET.

Little attention is paid to this plant in this country, although in
Iritain it is thought of sufficient importance to have shoAvs appro-
riated and premiums offered for it. Immense numbers are pro-
uced, of great size and beauty. Soil should be rich, and they
lould not be too much exposed to the sun. Propagated from
i?ed, and by dividing the root ; this should be done in the fall, so
lifly that the plants may become rooted, to flower in the spring.
r the seed be sown in the spring as early as the weather will per-
lit, some of the plants will flower in the fall.
' There are a few annual flowers which deserve particular atten-
on, on account of their varieties and their flowering through the

hole summer. These should have each a bed appropriated to
liem J and as they all trail upon the ground, they will in the course
f the summer, cover it entirely with a mass of flowers.

VERBENA.

Of this there are a number of varieties, w^orthy of cultivation,
id every year is producing new ones. The different colors may
i planted in a bed by themselves, or mingled in the same bed.
hey may be planted about two feet, or less, asunder, and suf-
red to creep upon the ground. Soil should be rich and well
orked. Propagated by cuttings which will root well in good
lil or charcoal, or by runners which take root at every joint.
Ihese must be taken up in the fall, potted, and kept in the house
jiring the winter, to be planted in the spring. Some kinds do not
lOt at the joints of runners, and must be raised from cuttings
anted in the summer.

PETUNIA.

This may be raised from seed, but rarely can any good varieties
: produced. A few of the best colors can be produced by'lay-

VOL. II. NO. I. N

98 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

ers or cuttings which root freely in any good soil. They also trail,
along the ground, and cover it with their various colored flowers.
It may be planted just as was directed for verbena ; and the cut-,
tiiigs, after being rooted, must be kept in the house during winter ,

PHLOX DRUMMONDII. ,

This showy annual is raised from seed. Although all its flow i
ers are beautiful, yet it has this peculiarity — that no two roots pro ^
duce flowers alike. They vary in shade of color, or in the forn )
and size and color of the star in the centre, so that a large bed o a
it produces an almost endless variety. The seed should be sowi' c|
in rich, light soil, in pots, in March. It will then have attainei
sufficient size to transplant singly in an open bed by the time it i
warm enough. They should be set out about four inches apaii
each way. The seed should be carefully gathered as it ripens, a, |
the little pods which contain it open with a spring, which scatteifl
it. As soon as these pods turn to a yellowish color they must bi li
picked and laid by to dry.

VIII. OF PLANTS KEPT IN ROOMS.

Plants kept in close rooms require much care in order to keei i
them in even a tolerable condition. But it is gratifying to obser^i ♦{]
that scarcely a parlor can be found without these delightful orn:t ■,
ments ; and the humblest cottager is glatldened by her neat pot ti ,,
roses, or her beautiful geraniums. Many are always in good coii- .
dition and thriving, yet some seem to be looking forward as anxiousll ■;.
as a consumptive patient for the opening of spring, when they msl .
turn out and breathe the fresh air and look the sun full in the fact ,.

Plants are very apt to be killed by kindness, in ihe house durir la
the winter. They are of course kept in rooms but partially lightd'
their roots are often drenched with water, their leaves suffered i
collect a covering of floating dust, the temperature of the room |
kept up to seventy or eighty degrees in the day time and at niglj
suffered to fall down almost to the freezing point, — a change sui
ficient to throw a man into a fit of rheumatism, and in the mid
of all this their guardians wonder that they do not thrive. Und",
such treatment it should not be expected. ,

The temperature of the room should never be suffered to h^
below forty degrees, but should be kept uniformly below six1|

I

farmers' miscellany. 99

legrees ; and all sudden changes in it should be avoided. If the
iteady coal fire be kept in one room and the plants in another,
connected with it by .folding doors, the temperature will generally
pe kept high enough. Great care should be taken at night that
hey do not get chilled or frozen. A moderately damp atmosphere
3 better than a dry one.

They should have as much light as possible ; if not, the leaves

/ill grow slender and pale, and the whole plant W'ill acquire an

nhcalthy appearance. A room with a south or southeastern ex-

osure is the best, and they should be kept near the window.

I Every day that the weather will permit, the window should be

pened a little to admit the fresh air. This is very necessary for

16 health and vigor of the plants.

They should be regularly w'atered. This does not by any means

Dnsist in drenching them with water ; but whenever the earth in

le pot is beconiing dry, and not before, water should be applied

i sufficient quantity to wet the whole mass. Succulent plants

lid bulbs do not require much water unless whilst flowering ; once

week will be found often enough. Plants should be watered in

le morning. Liquid manure may be advantageously applied to

jich as continue growing through the winter.

The foliage should be kept free from dust. Occasionally the

irth on the surface of the pots should be stirred to a little depth,

' promote the circulation of air about the roots. If the plant is

ihealthy, wash it clean, both leaves and stalk — remove half an

ch of earth and supply its place with pulverized charcoal,

irough which it is to be watered. All decayed leaves should be

moved.

All woody plants require more or less pruning. This should be
)ne directly after they are done flowering, or early in the spring.
Ither in the spring or fall, the roots should be examined, and if
'ey are decayed or matted, they should be removed, and the
]ant repotted in one of a larger size — unless it is desirable to keep
te plant small — and fresh earth added. A portion should be re-
lived from the surface of all the pots, and a top-dressing of new
ill given. It will be very servicable to frequently stir the earth
the pots during the winter, loosening it with a sharp pointed
ck, as deep as possible without injuring the roots. This should
I done when the earth is dry, just before watering it. In the

100 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

spring, as the weather becomes warm, the plants should gradually
be accustomed to the air, by giving it free admission ; and abou
the middle of May or the first of June, they may be carried out
They should not be placed in full glare of the sun, as shininj
full on the pots, its heat will be apt to destroy them, but in th
shade of a hedge or wall, where the sun will fall on them morn
ing and evening. The pots should never be exposed to the sun
it is a good plan to plunge them in the earth up to the brin
which serves to keep up a uniform moisture ; or a level bed ma
be made in a shady situation, upon which may be poured a covei
ing of lime left after whitewashing, and on this, a layer two (
three inches deep, of coal' ashes well packed down, and on thissi
the pots. During the summer, they should be watered evei
evening, and in very warm, dry weather, in the morning. Whe
not in flower, they may be frequently showered from the rose
a watering-pot ; but when in bloom, it injures the petals of tl
flowers.

On the approach of cold nights in the fall, the pots should "
washed off clean, and where they have not been before changetjl
a top-dressing of fresh soil should be added, and then brought in '
the house. But they should not be exposed to any artificial hf
till the air of the house is reduced to 40°. Through the day th
should have free air, taking care to exclude it early in the aftt
noon, if there is danger of a cool night. The great difficulty » .,:
keeping plants in good order in a room, is, that they are apt to haji
too little light, and very often too much water, and are exposi
to ruinous changes of temperature.

Pots should be well drained by placing a few broken pieces !
earthen over the hole in the bottom. This is necessary not orj
to carry off surplus wet, but also prevent the roots from groi
ing through. The pans in which pots are set should never ha'
water standing in them, except in the case of those plants wh(
natural habits require abundance. But if water runs through,
must be poured out. Where plants have been frozen, they shoi
not be thawed in a warm air, nor the sun suffered to shine uf
them. They should be showered with cold water till all the fr
is out of the leaves, and then kept in a shady and cool place
they have recovered.

In removing plants from the open ground to pots, for the wint '

i

TS

farmers' miscellany. 101

Teat care is necessary not to break the fibres of the roots. They
Ihould be taken up with as much earth as possible, the roots
pread out equally on all sides, as the earth is put in ; shake the pot,
o settle the earth firmly around them. Give them a good water-
flor, soaking the earth effectually. The same care is necessary in
emoving cuttings and layers into their respective pots.

There is no trouble in removing plants from one pot to another.
They can be taken out with the ball of earth entire and placed
a the centre of the new pot, fresh earth shaken in around them,
nd gently pressed down. If the ball does not turn out readily, in-
ert the pot and strike on the top of it with something solid, or push
-ently with a stick, through the bottom, at the same time hold-
ig the hand firmly on the earth in it, to prevent its falling.

Plants are apt to be infested with insects — the most common of
,'hich, is the aphis — usually called the green fly. Enclose the
ilant in some tight vessel, and fill it with tobacco-smoke for one
r two minutes. This wall kill them ; or they may be destroyed
y hand. The red spider can be killed by fumigating with
lilphur.

j When flowers have withered after being cut off from the plant,
jiey may be revived by cutting off their stems and immersing
aem for a few minutes in hot or boiling w^ater. When it is
esirable to preserve flowers or buds, after being cut, for several
ays, they should have their stems immersed in water and placed
1 a perfectly dark place till wanted.

ANIMALS USEFUL TO THE FARMER.

Under this head we are not about to write a dissertation on the
orse, the ox, the sheep, nor the alpaca. This, we fear, would be
libor lost. But we mean to call the attention of the farmer to
pme other creatures, which are not only sadly neglected by him,
tut actually destroyed wantonly, and whose life, we should per-
aps be fully warranted in saying, would have saved to him more
lian the value of many sheep. They are none other than the
Ittle birds. If it were only for the beauty they add to this world,
■e should think that alone would restrain the wanton hand that
jestroys them. But few^ are aware of their actual use.

102 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

. Different families of birds are adapted to various purposes ; bul
those that inhabit our woods and frequent our farms and dwell in
the neighborhood of man, are mostly those that live upon insect!
and worms. And there can be little doubt but the increasine^
ravages committed every year by injurious insects may be attrli,
buted to the destruction of those birds which eat them. Th
family of " woodpeckers" are provided with a bill fitted to exlrac'
the grubs from trees. They walk up and down the body of tht|l
tree, prying into every crack in the bark, picking up every littllj
worm they see, and probing each hole the grub has made, to fimti'
their prey. But they have nearly disappeared before the guns o
the rascally, idle boys. And to this cause we may probably la;
the growing destruction of forest and fruit trees by the boring iiwj
sects. These birds were very abundant in our boyish days, bu
we see no more of them now, from the big " red-head" in th
forest and orchard, down to the little *' chickadee" in the doOiw
yard.

The common caterpillar that lives on the apple and cherry trei ,
is increasing in numbers every year, and doing an immensity (W
injury ; and the farmer or the fruit grower is called upon to dc
stroy them with his own hands. The birds — their natural enemy- ,--
have disappeared. We have seen, this spring, thousands of tre*<f||'
entirely stripped of their leaves by these insects, and on the Ian
attached to one country seat in the county of Westchester, we sai «
a row of nearly a hundred wild cherry trees covered with the^!^
nests, and not a leaf. The common robin has been often seen 1
sit by these nests and eat the caterpillars from them ; and we aif
informed by a gentleman that a pair of wrens that had built a ne|
in a knot-hole in the side of his house, were seen for one whof
day carrying these insects from a web in a neighboring tree, i
their young. We have seen the bluebird do the same with t\
black caterpillar that feeds on the elm. But these harmless 'a;
useful birds have not escaped the young sportsman, and the orcl'
ards must suifer the consequences.

The "Maybeetle" that feeds upon the leaves of the chen
tree, does great damage to the fruit grower.

The following curious calculation will show the value of ev<
one pair of these insect-eating birds to the farmer. It is taktf,
from " Anderson's Recreations :"

farmers' miscellany. 103

" A cautious observer, liaving found a nest of five young jays,

)bserved, that each of these birds, while yet very young, con-

fumcd at least fifteen of these full-sized grubs in one day, and of

pourse would require many more of a smaller size. Say that, on

|in average of sizes, they consumed twenty apiece, these for the five,

oake one hundred. Each of the parents consumes say fifty ; so

hat the pair and family devour two hundred every day. This,

n three months, amounts to twenty thousand in one season. But

js the grub continues in that state four seasons, this single pair,

'^ith their family alone, without reckoning their descendants after

j^e first year, would destroy eighty thousand grubs. L'^t us sup-

jose that the half, namely, forty thousand, are females, and it is

inown that they usually lay two hundred eggs each, it will appear

lat no less than eight millions have been destroyed, or prevented

om being hatched, by the labors of a single family of jays. It

i by reasoning in this way, that we learn to know of what impor-

;mce it is to attend to the economy of nature, and to be cautious

jow we derange it by our short-sighted and futile operations."

We say, then, spare the little birds. They may be of use in

living thousands of dollars to the farmer, and we hope no one

rill allow the boys to murder them for sport.

We wish, for the same reasons as above, to recommend the toads

j) mercy. They are generally regarded as a loathsome thing, and

ften killed. But we can assure our readers that they are very

>eful in a garden for destroying insects. Peach trees are often

ifested with a7iis, which feed upon the fruit just as it begins to

pen, eating a little hole into the peaches, which causes them to

it before they are ripe. Now we can recommend the toad as an

jfectual remedy against them. Make a box around the foot of

je tree and place one of these animals in it, and he will keep it

ftirely clear. He may also keep off, in some measure, the regu-

1 peach insect. For the latter purpose, however, we would

ijlher encourge the small species of woodpecker to live near us.

'Some of these small birds, by proper care, can be rendered quite

:ne and domestic. The wren and the bluebird can be easily col-

J:ted around a garden by simply putting up little boxes on poles

Ir them to build in ; and the little wren will destroy the worms

;d millers, and sing you many a merry note into the bargain.

104 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICULTURE.

The great improvements made in agriculture in Britain are ol
ten spoken of, and it may be interesting to some to know whai
they a/e. We therefore propose, occasionally, to lay before on
readers some of the most prominent ones, and leading to the moi
manifest results.

To the slow and cautious farmers of this country, many of thei
will appear strange — and we will not find fault with such men,
they pronounce them incredible. But they are nevertheless, recorr
ed facts.

The first is a letter in the Farmer's Magazine, London, from
gentleman who had purchased a farm of 130 acres, in Essex, fi
^3,250, and he states he has already expended £5,200 in permi
nent improvements — about |26,000. The result is not given,
the improvements have but just been completed, and among thei
between 80 and 90 miles of drains, being four yards apart and .'
inches deep.

In 1799, Arthur Young said in his report on the improved staj"
of the farms in Lincolnshire, which had been produced by ti
year's labor in embanking and draining, and which occupy betw€
20 and 30 square miles of country — " Its produce before
small — letting for not more than Is. 6d. per acre, but now fnj
11 to 17 shillings an acre." Another fen was made, by drainiti
worth £20 an acre, which had before been only worth ,£3 — aJ
the rent raised from 7 to 20 shillings ; and he adds, " there cam
have been less than 150,000 acres drained, and improved on
average, from 5 to 25 shillings an acre."

We continue our quotations from the same author. In spez
of drainage in other parts of Lincolnshire, he says of land whA'
before was good for nothing, that, " though the expense had befl
estimated at £400,000— its value was rated at £2,000,000, h
ing a profit of 1,600,000 to the proprietors.

The same writer mentions another tract of land of 17,01
acres, which "before draining was worth but from Is. to 3s. <
per acre — now it is from 10 to 30s." We might go on quotiU
from this writer, instances of the same nature to almost any i^
tent. But these only show that the soil is improved, from 'k
fact that the higher rent could not be had unless the land had

farmers' miscellany. 105

reased in productiveness. But the benefit is not all on the side
f the proprietor. The tenant is glad to pay the increased rent,
nd finds his interest in it, as the following will show :
" The parish of Limber, 4,000 acres, was formerly let to four
•nants, at 2s. 6d. per acre, and all four became bankrupts. It
as been enclosed — is well farmed, and at the present rent the
mants are doing well. In some instances, considerable fortunes
ave been made."
In many cases the tenants join with the proprietors in the cost
t improvements, and in some cases even make them alone. One
islcince is cited where the annual bill of the tenant for bones was
om ^1,500 to jE 1,800. " He died a few years since, and left a
irtune."

Mr. Pusey, in his report on the agriculture of Lincolnshire,
tore the Royal Agricultural Society of England, records the
Hewing remarkable fact. The gentleman with whom he was
urneying, pointed out to him a pillar 70 feet high by the road-

^v.

" It was," says Mr. Pusey, "a land lighthouse, built no longer
me than the middle of the last century, as a nightly guide over
e dreary *\'aste w'hich still retains the name of Lincoln Heath,
it is now converted into a pattern of farming. This Dunston
liar, lighted no longer time back for so singular a purpose, did
ipear to me a striking witness of the spirit and industry which

our days has raised the thriving homesteads around it, and
; read a mantle of teeming vegetation to its very base ; and it was
atainly surprising to discover at once the finest farming I had
<er seen, and the only land lighthouse that was ever raised. Now
lat the pillar has ceased to cheer the wayfarer, it may serve not
I iy as a monument of past exertions, but as a beacon to en-
mrage other land owners in converting their dreary moors into

lilar scenes of thriving industry. Within living memory it was
i no means useless : for Lincoln Heath was not only without
(Uure, but without even a road. When the late Lady Robert

inners wished to visit Lincoln, from her residence at Bliholm,
rrroora was sent forward previously, who examined some tracks
?il returned to report that one was found practicable. Another
f fiily was lost in this heath twice in one night, in returning from

VOL. II. — NO. I. O

II

106 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

a ball at Lincoln, and was obliged to remain upon the waste tlL
morning."

Since 1823 one portion of this heath (no longer) has been occu-
pied by one tenant, who has realized a large fortune ; and if suclj
are the results under a heavy rent, w^hat may we not expect froni|
improved agriculture in this country where the owners till thesoij
and have no outgo in the shape of $5 to $7 for each acre for rent
And what would our farmers think of farming, when, besides thij
rent, a capital of $20,000 is required to carry on the operations |
But such is the case in some parts of England. f

We shall close this article by quoting from an article in th'
London Quarterly Review, a passage on the subject of irrigation
" Sir Thomas Ackland's farm of Clotsham, which hangs almos
precipitously over the valley of Holnicote, at 1100 feet above th-
level of the sea, affords a good instance. *

The name of Catch Meadow indicates the process by which th' '
irrigation is effected. The ground is not reshaped by the costl
process required for the irrigation of meadows that are naturall
level, but ' shallow gutters are carried around the slopes of tl
shelving field, tier above tier ; and no separate channel is requirt'
for carrying the water off, because after flowing over one carri'
it is caught in the next below, from which circumstance the nan
is derived.' The ease with which these catch meadows are form( '
is remarkable. A field at Winsford, so steep that one could m
climb it wnthout the aid of hands, having been limed and plant* '
with potatoes for two years, and overlaid with water-gutters alor
the slope, has been converted at a trifling cost, from w^aste, rou£i ■
ground, worth 5s. an acre, to a field bearing perpetual grass, worr#
at least 40s. an acre ; and Mr. Blake, of Upton has brought lew
than 400 acres, which had not been let for JEl an acre, to produ - *
j£1200 a year, chiefly by catch meadows, which he formed out
moor land, and lets as summering ground to the lowland farmei

S

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 107

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

^ooD's Class-Rook of Botany.— Part 1. The Elements of Botanical Science ;
Part 2. The Natural Orders.

1 This Botany is designed to give the genera and species of the
i lants of New-England and of New-York, arranged in the orders
r the Natural System, as illustrated by the most distinguished
otanists in Europe and America, and ending with the Ferns. As
e author is a correct and intelligent teacher of Botany, and
,iderstands the science in its present improved state, he is admi-
ibly fitted to adapt the work to the great object of instruction in
is branch of Natural Science. Such a work has long been a de-
i|leratum in our country. Except among a few connoiseurs in
j)tany, no progress has been made in the teaching in our semina-
rs, as all those who saw the meagre results of the artificial sys-
tin of Linnaeus, have felt little interest in continuing their efforts.
' ue, Linneus accomplished a vast amount of good in this study ;
\t he adopted the artificial system only for the reason that no
Itter method could then be formed, and led the way, so far as
h knowledge enabled him, in laying the foundation of that Natu-
r System which has been immeasurably improved, and indeed
bm carried to all that degree of excellence which the advanced
ste of botanical knowledge admits. All this is unfolded with
g;at clearness and excellence in this work. The language of the
J'tural System, as it has been so admirably presented in Gray's
Ijtanical Text Book, forms the first part of this Botany ; and
lit natural orders, so far as illustrated in the great work of Torrey
al Gray, with their names, constitute the second part. The ana-
Heal tables, which come under the descriptions of the several
0 ers, lead on wath great ease to the genera, while the tables of
tl Linnean classes and orders conduct the student, by the most
ety steps, to the natural orders, or the genera, where the plant

108 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

under analysis may be found. All the use which Linnaeus designed i

thus made of his artificial system. The student will be both delightet

and surprised to find the path so direct and easy to the objeo

sought. All the difficulties, which arise from the nature of the ol

jects, will not indeed be made to disappear, but they become less ni

merous and less formidable. The plants, too, will be studied in thei

natural relations, associated with their kindred genera and specie

and in their natural families. Structural Botany is consequent)

made the basis of the arrangement. The logic and taste will I

gratified by the systematic method, and the improvement in soni

of the particulars. A brief synopsis will make this obvious.

The elementary tissues and compound organs are first presente
This leads to the obvious great division of plants,

a. Flowering or Phenogamous plants, produced from seeds.

b. Flowerless or Cryptogamous plants, produced from spores.
To this division another name may be given from the seeds a:

spores, the former designating the Cotyledonous, and the latti
JlcUyledonous plants.

The flowering plants are divided into two great natural divisio;
Exogens and Endogens.

1. Exogens, grow by layers or exteriial accretions, bear retu
lafed leaves which fall off by an articulation, have discotyledont
seeds ; bark, wood and pith separable.

2. Endogens, grow by internal accretions, bear leaves vr\
parallel veins, have monocotyledonous seeds ; bark, wood and p
not separable.

The Exogens are divided into

Class I. ^ngeiospermsj having covered seeds, as in the o
pink, lilac.

II. Gymnosperms, with naked seeds, as in the pine, fir, I

The Endogens are divided into

Class III. Jlglumaceous^ destitute of glumes or scales, as <
chis, Lily.

IV. Glumaceous^ have glumes or chaff, as the rye, wheat, •
all the grasses.

The Cryptogamous are divided into

Class V. Acrogens^ grow by extension of their point, as fei
mosses, &c.

NEW PUBLICATIOXS. 109

VI. Thallogens^ grow into a flat expansion, as seaweed, lich

IS, &c.

The clearness and beauty of this natural system, thus dependent
on structure and growth, command universal approbation. So far
there is little improvement to be expected or desired.

Class I. Exogens, then divided into subclasses, depending
upon the corol — as

Sub-class 1. Polypetalous, p. 13, 2. MonopetalouSy p. 168,
and 3. ApetalouSj p. 314. This constitutes the arrangement, more
nearly approaching nature than any other yet proposed. Under
these divisions are arranged the several Orders of the Exogens,
lin their improved form and description, and the genera and species
lead to the desired result. It thus is evident that this work is
anique in our country; unlike any other ; superior in its applica-
tion to any other ; and giving the student advantages possessed by
no other. It has deserved popularity where it has been examined
lind used. It elevates Botany as a study, as well as a science. It
:annot fail of exerting a happy influence on the mind. C. D,

Rochester, June 14, 1845.

Traxsactions of New-York State Agricultural Society, together with an
abstract of the Proceedings of the County Agricultural Societies, 1841-2-3-4.

The current age is a remarkable one, if for nothing else, from
the fact that every thing of a public nature is done through large
organizations. Whether in morals, benevolence, politics or sci-
?nce, all is done by conventions or societies. The people of the
present day are unmovable, individually, and we are inclined to
the belief, that, were it not for the movements of masses organized
and combined, such would be the apathy of men, that they would
kink back into a solitary, selfish misanthropy. Great impulses are
iiecessary to set the wheels in motion, and when started, the steam
nust be kept up almost to the bursting point, or the huge car of
pociety begins to retrogade towards utter inactivity.
We have sometimes felt disposed to find fault with such a state

)f things, and look upon it as furnishing evidence of a sort of
jiegative tendency to dissolution. But when we remember that

he world has long been, and is still becoming more and more

110 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

artificial every day, we settle down more satisfied to let it take its
own course. Yet we are by no means indifferent lookers on, while
the play is acting. We watch with deep interest the movements
of all the old machinery, and when any new is introduced, we re-
gard it with still deeper interest, to ascertain how it will work in,
cog for cog, with the old. We seem to live in the second edition
of the age of the pyramids — revised and somewhat improved, per-
haps— but an age when thousands must combine to build up those
structures which posterity will gaze at, and wonder, as we do a1
the huge piles on the sands of Memphis. That was an age o]
brute force, leaving vast records of what human strength could do
The improvement in this is, that science, and the knowledge o
the laws of nature, are superseding physical power, and steam if
made to do the labor of man. Thus the monuments which w(
shall leave, are those which, invisible to the eye, are built up u
the heart of every child that shall ever be born.

It must be acknowledged that to this law of association, if WH
may call it so, is the present state of society to be attributed
and in no other place do the effects of this law show themselvfe<|
more plainly, than in the business of agriculture. We are per
fectly aware, that the benefits of association for the promotion am
improvement of farming, are generally attributed to the concomi
tant circumstances, such as the Fairs which are held annually, wit]
great excitement — the spirit of emulation aroused by premium
and the comparison of each other's products, &c. ; but we profesj
to look deeper, and account for it upon this great law that i (
governing the age. Men will do great things in masses, wh^i
they will do nothing singly. But attribute it to what cause W'||
may, nothing can be plainer, to a mere superficial observer, thai
the fact that since the institution of agricultural societies, a grea
improvement has been made in the art and science of farming
And if they continue to be conducted on plans commensurate wit)
the demands of improvement, we may safely congratulate our
selves upon the prospect of a still more rapid growth in prosperi
ty, and the attainment of no mean degree of eminence in agriculi
tural operations.

The first agricultural society in the State of New- York, wa
organized on the 26th of February, 1791, in the Senate Chamber
in the city of New-York. Chancellor Livingston, Simeon De Witt

NEW PUBLICATIONS. J21

and Doctor Mitchell— all names of note— were engaged in the

^ jenterprise, and drew up the " Rules and Regulations for the Gov-

' fernment of the Society." The object of this association was not

solely the encouragement of agriculture, but it was for the " Pro-

;. Imotion of Agriculture, Manufactures and Arts." The Society

was not incorporated till the 12th of March, 1793. Immediate

efforts were made to render the enterprise useful. A circular let-

er was issued, asking information on various points of husbandry ;

md it is worthy of remark, that the same questions, or many 'of

hem at least, may be, and are asked, at the present day ; and so

ittle attention has been given to them, that they still remain un.

t mswerod. What effect this Society produced upon the condition

^ )f farming, at that time, we are not able to ascertain. The volume

.f Transactions published in 1801, contains numerous essays and

ccounts of experiments, far superior to many of those put forth

t the present day, and evincing an interest in the subject, which

vouU do honor to many men of similar stations now. These

rticles are from the pens of such men as Dr. Mitchell, Robert R.

!.ivingston, Ezra L'Hommedieu, &c., &c.— men whose hearts

[ frere in the cause, and whose efforts deserved the reward of suc-

i ess.

!: The discoveries of modern science had not opened to them the
f Rations of organic and inorganic matter— the true constitution of

• plants, animals, and the soil— and consequently, their reasoning
» h regard to the action of manures and the life of vegetables, would
? Ippeartousveryunphilosophical. But let us remember, that to our
. hildren, our's may appear equally so. Satisfied as we may be that

• ire have arrived at the truth, it cannot be denied that the astonishing
: ^scoveries of the present age, instead of fixing as absolutely cer-
■' am any conclusions, have a tendency rather to make us fear that a
: [iture day may show us to be in equal error, with our predecessors.
^ ! In some things the writers of that day have taken a step in ad-
pee of our own times. As an example, take the following ex-

; [act, from an essay " on the growth and nourishment of plaints,"
I which the writer has gone beyond that sect who insist upon the
mosphere as the only source of carbon to plants.
Page 336. "I believe we are on safe ground, when we say the
lant receives no nourishment from the earth. Many have been
le experiments of raising plants, shrubs and trees, in boxes filled

112 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

with earth ; and this earth being weighed after the shrub or tre
had grown to maturity, and after taking out the tree, the dirt is
not found to have lost any of its weight. It thence follows that
the earth is only a bed to hold up the plant or the tree that it maj
receive its nourishment from some other source."

Here will be seen at a glance the whole doctrine of atmospherii
food, which a certain class of physiologists contend for, and hav»
sought in modern times to establish by reference to the same ex
periment. But we must enter our unqualified protest against th<
doctrine as a whole, because —

In the first place, we do not believe the experiment. The \\0i
which chemistry has lately thrown upon the structure and compel
sition of vegetables, makes the contrary too true to allow us t
believe any such thing. The fault lies in the way the experimer
has been tried, as can readily be shown. Thus —

The ash left by burning dry oak wood with the dry leav
amounts to only 4.71 lbs. in 100. Now supposing the trees e:
perimented upon to contain the same proportion and to have bei
raised from the seed in the box, and there to have attained t]
weight of 5 lbs., then the quantity of ash left would be but
of a pound, which is all the inorganic matter that could ha
have been extracted from the soil, and being so small, would vc;
probably not be observed in weighing, especially when the diffe
ence in the moisture of the soil might have compensated for t!
whole loss.

Again, if the soil serves only to keep the tree in an uprig
position, why will the tree not continue to thrive if cut off direct
above the roots and inserted in the soil, or merely propped up pe
pendicularly. Too much is now known of vegetable physioloj
to leave room for such theories. Plants draw nourishment frc
the air, but they draw equally important food from the soil.

The practice of very many farmers at this day would seem
be built upon such a theory as that we have noticed. Althou;
the use of manures is well known, but probably not thorough
understood as regards the mode of their action, and though thi
application is insisted on by all rational farmers, yet raultituc
seem to view them as of little or no consequence, and suffer th(
to lie and waste unused.

Such theories as this are, however, only the exceptions

N E W P U B L I C A T I C N S . ] ] 3

this volume of the Transactions. As a general thing, it contains
p amount of valuable common sense matter, well digested opinion
md strong facts, which is surpassed by no volume published since
n the more palmy and flourishing years of the society.
I From the early part of this century till 1832, we fmd no great
■vidence of the progress of this association. At this time a num-
ber of gentlemen assembled in Albany and organized again an
(gricultural society. Little interest, however, was excited in the
;ubject, and it sustained little more than a nominal existence al-
hough incorporated by the legislature, till 1841. It was then
oorganized, and an appropriation was made, by the state, of
■ .MOO a year for five years, to be applied by the state and county
I'ties, for the promotion of agriculture and household manufac-
ues in the state. From this time we may date the more impor-
mt operations of this association ; and for the four past years of
s existence it has annually given to the legislature a large vol-
me of reports of its doings, to which is added a large amount of
|.atter which is unfortunately quite unconnected with its opera-
■ons, and much of which, it is proper to say, is mixed up with
ijue speculation and some gross errors. We regret that we are
iiipelled to say this, for those who are employed in the prepara-
on of such books should be exceedingly careful what kind of
alter is incorporated in it. The farmer is not as yet a man of
ience, and is not consequently capable of separating what is
rong from what is right. The desire for knowledge relating to
s business is gaining ground, and is already very extensive. All
at is written on the subject is eagerly sought for, and a laro-e
3rtion of intelligent agriculturists are ready to seize upon any
|)unsel that promises to show them how they may increase their
jops and compete with more productive portions of the country,
'hus they are ready to receive as true the principles advanced by
jominent men in whom they have been accustomed to place con-
ilence ; and if the practice does not prove the doctrine true, they
56 disgusted and discouraged, and often ready to recur to their
•fl condemnation of book- farming. The agricultural population
i|becoming every year more and more ready to enter upon the
ijprovemcnts which have within a few years been introduced.
'It they must have the results of their own experience to confirm
teir experiment or the whole is counted false. They need cautious
VOL. n. — xo. I. P

114 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

candid encouragement. All that is recommended for their benefi
must be true, and bear out its recommendation in practice. The
abominate speculation and mere theory ; and thus those visionar
enthusiasts who would raise farming by one grand effort to pei
fection, will find them a capital check upon their headlong enthu
siasm.

We will not be understood as condemning the volumes befoi
us. On the contrary we give great credit to the state society fc
the work. At the same time we unhesitatingly say, that the|
contain much that had better been left out, for it has no connei^
tion with agriculture ; and some which had better never bee-
written, for it is full of error, and as such renders the authOn
and ihe Society liable to censure. The latter appears under tl
sanction of science, whilst true science will reject it.

We think the Society have erred in the choice of men to deliVi
the addresses at the annual Fair. Not but they are mtn arapl^
sufficient to do justice to the high claims of agriculture; but it is
subject whiih needs not eulogium nor pra.se. These it receiv
from all men, and iis highest honoris the prosperity and happine
it confers upon a nation. The farmer needs instruction, not ))rais€
and we submit it as our humble opinion that an address filled \\t
good practical information — examining briefly the principl
of the practice of agticulture, and setting forth inducements to
vancement in knowltdge of the art, w ould be vastly more usi
to the thousands of heaers, ihan poetic rhapsodies. And in si
ing this we are conscious tiiat we do not speak unadvisedly,
know it to be the opinion of a large — we might perhaps say — tl
largest portion of the fanning community, who aitenjj these Fairi
Th(^y are common sense mtn and want to hear common sense.

We must make an exception here in favor of the hist preside)
of the Society, in all whose productions we notice that intima'
knowledge of the wants of the farmer, and the capacity to me;
them, that makes his writings all assume a liighly practical chara
ter. But we would not be called fauli-finders, any farther tli;
we deserve it, and in these remarks we feel confident that we a
correct.

Since the state, by legislative aid, came to the rescue, and bcgr
to uphold its own true interests, by encouraging the farmer, tl)
state and county societies have made rapid advance. Many of tl

I

NEW P U R L I C A T I O X S . ] 15

;ounties soon organized societies under the new law and establish-

(1 annual Fairs, which have generally been kept up, and wiih in-

reasing interest. In some counties, however, and some of them

,,ot less populous or less interested in agriculture than others, no

• lovement has even yet been made. From some cause, which we can-

ot fathom, an extensive prejudice fills the minds of farmers in some

(arts of the country against the use of such societies. This is not

S it should be. In this, all should be united. In union is strength ;

nowledge is catching in some measure, and when men associate

1 a common effort they can do what they please. The results of

lose societies which have gone into operation, show this to be

kninently true in regard to farming. We will not say that all is

wing to this, but to whatever cause it is attributed, we must give

rge credit to this for the rapid and real improvement which has

■en of late so extensively seen in the farming interest. These

cleties have done good and are capable of doing much more. But

e opposition or even the disaffection of a few may essentially

nder their progress.

A good feature connected with this subject, is the formation of
rmeis' clubs for the free and social discussion of the various sub-
cts connected with the pursuit. These, we believe, wherever
liey have been formc-d, have exerted a salutary influence and have
il/akened a lively zeal in those who are engaged in them. The
iports which have been published in numerous papers, show the
iScussions to be of a somewhat rambling conversational character,
It we will not say that they may not be better on this account.
■ "" e are, nevertheless, inclined to the opinion that a little more or-
cr and system would be preferable.

In 1841, the State Society held its first annual Fair under the
r.w organization at Syracuse, and in the following years at Albany,
Jichester and Poughkeepsie. They seem to have been character-
ijd by great enthusiasm and increasing interest. They have
- f^med an attraction not only for the farmers of this state, but
tl)se of some of the most distant states in the Union are seen
t!^re. And the manufacturer also sends there his wares, which
h/e formed a very important item in the great variety exhibited.
lie crowds collected on these occasions, amounting to several ihou-
Scds, are the strongest evidence of the hold they have taken upon
tl public mind. The present year is the last of the term for

116 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

which the appropriation was made by the sta^e, but tbe legisla- i
ture at their last session have renewed the grant, and we may look <
with confidence for continued zeal and increasing prosperity ant .■;
usefulness, unless, among other fruits, some apple of discord shouU
find its way into the concern.

For each of the past four years, the Society has made a repor
of its doings and those of the county societies. These form th(
volumes whose title is placed at the head of this article. Witl
some portions of these books we might lawfully find much fault
But we will pass that by for the present, lest in denouncing indi
vidual errror, we should be accused of being inimical to thewlioh
What fault we have found above, we were, for this reason half ir
clined to blot out after it was written. But, as Pilate sai(
" what I have written I have written."

And we will close this article with a few suggestions to sue
individuals as have the management of the numerous Fairs that c
cur annually in the various parts of this state. _

1. Would it not be well to diminish the number of premiuij|
on animals, and increase the number and amount of those on tl
products of the farm and garden, and household manufacture
The reasons for this suggestion are, in few words, these : The o
ject of premiums ought to be to encourage and stimulate the re
farmers — those who live by tilling the soil. Men of large fortun
can pay enormous prices for fine horses or high bred cattle, ai
can always carry off the prize, although it is a matter of no col
sequence to them, inasmuch as they have purchased them for thif
own pleasure and use. In these the common farmer can offer ij
competition. But in the products of the soil he can vie with tj
wealthiest, if he will study his business, and especially if the pi
depends upon the economical production of a crop. The interle*^
of the country also, we think, require this, for the direct prodi"
of the soil is of the first importance in the support of the peop

2. We would suggest the offering of premiums, and so large
to attract proper attention, on new articles of culture. It is liigl
probable that by this means those soils which have ceased to b(
their former burdens might be made to produce abundant cro
and thus add to the wealth and happiness of the nation.

3. Complaints are sometimes made of favoritism in conferri
prertiiums. This might be avoided by having all articles numbei

f

i

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 117

nstead of having the maker's or owner's name attached. It would
i.t least take away all excuse from grumblers.

4. We would suggest the propriety of having lectures, or at
east addresses, of a practical character, as well as scientific, deli-
ered at these Fairs. They should be short and comprehensive,
nd two or three may be given on each day. Besides the instruction
raparted at the time, they would serve to awaken an interest which
v'ould spread itself into all neighborhoods, and be productive of
asting benefits.

' And lastly, we would suggest the importance of at least attempt-
^g the formation of clubs under the auspices of the local socie-
ies. We are satisfied that this is the true way to stir up the far-
mers of this country to improvement — to cultivate their minds
rider the influence of social feelings, and thus secure the two
reat objects of prosperity and happiness.

|HE Farmers' and Emigrants' Hand-book : Being a complete guide for the
! farmer and the emigrant, comprising the clearing of forest and prairie land — gar-
I dening — farming generally — farriery — cookery — and the prevention and cure of
I diseases ; with copious hints, recipes and tables: By Josiali T. Marshall, author of
I the "Emigrants' True Guide." Second edition, revised. New-York — D. Appleton
& Co., 200 Broadway. Philadelphia— Geo. S. Appleton, 148 Chesnut street. 1845.

Probably no book has been more needed for a few past years
^lan such an one as this. In the tide of emigration to the west,
osts have gone utterly ignorant of the wants and trials of a new
ountry, and consequently quite unprepared to meet them. This
•e know full well from personal observation, and often in that coun-
•y has it been our lot to condole with families who had gone there
ill of hope and expectation, but knew not that they were leaving
(hind them all the comforts they were to experience for years.
iLappy, comparatively, they who had the hardihood to struggle
lirough the trials and sickness they met, and find success at last,
uch a book as this before us would have been invaluable, and we
Ivise all who think of emigrating to buy it. We see only two
lings in it to find fault with. The author advises shooting birds
lat trouble the fruit — and he has given the old rates of postage
istead of the new. This is rather singular in a book published
nee Congress adjourned.

118 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Rheumatism— Acute and Chronic: A Prize Essay by G. C. Monell, M. D..
Newburgh, N. Y. Published for the Orange County Medical Society, pp. 144
H. G. Langley, 8 Aster House, N. Y.

We notice this essay for the purpose of commending it to oui
brethren in the profession of medicine. Restricted as such essayj
must necessarily be, it still furnishes almost all that is known of?
practical value as it regards cause, symptoms, diagnosis and treat-
ment. The essay is well put together, and its several parts an
well proportioned. It furnishes a great many authorities unde;
the several heads, which will be found of considerable value t(
the reader, as it will enable him to pursue the subject to a greate:
extent, if he chooses. A physician cannot study loo thorough!;
the several kinds of rheumatism, inasmuch as it is one of the mos
common diseases of our climate, all classes being subject to it, ex
cept children. Upon the whole, we regard this work as a mode
essay, being in spirit, style and arrangement worthy of imitatioi
hy all who write monographs of our diseases.

The Farmers' Library and Iwonthly Journal of Agriculture, No. 1; Julj
1845: Edited by John S. Skinner. Greeley & McElrath, Tribune Buildings. $5.(
per annum

Just as we are going to press we have seen the 1st No. of tb
above work, which of course we have not had time to examint
The first forty-eight pages are filled with a reprint of Petzholt'
Agricultural Chemistry ; the remaining sixty-four pages with essay
&c. A fine engraving of Stephen Van Rensselaer forms the till
page, and in the body of the work is an engraving of the Soutll
down prize wethers exhibited at the Smithfield Show, and one 0
the vegetable silk plant from Tripoli.

The name of the editor will be suflScient guarantee of th
character of this journal, which we cordially recommend to th
public.

CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANY. 119

CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANY.

EXPERIMENTS

SENT BY THE DORCHESTER FARMERS' CI.CB.

Having stated in April last, that I had on hand an expcrimen-

il investigation of the efficacy of the several new philosophic nos-

runis, recently offered to the agricultural community, it may be

ixpected that I should otTer, at least a partial report of their pro-

'- jressive indications, so far as the advance of the season may

I regret to say, they have, in no respect, exceeded the moderate
iews I had entertained of them, and freely expressed on the occa-
on alluded to ; yet T would feel wholly unauthorized, to pass a
Dnclusive judgment upon them, until final results, obtained by
. yself, and others, may have fully developed the degree of charac-
^r to which they may be entitled.

The guano, and the Haulerive solution, are alleged to be pro-

■ '.dive against Insects, as well as nutrifive— and to promote the
'- rowth of vegetables, in an extraordinary degree.

■ To these two points, I will concisely call your attention, as far

* I observation has enabled rae.

I have this season used the guano steep with a portion of my

* ed corn ; and agreeably to the rules prescribed by the venders
' ' the article ; that is, about 80 hours, in the solution, which was

•epared as directed by the same authorities. In the Hauterive
Mution, the grain was steeped as directed from 18 to 24 hours.

The fiehl in which the experiments were made, contains about
•'ty acres, and was placed under a winter furrow~as usual in ray
'Itivation— and manured, broadcast, in the spring— excepting
'jdy about two acres left for a fuller experiment.

I Several acres, embracing th? manured and unmanured, were
janted with each of the steeped grains, as well as the unsteeped.

120 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

and the whole accurately marked — and without these marks the]
cannot well be distinguished — no superiority indicating the steeped ;
portion, is discernible.

No part of the field is injured by the well known cut-worm!
{phalena devastator,) which has committed great ravages in thij;
country generally ; but I owe this exemption to the winter furi)
row, which exposed the pupa to frost ; indeed, the whole beiujiJi
free from this pest, the steeps cannot claim credit for it. ,;

But unfortunately for these steeps, as protective against insecUi^
several spaces of some square perches of my corn have been iclh
fested by numerous aphides on the roots, which I was led to dete«i
by the yellow color and stunted growth of the plant ; the micr(|tt
scope disclosed the agents of the mischief, which, at their firiii
period, were not visible to the naked eye, though subsequent!;;
plainly so ; these injured spaces were partly within the range <
each of the steeps — unequivocally contradicting the idea of the
protective character. Upon some portions of the injured spaces,
applied the guano in powder, mixed with three parts earth, wi
out any advantage yet experienced from it — but possibly thei
may be, in more time. With the same view to this insect, I
lately applied a strong solution of the guano about the roo
which will probably have an earlier and better effect. Indeed,
have no doubt this is the most economical and effective mode of
application for nutriment also ; the whole dose will then cor
within the immediate command of the organs designed by natu
to introduce it into the circulatory system, for the final purposes,
the plant ; and without waste.

I will here remark, that with one of the infested portions
corn, I made trial of a strong infusion of tobacco stems, pourii
around each plant half a pint of it. In a few days — to my surprise
for I had supposed the case desperate — the plants thus treated, fc
gan to assume a green color, and are now improving. ^

It is to be lamented, that a branch of science (entomology) ii
intimately connected with the farmer's interest, should be so mUj'
neglected. Were the habits of the numerous insects injurious to veg(
tation,intimately understood, the farmer would have his antidote i
the various tribes — perhaps infallibly at hand, on all occasions.
periodical entitled the "American Quarterly Journal of Agrici
ture and Science," lately established at Albany, New- York, condu(

i

CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANY. 121

d by Drs. Emmons anil Prime — gentlemen of eminence in science
has commenced, in its second number, a series of articles upon
isects injurious to vegetation, with descriptions and colored figures
f the insects; price three dollars per year. This Journal should
ave a place in every farmer's library. Without attention to this
nportant but neglected branch of science, the interests of the
•irmer will be eternally obnoxious to the fatal ravages of the
umerous insects that are annually multiplying in kind and num-
er, and frustrating his well planned and laborious designs.
\n instance of a new variety of these formidable pests, has late-
nt curred in our neighborhood, w^hich threatens our wheat crop,
. an unknown extent. A member of our Club (Dr. Tubman)
liclosed to me a few days ago, an insect from the head of his
-owing wheat, and feeding upon the grain. It is, as you will per-
i\r, a minute species of the " Calandra" family. It is not the
iCalandra gianaria," which we have had frequently in our grain,
hen housed, M'hich is a long, slender beetle ; but this, the new
le, is a short thick beetle — color silver gray, and four black dots
'\ the elytra — that is, two on each. The most of this group are
jrinidable enemies to the various kinds of grain.
I have placed on the table a small species of gryllus (grass-
ppper) which has, this season, for the first time, appeared in my
Ibacco beds, and done much injury. They were considerably
bted by a powder composed of soot and sulphur, sprinkled over
e beds before the dew had disappeared.

Now returning from this digression, to the manures, I will add
at the pouiirette, which on a former occasion, I informed you,
had prepared with sulphate of iron, I have recently applied to
y tobacco crop, two spoonfuls to the plant — it is quite inodorous;
d I think, rich — its efftcts will be reported when obtained.
I have in progress two experiments with electricity — abnosphe-
^ and terrestrial ; with the former, as you have just now seen,
my garden I have been the most successful ; the rows of rad-
les and corn were extended through the electrized space and on
' <ch side of it, and were planted at the same time and under equal
vantages ; those within the electric range — both corn and rad-
les, are as you have seen to-day, more than double the growth
d luxuriance of them without it. The upland rice, which you
w, passing through the range, and out of it, was pcrishiog from

VOL. ILrr-y^O. I. Q

122 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the drouth when the battery was applied, and no effect is seen ia
to be expected.

From the remarkably changeable temperature of the season.
varying frequently from sixteen to thirty degrees in twenty-fouiiji
hours, I was sanguine in the expectation of an unusual quantiljil 11
of thermo-electricity, developed in the eastern atmospheric cur-tW
rent, and I have not been disappointed; but how ihe galvanui'.k
plates have failed I am at a loss to conjecture.

This battery was settled precisely under the most recent methoc,!"'
and authority ; the plates of copper and zinc each four feet long i
and fourteen inches wide, were connected by a copper wire tre
bled and twisted, to ensure a full capacity for transmission, and al
buried.

Within the range were planted forty grains of corn ; as yet non ' ',1
of the plants evince any effect, except those nearly in contact ^vit
the connecting wire and with the flutes of the lattery ; and thost
as you have seen, are palpably injured in growth and appearanc(
compared with other portions ; possibly from an excess of the t/fc
trie aura, collected and accumulated by the long continued drouth
or waves of the free electric fluid — the all pervading ocean — co. ,
lected by the battery, and insulated and condensed by the excef;
sive aridity of the intermediate earth — by which the antagoniiiL
forces were held in suspense; thereby exerting an undue energy
upon the insulating walls and the immediately adjacent bodin
v'lthin their sphere ; analogous to the case of antagonist electric
ties, hovering in proximity in the clouds and earth, without powi
to overcome the resistance of the dry atmosphere between theu
and quiet the disturbed excitement.

I have another battery, planted a few days ago, embracing soir
tobacco plants and potatoes, and on a plan by which I may pn
bably unite the forces of the ihermo and hydro electric current
with which I hope to be more successful, unless the diouth be r
peated, and the caloric s^lspended — improbable events we wouli
hope.

Finally indeed, I may emphatically say — I offer for your ii,
spection some ammonia which, I obtained from rain water, aftt.
the late long continued drouth, when much of this article so essei,
tial to vegetation is necessarily accumuhited. You will j*ercei^j
that ihis ammonia retains the offtnsive odour derived from its p'l

CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANY. 123

rid origin — the dead carcasses of the earth ; — this fact, stated by
iiebig, is so singular, that I confess my incredulity until, a few
jears ago, I satisfied myself of its truth in regard to both snow
nd rain.
I have nothing to add, but to ask your pardon for the long race
have taken on one of my hobbies^ when really I had only intended
short canter.

JOSEPH E. MUSE.

Saturday, June 28, 1845.

PHILADELPHIA AND HORTICULTURE.

Gentlemen — It is a fact worthy of notice that in our large

■wns and their immediate vicinity, the most energetic and best

rected efforts for the improvement of the various branches of

ijriculture, spring up. Little as we might expect to find here a

jste for rural pursuits, it is nevertheless true, that within the brick

.|»d mortar walls of the city there actually is found a zeal and

iterprise, far outstripping the most active energies of the coun-

V. Very many there, are taking a deep and strong interest in

(• progress of agriculture, and directing to the subject an untiring

■ re and patient perseverance. And we need not marvel at it ; for

am ready to confess the surprise I feel, that any man who loves

ilture and worships nature's God, if only in a little corner of his

l|art — can ever be content — shut out from the green fields and trees

;[d flowers, and know no change of season but from the burning

sin of summer to the frosts and snows of winter. And I am not

Srprised, that under such circumstances men should try even on

teir few square feet of soil, to produce some of the fruits and

fvvers that waken remembrances of the country.

But this is not all. Our cities are of necessity the head quar-

s of science ; and it is there that its application to the arts must

tested. It requires leisure and money to carry out experiments

any branch of knowledge, and the farmer has no great share of

her. If then he labors to supply the large cities with food,

him remember that he may not only receive an equivalent in

tmey, but also in that knowledge which is both an aid to his

)or, and a special source of happiness to himself and his children.

1^ QTJARTERLY JOURNAL.

I was not fully aware of the extent to which these facts are
true till I made a visit a few clays since to the city of Philadel-
phia. I am no sight seer, and consequently did not employ much
time in looking up the lions of that city ; although I did more m
that way than I am in the habit of doing. But I was gratified witbi
what I saw of the horticultural enterprise of many gentlemen there.
I was fortunately able to attend one of the meetings of the Penn-
sylvania Horticultural Society, connected with a scmi-monthlj
exhibition of horticultural products. The show was not large or
this evening, but it was good ; consisting principally of flowers. ]
was, however, particularly attracted by a few strawberry plant:
exhibited by Dr. Brinckle. This gentleman — I called at hishousi
but was unfortunate in not finding him at home — has devoted him
self with singular perseverance to the producing of new varietie
of this plant, in which I understand he has had great success. H
crosses different varieties with judgment, and has produced som
remarkably fine fruit. But a fact worthy of notice is, that all th, ..
plants are grown in pots or boxes in a room in his house, with i\ 1
southern exposure during the cold weather, and in the small yar
in the rear of his house in summer.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society was instituted in 183'
and now numbers more than 700 members, paying annually tl
sum of three dollars each, by which means and the amount raised i
the exhibitions, a sufficient fund is obtained for carrying on i
operations with vigor. Its exhibitions are open to all for the di
play of their productions and for competition, whether membe
of the society or not, its object being the advancement of hort
culture universally. In many societies I have no doubt a gres!
hindrance to their progress and prosperity, as well as to the goc
they might do, is to be found in the fact that every one is requir(
to become a member before he can become a competitor.

This society holds its stated meetings on the third Tuesday ev
ning of each month ; and during the season of fruits and flowe
intermediate meetings are held. It has a library containing "]
wards of four hundred volumes for the use of members, and it en;
sists largely of the most valuable works on horticulture. >
wonder, with such a society, under efficient officers, that Philade;
phia holds the place it does as a horticultural city. Probably r'

CORTlESrONDENCE AND MISCELLANY- 125

ity in this country is before it, unless it may be Boston, in point
Df fruits.

Most of the flowers I saw at the exhibition, were from the gar-
ilen of R. Buist, 140 South 12th street. I visited the establish-
jnent of this gentleman, and spent an hour pleasantly walking about
lis grounds and greenhouses. Mr. B. is the author of an excel-
lent work on the cultivation of flowers, and one called " the Rose
ivTanual." The varieties of this favorite flower have become so
liumerous as to require a work containing full directions. This
vant Mr, B. has supplied.

Mr. B. mentioned some experiments he had been trying with
•uano. One table-spoonful in a four inch pot of pure sand de-
troyed the germinating power in seeds. When one-fourlh part of
hat quantity was used the seeds germinated and grew well. With
wo table-spoonsful! of artificial guano the effect was the same as

I the smaller quantity of the natural guano, showing a difference
f 1 to 8 in favor of the natural.

I spent an afternoon very pleasantly at the house of Doct.
Ilitchell, six miles from the city. This gentleman has made great
nprovements in the short space of three years, in which he has
een upon his farm. But persevering enterprise will accomplish in

short time, what many a man would require a life time to effect,
'he Doctor is devoting his personal attention to the cultivation of
)reign grapes. He has a large grapery under glass, and has it
ocked with choice varieties, which he tests carefully, and rejects

II that do not suit him. At the time I saw them, ihe vines, of
nly three years growth were loaded with tempting clusters, but
ot yet ripe. One cluster I must mention in particular, and, mark
pader, upon my own credit for veracity — for so Doct. M. charged
^e, lest he might lie under the imputation — but no matter, the
lie fact is a fact for I helped him measure it — the cluster was two

efj four inches and five-eights in length, and exactly three feet
Jross the wings. This was the grape of Palestine ; and reminded
c of those described in the Book of Numbers, 13ih chapter, 23d
;rse — " And they came unto the valley of Eshcol and cut down
om Ihence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it
'tween two u^on a staf^

I was desirous of visiting the farm of James Gowan, Esq.; but
! was absent from the city and I missed the opportunity. You

120 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

have probably seen his report of his farm and its management,
which he made to the Philadelphia Agricultural Society last fall.
Farmers would do well to read it and imitate him.

I will take this opportunity to express my thanks to those gen-
tlemen, through whose hospitality and kind attentions I was in-
debted for many happy hours in Philadelphia.

Yours truly, ' P-

Lijonsdale, Lewis county, N. Y., June 2, 1845.
Prof. Emmons :

Dear Sir— I called at your room just before I left, but did not '
see you. I wanted to see you in relation to the analysis of the
soils which I left with you. If you will send it in an answer to ^
this, you will very much oblige

Yours truly,

D. S. HOWARD.
P. S. The ore bed of which I left you a sample, is likely to prove ^
truly valuable, as it seems to be inexhaustible, and the deeper it is
dug, the })urer is the ore. ^- ^- "•

Analysis of the two specimens of soil referred to in the above
letter. The first is said by the writer to be really good for
nothing.

First Specimen.

rSilex, 92

Water ......«••••• o

lOO parts contain { p^^ ^^' 'ornon and alumine, 3

(^ Vegetable and animal matter, 1 to 2

From this examination, it is evident that it is lacking in some ofl
the essential elements of fertility. Lime in any of its combina-
tions does not exist in it. It is also deficient in vegetable matter.
Plaster, with clover, would do this soil good. But probably a
better course would be, to treat it with compost of peat, straw or
any vegetable substance, and ashes, mixed with barnyard manure.
Still, it appears as if the attempt to renovate such a soil, must de-
pend upon circumstances. If situated not far from the barnyard,
or a muck swamp, it may wel' be attended to. Under other cir-
cumstances, it would involve considerable expense, and probably
loss.

CORRESPOKDENCE AND MISCELLANY. 127

Second Specimen— much belter Soil.

f Silex, 74

I Water, ^ 25

100 parts contain { Per oxide iron and aluniine,'. .**.'.'.' 5 "

I Vegetable and animal matter, 15 5

I Lime, "^

It was not examined for phosphates.

What is interesting to notice in these two samples of soil is that
at first view, they look exactly alike, and a person might be de-
ceived in the first. On washing it, however, and especially after
the action of acids, it is seen to consist almost entirely of a ^rav
sand, derived from granite probably, as it is mixed with a few
grains of feldspar.

South Norwalk, May 31, 1845
i • . ? SiH-In connection with this I send you a specimen of a
cind of soil found at a locality in this vicinity^vhich^some of ou?
larmers have lately begun the use of asaman^;^, though bein. k

orant of its cx)mposit.on and properties they consider^ it onTy an
l^xper.ment It may be very common, though I have neve me"
'.vith It. I covers an area of some acJ-es, I ^^hould th nk and i ;
lep h IS not ascertained. A pole has been sunk in it to th d p h
.f twenty feet or more without findi: g bottom. If you are fami
•ar with It so that you can inform us what it is; Whether mln"
al or vegetable matter, or a mixture of both, without thelabor of

chemical analysis, it would be a favor.

Yours sincerely, JAMES H. COFFIN

rhis IS not properly a soil, hut peat of excellent quality ; and
v-here fuel is scarce would be good for that purpose. For ao-ricul '
ural purposes It is of course invaluable, containing about 95 per
ent of vegetable matter. Its ashes we have not examined Its
reatest benefit is obtained by mixing with ashes, potash or lime
pr some tin;e before being applied, or by forming it into a com-
ost with animal manures. If ashes are used which have not been
^eched from sixteen to twenty-four bushels (according to the
uality) are to be mixed with one cord of peat, and suffered to lie
' a heap for a few days, although it is often put on the ground
^mediately. If potash is used, about thirty pounds are dissolved
^ water, and the same quantity of peat as before wet evenly with
• am the most common, and by far the easiest way of using it

12S QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

is as a compost with animal manures. For this purpose the barn-
yard is to have a thick layer of peat put upon it, which may be
mixed with the manure of the yard by the feet of the cattle ; and
thus it serves the double purpose of increasing the actual quantity
of manure by being itself converted into it, and also of absorbing,
the gases and liquids which might otherwise be mostly lost.

Still another mode of preparation is, to make a pile of alternate
layers of peat and stable manure, using one load of manure to
two or three loads of peat. This should be covered with a thick
layer of the peat, to prevent the escape of the gases formed bv thef
action which takes place in the mass. Or the peat may be well!
soaked wiih the liquid manure of the stable yard, which will have
the same effect. They should remain in this state until fermenta-
tion takes place, when they are to be put upon the land.

For any of these processes the peat should be dug six months
or a year beforehand, and exposed to the action of the atmosphere
and aficrwards made into compost.

South Stephentoicn, Jpril 14, 1845.
Sir— I have been reading for a few days past the two numbers o
the Quarterly Journal which I procured at your office. .

I am much pleased with the xvork, and confidently expect tha
it will yet do far more for agriculture, than any thing of the km
which has been published in this country. ■ , r ^i

I have been particularly interested in the experiments of Mi
Campbell, on the effects^of soaking seeds in chemical solutions,
and have determined to repeat one or two at least of his expen
ments, provided the expense will not be too great. _

I should like to try the effect of sulphate of ammonia on abot
two acres of land where we intend to sow oats. I^ y."u;a
inlorm me what will be the expense I shall be much obbged t
vnu Mr Campbell states that he " prepared the various mixture
from the above specified salts, exactly neutralized.'' 1 suppose
that the sulphate of ammonia was neutralized by the addition (
some alkali, as potash or soda ; but I am not sufficiently versed i
chemistry, to determine either the substance which should be use
or the quantity which is required. ^,^..^. p .^oTTO

Respectfully yours, SAMUEL P. l^^^^l^"-

We have not seen any account of the final results ot M)
Campbell's experiments, but we have regarded them as doubtfi
in some respects. Soaking seeds in mineral soluUons is by n

f\

CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANY. 129

means a new thing, and is attended with some good effects, but we
I are not ready to receive the full extent of Mr. C.'s faith. The

process no doubt gives a vigorous start to vegetation, and enables
, the plant at an early period of its growth to prepaie for its future
I support. It will also serve to protect the seed, and perhaps the

young plant from the depredation of worms.

The expense of preparing the salts we cannot state. They

could, however, probably be procured of any druggist, and as sold

by them are already " neutralized." We shall be glad to hear the

result of the experiment, and of course recommend a portion of
'the field to be sown with seed that has not been soaked, in order

to ascertain the effect correctly.

Our friend and correspondent Wm. Case, Esq. of Cleveland,
Ohio, writes thus :

I wish I could get some information relative to the application
of Galvanism and Electricity to Agriculture. We have nothing
of the kuul here. I have tried Galvanism unsuccessfully— proba-
bly owing to the drouth, the return current passed back through
the deep and damp ground far from the roots.

In answer to which we would say that we are not at all sur-
prised at the result. The truth, however, in the matter is, there
is nothing to be expected in the premises. It is not many years
>ince the story was going the rounds, that cress seed was planted in
;he morning, and was grown in season for the dinner table by the
lid of electricity. The cress story, and the last story from Eng-
and, detailing the wonderful effects of electricity, belong to the
;ame class. Both are doubtful.

GREATEST IRON MINES IN THE WORLD.

In Newcomb, Essex county, N. Y., in one mine, there is suffi-
lent ore within two hundred feet of the surface to make eighty
Qillion cubic feet of iron. Two other mines, within two miles,
re nearly as extensive as this ; and at all, the ore may be quar-
led out to the open day like flagging stone. To increase the value
f these mines, they are in the midst of a wilderness of wood, and

VOL II. — NO. I. R

130 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

situated directly upon a great water power. The western states
abound in lead and copper; the country south of Lake Supe-
rior in copper and silver; the southern states in gold. Penn-
sylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, with many others, in inex-
haustible beds of coal, associated also with iron ore, and all these
in a country rich in the great staple of the vegetable kingdom.
Well may we inquire, what country abounds so much in the ele-
ments of prosperity as our own ? And let us rejoice that these
elements are neither owned nor controlled by a despot, but belong
to the people.

LEAD, SILVER, AND GOLD MINE IN NORTH CAROLINA.

This mine is in Davidson co., ten miles southeast of Lexing-i
ton. It varies in the amount of the valuable metals which it
yields at different depths.

At the depth of forty feet, the ore yielded, when dressed, fifty '
per cent of lead and from twenty to one hundred and twenty oun-jl
ces of silver to the ton of lead. The value of the silver varied!
from $1.80 to $2.00 per ounce ; its price being enhanced by thfi;
large proportion of gold found in combination with it at this depthj
At sixty feet the ore had increased in richness ; and the greatesljl
value which portions of the ore had attained, amounted to fiv«|'
thousand ounces of silver to the ton ; but those were only smal i
portions. The silver is in a metallic state. The average yield i;:
one hundred and twenty ounces to the ton. The value of th(!
whole yield of the mine for twenty-seven months, was two thou
sand six hundred and sixty-one pigs of argentiferous lead, yieldim
silver and gold to the amount of $13,288.68. — Taylor^s Report,
on the Washington silver mine.

ARTICHOKES.

We agree with the Prairie Farmer, that Artichokes are hardl;
worth cultivating. They are not so nutritious or prolific as po

COKRESPONUENCE AND MISCELLANY. 131

tatoes, and will certainly be attended with more trouble and labor
and exhaustion of soil, if a business is to be made of their pro-
duction.

HENS,

To be kept laying through the winter, must have warm quar-
ters and be fed considerable animal food.

In order to fatten fowls rapidly, they should be well supplied
with charcoal, broken into small pieces. They will become very
fat if shut up and fed on this substance alone.

132 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

EXTRACTS

DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN JOURNALS,

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION
OF GEOLOGISTS AND NATURALISTS ■

At the Annual Convention, held in New- Haven in April, 1845 ; with remarks by

one of the Editors. n

The gentlemen composing the Convention, assembled at the old)!
dining hall of the boarding house back of the Centre College
Building. About forty persons were present, and enrolled theii
names. Among them we find the following :

Dr. Barrett, Middletown ; Dr. Charles T. Jackson, Boston

Prof. Silliman, New-Haven j Dr. D. Humphrey Storer, do

J.D.Dana, do Prof. C Dewey, Rochesier,N. Y.

J. D. Whelpley, do Dr. Stephen Reed. Lantaster ;

B. Silliman, Jr., do Prof. I. Johnson, Middletown ;

Prof. Olmsieadj do Prof. J. R. Loomis, Watervillej

Prof. C. U. Shepard, do Prof. H. D. Rogers, Phil., \ Me.

Dr. J. Bacon, Boston; Prof. J. W. Bimly, West Point

J. E. Teschemacher, do Prof. H. H. Haldeman, i'hil. ;

Francis Alger, do Prof. John H. Redfiekl, N. York

The time of meeting was named to be half-past two. A Irttl
before three, Pi of. Silliman rose and called the meeting to order
and expressed his regret at the unavoidable absence of Prof.
Rogers ot Virginia, who was to have acted as chairman. H
therefore nominal ed Prof. Dewey of Rochester, N. Y., in his place
and this was carried, and Mr. Dewey took his seat as President.

The secretaries of last year weie to liave acted this year, bu
Dr. Lawrence Smith of South Carolina bein<j; absent, .Mr. Denni
Olmstead, Jr., of Nevv-IIaven, was apj)oin;ed in his place.

LIST OF PAPERS TO BE READ AT THIS MEETING.

On ihe Trades of Birls and Animnls founl at iMidllt't- wn. Connecticut ; illu!
traled wiih figures of new species: I'.y Jo-eph B.'Mirf.tt, .M. D. ,

Evidence of Conseli'iicii m t'lp led P'UMlsicMf. as exhibited by Regular Tr
ansular and Rhombic Marks of Great Distinctness.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 133

On the Origin of the Constituent and Adventitious Minerals of Trap and the
Allied Rocks : By James D Dana.
A Review of Chemical Theory : By Mr. Whelpley.

The Geolosy of the Country around the Mount Savage Iron Works, Maryland .
j By Thomas H. Weld, of Knulanil.

I Tlie Geoloy;yof Mis^^issippi : By Mr. Wailes, of Miss.
I The Gypsum of New-York : By Prof. Dewey.

I Question of the Existence of the so-called Taconic System of the United
States : By Prof. H. D. Rogers.
The Geology of the Upper Missouri : By Prof. H. Rogers.
Synopsis of the Fishes of North America : By Dr. D. H. Storer.
On a Chain of Erratic Serpentine Rocks, in Berkshire Massachusetts : By
Stephen Reed.

ComiTiiinications or papers were also promised by Mr. Peter A.
Browne of Philadelphia, Dr. Dean, ar d Lieut. Maury, in a day
or two.

Prof. Silliman then presented a paper from Lieut. Hardy, R.N.,
on the Polecat Tree of Missouri, and the Holly Tree and Mistle-
toe, of England and America. He then went on to state that the
President of the last year, by custom, delivered the address of the
present year ; but he had recently seen Dr. Lpcke, at Cincinnati,
iivho was unable to attend.

! The articles of the constitution were then read, by which it ap-
Deared that the name of this society is the " Association of Ameri-
can Geolotjists and Naturalists."

Prof. Silliman then read a paper from Lieut. R. W. H. Hardy,

I. N., of Kilkenny House, Sinn Hill, near Bath, England, on two

subjects : L The Mapolite root bark ; or polecat tree root bark

)f Missouri. 2. The mistletoe and holly barks, and their raedici-

lal properties. Lieut. Hardy said that the bark of the root of the

)olec:,t tree, or mapolite, possessed wonderful and strong anti-

Icorbutic properties ; and would cure gums that were sore, swollen

'ml tender, even when the teeth were loose. He cured a inan with

t at Sonora, in Mexico, in three days, whose gums were so bad that

.is pillow used to be covered with coagulated blood of a morning.

n general cases, it cured scorbutic gums, &c., in one day's use of

e baik. He never knew it to fail. A piece of the root bark is

be masticated till all the pungent properties have left it ; then

cw another piece, and so on till a cure is effected. If the disease

stunts, repeat the remedy. He speaks of its anti-sccibutic pro-

erties in the same manner as we do of the properties of cinchona

r sulphate of quinine as a cure for ague. Its therapeutical pro-

crties were first shown to him by an American, Mr. Gibson, a

unter or trapper, who married a woman at Opossum, in Sonora,

Fexico, whose wife Hardy attended. It is found in great abun-

mce on the banks of the Missouri, where its smell disgusts all

ho come near it. Mr. Hardy took some of it to England and

ps used it there with great success in every case. The second

ise was the produce of the mistletoe berries and the inner bark

134 . QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

of the holly tree, (bird lime,) made into a plastic state and spread
on cloth. Take three pounds of yellow beeswax and one pound of
bird-lime ; melt the wax over a slow fire ; add the bird-lime by de-
grees, so as not to have it boil over ; keep the vessel after this on
the fire forty-five minutes, so that the bird-lime and wax are fullji
incorporated ; spread this mixture on cloth and cut it into propei
size for plasters. In cases of neuralgia, put the plaster over the
part where the pain is. The plaster will retain its virtues till
every part of it is worn from the cloth, and it does not materially
interrupt the action of the skin. A repetition of it has equa'
effect. Also the carbonized ashes of the bark of the holly, mixec
with its own weight of calcined alum, rubbed on the gums, when
neuralgia proceeds from a tooth, will give relief. This is foi
neuralgia in all its forms, and the relief is almost simultaneou;
with the application. He has cured three cases in this way ; h(
however alludes only to secondary effects, leaving the primarj
cause of neuralgia to be otherwise disposed of. But he thinks ever
the primary disease (when not the result of organic derangement
can be cured by this bark, when made into a salt with sulphuri(
acid, and given internally. Lieut. Hardy thinks the Druids of ok
knew these virtues in mistletoe and holly ; and hence the grea
reverence they made the people pay to them ; and got up thi
superstitious notion that a sprig of holly or mistletoe would drivi
away a demon : and thus the practice of decorating houses a
Christmas and New-Year's therewith.

.Dr. Barrett said that he did not know what was meant by tha
tree — the polecat. He was sorry the Lieut, did not send a speci
men of it — a flower, a leaf or a piece of the bark. With regan
to the mistletoe, the Lieut, could not have read Southey's " Bool
of the Church ;" where Southey has shown up the way in whicl
the Druids and priests of old humbugged' the people by means o
a very fine plant, thus getting a large share of their worldb
goods. As for neuralgia, it was best relieved by taking off ih.
surface with a blister, and then adding morphine.

President Dewey said there was no necessity for the Lieut, send
ing over a specimen of the polecat tree ; it would be best known b
its smell, (laughter,) wherever found, without any flower, bark, o
even leaf : like certain animals, a knowledge of its whereabout ^i
was speedily carried through the air to speak for itself. |

Mr. J. D. Whelpley said that diseased gums were not difficult
of cure — any powerful styptic would do this ; a solution of nitratt)
of silver, for instance ; or any acrid vegetable, either green, or al
an extract. No external remedy will cure neuralgia — not everi
division of the nerve. It is supposed to be caused by pressuni
on the nerve where it passes out at the base of the skull. Tlnl
mistletoe is useful only as a mere alterative, and has no virtue a:
an external application.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 135

The second paper was then read ; it was from Mr. C. J. W.
iVedderburn, Prof, of Anatomy in the Medical College oi'
;.ouisiana, on the " Influence of Atmospheric Pressure on the
rides." Prof. W. had made observations in regard to this, in the
Jay of Pensacola. He observed that when the barometer ranged
ligh, the tides were always low, and vice versa : the ordinary mean
ange of the barometer was 29.50 ; the ordinary tide range was
rom three to four feet in the Gulf of Mexico. During a strong
^. E. wind, with the barometer very low, the tide at Pensacola
vould be very high ; though the tendency of such a wind would
le to force the water out of the bay. With the wind Irom the
^, W.j the tide would be very low, whilst the weather was very
dear; a change in the barometer to a small extent would fre-
uently produce a rise of from one to three feet in the tide. And
hus he thought a tide table might be made by which any com-
lander of a vessel could know by his barometer how much water
liere would be on the bar of a certain harbor in the Gulf; and
bis was of great value, because the depth of water on all the bars
|i the Gulf is very small, and at Pensacola it is only twenty-two
jjet. During N. W. winds there, they have generally "'clear
I'eather, with the barometer ranging high and the tides low.
j This was the substance of the paper.

' The President here said ihat he had just remembered the name
|f a plant he had seen in a garden at Rochester, and no one knew
low it got there ; it was selia trifoliata ; and smelling abomina-
ly was called the skunk tree ; perhaps that was the mapoliie of
ieut. Hardy.

Mr, Kedfield said in relation to atmospheric pressure on tides
lat half an inch of mercury only made a difference of six inches

the tide. Dr. Wedderburn has overrated the matter. So in
le case of the N. E. winds causing high tides ; a rise in the tide

Pensacola must be produced by some cause operating out of that
ly. Thus a N. E. wind at Pensacola would be an East wind at
ucatan, and a S. E. wind at another place, forming, as it were a
rcuit of winds, all tending to drive the water into the Bay 'of
ensacola.

:Mr. Rogers said that some years since, great changes were ob-
jrved in the level of the Swiss Lakes in times of great storms ;
fd scientific men in Switzerland called on us to observe if there
be similar changes in our great northern Lakes. Here is a great
iuge to go by. Has any one made these observations on Lake
■rie or Superior ? Is there not some other force at work, much
ibre than what is due to static altered pressure 1 Is there not a
<[namic force at work, as well as that of the change in a superin-
<imbent column of atmosphere ? The dynamic force of the wind
derating on the weaves of a lake, sustained through hours and days,

136 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

is of far more effect than mere static pressure, as indicated by thi
barometer.

Mr. , said that in the Lake Onondaga, after a long storm

the winds would blow the water high up on one side of the lak
and leaving it low on the other. He had made the same observe
tions on the action of the wind on water. In still air, a light win
clings to the water, and moves a surface of two or three inches i
depfh. After a long South or S. E., or S. W. storm, the fishei
men on Long Island say that the whole sea is blown up on Lon
Island ; this occurs every three or four years ; it makes large san
banks ; these are held there by short grass ; the sea beats ov(
these and forms Lagoons, and these are filled with fish, and thes
remarkable changes in the land are brought about by wind.

Prof. Johnston, of Middletown, said that at the gale of la
September, the barometer fell Ih inch, and the tide rose five fe-i
at Middletown.

Prof. Loomis said that in the State of Maine the tide rises six <
eight feet from long continued east winds ; there would be
storms, but merely a long continued wind from the east. In o»
case the tide rose from this cause so as to move a log a distance ■
three or four rods, which had lain there for fifty years as remen
bered by the oldest inhabitant.

Mr. Johnston said that in the great gale of September, 182
the steamboat left New-Haven for New-York ; there was a gre
rise in the tide that night ; the boat anchored off Morris' Gov
there was a ledge of rocks generally bare close by ; the boatpii
ed her cable and was lifted clear over the ledge safely into de
water by the rise of the tide.

Prof. Rogers said that much of this effect w^as also owing tot
peculiar property of the adhesion of wind to water, one of t
most beautiful laws in the economy of nature, otherwise the ■
mosphere would slide over the surface of the sea, and all the
neficial effects of storms would be lost. Another thought occurr
to him : the ordinary beat of the surf would not throw up th<
coral reefs to the height we find them ; it is done by the win
mass of the ocean, pressed on by the trade winds for a long tin
that thus piles them up so far above the ocean level.

Mr. Redfield made a few observations on the effects produced
the shape of shores, by what are called converging waves, and th)
upheaval force.

Prof. Rogers said that the committee of last year had raad«
call on the Secretary of the Navy requesting him to cause obser
tions to be made in relation to certain points in Hydrography, ^
teorology. Natural History, &c. &c. Now, sir, we propose to se
a request to the Secretary of War to institute a new and separi
line of inquiry onth&great subject of the level of the Continen

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 137

the observations to be made at the mean tide level ; respecting
the oscillations of this part of -North America. The rise and fall,
of a great part of the coast of Scandinavia has been observed by
Swedish geologists and noted. And it is now pretty certain that
no part of the earth's surface is stationary.

I Prof. Silliman. — I should like to add inquiry into a subject lam
ignorant of and have no means of informing myself about. It is
the average elevation of continents above the level of the sea.

I. The average elevation of North America ;
1 II. Tlie average elevation of South America ;

III. The average elevation of Europe ;

IV. The average elevation of Asia ;
V. The average elevation of Africa.

Jy the deduction of particulars from known data we can come
retty nearly to correct data.

Prof. Rogers. — HumboUt has published data about the mean
evel of certain lands. He gives the mean level of Asia 800 feet
bove the ocean ; and it is astonishing how small a part the
lountains have to contribute to the earth's elevation.

Silliman. — What does he give, sir, as the elevation of North
Llherica ?

Rogers. — Some five or six hundred feet as the average.

Silliman. — That is even within my mark ; I have said less than
quarter of a mile, and then have been thought romancing; and
ven this may be caused by the mass of the earth swelling by ex-
anslon.

Rogers. — By probably the general wavering of the earth's crust,
weden rises several feet a century ; and it w^ould not take long to
ing all Europe to its present level.

Prof. Loomis. — The pilots of Maine say that the tide is sinking

ery year ; and that certain rocks on Maine shore are now visi-
e, over which they could formerly conduct vessels at any tide.

is so especially at the mouth of the Kennebec.

Prof. Rogers observed that the north shores appeared to be going

iwn and the south coming up ; else why were all our south shores
dy flats, and New-England a rock -bound coast from Cape Cod

its north-east border. The middle and southern States — all the
:a islands from Long-Island to the Florida Keys, indicate a gene-

1 rise of the land south. This Cojitinent is swinging on a hinge
( great pivot, the point of which is at about the Bay of Massachu-
!tts. The south part is rising and the north going down ; not
»actly in their moral or intellectual qualifications, unfortunately,
< recent changes indicate. (Laughter.)

Prof. Silliman. — Where did you put your pivot sir ? (Laugh-
'■)

Prof. Rogers. — About Cape Cod I think it is fixed. (More
1 i2;hter,

VOL. II. — xo. I. S

138 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Prof Silliman then observed that the change of level in New-
Haven harbor must be owing to other causes than merely the set-
ting up of silt, as is generally supposed.

Mr. Redfield pointed out on the nevv^ chart of New-York bay
w^here a few years since there were 40 feet of water, it is now so-<
lid shore. This was done by the continual abrasion of the ocean
against the bolder shore of Jersey south of Sandy Hook; this was
the principal source of supply for making sand bars every where
and not what was brought down by rivers from up the country.

President Dewey said he once heard as a reason for the greal
rise of the tides in the Bay of Fundy, that it had a moveable bot*
torn (laughter) which sank down very low and in came the tidC'
then the bottom swelled up again and out went the tide. He was
glad to find that we were turning round properly on a pivot

The Convention then adjourned till to-morrow at 9.

[The subject of a change of level in the northern parts of New*
York and New-England engaged the attention of the Editor maai
years since. In 1834-5, on his w^ay to Nova Scotia, he observei"
that the coast in that vicinity was skirted by a deposit of marl;
clay in which the remains of moluscous animals of species no\
living in the water were very abundant. The elevation of th
formation was stated at the time at forty feet, and the inquiry wa,
raised whether this single formation did not indicate a coraparaiil^,
tively recent elevation of the coast; it was so regarded at th
time, and numerous facts which have since fallen under his obsei
vation have confirmed the opinion thus early expressed ; which s
far as geologists had then expressed their views, was certain!
among the first. Men often express opinions upon a subject, Ion
before they are in possession of facts which bear at all upon th
subject. In the existence, however, of this deposit so much abov
the adjacent water, we have a fact clearly indicating a change (
level at this place. It of course required an extension of the sam
fact in order to establish a general rise of the coast. Since thetiiri
referred to, many localities have bsen discovered of precisely th
same character, as the tertiary of the St. Lawrence basin, whic
has been fully described in the reports of the 2d geological diii
trict of New-York. See American Journal of Science and Art
No. 2, Vol. XXX., the report of 1837. Also final report of th,
geology of the 2d district of New-York. J — Ed.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 139

SECOND DAY.

j The President, Dewey, took the chair, and among the distin-
guished savans present (new arrivals) were President Day, Prof.
Hitchcock, Prof. Bailey, of West Point, Prof. Coffin, of Nor-
iwalk, Ct., Dr. S. Bacon of Boston, Dr. Jackson of Boston.
I Prof. Rogers, from the committee on business, said they had
prepared a programme ; the report was rc;id of the committee ap-
pointed last year, on addressing a memorial to the Secretary of the
Navy on the subject of the Gulf Stream. Lieut. Maury is chair-
man of the committee ; the report is but provisional, and the com-
mittee desire to be sanctioned in a continuance of functions. It
:ontained a copy of instructions to officersof the navy for making
i)bservations on the Gulf Stream, and a letter of the Secretary of
the Navy, who wishes these instructions to be given to the officers
)f the Columbus now going out, in order to further the views of
he Association in a thoroughly analytical examination of the Gulf
5tream. The nature of the instructions may be gleaned from the
bllowing subjects to be inquired into :

i Course and set of the stream.

Temperature of the water at different depths.

Depth of current and velocity at different depths.

Fluctuations of the current in gales of wind.

Character of the bottom in various places.

The diderence between the eds;es and centre of the stream.
I The limit, force and set of dili'erent currents.

I The line of deep-sea soundings to be noted between the coast and Gulf Stream
|11 along the coast ; which would be of great value to vessels approaching the
oast in bad weather.

', The nature, extent and course of the Gulf Weed.

' The places, appearances, &c., of any drift wood; some of ^\hich drifts from
le Mississippi and is lodged on the Tortugas.
I Icebergs and the currents around them.
I The strength and durability of storms.

Meridian altitudes of the stars.
; Sights on the instruments to take P. M. as well as A. M. observations.

Streaks of warm and cold water ; their limits and breadth.

Formation of shoals and spits of land.
I Fishes of various Islands, and what are preferred for food.

Volcanic regions, their altitude, appearance, &c. &.c.

Geological structure of all islands.

Rise and fall of tides at all places.

Corals, mollusca, fishes, &c., at all places.

And for all this an abstract log is to be kept.

. The committee also say that the prismatic azimuth compass is

|) be employed mounted on its tripod and placed abaft the binna-

le, and to be placed as free from the influence of the guns and

|l other ferruginous matter as possible ; and the difference between

and the ordinary compass, to be also carefully noted. The entire

Dsence of coralinc in the Gulf, which is always found in simi-

r latitudes in Asia, &c. is to be carefully noted ; as this is

ipposed to indicate counter currents of hot and cold water, at

fferent depths and on different sides ; for this it is proposed to

140 QUARTERLY JOURMAL.

use Sykes's thermometer. These observations it is also believed
will also bring out proof of the existence of a deep shoal one
hundred and twenty miles south of St. George's Banks. The
coast of Georgia shows that the Gulf Stream on quitting the coasi
of Florida does not run due north as before, but to the northwarc
and westward ; and tjiis will explain the apparent problem wh)
the Gulf Stream runs with greater velocity off Cape Fear and Hat-
teras. Careful observations are also to be made in relation to i
stream of warm water setting from the coast of China to the north
west coast of America; and it is expected to find currents wel
marked running through Bhering's straits along the north coas
of America into Baffin's Bay, and along the coast of northern Asia

The committee add that our ships have all the necessary instru
ments except Sykes's thermometer ; and the skill of Americai
officers is so proverbial that the body of information thus collectei
would be invaluable.

On motion, the committee was continued ad infinitum^ and th
report accepted ; report to be matured by the committee and Mi
Redlield, and transmitted to Washington to the Secretary of th
Navy to be sent out in our ships of war to China.

No remarks were elicited by this report.

Papers on oceanic drift were called for. None came at the call

The President called for the paper by Dr. Reed, on a chain C|
erratic serpentine rocks in Berkshire. He stated that the chaij
begins at Canaan Hill, Columbia Co., with the talcose slate. 11
hills are crowned by slate or grey wacke, but melted so as to lose thei
slaty character. These are carried down the hills, and over hills
and we go down the valley between the Canaan and Richmond Hill^
and there meet immense masses of these rocks — boulders — clos
by the State line. We go on through Richmond valley, and fin
50 blocks, twenty thousand cubic feet in size, above ground
on a little south, cross Lenox mountain into another valle>
and there meet more boulders ; through Stockbridge, east of Leno
mountain, and meet them again, all of the same geological charail
ter. Within about two hundred rods of Canaan, slate comes 1
the surface ; and hence proceeds another chain parallel to the first-
not aspecimenin the valley beneath, but many south of the southei
range. The metamorphic rock crowns the summit of all. TJ»I
is an intermediate range between the talcose slate of the Taconi
range, and the greywacke west of the Hudson. The only rock i
situ in Richmond county is lime. These boulders have no scratches
their angles are perfect ; they have been brought by water, an
"this side up with care," seems to have been marked on them, an'
attended to ; edges and angles distinct beyond belief. The rang
is thirty miles long, and only twenty rods wide. The hill crosse
by the boulders is one hundred feet higher than Canaan hill, ttj \\

i

i

f

i

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 141

starting point. They form an unbroken chain of rocks ; the
larp;est and most numerous of them are on the eastern side of the
hills they cross ; a few are on the western side.

Prof. Hitchcock said it could not be accounted for on any known
theory of drift how these boulders were placed where they were.
It was remarkable to see this chain of boulders for a few rods
wide and miles in length, like the grading of a railroad — carried
over the hills in an oblique direction — an unbroken chain. We
can see the outline very clear. Edges and angles, sharp and
unbroken ; it goes straight to a certain point for twenty miles, and
then turns at a sharp angle of twenty-five degrees. What ice-
berg could have carried them all to that spot — some half as large
is this room 7 IIow could it detach them from the parent rock ?
TTow could water carry them in a bee line in this way, and carry
htm oliquely over these hills seven hundred feet high ? It was
mswered by some, supposing the ice to freeze round an island —
i)r top of mountain — and then immense earthquake waves come
imd rock them oil, and these boulders thus dropped by the waves.
I Dr. Jackson supposed it owing to the existence of ancient lakes,
iind their freezing ; the ice and water brought these boulders left
jhem on the shores of the lakes. We see this going on in Lake
Superior now — every kind of boulder of the upper country is
bund scattered around the Sault St. Marie — or the outlet of the lake.

Prof. Dewey observed that Prof. Hitchcock had shown that ice-
)ergs, (Sec, had carried large blocks of greywacke of Catskill over
lills twelve hundred feet high into the Housatonic valley.

Dr. Barrett said that there were enormous masses of dirty yel-
ow quartz lying in Middletown, rounded, oval, like an egg, and
lat like a lapstone. One in front of a Mr. Bacon's house, from
its size and shape, was called Bacon's pudding ; these were lying
jeveral feet above the level of the valley of the Connecticut ; had
jhe land risen on which they lay, or had the Connecticut river
alien ? Had we any means of knowing what was the height of
he Connecticut four thousand years ago ? Now^ the Nile, five
lundred miles above its mouth, at Phile, is twenty-four feet lower
ban it was four thousand years ago.

Prof. Hithcock said that the terrace lines along the valley of
be Connecticut, alone show that the river was once at those
eights. We have no means of gauging it within any historic
ecord.

Dr. Jackson said that the ancient pot holes eleven feet deep in
qe hardest granite on the tops of mountains dividing Merri-
aack and Connecticut were full of pebbles, and show that the
Connecticut and Merrimac were once connected. Eleven hun-
'red feet is the height of the mountain on which they are found.

Prof. Silliman spoke of the remarkable pot holes on the Fran-

142 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

conia mountain, twenty by fifteen feet in size and fifteen feet
deep — water flowing through there now — most beautiful example
of the connections of different streams ; no workman could carve
it out so skilfully. It should be visited by all scientific persons.

Dr. Jackson said, that long before the present continents loen
elevated above the ocean, water must have passed through thif
mountain gorge between the Merrimack and the Connecticul
rivers.

Prof. Silliman said that no doubt the true mode of transpor
was ice and water ; but their great power was much underrated
Lieut. Ringgold, of the Expedition, said he coasted along one ice-
berg over seventy miles in length — a mere stranded iceberg
Here, then, was a mode of transport for the largest blocks we evei
find ; the blocks once torn off from the parent rock, and frozen in
then the ice melts, and the boulders drop down in line for forty
fifty, or sixty miles

Mr. Hays, of the Exploring Expedition, believed the greai(
transporting agents to be the small icebergs of four or five mile»
long, which in the South Seas are continually detaching them'i
selves and pieces of rock along, but never carry the rock abov«i
two miles from the source, and thus a line of boulders might hi
distributed like those lines of boulders spoken of by Dr. Reed.

Dr. Reed said the angle' in the line of boulders in Beikshirti
county was a direct angle of twenty-five degrees and not a curvi

Prof. Hitchcock said that these remarks threw more light oi
the great moving power of these boulders than he had ever ma
with before ; but the chain was so narrow and regular

Dr. Reed said the width of the chain was about 15 feet only
and never more than 30 feet wide. As to icebergs breaking oi
the top of these rocks, why did they not break off the tops of th<
hills close by, only a few feet lower, where the slate comes to th<
surface ?

Dr. Jackson alluded to the carrying of the large copper rod
from Isle Royal, Lake Superior, to the Ontonagan river on a raf
of ice

Prof. Rogers said that before they could establish such theories
they must first prove or presuppose the permanent submersion o
the present Continents below the level of the sea; and he chal
lenged proof of this from any one, as he had often done before

i

a

if such had been the case, there w^ould have been great ocean tidij
marks to show when and where this Continent was submerged
But in the midland valleys of the American States there was n(
marine deposit in proof of this ; no marine clays or marine shell:
in the valleys of the Ohio, or any of those regions. There wa;
proof that an arm of the sea ran round at one time from the St
Lawrence down through Lake Champlain, making an island o

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 143

New-England ; and also proof that an arm of the sea once ran
jfroni Lake Ontario to the Hudson river, making an island of the
lipper part of the State of New-York ; but there was no proof that
this whole Continent had been submerged, as the gentleman insist-
ed on presupposing. He must insist on accounting for it in ano-
(ther way; by volcanic force acting on the great oceans of the
"aorth. This would produce all the wonderful results we are daily
Dtherwise astonished at. Bodies of water hurled along with tre-
Inaendous velocity will carry large masses of stone suspended for a
ong (Ustance. From the mouth of the river Amazon large bodies
Df stone are carried out by the velocity of the water a great way
;o sea before they sink. And in this way one force from the north
neeting an opposing force, it is very natural that these angles
ihould be thus formed, as described by Dr. Reed of the chain of
lerpentine boulders in the paper read to them this morning. A
;udden irruption of an Arctic Sea, upheaved by a volcano, would
:)e equal to all the phenomena of this character. But he was sur-
)rised that the subject of waves of translation was not considered
'In this relation. Waves of translation are caused by a movement
!)f the whole body of the sea from its surface to the bed of the sea.
]A^ho can count on the immense force of such a moving power 1
irhe great tide wave goes round the earth twice in 24 hours. But
he velocity of sea v.'aves, engendered by earthquakes, has a velo-
„ity of 30 miles, a minute — twice the velocity of sound. The earth-
)iuake of Lisbon threio a succession of 36 enormous waves across
\he Atlantic to the shores of Antigua in 10 hours. Ten successive
ihocks at exact intervals of 35 minutep. We must look for ex-
planation to a great volcano bursting out in the Arctic Sea, throw-
ing waves across the southern Continents, and these are still far-
jher carried forward by the successive rocking of the great crust
|f the earth ; in their course ripping off all the projecting crests of
jhe highest hills and leaving them where we find them ; and sim-
ly accounting for all the phenomena we find on the earth's sur-
ace.

Prof Rogers continued in a most eloquent manner to combat
he theories of the dynamic force of icebergs, &c., as moving causes
f these deposits, and to prove by actual data the precise velocity
f certain seas, and streams, and the large number of pounds
weight they would carry to given distances.
Prof. Silliman said that the Catskill mountains and hills of Ohio
reje formed under water — there was no necessity for sinking the
lountains — they were under water before — they were upheaved
'om beneath the water and presenting their salient points ; get-
ng encrusted with ice ; then suppose that Prof. Rogers' great
ower was set in motion, breaking off these icebergs and w^hirling
icm round and round ; these angles might thus be formed ; and
nus all these theories are easily reconcilable with each other.

144 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Mr. Whelpley said — It was necessary to account for the trench-:
ing out cf the valleys in addition to the other matters alluded to.|
and explained the jreolosrical phenomena connected with the break-j
ino of the dam of Mill Rock, near New-Haven, the trap rocks, andi
other places in the vicinity ; and contended, very modestly, thai
the trenching out of the valleys, the deposition of ranges of boul-'
ders, the formation of the terraces of the river valleys, could alii
be accounted for on the supposition that the subsiding and raising!
of the earth's surface was gradual.
^ Prof. Hitchcock moved to lay the subject on the table ; it ha(4
generally formed the dessert of our entertainment, and now it bic
fair to occupy the place of their dinner. (Laughter.) He hoped
however, to hear of it again ; he believed the understanding wan
that gentlemen should be allowed to mix their ice and water ii|
quantities to suit themselves. (Laughter.)

The subject was then laid on the table.

Invitations were then tendered and accepted for all present, in"
eluding the reporters, to go and take supper with Prof. Shepardi
and examine his beautiful collection of minerals. But the report'
ers had so much work to do that they could not avail themselvei
of the Professor's very appropriate courtesy. I

Prof. Silliman then said that he would be on the bridge to-mor
row morning at 8 o'clock, ready to conduct any gentleman to tlu
top of the East Rock, so as to get a good view of the curious formi
ation of the surrounding country.

An unfinished paper on the fossil fish of the United States wan
read by Mr. Redfield for his son, and the meeting adjourned.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

The General Committee were then appointed of the followinj
persons :

Prof. Deweyj B. Silliman, Jr.

Dr. Jackson, Dr. Binney,

Prof. Silliman, Prof. Hitchcock,

Dr. J. C. Booth, John L. Hayes,

E. C. Herrick, Prof. Rogers,

Mr. Redfield, Dr. Dan

Mr. E. C. Herrick was appointed Treasurer.

Prof. Hitchcock then made some remarks about the Geology 0
Western Asia. He had received one hundred specimens fron
Mount Olympus, some of wdiich — calcareous spar — were ver
curious ; he had three hundred specimens of a series of rock
between Trebizond and Ooroomia he would write about hereafter
He was curious to get a bottle of the water of the Caspian sea
and this spring he received a bottle of it through the British con
giul at Teheran, which must have come at least twelve hundrec
miles on horseback. The consul got several bottles of the wate:

1

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 145

roil) the Russian Admiral commanding the squadron in the Eay of
lA-strabad ; he made one of his captains go and fill the bottle
far out in the Caspian Sea. An analysis of this water gave
n JOOO grams 13.2 grains of solid contents; of free carbonic
icid .24 equal to .5 of a cubic inch; and there is a large
|]uantity of sulphuretted hydrogen in it— .67 of a grain; and
his IS a much larger proportion than we generally find in sulphur
springs. The result .1 give thus :

Sulphuric acid, ^"^f'f

Chlorine, T'q

Lime, .■;;;.■ .■.■.■.■.■.■.■■;;;; , 4

.Soilium, _ 2'^

IMag-nesia, .!!..!.!, i -i

Carbonates lime and maenesia, ' '. o'j

Gypsumand do. do ..........."..'.." 0 4

Or thrown into the form of salts thus :

Sulpliate of magnesia, a ^o

Chloride sodium, 5 17

Carbonates of lime and magnesia in soiutioii," .'.".'..*.. 0 4fi

Chloride calcium, o'T^o

Sulphate lime, ..'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 0*44

Sulphuretted hydrogen, .'.',.'.'.".'.'.".' ........ \ o!?!

This water contained no iodine and no bromine ; its taste is pe-
Liliar ; and it is a weak saline.

, A bottle of Caspian water from close to the shore only £rave
I grains of solid matter in JOOO ; and nearly one of sulphuretted
ydrogen— a very large proportion of the laUer indeed, owino- to
le decomposition of the sulphates by organic matter. ^

I The analysis of the ocean water on the eastern coast of Africa
.so shows large quantities of sulphuretted hydrogen, produced by
lie decomposition of organic matter at the mouths of rivers on the
bast. This can be seen by reference to Prof. Daniel's analysis

■ |nd this sulphuretted hydrogen, from this organic matter, is the
iiuse of the terrible fevers on the coast of Africa, where the mala-
a is said to prevail, and in all hot climates. '
Prof. H. also said that Mr. Perkins had sent home a very curi-
is account of a salt pond in Persia, the water of which was five
etdeep, and the salt at the bottom five feet thick; the water
as separated from a large salt lake by a small sand bar; in hio-h
jinds the lake water was washed over the bar into the pond, and

. jence was evaporated and salt made by the hand of nature.

: je also sent home an account of a curious cave near Ooromania*

: |t of which flows a stream of carbonic acid gas similar to that
; the grotto Del Cano near Naples.

: iDr. Booth said, that he formerly analyzed the Croton and
Jhuylkill waters ; the former had five grains of solids, and the
ifter four, to the gallon ; now, in the absence of disturbino-
Jiuses, the Croton only contained less than four grains to the gal-
lb, and M-as purer than the Schuylkill ; but the purest water he

' <ler analyzed, was that of the creek at Washington city. The wate'-
voL. n.— NO. I. T

f

t

146 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

of the Yellow Springs in Pennsylvania contained silica in solution ;
and he thought sufficient attention was not paid to the presence
of silica, as he believed it acted a very important part in mineral
waters, and he believed it to be soluble in pure water.

Dr. Jackson thought the solution of silica was owing to the
presence of crenic acid ; you cannot separate them.

Dr. Barrett considered that the presence of shells had a grea
effect in purifying water. _

Dr. Jackson agreed with this view, and mentioned as an illuS'
tration the lime pond in New-Hampshire ; where large quantit^e^
of organic matter were converted into food by shell fish ; they har
concentrated the lime in the water— the organic matter mto
shell ; and formed a large deposit of shell marl.

The Convention then adjourned.

EVENING SESSION.

The chairman announced the business to be :

1. Foot tracks in the sandstone of the Connecticut valley, b

Dr Barrett.

2. Classification of the animals that made the tracks, by Proi<

Hitchcock.

3. New fossil foot tracks in the new red sandstone ol Pennsy

vania, by Dr. Dean. i -nn

4. Evidences of the congelation of the new red sandstone, by U\
Barrett. (This paper was deferred.) ^ , , , x-u-

Dr Barrett said that it was in 1826 he first found tracks ot birc'
in the red sandstone of Connecticut, and told Prof. Silhman of i
He now would show the track of a new animal, a right and 1
foot • the centre toe is a little worn ; I called it a canthodactylua
the treading was quite heavy. The next track is that of an ani^
with a tread as heavy as the hippopotamus ; the loot is b inclD
in diameter ; part of the second foot is broken. A third speciint
comes near the elk or some of the ox tribe. It is evidently tti'
of a hoofed animal. It is in pale grey soft sandstone ; and U
track is filleil with blue grit. It is in a slab of pavement m the stre
of Middletown. The stone is 21 inches wide, and 3 feet 5 inchl
lonn- • the tracks are in the middle of the stone ; the foot mari
arels inches wide and about the same length ; also the same di
tancc to the front of the next step. All the slabs with tracks cap
from a quarry one mile west of Middletown, near the comb fa
lory They are rare in the Portland quarry ; the one most cOD
mon is about 5 inches long, and is unlike any belore knovvn. *
thinks the large foot track to be the same animal that Dr. KM
described, but his animaPs feet were only half the size He al
found foot tracks of birds of a gigantic size, 14 inches ong and
inches wide. He also saw tracks of a pair of feet that looked vej
much like the human foot, but not quite so long ; he showed

«

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 147

drawing resembling two clubbed feet. He found one slab 14 feet
long that had the tracks of at least a dozen different animals cross-
ing it. He felt certain that if ever that aforesaid quarry should
be re-opened it would be found rich in foot tracks.

Dr. Barrett exhibited very excellent drawings of all these foot
tracks, which excited great curiosity among the audience.

Prof. Hitchcock said that formerly he gave names to the tracks
found in the red sandstone instead of the animals that made them ;
iH lause, except the tracks, there is no relic left of those animals
wnrth mentioning. But at the suggestion of Mr. Dana he had
iiiaile out a classification and nomenclature of all the animals
wliose tracks had been found in the red sandstone of the Connec-
ticut valley. These animals were ciaiefly birds of a very low order
of organization. He then read off his list of names given to these
birds. The species were 35 • and the genera were 20 ; he tried
to make the number smaller, but could not without classing to-
gether species that are more unlike than w'hat we find in living
iiiimals. He had measured the feet in every possible way, with
■are, the same as phrenologists measure the head ; and done all in
ids power to classify them correctly.

Prof. Silliman read a letter from Dr. Dean of Amherst, t\dio has
'bund fossil foot marks in a new location near Amherst. He be-
,ran by stating the incredulity with which the announcement of
he discovery of these foot marks w^as received. Since then all the
geologists of England have given in their adhesion to the subject.
^ince then enormous birds (fossil) have been discovered in the allu-
vial deposit of New-Zealand, and sent to England, of a larger size
han any found and claimed by Prof. Hitchcock. Recently speci-
nens of bird tracks have been found near Greenville in Penn,; also
;ome like terrestrial animals ; air-breathing, ^varm blooded animals,
') toed and long foot ; also some of the large hand-footed tribe —
ikethehuman hand — now by Dr, Owen proved to have belonged to
I large Batracian animal, one of the frog tribe — a frog as large as a
)ull, or an elephant — one of the great croakers of his day ! There
ire numerous tracks of these frogs where they kept dancing about
m the rocks, and these are many hundred feet below the new red
andstone, and they are below the coal. These convince me that
vhilst the earth was being fitted to pass into its present state, after
he era in which it was occupied entirely by marine animals ; then
;ame the ornithold era, then a reptilic era, then the interesting se-
ies connected with the coal beds, then the enormous Saurian rep-
lies through the great series of the Lias and the Oolites up to the
■halk • passing through that peculiar formation we come to the
)eriod of terrestrial animals and to the era of the present forests
nd that of man. Dr. Dean states that he has found 10 or 12 spe-
imens of these five toed foot tracks, with the bunch part, like the
'all of the hand, and behind each track there is an oblong, irregu-

148 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

lar depression^ which depressions are arranged in the sandstone !i3(
opposite to each other as the tracks are 5 making- it appear that
the animal's hind feet did not touch the ground when he was too ,,:.
deep, but that he sat on his haunches, and the nature of the de-(
pression makes it seem that one part of the hind leg was evidently
folded under the other. These marks were very curious, and
opened a new field for inquiry. Numerous bird tracks were alsoi
found along with the tracks of quadrupeds ; the papillae of the in-(
teguments are perfectly preserved.

Prof. Silliman then exhibited Dr. Owen's fac simile plates ofl
the fossil birds found at New^-Zealand, the thigh bone reaching
from a man's knee to his shoulder.

Prof. Rogers then exhibited a map of the coal beds and inter
mediate layers of Pennsylvania, wdiere Dr. King found the fossil
foot marks. He described the great Pittsburg coal basin as bein
a seam of coal 10 to 14 feet thick, and occupying an area of 14,008
square miles — twice as large as Massachusetts — and of a very pure
coal. The basin or seam in which the foot tracks were found by
Dr. King stretches south to Alabama, west to Ohio, and north to
Lake Erie; and occupies an area of 63,000 square miles — largei
than all England and Scotland. It is 150 feet below the seam ol
Pittsburg coal — there being eight good working seams of coal iq
Pennsylvania below that- x)f the Pittsburg ; and only one go
working seam above it.

Prof. Rogers also said that all these foot tracks found in th|^
region except one, were said by Dr. King to be in relief; and i)
so they could not belong to any animal. He believed them to ht
made by reptiles ; it was was the place to look for Batracian ani^
mals ; he did not expect to find the tracks of winged, air-breathing
animals ; and if they proved to be so, it would be indeed a disctW
very in the history of the populating of our globe that would posses?
the highest interest. The subject should be inquired into at once
Mr. Haldeman stated that one of the New-York State Geologisb
had suggested that these apparent foot tracks in the carboniferou*
series might be marine plants.

Prof. Silliman said this idea was abandoned soon after it ww
first promulgated.

THIRD DAY.

Dr. Barrett read a brief paper on the evidences of congelatlor
in the new red sandstone of Middletown and Chatham. He hac
long seen evidences of solar heat exhibited in the red sandstone—
by the cracks showing the baking process, and the temperature 0
the earth at that time ; and he had looked a long time for evidences
of cold or freezing. He had at last found evidences of trianglei

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 149

land rhomboids, &c. ; some five or six inches and more on llie sides •
and thus affording a very interesting evidence of the various de-
grees of temperature at the time those birds lived and walked over
the earth, at the time those tracks were made that were alluded to
'yesterday. This fine old meteorological record of the weather in
:;hose days, (being so much more ancient and interestino- than the
•ecords of ancient Egypt,) were thus stereotyped on the spot, and
;ealed up, to be opened and exhibited to us thousands of ages
1 norwards, as a true record of that part of the earth's history. He
ia.l some difl^culty in regard to the large size of the rhombs and
nangles he found in the sandstone ; but after much examination
le found in 1841, after a frost, specimens of similar triangles and
Ihombs, lormed by the crystalization of the water during the
liight ; some of the triangles were twelve inches in length ; some of
he rhombs were eighteen inches long; and what was remarkable,
hcse crystals of ice had pressed upon the thin crust of mud beneath
ml made indentations similar precisely to the evidences of conge-
ition he had found in the red sandstone ; and while making his
ibservations, animals came along and actually walked over the
|:e, pressing it down on the mud beneath— breaking through and
jiaking tracks in the mud precisely similar in manner, &c., to the
vidences of bird tracks found by Prof. Hitchcock in the red sand-
one of the Connecticut valley, in such beautiful perfection Dr
.iarrett also said that he had carefully examined the sandstone used
|i the new library buihhng of Yale College, and he can show in
|ie cracks thereof evidences of the solar heat that produced them •
')me of these had been partially filled up by sand and mud. He
Duld also show rain drops of the old world in this sandstone—
so the ripple marks of waves, and one triangular crystal of
bdstone. He could show where there were marks of the strong
aves and weak waves— wshoing very clearly that in that terribly
d world, water was subject to the same laws that it is now.
[The phenomenon referred to by Dr. Barrett furnishes no evi-
pnce of congelation— it is merely the effect of drying, or crys-
jlization. All rocks exhibit similar conditions.] — Ed.
jMr. Silliraan, jr., said that he thought the appearances spoken
by Dr. Barrett were attributable to the rhomboidhedral cleavage
often witnessed in the red sandstone, which had frequpntly been
ifearded as a species of semi-crystalization— little else than the
:^nted structure peculiar to the new red sandstone.
jProf. Johnson said that the remarks alluded to by Dr. Barrett
V^re very different from the jointed structure of the sandstone
s peculiarly noticeable in the pavements of the streets of Hart-
i'd.

150 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Prof Rogers said it was hicrhly important that the angles of the
rhombs, &c., mentioned by Dr. Barrett, should be measured. He
conceived that the temperature of the earth, at the time of the
formation of the sandstone, was far above any possible point ol
the crystalization of water. n i . .

Dr. Barrett said that he did not refer to structure at all, but tc
indentations in the mud.

Prof. Rogers said that, still, there was a kind of indentatior
that belonged to structure. , , . , i i .1

Dr Barrett said he was satisfied that, by the features he had tha-
day explained, he could readily determine the temperature of th.i
earth at that " very olden time," within about twenty degrees.

Prof SiUiman said that, if they went on with this subject, the^.-
would freeze up all their time. He moved to drop the subject fo
the present time.

A very interesting and curious paper was tlien read by Mr

Dana, on the minerals of the trap rock series. j

Dr. Jackson followed with very able and unusually clear ra

marks, on the subject of the minerals of trap dykes. He said tha

wherever two rocks come together, one of igneous and the othe

of aqueous origin, there is always a chemical action between them

Not so, or scarcely to any extent, where a rock of igneous origi',

goes through a rock like limestone, which though of aqueous on

ein, has undergone chemical action and crystalized. For exampU

when trap dyke goes through lime rocks, the rocks unite withoij

any commotion, and a pure silicate of lime is formed, bo \vb^

the trap passes through clay rocks or clay slate, the slate is bakj

hard, and jasper and jasper minerals are formed. So when M

trap passes through granite, no amygdyloid is formed But wh(

the trap passes through sandstone rock, you then see that there h:

been a violent tumult— considerable effervescence, and eitlr

amyf^dyloid is formed, or a trap tufa which is sometimes poro'

and cellular, as the scoria or lava of the volcanic regions of L+i"

&c Again, where the trap rock runs through granite, we

sulphurets of iron formed ; where the trap goes through clay slat

we find the same minerals resulting : when the trap goes throm

limestone, we find galena and the ores of zinc ; and where the tn

p-oes through the red sandstone, we find copper produced, ihisi

peculiarly the case in Nova Scotia ; no lead is found in the tn

there, but pure copper ; the sulphurets of copper lay in the san.

stone : heat was required to expel the sulphur ; nature did t^

when forcing the heated trap rocks through the sandstone, and tJ

pure copper is thus reduced from the ore. We see abundant e^

dence of this also, in the copper of Lake Superior, where the saD

process has been going on. [Specimens were here shown

Abundance of sulphurets of copper are found in the red sandston

filling fossil plants.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 15 1

In answer to questions, Dr. Jackson stated that the base of the
trap rock agreeing with the sandstone, prevented any great dis-
jturbance when the former passed through the latter, whilst the
[fineness of the sandstone accounts for the cellular nature of what
trifling portions of amygdyloid is found at the point of contact.
He fully agreed with Mr. Dana, that the agency of hot water
was employed by nature to fill up the cavities of trap rock mine-
rals with crystals by deposition. lie also instanced the beautiful
arrangement by which when trap rock passed through gradual
limestone, and the raetalic oxides were present, we have all the
\aricties of cinnamon and other garnets, according to the modifi-
cations of the oxides ; by the fusion of that limestone in contact
ivvith its walls. And he instanced the fact that wherever these cin-
pamon garnets, &c.,are found in the loose soil, it is an evidence
hat limestone is close by, and is thus a valuable guide. Dr.
lackson placed the rocks in the following order of age. The oldest
A as the porphyry ; next the porphyiitic traps, then the blue trap,
hen the brown trap, then the bastard containing olivine, &c. And
|t is curious to see the many different points of the compass to
jvhich these different series bear ; the porphyry runs from nearly
puth to north ; the porphyritic trap, from S. W. to N. E. ; the
)lue trap, from W. S. W. to E. N. E. ; the brown trap, nearly
iist and west ; and the basalt from E. S. E. to W. N. W. ; thus
ifoing all round the compass ; and of course the various different
jeries of trap rocks must frequently intersect and cut through each
ither, and at Bald Head, York ; and at Rye, near Portsmouth, N.
T., we have very fine specimens of these interesting trap dykes.
)r. Jackson also spoke of the fact, usually overlooked, that sea
.ater from all parts of the earth contains phosphates. Every speci-
Aini of water brought home by the exploring expedition, gave this
esult. He had analyzed the hot w^aters of the Geysers, and found
0 boracic acid therein ; the silica there was held in solution by
austic soda; on exposure to the air, the soda, absorbing carbonic
eld from the atmosphere, becomes carbonate of soda, and the sili-
a falls down in a solid mass.
Mr. Dana had previously related the singular fact, that silica re-
luins in a semi-fluid state long after deposition, and is thus easily
iermeable by solution ; oil and water it was well known would
liter through chalcedony, and it was in this way that quartz and
lalcedonic geodes contained in their centre other and very diffe-
■iit mineral substances in a beautiful crystalized state.
Prof. Silliman produced a fine specimen of native copper found
:ar Wallingford, Conn., where the trap had passed through the red
mdstone, and a mass of one hundred pounds weight had been thus
lund.
Mr. exemplified the agency of hot water in producing

152 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

great mineral changes, and instanced the upheaving of a mass of
trachite from beneath the sea at Oonolaska, where the sea was
made warm for three miles around it. Again, at Banda, a large
rock of trachite was forced up through the sea gradually, and heat-
ed the water for'a great distance, and the rock remained hot for a
year afterwards. Also, the similar case at Sabrina, and at Decep'
tion Island in the South Shetlands, where there was no eruption
a mass rose up in three or four years, and the water was hot for
miles around.

Here Prof. Shepard asked Mr. Dana if in connection with the
order of super-position he had ever seen quartz upon datholite 1
Mr. Dana said he had seen phrenite upon datholite, but nol
quartz ; and also quartz upon zeolite.

Prof. Shepard fully agreed in the great agency of hot water ir
forming amygdyloid minerals in the trapian rocks.

A very brief paper was then read by Mr. , on the Geo]o<

gy of the Island of Jamaica, and one by Dr. Hitchcock, on th«
polarity of common trap and boulders ; and the meeting adu
journed.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

A very able paper was read by Mr, Dewey, on the Gypsum oi
New-York. '

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a desultory but veri
interesting manner, by conversations between the members, oil
various scientific subjects.

Mr. Haldeman of Philadelphia introduced a new and importan ^
chromatic wheel, and explained the same. ^'

It was proposed to appoint committees of members who Yvf "'
near the mouths of all large rivers going into the sea, to note tb «
amount of sediment annually carried by the rivers into the sea. "I

It was also proposed to memorialize the Secretary of War t ^'
cause general observations to be made on the change of the ley* ^^
of the coast ; also observations on mean tide level. f

A new form of improved mountain barometer was introduce »i;
by Prof. Jackson or Johnson, and proper stress laid on the necej "Sj
sity of improving the barometer, on account of its great super:
ority in determining the height of mountains.

The meeting then adjourned, and the members went to Pro
Silliman's residence to partake of his hospitality, where they er
joyed a most intellectual treat.

FOURTH DAY.

After the previous day's minutes had been read and corrected
the names of several new members were presented for approval
as was the case yesterday.

k

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 153

Prof. C. N. Shc'pard then gave a very interesting account of a
now locality of meteoric iron, at the head of St. Augustine Bay,
on the southwest coast of Madagascar. The information came from
jLt. H. C. Flagg, who touched at a town at the head of that bay
I in the John Adams, U. S. ship of war. The people are in the
t wildest possible state of savages : their hair is long and black ;
llfeatures Caucasian ; clothes of not much account j and their only
' weapons the spear and fish hook. When the John Adams' people
offered these savages some American iron in exchange for pro-
visions, &c., they re-^jected it w'ith disdain, saying that they had
native iron in their own island of a far superior quality, and point-
ed to some elevated land about six or eight miles in the interior,
wliere they said they found large quantities of pure malleable
ron, and many large boulders of it — one boulder being at least
-ixleen feet in diameter. This iron they skilfully worked up into
;prar-heads of a very destructive and superior character, and fish-
inoks ; their great skill in working this iron they obtained from
he buccaneers, who frequented the island very often after the cap-
uvc of Mozambique by Vasco de Gama. Prof. Shepard said he
lad analysed a part of one of these spear-heads, and found it to
)e true meteoric iron ; it contained nickel. Its specific gravity
vas 7.8, and its analysis gave —

Iron, 96 .66

Nickel and traces of cobalt^^ 3 . 34

nd the structure was different from that of any pure iron that we
:now of. The largest specimen of meteoric iron previously
nown, was a piece of about 30,000 pounds, in South America.

is piece found in Madagascar, if correctly described, must be
.ach the largest. Certainly the deposit in Madagascar is a very
xtraordinary one. It is certain that this iron came from Heaven,
llhough it has since been put to very base purposes ; for just be-
^rc the ship John Adams reached Madagascar, the crew of a

-tish merchant vessel were murdered by these very natives ; and
.'■: spear in the room probably drank the blood of a son of "per:
(lious Albion."

THE SEA HARE.

Prof. Shepard then exhibited a very fine specimen of a curious
ud rare animal called the sea hare by the ancients — Lepus Mnri-
us. The animal is of an oval form, with peculiarly shaped tenta-
ala ; when the animal is moving in the water, its tentacles look
ke the ears of the hare in running. Pliny frequently speaks of
le Lepus JMarinus, although he never described the animal. This
ttle animal was supposed to be most deadly poisonous, and who-
-er touched the peculiar blue liquid which is emitted from its

VOL II. NO. I. U

154 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

body, was considered by the ancient Romans as sure to die within
as many days as there are days in the life of the aniinal.

Prof. Silliman. — How did they get at the number of days in the
life of the animal, sir ? (Laughter.)

Prof. Shepard. — That was determined, sir, by the number o^
days at the end of which the person died. (Increased laughter.^
Nero was supposed to have been poisoned by it ; Domitian, it waai
sa'd, poisoned his brother with this fluid; and it was commonly
believed that this fluid was one of the most powerfully conceu'
trated poisons in the world. Apuleius was once arraigned on a
charge of poisoning, merely because it was proved that he oncgi
employed a person to catch one of these little sea hares. Whereas,'
it is now known to be one of the most harmless and inoffensive
little animals in the world. It is a true moluscula ; its class is the
gasteropoda of Cuvier, and of the order techtebranchiata ; and
this is the only species of that order ever found in our loaters. I
obtained it on the shore at Charleston, S. C. It could scarcely
move when I took it from the water. As soon as 1 placed it in ?
white pocket handkerchief, it drenched the handkerchief with i
beautiful carmine or deep purple fluid, as though it had beer
drenched with blood ; this appears to be its only mode of defence
and is discharged from an appendage close to the gills, througl|
millions of pores, there being no general outlet ; secreted like sali
va ; it has no ink bag, like the cuttle fish, but like it, can discolo
the waters round it ; it will color a hogshead of water as dark at
port wine. It lives along the shore ; feeds on fuci ; the body i
five inchts long, and the foot is five and a half inches long. |
could not come from the West Indies ; it is a slow tr. -.'eller ani
has many enemies. A different species is found in Americai
others at Marseilles and Barbary.

GOLD AND DIAMONDS OF BRAZIL.

Prof. Shepard then made a few very interesting remarks on th
elastic sandstone of the gold region. He produced a specime
from Buncombe county, N. C, which very much resembles th
elastic sandstone of Brazil. In Charleston he met with a ver
eminent scientific man named Shreiver, of Ilessia, (formerly a sti
dent of Gottingen) who had passed a year or two in Georgi."
making observations, and who had several specimens of this beaut
ful sandstone. He had been induced to collect these from tt
fact that Baron Eswege had, in describing the gold and diamon
regions of Brazil, shown that the elastic sandstone prevails M
tensively there. The fact also induced Dr. Eglehart to searc
carefully the Ural Mountains, and there he foumi this elastic san«
stone in abundance. He then predicted that diamonds aiid platii
would soon be found in those Ural Mountains, and on searchin

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 155

that region, both diamonds and platina were found there. This
mineral was itacolcmile ; interlaminated with primary rocks, mica
slate, and talc slate. It was 100 feet thick in Hall county, and
takes a northeast and southwest course, on the east bank of the
("liattahoochie, through Habersham and Raeburn counties. At one
locality in Hall county, they actually I'ound a diamond at one of
the gold washing deposits ; it was worth about $35. Another dia-
mond was found by a workman, which was unfortunately broken
in pieces. Mr. Schreiver examined this mine after it was aban-
doned, and w^ashed the sands there carefully for two weeks, but
found no more diamonds. But still, said Prof. Shepard, there is
not the slightest doubt but that plenty of diamonds will yet be
lound in those regions. This place was at Linnville Mountain,
llurke county, N. C. : it is a spur which puts out from the Blue
Kaiige, near the Black Mountain ; the Linnville River is on the
north side of it, and the Katawba River is on the south side of it ;
there, and twenty-five miles off, at Broad River, there must be
many valuable gold mines. From the course of the rocks. Prof.
S. thought he would find it intermediate between Burke and Rae-
hiun counties, and on examination he did find it there. By the
nport of the geology of South Carolina, page 17, by Dr. Tuomey,
this mineral is found in Pickens county, S. C, with conglomerate
tdic and oxide ; and at another locality forty miles east, in York

imty. Thus, this curious formation of elastic sandstone is very
. viensive in the south, and is every where connected with the
aurilerous or gold region. And from the analogy of this rock
with those in Brazil and the Ural Mountains connected with the
l:(>K1 region, there is not the least doubt, but that before long we
shall find in Georgia and the Carolinas a valuable diamond-bearing
rock. This rock is properly of a transition character ; for although
there is some difficulty in classifying it, as some portions seem
strongly to partake of the character of rocks of the primitive
series, yet the diamond-bearing rock is undoubtedly of the transi-
tion order ; it is in layers not conformable to the stratification of
the country ; and we must search it out, not where it is indubita-
bly oi a primary character, but where it partakes somewhat of a
secondary character. In Stafford county. Conn., we have also a
kind of flexible sandstone called firestone ; a mica slate slightly
tlexible ; but the talcose slate, usually found with the gold and
diamond-bearing rocks, with us runs out.

J)r. Jackson asked if any platina has yet been found in the Uni-
ted States ]

Prof. Shepard — None.

Jackson — I have seen a letter from Alexander Humboldt, in
hich he says that from the similarity of our gold region to that

156 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

of Russia and Brazil, he has no doubt but that we shall find gold
and diamonds in them.

Prof. Olmsted said that twenty years ago he saw two specimens
of this flexible sandstone at a farm house in Lincoln county,
Georgia, five miles s'juth of Graham's Iron Works ; this was also
in the gold region. One piece was as flexible as an eel ; it was
six inches long and two inches diameter ; it was cylindrical and I nl
shaped like an old fashioned pestle. I asked the farmer to give iti w
to me, but he refused, and he must have had the organ of firmnesii »
largely developed, for when T asked him to sell it to me, he said
he had concluded to keep it ; but he consoled me with this remark,
that if he could have made up his mind to part with it, he would
not have charged me a cent for it. (Laughter.)

Dr. Jackson said there was a mineral very much like it that was
used instead of granular quartz at the glass w^orks in Keene, New-
Hampshire. Was it possible that gold might be found in situ
in that region. Native gold has been found in Vermont. i

Prof. Shepard said it was doubtful if the native gold said to I
have been found in Vermont came from that State originally. It
might have been washed to the spot.

Dr. Jackson alluded to Gen. Field's specimen, which undoubt-
edly was found in situ in New-Hampshire.

Prof. Dewey — Well, but gold has been washed out of the sand
in Vermont.

Professor Shepard — Yes, sir, but it is believed the sand had first
been salted with gold. (Laughter.)

Dewey — Well, I should like to know who can be salting iht
earth in this w^ay.

Prof. Hall said he always looked upon the flexible sandstone tc
be a sedimentary rock.

Prof. Shepard — That agrees with the opinion of the French tra
veller. He was a little confused where to place it ; but some o:
it was evidently a transition rock ; and the diamonds and gold ir
Brazil are found only in sedimentary rocks.

Prof. Booth said that there was a large diamond in Philadcl ,
phia that had been found in a pudding stone with oxide of iroii'
and manganese.

Prof. Shepard said that those found in the gang were not coi
sidcred genuine.

TAKING SILICA OUT OF VEGETABLES.

Dr. Jackson then related a very interesting process he hi
invented of depriving vegetables of their silex. This was resorted
to in order to use common reed poles to make paper and cordage
&c. He used for this the fluohydric acid.

For this purpose he used a lead cylinder full of reed poles^
crushed and moistened ; he placed some fluor spar in a lead retort

' EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 157

'on a sand bath ; he poured on the fluate of lime some sulphuric
licid ; this drove oif the fkio-hydric acid, which, passing through
;,he reeds in the retort, entirely deprived them of tlicir silica, which
silica was precipitated in the glass tiirough the lead tube, in a
gelatinous deposit. Tn this way most beautiful paper could be made
))f cane poles, or common reeds; as tough as bank note paper,

iind quite white. Fluor spar was iour cents a pound. It is a good
node of analysis, also, and only occupies about five minutes. We
:an use straw or grass, &c., instead of poles, and we have also
bund that milk of lime first passed through the cylinder will take
p much of the silex from g7-een cane poles.

Mr. Redfield said that Gov. Reed of Bermuda had sent out to
lim a quantity of the fibres of the arrow root plant, after the
rrow root had been pressed out of it ; and that if any one want-
d to make paper out of it, he should be happy to supply them
;ith any quantity.

Dr. Jackson then introduced a specimen of Kenkrenite and one
f Nepoline, found at Litchfield, Maine ; the same, precisely as is
)und among the gold, &c. of the Ural Mountains. They are the
rst specimens ever found here.

Dr. Jackson then gave the result of his analysis of the Rosen-
ale cement, and the Connecticut hydraulic lime ; and stated
lat the best quality of these was when the oxygen of the bases

as in such a proportion as to form a bi-basic compound. He
Ided that the presence of manganese, of sulphuric acid, of pot-
jh am! of soda had been too much overlooked in these com-

unds.

Prof. Rogers read a paper on the slaty cleavage of rocks, and a

per by Mr. Storer of Boston was read on the " Fishes of

merica.

The meeting then adjourned.

AFTEROON SESSION.

Prof. Coffin read a brief paper relative to the prevailing winds

North America ; and pointed out the fallacy of making observa-

ns by the old mode ; for example, out of twelve observations, if

four instances the wind blew from the north, in three from the

uth, two from the southwest, one from the west, and one from

le southeast, the prevailing record w^ouldbe that the wind mainly

iw from the north for ^ given time ; when in fact the prevailing

nds would be from the southward. He also pointed out the error

calculating surface winds, and various other erroneous matters

0 which ignorant men, self-styled " wund-regulators," have

len.

The winds follow a uniform track from a point nearly west ;
Id then from the north, toward the Rocky Mountains. But we

158 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

have a less decided law in regard to wind than nearer the equator
and get out of the influence of the trade winds. Whenever the
winds are registered, the change in the barometers must also be
noted. The observations at the surface of the earth are very im-
perfect.

Mr. Redfield said that the War Department ordered, erroneous-
ly, that in all observations on clouds, the course of the lower stra-
ta of cloud should be noticed. This? was all wrong.

Prof. Rogers trusted that Messrs. Coffin and Redfield would pre-
pare a digested report of the prevalent course of the winds, an(
the systematic currents of the earth's atmosphere, on this Conti
nent.

Prof. Olmstead hoped this would be done ; and then the tern
" inconstant as the winds" would become obsolete ; and it wouli
be seen that the winds obey laws as well as other bodies in natun

Mr. Redfield hoped the inquiries and reports would be indepen
dent of each other.

Prof. Rogers said that it was well known that committees c
one always worked much better than any others : but there was
way to make committees of two work twice as well as committee
of one — by each making an independent report.

Mr. Redfield declined, because of other business.

Finally, Prof. Coffin was appointed to post up all the vagari
of the winds on this continent.

Prof. Bailey made some very interesting reuiarks on that singi
lar plant found in mines, which glowed with a phosphoresce]
. light, making the mines look like enchanted palaces. It is call
Rhizomorpha ; he exhibited some specimens of it, which he hi
found in this country, not in mines, but in between the bark k
the decayed stumps of old chesnut trees. He said it would 1
found by search, in the stumps of any decayed trees. It look<
like a lot of small dark brown strings, fibres, or tendrils of decai
ed plants, but when taken into a dark room, it exhibited a beaut
ful phosphorescent light. It appeared to do this by the absorptit
of oxygen and the exhalation of carbonic acid ; a reverse proce
from the ordinary combustion of vegetables. Any person cou ^f
get this plant out of the fields, and exhibit the phenomenon in 1
own parlor. It appeared to be phosphorescent, however, OD
whilst growing.

Prof. FCogers said that the phosphorescence of the glow wo>
was also supposed to be owing to the absorption of oxygen, ai j('^
the exhalation of carbonic acid gas, a similar process to the resj
ration of animals.

Dr. Jackson said that common calcareous spar, when placed
a hot shovel, becomes one of the most beautifully phosphoresce
substances we know of. It glowed fiercely with a golden yellc
light.

fa

EXTRACTS ro REIGN AND DOMESTIC. 159

Or. Jackson then read a paper on the copper mines of Lake
'iiperior, in which he showed that the copper ore of that region
s hirgely mixed with silver, particularly in the valuable mine on
'.wj:\c River. In a ton of the rock ore as delivered by the miner
n llie bank, he found, by analysis, that there was the following
;iliie : Of silver, $87,25 ; copper, $ii\ 10 ; total value, $129.35.
Ml that it was more properly a silver than a copper mine. He
vliibited some very fine specimens of the silver and copper ob-
liiud from that place.

The meeting then adjourned.

FIFTH DAY.

COPPER MINES OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

Prof. Jackson had said in his statement that the islands between
ake Huron and the Sault St. Marie were of the same fossilifer-
us character as the limestone of Niagara. At the Sault we come
) the red sandstone. Here the rapids are two or three miles wide
tid nearly a mile long; the fall is about IS feet; it would be very
isy to make a canal round them, as the excavation for the whole
lile would be in soft, grey sandstone, easily blasted, and th ■ sides
f which would form good walls for the rocks. On the flat
round between the Sault village and the Lake there, is a large
uantity of boulders of many tons weight; of sienite, porphyry,
reenstone, trap rock, with epidote and sandstone. T':.jse have
Ibeen brought hither by drift ice; and we have abundant proof
f this all along the shores of the Lake. There are two well
arked old shores of the Lake. One is a gravelly beach a short
istance off, and another is at the base of the hills; and there is a
rge bog between the two. The soil on the hills is good, and sup-
orts fine trees — rock maple, birch, larch and Norway pine.
rue, there is no limestone on the borders of the Lake; but there
'e enormous veins of calcareous spar, enough for all the purpo-
!S of fluxing the copper ore; and the old red sandstone which

found up the Lake will just do to build the smelting furnaces
ith. The rocks dip all round the Lake towards the water at an
igle of about 18 degrees, and run N. E. and S. VV. The pre-
liling rock in the neighborhood of the copper is coarse conglom-
■ate. with trap dykes intersecting. The ore is a hydro-silicate
■ copper, and was known to the old voyagers as the green rock.
eins of black oxide of copper have been opened at Point Ke-
eewenon that contain from 60 to 70 per cent of copper. Bluffs
conglomerate and trap dykes intersecting are found in place be-

een Agate harbor and Eagle harbor, with veins of calcareous

160 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

spar, interspersed with datholite and pieces of pure native copper
these have the same evidences of igneous origin as the trap rock
There is also a vein of phrenite 4 feet wide, and every crystal
which had a crystal of copper attached. In short, every vein tha
is found or opened in that region, (no matter what the base is
contains more or less silver. But the best mine yet found is th
ore on Eagle river; the vein is from 1 to 13 feet wide, and the vein
contain metallic copper and silver; amygdaloidal globules wit
crystals of copper and particles of silver; and frequently we sa\
pure copper and pure silver in the same globule. We also fin*
leaf copper and leaf silver; and octahedral crystals of silver
(Dr. J. here exhibited fine specimens of all these minerals.) Thi
great copper rock found on the Ontonagon river had serpentin
attached to it; and the only copper we find that is mixed up witi
serpentine is on Isle Royal, whence that great rock must have be©
carried on a raft of ice and landed above the rapids, as there is m
copper in situ within miles of where it was found. In Nova Sec
tia the copper that is found is just where the trap goes through tb
sandstone, and igneous action has probably reduced the ores t
native copper. But the copper on Lake Superior, I confess,
think to have been part of the ijnmary copper of the globe, (i
Dr. Houghton also does,) brought up from the molten mass by ti
trap rocks. It is a badly wrought slag; as if old Pluto had
separated all the metal from the slag before he let the trap n
push it up for the service of man. There is one vein of copp
11 feet wide and one mile long, that will repay all the outlay (
the Company. The Cornish miners th€re have sunk four shaf
on the banks of the river, intending to work the mine under tl
river. One shaft is already 60 feet, another 40, another 30 fei
deep — all done by hand power. The deeper they go the rich*
the mineral is; and it contains about one-fourth silver. Col. Gk
tiot has the superintendence there. And in working one sing]
exploration shaft at the Eagle river mine, the metallic conteni
brought out by hand are worth $30,000 ! The rock is amy§
daloidal, and blasts very easily; it does not take more than twer
ty minutes to make a hole for a blast. There is no water in tb
shafts at all, although they have worked down 25 feetbelowthebe
of the river; and instead of the water of the river troubling then
when the dam is built it will be their greatest friend. The watf
wall raise the ore from the mine, pound it, blow the blast for th
smelting furnace, and saw the wood for the buildings. The prt
vailing ores there are the black oxide of copper and the silicate c
copper; there &re no sulphurets of copper found in the whole r€
gion. One valuable large vein contains, in the clear ore, 25 pe
cent of copper, besides silver; and the deeper they go the bette
it becomes.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 161

Prof. Dewey suggested that if that was the case universally,
he best plan for speculation would be to buy wider somebody.
Much laughter.)

Dr. .Jackson warned people, however, against being too san-
:,uii)c; there would be a good many poor mines opened there; and
s many bad speculations as there were in the Maine timber lands.
Laughter.) The copper veins are easily found; they run south
!5 degrees west, and wherever we find a ravine with the depres-
ion conformable to that line we are sure to find a vein of copper;
■r a wet place in a ravine where the plants grow luxuriantly, it is a
)roof that the vein decays faster than the enclosing rock, and that
ein is copper. The best flux necessary to reduce copper ore is
lie calcareous spar, and that is found in great abundance there.
'lie great question is, "Will these copper veins hold ouf?" In
lie West India copper mines the native copper changes tosulphu-
ets as we penetrate the mine. The laws of gravity are in fa-
or of the fact that the deeper we go the richer will be the vein,
low shall we go down in the earth until we come to that spot
here we can ladle out the melted copper? I forget how far Pre-
ssor Rogers said that would be.

Prof. Rogers. — About ten miles ! (Laughter.)

Dr. Jackson. — We have abundant proofs in our specimens that
le copper and silver must have melted together; we find silver in
le copper, but we never find a trace of the copper in the silver,
^'e find also zigzag veins of silver running through the copper.
low if we try to make an amalgam of these metals, if we melt the
jpperand bring the silver to a contact with it, part of the silver
ill unite with the copper and the rest remain pure silver in me-
iianical contact with it; but if we melt the silver and bring the
ppper in contact with it they will thoroughly amalgamate. And
lis singular segregation we find done by nature in the copper veins
f the Lake Superior region. The plan proposed for separating
le copper and silver in these ores, is to make all the copper into
lue vitriol, then make the silver into a chloride of silver, reduce
, and send it to the mint. The copper ore will be broken up at
lemine, carefully washed and picked, and then packed up in kegs
id sent down to Boston to be smelted. There is also an ore of
itimonial silver found in these mines. The sandstone of this re-
lon has no copper in it; but at the point of contact with the trap
bcks, there is a little native copper. The rich vein of black ox-

e of copper opened at Fort \Vilkinsis 14 feet thick, and contains
J per cent of copper. In a ton of the rude ore, as delivered by
le miner at the pit bank on Eagle river, there is the following
jr centage : —

Of Silver i $87 25

Of Copper 42 10

Total $129 35

VOL. 11. — NO. I. V

162 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

And in a ton of the ore as delivered at Boston, there is $568i
worth of silver and over $200 worth of copper; so that it is morei
properly a silver mine than a copper mine; 17 lbs. 9 oz ot thei
clean metal was obtained from 50 lbs. of the ore, by careful assay:,
50 lbs. of copper ore gave 11 lbs. 4 oz. in large pieces of copper
and silver, besides the washings; and an assay of that yielded 663
grains of pure silver, or equal to 25.2 of silver to a ton oi

Dr J also stated his observations on temperature. On Laki
Superior, in August, the air was 53.8 Faht^at noon; the water
was 48.2 Faht. in lat. 47 deg. North. On Lake Huron Juli
23d the air was 66.5 Faht. noon; and the water was 68 1 aht.
both observations taken while the winds were blowmg prettji

fresh

Prof Shepard expressed great doubts whether the copper re

gion of Lake Superior would not be a failure after all. He thoughl

it was a formation analogous to the new red sandstone of theOoB

npcticut valley. Copper was found in numerous places along thj

valley, diffused through quartz and barytes spar, and entangle

with trap at the contact surface of the primary and secondarj

rocks. It was found thus chiefly on the western frontier line (

the secondary; at Rocky Hill near Hartford, and at Enfield Falli

Here was found native copper, red oxide and black oxide ot coji

per, copper pyrites, &c.; all washed down from their original m^

trix into the valley, and washed into the crevices of the sandstone

He conceived this valley to have been once a lake, at the bottoi

of which were large masses, sheets and boulders of copper. ThJ

came the trap dykes fusing up to the surface, and brought up tF^

copper, through which they passed, the copper resting on bo

sides of the trap as at Mount Carmel. He conceived Lake bup^

rior to have been originally a primitive formation; the new rf

sandstone was found on either side of the Lake; and the eoppj

found there was swept by waters into the vertical chinks ot tJ

sandstone; then as the trap came through it melted the copper OD

producing results analogous to those in the Connecticut val e

and thus he concluded that the Lake Superior copper ore is merely

superficial formation reduced from copper ores pre-existing in t!

sandstone. The presence of silver could also be accounted for;

the great copper regions of Germany which exists from the cos

of the Elbe to the banks of the Rhine, in the rich copper mu

wrouP-ht near Rottengen in 2,000 tons of copper there were foui

20,000 marks of silver, or equivalent to 10,000 lbs. weights

Dr* Jackson said he had doubts before he went up to Lai
Superior, but he is now satisfied the copper ores there could n
have been reduced from sulphurets by the action of trap dykt

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 163

You. may melt a sulphuret of copper in a furnace 1000 times, but
you never can reduce it to pure copper unless carbon be present.
'He was also satisfietl that the calcareous spar veins, containing cop-
per which he found there, arc true igneous dykes, cutting up
^through the strata the same as the trap dykes; and that the cop-
jper ore of that region is part of the primary copper of the
Tlobe. The ore had been traced for a mile, and contained 70
ler cent of copper. But still he warned the public against
my wild-goose speculations there.

TRAP ROCKS, &C.

Dr. Whelpley then made a few remarks on the theory of the
rap rocks of the Connecticut valley, &c. He observed that the
lew red sandstone here was bounded by ridges of primitive ; the
lip of the sandstone was a little to the south of east and the trap
monies up through conformable to this dip. The trap goes east of
lorth through Connecticut to Massachusetts. Serpentine and ar-
l^illites principally compose the primitives on the borders. The
vhole of Connecticut, the west half of Massachusetts, Vermont,
^cc. were once covered with this new red sandstone. It is seen
solated at Woodbury, Conn. ; where the trap is pushed up through
he sand, it has vitrified it. The sandstone between the dykes is
•oft and friable.

Some considerable discussion here took place relative to the
)rigin of the crescent-like form of the trap, which by Mr. Whelp-
ey was thought to be owing to the obliquity of the trap in the
niginal formation, and by Mr. 15. Silliman, Jr., to surface denuda-
ion.

FRESH WATER FORMATION IN OREGON.

Prof. Bailey gave a very interesting account of specimens of
bssilliferous siliceous infusoria, brought from Oregon by Lt. Fre-
nont ; they w^ere similar to those found now beneath the peat
)ogs of the United States, and had ceased to be an object of sur-
irise, although they must cease to be an object of interest. There
vas an unusual degree of interest attached to these infusorial strata
i)f Oregon, as they occurred under circumstances unparalleled.
iPhey are all fresh water infusoria ; and are from near the river on
he eastern flank of the Cascade Mountains, which are volcanic
md are 15,000 feet high, in long. 121° 10', lat. 44° 35'. Over these
nfusorial strata there is a deposit of scoriaceous basalt 100 feet
hick, beside other strata. So that these smallest specimens of
creation have been thus hermetically sealed up to the present day.

Prof. Rogers observed it was a subject of the highest interest
ihat we had at last found a genuine fresh water formation in the
Jnited States ; and over which remains the lava of volcanic cra-
ers now extinct, like what is met with in Central France. It wa^:

164 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

atoost interesting matter ; and at the proper time he would show
that there was also a fresh water formation on the Upper Missouri,
and also many others he hoped to find in the United States.

Prof. Bailey said that nearly all these fossil infusoria that he had
examined were of species that now existed. He showed draw-
ings of the Eunotia gibba, Spicula of Spongilla, Gallionella distans.
Surillella splendida, Gallionella nov. sp., &c. &c.

Prof. Silliman said, then, that down to the limestone of the Hud-
son river series, &c. we had these microrcopic forms accompany-
ing us as far as we had any proofs of life at all.

Prof, Hall said that Lt. Fremont had found specimens in Ore-
gon of the cretaceous period, and some very similar in lithologica!
formation to the Bath Oolite ; also south of this he found an ar-i
gillaceous limestone, and fossil ferns in shale ; these were east ox
where the infusoria were found. The whole of the Oregon regio]
was of the greatest interest to the geologist. Through several d
grees of it to the south of where the above were found, there ex-
isted immense salt lakes and mountains of salt. And through all
the recent limestone formations there the trap rocks have pass©
up and disturbed the strata from the Rocky Mountains to the Pa-
cific shores. And over all there were seen numerous extinct vol-i
canic hills, and also some volcanoes still in activity.

The meeting then adjourned to dinner.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

After some trifling preliminary business, such as arranging th»i
order of committees, &c. the President said that the subject for thu
afternoon was

!f

fi

«

ff

THE TACONIC SYSTEM OF ROCKS.

Mr. Haldeman stated that Mr. Emmons considered he had dis-
covered a new sedimentary rock much older than any of the Siluj
rian series.

Prof. Rogers said himself and his brother had long since showB
that all those rocks, supposed to be older than the New- York Pa
leozoic rocks of the Apalachian chain, are parts of that same serie»
of rocks, folded and changed by plication — by some change o.
mineral type, and by igneous metamorphoses, which had almos*
destroyed their fossiliferous character. If Professor Emmons' sc
called Taconic System was correct, we should have had wholi
mountains and plains made up entirely of this group. Not merelyi
as he says, that the Taconic rocks have been uptilted and then th<
fossiliferous rocks of New-York been deposited on the uptiltet
edges of the Taconic rocks — the earliest life-bearing periotl of tht
globe. Emmons places the lower Silurian rocks of England, and
his Taconic rocks, on a level longanteriorto the New-York group.

1

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 165

But his fossils, on which he rests this data, are identical with those
pf the Trenton limestone and the New-York slate. Some few are
lot identified as yet : but it is impossible to go into a new locality
)f an old and well explored region and not fmd some new fossils :
;)ut all these others evidently belong to the same species we have
Ulready described as belonging to the New-York system. The
^ereites of Prof. Emmons give no evidence of belonging to a
ower group than those of the older Silurian of England, or the
^ew-York group to which they had already been referred.

Prof. Hall then exhibited a section of the rocks from the slates
vest of the Hudson river, crossing the Hudson near Troy, and
•oine: east to the Connecticut river. He denied that these were
ny older than the old Silurian range of England, or than the fos-
illiferous rocks of the Hudson, or Paleozoic groups. He found in
hem trilobites and encrinal stems and univalve shells precisely
irailar to those of the Trenton limestone, between Troy and the
3wn of Adams ; and still farther east he had found that singular
lul characteristic fossil, the Scolithus tnhulites in the granular
uartz. If they were an entirely different series of rocks, as Mr.
Immons said they were when he called them the Taconic group,
e should not have found the fossils so closely allied to those of
le other formations.

Pof. Rogers confirmed this view.

Prof. Dewey still had his doubts about it. He thought they
ere older than the old Silurian group.

[The views of the gentlemen who took part in this discussion
f the merits of the Taconic system are erroneous. They misun-
erstand the principles upon which the system is based. Instead
f being based on fossils it is really based on superposition ; the
)west member of the New- York system being superimposed upon
lose of the Taconic system unconformably. The fossils are em-
loyed only as collatteral evidence — and the statement made by
Tr. Rogers in regard to them, is far from being true — for there is
5t a single fossil of the taconic system which is found in the New-
ork system. Whoever, then, rejects the taconic system, rejects
le very principles which he maintains in other cases ; it would
■ equally consistent to reject the evidence we have of the diver-
ty existing between the carboniferous and new red systems. Mr.
ogers says, if the so called taconic system was correct, we should
ive had whole mountains and plains made up entirely of this

cup. Though we deem this remark as of little importance,
'W it is just what we have. The taconic range of mountains,
ith their valleys and plains are well known parts of the taconic

166 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

system. The remarks of Mr. Hall are equally untrue. We chal
lenge that gentleman, or any other member of the association, t<i
produce a fossil of the Trenton limestone from a member of th<
laconic system, and Mr. Hall knows full well that up to the tim
of this meeting, not a single fossil common to the two syi
tems has yet been discovered. We are happy, however, in ob
serving that the views of Prof. Dewey coincide in the main witl
our own, and also, that many more distinguished men are adoptinj
views favorable to the separation of the laconic rocks from thos
which constitute the New- York system,]

ALABAMA PRAIRIES.

Dr. Kane exhibited some specimens of chalky fossil and rock
from the prairies of Alabama, similar to the green sand of DeU
ware ; the bottom of the tertiary. Also some curious statement
about the boring for water by artesian wells near the Tombigbt^
river. ,

The convention then elected the following officers unanimously

Dr. Jackson, of Boston, President for next year.

B. SiLLiMAN, Jr. Permanent Secretary.

Prof. Silliman then gave a very brief but interesting account
the iron mountains of Missouri, 700 feet high, made up of larf(
blocks (not strata or veins) of hydrated peroxide of iron ; and til
meeting adjourned to hear Prof. Rogers' lecture at the Midd^
Church on volcanoes and earthquakes ; after which they all hi
an elegant supper and conversazione at Mrs. Whitney's hospitabi
mansion. |P!

J

SIXTH DAY.

The Chairman, Dr. Dewey, having taken his leave of the Ass
ciation last evening, with a few appropriate remarks, on the nor
ination of Prof. Olmsted, Dr. Binney, of Boston, was elected
Chairman.

Dr. Jackson expressed his sense of the honor done him by ele
ting him as Chairman for next year.

On motion of Prof. Rogers, it was

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to memorialize 'tl
Legislature of the State of ISew York on the subject of diffusii
the Reports on the Geology of that Stale.

Prof. Silliman, Prof. Rogers and Dr. C. T. Jackson were a
pointed a committee for that purpose.

i

fi:

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC, 167

Mr. Dana then read his report on a new and philosophical sys-
em of nomenclature, the principle features of which are as fol-
ows :

I The name originally given to a group or species by its founder
i;hould be retained to the exclusion of all subsequent synonyms;
he system having originated with Linnteus, this law is not to ex-
end to the writings of antecedent authors.

When several genera are united in one the name of the earliest,
f otherwise unobjectionable, should be selected as the name of the
vhole group.

When a genus is subdivided, the original generic name should
lot be canceled, but retained for that portion of it which was con-
itlcred typical by the author.

When a generic name has a synonym exactly equivalent with it
n its original application in making a subdivision of the genus,
V his synonym should not be adopted as the name of either of the
t iiew genera formed; except when its type belongs to a ditferent
; lection of the genus from that of the other name, and both sec-
ions are elevated to genera.

A name of a species already in use for another species of the
ame genus should be changed; also a generic name in Zoology
itefore employed for a genus in the same kingdom.

When the name of a species is afterwards made the name of a
.( luis to include that species, a new specific name should be given.

In writing systematic names the rules of Latin orthography
iiould be adhered to, except in words derived from proper names,
II which only the termination should be latinized.

The best names are those derived from the Greek or Latin lan-
;uages; the former being preferable for generic names and the lat-
er for specific.

Mr. B. Silliman, Jr. read a paper by Lieut. Johnson, on the

ieology in the neighborhood of Fort Ouchita; 70 miles south of

he fort he found the same limestone that is found to the north

f it, but altered by action of heat with nodules of iron. At Ft,

Vayne, on Red river, he found Lignite or Bovey coal, and alum

tposit, with springs impregnated with alum; and he believes that

lie whole of that region was once a laro'e lake risino; over all the

.ills in the neighborhood, and in which the mastadon, &c. used to

I fambol and luxuriate. Still farther on he found granite rocks,

)" jimilar to that found ten miles south of Fort Ouchita; also fifteen

jiiles north and west of the fort; also, limestone changed by

ieat, containing iron; west of this the granite bears east and

f vest; then the limestone bears south 10 degrees east; then the

trata become warped and stand east and west. And in many

laces he found where bitumen had just ceased to flow; and one

lace w^here it was still flowins:. The extensive settlement of

:

168 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

Texas, away towards the Rocky Mountains, is geologically impos'
sible, for the greater part of it is an uninhabitable desert, incapa
ble of cultivation; leaving the habitable portion of Texas a place
no larger than the state of Missouri.

Prof. Hall remarked on the utility of Crustacea in the identifi.«
cation of strata. He had identified 60 species and 22 genera oj
trilobitfcs in his recent survey. He also stated that he had had foi
two years in his possession a specimen of a recent trilohiie (a
remarkable and new fact) picked up on the shores at New Bed-
ford; the eyes are precisely like those of the trilobite (pediculus
marinus trilobus) and so is the general shape of the body; he bfri
lieved it a genuine species of calimina; although the trilobian struc-
ture was not quite so perfect as those of the fossil trilobites o;
the Dudley and Trenton limestone.

Mr. B. Silliman, Jr. then read a very interesting paper by Df
Dickerson, of the Geology of the Mississippi Valley, which showec
that stalactites and mastodon bones have been found in the Natchej
bluff. Also, a description of a curious animal found in the Mam
moth Ravine, as it is called, near Natchez, which is styled th<i
"nondescript." Its head was 18 inches long and 11 inches wide
there was a place for a trunk like that of the elephant; the tuski
were 11 inches long; there were no traces of any eye sockets; nj
foramina for the passage of an optic nerve; no place for eyes ai
all; it was a blind animal; had 16 teeth; its fore leg was fivi
feet lono", and very powerful; the bones were completely fossil
ized, and were very ferruginous.

Another paper, by Col. Wailes, showed the miseries that wei'
suffered in Mississippi for want of any rocks or stones ; on thi
account, they had nothing to check the overflowing or off-cuttin ,
current of the river with ; no stones to build embankments with! I
no stones to make roads with, or to keep roads in repair ; n »
stones to build abutments for a bridge ; so there are no bridges*
no stones to build cellar walls with ; so all the houses are built o •'
sticks. Truly, a lamentable state of things for Mississippi. TI:' ,'
paper also spoke of the numerous bones of the mastodon, founF,
in the mastodon ravines in Mississippi. The only stone found i r^'
Mississippi, is that found at Grand Gulf and Jackson ; it is a tej
tiary sandstone, very poor, and liable to decay ; and the Stai
House at Jackson is built with it. The only waterfall in Missii
sippi falls over this sandstone and is/ii'e feet high ! In the blu;
near Walnut Hills, fossil shark's teeth and many fossil shells
found. Iron ore has not yet been worked in Mississippi, but thei
are many beds of iron in the state. The marl is abundant,
will be very valuable to the planter ; and can be found in aDi
of the ravines ; 700 bushels of marl have been put to the acr*
and the crop of cotton, corn, &c., has been much increased thereb)

irfji

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 1G9

and exhausted cotton lands can be renewed by it, avoldini^- the
necessity of opening new plantations ; this marl contains 35
per cent of carbonate of lime. Specimens of nearly 20 masto-
dons have been found above the blue clay, and in such a state as
to show conclusively that these mastodons perished where they are
found ! The teeth, &,c., of the fossil horse have been found,
showing that these antcdcluvian horses were not unfit associates
for the horses of the present day ! And above all other remarka-
1)K' facts, there has been found actually a piece of human skull
lying in the same bed with the nondescript blind animal before
iliscriped, and in a state which shows that this piece of the
human skull has undergone precisely the same changes as the
bones of that animal, and the same degree of fossillification.
There can be no mistake in this being the skull of a human — an
inlmal that walked upright; and one that must have lived at the
lie time with that nondescript animal. Some remains of the
j;e Saurian have also been found in the blue clay near Jackson,
-s. ; the joints of the bones are beautifully perfect, six inches
liameter, and twelve inches long. This animal was 100 feet
ig, and is believed to be found only in the United States,
shark's teeth, &c., were also found in the same soil.

Prof. Rogers regretted that more had not been done towards
ktcrmining the geological age of the basiloro-saurian, or zeuglo-
lon. He moved a resolution that a committee be appointed to
ii(|uire into and determine the geological age of that animal.
I'liis was carried, and Prof. Rogers was appointed that committee.
Prof. Bailey read a very curious paper on fossil coniferous
.vood.

Mr. B. Silliman, jr., then called attention to the abundance of
obalt found in the mine La Motte, Missouri.

Dr. Ja(kson then said that the glass-makers of New-England
verc much troubled by the cobalt in the red lead made from the
nine La Motte lead ore ; it makes blue flint glass instead of white;
iid is easily tested by putting the red lead in a crucible and melt-
■ it with borax ; if a blue bead results, then cobalt is in the red
.ad.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

Mr. B. Silliman, Jr., then made a few very interesting and able
• marks on the cypress trees of the Mississippi region, and of the
' iyous of that place. He alluded particularly to the peculiar
ranner in which the cypress tap roots and knees grow under
vater, and convert water into land.

Mr. Whelpley then made some remarks on the similar way in
•hich the northern lakes w^ere filling up with vegetable matter,

Mr. B. Silliman then read a paper by Dr. Webber, on a new
orm of attraction.

VOL. II. — NO. I. W

170 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

It was then resolved that the committee on State surveys should]
be continued in connection with the United States linear surveys;^
Professor Rogers proposed that this society shouUl be called the!
"American Society for the Promotion of Science ;" the initiationj
fee to be two dollars, the annual payment one dollar, and a func
to be raised for publishing and forwarding their vieM's ; and also
to apply for an act of incorporation. Laid over till next year.

The following names were then announced as committees oni|
the sedimentary deposits of rivers :

Mississippi River — Dr. W. W. Dickenson, Riddell, Forshay.i

Connecticut River — Prof. Johnson, Dr. Barrett.

Kennebec River — Prof. Loomis.

Susquehannah River — Prof. Haldeman.

Some remarks were then made on the value of the phosphates
in agriculture; and Dr. Jackson showed that Earl Dundonnald
pointed this out in his work in 1795, long before Liebig ever
thought of it, or was born.

Various votes of thanks were then passed, and the Association
broke up in high glee, till September, 1846.

[From the Farmers' Cabinet.]

JAMES GOWEN'S REPORT TO PHILADELPHIA AGl
CULTURAL SOCIETY.

To THE Committee on Farms :

Gentlemen — It is known to most of you, that since I became
farmer, I have spared no pains to fulfil the duties of the calling, ijj
a manner creditable to the community in which I live, as well ai
to myself and the Agricultural Society to which I belong — ths
while improving my own practice, I have endeavored, by sundr
means, to stimulate others to compete with me in spirited ellort:
to arrive at excellence in the highly useful and delightful pursuii
of agriculture ; and to promulgate as far as in me lay, such iir
provements and results, as were likely to promote the general in
terests of the farmer. In carrying out this object, I have as pa)
of the system, always been found competing in crops and catth
for the premiums offered by "The Philadelphia Society for pri
moting Agriculture." It is therefore in accordance with this pra(
tice, that I now present my farm as worthy of note, when yo
come to award the premiums committed to your distribution : i
view of which, and in fulfilment of the rules and regulations oftl:
society, I submit for your consideration a general statement of i"
character and condition.

EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DO^rESTIC, 171

The homestead farm contained, when I removed to it in 1834,
bout 60 acres ; since then I have added to it by purchase, some
40 acres, all of" which i*; contiguous ; making over 100 acres, ex-
clusive of the woodland farm in Cheltenham township, Montgomery
tounty, part of which is cleared and worked by me, and is in fine
•< 'idition, as you may recollect from my communication on the
j) of rye raised therein 1842.

i'rom long neglect and a bad practice, previous to my coming

ui the homestead, I found it in every respect in a wretched condi-

i(in. The results of bad ploughing and bad seeding, were visible

n the unevenness of the surface ; and the pernicious weeds that

ai'ined to have entire possession. I at once took up the old fences

•vhich divided about 40 acres into small fields, ploughed it up,

'radicated the briers and brambles that filled so large a space along

hose fences, and removed the stones within ploughing ilepth. It

vas cropped accordingto circumstnnces — alternately with potatoes,

11, grain, &c., until the soil had been brought into proper sub-

tion in the fall of 1S39 ; when it was laid down for grass, by

owing it with grain and timothy ; since which it has not been

lisiurbed, with the exception of about eight acres in rye, this year ;

iiid yet this last summer it cut, I may safely say, two tons to the

:cre, and expect it to do as well next summer, should the season

Move favorable. By this practice I brought every inch of the

and to bear, and saved ten years expense, or wear and tear of the

i\' fences which formerly stood inside this section. The fields in

iiture will be divided by hedges of the Madura thorn, or Osage

■range, raised by myself; four of these hedges already in, with

lU'iity of quicks on hand to supply the remainder. These remarks

I will please observe, apply lo the land lying on the souiheast

..Ic of the lane that divides the farm. The land on the northwest

ide, opposite, called the Spring fields, was, if possible, in a still

iorse condition. Owing to the swampy nature of part of it, and

he washings from the higher lands on the other side the lane, the

losts were every spring thrown out of place as the frost left the

round, w'hile the ravines furrowed out by the thaws and heavy

ains, set at defiance all attempts at cropping or farming. To ob-

iate the yearly setting up of the fences, which was not only ex-

•nsive but vexatious, I substituted a stone and lime wall for the

list and rail fence. The wall is about half a mile long, is two

et below the surface at every point, two feet broad at base, and

erages over six feet high from bottom, ending with an eighteen

ich coping. One large under drain, with grating at mouth, takes

le water from the lane, while several smaller drains keep the sur-

ice of the land perfectly dry. The ravines were well killed up,

lid ever since, for a series of years, good crops of potatoes, corn,

rain and grass, have been taken, where formerly grew spatterdock

nd rushes.

VI

I

172 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The land added to the farm at sundry times within the last fivei
or six years, was, in the general, in as bad a condition in many
respects, as the worst of that already described ; indeed, it could
furnish material for a more repulsive picture than any that haa
been drawn yet ; but as most of you have repeatedly seen it initflfl
original state, I need not trouble you with a description. To show
its condition now, I need only remind you, that two years ac^o I
obtained a premium for raising upwards of four hundred bushelsi
of Mercer potatoes to the acre, on this land ; and that on the suc-
ceeding year, from the same potatoe land I took upwards of fiftyi
bushels of wheat to the acre, without any additional manure.;
Also, that last year I submitted a field of some seven acres of corn,
on -.mother portion of this land, which yielded at the rate of 20O
bushels of ears, equal to 100 bushels of shelled corn, to the acre.*
My reports on the condition of these fields, and the aforesaid
crops, are in possession of the Society. The corn land was
this year with potatoes and oats. The potatoes, four acres, yiel
ed over 200 bushels to the acre ; the oats were very good — it i
now laid dov/n with wheat and orchard grass. This sketch, witbl
your own personal observations, will afford you some idea of what
i had to contend with, and what I have accomplished in the way
of improving land, and the present condition of my farm. i k

From the difficulty and expense in procuring manure from the|
city, and after three or four years experience in that mode of supi
ply, I gave it up, and adopted the plan of making a supply on th« i
place, by an increr.sed stock of cattle j from which I have derived k
my sole supply ever since, with the exception of light dressings oi
lime and gypsum, and a small lot of stable manure which I wa;
tempted to purchase a few weeks since at auction, and which
can dispense with, should I meet a purchaser before its removal ii

the spring. The keeping and breeding fine stock had in ib
strong claims upon my judgment, as well as nfiy taste ; as I couh
never think a farm was what it should be, unless it could exhibi
fine cattle, as well as an improved culture. To maintain this stock
and bring my land to a high state of cultivation, by the most effi
cient and economical practice, has been a leading object; and ti
accomplish this, required no ordinary management on such a farm
The stock in cattle has ranged for years, from forty to fifty head
in addition to the necessary horses, with a large stock of swini
for breeding and fattening ; and these I have fed from the produo
of the farm, except the purchase occasionally of some straw, an(
supplies of mill-feed for the horses and swine, and some meadov ;i
hay for the cattle, selling frequently its equivalent in timothy ii
During the same period, I have sold hundreds of bushels of ryci ell
some wheat, and on an average, four hundred bushels of potatoe| i^i
annually, w'ith some three to four hundred bushels of carrots, be

EXTRACTS FOUEIGN AND DOMESTIC. 173

ides providing for the family. But the chief income was derived
|rrom the cattle, of which I shall speak more at large presently.

My expenditures during the wdiole period, could not be other-
ivise than large ; as 1 could not put up so much stone fence, and
jicket fence, as inclose my farm, without incurring a heavy out-
ay; but I view these improvements as cheap in the end. It may
)e safely inferred, tliat there is not at this day, any farm of the
same extent in this part of the country, that can so easily be work-
jd, or will require so little expense for a series of years in keep-
Dg the fences in order, especially when the hedges are taken into
iccount. I am also of opinion, that taking in view the condition
)f the soil, as to depth and richness, as well as its being entirely
ree of stones and other impediments, that I can make it produce
IS much as any farm of its size in any part of the country, for a
ieries of years, and at as small an expense.

The secret of keeping so large a stock on so little land, consists
n my practice of partial soiling, and green crops, whereby I make
lome four or five acres do the work of thirty acres, in the " slow
intl easy go way." From May to August, my cattle are confined

0 one or two fields, most commonly one, to wdiich they are driven,
nore for exercise, in the cooler parts of the day, than for pasture ;
hey being fed in the stables, early in the morning, at noon, and at
light, with food cut for them from a lot adjoining the barn-yard.

nThis food is generally of lucerne, orchard grass and clover, oats
ind corn. The patches from which the corn and oats are cut, are
ihvays sowed with turnips in August. No one can credit, unless
10 has had proper experience in the matter, the quantity of food
hat one acre of lucerne, one of rich orchard grass and clover, and
)ne of oats and corn, afford from May till August, nor can he esti-
nate the great saving in manure, much less the comparatively good
loalth of the cattle, from not being exposed on naked fields, under

1 fervid sun, toiling all day in search of food. This practice al-
lows me to crop almost the whole of the land, and to make some
jl20 to 150 tons of hay annually. In the fall, from August till

. i^ovember, the cattle have the whole range of the mowed lands,
jis I do not cut second crop grass for hay. Then for winter feed,
j. have always an acre of sugar beet, half an acre of sugar pars-
nips ; half an acre or more of carrots, for my horses ; and gene-
ally three to four acres of turnips. I report to the committee on
;rops this season, over 100 tons of these roots. In 1843, 1 gather-
id from one acre, 1078 bushels of sugar beets, 60 lbs. to the bush-
si ; carrots at the rate of 687 bushels ; sugar parsneps, 868 bush-
'Is, This year, 972 bushels sugar beets; 970 bushels carrots;
/OO bushels sugar parsneps ; and from three and a half acres, 2500
)ushels of turnips, sowed with timothy seed.

174 QUARTERLY JOUB.NAL.

The farm buildings consist of three substantial stone barns, one
70 feet by 33, another 50 by 26, and another hipt roof with cupo-
la, 57 by 25, besides a large overshoot stable and hay-house, stable
high, of stone, 60 feet by 30 — the lovver floors of all these are
made of broken stone and lime, planked, being vermin proof.
There are also a corn crib capable of holding 1200 bushels corn,
one barrack, ample hog pens, and sheds for carts and wagons. The
barn buildino;s have been filled this fall to their utmost limit

ex-

cept the corn crib.

A substantial stone wall encloses the principal manure heap; the
drainings from this heap are led into a place of deposit, in which
are received also a drain that runs under ground from the kitchen,
as well as drainings from the pig pens, and the washings from all
the yards. These drainings form an important item in the supply
of manure to my land; it is a saving which I cannot estimate at less-i
than $5^00 a year. This liquid by a simple process is appliec
to the patches of roots, &c., and to this may be ascribed my greaii
success in raising such crops.

The dwellings, green-house, shrubbery and gardens, I need no
describe; but it is in point to notice the nursery of young ornamen
tal trees, t.nd Madura for hedges, raised on places mostly wasti
on other farms, from which I have an ample supply for m;
own setting out, and a considerable stock to spare of Magnoli
Tripetalla, or Cucumber tree, and Silver Maple, of fine size, suit
able for transplanting. I sold over fifty dollars worth last sprin;

of these trees, and have several hundred dollars worth still o

Ji

hand, for sale.

Of improved cattle, my first effort was with the celebrate
"Dairy Maid," still owned by me. Her first calf, Leander, b
Whitaker's Prince of Northumberland, was reared, and kept b
me, for breeding. Dairy Maid's calves alone, exclusive of Le
ander, have already sold for more than $500. It would be curiou
to trace her profit at this day, by stating an account of hei
first cost, her keep, and that of her son Leander, crediting her b:
sales of her own calves and grand calves; deducting for the portion
of capital which was invested in the dams that produced the grani
calves. To do this would extend this paper to an unusual lengtl^
Suffice it to say, that Dairy Maid has long since paid for hersel
and that those who laughed at me for giving $540 for one cow
may turn this statement over in their minds, and think, whethfe
since 1838 any investment of theirs, to same amount, in any otb
er branch of husbandry, has paid so well. But they may exclain
"I cannot do the like again." Yes, I can — for if the price of fin
cattle be reduced through their becoming plcnticr, (thanks to thos
who made them plentier,) the principal invested may not be s
large, in the purchase of one animal to begin with, but there car

EXTRACTS FOKEIGIS' AND DOMESTIC. 175

iiol be a doubt if she be superior or superlative, the produce of
)1' such an animal will realize as good a percentage in future, as
11(1 that of Dairy Maid. But there is a satisfaction beyond that
if the pocket, and that is, that Dairy Maid's breed will be of infi-
iiie service to the country. Her calves and grand calves, are
)i( Uy well scattered already — and I make no doubt, but wherever
bund they will demonstrate the high character of the parent
dock.

i\Iy sales for the last two years, exclusive of Dairy Maid's calves,
iiuount to over $2000. The stock now on hand is about forty
u ad, principally Durhams, among which are Dairy Maid, Cle-
itra, Walnut, Victoria, Ellen Kirby, Miss Model, Victorina,Ju-
. Bessy Bell, ct.c. &c. The butter sold for the last two years
ceds $750; this is a respectable item, when the calves that were
i :;ied and the supply for my family are taken into view. From
arly fall to spring, the butter averaged 70 lbs. per week — the
[uality highly appreciated abroad, as well as at home. In butter,
;ream and milk, there is no stint at Mount Airy; so of fruits,
i-egetables, hams, &c. If I be a large producer, I may be also
lassed as a large consumer; and did I not produce, the markets
?ould have to sutler accordingly.
In the hog line, I have been quite successful, at least in bring-
y the animal, by judicious crossing, to great perfection. I fatted
iff my old Lincoln and Berkshire boars, and my Hampshire and
yhester county sows, last month; they weighed from 400 to 450
bs.; sold for $S6.24. Have sold the last two years of pigs, de-
igned for breeding,$150. Bacon, lard, ^^c. over $J20, besides
aving on hand 14 fme young barrows, last fall's pigs, now ready
™ Dr slaughter, which will weigh from 250 to 300 lbs. each, value
'^'' 150. The stock on hand consists of one fine boar of Lincoln,
lampshire and Berkshire breed; one brood sow of Berkshire breed,
wrelve shoats anil seven pigs. The sow and pigs are the same that
ook the premium at the last agricultural exhibition.

Building and work, independent of the farm, induced to the
:eep of a heavy stock of working horses, consisting of five, era-
loyed occasionally hauling stone, sand, &c. They are the same
orses originally purchased at and since the commencement of my
irming operations; having neither sold, lost, nor exchanged one.
^'^"^ 'he two carriage horses average 20 years old each; my favorite of
*■' lese is quite 25; so much for management in this department.
''™ 'he implements — wagons, carts, ploughs, harrows, &c., &c., are
)", 1 keeping with the farm, and are well kept as you may have ob-
* srved.

^' I keep no farmer on the place, in the character of manager,
c™' laving never as yet been able to find a man qualified to conduct
''-'^ 16 operations of the yard and field in manner as they should be.

fl

itio

-

176 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

My practice is to hire one man for general work, at $20 to $251
per month; also, two hands for out-door work alone, who are cai
pable to work at any job of farming; they have employment from
early spring till first of December, at 15 cents per day — these
three find themselves. Then there are two men engaged constant'
ly, feeding and taking care of cattle, feed, manure, &,c., who re-
ceive from $10 to $12 per month and found. By this arrangemem
I have always a pretty strong force to act on emergencies, and tc
avail myself of seasonable operations. My work is generally wel
done and timely done.

1 have thus given you a general insight into the condition o
my farm, and the system by which it has been brought to its pre
sent state of perfection. If substantial fences, clean fields, welif
worked land, good crops, good barns and splendid cattle, beessei
tial to constitute a good farm, I trust you will find none of thoi
features wanting on mine.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES GOWEN.

Mount Airy, December 24th, 1844.

HI

AMERICAN CHEESE.

On the motion of Sir P. Egerton, one of the members for littr'
county of Cheshire, a return has been laid upon the table of thiji
British House of Commons, relative to the importation of foreigiiij'
cheese which exhibits the following figures :

From Europe. America. Total.

1841, 254,995 15,154 270.149

1842, 165,614 14,098 179,712

1843, 13fJ,998 42,312 179,310 i''«y

1844, 160,654 53,115 213,769

By this statement we find that the importation of America
cheese has quadrupled during the last three years, and during tb
last year the importation amounted to 53,115 cwt. To ou
American friends we say — send to this country nothing but a goo
article— introduce more color into it, and we are sure that in an
ther year England will use four times the quantity of its previou
consumption. We shall also be pleased to find that the manufac,
turer and exporter get a larger share of the prices for which itij
sold in England.

The writer of this has now upon his table an American chees«
equal to the celebrated " Stilton" for which twenty-five cents pc
pound is obtained, while this excellent " American" is sold a
thirteen cents only. A similar return has also been made by orde

EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 177

of the House of Commons, containing; an account of the quanti-
ties of cured provisions of all kinds imported into England from
our colonies and foreign countries, for the year ending January 5,
1845.
The following are the particulars of the return :

184:}. 1944.

Salted beef, 60,633 c wt, 106,766 c wt.

Saltedpork, 27.118 '• 30,780 "

Ham of all kinds, 6,919 <' 6,732 «

Bacon, 4^ « 36 «

It also appears that a large quantity of that imported in 1844
was taken lor ships' stores, viz : salted beef 77,248 cwt. ; salted
pork, 16,987 cwt. j hams of all kinds 6, 298 cwt.

GERMINATING SEEDS UNDER COLORED GLASS.

The following remarks by Mr. Hunt, the Secretary of the Royal
Polytechnic Society, in England, relate to a most curious disco-
very ; and one which may prove very useful to the cultivators of
rare exotics. "We hope some of our readers will be stimulated to
repeat the experiments, and to send us the results.

"It is scarcely necessary to explain that every beam of light
proceeding from its solar source is a bundle of different colored
rays to the absorption or reflection of which we owe all that infi-
nite diversity of color which is one of the greatest char.ns of crea-
tion. These rays have been known to possess different functions.

"The light which ptimeates colored glass partakes, to some
considerable extent, of the character of the ray which corresponds
jwith the glass in color ; thus blue glass admits the blue or chemical
rays, to the exclusion, or nearly so, of all the others; yellow glass
admits only the permeation of the luminous rays, while red glass
cuts off all but the heating rays, which pass it freely. This affords
usa vtry easy method of growing plants under the influence of
any particular light which njay be desired.

" The fact to wiiich I would particularly call attention is, that
jthe yellow and red rays are destructive to germination, whereas,
'under the influence of violet, indigo, or blue light, the process is
quickened in a most extraordinary manner.

VOL. II. — NO. I.

m

AMERICAN

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

AGRICULTURE AND SCIENCE.

Vol. II. No. 2.

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY.

■>.-

On the agrictdtural adaptations of that portion of the Taconic Region
which comprises the Counties of Dutchess, Columbia, Rensselaer
and Washington in the State of JVew- York, and Berkshire in the
State of Massachusetts.

The adaptation of certain belts or sections of country for particular
products, is one of the first subjects to which agriculturalists ought
to direct their study. As yet it has received but little attention, and
that little has been bestowed in so vague a manner that the data
hitherto collected are insufficient to found a sure basis of agricultural
practice. We hear, for instance, of a wheat-growing region ; of a
grazing country : but the reason why they are particularly adapted
to these ends is imperfectly understood. If the inquiry is put to the
farmer, Why certain parts of the western country produce wheat ?
he would be puzzled to return an answer, and perhaps would be
obliged to state the simpL fact that the land is found by ample
experience to yield good crops of this grain. And again, if the in-
quiry should be varied and put into this form. Why cannot wheat
be raised in a certain other section of country ? the answer would
probably be similar to the preceding, or simply an appeal to expe-
rience. It is true, that in some cases, a particular cause may operate

VOL. II. — NO. II. A

I

180 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

locally to interfere with the growth of a given crop, as the prevalence-
of insects, or some other equally deleterious temporary influence.
These special cases, however, are not those we have in view, and
hence will not aflfect the truth of our proposition, that the particular
adaptations of certain bells of country require farther investigation
than they have hitherto received.

The condition and composition of a soil are important points of
inquiry; inasmuch as upon tiiese, and a few oiher modifying causes,
depends the peculiar adaptation in any given instance, and the ca-
pability of being fitted for any given product in its highest state of
perfection. It is proper, however, to proceed with greater particu-
larity, and enumerate the most important circumstances wdiich mo-
dify, or in fact create conditions, that adapt soils for certain kinds
of crops. It is proper to say that causes operate in very different
degrees, or they are not by any means of equal power ; and it will
probably be found that some, which have heretofore been but little
thought of, act with greater effect than has been suspected. Of the
circumstances which modify the adaptations of soil, it is considered
that the presence of sand, clay, and of many of the earths, are
among the chief. In addition to these, the character of the subsoil,
and of the surface rock, are quite important. Then, again, climate
is not to be left out of the list of modifying causes. Only a shght
variation in this particular may in many instances forbid the culti-
vation of crops, which, at a little distance only, are profitable. But
in considering the crops adapted to a particular region, it is un-
doubtedly proper to make the following distinction, namely : those
which will grow tolerably well, and really ripen their seeds or fruit;?
and those which reach a high state of perfection (the quality of the
first class being inferior to that of the second). Now here is a case
which requires a nice judgment, and the question of profit comes
up ; and it is on the question ot profit alone that the farmer is to
decide whether he will grow this particular crop, or some other.
It is not whether it will grow and make something ; for it is some-
times the case that the whole question of profit turns upon the
difference of value between a good article and a middling one, and
it may be supposed that the difference of expense in cultivation will
be in favor of the good article. Tiiis will appear to be true, when
we consider that where nature has done her work well, there is less
left for man to do : he is saved much labor and expense in pre-

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 181

paring the ground. But then again there is another question to be
considered, namely, that though the producer cannot compete in
market with an article superior to his own, yet will it not be pro-
fitable to cultivate it for consumption at home, or in the family ; or
will it be better to pay in labor at the rate of one dollar for a bushel
of wheat, than eighty-seven and a half cents in cash to a neighbor ?
There is still another view of the subject, and it is one which re-
lutes to the adaptations of certain sections of country. It is this :
As Mr. A.'s farm produces excellent corn, and Mr. B.'s produces
oxccilent wheat, may they not effect a mutual exchange of their
products ; or, if they choose, each of ihem turn their grain into
cash, and thus supply their wants at a cash price ? These are ques-
lions which are continually arising, or at least ought to be considered
and taken into the account before a farmer determines upon a par-
ticular crop or a particular kind of husbandry. The bare fact that
a particular kind of grain will ripen, is not sufficient cause why we
should engage in its culture. The questions are, will it be profitable
in market ; will it be more profitable to consume it at home, than
to furnish my family with it by means of cash in hand ? The ex-
pense of taking to market, and of going to market to buy, will
often decide these questions. A farmer, for instance, can afford to
Itake cheese or butter to market, but not wheat or oats.

With these remarks, we proceed to the subject before us, the
character and adaptations of the soil of the counties we have named
at the head of this article. These counties, taken as a whole, possess
great uniformity of soil, as well in the composition as in position
and exposure. This uniformity is due to geological causes : causes,
which, on the one hand, originated the soil, and, on the other, dis-
tributed or spread it over this particular territory ; and we may as
well speak of these causes now, as at any other time or in any other
1 place. In the first place, we need only say, that the soils were de-
' rived from the same rocks upon which they now repose. This is
not often so distinctly the case as in this instance. The result here
is due to two causes : first, the strike of this system of rocks ; that
is, they extend nearly north and south several hundred miles, pass-
ing beyond the Provincial line on the north, where they still continue
in this same direction through the eastern counties of Canada. The
second reason why the soil is the same as that which the rock would
produce, is, that the special agent, whatever it may have been,

182 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

which was instrumental in distributing the soil, moved from north
to south. In consequence, then, of the great extent of these rocka
to the north, and of the movement of the soils from north to south
over them, they possess the same character that they would have
held had they never been subjected to the distribution here de-
scribed. It is unnecessary to dwell farther upon these geological
facts : it is sufficient to state them in this place as facts, which we
may at some future time consider in other points of view. We may,
however, refer the reader to an article in the third number of this
Journal, on the subject of drift, in which the facts and principles
relating to the movement of soils is treated generally. It will be seen ■
that the subject is one of great interest, and is of much practical
importance.

This belt takes in one entire system of rocks in breadth, ex-
tending, according to observation, from the Hudson river and Lake
Champlain, to the foot of the Hoosic and Green mountains in Mas-
sachusetts and Vermont. It passes over one entire range of moun-
tains, viz. the Taconic, lying between New-York and Massachusetts,
and extending north into Vermont and Canada. The breadth of this
belt is between thirty-five and forty miles ; and so far as physical ']
and chemical characters are concerned, the soil of this whole belt J
is very uniform. Far to the north, climate will of course alter on
change the husbandry ; but were it not for this, we might consider';
the belt as extending through Pennsylvania and the Southern States.
As climate is an important element in husbandry, we propose, firsti i
of all, to call the reader's attention to this subject.

Climate.
From what has been observed in regard to the extent of this)
region, it will be understood that there must necessarily be both
variations and differences in its climate. Extending far north, iti
must necessarily pass into a rigid climate ; and to the south, into
one that is mild and temperate. Between the Canada line on the
north, and Mount-Pleasant on the south, there must obtain a diffe-
rence of 3-4° in mean annual temperature. There will also be
found a difference of temperature between the level of tide water
at Hudson, Albany or Troy, and the mountain belts which traverse ■ ^,
this region from north to south, of between 4 and 5 degrees. Ne- : rii|
vertheless, with these differences of temperature either from latitude

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 183

•

or elevation, none of the ordinary products fail of returning good
crops, when well cultivated.

The climate of this region will be better understood by giving
the results of observations, commencing in the north at Granville,
Washington county, lat. 43° 20''. Its elevation is estimated at 600
feet above tide. Its mean temperature, as observed, is 46°. 03. Its
mean tem|)erature due to latitude and elevation, is 45°. 41. This
gives 0.46 lower temperature tiian the mean for the State of New-
York.

Salem, 18 miles south of Granville, lat. 43° 20'. The observed
mean temperature is 45° .54. Temperature which is due to latitude
and elevation, 45°. 59. This result is 1°.35 less than the mean for
he State.

We select, in the next place, a town upon the eastern verge of
ihe district, viz Williamstown (Mass.), lat. 42° 43'. Elevation 800
"eat above tide. ]\Iean temperature, as observed, 45°. 59. Calcu-
ated temperature, 48°. 16.

Lansingburgh, which is nearly west from Williamstown, on the
ixtreme western verge of the district, is the next place at which
)bservations have been made. Elevation, 30 feet above tide. Mean
emperature, as observed, 48°. 17. Due to latitude and elevation,
17°. 96.

Poughkeepsie, on the east bank of the Hudson, lat. 41° 4V, and
slevated 50 feet above tide. Mean temp., as observed, 50°. 74.
)ue to latitude and elevation, 49°. 67.

The last and most southern point to which our observations are
ntended to extend, is Mount-Pleasant, in lat. 41° 09', and elevated
125 feet above tide. Temperature, as observed, 50°. 08. Due to
atitude and elevation, 50°. 30.

The difference of mean temperature, as observed, between the
nost northerly and southerly points of observation, is 4°. 94, within
I range of latitude of 2° 1 1'.

Several of the places in the range of our observation are noted for
lie extremes of heat and cold, or for the wide range of the thermo-
neter ; and some are noted for early frosts, which in ^ome places
ire ten days earlier than at others. North-Salem, Kinderhook and
'eii jansingburgh experience frosts earlier by ten days than does the
alley of the Hudson generally ; and the opening of spring, too, is
nany days later at the former places. These latter considerations are

184 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

important practically. The foddering season is thereby lengthened,
and the maize crop runs a greater hazard of being cut off or injured
by frost, and hence the necessity for the farmer to put in requisition
all his means to secure this crop from a failure. '

The changes of temperature, though they are gradual as we
ascend the Hudson, are more sudden and abrupt at some spots
than can be accounted for either in elevation or in latitude. It may
be, and probably is, often due to cold winds, from which some
points are less sheltered than others ; and were our observations i
extended, so as to embrace a greater number of places, many more
would be found in this section of country equally bleak and frosty.

From data obtained from the Reports of the Regents of the Uni-
versity of the State, it is found that this belt of country does not
enjoy so mild a climate as Western and Central New-York. Then
extremes are greater and more sudden ; though it is questioned-
whether it is not as exempt from early and late frosts as those parts
of the State, with the exception of the limited belts which extend
along the inland lakes. In the Taconic region, there are no bodies
of water to exert a perceptible influence either in retarding the ap-
pearance of frosts in the autumn, or in warding them off in the*
spring. In this section, however, the severity of the frost never
destroys forest trees, as it has in some parts of St. Lawrence coun-
ty, and it is extremely rare that their foliage is injured to any greatil
extent in the spring. Corn, when in the blade, rarely suffers ini
those places where it can be grown to advantage. The leaves are,i
indeed, sometimes killed to the ground, but the plants immediately
spring up and grow without suffering damage.

I

Quantity of rain.

Our data are insufficient for the whole district, as the observations
are limited to four or five places. Selecting a single year, we will
give the results which have been obtained.

In Granville, Washington county, the whole quantity of rain
which fell during 1844, was 28.88 inches. In Lansingburgh it was
26.94 ; Kinderhook, 39.49 (and the average 35.55 for 9 years). In
Mount-Pleasant, 23.31 (in 1832, it was 53,46; 1834, 40.97). As
these places are all virtually in the valley of the Hudson, the ave-
rage quantity of rain which fell in that year was 30.35 inches.

The number of clear days at Kinderhook the same year, was 195 ;

A G R I C U L T UiR A L GEOLOGY. 185

It Lansingburgh, there were 209. The number of cloudy days at the
^ormer place was 122 ; at the latter, 111. These places are central
for the Taconic region, as it regards north and south. At Granville,
Washington county, in the north, there were 192 clear days, 174
:loudy, 51 rainy, and 16 snowy days. Towards the south, at Mount
Pleasant in Westchester county, it was clear 199, cloudy 166, rainy
107, and snowy 19 days. These observations are strictly in the val-
ey of the Hudson. The results would be different if observations
.vere made along the bases of the Taconic and Green mountains.

Geological relations of the underlying rocks.

The surface rocks, as a class, are slates, differing somewhat in
lurability, or power to resist the action of the weather. Those of
he valley of the Hudson are more disposed to decomposition than
hose of the eastern part of the district. Limestones and sandstones
brm only narrow and inconsiderable bells, running in the direction
»r parallel witli the mountains and hills. The following is considered
is a sufficient description of the rocks of this system.

Skirting the valley of the Hudson, and the shores of Lake Cham-
tlain, a green slate constitutes the surface rock. It embraces a
ew thin non-fossiliferous beds of impure limestone ; besides which,
t is often traversed by thin seiims of calcareous spar. This slate is
iften fragile, and disintegrates easily ; and it forms an excellent
xgillaceous soil, though it contains some lime. At many points it
irops out beneath the Calciferous sandrock, one of the oldest rocks
f the New- York system. This belt of slate forms the surface rock
Imost fifteen miles in breadth ; or, it continues east to Canaan in
Jolumbia county, where it is succeeded by the Sparry limestone, a
ock which is about 500 feet thick. In composition, this slate is
omposed of silex, alumina and iron, with a trace only of magnesia
nd lime. Seams of white quartz are not uncommon. But this slate
oes not resemble in composition the Hudson river shales, although
; is considered by many as identical with them. It contains more
lumina and iron, and much less lime and magnesia : the iron is in

state of protoxide. Some inconsiderable patches or belts of it are
urgely charged with what appears to be a mixture of the hydrous
leroxide and the carbonate of iron. When composed thus, it forms

deep red soil, which yields excellent grass for sheep or cattle. A
ilace opposite Catskill is of this description, and may be seen from

atskill point.

186 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The Sparry limestone forms a long belt, running near the base of
Petersburgh mountain, north through Arlington in Vermont. A point
where it may always be recognized, is the tunnel for the Great
Western Railway. The tunnel is 500 feet in length, and 200 feet
below the surface, and is wholly in this limestone. The adjacent
slate is black, in consequence of decomposed pyrites. This lime-
stone contains some alumina and magnesia. It may be distinguish-
ed by its checkered appearance, which is owing to narrow seams of
white calcareous spar traversing a dark blue ground ; for there are)
certain other limestones which resemble this, and from which it cannoK
be known with certainty unless inspected in place. This rock de^
composes slowly, and thus makes but little soil. Slate of a coarsei
kind succeeds the sparry limestone eastwardly ; and it is immedi
ately to the east of the sparry limestone, that the range known aa
the Taconic mountains occurs. These are almost entirely made up
of a silvery gray slale, in which we find rarely thin beds of impure
limestone : it is called magnesian limestone. This rock forms :
warm soil ; but most of the country where it is found, is high land
It abounds in masses of milky quartz, in the cavities of Avhich wi
find carbonate of iron. Chlorite also is common, and is mosth'
associated with the quartz.

At the eastern base of the Taconic range, we find the Stockbridg '
limestone. It is white, gray or clouded, and is frequently a dolomitij
or a magnesian limestone. When thus composed, it is often ver j
friable and tender, and subject to disintegration. It is also frequentl; j -*'
siliceous, and then it is equally disposed to crumble. It forms, in bot J *
cases, a warm and excellent soil for maize and grass.

Another range of slate succeeds the Stockbridge limestone o|
the east ; but as its characters are nearly the same as that whic
forms the Taconic mountains, we pass it by without further remark

The last rock of this system, is the Granular quartz. The lowes
part of it is a puddingstone or conglomerate, sometimes a ferrugi
nous breccia. The main body of the rock is an indestructible fine
grained sandstone. Sometimes, however, it is granular and friable
and then forms the white sandy quartz. The soil it makes is coarse
and siliceous in an eminent degree.

The rocks which we have now imperfectly described, form belt|jj
which run nearly north and south to an indefinite extent, and pa
rallel with each other. Sometimes they are intercepted by the opera

'■

AGRICULTURAL- GEOLOGY. 187

tion of a variety of geological causes. On the east side of this
system, the quartz rock reposes against and upon the gneiss and
;nica slate of the Green mountains ; and on the west, the Taconic
5late passes beneath the New-York system in the Hudson and
Champlain valleys, which fact may be seen at Burlington, Charlotte
aid Addison in Vermont, and at Whitehall, Bald mountain, Galcs-
nlle, Granville, Lansingburgh, Troy and Greenbush in New-York,
)csides many other places which might be mentioned. The order
n which they may be studied to the greatest advantage, is to pass
ner the system from west to east, or from the great vallies of the
ludson and Champlain to the top of the Green mountains. The
);inds or belts of rock which have been described, will be found in
he range of the places which have been given, either north or south
if them as the student may be located.

Springs of water.
The springs which gush from the Taconic hills, and which have
heir origin mostly from the slate, in many instances yield com-
laratively pure water ; at least, it contains less lime in combination
irith acids, than is found in the water from the slates of the Hudson
iver. We have springs which contain only four grains of solid
aatter to the gallon. A few weak chalybeate springs flow from the
lates without regularity : they are all small, and take their origin
rem the slate, charged with sulphuret of iron or pyrites. The most
iteresting springs, however, are the nitrogen springs of Hoosic,
ebanon and Williamstown. The water of these springs is soft, and
as a temperature above the mean of the place in which they are
ituated. They do not come out from any one of the rocks exclu-
ively, but are supposed to indicate a fracture extending deep in the
owels of the earth, and with which they are connected. These
)rings, too, are the largest which occur in this vicinity, some of
fiij lem discharging sufficient water to turn a mill-wheel. The wells
;jii f the valleys, especially when sunk in clay, fill with hard water,
id frequently contain gypsum in solution ; but when sunk in gravel
r sand, they often furnish soft water. The temperature of the
rater of some of these wells is as low as the mean of the place,
it differing much from 45°.

The form and surface of the whole section under consideration
well calculated to furnish a great abundance of water, in springs,

VOL. II. — NO. II. B

188 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

brooks and rivers. It is, in other words, well watered ; and what is
of the greatest importance, a very large proportion of the farms
might be irrigated by the small streams of the hill-sides, although
as yet no attention has been given to this very feasible and efficient
method of increasing the productiveness of the soil. The small
quantity of lime which these streams frequently contain, would be
a useful acquisition to the vegetation of the region.

Forest trees and wild plants.

The whole range which we have under consideration, forms bul
one botanical region. There are, it is true, plants of the mountain
and plants of the valley, yet the mountains nowhere become strictly
alpine. The greatest change appears upon Graylock, the highest
point in this region, where the forest trees become dwarfish, but by
no means excessively so.

The number of species of wild plants growing in this region will ui
not differ materially from 1500, exclusive of the Cryptogamiaj iji
There are upwards of seventy species of forest trees, includingj ^
however, a few of the dwarfish or shrubby willows. Of the ordei jk
Coniferae, we find the Pinus strobus, white pine ; P. rigida, pitcb f
pine ; P. canadensis, hemlock ; P. balsamea, fir ; P. alba, singled is
spruce ; P. nigra, black spruce ; P. fraseri, Eraser's pine, on ijif
Saddle mountain or Graylock ; P. pendula, hackmatack ; and P iei
resinosa, yellow pine : the two junipers, also, grow upon the dry hill^ ie |
sides. Of the Amentaceae, there are four native poplars ; six bircheSI me
comprising the white birch of the mountains, the yellow and thi m
black birch of the ordinary hill-sides and forests, and the glandulos^ m
a shrub of the swamps ; the chestnut, whose station is upon tlM m
moderately high ridges ; the beech of the plains and hills ; thi ki
buttonwood on the banks of streams ; and eight or ten species o; ^
oak : black, white, red, chestnut, shrub, quercitron and post oaksi \\
We have also two elms (the american and the slippery), and five] ii([
maples : the elms occupy the low lands ; two of the maples occupjl nei]
the plains and lower hills, and the mountain and striped maples aM| i,
found upon the mountain sides.

In this region we find about eighty grasses belonging to the
order Gramineae, or true grasses ; and over one hundred of thf
order Cyperaceae, or cypress-like grasses, being the coarse grasses
of the swamps.

J!I!

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 189

It does not appear that the distribution of plants in this region is
inlluenced by the kind of rock which lias furnished the subsoil, with
llie exception of a few instances in which a limestone basis seems
Lo have produced spots congeflial to a peculiar growth.

Face of the country.

All that is peculiar to the surface of this region, may be described
n a few words. It is, in the first place, hilly, and the hills are long
owards the more mountainous parts, and run north and south. To-
wards the western slope, adjacent to the valley of the Hudson,
hey are more rounded, like haycocks, and rise up from circular
epressions, many of which are peat swamps with marl, and always
lontain more or less muck. The hills are frequently composed of
ounded gravel, but sometimes qf that kind called flat gravel. Upon
he extreme eastern border, the hills are highly charged with cobble-
tone, derived form the granular quartz. Cobblestone almost as
urable, of a reddish kind, occurs in the western hills, derived from
16 Potsdam sandstone and a siliceous variety of the Calciferous
andstone.

The hills under consideration are those usually called " drift
ills ;" that is, they were formed by the great northern current of
faXer which passed over this country at a former epoch. The time
hen this event happened is not determined, only it was one of
le latest of the great changes which have happened, and which
rere preparatory for the residence of man. We regard the drift
urrent, then, as having given shape to this country ; as having worn
own all the asperities of the rocks ; as having mingled the soils
'om the different rocks ; in fine, as having performed in these re-
lects most essential changes of the surface, and such as were well
Iculated to favor the operations of the husbandman.

The actual elevation of some places will convey to the reader a
Btter idea of this region, than if we confined ourselves to general
atements. Along the eastern margin of the region, in Massachu-
>tts, we have the following elevations, namely : Bed of the Hoosic
ver at Williamstown, 580 feet ; Adams village, 764 ; Lenox vil-
ge, 1178 ; Piltsfield, 1035 ; Richmond, 1091 ; all estimated above
de at Albany. Sheffield rises 630 feet above tide water at Derby

Connecticut. The elevation of the Taconic range, between New-
ork and Massachusetts, is from 1200 to 1600 feet. From this

190 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

height, the Taconic range gradually diminishes to the level of the
Hudson. The hills are less and less elevated till we reach the
vicinity of the river, which is bordered or edged by a range of
hills about 200 to 250 feet in height. This elevated ridge is found
on both sides of the river, and is distant from it three-fourths of a'
mile or less, so that the width of the immediate valley of the Hud-*
son rarely exceeds two miles. Without occupying more space in
detailing the facts relative to height, we may state generally, that
along the same ranges north and south, the height of the places
given is an index to those which are omitted ; that is, the valleys
situated north or south of Hoosic, the height of which has been
given at certain places, will give the approximate heights of places
in the same range north and south for the valleys or for the moun-
tain ridges ; and to form a just idea of the face of the country, we
have only to conceive long narrow valleys bounded by long narrow
hills or mountains. The northwestern slope, where the rock appears,
is always steeper than the southeastern. Where the hills are merely .'I
of drift, they are steepest upon their north sides. \

The upper half of the Taconic range is too steep for the plough, \
especially on its western side ; but on the eastern side, it is, or mayi|i
be ploughed for two-thirds the distance to the tops of the mountains, ij
This peculiarity in the steepness is owing to the uphft of the rocks, j
which break out, and are bare, or more or less exposed upon their
steep sides ; and it is here that their dip will be found, and that
they may be seen to plunge steeply to the southeast at an angle i
varying from 30 to 60°.

The passage of the drift over the surface of the rock has worn
it smooth. This circumstance has an important bearing in deter-
mining the condition of the soil, as it favors the passage of water
over the surface, and serves to dry the soil sooner than if it were'
rough. Especially are the channels which are cut by the drift move-
ment upon the upturned edges of the slate, calculated to effect &
speedy drainage.

We conclude o\ir remarks on the face of the country, by referring!
the reader to the woodcut fig. 1 . It represents the eastern face of
the Taconic range, as seen from the south end of Stonehill in Wil-
liamstown, Massachusetts, and looking southwest. Hji

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY

191

192 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Soils of the taconic region.

We have already estimated this as forming one botanical region :
so too we may say of the soil, that it is but one, and similarly con-
stituted throughout the district under consideration. By this gene-
ralization, we do not mean to convey the impression that sand and
clay and other elements are so mixed together that neither predomi-
nates throughout the whole region, and that there is an entire uni-
formity of soil ; but we intend to say, that if any one town, or indeed l
almost any part of a town, is selected, its soil will represent that of
any other town in the region ; or the kinds of soil which are found
in any given place, are also common to other places. Then, again,
the adaptations as a whole are remarkably similar : or, to employ i
another comparison, the rocks, for instance, are mostly slates, yet
there are small belts of limestone and of sandstone ; but these are
so inferior in extent that they do not impart a predominating cha-
racter to the system, while the slates have a predominating cha-
racter. So we may say of the soil, that although sand and clay are
found, they are too limited to give character to the region. We of
course leave out of view the clays and sands of the tertiary formation.

The first character we have to notice, is that the soil is a coarse%
soil : it is not only often full of cobblestones, but it is of a coarser
grain by far than the western wheat soils. This we consider as one
of its best characters : it admits air freely, and is not at all disposedi
to pack. We never see rain water standing in pools upon the sur-
face, but it invariably sinks out of sight. The color of the soil is a :
hght drab, darker when moist ; the lightest colored being the poorest.
As a whole, the soil is a proper admixture of the elements clay andu
sand, the former in combination with the protoxide of iron.

The local distinctions which are made, are the following : First, ) We
clayey soils, which occupy the vallies and the lower elevations,, ori xl
the bases of the hills ; and secondly, gravelly and sandy soils, oc-
cupying also the vallies, but more commonly the hills : clay is often
beneath. The clayey soil has. not the tenacity which belongs to the
plastic clays ; that is, it does not adhere with a death grasp to one's
boots or shoes : it is usually a sandy clay. Where the clay is deep
beneath the surface, the soil is inclined to be leachy, though rarely
immoderately so, and there is scarcely a patch of this description
which may not be cured of this infirmity. The kind of sods termed

ulj

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 193

alluvial, are confined to the banks of streams, and arc necessarily
narrow, in fact mere lines. It is extremely rare that intervale land
extends a mile from the banks of the river on which it is situated :
this is even true of the Champlain and Hudson vallies.

Analyses of soils. 0
1. We select one from Columbia county : it is of a light gray,
md was taken from a field of corn in Chatham 4- corners. The corn
n&s in a flourishing condition, and had been lightly manured with
table manure. The soil was composed of

Water ' . . 500

Vegetable matter 6-00

Silex 78-50

Peroxide of iron 625

Alumina 350

Carbonate of lime - - . . 066

Phosphate of magnesia • - . 0*16

10007

2. A specimen of soil from over an impure limestone in Hoosic
alls : texture coarse, with angular grains, reddish and uncultivated.

Vegetable matter 5-00

Water 3.O0

Silex 78.00

Peroxide of iron 8'50

Alumina ----... 4.00

Carbonate of lime .... 1-40

Phosphate of magnesia - - . 0-10

100-00

3. A soil from Sheffield, on the eastern side of the Taconic range,
nalyzed by Pres. Hitchcock, by the alkaline method ; the result,'
owever, does not differ in the main from that given by the acid
lethod.

Water 200

Vegetable Matter 2-00

Silica 70-68

Alumina -----.. 11-61

Oxide of iron lO'lO

Lime - -• 0-80

Magnesia 1-63

Soluble salts 0'15

Loss 103

100-02

194 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

4. A peculiar calcareous soil of Berkshire was found by Pres.
Hitchcock to be constituted thus :

Water 3-80

Soluble geine -.---- 0'93

Insoluble geine 1*90

(3U|)onate of lime .... 30'57

Sulphate of lime 140

Phosphate of lime ... - 103

Lime 0-09

Silica 4643

Alumina - 6'8iJ

Peroxide of iron 4"01 A

Magnesia VOS

Loss 1-30

100-00
But this soil is rare, and is only found in the immediate vicinity of
a decomposing limerock. We give it for the purpose of showing the
excess of Hme it contains. It is a very fertile kind of soil, and might
even be advantageously employed as a manure on the adjacent and
poorer portions of land. Its color is red. We have observed that
soils of a reddish cast, when occurring near a limestone, are always
fertile ; and Pres. Hitchcock supposes, that as the iron was ori-
ginally in the state of a carbonate, it furnishes carbonic acid to the
growing plants during its own conversion into an oxide.

5. Analysis of the marly clays of Berkshire and Williamstown,^
by Pres. Hitchcock :

Silex 60-34

Alumina ...---. 15-53

Protoxide of iron ----- 7-57

Carbonate of lime - - . - 11'70

Magnesia 1-86

Water 230

Loss 0-80

100-00

6. Another analysis by the same author, of a specimen of marl
from Pittsfield :

Geine 660

Phosphate of lime - - - - 0'70

Carbonate of lime - - - - 8640

Carbonate of magnesia - - - 0-46

Silex 310

Water 3-00

100-26

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 195

7. We give one more analysis, being that of a soil from Rensse-
laer county : color brownish drab, and texture coarse.

Water 250

Vegetable matter 400

Silex 8000

Alumina 4'00

Peroxide of iron 400

Phosphate of magnesia - - - 300

Carbonate of lime . - - . 200

99-50

We have selected the foregoing analyses out of many which we
have on hand, for the purpose of showing that although limestone
exists abundantly in our district, it is contained only in small pro-
portion in the surface soil, while we find magnesia in almost every
specimen. This last is an important element, and we consider its
presence as explaining why this region is so well adapted to the
raising of maize or Indian corn. Phosphate of magnesia, it is now
known, enters into the composition of this grain ; and it is highly
probable that, where this substance is deficient, corn does not reach
perfection.

An improvement proposed.

This consists in deep draining. We have observed many farms,
with an acre situated as represented in the following diagram :

Fig. 2.

At a is a hardpan (with the soil upon it), say eighteen inches below
I the surface, and the slope extending towards h. Lands thus situated,
and based upon a hardpan or stiff clay subsoil, will be invariably
too wet. At G, springs frequently gush out ; and the whole slope,
though well exposed, will be inclined to produce the poorer grasses,
and to become mossy ; and although no water appears on the sur-
face, yet it subsides so slowly that the temperature is always low.
The only remedy in such cases is deep draining. Places of this
description are so numerous in the Taconic region, on both sides
of the range, that it appeared proper to call attention to the subject.

VOL. II. — NO. II. C

196 quarterly journal.

Agricultural productions, and modes of cultivation.

All the ordinary cultivated vegetables grow vi^ell here ; but we
will first speak of maize. The seed is generally planted by the
middle of May. The best farmers prefer, and we think with reason,
to get the crop planted as soon as possible in the spring ; for should
a frost nip the young leaves, the plants will be retarded a little, but
will grow and spread their roots beneath the soil, though they may
apparently make but little progress at first. Some say, however, that
you had better wait till the weather is warm, and frosts no longer
threaten ; for they have seen late-planted corn spring up at once,
and overtake the early planted which has borne the bulTetings of a
squally spring. Yet the soundness of this course does not appear ;
for the early planted corn is also the earliest in ripening, and stands
the best chance to escape early frosts in autumn, which is a matter
of far greater consequence ; besides, it is not so liable to be injured
by drought. Let it then be planted as early as possible, that it may
escape the frosts of September, and also so shade the ground in July
that it may protect itself from drought. Whoever observes, will find
that the months of July and August make or unmake the crop of
corn ; that however untoward the weather of June may be, if only
that of July and August are favorable, corn will ripen. Some far-
mers, if not most of them, plant their corn on sward which has been
ploughed up the preceding fall. If the soil is rather sandy, the fur-
row is turned flat, and afterwards harrowed only lightly, so as not
to break in upon the furrow : this mode stands drought belter than
if the furrow be oblique. Before planting, it is customary to wet the
seed and roll it in plaster (this is an old method) ; and then after-
ward, say at the first hoeing, apply a table spoonful of plaster to
each hill. Ashes are in high esteem : a single handful, cast around
the hill of corn just before rain, produces great effects. It is agreed
by all farmers, too, that the soil must be stirred, hoed or harrowed ;
nevertheless .great care is requisite in these operations not to disturb
the roots. The best farmers cut up the whole hill, in harvesting corn,
with a sickle. This operation, near the Hudson river, is performed
about the tenth of September. By this mode, more fodder is saved
for milch cows. It has become an established rule now, in selecting,
seed corn, to select the first that is ripe.

AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. 197

Winter rye. This crop is not raised in large quantities for food.
Our best farmers prefer sowing it early in September. We have
known it to be sowed in January w'itli success. When raised upon
the uplands or the sandy hill-side, it yields better flour than that
furnished by the crops of the lowlands. Two opinions prevail as to
tlie time of cutting this grain. One class say that it should be cut
while the joints are green ; the others that it should not be cut until
fully ripe and dry.

Winter toheat, in a large part of this district, has not been much
cultivated for many years, on account of the insect (Cecidomya).
This year, more wheat has been raised than usual ; sufficient, it is
supposed, in many towns of Berkshire in Massachusetts, for the
farmer's home supply. This also is the case in many of the towns
west of the Taconic range.

Barley. The country best adapted to the growth of barley, is the
range of hills west of the Taconic range : they are considerably
less elevated ; the soil is always coarse, and the climate cool. The
soil is generally what is termed a yellow loam, with a hardpan about
eighteen inches below the surface. The towns celebrated for this
crop, are Sandlake, Grafton, Berlin and Stephentown ; and in this
range, north and south, the same conditions exist which would en-
sure a successful cultivation of this grain.

Flax. This is cultivated successfully upon what may be termed
the hard and coarse soils at the base of the Taconic range, at an
elevation of 1000 feet above the tide at Albany. It is sown about
the twentieth of April : twenty-eight quarts of seed to the acre is
sufficient. Ashes is considered the best manure, and is sown upon
the field just as the flax is coming up. Over 380 lbs. of flax have
been raised to the acre on this elevated land. When the seed is
filled out, or plump, it may be pulled : if not quite ripe, it perfects
itself in the swarth.

Oats, succeed well on all the hills of the Taconic system. It is
sown about the fifteenth of April ; the land to be twice ploughed,
and well harrowed. It requires a hardpan to succeed well. It will
probably grow and ripen in these hills, 3000 feet above tide at
Albany.

Peas. This sure crop, and excellent one for fattening hogs or
feeding in the summer, is discontinued by some farmers on account
of the bug. Some, however, sow late, say the tenth of June, and

198 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

escape that insect. Peas are said to be the best crop to precede
wheat. The advantage of this crop is that it grows and ripens in
mountainous regions, or one subject to frost, and hence may be a
substitute (together with oats) for corn in fattening swine and feed-
ing horses. They grow well in Hamilton county and the western
part of Essex in New-York, 2000 feet above tide.

Potatoes. This crop, too, is adapted to the hard coarse soils of
the Taconic range.

Clover and grass. The wide range which clover and the grasses
admit of, adapt them to all climates. Probably, however, no better
field for grass and hay exists in New- York and New-England, than
upon the country between the Hudson river and the top of the
Green mountains. In seeding down, but two kinds are used, timo-
thy and the red clover seed : these are frequently mixed and sown
together. Moist still weather is a proper condition for sowing. The
quantity varies with different farmers : some use eight, others go
up to fifteen or sixteen quarts of the mixed seed to the acre. The
quality of the crop is undoubtedly varied by the quantity of seed
sown : sixteen quarts to the acre would grow thick and fine, and
ensure a greater certainty of covering the ground with a turf or
sward, which is a matter of some consequence. Some sow only
four quarts to the acre. The nature of the soil must be taken into
consideration in determining the quantity to be sown.

In conclusion, we would say that the counties enumerated are
eminently adapted to the growth and perfection of maize, in most
situations from the Hudson valley to an elevation of about 1000 feet
on the Green mountains. Above this elevation, frosts interfere, and
the ears of corn do not fill out perfectly. Barley, peas and oats mayi
be cultivated in still higher situations, and may be used as a substi-
tute in feeding cattle, swine and sheep. This region is also well
adapted to the grasses, and good hay will always find a market.
The hay of the Hudson valley is preferred by dealers at the east-
ward, although some improvement might still be made in the manner
of curing and pressing it.

f:

THE LOST RACES. 199

THE LOST RACES.

It will not be denied, we presume, that the extinction of entire
races of animals is a subject of great interest to man ; that it is a
phenomenon well calculated to excite inquiry. It is a circumstance,
too, which seems to be of some consequence to us personally : not
that any immediate danger, on this score, need be apprehended for
our own personal safety and well-being ; but it is of such a nature
as to lead us to reflection and inquiry in regard to the mode of
operation of those influences which liave resulted in such extinction.
We do not here refer to the extinction of the lower orders of beings,
ilie mollusca and Crustacea ; but to that of the higher orders, those
warm-blooded terrestrial animals which rank in the animal scale
next to man. Shall we not inquire, then, since the higher animals
have perished by families, and entire races have become extinct at
a very recent period. May not the same influences which operated
in the case of the warm-blooded terrestrial animals, operate also on
man as a race, in such a degree as to terminate his career upon the
earth ? These lost races, whose remains lie buried in the most recent
beds, at the very surface of the ground which is ploughed and sowed
by the hand of man, breathed the same atmosphere that we do,
basked in the same sunlight, drank of the rains of heaven, and
partook like ourselves in many of the commoner pleasures of life ;
yet, through the influence of physical agents, entire species have
passed away ; and had not their bones been durable, their former
existence would never have been suspected.

Can we assign a cause for this catastrophe ? Was it a sudden
tempest that swept over the ancient hills, and laid in one common
ruin all that then had existence ? Was it an overwhelming flood that
poured forth the fury of its waters, and drowned the animals quietly
grazing on the plains and hillsides ? Or did an earthquake rock the
earth and tear up its foundations ; swallowing a part of the living
races, and destroying others by noxious vapors emitted from the
suddenly opened caverns ? Or did some slow and subtle poison
diffuse itself through the living frame, begetting a sluggish motion
of the blood, destroying the elasticity of the muscles, and gradually
enfeebling the external senses, till finally the body became an easy
prey to the elements, and the last individual of the race sank down
I and perished ? Towards the solution of these inquiries, we have no

200 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

evidence save that of analogy. Life begins at a point ; radiates from
that point ; gathers strength and power in its progress, till it reaches
its acme ; then begins to faulter, till finally it turns backward, runs
a retrograde course, and terminates, as it began, in a point. Species
commence their course in a single pair of individuals : they multiply
and increase, until the race attains its maximum of development in
numbers and physical perfection ; when a stationary period inter-
venes, and is succeeded by one of dcf^line ; the life-power of the
species slowly retires, exhausted of its force by its diffusion through
the great flood of beings which it has served to animate, till finally
becoming too dilute and feeble to sustain the vital energy, it Kngers
for a moment like the flickering and dim light of an expiring taper,
and then disappears forever. Nations too arise from a few indivi-
duals, or from a feeble colony, a score of men perhaps : they press
onward and become a strong people ; they extend their power on
all sides, and every successive step serves but to increase the na-
tional strength and prosperity, until that strength and prosperity
reach their highest limit ; when, as it were in the fulfilment of a law
of nature, an inevitable decline commences ; the centre of the bodj
politic gradually loses its power over the circumferential members ;
its efforts to supply vitality to the extremes exhaust itself, and i"
falls sooner or later a prey to its own weakness.

We see this principle illustrated, as we think, in the lost races
themselves. How often is the geologist able to point to the ver)
origin of a race ; not perhaps to the first progenitor, but to the timf
when, like a feeble colony, it began its career in a score of indivi-
duals only. From such small beginnings, for instance, arose the
numerous species which have successively tenanted the ancieni
waters of our planet : they grew and increased in numbers, till thcji
filled the depths of the sea, and spread themselves on every shore :
but though possessing this wide domain, they were not destined tc
hold it forever : in numbers, and in perfection of specific develop-
ment, they reached the limit assigned by nature, and thence begar
in their turn a downward course, dwindled away to a feeble anc
imperfect condition, decreased in numbers, and finally perished-
never to appear again on this sphere of existence. Recent discoveries
corroborate the soundness of these views. We observe, perhaps foi
the first time, a single mollusk at the base of the New- York system
of rocks. As the deposits of this system are piled one upon another,ir

I

.ai

THE LOST RACES. 201

this mollusk increases in numbers with every additional ascending
deposit, and, before the middle of the series is reached, has spread
so widely, and so countlessly multiplied itself that it nearly fills the
mass of the rock. From this point upwards, however, no increase,
but a diminution in the numbers of this same mollusk occurs with
each succeeding deposit, till a few solitary individuals only remain.
The relation here stated holds true for both the vertical and the
horizontal plane, in all the "xtent of the system of the New- York
deposits : go east or west, we find always the same order of in-
crease, decrease, and final extinction of the species.

We have expended many words in attempting to convey a single

idea, to exhibit a single fact, which, after all, may be condensed in

the three words that ser^-e to define a well-known character employed

in musical notation : crescendo et diminuendo -=^1:::=^. With this

« harmonical symbol before us, our whole idea is comprised in a dia-

M' gram ; the complete progress and final close of the march led by

each earthborn race is expressed in a formula.

We have been led into the foregoing train of thought, by the dis-

"k covery of the remains of a species of deer in the freshwater marl

fs Deds of Orange and Greene counties in this Stale. We first obtained

i i the jaw of this extinct species from the marl pit of Mr. Stewart in

ihe latter county, and afterwards one of the horns from a similar pit

w n Scotchlovi^n in O'-ange. This deer was about the size of the rein-

'M ieer of the north, and, like that animal, was provided with a flat-

iiB tened (though more slender) horn ; but it diflfers specifically from

Iro Lhe reindeer, in the possession of two brow antlers instead of one,

t!> Ml a single shaft, and ^^ .ite near its base. No other bones have yet

;iM jeen found, and hence the height and bulk of the animal have not

jeen accurately determined ; but that in this country the genus

Cervus contained a species which is now extinct, is, by this dis-

i I x)very, placed beyond a doubt.

But a still more remarkable species has also perished : we allude

«gi ;o.the great Irish elk, whose remains are found in the same beds as

an iiose of the deer just spoken of. The horns of this gigantic creature

ad a spread of ten feet, a.id hence he must have been one of the

'eni BCst majestic animals of the forests of his time.

Of all the species of extinct quadrupeds, however, the mastodons
ind elephants are the most remarkable. An animal twelve feet high
otiii ind proportionately long, provided with tusks curving upwards and

202 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

outwards to the extent of ten feet, must have been a unique object
upon the hills in our vicinity. What their habits were, cannot be
well determined now ; but we know that they must have been vege-
table feeders, and have browsed upon trees of no mean height and
size. A circumstance of some interest in their history is, that they
appear to have been confined to the western side of the present
valley of the Hudson ; for so far as observations have been made,
their remains have not been found either north of the Mohawk val-
ley, or east of the Hudson river. Although the bones belonging to
many different individuals have been discovered in the counties of
Albany and Greene in this State, and in the adjacent counties in
New-Jersey, still this part of the continent does not appear to have
been their favorite haunt. We must go into the valley of the Mis-
sissippi, if we would form a true conception of their former numbers
and importance. The Bigbone licks are known the world over, as
the cemetery of hundreds of these animals. But here they are not
solitary and alone : numerous bones of other animals, known now
to be extinct, lie entombed with them in those saline deposits. The
horse, the ox, the buffalo, and some others, appear to have been
their companions, and to have made these spots a favorite resort.
Still farther west, they were equally if not more abundant. Not lon^
ago, a collection of bones was brought from the Mississippi valley
w^hich must have appertained to more than five hundred individuals
comprising those of all ages, the young, the mature, and the old
The Helderberg hills seem to have been the limit of their wander
ings in this direction, the base of the Rocky mountains their extreme
west, and the valley of the Mississippi the centre of their range
The most interesting question in regard to these animals, is that
which inquires the cause of their extinction. On this question w.
are not prepared to sustain an opinion, nor even to offer one that ii
any thing like satisfactory to ourselves. If we recur to the flood o
Noah, we are by no means authorised to believe that we have as
signed the true cause ; though, upon a superficial view, that cata
strophe seems to ofl'er a plausible solution. The investigations oi
geologists show that many deluges have occurred, at different time
and on different portions of the earth's surface. The subject, how
ever, is one that is still in a course of investigation : time will unfolt
her secrets ; and we are persuaded that facts bearing directly upo)|
these points will yet be disclosed, wliich shall reveal to us the whol
mystery of the lost races.

AMERICAN MASTODON. 203

GREAT AMERICAN MASTODON.

In the month of August, 1845, whilst excavating marl on the farm
of Nathaniel Brewster, Esq., six miles west of the village of New-
hiirgli, Orange county, N. Y., the workmen struck upon the skull
of a Mastodon. Tiie work was carefully conducted, and at the close
of the second day they had succeeded in exhuming the entire skele-
ton, with the exception of the toes of one foot, which were probably
carried out with the marl. This is the most entire skeleton of this
remarkable animal ever found. The bones are in a singularly per-
fect state of preservation, retaining still a large portion of animal
matter even in the spongy portions. The skeleton has since been
arranged and set up, and this has been done with great care and the
strictest attention to the articulating surfaces of all the bones, which
we believe has not been the case with others which have been put
together. Such we believe to be the fact from the drawings we have
seen of the one arranged by Mr. Peale, and from the description
given to us of others which we have had no opportunity of seeing.
The amount of cartilage to be supplied between the vertebrae has
been misconceived, and thus the back has been made much longer
than in the living animal. In the present instance, a perfect gage
was furnished by two ribs, which, during the life of the animal, had
become united longitudinally. Each one of these ribs articulated
with a vcrteber ; and in bringing these articulating surfaces together,
the exact amount of intervertebral space was found. This, in con-
nection with the ribs which articulated with two vertebrae, determined
the amount to be supplied ; and thus the back of this skeleton is
said to be from two to three feet shorter than those which have been
made according to the fancy of the owners. The intervertebral
substance is only half an inch in thickness.

As the discovery of this singularly perfect skeleton of an extinct
'ace of animals has excited a very extensive curiosity, it may be
interesting to many to have a particular description of the condition
in which it was found. Portions of twelve skeletons of the same
animal have been discovered in the same county within the present
century ; but in no case have bones enough been found to give a full
idea of the structure and character of the animal, and in almost all
cases the bones have been in an advanced stage of decomposition.

VOL. II. — NO. II. D

204 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Locality and position. Like all others found in this vicinity, this
was buried in a peat-swamp, but, in this case, of very small dimen-
sions. The whole peat formation here is only four hundred feet long
and one hundred and twelve wide, lying between two low ridges of
slate hills, the whole valley being about two hundred feet wide.
The clay which underlies the peat bog, descends gradually from
both sides, and once formed the bottom of the small pond which
occupied this spot. It slopes down very gradually till within six feet
of where the bones were found, in which spot it is but six feet below
the surface. At this point, however, it makes a sudden descent, and
the bottom cannot be reached by sounding with an iron rod.

Beginning at the bottom, then, the following are the deposites
which have gradually formed and filled up the pond :

1. Mud, more than 10 feet.

2. Shell marl, 3 feet.

3. A layer of red moss, 1 foot.

4. Peat, 2 feet.

Just below No. 3, in the top of the marl, and barely covered byi
it, lay the skeleton. The direction of the backbone was north and
south. The head was thrown crosswise, so that the tusks pointed)
nearly to the west. Every bone occupied nearly the position it did'
when the animal was alive. The back of the skeleton was upward ;
each of the vertebrce in place, from the first of the neck to the last*
of the loins. The ribs were projected downwards on each side. The« {
head was upon the top of the neck, and the lower jaw slipped ai
few inches to one side. The hindlegs were spread out on each side,
each bone in its place to the very feet. The whole position wasi
precisely that of an animal that had become mired, and perished in
its ineffectual struggles to extricate itself, and it had doubtless diedj
in the place where its bones were found.

In the midst of the ribs, imbedded in the marl and unmixed with'
shells or carbonate of lime, was a mass of matter composed prin-i
cipally of the twigs of trees broken into pieces of about two incheil
in length, and varying in size from very small twigs to half an inch
in diameter. There was mixed with these a large quantity of finer
vegetable substance like finely divided leaves, the whole amounting
to from four to six bushels. From the appearance of this, and itsi|||,,
situation, it was supposed to be the contents of the stomach ; and

111

I

AMERICAN MASTODON. 205

this opinion was confirmed upon removing the pelvis, underneath
which, in the direction of the last of the intestines, was a train of
the same material about three feet in length and four inches in dia-
meter. This was composed almost entirely of the twigs, some of
them not even crushed, and retaining still the form and structure of
the tree from which they were torn.

This is by no means a solitary instance of the discovery of this
matter. The same has been found in connection with other skele-
tons. In Godman's Natural History, under the article Mastodon, is
recorded an instance of the same kind, and the species of plant found
was detected. He thus quotes from a letter of Dr. Barton : " Very
lately, in digging a well near a saltlick in the county of Wythe in
Virginia, after penetrating about five feet below the surface of the
soil, the workmen struck upon the stomach of one of those huge
animals best known in the United States by the name of Mammoth.
The contents of the viscus were carefully examined, and were found
to be in a state of perfect preservation. They consisted of half
masticated reeds (a species of Arundo or Arundinaria, still common
in Virginia and other parts of the United States), of twigs of trees,
and of grass or leaves."

A good deal of doubt existed at the time and afterwards, as to the
character of the substance ; but in the case we have now before us,
there can be no doubt. The appearance of the matter, and the pe-
culiar position in which it was found, are unquestionable evidence
of its being what it was supposed to be, the food which the animal
had eaten.

History of the animal. As far as is known at present, the whole
face of mastodons is extinct. There is no evidence of their existence
t this day. But the numerous remains of them found in this coun-
y, indicate that they have at some period lived in great numbers
on this continent. At what time this was, we shall consider here-
after. Their range, however, does not appear to have extended over
'the whole of North America, but to have been confined mostly to
the rich alluvial vallies. Portions of two skeletons only have been
found north of Orange county in the State of New-York. East of
the Hudson river, portions of two have been discovered. Orange
county, however, seems to have been the northern limit of their
range, and the Hudson river the eastern boundary. Passing then
south through New-Jersey, and thence westward through all the

205 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

great western vallies, throughout this whole region the bones are
found in greater or less abundance. The saltlicks of Kentucky have
furnished the most of these remains ; and it has been stated, that
from one of these localities alone, portions of more than oiie hundred
skeletons have been removed. This species of mastodon is peculiar
to this continent, no remains of it having been found in any other
portion of the globe.

The first bones and teeth of this animal were found as early as
1712, at Albany ; and were noticed in the Philosophical Transac-
tions, in a letter from Dr. Mather to Dr. Woodward. In 1739, a
French officer, by the name of Longueil, discovered some of the t
bones, teeth and tusks, near the Ohio river ; and the next year,
large quantities of similar bones were washed up by the current of
the same river. After this time the bones were occasionally found,
down to the present, but often very much decayed, and never in
sufficient quantities to make an entire skeleton. The scientific world
is much indebted to the late Mr. Peale, who, with great labor and
at much expense, procured, in 1 800, sufficient bones to enable him
to construct a tolerably complete skeleton, which is now in the
Philadelphia Museum.

But though the living animal is unknown to us, the aboriginal
inhabitants of this country seem to have been well acquainted with
him. Many people are disposed to place very little dependence upon
Indian tradition ; but however vague such tradition may become in
relation to particular facts, by long transmission from generation to
generation, yet it must have something real and true for iis origin.
Such we believe to be the fact in relation to this animal. We shall,
therefore, give a few of these traditions as concisely as possible.

In President Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, we find the followingi
tradition of the Indians, in relation to this animal :

" That in ancient times a herd of these tremendous animals camei
to the Big Bone Lick, and began a universal destruction of the bear,
deer, elk, butfaloes, and other animals, which had been created for
the use of the Indians.

" And that the Great Man above, looking down, and seeing this,
was so enraged, that he seized his lightning, descended on the
earth, and seated himself on a neighboring mountain, on a certain
mountain rock, where the print of his feet are still remaining, fronn
whence he hurled his bolts among them, till the whole were slaugh-

i

AMERICAN MASTODON. 207

tered except the big bull, who, presenting his forehead to the shafts,
sliook them off as they fell, but at length, one of them missing his
head, glanced on his side, wounding him sufficiently to make him
mad ; whereon springing round, he bounded over the Ohio at a leap,
then over the Wabash at another, the Illinois at a third, and a fourth
leap over the great lakes, where he is living at this day."

A Mr. Stanley, who was taken prisoner by the Indians, and car-
ried beyond the western mountains to where a river runs westward,
says that these bones abound tliere, " and that the natives described
io him the animal to which these belonged, as still living in the
northern parts of their country."

The following we extract from Dr. Kock's pamphlet on the Mis-
sourium* : "One man, in 1816, has asserted that his grandfather
told him he saw one of these animals in a mountain pass when he
was hunting ; and that on hearing its roar, which he compared to
thunder, the sight almost left his eyes, and that his heart became as
-mall as an infant's."

Period of their existence. The opinion is a very prevalent one,
that these animals were antediluvian, and most persons reject with
a sneer liie idea that they have lived at a very recent period. But
the first opinion has no shadow of ground for belief, and all the
evidence seems to show that they have existed not many centuries
since.

Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, reasons thus : " It may be
asked why I insert the mammoth as if it still existed ? I ask, in re-
turn, why I should omit it as if it did not exist ? The northern and
western parts still remain in their aboriginal state, unexplored and
undisturbed by us, or by others for us. He may as well exist there
now as he did formerly, Avhere we find his bones, &c." The same
reasoning which he used, will apply, with a diminished force it is
true, to our own times. There are still vast portions of this conti-
nent yet unexplored by the white man, and inhabited only by hos-
tile Indian tribes. Vast gorges of the mountains in the west might

* Doct. Kock discovered, in 1840, the remains of the animal which he has called
Misso2(rium theristocaulodon, in the Osage country. The grounds upon which he has
given it a new name appear to be very questionable, and are by no means sufficient
to make it any thing more than the Mastodon, the remains of which are so often found
even as far west as Missouri, any more than to make the Hijdrarchos from the iZej*-
glodon described in our last number.

208 QTARTERLY JOURNAL.

Still contain the living animal, and yet we be utterly ignorant of his
existence. But we will not contend for his present existence. We
will examine briefly the evidence of his having lived within a very
few centuries.

In the first place, the testimony of the Indians, but a few years
back. They stated in the early part of this century, that this animal
still lived north of the Missouri river. They called it " Pere du
boeufs" (father of cattle). But how shall we reply to the question,
if the animal has lived in these parts of the country within so short
a time, why did not the early white settlers either see them or hear
of them from the Indians ? To this we answer, that after the dis-
covery of this country, the settlements of it took place very slowly,
and then was principally in those parts which have not apparently
been in the track of the mastodons. That they did not hear of them
from the Indians is not wonderful, for there was nothing to excite
enquiry with regard to them. If a bone of one had been found at
that period, and thus enquiry started, doubtless something would
have been ascertained far more distinctly than has since been
learned.

That they were not antediluvian, is settled by the fact of their
being found in a deposit of marl and peat, all of which has been
formed in modern times, and which is still forming.* Moreover the
fact that the bones in this skeleton, from Orange county, are so i
fresh, containing a large portion of animal matter, and that the con-
tents of the stomach and intestines were found unchanged appa
rently by time, is strong evidence that this individual has lived at a i
very recent period, and we may put down five hundred years ago
as the most distant time at which he lived ; and we are strongly in*
clined to the opinion, that if extinct now, they have not been extind
one hundred years in the western parts of this country.

* The rapidity with which this peaty formation is deposited, may be inferred from
the following fact. Forty years ago, an excavation for marl was made seven feet deep,
within twenty feet of the spot where these bones were found. By the operation of the
ordinary natural causes, that pit is now filled to nearly the level of the surrounding
surface. The deposit must have been much more rapid, at the time that the peat here
was first formed, when every year large quantities of leaves were accumulated in it,
besides the rank vegetation which annually grew and decayed there.

It is a curious fact, also, that after these marl pits become filled with water, though
unconnected with any stream or pond of water, they in a few years become stocked
with eels, catfish and sunfish. '

american mastodon. 209

Anatomy of the mastodon.
The skull. The bones of the skull are wonderfully large, and as
well preserved as the other bones. The posterior part is flat and
broad, measuring in height one foot eleven inches, and in width two
feet nine inches. The foramen magnum for the passage of the spi-
nal marrow, is three inches and a half in diameter. In the centre of
the occipital bone are two deep cavities for the insertion of the
ligamentum nuchcB, separated by a thin bony partition. The frontal
bone is two feet four inches wide, between the orbits of the eyes.
The outer plate of bone is very hard and three quarters of an inch
thick, where we find eleven inches and a quarter of cellular bone,
extending down to the brain. The cavity of the brain is small, oc-
cupying only the lower portion of the skull. In front of the nares
(nostrils), between the origin of the tusks, is a cavity as large as
that of the brain, and is probably the antrum highmorianum.

The insertion of the tusks into the intermaxillary bones, is two
feet five inches, extending quite back of the orbits. These tusks
were ten and a half feet in length, and two feet and an inch in cir-
cumference where they enter the socket. With regard to the direc-
tion of the tusks, we are convinced from observation of a number
of skulls, that their direction is as accidental as the horns of cattle.
Some follow the first curve, downward and outwards, the points in
one which we have seen being eleven feet asunder. In the skull of
this skeleton before us, they first curved downwards and outwards
till they were seven feet apart, when they curved inwards and
slightly upwards till they approached at the points within two feet
gf each other. The socket of the tusks is curved and flattened so
that it was impossible for the tusks to have turned in the sockets,
during the decay of the soft parts, as is supposed by many to have
been the case.

The whole skull, lengthwise, is bounded on all sides by nearly
Straight lines. The lower jaw is nearly straight from the angle to
"Ithe front, and measures in that line two feet ten inches. The con-
' Idyloid process by which it is articulated with the head, is distant
ifrom the coronoid process one foot. In the front of the lower jaw,
at the commissure, is a small round tooth, eleven inches in length
and one inch and a half in diameter, and inserted into a socket seven
inches deep. This is on the left side of the commissure. On the

210 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

right side is a partial socket, as if another tooth had once been there.
It appears that the young animals had these two teeth, but lost them
at a later period of Hfe, as the remains of the socket only are found
in skeletons of old animals.

The teeth are, in this skeleton, two in each row, making eight in
all. The front tooth measures three by four and a half inches ; the
back tooth, three and a half by seven and a half inches. Like the
elephant, this animal probably changed its teeth during its growth;
at each change, the back teeth crowding forward, till they eventually
crowded out the front ones.

The length of the head, from the occiput to the front of the inter-
maxillary bones, is four feet and one inch, and weighed, with the
tusks, 694 pounds.

There are seven bones of the neck, nineteen of the back and three
of the loins. The first seven bones of the back are characterized
by very long spinous processes, the longest measuring two feet.
From the third they diminish in length very rapidly to the eleventh,
when they are almost lost. The bones of the neck are much more
upright than in the elephant, giving to the animal the appearance of
carrying a high head. Atlas, 3 ft. 8 in. in circumference.

The ribs are forty in number ; twenty on each side, and the
longest measures four feet and seven inches. The first and second
ribs on the right side appear to have been broken by some accident
during the animal's life. During the process of healing, the first rib
has formed a bony attachment to the sternum or breast-bone, which
is a triangular bone of large size and one foot seven inches long.
The last two ribs on the right side have also been united logitudi-
nally. The scapula (shoulder-blade) is two feet and ten inches long,
and two feet and nine inches wide, having a long and sharp acro-
mion process.

The humerus (shoulder) is three feet and five inches long,
three feet and two inches in circumferance at the upper end, and
three feet and five inches at the lower. The ulna measures two feet
and three inches, from the articulation at the humerus, to where it\
unites with the foot. The olecranon process is seven inches long,
and two feet four inches in circumference at the base. The circum'
ference of the elbow is three feet nine inches. The radius is small
and slender, and crosses from the inside of the anide to the front
the elbow. The articulating surface of the elbow is one foot three
and a half inches long, and seven and a half inches wide.

AMERICAN MASTODON. 211

The bones of the fore-foot resemble in form those of the elephant,
but project forward instead of being arranged in a perpendicular co-
lumn, and the toes have evidently possessed great power of flexion.

The pelvis is a broad massive bone, and was taken up entire.
It measures, between the illiac extremities, six feet and one inch.
The pubic and sacro-illiac symph5'ses are completely united by
ossification. The pubic bone, from the anterior to the posterior edge,
measures two feet. The thyroid foramen is nine and a half inches
long by five inches wide. The diameter from the sacrum to the pubis
is twenty-two inches ; the transverse diameter nineteen.

The femur (thigh-bone) is three feet ten inclies long, and seven-
teen inches in circumference at the middle. The head of this bone
is two feet in circumference ; around the trochanter, three feet.
The great trochanter is very large, but in place of the lesser tro-
chanter is only a swelling and roughness of the bone.

The tibia is two feet six inches long, and two feet seven inches in
circumference at the top. The articulating surface, where it receives
the thigh-bone, is one foot transverse diameter. The fibula is two feet
two inches in length. The bones of the hind-leg resemble in a won-
derful degree the same bones in man ; and it is not to be wondered
at, that when these bones have been found, they have sometimes
been mistaken for the bones of gigantic men.

The bones of the legs, the tusks and the proboscis in this animal
are similar to those of the elephant. The structure of the remainder
of the skeleton is entirely different. The head of the elephant is
formed of bones more or less rounded throughout. The occiput
consists of two large lobes of bone, one on each side, with a deep
groove between. The lower jaw is convex on the lower side, and
teeth in that jaw are with the crowns concave from the front back-
wards, receiving the upper teeth which are convex to fit them. The
teeth of the elephant are nearly smooth, while in this animal they
are formed of two rows of conical prominences, from which the
animal receives its name, the two Greek words of which the name
s composed signifying a nipple and a tooth.

It was formerly the opinion that this animal lived j)artly upon

lesh. There is, however, satisfactory evidence, from its teeth and

")' from the contents of the stomach, that its food was principally the

J'' small twigs and branches of trees. It had little, if any, lateral

^ VOL. II. — NO. II. E

212 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. *

motion to its lower jaw, and of course could not masticate its food
very fine.

All that we know of the habits of the animal is to be inferred from
its structure, and tradition. Its form, compared with the elephant, is
apparently about the same as the horse compared with the ox. He
was probably comparatively a graceful animal in his movements ;
and with his elevated head, ornamented with such enormous tusks,
appeared terribly majestic. The opinion of some that he was the
behemoth of Job, is without any foundation ; yet the description of
that animal in sorue respects may well apply to this.

EDUCATION OF THE AMERICAN FARMER.

There are many questions which are fully answered when the ob-
jects to which they relate are well understood ; or if the assertion
is too broad, we are at least safe in saying that the way for their
solution is then fairly opened. But if the true object sought, is not .
apprehended, or is but dimly seen, then the chance thai we shall '■
obtain a true answer is extremely small. It may seem paradoxical,
it is true, for a person to put an inquiry without knowing, himself,
the true objects of his inquiry ; but this is often the case, and espe-
cially so in those questions which relate to education. If then the
question should be put, What is the best plan of an education for
the American farmer ? we say, determine first what the objects
of education are, and then you are in a fair way to answer the l
question. All are agreed on one point, viz. that the standard of
education ought to be raised ; but there is a disagreement as to the
plan, and what branches ought to be taught. One party says that
the farmers ought not to be educated at our colleges ; for what is(
there taught is not adapted to meet their wants. It seems to us that]
the party which thus reasons, or vshich makes these assertions, labors
under a misapprehension in three respects : 1.' It misapprehends
the object and aim of an academical course of study ; 2. It does not
clearly see the wants of the pupil ; 3. It does not apprehend the end
and objects of education in general. Now we take this position : that
the young man who designs to be an agriculturalist may be tho*
roughly and properly educated at our colleges, as tiiey are now

i\

EDUCATION. 213

organized ; or if they are not, in every respect, adapted to meet his
wants, they require only a slight change in their arrangements. But
let us be understood : we do not take the ground that an agricul-
tural college, such as is contemplated in some quarters, would be
useless ; but that a course of study, such as is pursued in our col-
leges, is far better and superior in its adaptation to the wants of the
farmer himself, and the interests of the farming population. We
have three reasons for this opinion : 1st, The college course of
study furnishes more ample means to the pupil, by which he may
educate himself ; 2d, It supplies his wants ; 3d, The objects of
education are thereby answered. These reasons, it may be said,
run into each other ; and so they do : still, each one implies some-
thing which the other docs not. We shall, however, in illustrating
our views, treat them as one under different forms of expression.
One remark we would make in this place, viz. that many persons
claim to be educated when they have finished their college course : it
is a natural, though a very bad mistake, and there is scarcely any
thing farther from the truth. It is true that if a man is educated at all,
he is self-educated, whether it be at college, or sitting on a bench in
the chimney corner and studying by the flaring light of pitch pine
knots : it is always a self-education as far as it goes.

To proceed : What does a college cours^ of study do for the pupil ;
or what is it intended to do ? It puts tools into his hands to work
with ; or perhaps this is too general and too figurative in its ex-
pression : w^c therefore say again, that it puts principles into his
lead for the better guidance of his talents. To be still more parti-
cular. Does he study Latin and Greek ? It is not that he may talk
Latin or Greek, or even read it in after life ; but to learn the con-
Jtruclion of language, and the different ways it may be used to
)ersuade and influence men. Does he study mathematics ? It is not
hat he may become a practical mathematician, and spend his days
n solving problems in mathematical science ; but that he may know
he power of numbers and signs in demonstrating truth ; that he
nay acquire a control over the faculty of attention, over the train
>f thought, and call in, in their true succession, the ideas which
ink together a demonstration of a proposition, or truths which are

be evolved by a chain of reasoning. Does he study chemistry
nd natural history ? It is not that he may spend his hfe in the
»boratory, working in acids and alkalies ; but that he may know the

214 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

principles which control the composition and decomposition of bo-
dies, the characters which distinguish them, and the uses they
subserve in the economy of nature. Does he study astronomy ? It
is not that he may become a practical astronomer, and spend his
days in viewing the phases of the stars, or in measuring their dis-
tances from us ; but that his mind may be enlarged in attempting
to comprehend the greatness of the firmament, the vastness of the
starry system, and the power of its Creator. But, though we say
that it is not the design of the plan of college study to make either
of these characters, yet it is possible to make one or the other ; an
astrononomer, a chemist, a mathematician or naturalist. We have,
however, not yet finished all we intended to say of the objects of a
college course of study. Does he study logic ? It is not that he may
spend his life in disputation ; but to acquaint himself with the
relation of antecedent and consequent, with the mode in which
fallacies may be attacked and refuted, with the methods that reason
pursues in seeking truth, and with the laws that regulate its move-
ments and give it its greatest strength and power. Does he study
moral and mental philosophy ? It is not that he may become pro-
fessionally a teacher of morals ; but that he may understand the
fundamental principles of right and wrong ; that he may know the
power which knows, and which actuates tlie movements of the man. ifl
Does he study political economy, or the law of nations ? It is not
that he may become a politician by trade, or a jurist or a judge ;
but that he may know on what principles our constitutional rights'^
are based, by what bonds our political associations are held to-
o-ether, and what are the usages which control the intercourse o{l§^\
states and nations.

In these reasons we may recognize several great departments of
knowledge, in each of which there are some principles that are
called into action almost daily.

The first kind is that of language, the great medium of inter-
course between man and man, between states and nations ; in fine, ;
the power which controls the world.

The second, is that of numbers and signs, by which the low and
the high is measured, and by which the light and the heavy are
weighed, ratio expressed, and time and distance computed.

The third kind relates to physics, which takes cognizance of j|lili«
forms, composition, characters general and specific, the mutual oriiiiil

EDUCATION. 215

reciprocal actions among bodies ; it is in fine related to all that ad-
ministers to the physical well-being of creatures in life.

The fourth relates to matter and bodies at a distance, but still
which has its practical application in navigation and geography, and
ill fixing the position of places, through which intercourse between
states and nations is safely conducted.

Tiie fifth, that which explains the relations of men in their civil and
municipal capacity, the foundations of law and justice, and of go-
vernment.

I'he sixth, is of mind and the spiritual part of man, that which is
emphatically the me, the subject ; that ivhich knoivs, is cause itself,
the last and highest source and power ; it is life in its essence and
spirit; it is that wiiich is to live when matter has mouldered and
lied to its primary elements.

What nobler objects can be proposed by an Agricultural College?
lUit do they meet the wants of the farmer ? And here we are again
driven to the inquiry. What are the objects of the farmer ? Are they
comprehended in all that relates to the tillage of land ? That the
tillage of land is one object, need not be told ; but, are there not
other objects which have an equal claim upon him ? Yes, and they
are objects which stand connected with that wide range of knowledge
detailed above. He has to do with them more or less all his days,
and in every relation in life.

But we propose to particularize farther, that we may press home
the force and power of our argument. Is he the head of a family ?
he is expected to be a model upon which all eyes of the family may
be profitably turned : he buys and sells ; he directs and controls ; he
exercises rights where others have rights which must be respected ;
he is to conduct schemes and plans for the common good, to a suc-
cessful issue. For these and many more functions, he wants lan-
guage to communicate ; numbers, to compute and reckon ; know-
ledge of kind, character, value, place, relation, trade and commerce,
and of the principles of right and wrong which must guide every
adventure. Is he a neighbor ? he is still to be the same model of
excellence, though in a larger and more extended sense, only he
advises, but does not command or direct : mutual rights are to be
DQaintained and respected ; obligations are to be punctually satisfied.
[b he a citizen ? he has many of the same functions to fulfil, but in
a still wider field. He has rights in common with others : on what

216 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

principles do these rights rest ? He has rights of person, rights in
his citizenship, rights in his property. These rights are embodied
and set forth in a charter, termed a constitution, or a charter of
rights. The principles on which some rights rest are self-evident ;
in others, there is complexity involving mutual but oftentimes con-
flicting interests and unsettled questions. They involve questions
concerning man as a species, as a person, a citizen, a subject ; con-
cerning man as a governor or judge, as a special member of the
body politic, as one of a nation of men, as a minister of good to hia
race, and finally concerning man as tub representative of god
ON TiiE EARTH. For all theso functions, it is essential that stores of
knowledge should be accumulated ; that the intellect and affections
should be cultivated ; that the reason may go forth untrammelled to
the work. If there is truth in these views, then those who maintain
that the functions of the farmer are bound up in the tillage of land,
be it little or much, degrade his station, limit his sphere and belittle
his destiny.

Let it not be supposed from the tenor of the above remarks that
it is our wish to spiritualize, in the platonic sense of the word, the'
pursuits of the laboring man and of the farmer, that he may soar
above the ordinary occupations of life, and live in an unprofitable
meditation of abstract truth ; or withdraw his mind wholly from
what is visible, and fix it upon the fancied essences, or more pro-
perly the vapors of things : for we belong to that class who wish
that realities, those things which are tangible, and which are fruitful
in their several spheres, should be the main subject sought after
here. While, however, we would guard the mind from ancient error,
we would by no means have the student pursue a course whose ten-^
dency is to impart the belief that buying and selling is the chief
good, and wealth the great object : we would still have him pursue
that course which elevates the mind, which improves the intellect,
and which shall lead him to regard his spiritual part as the noblest,
whose education is after all the great and main thing, and to which
all things else are to be subservient.

Whatever view we may take of a plan of education, if we wouldW Jii
be true to nature, we must keep in view the fact that man is a com-
pound ; that he is both body and spirit ; that he has compound
wants, wants of the body and wants of the spirit ; and we must
keep in view the relative value of the two. Nor should we forget

JO

Sep

Hi
i

k

111

EDUCATION. 217

,that he was not created for a solitary existence, but to maintain an
intercourse with his fellows ; and that he cannot be independent of
them, or can not say I have no need of thee, however humble his
fellow's rank may be. He, too, is the subject of government and law.
Obedience is to be learnt, as well as taught. Can it be supposed,
then, that too much culture can be bestowed upon the mind of man ;
that in vievvr of man as he is and must be, it is at all probable that
his advantages will, under any circumstances, be too great, or be-
yond his capacity for improvement, so rich that they will be regard-
ed as lavished and lost upon him ?

Again, a more thorough education for those who till the ground,
than has hitherto been contemplated, seems especially demanded,
0 enable them to avail themselves of the discoveries of modern
<cience. This, however, is a position which many are now ready
(I lake, although its importance cannot be so well appreciated by
hose who are placed upon the very rich soils of our country ; but
hose who are tilling soils already exhausted of their natural fer-
ility, see the necessity, and would see it still better, if they could
lot sell or exchange their farms for the new and exuberantly rich
aiids of the west.

Leaving this point as it is, we remark once more, that the times
[ind the circcmstances of our country require more than ever the
Itivation of the minds of this great class of the citizens of our
epublic. It was safe in the morning of our country, when oppres-
ion taught our fathers the value and the price of liberty, for the
usbandman and mechanic to commit most of the duties incident
0 office, to those who were by their profession allied to a public
ife. But now in this age, it appears to us, that to the owners and
ultivators of the soil should more especially be committed this
rust, as they have a paramount interest in the affairs of the state
.nd nation. They who are withdrawn from the sinister influences
f a dense city population, where the unworthy and the demagogues
f the land are wont to congregate, should now stand up in the halls
f legislation and justice, and at least possess themselves of that
ower to which their numbers entitle them. Some may sneer at the
xpression, but to us it is plain, that, to the cultivators of the soil is
ommitted the destinies of this country ; that to them more espe-
ally is committed the great duty of handing down, unimpaired,
mr institutions to posterity. If this is true, it follows that the in-

218 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

tellectual faculties should receive that share of culture which is
contended for in this our essay.

We would not by any means be understood, in these remarks, to
say that farmers are to become politicians, in the odious sense of the
phrase. We mean only that they should understand as much of
history, of law and of legislation, and of rights as they are defined
in our constitution, as shall enable them to stand up by the side of.1
our professional men, and to encounter successfully the demagogues
and party hacks which in these days seem to swarm and multiply
out of all proportion to the rest of society. Who, of all our citizens, ,
are so well prepared to act dispassionately and rightly, as those who
are located at a distance from the hot beds of party spirit in our lii
cities, and upon a microscopic scale in our villages ; as those who l|ii
quietly plough their fields and gather their harvests ? But ignorant J*
men are not fit for responsible posts : it is not the mere tiller of the Jm,
soil, the untutored laborer, but it is the enlightened workman, the J.?
educated farmer, to whom we would commit our great interests ; k
to the plain and unsophisticated but not uninstructed sons of thcK i
soil, unskilled it may be in intrigue, but who, when they march upa itl
to duty, when they exercise their own personal rights, or act on be-i wi
half of their fellow citizens by a delegated power, do it without fear^ roi
though frowned upon by the scheming partisan and the ambitious*! hi
ofl^ice-seeker. nan

To conclude, we declare that we care not how many institutional Ji
are founded, by what name they may be known, or when or by '
whom our young men are educated, provided it is done ; but let
not our farmers deceive themselves by founding institutions whose:
objects are partial and narrow, and which leave out of view those!
courses of study which are necessary to fit the pupil for the dis-!
charge of the duties of a citizen of this republic.

. «

ON THE STUDY OF ENTOMOLOGY.

BT HON. J. BARLOW.

It is gratifying to the general reader and naturalist, that the Quar-
terly American Journal is devoted, in part, to the interesting branch
of natural history, yclept Entomology. This is one of the mosH

I

ENTOMOLOGY. 219

fascinating as well as exceedingly useful studies to which we can
give our attention ; and of all persons most interested, and who may
be benefitted by it, are the farmers of our country. Their habits
and business of life give them enviable opportunities to enjoy the
exhibitions of beauty and wonder of this department of living na-
ture. They are constantly surrounded by teeming myriads of the
insect tribes; and if they become familiar with the habits, natures
and transformations of these swarms and armies of living creatures,
pleasure and profit must be their reward.

For us to remain ignorant of this department of the handywork
ot infinite power and wisdon, is inexcusable. They were not created
in vain, but for definite uses and purposes. Whilst some are ap-
parently predatory, others are of great use to us, and defensive of
ouv interests. It would be impious in us to denounce them as loath-
scine and useless ; for omniscience brought them into being, and it
IS for us to study their uses, and not despise, condemn and destroy
ihem.
y It is true, many kinds are destructive to our property, and in self
defence we destroy them ; for man will act selfishly even with a
worm. But whilst we thus view and tread upon the mischievous
worm for intruding upon our pretendedly exclusive rights, we must
lot forget that man also trespasses against the rights of his fellow
nan.

Not only will pleasure and profit result from this study, but moral
nstruction can be drawn from the exhibition of v/isdom and power
IS displayed by the great author of all things, in establishing the
aws and order that govern and regulate the changes and transfor-
nations that are juanifested and undergone.

It is not with indifference that we can witness the changes from
he lifeless egg to the living crawling larva ; from tiiis to the dormant
urelia ; and from this to the gay and splendid butterfly, gilded with
ts golden tinges, mounting upon its gaudy wings, triumphant over
he creeping things of earth, flitting from flower to flower, and sip-
)ing the sweets gathered in their cups and upon their leaves. It
(ecomes entirely changed in nature and habits, in form and appear-
Jice, from eating the crude leaf, to suckuig the honied luxuries of
he lilac and rose.

Not only do we draw moral, but high religious instruction from
his source. A type, a shadowing of a change from grovelling hu-

VOL. II. — NO. II. F

220 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

1

manity to spirituality ; from mortality to immortality ; from an
earthly to a heavenly form and existence, through the mysterious
power of our creator, is opened to our vision, as if in aid or harmony
with scriptural revelation.

Why should we then deny ourselves a knowledge of this branch
of natural 'history and philosophy ? The pleasure and utility flowing
from a knowledge of botany, are acknowledged by all. It is admitted
that a familiarity with the flowers and plants of the field improve
the mind and heart. But I think it will be readily acknowledged by
all who are familiar wilh both branches, that entomology is more
gratifying to the student and enquirer, and more useful to the prac-
tical man of the field and farm.

A knowledge of it is easily attained, and readily understood even
by children. The young become pleased with the first lessons, and
are made wiser and better by the study. The mind which is igno-
rant of it, and loathes the sight of the worm, becomes entirely revo-
lutionized and fond of the pursuit. The caterpillar that is deemedn
an intruder upon the carpeted floor, or leaf of the cherished rose,
will not be denounced and rudely crushed as a " filthy worm ;" butiflif
will be looked upon as a harmless creeping thing, hastening to seekii
some secret recess or hiding place, where it may safely suspend otn (
enwrap itself, and undergo its change through its defenceless chry- ^
salis to the perfect insect of the wing. It will be seen in prospect,
or perhaps within one short week, flying around the hall or garden,
eliciting the wonder and admiration of every beholder.

The Journal, being devoted to agriculture and science, is a me-
dium through which will be carried information on this rich and im-i
portant subject to those most to be improved and benefitted by the
study. The wants of those who could not be gratified and supplied
from the periodicals of the day, nor from any other source within
their means and reach, can now be supplied. It is therefore pecu-
liarly gratifying that such a source has opened through your perio-'
dical, and it is to be hoped that a circulation may be secured whichi
will give a general diffusion of this branch of natural history. j

• With permission of the editors, I shall be pleased to write occtHJ
sional articles on this subject, which, in my estimation, will be in-i
teresting and moral as well as useful.

x(

AGRICULTURAL SKETCHES. 221'

A BIRDSEYE VIEW OF THE VEGETABLE PRODUCTrONS, CLIMATE,
SOIL, AND AGRICULTURE OF THE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES OF THE
AMERICAN CONTINENT.

BY C. N. BEMENT.

I United States.

The vegetable productions of the United States are exceedingly
arious : there are some, however, connmon to every section of the
_ Fnion. Maize, or Indian corn, an indigenous American plant, is
:ultivated from Maine to Louisiana, but succeeds best in the Wes-
ern and Middle States. It is adapted to a greater variety of soils
md situations than wheat, and yields generally double the produce :
and of the first ({uality, and in a h^h state of cultivation, has been
mown to give over one hundred bushels to the acre. Wheat is also
jultivaied from one extremity of the Union to the other, but of
uperior quality in the Middle and Western States. The cultivation
)f tobacco begins in Maryland, about the parallel of 39°, and con-
inues through all the Southern States, and in the Western States,
;hiefly south of the Ohio. It forms the staple of Maryland and
iTirginia, where it is raised to a greater extent than in any other part
>f the Union, Besides the large quantity made into snuff, segars,
md manufactured tobacco in the country, 90,000 hogsheads are
nnually exported. The soil and climate favorable for cotton are not
ound beyond 37°, though it can be raised as far north as 39° on
>olh sides of the Alleghanies. It was first cultivated for exportation
n 1791, and is raised from the Roanoke to the Sabine, forming the
taple of the Southern and Southwestern States. Rice crops require
[real heat and a marshy soil, and are cultivated to a great extent in
le Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and as high as St.
lOuis in Missouri. The sugar cane grows in low and warm situa-
ions, as high as the latitude of 33° ; but the climate favorable for
ts production does not extend beyond 31° or 30° : It is now culti-
'ated to a great extent in Louisiana. Oats, rye and barley are raised
all the Northern, and in the upper districts of the Southern States,
lemp, flax, and hops, are produced of an excellent quality. Hemp
[TOWS naturally in the Western States, and hops in the Western
lud Middle States. The vine has been successfully cultivated in
'arious parts of the Union ; and the mulberry tree grows sponta-
leously, and has been extensively planted of late years. Fruits of

222 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

all kinds of the temperate and tropical climates, and the culinary
vegetables which have been introduced from Europe, thrive here.
The dairy and grazing are also important resources in the northern
and western parts of the country, and great quantities of beef and
pork are raised for exportation particularly in the west. The number
of sheep in the United Slates has been estimated at about twenty
milHons, yielding about fifty milHon pounds of wool annually.

Texas.

Climate. The climate of Texas is mild, agreeable and healthful ;
the heats of summer are moderated by the sea breezes, liut are
sometimes excessive during a few hours before sunset, when the
breeze dies away, ^^carcely anyj-ain falls between March and No-
vember, and the vegetation often suffers from droughts. In Novem-
ber, north winds set in, and heavy rains begin to fall : these winds «
blow during December and January, when the mountains are co-
vered with snow, and the cold is sometimes severe ; but the snow
seldom lies long in the lower districts. In the early spring, the rains
are very copious.

Vegetable productions. The live oak is found of large size in the
maritime regions, chiefly between the Galveston and Matagordai
bays : the white, red, post and Spanish oaks ; the cotton-wood, ash,
elm, and sycamore or button-wood ; the black walnut, hickory, ,
pekan ; the locust, musket, and bow-wood ; the wild cherry, mul
berry, chinquapin, parsimmon, etc., are among the natives of the
forests, and there are extensive cane brakes between the Colorado^
and the Brasos. The soil and climate are favorable to the growth of
sugar cane, indigo, tobacco, cotton, rice, indian corn, sweet potatoes,
and, in some parts, of wheat, rye, oats, etc.; and the prairies afford
excellent pastures all the year round.

lie

Mexico.
Soil. The low plains on the coast are fertile, and have a luxuriant
vegetation. Much of the central table land is dry and sterile ; buti||iiiii
in those parts which are well watered, the vegetation is remarkably
vigorous. In the northwest and northeast are extensive tracts of rich

'to

soil

Although the inhabitants are nourished by the soil, yet agriculture
is by no means in a flourishing condition. The variety of soil and

»Vi

AGRICULTURAL SKETCHES. 223

climate, however, famishes a corresponding diversity of cuUivated
as well as indigenous vegetation. The temperate regions are favor-
able to the cereal grasses, and all the culinary vegetables and fruit
trees of Europe thrive. The cultivation of sugar-cane, indigo, cot-
ton, vanilla, cocoa, and tobacco, has been successfully prosecuted.
The banana grows in the warm and humid valleys ; and its fruit,
which is ten or eleven inches in circumference and seven or eight
in length, is an important article of food. Manioc, the root of which
also furnishes a nutritive flour called cassava, likewise grows in the
lint regions. The magney, or American agave, yields a refreshing
drink, called pulque, resembling cider. The dahlias, whose many-
colored blossoms give such a splendor to our flower gardens, at the
season when the approach of winter renders them doubly valuable,
are natives of the hilly parts of Mexico. The sugar-cane, cochineal,
etc. are among the productions of the Mexican States.

Peru.

Generally speaking, agriculture is in a wretched state. So languid
and backward is it on the coast, that Lima and many other towns
along shore depend on Chili for their provisions. This has been ever
since the great earthquake in 1793, which was followed by such
sterility of the vallies of Lower Peru, that the people in many places
ceased to cultivate them. The country has since in a measure re-
covered its fertility ; but till some alteration is made in the mode
of cultivation, and greater facilities of communication between the
interior and coast are introduced, there is no hope of any great
progress in agriculture.

Cotton is found in a wild state, in great abundance, in the Mon-
tana Real, on the Guallaga, and on the banks of the Maranon. Flax
is common ; but the indians leave the stems to perish, and make a
kind of beer of the seeds. A species of cochineal, and coflee of an
indifferent quality, abound in some districts. The Peruvian pimento
is excessively strong ; and there is some cinnamon stronger than
that of Ceylon, though not so valuable. The cedar, the oHve, the
wild orange, the palm, the willow, and many other trees are found
there. On the coast and western slop3s of the Andes, are produced
the cabbage-palm, cocoa-nut, chocolate-nut, and cotton-shrub ; the
jine-apple, turmeric, plantain, and sugar-cane. The large-flowered
essamine, and the Datura arborea, diffuse their evening fragrance

224 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

around the vicinity of Lima. No less than twenty-four species of
pepper, and five or six of capsicum, are considered natives of Peru.
Tobacco and jalap abound in the groves at the foot of the Andes.
The chief shrubs of the uplands are the different species of cin-
chona, or the salutary peruvian bark. The caoutchouc (indian rub-
ber) is procured from the inspissated juice of a variety of different

vegetables.

Chili.

The soil of Chili is extremely favorable to the growth of maize,
wheat, barley and rye. Hemp also grows well. The sugar-cane, the
cotton-tree, the banana, the sweet potato, and numerous other plants
are cultivated. The vine yields abundantly, and the olive likewise
attains great perfection. Forests of apples, peach and quince trees,
in some places, extend for leagues. Oranges, citrons and lemons,
are produced of an excellent quality.

There are some sterile tracts, but in general the soil is remarkably
fruitful, and the products are rich and varied. The maritime tracts
are less productive than the midland, and these again yield to the
vallies of the Andes. Numerous plants are peculiar to the country, j
The uncultivated parts present the utmost profusion of vegetable '
riches. The plains, vallies and mountains are covered with a variety
of beautiful trees, many of which preserve their foliage throughout
the year. Medicinal, dyeing and aromatic plants also abound, and
the fruits introduced by Europeans grow in greater perfection than'
in their native soil.

BUENOS-AYRES.

As almost every soil and climate is to be found within the limits
of this country, so every vegetable production would grow by
proper cultivation. Indian corn, cocoa, olives, sugar-cane, grapes,
oranges, lemons, citrons and figs attain great perfection. Wheat is
cultivated with success, and apples, pears, plums, cherries and other
fruifs are plentiful. Abundance of tobacco is produced in some parts.
The soil, like the climate, varies in this extensive country. The
forests abound with straight and lofty cedars, which are excellently
adapted for ship-building. There are numerous and beautiful species
of palm. The manioc, the maguey, bacoba, banana and pine-apple
are found in profusion.

Climate. The climate is various, but generally healthy. The
atmosphere is very humid ; and during summer, rains are frequent,

AGRICULTURAL SKETCHES. 225

and are commonly acompanied by the most dreadful thunder and
lightning. Fogs, snow and hail are seldom experienced, except on
the summits of the mountains. In Cayo, on the frontiers of Chili,
the winters are excessively cold ; while in summer the heats are
intense.

Guiana.

The soil of Guiana is surprisingly fertile, and a most luxuriant ve-
getation almost everywhere overspreads the country, which abounds
with the finest woods, fruits and plants. Many of the trees grow to
ihc height of 100 feet. The most delicious fruits are met with. The
guava and aviago pear are found in great abundance, and the pine-
apples and other fruits are of the finest quality.

The country is subject to heavy and frequent rains, and, from the
great prevalence of moisture and heat, is unhealthy.

The cultivated tracts are covered with sugar, cotton, coflfee and
indigo plantations. In some places the soil is so exuberant, that
ihirty crops of rice may be made in succession.

Brazil.
In a large portion of this country the soil is very fertile. The
forests produce trees of a great variety, and of a remarkable size,
suited for ship-building and other purposes. They are of a re-
markably rapid growth. There are, besides, lighter species of wood,
similar to fir ; not to speak of logwood, mahogany, an infinity of
ornamental and dyeing woods. There are three kinds of brazil-
wood, which is an important article of export. Melons, bananas,
emons, guavas and oranges grow along the coast ; and aromatic
md medicinal plants are very abundant. The forests of Brazil are
acted for the gigantic growth and great variety of the trees ; the
irofusion and beauty of the flowering shrubs, hanging under a load
of blossoms ; the strange shapes and enormous strength and size of
he creepers and parasitic plants, and the clouds of gaily colored
)irds and splendid insects that everywhere abound. The jacaranda,
\o well known, and so extensively employed as an ornamental ma-
;erial for furniture under the name of rosewood, attracts the eye by
he lightness of its doubly feathered leaves and its large golden
jolored flowers. The cocoa {theobroma), or chocolate-tree, from the
lemel of which chocolate is made, seems to be an aboriginal native
)f Brazil, although it is extensively cultivated in other countries.

226 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The Bertholletia excelsa, producing the dehcious brazil nut, from
15 to 20 kernels of which are enclosed in a thick outer rind ; the
copoifera, yielding the balsam copaiva ; the annatta {Bixa oreU
lata), much used in this country, under the name of otter, for co-
loring cheese, are a few of tlie natives of the Brazil fruits. The
Capsicum annuum, yielding the cayenne pepper ; the Quassia
amara, furnishing a valuable drug ; the pungent and odoriferous
vanilla ; the ipecacuanha, whose root is an invaluable drug ; the
tonqua bean, much prized for its delicate aromatic seed ; the sarsa-
parilla, noted for its various virtues, are among the economical plants.

Face of the country. Viewed from the sea, the country ap;)ears
rugged and mountainous ; but on a nearer approach, its appearance
is highly beautiful and picturesque, clothed as it is with the most
luxuriant vegetation, its hills covered with thick woods, and its val-
lies with a verdure which never fades. Towards the interior, the
land rii^es by gentle gradations to the height of 6000 feet above the
level of the sea. A large part of the interior is overspread with an
impenetrable forest.

Agriculture. In no country would agriculture yield greater re-
turns to the industrious cultivator, but, unhappily, in no country is it
more generally neglected. A passion for seekmg gold and diamonds
has nearly destroyed all relish for every other labor. Maize, beans
and cassava root are raised in considerable quantities. In many
parts wheat and other European grains are reared. Coffee and sugar
are cultivated to a great extent, as well as tobacco and cotton.
Vanilla and sarsaparilla are obtained in abundance.

SOMETHING ABOUT MANURE AND ITS APPLICATION.

BY JESSE RYDER.

Almost all the farmers of this country are obliged to depend on
the resources of their own farms for the supply of animal and ve-
getable manures which they can command. Mineral manures are
more generally purchasable ; but as stimulants and absorbents, they
can only operate in conjunction with the vegetable matter of the
soil (the humus or mould), the principal supply of which to culti-
vated land, is obtained from our cattle yards, and is returned to the
earth again from whence it came.

APPLICATION OF MANURE. 227

It seems to be self-evident to me, that the earth must receive
something in return for her productions, or become bankrupt. Either
a portion of her produce must be left with her, or an equivalent re-
turned, otherwise she becomes barren and unfruitful.

If I recollect right, Liebig says that perhaps five-sixths of the
nourishment of plants is derived from the atmosphere, and all
chemists I believe admit a greater or less proportion ; but one thing
is certain, that a part of their nourishment is derived from the soil
in which they grow, the one sixth if you please ; and that the richer
and better the soil, other circumstances being the same, the better
the crop. The roots of plants must be abundantly supplied with
their specific food, in that state of preparation which admits of its
being appropriated by them, or the plants cannot be fully developed.

I, for one, do not believe that chemists ever will be able to show
that the remaining one sixth of their support can also be got from
the atmosphere, and that the only use of earth to them would be
as a house or home to live in, to keep the plants from travelling
about or falling over. If such should ever be the case, production
would become too easy to agree with the declaration that " by the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."

It behoves us then to increase the fertility of the soil we cultivate,
until it is capable of affording to plants all the nourishment they re-
quire of it, in order to develope them fully.

There is great encouragement in the thought that plants derive
a part of their food and nourishment from the atmosphere. If it was
all derived from the earth, then would it require all the produce of
the farm to be restored to it, in order to preserve its fertility. Neither
could we afford to lose any thing by the washings of rains, or by
solar evaporation, unless there is some natural operation going on,
to create soil upon the earth's surface, independent of aid from the
atmosphere. Neither could we enrich our soil from its own re-
sources ; that is, by returning to it all its produce as manure, with-
out extraneous aid of some kind. But experimental proofs are not
wanting to show that a large part of the food of plants is derived
from the atmosphere.

It must be within the knowledge of almost all good farmers, that
I their farms have become more and more productive by restoring to
ihem only a part of the produce of the same in the form of manure,
aided by judicious management in its application, and a proper ro-

VOL. II. NO. II. G

il

228 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

tation of crops. Now a very important question arises, and it is
this : Ought we not to increase the fertility of our farms very fast,
when it is considered that the larger part of the nutriment of plants
is derived from the atmosphere ? That for every pound of food they-
use of our furnishing, they restore to us three, four, or five pounds
more derived from another source, would call for an affirmative an-
swer. As it is well determined that our gain is great, it remains for
us to discover the cause of loss, and the preventive too, for lose we
certainly must, else : for every load of manure we feed to plants,
we ought at the period of its exhaustion to have six times as much
on hand, provided the produce is all made use of on the farm, and
five-sixths is the amount gained.

I am satisfied that a great deal more than half the support of
plants is derived from some other source than the product of decayed
vegetable matter in the soil itself, from the fact that grain farms are | ^
often made to improve rapidly, from the resources of liie farm
which are left after selling off the grain, which is the most valuable
portion for manure, and after losing a great part of the strength of I
the manure which is made on the farm by the escape of its gases i
and salts, for the want, in part, of some substances to combine and
retain them for the use of plants.

Again, meadow land can be cropped, and not manured save and
except with plaster, and the soil improve meantime (and I even
think the same result may be experienced without the use of plaster,
but in a less degree of rapidity), as I have shown in a former article.
I know that such has been the result where plaster was used. In
an improvement of a soil almost destitute of mould, in this way,
admitting that it is to be attributed to the use of plaster, there is an
great increase of mould, which I suppose is principally carbon ; but
the plaster did not contain carbon. It must operate then by pro-
moting the growth of vegetation that does, which must derive it from
the atmosphere ; and the operation of the plaster must be by its f
sulphuric acid combining the ammonia of the atmosphere. I am
aware that Dr. Dana attributed its good effects to another causeji
viz. the sulphuric acid of the plaster dissolving the silex or gritty
matter of the soil, and thus setting free the alkalies contained there-
in; which in turn dissolve more silex, and thus set free another portion
of alkali, and so on. But, in my view, the great effects produced
from the use of a little plaster must be attributed to another cause.

APPLICATION OF MANURE. 229

I should think the growing crop would natuxally appropriate to it-
self the alkalies, so as to prevent in a great measure the action and
reaction spoken of.

If this theory be correct, then ought plaster to operate as benefi-
cially in the vicinity of the sea as elsewhere. The effect produced
by the lime of the plaster must necessarily be small ; a bushel or
two to the acre would not avail much, where forty is not enough.

T adopt Liebig's theory of the action of plaster as being most
natural, which is, that it fixes the ammonia which is brought down
by rain. I suppose it to be in perfect accordance with the law of
chemical affinity, if liie sulphuric acid of the plaster has a greater
alfinity for ammonia than it has for lime.

As a practical proof of the correctness of Liebig's theory, I would
state that I have, in experimenting with plaster, applied it to a field
of corn, except a spot of three rods square, by first rolling the seed
in plaster, and then applying it to the hill after it came up ; the re-
sult was, a difference so great in the growth and yield, as to con-
vince me, knowing the capabilities of the soil, that the non-plastered
portion of the corn was a great deal poorer than it would have been
had there been no piaster applied to any of the adjacent parts of the
ffeld ; consequently the non-plastered portion had been robbed by
the plaster of the surrounding corn, of some substance derived from
the atmosphere. Hence the usual mode of testing the effects of
)laster by comparing parts adjacent, is not fair ; the apparent effect
)eing greater than the real. I am sustained in this opinion by a very
intelligent farmer of my acquaintance, who came to the same con-
clusion for himself.

May it not be true, that those farmers who do not use plaster are
a, little worse off than if their neighbors did not use it. I was told
)y a farmer who lives near Long Island Sound, that they esteem
)laster of very little use, unless it is sowed in the summer, irame-
iiately after a shower from the westward.

Liebig says that ammonia is brought down by rainwater, and that
in the summer lime, when rains are less frequent, a greater portion
is brought down at one time. Is the air from the land better charged
with ammonia than that from the sea ? Does the sea-water absorb

When once it is conceded that the soil of a farm can be made to

Igrow rich by the use of manure, made from a great deal less than

I
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Bl
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230 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

its own produce, it must also be conceded that the same farm ought
to be enriched faster and faster as the amount of its productions in-
crease ; and if the majority of farmers barely maintain their soil in
a given state of fertility by present management, it follows that any
increased effect obtained from a given source of fertility already in
common use, must result in a general improvement of the soil, and
advance the wealth and prosperity of the country. That such a re-
sult would be developed very rapidly, could the manure we make
on our farms be made to produce double the effect which it now
does, no one can doubt.

I do not believe that the manure which is applied to hoed crops
in this country, reproduces itself to the farmer, as a general thing,
notwithstanding its auxiliary help from the atmosphere. This is a
serious consideration, if we believe that by securing all its valuable
properties, it ought to be instrumental in producing five or six times
as much. Take a field and apply to it for Indian corn the amount
of manure made from its own produce for five preceding years, then
raise three grain crops in succession, say corn, oats and wheat or
rye ; and at the end of that time, I am well assured, that the soil
will have lost more strength than was imparted to it by the manurei
of five years. Let it then be laid down to grass for two years, and at<
the end of that time it will have recovered the elements of fertility,
so as to be, generally speaking, about as good as it was before theij
manure was applied five years previous ; the formation of sod beingi
a'rejuvenating process.

To be more particular, I should say that the soil of land which isi
dry and good for grain, would be somewhat improved at the end oil
the five years, if the grass seed took well ; and heavy clayey soilsyi
which are decidedly uncertain for grain without manure, will be
decidedly poorer. I consider the grass crop to be a mending crop,
and ever and anon tributary to the grain crop. Meadowland sustaiw
ing itself by the vegetable matter of decayed roots, would go tc
show that the crop derived but a small part of its support from the
vegetable matter of the soil.

With hoed crops it appears to me that the roots are not nume*
rous enough, and the leaves too few to appropriate and secure any
great proportion of the virtues of the manure, which otherwise
leach away or evaporate.

I once buried by the plough, in the spring of the year, about six^

APPLICATION OF MANURE. 231

OX cart-loads of manure on four acres of sod ground, ploughed the
usual depth, five or six inches, soil stiff and heavy ; and for aught I
have ever seen of its eifects, there might as well have been a funeral
ceremony at the time of the burying. The season was somewhat
wet. What became of the salts of the manure ? Planted with pota-
toes which were poor, then sowed with rye which was poor, and the
grass which followed was not as good as it grew before the plough-
ing. Ploughing in manure on dry land may do better ; but I doubt
whether one-fourtli is ever realized from it that ought to be, if plants
derive any consioerable part of their support from the atmosphere.
1 once put about five bushels of strong horse manure in one heap
on a timothy meadow, and spread the surrounding parts wiih like
manure, ten two-horse loads to the acre The manure heap made
I he grass but little heavier on its borders than it was elsewhere, the
ten loads to the acre having brought the land near to its maximum
of production (three and a half tons to the acre). Three years after,
the grass was little or no heavier where the manure heap was, than
on the parts adjacent. Nineteen twentieths of the manure, then,
was lost ; which is proof positive to my mind, that it is necessary to
secure its valuable properties very soon, or they are lost.

Here the farmer requires chemical aid ; and great would be the
obligations of the people to that man who could discover, and would
make known some cheap and practical way of combining and se-
curing for the use of plants, the fertilizing properties of manure.
A free use of plastoi* would, no doubt, effect much by taking up
the ammonia as it formed : if so, it ought to be sprinkled over the
yards frequently, and mixed with the manure heap ; and then when
it was applied to the land, would it not leach away into the earth
the same as any other salts ?

In a practical way, and without asking the chemists any thing
about it, I think farmers may double the value of their manure
by taking my advice in its application, where the supply is limited.
I presume the supply on most farms does not equal one load per
acre yearly, for the land in grass and grain ; that of the land plough-
ed, only a portion of it gets a sprinkling in a round of crops ; and
that if the corn ground is covered, there is none left for wheat. I
^pow that most theoretical and many practical farmers recommend
the application of all the manure of the farm to the hoed crops ; and
|hus wear it out, as I think, without securing such a return from it
as will leave the land better than it found it.

232 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Our primitive soil is generally rather poor and difficult, and soon
reduced by bad management. In many cases, if we do not enrich
and improve it, we had best forsake it and go to better land. That
system which enriches poor land in the least time, must be good for
rich land too. That which enables a poor man to grow rich, must
enable the rich man to grow richer.

Experience has taught us here, that to enrich our land, we must:
apply the manure for our plough land at the time of sowing winter
grain, spread it on the furrow, and harrow it in wiUi the grain, which
leaves it just where we want it, near the surface ; or harrow the
ground first, then spread the manure, and plough in the manure and
grain together with hght furrows.

Now here is the difference between the two systems : If we put
all the manure on for corn, on land rather poor and easily worked
down, the result is pretty good corn and oats, and poor winter grain
and grass succeeding, there being no manure to spare for those
crops. When the sod is again turned over for corn, it being poor,
the corn again requires barn-yard manure ; and thus the land is
kept poor, the grass being light, and the manure not increasing in
quantity. But let the disposition of the manure be changed : apply
it to the winter grain, and then we have good wheat or rye suc-
ceeded by good grass, plenty of fodder, an increased quantity of'
manure, and a sod formed, which, when the land is again ploughed I
for corn, will enable it to grow as luxuriantly as it did under pre-
vious management with the manure applied d'-ectly to it. The
manure is now left for the winter grain again : there is more of it,
and the land grows better very fast.

Suppose the corn on the good sod, as good as it would have been
on the poor sod with the manure, what then ? Why it was more
cheaply fed : there was no volatile salts to escape ; none to leach
away, that I know of. The difference is like fattening cattle on wheat |
instead of Indian corn or roots ; only the one is a loss direct, the I
other a loss entailed ; one like paying direct taxes which we know,
the other like indirect taxes which we feel and do not know exactly
what the matter is.

With the manure for winter grain, it prevents it from freezing
out in the winter and spring ; also saves the young timothy, and in
many instances lightens the soil so as to preserve the clover roots
of the year following. Grass being a mending crop, the land can

/I

^

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X

'¥

/

/

/ /
\ I

/ I

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 233

j spare its luxuriant burthen and not be poorer, and the land is im-
proved by the amount of the manure, a luxuriant sod being as it
were its representative.

Such, in my view, is a practical way of increasing the effects of
manure, and securing for the earth a store of vegetable food derived
from the atmosphere.

INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION.— No. 3.

BY ASA FITCH, M. D.

THE WHEAT-FLY.
Although several facts in the habits and economy of the wheat-fly
had occurred to my notice at sundry times since its appearance in
this vicinity, yet as my leisure for studies of this nature was wholly
engrossed in other departments of the science of entomology, these
facts had been observed in too cursory a manner to be of material
value in preparing an account for the public eye. It has not been
until the present year, that I have made this and iis allied species
my particular study. And as some few interesting points still remain
jndetermined, ere a perfectly complete history of this insect can be
given, I should be inclined still to defer preparing a paper upon this
5ubject, but that I deem some of the observations already made of
-00 much importance to be longer withheld, and am moreover very
.veil aware. that if no writer ventured to appear before the public
jntil his investigations were so complete in every particular that he
:ould exhaust the subject on which he wrote, very little would be
published, and the world would have but a small fraction of that
imount of information which it now possesses.

It is necessary for me farther to premise, that although we have
wo distinct species of wheat-flies, as will be fully shown in the
sequel of this paper, to wit, the clear-winged wheat-Jly (Cecidomyia
ritici of Kirhy) and the spotted-winged ivheat-Jly, which has hither-
0 remained a nondescript ; yet as nothing is yet known of the
labits and transformations of one of these as distinct from the other,
hrough the body of this article the copimon name "wheat-fly" will
)e employed for convenience as referring to both these species.

234 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Future researches, however, may delect dissimilarities in their
habits, and show that portions of the following account are true only
with regard to one of these.

Its FOREIGN HISTORY.

The first distinct and unequivocal account of the wheat-fly, of
which I am aware, is that given by Mr. Christopher Gullet, in 1771,
and published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal So-
ciety the following year.* From this it would appear that the effects

* So long ago as the year 1768, Col. Langdon Carter, of Virginia, transmitted to
the American Philosophical Society a paper entitled " Observations concerning the
FLY-WEEVIL that destroys the wheat; " which was published in the first volume of the
Society's Transactions, 2d edition, pages 274 - 287. The account here given, is in
nearly all its particulars so strikingly applicable to the wheat-fly, that so much of it as
relates to the insect itself merits an introduction in this place. He rather quaintly re-
marks, " In a pleasant evening, after the sun was down, and every thing serenely
calm, I found the rascals extremely busy amongst my ears, and really very numerous.
I immediately inclosed some of them in a light loose handkerchief; and by the mag-
nifiers of my telescope, I took occasion minutely to examine them. They are a pale
brownish moth, with little trunks or bodies, some trifle shorter than their wings ; and
as some of their little bodies appeared bulging as if loaded, I applied the pressure of a

i

n

fine straw upon them, and saw them squirt out, one after another, a number of little
things which I took to be eggs, some more, some less : some emitted fifteen or twenty
of them ; and others appeared extremely lank in their little trunks, which I could not
make discharge anything like an egg. Whether they had done this in the field before,
or were of the male kind, I could not tell ; but from this discovery I concluded that
there need not be above two or three flies to an ear of corn, to lay eggs enough to de-
stroy the greatest crop. * * * It is with much propriety called a weevil, as it destroys
the wheat even in our granaries; though it is not of the kind termed by naturalists
the curaiUo, of which they have given a very long list ; for it is not like a bug ; it
carries no cases for its wings ; neither has it any feelers, with which the curculio is "
always distinguished ; and perhaps (as I fancy it will turn out in the course of this
letter that they never attack grain when hard) they really have no occasion for such
feelers. For from the make of it, to my judgment it appears an impossibility that it
should ever perforate into a hard grain, being furnished with nothing in nature, from .,
the most minute examination by glasses, that could make such a perforation ; and |
seems indeed a fly itself, consisting of nothing sensible to the slightest touch wiih the '
finger, nor to the eye assisted with glasses, leaving only a little dry pale brown glossy
dust on being squeezed."

I doubt not but that on perusing this extract, almost every reader who is conversant
with our wheat-fly will feel confident that it is the same insect to which Col. Carter
alludes. Yet if his account be more particularly observed, we gather from it some
characters which assure us that it was not the wheat-fly which he examined. Although
he uses the terms 7notk and fly as synonymous, and nowhere tells us whether his
specimens had four or only two winge, ye^ he could scarcely have spoken of the lively
orange color of our wheat-fly as " pale brownish ; " and what is yet more conclusiva^

(

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 235

produced by the wheat-fly had been known for some lime to the
farmers of England, though imputed by them to a wrong cause.
He^says, " What the farmers call the yellows in wjieat, and which
I they consider as a kind of mildew, is, in fact, occasioned by a small
! yellow fly, with blue wings, about the size of a gnat. This blows in
the ear of the corn, and produces a worm, almost invisible to the
naked eye : but, being seen through a pocket microscope, it appears
a large yellow maggot, of the color and gloss of amber, and is so
prolific that 1 distinctly dounted forly-one living yellow maggots in
the husk of one single grain of wheat, a number sulFicient to eat up
and destroy the corn in a whole ear. One of these yellow flies laid
at least eight or ten eggs, of an oblong shape, on my thumb, only
while carrying by the wing across three or four ridges." {Harris's
Mass. Report, p. 437.)

It was several years subsequent to this date, that the accounts of
the appalling ravages of the hessian fly among the wheat crops of
America reached Europe ; and as this fly was universally believed
to have been derived from the old world, extensive and careful exa-
minations of the grain fields there were made, to detect it, that its
habits might be learned, and means devised for preventing its be-
coming such a scourge as it was to this country. These investiga-
tions, conducted often at the public expense, and by men whose
acquirements peculiarly fitted them for such a work, resulted in a
:onfident announcement, which received general credence for a long
series of years, that the hessian fly did not exist in Europe ; yet in
heir course, several other species of insects injurious to the culti-
vated grains of that continent were discovered, and the wheat-fly
eceived a particular examination. Mr. Curtis, generally so accurate
n his statements, says that it was first discovered at this time ; but

his insect, on being pressed between the fingers, left "a little dry pale brown glossy
]ust; " whereas the wheat-fly leaves no mark upon the fingers, unless it be actually
crushed, in which case its fluid juices produce a yellow stain, without any glossiness.
Every one accustomed to the handling of insects, will at once recognize the character
n question as applying admirably to some small species of moth ; and the "Committee
)n Husbandry" of the Society, in their remarks at the close of Col. Carter's paper, are
ioubtless correct in their statement, that these insects "appear to be of the same kind
.vith those that do the like mischief in Europe, which a gentleman of Angumois
lescribes to Mr. Duhamel," and which have since become so well known as the
'Angumois grain-moth," described by the naturalist Qlivier under the technical name
)f Alucita cerealella.

VOL. II. — NO. II. H

236 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the account already given from Mr. Gullet, shows that it was known
in England at least twenty-five jears earlier than Mr. C. supposes,
and anterior ev^n to the date when the hessian fly was first observed
in America.

In 1795, as we are informed by Mr Marsham, in a paper read
before the Linnsan Society, London, and puhlisjlied in their Trans-
actions, vol. iii. p. 142, towards the end of July, Mr. Long had
observed an insect that threatened to do much mischief to the wheat
crops ; attacking one or more of the grains in an ear, and causing
the chaff of these grains to become yellow or ripe, whilst the re
mainder of the head was still green. Mr. Marsham, on opening thft
chaff of these grains, found an orange-colored powder, and in many
of them one or two very minute yellowish-while or deep yellow
larvffi, the grain itself appearing to be a little shrunk. Mr. Markwich
of Sussex also observed the same larvae in his wheat, the forepart
of August, but was confident they had done no injury to it. Thei
same larvas were also noticed by Mr. Kirby, this year, in Suffolk

In a subsequent paper from Mr. Marsham ( Trans. Lin. Soc
vol. iv. p. 224), we are informed that Mr. Markwich, July 12, 1797
saw the flies themselves, at rest upon the heads of the wheat, an»l
also a few of the larvce within the flowers ; and that awhile later in
the season the fly appeared reduced in numbers, whilst the larvj
had become much more abundant. From heads of the wheat ei
closed in a flowerpot, he reared the fly, and also its parasite ; th
fly thus obtained having " spotted wings," a fact which we sha
revert to hereafter.

Following this account is an excellent article (p. 230) by the Re
William Kirby, who has since become so well known by his varioi
writings upon entomology. Mr. Kirby here gives a scientific descrif
tion of the wheat-fly, bestowing upon it the specific name tritici, b
which it has been definitely distinguished by all subsequent write:
and correctly referring it to the genus Trpula of Linn^us, a gen
which, in consequence of the vast number of species afterwardBtiii
discovered to be comprised under it, naturalists have since found ^u
necessary to subdivide ; and the species in question at this day fali
within that group to which the name Cecidomyia was given by L;|
treille, an arrangement concurred in by Mr. Kirby himself in k
communication in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, vol.
p. 227 ; and which I note thus particularly, as by most writers i

B

«

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 237

our agricultural papers it is still spoken of as solely the Tipula
tritici of Mr. Kirby.

In this article, and another presented about a year afterwards
( Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. v. p. 96), Mr. Kirby gives a large number
of most interesting and valuable observations upon this insect, the
correctness of wliich, generally, more recent investigations have
fully attested. With regard to its abundance at that time, he says
he could scarcely pass through a wiieatfield, in which some florets
of every car were not inhabited by the larvae ; and in a field of fifteen
acres, which he carefully examined, he calculated that the havoc
done by them would amount to five combs (twenty bushels).

From this time, we have met with no notices of the wheat-fly,
except occasional references to the articles above mentioned, until
the year 1823, when, and for a few of the following years, it again
appeared in such numbers and with such havoc in several of the
counties of England and Scotland, as to elicit communications in
the magazines from seve.-al writers. In some districts of Scotland,
its devastations would seem to have approached in severity what has
been experienced upon this side of the Atlantic ; for " Mr. Gorrie
estimates the loss sustained by the farming interest in the Carse of
Gowrie (the rich alluvial district along the Isla and its tributaries in
Perth and Forfarshire) by the wheat-fly alone, at 20,000Z. in 1827,
at 30,000Z. in 1828, and at 36,000/. in 1829" {Encyc. of Agric. 3d
Lond. ed. p. 820. ^ 5066). And Mr. Bell, writing from Perthshire,
June 24, 1830, says, "We are anxious to have the present cold
weather continue for another ten days, to prevent the eggs from
latching, until the wheat be sufficiently hardened and beyond the
state which aff'ords nourishment to the maggot. Another year or two
af the wheat-fly will make two thirds of the farmers here bankrupts"
Gardener's Magazine, vol. vi. p. 495). Mr. Gorrie, in a letter
lated at Aunat Gardens, Errol, Perthshire, Sept. 1828 {Loudon^s
Mag. of Nat. Hist. vol. ii. p. 292), solicits information "on the
mture and mode of propagation of a fly which has this year de-
stroyed about one third of the late sown wheat all over this country."
He describes a small yellow caterpillar, one eighth of an inch long,
IS numerous in the young ears of wheat, completely devouring the
young milky grain, becoming torpid in about twelve days, and in
:ix days more changing to a small black fly. In a subsequent com-
iiunication, Aug. 1829 (p. 323), he corrects the latter part of the

i

238 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

above statement, and says, "At that time I did not know that a
yellow fly had deposited the eggs within the glume, which became
maggots. Observing numbers of black flies on the ears of wheat, I
believed they had been the produce of the caterpillar. I have this
season, however, observed the yellow fly (described by Rev. W.
Kirby) deposit its eggs in the wheat-ear," etc, I notice this more
particularly, because the farmers in this vicinity, with scarcely an
exception, have fallen into the same error, and to this day suppose
a small black fly, of the family Muscidcn, which occurs abundantly
in wheat-fields, to be the real wheat-fly.

Mr. Patrick Shirreff, of East- Lothian, gives, in the same volume
of Loudon's Magazine, pages 448 - 451, an excellent and very
accurate summary of the habits and transformations of the same
insect, the result chiefly of his own observations. For a concise
account, this is not surpassed by any that has fallen under my notice.

Still more recently, this subject has been investigated by Prof.
Henslow, from whom a communication appears in the Journal of
the Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. ii. p. 26 ; and in
the same journal for the present year (vol. vi. p. 131. plate M.) an
admirable production is inserted from the pen and graver of that J
accomplished naturalist, John Curtis, F.L.S., giving much more
accurate and precise descriptions and delineations of the wheat-fly,
in the difterent stages of its existence, than any that had previously j
appeared. To it I am particularly indebted for such characters as
enable me to say without a doubt, that the clear-winged wheat-fly |
of America is identical with the English Cecidomyia tritici.

In closing this summary of the notices of the wheat-fly abroad, I
would allude ,to what has occurred to me as perhaps true in the
history of this insect, to wit, that it has somewhat regular periods
of recurring in such numbers as to become a pest to the agri-
culturist. Thus, it would appear from Mr. Gullet's account, that it
had been common for a few years previous to 1771. After an in-
terval of twenty- five years, it is again observed plentifully for three
or four years, and in different districts, by Messrs. Kirby, Markwick
and Long. Again it ceases to elicit attention, until a period but a
little longer elapses, when, in 1828 and the following years, it forces
itself once more and still more prominently into notice. All that I
design, is, to direct attention to this point : the facts are as yet too
few and too vague to justify anything more than a suggestion. The '

k

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 239

observations of Mr. Kirby, reaching now over half a century, could
probably shed some light upon this most interesting topic.

As respects the extent of its range abroad, it has been noticed in
most of the southern and eastern counties of England, from Corn-
wal to Norfolk, and also in Shropshire ; in Perthshire and the Lo-
ihians, and probably in other districts of Scotland ; and in the north
of Ireland. Whether it occurs upon the continent of Europe, we
are not positivel}' informed. It is not noticed by Macquart, either
in his Diptera of the North of France, or his Natural History of
Dipterous Insects ( for a perusal of which I am indebted to the
courtesy of Dr. T. W. Harris of Harvard University) ; and we can
scarcely believe that if it existed in his district, it could have been
overlooked by so assiduous a naturalist. M. Herpin, however (as
we are told by Mr. Curtis), is of opinion that it is an inhabitant of
Trance, and the statement which he makes strongly supports this
opinion. He says, "I have also found in cars of corn, at the time
of flowering, many little yellow larvae, very lively, from two to three
millimetres long, lodged between the chaff of the grain : these larv®
nibble and destroy the generative organs of the plant, and the
gcrmen where they are found are sterile. These larvas appear to me
to have a very great analogy with those which have been described
in the Linnsean Transactions, under the name of Tipula triLici : it
is probably a Cecidomyia.^^ M. Herpin placed several ears of dis-
eased barley and wheat in bottles, and in these bottles a number of
cecidomyia flies were afterwards found. Meigen — a copy of whose
noted work upon the Diptera of Europe I regret that I have been
unable to meet with — as I learn from Mr. Curtis's paper, gives
descriptions and figures of the wheat-fly. Were his specimens col-
lected in Germany, or received from England ?

Its domestic history.
It will be unnecessary to particularly specify the various notices
of this insect, that have appeared in the different agricultural papers
of the Northern States during the last twelve years. The more im-
portant and valuable of these may be found in the several volumes
of the Cultivator and of the New-England Farmer. An excellent
summary of the history and habits of the wheat-fly, both in this
country and abroad, is also given in Dr. Harris's Report on the
Insects of Massachusetts, p. 437 - 444. Mr. Gaylord's paper on

240 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

injurious insects briefly notices this species {Trans. N. Y. State
Agric. Society, 1843, vol. iii. p. 145- 147.)

With the prominent facts that have been laid before the public
by our agricultural periodicals, every intelligent farmer is already
familiar. The great difficulty experienced by persons but little con-
versant with zoological science, in determining v^rhat this wheat-
worm really was, forms a striking feature in the earlier notices that
appeared respecting it. Thus, by some it was for a time regarded
as an animalcule of the vibrio genus, analogous to the " eels" gene-
rated in vinegar and paste. By others, and quite extensively, it was
pronounced to be a weevil, and this very improper name is to this
day often applied to it. Others, still, deemed it to be " Monsieur
Tonson come again," considering it as a return of the hessian-Jly
to a section of the country from which it had long been absent. It
would be easy to point out how erroneous each of these opinions
are ; but I deem it wholly unnecessary, as the public mind is now
no longer distracted upon this subject ; and the correct view, that
this insect is a fly, peculiar in its habits, and diflfering from any of
those previously known in this country, universally prevails.

It is not improbable but that one or both of the species of the
wheat-fly may have been present in this country, in limited numbers,
many years before it was distinctly noticed. In truth, common as
this insect still is in this district, if our farmers, guided by the
knowledge they have acquired of it, were not zealously searching
for it in every field, I much doubt whether it would be at all ob-
served here at the present day. And often too when a careful
examination of the growing gr^in leads to a belief that the crop is
scarcely infested, an inspection of the threshing-floor, or of the
screenings of the fanning-mill, will frequently demonstrate that it
was present in much greater abundance than was surmised. These
facts plainly show, that this insect might lurk a long time in our
country wholly unobserved.

Mr. Jewett says the wheat-fly first appeared in western Ver-
mont in the year 1820 {New-Eng. Farmer, vol. xix. p. 301). It
was not, however, till the years 1828 and 1829 that it became so
numerous as to attract the attention of community ; the same years,
be it observed, when its ravages were so annoying in Scotland. It
was in the northern part of Vermont, bordering upon the line of
Lower Canada, where it became so excessively multiplied at this

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 241

time ; and from that, as a central point, it seems to have extended
in nearly all directions. In this vicinity, one hundred and twenty-
five or fifty miles south of the locality above indicated, it was cer-
tainly observed in 1830 ; and in 1832 the wheat crops were so com-
pletely destroyed by it, as to lead to a general abandonment of the
cultivation of this grain. Having spread east over Vermont and
New-Hampshire, it in 1834 appeared in the State of Maine, and
continued lo advance in that direction, it is said, at the rate of twenty
or thirty miles a year. Westward its progress would seem to have
been less rapid, and along the Mohawk river by no means so gene-
rally destructive. It is not till within a year or two past, that it has
appeared in the Black river country east of Lake Ontario, as I am
informed by an intelligent gentleman resident there ; nor until the
present season that it has been so injurious as to induce in some
instances a premature mowing of the crop, and preserving it for hay.
Rumor states that farther west, in the wheat-noted Genesee country,
it has been detected for the first time the present year.

The history of its career, appears to be quite uniform in most of
the districts hitherto visited by it. About two or three years after
its first arrival at a particular locality, it becomes most excessively
multiplied, and the devastations which it now commits are almost
incredible. Though I believe that through unduly excited fears, or
a hope of thereby destroying hosts of this marauder, a mowing of
the crop whilst yet green, and a curing of it for hay, has often been
resorted to, when, had it been harvested as usual, a less sacrifice
would have been made ; yet many cases have occurred, in which
diligent search by different persons has failed to discover a single
kernel of grain in any of the heads of an entire field !

This havoc, so extreme and general, though not universal (for
some fields even now escape with comparatively little injury), lasts
but one or two years. The numbers of the pest, and its consequent
ravages, soon become sensibly diminished ; and after the lapse of a
few seasons, the cultivation of the wheat crop is again found to be
comparatively safe, and its yield only in isolated instances mate-
rially lessened by the continued presence of the fly, which has now
become probably a permanent inhabitant.

It is commonly supposed that this rapid diminution in the num-
bers of the wheat-fly has been produced by the general abandon-
ment of the cultivation of wheat in this section of the country ; that

242 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

thus the insect, having no place to deposit its eggs where its young
could be nourished, has become measurably " starved out." But
that this opinion is erroneous, is I think evident from one or two
facts. During this entire period, since notice was first attracted to
the wheat-fly, there are some farmers who have every year con-
tinued the cultivation of wheat with very fair success, their crops
having been in no one of these years so severely injured as to dis-
hearten them ; and their respective situations are so dissimilar, that
this immunity can with no plausibility be attributed to any pecu-
liarity in the locations of their farms. Now if the swarms of these
insects which for a time pervaded every neighborhood through this
entire section of country, and which possess a power of wing capa-
ble of bearing them from twenty to fifty miles in a single season,
had been in the " starving" condition supposed, how have the fields
alluded to escaped destruction ? Certainly these myriads of tiny
creatures could not have been reduced to such straits for want of
the appropriate repository for their eggs, until after these crops
had been utterly consumed. And, with the insect not exterminated,
but still everywhere common, now that the culture of wheat has
been gradually returned to with such success that it has again be-
come general, why has not the fly again increased ? Why have the
considerable crops of the past and the abundant ones of the present
year in this (Washington) county, been so little injured ? I am
firmly persuaded, therefore, that the speedy diminution in the num-
bers of the wheat-fly, which soon follows a season in which it has
been extremely annoying, can not be truly assigned to the cause
above stated ; but that it is rather to be attributed to that beautiful
provision of nature, long since observed, and additional instances of
the truth of which are brought to light by the investigations of every
year, to wit, that an undue increase in any of the species of the
animal or vegetable world never takes place, without being speedily
succeeded by a corresponding increase of the natural enemies and
destroyers of that species, whereby it again becomes reduced to its^
appropriate bounds.

Whenever once introduced, it is probable the wheat-fly will ever
after continue in limited numbers, laying the wheat crop annually
under a moderate contribution for its support. Isolated fields will
occur where its devastations will be quite serious, whilst the crop
of the district generally will suffer but little, and many fields none at

irs

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 243

ill. Such has appeared to be its history in this vicinity for several
j^ears past. Seasons favorable for its multiplication will doubtless
occur, when its injuries will be much augmented ; as well as sea-
sons of a reverse character, when its presence will scarcely be
mown. It is, therefore, very important that the entire history and
labits of this insect should be accurately traced out. For only with
A full knowledge of these, can we be able to resort intelligently to
such measures as will keep its numbers constantly limited, or sweep
it from those fields that will probably at times be excessively in-
fested by it.

Its habits.

Relying upon the correctness of the published statements, that it
Was not till "towards the last of June" that the fly infests the wheat-
fields, and that " the principal depositc of eggs is made in the first
half of July," I had not commenced searching for it, when on the
16th of June I was informed by a neighbor, that it had been pre-
sent for some days in large numbers, in a field of thrifty winter
wheat of his. Upon repairing to this field, a small black fly, about
one third of the size and much resembling the common house-fly,
was pointed out as the dreaded enemy ; and so universally has this
ioubtless harmless species been for years regarded as the true wheat
fly by the farmers throughout this whole section of the " infected
district," merely from the circumstance of its occurring abundantly
in wheatfields simultaneously with the wheat-worm, that my com-
panion was much surprised, and disposed to be incredulous of my
assertion that that was not the wheat-fly. On opening the flowers
of the wheat, however, the eggs of the real marauder were found in
abundance ; and a sweeping, with the small gauze fly-net in com-
mon use by entomologists, between the stalks of grain towards
their roots, immediately caught within it a number of the winged
Bsects. My comrade was little less surprised on my pointing the
real fly out to him, being scarcely able to conceive that such a tiny
fragile atom, seemingly a mere moat floating before his eye, could
be that potent enemy that had spread such desolation over our land.
Several of the specimens thus caught, were of the spotted-winged
species. These I conjectured, until I afterwards came to examine
them attentively with the microscope, were only a variety of the

VOL. II. NO. II. I

rf

244 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

common or clear-winged species, else I should not have failed to
have regarded them more particularly.

All parts of this field of four acres were found to be infested
more or less with the wheat-fly, but they occurred most abundantly
along one of its sides, in the field adjoining which, wheat had been
grown the prece'ling year, which had been considerably injured by
this insect. Such a host of destroyers as were here found, and the
profusion of eggs that had been already deposited, strongly indicated
that it must have commenced appearing in its winged state many
days previous to this time.

The wheat-fly may be met with daily, from the fore part of June
until so late at least as the middle of August. Although it congre-
gates in swarms about fields of wheat at the time they are in blos-
som, it also occurs in a great variety of other situations. It ofter
enters houses, upon the windows of which it may be observec
dancing along the panes of glass, sometimes in numbers. It ma]
also be taken among the grass of pastures, and of alluvial meadow
that have never been turned up by the plough. It is sometime
found in shady places, particularly along the margin of streams
associated with other minute species of Tipulidce in those dance
in which swarms of these insects so often engage. One specime
was met with on weeds, in the margin of an extensive and dens
forest, through which it must have made its way, or over an adjoin
ing lake a half mile broad, on the opposite side of which was th
nearest cultivated ground.

The fly, during the sunshine of day, moves about but little, n
maining mostly at rest, or lurking about in the shade furnishe
towards the roots of the growing grain. In the twilight of evening
becomes active, and continues so perhaps during the entire night ; fc
before the morning sunrise it may be seen abundantly upon the win[
though less agile than in the evening, as though it had now becom
somewhat wearied, or was rendered sluggish by the coolness an
dampness of the night air. Upon cloudy days, also, it resorts bi
little to its accustomed retreats. But it is during the evenings whic
succeed hot days of sunshine that it appears to be most busy an
full of life. If a field infested with them be visited with a lanter
at this time, such hosts as were little imagined to exist, will be foun
busily hovering about the grain, the most of them with wings an
legs extended, dancing, as it were, slowly up and down along tb

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 245

cars, intently engaged in selecting the most suitable spot where to
deposit their eggs. This being found, the insect alights, and stand-
ing upon the outer glume or chaff of the kernel, curves its abdomen
so as to bring the tip in contact at right angles with the surface of
the glume. It now toils industriously to insinuate its ovipositor
through the scale, which is not accomplished till after a considerable
exertion. Sometimes even, the scale having probably acquired loo
much maturity and hardness to be pierced by the liny stinger which
the fly protrudes, it is foiled in its efforts, and, as if vexed at its ill
success, spitefully jerks apart its wings and darts away. This oc-
currence, however, is rare. And having penetrated with its ovipositor
^ into contact with the germ of the future grain, through this tube
one egg after another is passed in at short intervals until several are
deposited. The usual number of eggs thus deposited, appeared to
be from six to ten ; and as thrice or four times as many larvae can
sometimes be met witli on a single germ, it is probable that three
or four insects sometimes successively puncture the same floret.
Very frequently two, four or six flies may be seen at the same time
on different florets of the same ear, depositing their eggs ; and Mr.
Shirreff says, " Upon one occasion I numbered thirty-five flies on a
single ear, and, after carrying it a distance of a quarter of a mile,
six of them still continued to deposit eggs." This work being done,
another laborious task for the tiny creature remains, that of with-
drawing the ovipositor ; and to accomplish this, the energies of the
insect are sometimes inadequate, and it remains, Prometheus-like,
chained to an immovable mountain, until it expires. This curious
sti* fact, first observed by Mr. Kirby, I have seen fully verified, meet-
ing in several instances with the dead insect still remaining thus
suspended.

Although the flowers of the wheat are the favorite resort of this

:"" insect for depositing its eggs, yet it is not limited solely to this

plant. It is currently reported to have been occasionally met with in

rye and oats in this country. Mr. Shirreff and Mr. Gorrie both found

i the wheat-worm in ears of the quack or couch grass ( Triticum

ai repens, Linn. ; Agropyr o.i repens, Pal. de Beauvois) ; and the latter

filgentleman hereupon rather naively remarks, "The fly has not known

Dlthat modern botanists no longer ranged the couch grass among the

an wheat tribe ; but, like myself, it is most attached to the Linnasan

names and system." Mr. Markwick also found the same worms in

the wild bearded oats (Avena festuca, Linn.).

246 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The eggs are of an oblong, cylindrical form, with rounded ends.
They are pellucid and nearly colorless at first, but acquire a yel-
lowish tinge ere ihey are hatched, which is in rather over a week
after they are deposited.

The larva has two distinct stages in its existence : an active or
growing state, which is passed through in about a month ; and a
dormant slate, which then supervenes, and contii;ues through the
winter. This latter has been generally but incorrectly regarded as
its pupa state by writers.

When it comes from the egg, the larva is a minute oblong soft
worm, without feet or hairs, and transparent or of a whiiish tinge
at first, but soon changing to a bright amber or orange yellow. It
moves but slowly, and with difficulty, by a wriggling motion of its
body. It remains within the particular floret in which it is hatched,
until it attains its full growth. Mr. Kirby says it feeds upon the pollen
of the anthers ; and perhaps it does so at first, but certainly whilst
they are yet quite small, all the worms within the floret cluster
upon the sides of the germ, and generally towards its base (Plate 5,
fig. a). I apprehend they chiefly subsist and attain their growth
there, upon the fluids destined for the nourishment of the germ,
and which, for want of these fluids, becomes shrivelled to a greater
or less degree, and does not attain that plump form on which the]
value of this grain so much depends The amount of injury received
by the individual kernel of grain varies according to the number of
worms that have been nourished in the chafl" in contact with it. li
mature worms grow from all the eggs deposited by the fly at a
single puncture, the kernel is doubtless rendered worthless ; but a
single worm, as is occasionally found, would scarcely produce a
perceptible efl'ect.

Having attained its growth, and in its dormant state, it does not
diff'er sensibly, as I have been able to discover, from its previous ap-
pearance ; and the only reason for marking this as a distinct stage,
is, that the insect now remains for a long period (probably two-
thirds of its entire term of existence) without increasing in size or
undergoing any other perceptible change. The texture of its body
seems to have acquired rather more firmness than it possessed while
it was growing, and its motions are more sluggish. It is less than
the tenth of an inch long : a measurement of several specimens
gives 0.07 as their average length. It is of a rich orange color, and

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 247

of an oblong-oval form ( Plate 5, fig. h ) , being broadest in the
middle and rounded at each end : it is slightly depressed, the under
side being considerably flattened ; thus in form considerably re-
sembling the leech when contracted. Its joints are indicated by
slight transverse impressed lines, by which it is divided into twelve
segments of about equal length. Sometimes a brownish cloud is
jjerceptible near the middle of the body on its under side, which is
])robably caused by alimentary matter. If these worms are placed
for some days on a plate in a dry room, the outer skin of the body
becomes so dry and indurated that the worm is incapable of making
the slightest motion ; but on covering them with a wetted cloth, the
surface again in a short time becomes pliant and yielding ; and if
pressed with a needle, the animal writhes, and sometimes turns
itself over to escape from the annoyance. I doubt whether it ever
moults, or casts of! its skin, between its egg and its pupa state ; but
my observations have not been sufficiently exact and prolonged, to
speak positively upon this point.

This is the form in which the insect passes the autumn and win-
ter. The accounts of writers disagree as to where the worm re-
mains during this period ; in fact few of them speak distinctly upon
this particular point. Mr. Kirby, however, describes the worm as
still continuing in the heads of the wheat ; but as a considerable
portion of them are missing, he thinks these have been destroyed
by parasitic enemies. He says, " I have seen more than once, seven
or eight florets in an ear inhabited by the (active) larvae, and as
many as thirty in a single floret, seldom less than eight or nine, and
yet I have scarcely found more than one pupa (dormant larva) in an
ear, and had to examine several to meet with that." Mr. Gorrie, on
the other hand, asserts that the maggots quit the ears of the wheat
by the first of August, and enter into the ground, where they re-
main through the winter. Mr. Shirrefl", also, from finding the fly much
more abundant in fields where wheat had been grown the preceding
year than it was in other fields, entertains the same opinion. Now
the truth is, Mr. Kirby and Mr. Gorrie are both right. A portion of
the larvae leave the grain before it is harvested, and descend to the
ground, where I have found them, under mouldy fragments of straw
on the surface, or buried a half inch or less within the soil. I thus
found them, common in the field already spoken of as examined on
the 16ih of June, a few days after the grain was harvested ; and

1

248 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

also early in March, in a field in which wheat was grown the pre-
ceding year, that had been somewhat injured by the fly. Another
portion of these larvae remain in the heads of the wheat, and are
carried into the barn, where they may readily be observed upon the
threshing-floor, and found in quantities among the screenings of the
fanning-mill, a considerable portion of which sometimes consists of
these worms. Thence our farmers kindly empty them out at the
door of the barn, where most of them doubtless find among the
litter of the yard a bed equally as comfortable and secure as that
in which their brethren in the field are at this lime reposing.

Whence does this singular diversity in the habits of these larvae
arise ? Why do one part of them leave the wheat, and enter the
ground ere the harvest ; and another portion remain within the ears,
to be carried into the barn when the grain is housed ? for all the
worms are undoubtedly fully matured before the grain becomes ripe
and hard. Two well attested observations I think shed much light
upon this subject ; and if the inference that they have led me to be
correct, this point will be regarded as one of the most interesting
that occurs in the economy of this insect. Mr. Harris informs us,
that " after a shower of rain, they (the larvae) have been seen in
such countless numbers on the beards of the ivheat, as to give a
yellow color to the lohole field ;''^ and he refers to the New-England
Farmer, vol. xii. p. 60, in confirmation of this statement, a volume
which I have not at hand. For an analogous but still more instructive
fact, I am indebted to Gen. M'Naughton, a practical farmer of this
town, the accuracy of whose stjitements no one acquainted with him
will doubt. In 1832, his wheat, in which the fly had made sad havoc,
was cradled and lying in the swath, when a moderate rain came on,
followed by a damp cloudy afternoon. At this time, with his hired
help, he repaired to the harvest-field to bind up the grain. They
here found not only the heads, but also the straiv in its entire length
sprinkled over with these worms. On my observing to him, that I
could scarcely believe it possible for a footless worm to crawl along
the straw when it was lying horizontally, he stated that he was
particularly positive with regard to that fact ; for he distinctly re-
collected that it was impossible for him to draw the band around a
bundle and tie it (in which process the heads of the grain are not
touched), without having at least a half dozen of these worms
adhering to his hands.

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 249

From these facts, I infer that the worm does not crawl out of the
chaff and "drop" itself to the ground, as has been stated by sonne
writers ; but tliat having attained its growth, it lies dormant within
the chaff, awaiting a favorable state of the weather in which to make
its descent, to wit, a rain whicii is not immediately followed by a
clear sky and warm sun that would soon dry the straw. Hence it is
doubtless almost invariably by night that this journey of the worm
is performed, and that it has therefore never been seen. The straw
itself being wet, and the body of the worm rendered supple by the
moisture surrounding it, it leaves its abode in the head of the wheat,
and adhering to the wet straw by the glutinousness of the surface
of its body, gradually works its way downwards by the wriggling
motion to which it so often resorts when disturbed, until it reaches
the ground. That there is such a glutinous secretion upon the sur-
face of the worm as would enable it to adhere to the wet straw in
the manner supposed, I might adduce a number of facts to prove. I
was desirous of taking a drawing of the larvae which I found among
wheat-stubble last March ; but particles of earth adhered to them
so firmly, that I could not separate them with the point of a needle
without also mutilating the worms. A few weeks since, on visiting
a neighbor's threshing-floor, I gathered a number of larvag by mois-
tening the end of my finger and touching it to the worm, which,
thus adhering, was scraped off upon the edge of a tin box. The box
is now before me, with each of the worms alive, but firmly glued to
its sides, and many of them to each other ; and on forcibly removing
some of them, the outer dried and hardened case of the worm is
fractured in the operation.

It would thus appear, that those worms which are matured, leave
the graiu at the close of a shower, and crawl down the wet straw
to the earth. It may be, also, that a heavy night-dew sometimes
furnishes a sufficient degree of moisture to enable them to do this.
But, on the other hand, those worms which are later in arriving at
maturity, in awaiting suitable weather for making the same descent,
are, ere such weather arrives, carried with the grain into the barn.

As illustrating the strong tenacity of life possessed by these larvae,
I may in this connexion state, that the few specimens gathered in
March as already stated, were placed with a little earth in a vial,
and a piece of gauze tied over its mouth, for the purpose of ascer-
taining the transformations of the insect, if any, from its then condi-

250 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

lion to that of a winged fly. Other avocations diverted my attention,
and this vial was forgotten for a fortnight ; by which time the earth
within had become so completely dried, that not doubting but the
worms had all perished, no farther attention was paid to it, and it
remained in a dry room over three months, until the middle of June,
when, on examining it, half the specimens put into the vial were
found to have completed their transformations ; a corresponding
number of dead wheat-flies being found attached to a straw in the
upper part of the vial. Prof. Henslovv thinks that it is only those
larvae that are punctured by ichneumons, that leave the wheat-ears
and enter the ground ; but the facts now stated, show that this
opinion is erroneous.

On removing the earth from the vial above alluded to, the cases
of the pupcB from which the flies had proceeded, were found very
perfect. These conclusively showed that the real pupa is not formed
until in the spring, and that it is then altogether different in form
from what has been described by writers as its pupa.* It corresponds
identically in its appearance (perhaps with the exception of color)
with that of the Cecidomyia salicis, as exhibited in the first volume
of this Journal, Plate 2, fig. 1. It also closely resembles the figure
of the pupa of Cecidomyia pini ? as given from De Geer in West-
wood's Introduction to the Modern Classification of Insects, vol. ii.
p. 518. fig. 125. no. T.f Its length is slightly less than that of the
dormant larva. The antennae, legs and wings, are each enclosed in
separate sheaths, which lay externally to the integument in which
the body is enveloped. The three pairs of legs all lay parallel and
in contact with each other upon the breast, reaching far down past
the tips of the wings ; the inner pair being shortest, and the outer
pair longest. Judging from the analogy afforded by the Cecidomyia
salicis, I presume the wheat-fly only remains in its pupa state three
or four weeks in the latter part of May and the fore part of June.

* Since making this discovery, I have strongly suspected that the pupa of the hessian
fly has never been as yet detected ; and that its "flaxseed state," which has all along
been regarded as its pupa, is only the same state which I have described as the dormant
larvffl of the wheat-fly.

1 1 cannot but regard the figure here referred to as inaccurate, in representing the
wings as enclosed in one common case, over which the legs are laid. The tips of the
wings should probably be rounded, instead of being brought to a point.

injurious insects. 251

Its natural enemies.

One of the most effective natural destroyers of the wheat-fly, is
undoubtedly our common yellow-bird {Fringilla irislis, Lin.) Fields
much infested by the insect, have been for many years recognized
even by passers on the highway contiguous to them, by the rough
and ragged aspect of the heads of the grain (Plate 5, fig. c). I am
not aware that the cause of this peculiar appearance has ever been
stated in any of the communications that have appeared in our
agricultural papers. It results from the operations of this bird.
Alighting, it adroitly grasps the wheat-stalk just below the ear, and
clinging fearlessly to it, even when swayed to and fro by the wind,
it with its bill parts down the chaff from the grain, and one after
another of the worms to which it thus gains access are rapidly
picked off and devoured. Thus several heads are generally freed
from the worms, ere its repast is completed. That it is the worms
and not the grain that it is in pursuit of, is readily ascertained by
an inspeclion of the heads after the bird has left them : many of the
kernels, not being sufficiently loosened to drop to the ground by the
operation, will be found remaining, the maggots that were upon
them only having been removed ; whilst those kernels of the head
which are not infested by the worm, are passed over untouched. It
is curious that this little creature, by a lap with its horny bill, or
some other process, is enabled to distinguish those scales of chaff
which conceal so minute a worm, from those which do not ; a
knowledge which we only arrive at when we have parted down the
chaff. A flock, numbering about fifty, embracing both male and fe-
male birds, appeared to make the field which I examined on the
16th of June their constant resort, for a period of three weeks or
more, where they could be seen busily occupied almost constantly
every day. The number of worms consumed by them during this
time must have been immense ; and I cannot but believe that this
lovely bird will henceforward be esteemed for its utility, as much as
it has heretofore been for its beauty.

I have as yet found but one insect parasite, which I am well
assured subsists upon and destroys the worm of the wheat-fly. It is
a hymenopter of the family ChalcididcB ; but my acquaintance with
the details of its history is as yet too limited to attempt an account
of it. I shall be much disappointed if I do not meet with still other
VOL. II. — no. II. K

252 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

species which prey upon the wheat-fly ; and as all these parasites
upon the Cecidomyioe are more or less closely related to each other,
they can probably be most advantageously presented in a separate
article devoted exclusively to that subject.

Four or more species are known abroad, which destroy the wheat-
worm. One of these, it is stated in the first volume of the Edinburgh
Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, deposits an egg beside an egg of
the wheat-fly, the worm from which devours the wheat-worm soon
after it hatches, and thus effectually saves the wheat. The observa-
tions of Mr. ShirrefF upon another of these, cannot but interest the
reader. He says, "Upon presenting four ]arvffi(of the wheat-fly) to
an ichneumon, it soon stung, or, according to Mr. Kirby, deposited
an egg in each of their bodies, and stung one of them a second time.
The maggot writhed in seeming agony, and straggled upon my
thumb-nail, where it was again stung three times by the same fly ;
and in a second struggle, both fell to the ground.

Artificial means for arresting its ravages.

These may be divided into two classes, as they refer to the
protection of the grain from the fly when in its winged form and
depositing its eggs ; or as they are directed to the destruction of
the fly itself, in the previous stages of its existence.

Several measures have been proposed, and some of them with
much confidence and plausibility of reasoning, for protecting the
wheat crop from this insect during the period of its blossoming.
The more prominent of these I will advert to.

The smoke of a number of smouldering fires, or of brimstone
matches, in different parts, and particularly upon the windward side
of an infested field, has been recommended. The known efficacy
of smoke in repelling the musketoe renders it probable that this
remedy would be of signal utility, were it not for the discouraging
amount of laiiK>r that is required to make so thorough and protracted
a use of it as would be necessary.

It has been suggested that the anal follicles of the skunk (Me-
phitis americana, Desm.) might be extracted, and that yarn impreg-
nated with the fluid contained in them, and suspended through
wheat-fields, would, by its intolerable odor, banish the wheat-fly.
I imagine that in carrying this suggestion into practice, the operator
would be the greatest sufferer — " unless my nose deceives me."

'4

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 253

Sowing the field with lime at the time the wheat is in blossom,
has been repeatedly, and by some with much confidence, urged.
This remedy has been much resorted to, and very conflicting state-
ments with regard to its efl'icacy have been laid before the public.
A simple experiment, directly to the point, is of more value than a
thousand cases that tend to support any particular opinion ; and
such an experiment I am prepared to narrate. Jarvis Martin, Esq.,
the owner of the infested field repeatedly alluded to, at my sug-
gestion, repaired to it one evening, and sprinkled several of the
heads with tolerably fresh air-slaked lime, until they were white
with the powder adhering to them ; thus applying it far more pro-
fusely and effectually than can be accomplished by any " sowing"
of this substance. With the light of a lantern, these heads were
now closely watched, and the flies were observed to hover around
and alight upon them as freely, and insert their ovipositors with the
same readines that they did upon the contiguous heads tiiat were
not thus treated. I deem this experiment sufficient to put to rest the
much mooted question with regard to ilie utility of lime as a shield
against the wheat-fly.

A yet more prominent, and much more plausible mode of enabling
the wheat to escape injury from the fly, is, sowing the seed at such
times as will prevent its being in blossom at the period when the
insect appears. With this view, it is recommended to sow winter
wheat much earlier than was ordinarily done, that it may be so far
matured the following season at the time of the appearance of the
fly, as to be invulnerable to it ; and spring wheat, so late as not to
be in blossom until the fly has finished depositing its eggs. This
plan has been much relied upon, on both sides of the Atlantic, and
I have been heretofore disposed to regard it as probably the most
feasible of any — though by avoiding Scylla we were in danger of
Charybdis — for early sown winter wheat invites a return of the
hessian-fly, and late sown spring wheat is almost certain in this
vicinity to be attacked by " the rust " {Puccinia graminis). Nu-
merous instances, moreover, can be adduced which tend much to
support the utility of this measure. One of these, as strong as any
that has come to my knowledge, I may here state. In a field of
spring wheat of my own, raised in 1843, every kernel in the top of
almost every head was entirely destroyed, whilst the lower two-
thirds or three-fourths of the ears were wholly uninjured. I could

■aM

254 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

account for this only by supposing that these heads were just be-
ginning to be protruded from their sheaths as the operations of the
fiy were closing for that year ; and hence confidently inferred that
if that wheal had been sowed a 'few days later, it would have es-
caped entirely, or a few days earlier, it would have been entirely
destroyed. By a reference to my Farm Book, I find this crop was
sowed April 26th, and cradled August lOlh, but no note was taken
of the time when it was in blossom. I must confess, however, that
my observations the present season have greatly diminished my
confidence in the time of sowing as securing the crop from injury.
Though I did not see ihe fly abroad until the 16lh of June, it was
then present in such swarms, and had already deposited its eggs so
profusely, that I think it must have commenced appearing quite
early in that month. It, moreover, continued to be abundant, until
about the middle of July, and specimens were occasionally met
with a month longer. Certainly if it is usual for it to be spread out
over such an extent of time, it will be vain to rely upon the time of
sowing, to insure a crop against its ravages. Some observations in
the foreign accounts also throw light upon this subject. Mr. ShirrefF
says, in 1829 the fly appeared June 21 si; "and from the vast numbers
of them then seen, it is probable a few of them may have been in
existence some days previous." Their eggs were seen June 23d, and
must therefore have been deposited on the evening of the 22d. " The
flies were observed depositing eggs on the 28lh, and finally disap-
peared on the 30th of July, thus having existed through a period of
thirty-nine days," and depositing eggs during thirty-seven of these
days, I know not how Mr. S. could be certain that the fly had dis-
appeared for the season on the 30th of July, for his account is
dated the first day of August. For a few days only after their first
appearance, he tells us, they frequented the couch-grass as well as
the wheat. Was not this because there was not at that time a suffi-
cient quantity of wheat in bloom to accommodate the number of!
insects that were then out ? And Mr. Markwick distinctly states
that it was after the grain had been harvested, that he found thti
larva3 in the wild oats. Were not the parent flies then obliged to
resort to this plant, because all the wheat had become mature ere
they had completed depositing their eggs ? These facts certainly
make it appear as though the fly is often abroad before the wheat
commences blossoming, and continues till after it becomes mature.

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 255

Is there, then, no mode by which the flowering grain can be
shielded from the ravages of the fly ? This is a subject on which I
have bestowed much thought ; and I am not now prepared to tell
the reader what he must do, but I will briefly inform him what I
shall do, upon the first occasion that calls for it. A method is some-
times resorted to abroad, for saving grain fields from the depreda-
tions of certain insects of peculiar habits. A rope is drawn along
over the grain, by two men walking at a brisk pace ; which rope
thus knocking against the heads of the grain, causes the depreda-
tors to drop themselves instantly to the ground, and it is a slow and
tedious task for them to get up to the heads of the grain again. A
similar process, but with a different apparatus, I contemplate em-
ploying against the wheat-fly. This apparatus is a light net made
of gauze, three or four feet deep and one or two rods long ; its mouth
reaching the entire length of the net, and opening to a width of
about eighteen Indies. A small rope is to be stitched to the upper
and another to the lower side of the mouth, reaching slightly beyond
the net at each end, which is to be carried by two persons holding
the ends of these ropes. If on closely examining ihe wheat-fields of
my vicinity, from the time that the heads begin to protrude from
their sheaths, the fly is found to be gathering in swarms in any one
of them, I intend repairing to that field in the evening, when the
insects will be hovering in such myriads about the heads of the
grain, and, with an assistant, carrying the net so that the lower cord
will strike a few inches below the heads of the grain, the upper one
being held nearly a foot in advance of it, and about the same dis-
tance above the tops of the heads, by keeping the cords tense and
walking at a uniformly rapid pace from side to side of the field,
until the whole is swept over, I shall be much disappointed if
countless miliums are not gathered into the net, which is to be
instantly closed whenever a pause is made, by bringing the cords
together. It is now to be folded or rolled together into a smaller
compass, and then pressed by the hands or otherwise so as to crush
the vermin contained within it. This measure has been suggested
to me, by observing the perfect facility with which the small ento-
mological fly-net becomes filled with these flies, on sweeping it to
and fro a few times among the heads of infested wheat in the
evening. Of course this operation should be resorted to on the first
appearance of the fly in numbers, and before its eggs have been

256 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

deposited so profusely as will occur in the course of a few days. I
feel strongly confident, that by sweeping over a field a very few
times in the manner above described, the fly may be so completely
thinned out and destroyed, as to be incapable of injuring the crop
perceptibly.

"With regard to destroying the fly in the earlier stages of its exis-
tence, only a few words will require to be said. Whoever has read
the preceding account of the habits of this insect, must have been
struck with a consciousness of the perfect facility with which that
portion of the worms that are brought into our barns may be exter-
minated. It would seem as though Divine Providence had expressly
designed to place a part of every generation of these insects directly
in the hands of man, that he might destroy them or not, at his option.
And Uncle Toby is so extremely benevolent, that he has uniformly
carried them to the door, and said "Go away, little flies, go away ;
the world is wide enough for you and me both." Now it is scarcely
necessary for me to say, that the screenings of the fanning-mill
should invariably be closely examined, and if the minute yellow
wheat-worms are numerous in them, the person should consider it
a sacred duty which he owes to himself and his neighbors, to con-
sign these screenings at once to the flames. If there are but occa-
sional worms among them, let them be emptied into the hog-trough ;
but never empty them upon the ground, or among the straw of the
barn-yard, unless they appear to be entirely free from these vermin.
And now, if that portion of the worms which remain in the fields
can also be destroyed, it becomes certain that we are at once and
forever relieved from all farther solicitude with regard to future in-
juries which this insect can inflict upon us. But can this be done ?
It has been proposed to burn the stubble of wheat-fields after the
harvest ; and if this measure be resorted to at a very dry time in
the autumn, probably some of the worms would be destroyed by
it. But, so far as I have observed, they uniformly lie here in situa-
tions where they are surrounded with some degree of moisture,
under damp and mouldy clusters of straw and stubble, or slightly
witiiin the surface of the ground. It would, therefore, only be those
straggling individuals that were not in their usual haunts, that the
transient heat caused by such a burning would reach. Would a
turning over of the field with the plow bury them to such a depth,
that they would fail of finding their way to the surface again ? This

INJURIOUS INS.ECTS. 257

is an important inquiry. It is very probable that the larva can work
its way to the surface, from a greater depth than what the pupa can.
Direct experiment only can determine accurately at what depth the
insect, in both these stages, must be buried in order to destroy it.
No information of any value can, therefore, be given upon this point,
until such experiments are made.

Description of the clear-winged wheat-fly.

The importance of full and accurate descriptions of every one
of the several parts of a natural object, in order that it may be iden-
tified with certainty, is strikingly illustrated in the present species.
For some years it has been supposed to be identical with the Eng-
lish wheat-fly ; but those who are aware of the large number of both
plants and animals in Europe, that have analogous representatives
in this country so closely resembling them as to have been in many
instances for a long time considered identical even by accurate and
experienced observers, could not but entertain doubts upon this
point ; and with the fifteen or twenlv characters of this insect which
could be gathered from different sources, I could still only say that
our wheat-fly was probably the tritici of Mr. Kirby, some of its
prominent peculiarities seeming even to conflict with the descrip-
tions given of that species. For instance, all that we could gather
respecting the form of the joints of the antennae, was, that they
were " moniliforni'' ; and Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in their " In-
troduction to Entomology," define this term to mean " oval or glo-
bular joints, like a necklace of beads." Now the joints of the an-
tennas in our insect are oblong, and each has a marked contraction
in its middle, thus approaching to an hourglass shape, a form the
very reverse of " oval" or " globular." It was not until I saw the
excellent figures and descriptions of Mr. Curtis, that I became well
assured that our species was identical with the European.

The common reader will get the most clear and definite idea of
the appearance of the wheat-fly, by being told that it looks almost
exactly like the wheat-worm with wings and legs added to it. These
members, however, are so very small as to be scarcely recognized
by the naked eye, except when they are fixed intently upon the
object.

The HEAD of the female Cecidomyia tritici (Plate 5, fig. 1) is of
orbiculate or flattened-globular form, with the eyes forming its

258 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

periphery. These are large, occupying full two-thirds of the entire
head. They are of a deep black color, and are separated from each
other on the top of the head only by a slight and almost impercep-
tible cleft, so that when viewed in front they appear like a continu-
ous broad black band surrounding the head, and interrupted only
below at the mouth, thus resembling a horseshoe in their figure.
The/ace is pale yellow. In its centre, and contiguous to each other,
are two pale yellow tubercles or spherical eminences, more or less
conspicuous, on which the antennae are inserted, and which are by
some regarded as forming a joint of these organs, in addition to the
number commonly stated. The antenncB are of a deep brown of
black color, less intense than the eyes. They are of about the same
length as the body, and composed of twelve joints. Each joint
(Plate 5, fig. e) is commonly oblong, with a marked contraction in
its middle, a shape which is sometimes designated as ' coarctiform,*
and is surrounded with a whirl or row of hairs near its base, and I
another near its apex.* The joints are ordinarily about thrice asl
long as they are broad, their diameter being but little less than that i
of the legs. They are connected together by a slender thread inter-
vening between each joint, and about a fourth as long as the joints
themselves. The two palpi are pale yellow, and clothed with shortish
hairs : each is composed of four oval joints ; the terminal one being
longer, but of the same diameter with the preceding.

The THORAX is of a pale yellow color ; its upper side commonly
tinged with fulvous brown, which sometimes, though rarely, forms
three vittae or longitudinal spots forward of the middle. It is of an
ovate form, its greatest breadth being immediately back of the wing
sockets. Its vertical diameter much exceeds the transverse, as is
common in most species of TipulidcR, the breast jutting down far
below the level of the head and abdomen. The poisers are oval,

* Not unfrcquently, however, singular anomalies occur in these joints. Thus in
some the contraction will be so considerable as to cause the segment to appear like
two globular joints slightly but distinctly separated from each other ; whilst other seg-
ments of the same scries are abbreviated and dilated, the usual contraction thus be-
coming obsolete, and the joint taking on a short cylindrical form. It would thus seem
as though we, in the female, met with the twenty-four joints of the male antennae in
a modified or imperfectly developed condition ; that what appears as a single oblong
coarctiform joint, is in reality two joints united. This would give but a single whirl
of hairs to each joint, as is common in most of the species of this genus.

fil;

Hi

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 259

honey-yellow, their pedicels with a strong notch in the middle of
their anterior sides.

The' ABDOMEN throughout is of an orange color, more inclining to
red than to yellow. Its broadest part scarcely equals the thorax in
diameter. Tt is of an ovate form, attenuated towards its tip, whence
the two valvular sheaths of the ovipositor are often seen more or less
cxserted, and sometimes the apex of the ovipositor itself projecting
between them like a fine slender thread. According to Mr. Curtis,
by a slight pressure on the abdomen of the living insect, the ovi-
positor ( Plate 5, fig./) can be made to protrude, and may then
be drawn out to nearly thrice the length of the body.

The WINGS are hyaline and colorless, appearing like thin plates
of glass or mica, but reflecting the tints of the rainbow, particularly
the violet, when viewed in certain directions. Their margins are
densely ciliated with longish hairs, and their surface is covered with
minute pubescence. The mediastinal or submarginal nerve is but
shghtly distant from the costal (marginal), and becomes confluent
with it rather forward of the middle of llie exterior margin. From
its middle, it sends a small connecting nerve backward to the post-
costal. The postcostal, which is the most conspicuous nervure of
the wing, runs direct, or with but an insensible curve, to the tip of
the wing. The medial is straight, and attains the inner margin at
about three-fourths of the distance from the base to the apex of the
wing. The anal runs nearly parallel with the inner margin, and, with
a very sudden curve from its direct course, joins the margin near
its middle. It gives off an obscure branch at its angle, which curves
Dutwards and backwards, joining the medial, or rather, seeming
if the wing be moved so as to give a slightly different incidence
;o the light) to be continued onward, parallel with and contiguous
0 the medial nerve, till it attains the margin of the wing. The me-
iial and anal nerves are very slender, and are often invisible, ex-
cept in a particular reflection of the light. The former, especially,
;an seldom be distinctly traced, except towards its termination.
These details of the ncuration of the wing apply equally well to all
he species of Cecidomyia that have fallen under my observation,
lave only that they are more distinstly traced in the others, parlicu-
arly the larger species. At rest (Plate 5, fig. 6), the wings are laid
ine upon the other, reposing horizontally upon the back of the
.bdomen, and reaching about a fourth of their length beyond it.

VOL. II. — NO. II. L

260 QUARTERLYJOURNAL. '

The LEGS are whitish or very pale yellow, long and slender, of a
cylindrical fornfi, and of nearly the same diameter through their en-
tire length. The coxae (small joints by which the femurs are con-
nected with the sternum), as they are directed more or less back-
wards, vary the point from which the legs seem to arise in different
specimens when viewed from above. The femurs, tibias, and second
joint of the tarsi, are all of about the same length. The third, fourth,
and fifth joints of the tarsi (Plate 5, fig. g), are successively shorter ;
whilst the basal joint is the shortest of all, its length little exceeding
its diameter.

All parts of the body and limbs are clothed with minute, slender,
longish hairs.

The MALE differs so remarkably in its aspect from the female,
and is moreover so rare an insect, that it has generally escaped ihe
researches of observers. It would appear from Mr. Curtis's paper,
that Meigen is the only one who has identified and given a descrip-
tion of this sex ; and I should distrust my having any specimens of
it, but that one of the flies hatched from the larvas already spoken
of as gathered in a wheat-field early in the spring, is a male (Plate
5, fig. 4) ; and a few of my other specimens manifestly coincide
with this. In these the antenncE are at least double the length of the
body, and composed of twenty-four joints of a very exact globular
form ( Plate 5, fig. e ) ; each joint encircled with a single row of
hairs, and separated widely from its fellows, the thread between
being of about twice the length of the joint itself. The abdomen, in-
stead of being of an ovate form, as in the female, is broadest at the
base, and thence tapers gradually, though slightly, towards the
apex ; the terminal segment, however, being broader than the one
or two preceding it, and of a reniform shape, with the lobes directed
backwards. The male is also somewhat smaller in size : in all its
other marks, it appears to correspond with the female.

Among the hosts of specimens of the female that may be met
with, there will occur considerable variations in size, color, and
some minor particulars. The common length, to the tip of the ab-
domen, is the twelfth of an inch, or slightly under this ; yet I have
measured recent specimens from the wheat-field, that were but hall
this size. The color seems to be more uniform in specimens taker
from the wheat-field, than in those procured in other situations. It is
of a lively orange-red, particularly upon the abdomen, where the

ill!

lll£

Uk

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 261

color is most observed ; but varies from that to amber or honey-
yellow, lemon-yellow, and even to a cream-color. The specimens
already spoken of as having been rasied in dried earth, are all quite
pale ; and it would hence appear as though these lighter colored
varieties were caused by unfavorable circumstances in which the
insect had been placed when in its larva state.

The spotted-winged wiieat-fly.

Another species of Cecidomyia ( Plate 5, fig. 2), as the reader
has been already informed, is frequently met with, associated with
the tritici in fields of wheat. It is closely allied to the tritici in form
and coloring, having like it an orange-red body, hyaline wings, pale
yellowish- while legs, and twelve joints to the antenna?, identical
with those of the tritici in their details. It is, however, readily dis-
tinguished from the tritici, as well as from all the other species of
this genus, with only two or three exceptions, by having spots upon
its wings. These spots are so conspicuous as to be recognized by
the naked eye, even when the insect is flying. They are of a pale
black or smoky color, and seven in number on each wing. Two,
and these the most conspicuous from being commonly of a deeper
tint, are placed upon the outer margin : one being at the tip of the
submarginal nerve, where it unites with the costal ; the other, half
way between this and the apex of the wing. Both these spots reach
across the costal cell, and often slightly into the externo-raedial.
Another spot occupies the apex of the wing, at the tip of the post-
costal nerve. Three others are based upon the inner margin, re-
spectively at the apex of the medial and anal nervures, and at the
axilla or base of the anal cell. The seventh spot is upon the disk of
the wing, mostly in the outer middle cell, and is sometimes confluent
more or less with one or more of the marginal spots. The nerves,
when traversing these spots, are of a deeper black color than in
jg« other parts of their course, as are also the hairs which proceed from
them into the fringed border of the wing. These spots are formed
by a pigment in the membrane of the wing, the fine pubescence
upon the surface being no more dense here than upon the other parts.
j.ji| The species under consideration is farther distinguished from the
ijji tritici, by invariably having the base of the abdomen, on its upper
, (1,1 aide, of a brown or blackish color. The thorax is often of a darker

262 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

fulvous brown ; and the breast is of the same color, instead of light
yellow as in the tritici. The last joints of the feet, moreover, are
commonly though not invariably black in this species, and there is
often a broad black band at the base of the anterior tarsi.

The males have the antennae composed of twenty-four joints, each
encircled as usual with a row of hairs. These joints approach a
globular form, but have, in common with those of the males of
several other of our species, this striking peculiarity, namely, that
through the whole series, though preserving the same diameter,
they are alternately shorter and longer ; twelve being compressed-
globular or double-convex, and between each of these a very short
cylindrical joint with convex ends.

This species is closely related to the ornata of Say {Appendix to
Long's Expedition, p. 357), but is readily distinguished from that ,
by its blackish antennae, the color of which contrasts strongly with
that of the legs ; by the greater number of spots on its wings, and
these spots not being "occasioned by the greater density of the hair,
of the surface in those parts." In the latter character it also differs
from the pictipennis of Meigen, as described by Macquart ; as also
in not having the spots forming bands across the wings. If any
description of the maculipennis of Stephens, in his catalogue of
British insects, has ever been published, I have not met wiih it.
That this species, however, exists abroad, is highly probable, from i
the fact that the specimens reared from wheat-worms by Mr. Mark4 ^
wick had " spotted and transparent wings," as he describes them,
or "obsolete clouds" as they were termed by Mr. Marsham. Mr.
Curtis calls attention to this fact respecting these specimens, ap-
parently from a suspicion thus excited that another species existed.
He says, " I am particular in noticing this, because the wings of
Mr. Kirby's C. tritici are not spotted, nor are any individuals that
I have seen ; and excepting the C. pictipennis, which is larger, I
know of no species of the genus with spotted wings."

The species under consideration, may appropriately be named
and characterized as follows :

Cecidomyia caliptera. Orange-red ; base of the tergaim blackish :
wings hyaline, with seven dusky spots : legs whitish ; tarsi black at tips.
Length 0*05.

INJURIOUS INSECTS. 263

Yar. a. Axillary spot of the wings wanting.*
/S. Tips of taiR' whitish.

Specimens have beei taken almost weekly, from the middle of
June, till the fore part of September, in fields of flowering wheat,
among the grass of plats contiguous to dwellings, and upon the
windows of houses. I do not doubt but its habits are very similar
and perhaps identical wifh those of the tritici, and that in proportion
to its numbers it is equally destructive. The investigations of another
year, may, I hope, enable me to furnish something more definite
upon this most interesting subject.

Species resembling the wheat-flies.

We have what appear to be several species of cecidomyides,
allied to our wheat-flies in size, in the number and form of the joints
of the^ antennae, and more or less in the colors of their bodies.
Among objects so exceedingly minute, and so closely related to each
other, a most patient and critical study of a large collection of
specimens, both in their recent and their dried state, is indispensable,
in order to trace out with accuracy and define with precision each
of these species. Perplexity and confusion will be the inevitable
result of a hasty or superficial performance of a work of this cha-
racter. It is hence that I shall at present venture to name and cha-
racterize but two of these species, whose marks are so evident and
distinct as to render their recognition comparatively easy, yet whose
colors are so analogous to those of the clear-winged wheat-fly that
they would be confounded with it by ordinary observers, unless
aware of their distinctive marks. I am only acquainted with these
species in their perfect state.

A few specimens occurred to my notice about the middle of the
month of August, having the abdomeu more tinged with red than in

* On a careful rc-examination of all my specimens while copying this paper for the
press, and a reference to the dates and situations where each was collected, I discover
thai all those which have been gathered from wheat-fields arc of this variety, having
but six spots ; and farther that the spot on the inner margin nearest to the base of the
wing is situated Mi t/ie middk of the anal cell, thus leaving the space about the apex of
the anal nervure perfectly hyaline. Should the particulars here specified prove to be
permanent and constant, as I believe iiiey will, it must lead to a separation of this as
a distinct species from the caliplera; in which event, the specific name cerealis might
appropriately be bestowed upon the real wheat-fly having but sii spots.

264 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

the wheat-flies, but commonly fading, when preserved, to a flesh-
color or dull yellow ; the thorax brown or blackish above, its sides
dull yellow ; legs blackish except at their bases, and poisers of the
same hue ; wings dusky, with their nervures more distinctly marked
than in the wheat-flies. I would propose for this species a name
alluding to the contrast between the color of the thorax and of the
abdomen, in a dorsal view of the insect (Plate 5, fig. 3).

Cecidomyia thoracica. Red : thorax above blackish-brown : legs
and poisers blackish : wings dusky.
Length 0-05.

A much more abundant species, and very closely related to the
preceding, occurs from the last of July till the middle of September,
and perhaps later. Its legs are dusky, but not of so deep a tint as
those of the thoracica, from which, moreover, it is readily distin-
guished by having invariably a fulvous-brown or blackish spot at
the base of the abdomen on its upper side. The base and sides of
the thorax are of the same color with the abdomen, namely, red, or
in old specimens dull pale yellow ; the upper side, forward of the
scutel, being brown. This species (Plate 5, fig. 5), may be named
and characterized as follows :

Cecidomyia tergata. Red : thorax anteriorly and spot at base of
tergum brown : wings, legs and poisers dusky.
Length about 0'06.

Both the preceding appear to be quite distinct from any of the
European species that have been described.

In closing this paper, I have to apologize to the editors and pa-
trons of the Journal for the delay which it has caused in the issue
of the present number. I trust the paper itself may be found suf-
ficiently acceptable to atone in some measure for this delay, its
completion having required an amount of time far exceeding what
I had anticipated.

Note, The insect, Plate 3, fig. 2, of the first volume, the name
of which was omitted at that time, is the Purpuricenus humeralis
of Fabricius.

Salem, N. Y. October 8, 1845.

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 265

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Travels in Nortfi America, in tiif, years 1841 -2; with Geological Observations
on the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia : By Charles Lyell, Esq. F.R.S.
In 2 vols. l2ino. Wiley & Putnam.

It is rare, very rare, that a traveller, whose range of thought and
previous philosophical preparation so eminently qualify him for the
performance of a tour of scientific inquiry, as in the case of the
author of these volumes, writes out for the public his sentiments
and the results of his observations, Mr. Lyell, if we are rightly
informed, was educated for the bar; but having a predilection for
the more attractive and fascinating pursuits of the sciences, he has
devoted himself with astonishing zeal to their cultivation. Bringing
an acute and well regulated mind to bear upon them, he has not only
made them popular, but useful : he has not only kept up with their
advance himself, but has actually pushed them ahead.

We must say one thing more of the author : he has not been a
mere fancy dealer in science, a sentimental versifier of its beauties ;
but has taken off his coat, and worked like a day laborer at twelve
shillings a day and found. Not that he is at all insensible to the
beauty, or indifferent to or unacquainted with the grandeur of his
favorite pursuit, but truth to him has been of more value ; and look-
ing at the nature of the case, he wisely judged, that to attain his
end, the only road to it was by the most patient and unwearied in-
vestigations in the field. Of all the sciences, geology has been Mr.
Lyell's favorite department, and the study of others has only been
made auxihary to this. It was to prosecute this branch, that led him
to visit us, and make the tour of this country. His work, however,
appears in the form of travels; and in them we find Mr. Lyell's views
of men and things, of people and institutions, intermixed with geolo-
gical dissertations, the latter appearing rather as an incident than
the main subject of discourse ; yet in some parts of his book, he
systematizes his observations, and they appear more in the light of

266 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

a principal subject. The interstratificalion of his geological specu-
lations with those upon our domestic and national institutions, gives
a pleasing variety to his work. It contains a sufficient amount of per-
sonal incident to carry along our interest with the writer, while his
good sense has ever kept him above the relation of those trifling or
strange adventures, which many travellers are so very fond of retail-
ing. Again, Mr. Lyell, we are pleased to say, has gratified every
body by the frank expression of his opinions, which altogether are
highly flattering to us as a people. To Americans, who have so fre-
quently had to bear not a few cuffs and a great many sneers, some
haughty and some subdued, this treatment seems so kind, that we
are almost inclined to make a low bow to the author, and say ' God
bless you sir.'

Mr. Lyell landed in Boston, August 2, 1841, after a short passage
from Liverpool of twelve days and a half, and we will make a re-
cord of his first observations. " The heat here is intense ; the har-
bor and city beautiful ; the air clear, and entirely free from smoke,
so that the shipping may be seen afar off at the end of many streets.
The Tremont Hotel merits its reputation as one of the best in the
world. Recollecting the contrast of every thing French, when I first
crossed the Straits of Dover, I am astonished, after having traversed
the wide ocean, at the resemblance of every thing. I see and hear
things familiar at home. It has so often happened to me, in our
own island, without travelling into those parts of Wales, Scotland
or Ireland, where they talk a perfectly distinct language, to encoun-
ter provincial dialects which it is difficult to comprehend, that I
wonder at finding the people here so very English.^^

It will be impossible for us to trace Mr. Lyell's tour through the
United States in a continuous line, or to give his views of the Ame-
rican people, and of the structure of the country at large. We are
necessarily limited to a very meagre sketch, and can only give here
and there, without much connection, a few of the results of his ob-
servations. We have, in a few instances, to dissent from his views.

Some may wonder how Mr. Lyell has been able to acquire so
much geological information in so short a time. This we are able to
explain, we believe, in a manner which will be satisfactory to our
readers. The Geological Survey of New-York, and of several other
States, was nearly completed at the time of his visit. The several
gentlemen who had charge of them, were still upon the ground,

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 267

and every locality of interest was well known to them. To those
points, then, which yielded the most ready information, the author
was conducted ; and from their disclosures, and from in'^ormation
freely furnished by the geologists themselves, Mr. Lyell has been
able to compile an interesting and correct account of our geology in
a comparatively short time. These remarks, in explanation of his
geology of this country, are due to the American geologists.

Mr. Lyell's first object, on landing upon our shores, was to com-
pare the New- York rocks with the Silurian system, which had been
so recently brought out by Mr. Murchison. In a few days, then, we
find the author upon a tour across the State of New-York. This
tour was designed to embrace an examination of the New-York
system, up to the Coal measures of Pennsylvania. The line of route
was by that of the canal to Niagara Falls, and thence by Genesee
valley to Blossburgh. This tour gave him a full opportunity to see
the entire series of rocks, from the Calciferous sandstone to the
Coal measures, and it is gratifying to find liim confirming step by
step all the conclusions which had been previously obtained by the
New- York geologists.

Mr. Lyell briefly refers to the New-York survey, in the following
words (vol. i, p. 13) : " The Legislature of New-York, four years
ago, voted a considerable sum of money, more than 200,000 dollars,
or 40,000 guineas, for exploring its natural history and mineral
structure ; and at the end of the first two years, several of the
geological surveyors, of whom four principal ones were appointed,
reported, ^tnong other results, their opinion that no coal would ever
be discovered in their respective districts." " This result," observes
Mr. L. in continuation, " occasioned no small disappointment, and
even some complaint ; yet it was really of great benefit to the people,
in checking the rashness of private speculators. Large sums, for
the last twenty years, had been expended or squandered in trials for
coal in rocks below the Carboniferous series ; and there can be no
doubt," he adds, " that the advantage derived to the resources of
the State, by a cessation of needless expenditure, is sufficient to in-
demnify the country on mere utilitarian grounds, for the sum so
lur imunificently expended by the government on geological investiga-
tions."

Another remark of Mr. Lyell, in this connection (vol. i. p. 15),
will, we think, interest our readers. " In the course of this short

VOL. II. — NO. II. ' M '

268 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

tour, I became convinced that we must turn to the new world, if we
wish to see in perfection the oldest monuments of the earth's history,
so far at least as relates to its earliest inhabitants. Certainly in no
other country are these ancient strata developed on a grander scale,
or more plentifully charged with fossils ; and, as they are nearly
horizontal, the order of their relative position is always clear and
unequivocal." Again (p. 17), " They who are accustomed to con-
nect the romance of their travels in Europe or Asia, with historical
recollections and the monuments of former glory, with the study of
master pieces in the fine arts, or with grand and magnificent scenery,
will hardly believe the romantic sensations which may be inspired
by the aspect of this region, where few points of picturesque beauty -
meet the eye, and where the aboriginal forest has lost its charm of'
savage wildness by the intrusion of railways and canals. The fo-
reign naturalist indeed sees novelty in every plant, bird and insect ;
and the remarkable resemblances of the rocks, at so great a distance
from home, are to him a source of wonder and instruction. But
there are other objects of intense interest, to enliven or excite ihei
imagination of every traveller. Here, instead of dwelling on thei
past, and on the signs of pomp and grandeur which have vanished,!
the mind is filled with images of coming power and splendour. The
vast stride of one generation in a brief moment of time, naturally
disposes us to magnify and exaggerate the rapid rate of future im-
provement. The contemplation of so much prosperity, such entire
absence of want and poverty, so many school-houses and churches
rismg everywhere in the woods, and such a desire fo? education,
with a consciousness that a great continent lies beyond, which haa s
still to be appropriated, fills the traveller with cheering thoughts and
sanguine hopes."

Something of the spirit of Mr. Lyell's volumes may be gathered
from these extracts. We can spare room to copy but few of the
beautiful paragraphs with which they are every where interlarded
some on subjects of a purely scientific character, some on the pass
ing events of the day, and many upon the institutions of our country
We cannot, however, refuse ourselves the pleasure of one more ex-
tract, which exhibits a candor and frankness on his part, such ai
stands in bold contrast with the character of other English anc|poo\
foreign travellers who have published journals of their tours througl
the United States. " Travellers must make up their minds in this at uill

I

uiir

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 269

in other countries, to fall in now and then with free and easy people.
I am bound, however, to say, that in the two most glaring instances
of vulgar familiarity which we have experienced here, we found out
that both the oflenders had crossed the Atlantic only ten years be-
fore, and had risen rapidly from a humble station. Whatever good
breeding exists here in the middle classes, is certainly not of foreign
importation ; and John Bull, in particular, when out of good humor
with the manners of the Americans, is often unconsciously behold-
ing his oiun image in the mirror, or comparing one class of society
in the United States with another in his own country, which ought,
from superior aflluence and leisure, to exhibit a higher standard of
refinement and intelligence."

A subject which Mr. Lyell has discussed, is that of the drift, or
the comparatively recent formation which embraces those of the
period coincident with that of the true drift, and of the deposits
which were formed quietly and subsequently thereto. We shall give
his remarks, inasmuch as the subject is especially interesting, and
cannot be too thoroughly contemplated. It is proper to premise that
the entire formation consists of sand, coarse gravel and loose rocks,
and of fine argillaceous and siliceous sediments, which in some
places contain fossils. These deposits rest upon the surface rock,
the upper layer of which is scored and smoothed, and sometimes
polished ; the scores and grooves having a northerly and southerly
direction, differing many degrees, however, someti«ies westerly and
sometiines easterly : the variation in most cases seems to be pro-
duced by an opposing barrier, as a range of mountains ; but this
is not always the case, for in some instances these grooves and
scratches pass obliquely over steep mountains.

Mr. Lyell, in giving his views upon this formation, occupies an
entire chapter, from which we extract the following : " This forma-
tion occupies the vallies of the St. Lawrence, Champlain and the
Hudson : it rests every where upon a grooved surface, the direc-
tion of the grooves northeast and southwest ; and it is remarked
that the blocks or boulders have been transported southwards along
the same lines as are marked out by the direction of the furrows.
The inference, therefore, is, that there is a connection between the
grooves on the solid rock, and the boulders found upon it ; or, in
other words, the agency by which boulders have been transported,
and the grooves made, is one ;" and that agency is attributed by

270 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Mr. Lyell to floating ice, within which stones were fast frozen, that
acted like gravers, and cut the rock as the iceberg floated along.
Thus the grooving of the rocks, the transported beds of boulders,
gravel and sand, and the fine clay connected therewith, are all the
product of transport. This we infer especially from a remark on page
128 : " Nothing, however, is clearer, than that here, as well as in
the valley of the St. Lawrence between Kingston and Quebec, the
marine shells of recent species are referable to the same geological
period as that to which the boulders belong." This period embraces
all, beginning with that power which scored the rocks, and ending
with the deposition of sand forming the upper part where the
deposits have not been disturbed.

We, however, regard the matter thus : There was a force which
moved the rocks, coarse and fine, and grooved the floor upon which'j
they moved from north to south. This force we consider to have
been sui generis ; that is, distinct from that which carried boulders
subsequently, and which contained the then living animals that wei
now find in the clays and sands of the vallies named above. There
is enough in this first movement, to entitle it to the character of a
period, and to stand by itself. To this succeded a period of quiet,
during which the clays and sands were deposited, as in most casesi
where the structure and character of the beds is the same ; for these
are perfectly fine sediments, consisting of extremely fine layers
of clay, alternatthg with extremely fine sand, the entire thickness ol
the whole amounting to over one hundred feet. This we say v^as
the product of a period of perfect quiet, during which marine ani-
mals lived ; and so perfectly quiet was it, that the thin fragile shel
of the Terehratula psittacea preserves both valves in contact, anc
still attached by the hinge : indeed, perfect tubes in the sand, linec
with calcareous matter, and which are coeval with the time of dc"
posit, remain to this day. We separate this quiet period from the
preceding, which was one of turmoil and violence ; and, we think,
justly, because the two are so dissimilar in character. At some
places, as at Port Kent and Chimney point, the fine sediment of cla)
rests upon the grooved surface of rock : at other places, there are
beds of stones, boulders, gravel, sand, etc. upon the grooved surface
and these are the masses that have been borne along with, anc
formed a part of, the drift current. But upon these very drift bedi
reposes a fine sediment of clay and sand alternating, in which it is

8

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 271

iij rare to see a stone at all, and this is coincident in formation and
i|! time to the clays we have just spoken of : it was deposited in quiet

Ij tranquil waters. That these periods succeeded each oiher, there is
j no doubt ; that they were short, is equally plain : still wc say dis-
tinct, and forming two separate periods. Subsequent to ihe period
of quiet, there seems to have been another period of disturbance,
as admitted by Mr. L., during which the upper portions of the
clays and sands have suffered denudation. The formation at Port
Kent, where the fossils are found, is entire, and the same may be
said of that at Beauport near Quebec.

Another point, to which allusion has been made already, is the
power that was concerned in transporting the boulders, which, as
they moved along, scored the rocks : this is all attributed to icebergs.
To this view there is this objection, that the surfaces are polished,
and it is highly probable that the bottom of an ocean where icebergs
float is always covered by a thick mantle of debris ; but more espe-
cially does the fact militate against the iceberg theory, that the
entire soil has been moved forward en masse — shoved along in a
body, from one formation, over an intermediate one, to another, as
may be seen in the Helderberg range. We have, however, stated
on several occasions long ago, that boulders were dropped apparently
from icebergs during the period of quiet which we recognize ; and
these are the boulders we have seen in the deposit at Beauport, in
the midst of shells all entire and perfect as they were when living.
However, the subject of drift is one of great difficulty, and we are
not disposed to trouble our readers farther with it.

We recommend a perusal of these volumes to our friends, espe-
cially those who wish to acquire geological information, and who at
the same time would like to know what are Mr. Ly ell's views of
this country.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE NEW- YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.*

In the last number of this Journal, we pubHshed a review of this
work, in which we avoided pointing out what we considered as

* We perhaps owe an apology to our readers for bringing these volumes again before
them, which we hope they will find in the following. In the September nujaber of the

272 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

faults, because we did not wish to bring pointedly before the public
the errors of individuals, but hoped that what we did say might lead
the readers of those volumes to examine cautiously what they con-
tained, and sift for themselves the true from the false. We looked
upon our article with no small degree of satisfaction, as one which
gave sufficient praise, and found as little fault as possible. We
fondly thought that no one could object to our review. But, alas !
for our hopes, a writer in the Cultivator for September censures us
because we did not expose what we thought wrong more pointedly.
Since we are called upon thus publicly to give our views plainly,
we feel that it would be injustice both to ourselves and the public to
refuse. Our intention, then, in taking up these volumes again, is to
answer the call of the writer in the Cultivator, and to state plainly
some of those things which we found fault with before ; and also to
point out some of the contents of the work, "which had better been
left out, because it has no connection with agriculture ; and some
which had better never been written, for it is full of error."

But before entering upon this, we cannot refrain from expressing
our surprise at the bold charge of the writer referred to, that, m
speaking of the men who had been selected to deliver the annual
addresses at the Fairs, we alluded particularly to Mr. Bancroft. If
the writer had carefully read what we did write, he would be troubled
to find in what we said any thing which could by any possibility
allude to any individual. We admire Mr. Bancroft as much as any

Cultivator, appeared a paper signed " Senex," taking us severely to task for our mild
review of the " Transactions." As soon as we received it, we directed a note to the
editor of that paper, requesting him to reserve room for us, in the October number of
his Journal, to reply. We wished to answer the writer in the paper he had chosen to
bring us before the public in, so that the readers of his unprovoked article might have
the opportunity of reading our defence. To our letter we received the following reply :

Albany, September 25, 1845.
Dear Sir — I have just now, for the first time, seen your note of the twelfth instant. It was pro-
bably laid on my drsk when first received, where it has Inid till this time with a mass of other papers
■wailing my examination It appears to me that your own Journal would be the more suilalile plane
to sustain the criticisms therein made upon the Trnnsaclious. I cannot conceive that you have any
just claims upon the Cultivator, so long as the work iu which the controversy commenced is under
your own control ; and 1 must, therefore, respectfully decline the publication of your proposed reply
to Senex. JlcspectfuUy yours, LUTHER TUCKER.

Now our readers will judge of the necessity of using our own columns for this
purpose. As to " controversy," we admit nothing of the kind into this Journal ; but
when wo arc challenged to duty, we arc always ready.

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 273

man who knows him only through his works ; and we said no word
which could be considered, even by implication, as disparaging his
address. Why then are we made to appear before the public as at
variance with him ? This question can best be answered by the
writer who has chosen to place us in this position. We do not believe
that Mr. Bancroft considered himself personally alluded to, if he ever
gave himself the trouble to read our review. We regret sincerely
that such a charge should so causelessly be made against us, and
we regret as sincerely the necessity which is laid upon us to answer
the call to expose the errors of the volumes published under the
auspices of the State Agricultural Society ; and in doing this, we
may do even more than we merely hinted at before.

1. What are the "Transactions" of a Society? We had always
supposed that in this word were included simply the doings of such
a body ; its business ; reports of its meetings ; papers read before
it, relating to the objects of its labors ; correspondence, etc. But
what have we in the " Transactions of the New-York State Agri-
cultural Society" ? Not only these, and others that might be con-
sidered as the property of the Society ; but we find also in these
volumes papers, which, we will presume to say the Society as such
never knew the existence of till they found them here. If we were
surprised at them, how much more must the members of the "New-
York State Agricultural Society" have been surprised when they
they saw the " Transactions " assuming the form of a volume of
six hundred and seventy-one pages. Let no one sneer at this, and
call it picking for straws. We are aware that some one, in imitation
of " Senex," may ask us for our instances of such papers in these
volumes ; and we are ready to produce our instances : but whilst
we select them, let not the authors believe that we are finding fault
with them. We are only saying that their articles had mistaken their
place, or some one for them, when they got into the volumes before
us. To the point, then, since it must be so ; and we will not go
back farther than the year 1843, inasmuch as the volumes previous
to that year are so modestly small as to tempt us but lightly to the
search. We take then the two last years' "Transactions," 1843
and 1844, which have been politely furnished us by the Secretary.
One fact, however, must here be stated, before we produce these
instances of what ought not to be here, and that fact is this : From
these volumes have been rejected many papers which did form a

274 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

very important part of the " Transactions." Such are the Reports
of certain Committees, at the State Fairs. These reports had been
prepared with great labor and care, and yet were thrown out to make
room for other matter which had no proper place in these volumes ;
and these reports we regard — ignorantly perhaps — as essential
portions of the Transactions of this Society.

We ask the reader to turn to the following articles, as we specify
them from a mere hasty examination of these books.

In the volume for 1843, page 241, we find a paper occupying 86
pages, with this title : " The Geological Survey of New-York, its
influence upon the productive pursuits of the community." We
shall speak more at large of this paper under another head. We
only introduce it here as belonging to this head also ; for we have
the best of reasons for saying, that till this paper was seen in this
volume, it was a stranger to the Transactions of the Society. We
shall give Mr. O'Reilly's apology for this article farther on.

In the volume for 1844, page 61, is found an article entitled
" Analysis of Soils," by Willis Gaylord ; and page 1 18, one entitled
" Rotation versus Summer Fallowing," by the late Willis Gaylord.

Now let not Senex charge us with slandering the dead, as he
charged us with attacking Mr. Bancroft. We are saying nothing
now of the late Mr. Gaylord, although we might find fault with
some things in his papers ; but it is with the book containing his
articles, we have now to do. The compilers of the book say, in a
note to the first article, " This paper was one of the last produc-
tions of the late Willis Gaylord, and was found on his table imme-
diately after his death, which occurred on the 27th of March, 1844,"
etc., and then it is engrafted on the Transactions of N. Y. S. Ag.
Soc. Now why are they here ? Is it replied, that although they did
not belong to the society, yet they may be useful to the farmer, and
are therefore published here ? The same excuse might be applied
in the case of Loudon's Encyclopedias, or Liebig's works, or John-
ston's, or Boussingaull's, or an}^ of the writers on agriculture, in-
cluding the Cultivator, the Agriculturist and the American Quarterly
Journal of Agriculture and Science, particularly the latter. But still
farther :

On pages 210, 243, 255, are long extracts from the transactions
of the agricultural meetings held during the preceding winter in
the city of Albany. Why not give some from the Farmer's Club in

i

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 275

New-York, and similar institutions throughout the country ? We
know not.

On page 343, " Chemical Examination of the Rice Plant and
Rice Soil of South Carolina. By Charles U. Shepard, M. D. &c."
This same article was published in this Journal, in the month of
I January, 1844, as an extract from the Southern Agriculturist, in
which paper it first appeared ; and was reported as part of the
Transactions of the Agricultural Society of Winyaw and All-Saints,
in South-Carolina. Mow by some means it becomes, without one
word as to its source, part of the Transactions of N. Y. S. Ag. Soc.

But we notice, also, a very important part of the Transactions
wanting. We refer to the action taken by the Society in reference to
the introduction of agricultural studies into the common schools.
There is some mistake here, something wrong. We think it would
have been as well to have left out some things that do not belong
there, and supply their place with some that do. This subject is
only incidentally noticed in the volume ; whereas, considering the
amount of interest which has been for some time past felt in it, we
think more notice should have been taken of it.

2. We have occupied more space than we proposed, in consider-
ing the foregoing point. We shall be more brief in the rest. In
giving our opinion of so large a work, it cannot be expected that we
should point out all that is wrong. If we give prominent examples,
it must be sufficient. We are complained of, then, because we said
there were portions of these books which " had better been left out."
We recur to page 241 of the volume for 1843, " The Geological
Survey of New-York," &c. Do not let us be understood as ques-
tioning the use of geological knowledge to the farmer ; but it is only
a particular kind, however, which can benefit him, and that not of
fossils. Of what importance to him are these 86 pages of paljeon-
tology ? Besides, the figures of these fossils had been already given
by the State three times, and once in Silliman's Journal. There is
nothing, in the whole character of the article, in the least agricul-
tural. The subject is only referred to twice, and that only inci-
lentally.

But the Secretary for that year makes an apology for the article
)eing introduced, as follows : " It is due to Prof. Hall, to state that
,his paper was drawn up by him, by request, for the State Agricul-
ural Society ; less time being allowed him than is justly required

VOL. II. — NO. II. N

276 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

for the preparation of an essay of this important character," etc.
But the executive committee thought best to publish it, although
having no bearing upon the objects of their association. As well J
might they have published a paper on volcanoes and earthquakes.
We do, indeed, wish that our farmers were better informed in those
branches of geology which are calculated to advance their prospe-
rity, and we observe with pleasure that there is yearly an increase
among them of this kind of knowledge ; but they will be puzzled
to see the connection betv^reen pictures of fossil shells, and their
noblest of pursuits. An article on agricultural geology might be
written, which would deserve a place in such a work as the "Trans-
actions," but we do not find it here.

3. We said " some had better never been written," because in
point of science it was false. And not to weary our readers, who,
we fear, are already tired of this discussion, we will examine but
one article, commencing on page 425 of the volume for 1843.

In discussing the question, where the food and clothing for the
" countless myriads" of the human family must come from, it is said :

" The atmosphere, and not the earth, is the great storehouse for
vegetable and animal food, designed for immediate use." Page 427.

From this and what follows, we conclude that Mr. L. has read
Liebig, and adopted his theory without question, as regards vegetable
nutrition ; but this is taking but a one-sided view of the question.
If it had been said that the atmosphere is the great storehouse of
carbon, this might be true, and it might not ; for although they un-
doubtedly derive much of this substance from that source, they as
unquestionably do also draw much from the soil they grow in. Else
why does the farmer add, year after year, organic matters to the soil ?
It can not for a moment be believed that all the use of manures is to
restore the salts of which the earth has been deprived. If this be
true, would not the proper course be to apply them to the surface,
when the gases would be immediately dissipated through the air, to
be taken up by the leaves of plants ? But this is not the proper
course. They are buried, and the gases, as they are produced, are
absorbed by the porous earth, ready to be carried to the roots, or
taken up by them as they find them in their progress. That these
gases are absorbed in this way, is evident from one fact, that when
the carcase of any animal is covered with a slight quantity of earth,
none of the putrifying odor is perceived, which is so powerful when

wh

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 277

this process takes place above ground. And is all this amount of
vegetable food of no use till it escapes and mingles with the atmo-
sphere ? We can not believe it. That a seed will germinate and
grow in a soil utterly destitute of organic matter, experiments prove
beyond a question ; but will they attain perfection ? On the contrary,
they soon die, and no soil is productive which does not contain a
considerable proportion of organic matter.

Do plants obtain their other organic constituents from the atmo-
sphere ? The same reasoning will hold good in respect to these,
as in the case of carbon. But our space will not allow us to go into
a lengthy discussion of these points. The reader is referred to the
various works on these subjects. How the atmosphere is the great
storehouse of animal food, we confess ourself utterly at a loss to
understand. Any thing stored up there, we apprehend, would be
light food for man or beast, unless the line be true we wot of when
a boy about the chameleon :

" I saw it eat the air for food."

Our author carries out the same idea farther, on the same page,
where he says that "about 97 per cent of the solid structure of all
cultivated plants, and animals, except their bones, is derived from
air and water." In this he includes the carbon, which constitutes
from 40 to 50 per cent of plants. But setting this aside, as, to say
the least, a doubtful matter, we must reject also the water which
escapes whilst plants are drying ; and, what is the fact ? Johnston
says the ash of vegetable productions varies from 1 to 12 per cent
of their weight ; and according to Sprengel, 100 lbs. of the following
slants, when dried in the air, left of ash.

Turnip - - - 705 lbs. Lucerne - - . - 9-55 lbs.

Carrot - - - 509 Red clover - - - 748

Leaf of do, - - 10-42 White do. - - - 9l3

Parsnip - - - 19-76 Rye grass - - - 530

Cabbage - - - 755

" About 97 per cent" ought to have a wide range, to include these
md numbers of other vegetable products. Mr. L. unfortunately in-
cludes animals in both of the above extracts. With regard to them,
he fact is by no means evident, and we think is without foundation.
That there is an abundant supply of carbon in the air for the pur-
)oses of vegetable nutrition, is true, but is it used as he thinks ?

But he proceeds to show how this carbon, floating in the atmo-

278 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

sphere, may be seized and converted into " wheat, butter, cheese
and pork."

" Gentlemen, I have in this glass water taken from a well near my
residence in this city, such as is used by my family and others.
You see it is quite clear, though I suppose it holds in solution,
among other earthy ingredients, a portion of lime. I will now
breathe into this water, and see what, if any, effect will be produced.
You see the water is changed into a milky whiteness," Page 428.

When we first read this, we could hardly believe our eyes. It is
a common experiment to dissolve quicklime in water, and breathe
through it, to show the production of carbonate of lime by the union
of the carbonic acid of the breath with the dissolved lime ; but that
the water of wells ever contains a solution of pure lime, we were
ignorant. The water of wells and springs often contains the muriate,
sulphate and carbonate of lime, constituting what is called hard
water, but the breath could not have any effect upon these to pro-
duce the " milky whiteness," Whence then came the lime in this
well ? We can not believe for a moment that Mr. Lee was practising
a piece of jugglery upon his audience, nor can we account for the
source of the lime, having never seen nor heard of a case of the
kind. But he accounts for it, by saying, that when in the state of a
carbonate, it was decomposed by the action of the living and growing
plant (page 429), and dissolved by rain water, and then carried down
through the earth to the well from whence it was taken. Yet he
says more, that after this decomposition, " the free lime whose car-
bon has gone to build up a vegetable, takes up another, and still
another portion of carbonic acid." Of course, when it reaches the
well it will be a carbonate, or some higher compound of lime. As
to this decomposition, and the appropriation of the carbon to the
nourishment of plants, we can only say it is a new theory to us of
Ihe action of lime.

" At night, plants consume no food, or very little, but digest what
they imbibe during the day" (page 429). We had always under-
stood the fact to be directly the opposite, that the light of the sun
was the great agent in carrying on, or at least assisting the diges-
tive functions of plants. During the day, they absorb carbonic acid
and give off oxygen, the carbon being separated by the chemical
action of light ; at night, the carbonic acid is given off unchanged.
The same is found to be the case when plants are excluded from

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 279

the light in the process of blanching. A still stronger argument is
to be derived from the fact, that in extreme northern latitudes, during
the summer, which is all day, plants grow with great vigor and ra-
pidity. How do they contrive to do this without any night to digest
their food in ?

Our author comes, on this same page, to the consideration of am-
monia, and its absorption by water, and says, " It is the ammonia
in rain water, that imparts to it its peculiar softness in washing the
hands or clothes." Then cold water should be softer than hot water ;
for ahhough water when cold will absorb a large quantity of am-
monia, it will lose it when boiled ; but we have slated above, that the
hardness of water is caused by the presence of salts of lime ; when
tiiese are absent, as they are in rain water, it will be soft.

Again, "It is the ammonia that escapes from puirifying substances,
that causes their offensive smell. But who does not know the dif-
ference between the bracing, agreeable smell of hartshorn^ and the
loathsome, sickening odor of a putrifying animal carcase ? Ammonia
is produced during the decomposition of animal matter; but this
putrid smell arises from the compounds of carbon, phosphorus and
sulphur, which are also generated. Again, " It is the ammonia in
rain water, which causes it to putrify in some degree." The only
three substances there are oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen ; but no
combination of these will give the smell of putrefaction.

Mr. L. recommends the use of charcoal, and explains its action
thus : " It will absorb 90 times its bulk of ammonia, and will give
it out slowly to the vital attraction of the roots of plants." What
is meant by this '* vital attraction ?" Suppose a piece of charcoal in
the ground, saturated with ammonia ; if the root of a plant come in
contact with it, how far will this "vital attraction" act ? We do not
believe it will act at all beyond the mere point of contact, and that
is on the outside where there is no ammonia. How then does the
charcoal act, is the question. The answer is, if buried in the ground,
it will be of little or no use ; but if applied to the surface, where it is
exposed to the air and heat of the sun, but where the roots of plants
can not reach it, it will act thus : During dry weather it will absorb
ammonia from the atmosphere., which ammonia will be washed out
and carried down to the roots of plants by the first rain that falls
upon it, for water has a much stronger attraction for it than the
charcoal has ; again being dried by the sun, it goes through the

280 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

same process. This we conceive to be the true action of this sub-
stance ; but as to its being a very active manure, under any circum-
stances, we have no conclusive evidence. The result of experiments,
as far as we have noticed, is not decisive.

We pass over a number of other points which we had designed
to notice, as well as the portion of the address which treats of wool-
growing. On the latter subject we only hazard one recommendation.
Mr. L. advises, as one means of increasing the growth of wool, to
keep " the animal warm in winter," etc., and " stimulate, with the
elements of wool, the organs which secrete this valuable covering
of the sheep" (page 432),

These, we have long been aware, are favorite ideas of our author.
But is it according to the analogy of nature, to keep any animal
warm, in order to produce an increased length or fineness of cover-
ing ? Those which occupy the colder regions of the earth have
uniformly the finest covering, and the most abundant, and it also
strikes us that these degenerate when they are brought into warmer
latitudes. We merely give this as our individual opinion, drawn
from the fact above stated. And as Providence ever provides for
the circumstances in which his creatures live, to give them a cover-
ing according to their need, we infer that sheep would have a longer
and a finer fleece exposed to constant cold, than if kept warm
throvigh the winter. We know of no facts in the way of experi
ments tried to determine this point ; nor, we presume, does Mr. L. ^

But we forbear. We think enough has been said to confirm our
formerly expressed opinion, " that much had better been left out,
because it has no connection with agriculture ; and some which
had better never been written, for it is full of errors." •

We must repeat here our former remark, that, as a whole, the
volumes are highly creditable to our State Society. A little more
care should be used to keep out error and false science, and to
make the work strictly agricultural.

Let us repeat, and so as to be distinctly and correctly understood,
that we have not alluded to any individual in our remarks, in regard
to the orators at the annual fairs. If farmers need pufiing to con-
vince them that theirs is the highest and proudest of human pur-
suits, then let them have it. At the same time, we do know that
they need information, and they love to hear that which expands
their minds and ennobles their hearts, and teaches them how to
make knowledge profitable.

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 281

The Botanical Text Book : By Asa Gray, M. D., Fisher Professor of Natural
History in Harvard University. Second edition, 1845.

Tins work is a volume of five hundred pages. The first edition was
excellent, and the second is a great improvement. It is illustrated
by more than one thousand tuoodcuts, which enable the student
readily to apprehend the delicate points of structural and systematic
botany. It maintains the doctrines of the Natural System, with great
clearness, beauty and power.

It is ever interesting to trace the progress of science. That which
has any just claims upon the regards of men, goes onward in its
useful course. That which is fanciful, hypothetical, or useless,
sinks away and is forgotten. Linnasus, who is regarded as the
father of scientific botany, died in 1778. It was in 1751, that he
published his Philosophia Botanica, which contained the principles
of a philosophic study of the vegetable kingdom. The incorporation
of this work in Rose's Elements of Botany, which was published
in London in 1775, greatly extended these principles. This was an
era for botany in England. In 1753, Linnaeus published his Species
Plantarum, being an " accurate and complete digest of botanical
knowledge" at that time, containing more elegant and precise de-
scriptions, under a greatly improved form, than had ever appeared,
and embracing all the then known species, being between seven and
eight thousand : at this hour, the number of described plants is
estimated at one hundred thousand, and the genera near seven thou-
sand ; and the Species Plantarum, in the hands of the successors
of Linnasus, has become a huge work of several volumes.

In 1807, Sir James Edward Smith, so long the distinguished
President of the Linnasan Society in England, published his " In-
troduction to Physiological and Systematic Botany," a work which
at once became the text book and standard authority of botany in
that country. This work was republished, from its second edition, at
Boston, in 1814, with Notes by J. Bigelow, M. D., who has for a
long time been ardently engaged in the pursuits of botany in that
part of our country. This republication was an era in our country
in botanical science ; and yet at what a vast remove from the phi-
losophy of botany, as presented in the Botanical Text Book, is this
work. It is read with interest at this time for its knowledge, but
evidently belongs to another age, even to the dark ages of botany.

282 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The Botanical Text Book is the posting up of the results of re-
volution and progress in the study of the vegetable kingdom. Or-
ganic, or structural botany, has been introduced within a few years,
and now forms an essential part of the subject. It can never be re-
moved from its place, even if it should receive modification and im-
provement. This has led to no inconsiderable change in the techni-
calities of botanical language, as well as in the consideration of the
objects themselves.

The adoption of the artificial method by Linnaeus, was the result of
necessity. He had not a sufficient knowledge of plants, to bring
them into their natural families, and to exhibit their aflSnilies. Tt was
the work of minds far inferior to his, to recognize these relations,
when the multitude of plants had been examined, and the vegeta-
bles of all spheres and climates had been ascertained ; but even this
work was begun by Linnaeus himself, for no one belter understood
the proper course of botanical investigation. The natural orders
were first arranged by him, for he distributed the known plants into
sixty-five natural associations or orders. To depreciate the labors
and results of Linnaeus, is folly ; to rob him of his untarnished glo-
ries, is at this day impossible. Some have indeed sneered at his
works, but \\\e paw of the lion need not be lifted to annihilate such
sciolists. The wonders of vegetable structure had not been unfolded
by the microscope, and some of the more obvious forms of organi-
zation had not yet been appropriated to their legitimate use. The
author of the Text Book has been placed on an eminence, and his
vision greatly aided. Standing in this position, he has unfolded the
scenes spread out before him with splendor to the eye that follows
out the details. The mind is delighted with the objects, and rejoices
in their richness and beauty, as compared with all the displays of
even thirty years ago. The generation that then were actively
engaged, have accomplished wonders.

The grand distinction of Flowering and Flowerless plants must
stand, and the former be divided in exogenous and endogenous. The
Exogens are divided by Dr. Gray into two great subdivisions :
1. AngiospermSf or plants bearing their seeds in a pericarp or co-
vering ; and 2, Gymnosperms, whose seeds are truly naked. This
is a great improvement on the previous classifications of authors.
The Endogens are divided only into orders, and the distinction of
aglumaceous and glumaceous is not regarded.

NEW PUBLICATIONS, 283

The Flowerless plants are classed in three divisions : 1. Acrogens,
embracing ferms, clubmosses and rushes ; 2. Anopliytes, as the
mosses ; and 3. Thallophytes, the lichens, algas and fungi. The
former class of RhizanfJierc seems to have disappeared, and its
wonderful parasitic forms fall into some other division. Thus, all
plants fall into five classes, presented in a beautiful Synoptical
View on p. 322.

The artificial subdivision of the Exogens into Polypetalous, Mo-
nopetalous VLwdApetalous (p. 323), is still followed, because no struc-
tural or organic element has been discovered, which marks the sub-
divisions which seem so important to render the study of these plants
more easy and intelligible. Hence it is that the system is not made
natural throughout ; but very great progress has been made since
the days of Linnaeus. The study of the Natural Orders becomes the
great object, as the natural affinities and relations of plants are de-
signed to be here exhibited. If one is entirely ignorant of botany,
it is not so easy perhaps to begin it on the natural system alone.
1. Because there is no one order which stands at the head of the
whole, and from which there is a closely dependent chain of orders,
j 2. Because one is supposed not to know the affinities of vegetables,
and in what part of the arrangement particular genera may be placed.
3. Because the characters of plants are not perfectly definite, and
they require too careful study to be very easy and alluring to the
beginner. As the adoption of the artificial method by Linnaeus was
a matter of necessity in the study of plants at that period, so the
same necessity renders some knowledge and application of it im-
portant still, till the principles of the natural system shall be more
disseminated. This is happily effected in Wood's Botany, a notice
of which was contained in the last number of this Journal. But the
time may come ere long, when the study of plants shall be pursued
only on the natural system. The Botanical Text Book is fitted to
hasten this time. After all the achievements of the artificial system,
no one would more heartily rejoice than Linnaeus himself, if he
were to behold it, at the establishment of the science of botany on
principles purely natural in all its parts.

The Botanical Text Book should be in the hands of all our in-
telligent agriculturalists. The structure, physiology, affinities and
economical uses of plants, must interest and gratify the intellect and
taste. The study of plants so far will no longer appear as a mere

VOL. II. — NO. II. 0

284 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

use of terms expressing the names of things, and having little rela-
tion to practical results beyond the names of plaijts. Botany now
becomes an exhibition of nature in one kingdom of her most delight-
ful productions. If the names of genera and species are desired,
Wood's Botany happily enables one to carry out the principles of
the Botanical Text Book to this desirable result. So rapidly as
knowledge shall be diffused among the lovers of botany, will the
study of the natural system displace all others. Least of all will
there be a reliance on the artificial method. Y. C.

A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer : Containing topographical, statistical, and
other information, of all the more important places in the known world, from the
most recent and authentic sources ; with a map. By Thomas Baldwin, assisted by
several other gentlemen. Philadelphia, Lindsay &, Blackiston. 1845. pp. 550.

This Gazetteer is intended to fix a standard for the pronunciation
of names ; giving, at the same time, the geographical position of
the places, with brief remarks on the commerce, population, and
other interesting particulars.

The want of such a work has long been felt by the teachers of
geography. To the different nations of Europe, and their descen-
dants, the same letters often indicate different sounds. How then
can a plain English scholar know how to pronounce them ? Every
reader of this class, who officiates even in the family circle, ought
to have this volume before him : it should be in every school, and
in every library.

The Introduction, which has been prepared with great care and
labor, gives the rules for such pronunciation, so that the student
may acquire the theory, while the body of the work illustrates it
by 'practice. In many instances, the etymology of the name is given.

After the preceding remarks, it may scarcely appear necessary to
say that this book is original, both in plan and execution. Prefixed
to the Introduction, is a list of gentlemen who consented to lend
their names as authorities, and amongst them may be found many
of great eminence. George R. Gliddon, our late consul in Egypt;
Horatio Hale, philologist to the late Exploring Expedition ; Dr.
RuscHENBERGER, of the United States Navy ; and William B.
Hodgson, the celebrated Turkish scholar, may be cited as instances ;
and to show that we do not overrate the volume, we subjoin the

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 285

certificate of a man well qualified to form a correct opinion of its
merits. S. S. Randall, superintendent of common schools, has also
warmly recommended its introduction into all our seminaries. We
are also advised that one of the most distinguished professors of the
University of Pennsylvania was so fully convinced of its importance,
and felt such interest in its success, that he gratuitously inspected
every proofsheet.

Central High School, )
Philadelphia, July 15, 1845. )

I have examined, with some degree of care, the " Universal Pronouncing

Gaze'.teer," by Thomas Baldwin and others, and am satisfied tiiat it is

a work of uncommon excellence and value. It is a book that has been very

much needed, both in families and in schools. Its general introduction

would greatly facilitate the study of geography, by preventing the present

confusion in regard to the pronunciation of foreign names. It ought to be

in the hands of every teacher, and of all pupils who can afford it. The

principles of pronunciation adopted by the compilers seem to be judicious,

and, so far as I have seen, are carefully applied to the details of the book.

The work, in other respects, is also worthy of high commendation. It

contains, in a small compass, a large amount of important geographical

and statistical information, accurate in its character, judiciously selected,

and well arranged. JOHN S. HART,

Principal of Philadelphia High School.

We are not disposed to withhold an expression of approbation of
this work at this time. Scarcely a work has been issued from the
press, so valuable and useful as this. The want of it had been felt
for a long time ; and now that it has appeared, it is extremely gra-
tifying to find it better and more important than was anticipated.
We believe that there is but one opinion of its value, and that is
extremely flattering to the author of the work, of whom we should
be glad to speak if we were permitted.

Editors Q. J. A. i( S.

286 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

FARMERS' MISCELLANY.

HUSBANDRY OF CENTRAL NEW-YORK.

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO JOHN KOON, ESQ., OF ALBANY.

Letter L

Utica, September 12, 1845.
My Dear Friend — As you was so kind as to express an interest
in the matters comnnunicated in my former letters, I am induced to
resume my pen, and I have hopes that I may still maintain a favor-
able position in your estimation. Should I succeed, I shall feel some
pride in my success ; inasmuch as I know that you are a judge of
merit, and will neither suffer yourself to be deceived by appearances
merely, nor bestow your approbation upon an unworthy object.

On recurring to my former letters, it will be seen that I took
rather a v«ide range in the selection of subjects ; and as you have
not intimated to me that this was an objectionable feature in them,
I shall not now confine my observations to what might be considered
a narrow compass. The structure of our hills and vallies, considered
with reference to agriculture ; the different kinds of crops, soils and
their adaptations ; cows, hogs and sheep, with many other similar
subjects, are interesting matters for the consideration of farmers.
The latter, in particular, interest me at the present time ; and as
people are very apt to think that whatever interests themselves must
also interest others, so I find that I am thinking that sheep too must
be uppermost in your mind. 1 do not expect, however, that you will
fall in with all of my views ; for you know that I am sometimes
charged with heterodoxy, and especially do I know that you will
be startled when I attempt to show that Saxon sheep do not wear
fleeces of a finer kind than the merinoes. You will, without doubt,

FARMERS MISCELLANY. 287

once more rub up the nap on your imperial saxony coat, I mean
your Sunday dress, to see if this can be so ; and I expect you will
be rather slow to believe that you have expended a shilling or two
more per yard, in consequence of falling in with common opinions
without sufficient examination. 1 must not, however, be understood
as condemning the fine imperial saxony, for the reason that I am
myself too poor to wear one. In truth I have not as yet been able to
get above the black bombazet for a sunday coat in summer, and the
three-quarter homemade woolen of a london-brown for winter. My
native sheep's gray is, however, my favorite cloth, in which I am
at home, and do not feel that disposition to stick out my arm at an
angle of forty-five degrees when walking ; nor do I fear that I shall
split open the back, when I stoop to tie my shoestrings.

In my perambulations, I have been not a little surprised to see
what a great uniformity there is in some sections of the country,
both in the general features presented, and in the properties of the
soil. Should you accompany me across the hills from Hudson river
to Hoosic mountain, you would see that here is a belt which forms
truly but one agricultural district, whose predominant character,
when products are spoken of, is to produce the grasses and cereals
in great perfection. This will be found to be true, whether you cross
just above the Highlands, at Albany sixty or seventy miles north, or
at Whitehall. You every where find the north and south hills with
their gentle slopes, though they are really steepest upon their north-
western sides. This is owing to the underlying rock ; and no matter
what the rock is — whether a slate, a limestone, or a quartz rock —
its inclination is uniform, and the soft materials have nothing to do
with the arrangement, further than that they are spread over the
rocks whose inclined surfaces were previously determined.

There is a remarkable fact in regard to the highest grounds of
this belt of country, and it is one which I have had more than twenty
years experience in testing the truth of : it is that they never suffer
extremely from drought. At the present time, when the corn-leaves
at Albany and Newburgh are closely rolled up, in Berkshire they
are green and bright, and the hills and furrows are bringing forth
abundance of fruit. Showers occur here when they are denied every
where else, and the consequence is that this region presents its
green surface when the valley of the Hudson is parched with drought.
/ I may be a little more particular in my remarks upon this region,

288 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

since I have incidentally brought up the subject. I have stated that
the hills run nearly north and south, and generally preserve moderate
slopes, though it is not uncommon to find them difficult to plough
on their northwestern slopes. The more elevated of these hills are
in the neighborhood of Williamstown and Adams, where the highest
rises 3400 feet above tide, and the main valley of the Hoosic about
700. Corn does not come to maturity here when planted a thousand
feet above the level of the valley, or fourteen or fifteen hundred feet
above tide at Albany. The predominating rock in this belt, which
is full forty miles wide, is slate. The first twenty miles east of the
Hudson is principally slate ; then a comparatively thin deposit of
sparry limestone ; then many a mountain of silvery gray slate, called
the Taconic range ; then the Stockbridge limestone at the eastern
base, and in the northern and southern vallies ; and finally a hard
quartz rock, resting against the gneiss of Hoosic mountain. This
whole belt is entirely covered over with drift, consisting of coarse
earth, with pebbles and cobblestones sometimes curiously piled up,
as at the base of the Hoosic mountain. We find, however, the loose
materials often apparently ploughed out, or rounded excavations
formed, in which peaty bogs are not unfrequent.

The Hudson river seems to divide regions which are somewhat
dissimilar, or which, though lying in close proximity, yet differ in
the age of their respective formations. The remains of the mammoth
have not yet been found east of the feeble barrier of this river ; and
it would seem, if a wider expanse of water had not existed in the
era of the mastodons, that they too vi^ould have lived eastward of the
Hudson, and their remains ere this have been discovered there,
1 subscribe myself yours.

Letter H.
NEW-YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL FAIR,

Held at Utica, on the 15 - 16 - 17 September, 1S45.

My Dear Friend — I promised, at my last interview with you, to
give you an account of the State Fair. Had I known, however, at
the time, the difficulties I should meet with in fulfilling this promise,
I should by no means have made it to you : but as it is, I will say

farmer's miscellany. 289

a few words, trusting that your good nature will excuse me from
attempting a task so great and perplexing, as a full report of the
proceedings of this great body, with all their traps, from a threshing
machine down to a corkscrew. The first thing in regard to this great
affair, and whicii made the strongest impression upon my mind, was
great multitude of folks wiiich congregated at this place upon this
occasion. Of course it is impossible for me to tell how many were
present, but you can perhaps get some faint idea of their numbers,
when I stale that the fair was held in a ten-acre lot, and that by
nine o'clock a. m. the people began to pour into it through a twelve-
foot gateway, until it was filled to overflowing. By eleven o'clock,
an equal flood of humanity began to pour out at another place ; and
so they continued in a ceaseless flood until about five o'clock p. m,,
when the field appeared to be considerably thinned out, and by six
o'clock was emptied of all but a few cattle and their keepers. The
number and show of cattle was great. Of fourfooted beasts, there
were nearly 700 ; which may be classed into horn cattle 274, horses
114, sheep 257, swine 34. These were arranged in circles on the
outside of the field, with a carriage space between it and the fence,
in which gentlemen and ladies were favored with an opportunity of
seeing without damage to their persons. Several temporary build-
ings were erected near the entrance gate, for the accommodation of
household apparatus, mechanical inventions, products of the farm,
fancy articles, flowers (of which there were many of great beauty
and value), etc. etc. These buildings were tastefully decorated,
especially the temple erected to Ceres, which was designed by Mr.
J. R. Walker, one of the Floral Committee. A fine hall, for the
display of fruits and flowers, was designed by our mutual friend.
Dr. Thompson, of Aurora. The ladies also were provided with a
hall, which was appropriated for the exhibition of domestic fabrics.
Indeed I cannot speak of all the designs for the display of the
beauties of nature, of art, and of utility. Both Pomona and Flora
were remembered, and had their dedicated temples ; but far above
all the representatives of classic fable, were the living ones, the
wives and daughters of the farmers. I write for them.

The trial of plows, on Tuesday, I did not attend. The show of
horses was very good. The Durham cattle I could not see, but the
sleek ayrshires I was much pleased with, and Mr. Sotham's here-
fords were excellent. There were many good sheep on the ground.

290 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

The poultry show was quite extensive and beautiful ; who it all
belonged to, I cannot now say.

I was pleased that so many strangers were present from distant
parts of the Union. Among them were several gentlemen from the
South. The assemblage of men from different parts of the State,
and of the Union, I consider as the great thing. It is necessary that
some show should be got up, in order to get men together ; and is
it not strange that some men will go farther to see a Durham bull,
than to see a clever likely man, a being endowed v^rith reason and
intelligence ? So it is : but anything to induce our farmers to assem-
ble together ; to form an acquaintance, and make themselves known
to their fellow-men.

In my next, I propose to give you some account of Onondaga
county, and of the farm management of a few of our friends there.
I subscribe myself yours.

Letter III.

Camillus, September 20, 1845.
My Dear Friend — I proposed, in my last letter, to give some
account of my travels and acquaintances in Onondaga county ; and
now having set myself down to fulfil this promise, I feel at some
loss what to say, and what subjects will interest you most. But it
appears to me that the first thing which is inquired after, on going
into a county, is, what is its soil and productions ? So I shall, in the
first place, take up these subjects for consideration. Now Onondaga
county is in the heart of the State, and I have sometimes heard her
called the empire county, but on this point I have not made up my
mind. I do know, however, that there are many productive and pro-
fitable farms there ; and the county is especially favored with some
geological formations and deposits, which the eastern, northern and
southern counties are destitute of, and which certainly confer many
and great advantages. The limestone ranges formed of the Onon-
daga and Manlius waterlimes, are of great importance : they are
in contact here, and form a distinct belt through the county from
east to west. This belt borders the Erie canal, and rises in many
places directly from it in the form of a terrace or table. But the
most important formation is the limestone shale, below these water-

farmer's miscellany. 291

limestones, and which also form a lower and parallel belt. These
shales are remarkable for having at one lime contained crystals of
salt ; and even now, in consequence of the rapid decomposition,
they form various saline bodies, and it is interesting to sec how the
springs are charged with saline matter according to the level from
which they issue. Thus the lowest layers, including the hopper-
formed cavilies and the gypsum beds, furnish springs highly charged
with saline matter, sulphate of soda, magnesia and lime. Above,
and in the next tier of strata, they are highly charged wiih carbonate
of lime, and from these inunense deposits of tufa are formed. Even
the springs are petrifying, and wood immersed in them becomes
stone, or stony matter takes ihe place of the wood. The higher
shales, though ihey do not furnish soft water, yet it answers well
for drinking and cooking. I omitted to mention ihe fact, that the
lower lavers of this limestone shale furnish, in a few instances, a
water which chars vegetable matier ; and I find, on examination,
that it is a weak sulphuric acid.

The limestone shale is the rock, or formation, which is specially
adapted to the production of wheat and corn. It has been stated by
most writers, and repeated by most farmers, that it is the limestone
above which gives character to the soil of this and some other coun-
ties, and especially renders them wheat-growing ; but this is not true.
Even the late esteemed Mr. Gaylord seemed to have selected a
farm because it was based on limestone ; but it is the shaly mass
below, which imparts so much excellence to the whole belt of
country, and this runs through the middle of Onondaga, or a little
to the norih of the middle. A black shale succeeds the Onondaga
limestone in the ascending order ; and this gradually passes into
gray or greenish siliceous shales and sandstones, still higher up.
Very little limestone is found south of the first belt of limestone
which J have mentioned above.

We have, then, in Onondaga county, two shaly formations, with
a thick mass of nearly pure limestone between ; and they form
terraces which rise one above the other, commencing on the level
with Oneida lake, and ascending step by step up to the hills of
Pompey. These several terraces differ much in their agricultural re-
lations. The new uncleared land on the lowest terrace, just above the
Cicero swamp, is worth 10- 12 dollars per acre ; the next terrace,
if dry and rolling, is worth 50 - 60 dollars per acre ; and the high

VOL. II. — NO. II. P

292 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

land of ihe black or Marcellus shales, is worth from 35 - 40 dollars
per acre. Many value their lands much higher ; but the prices at
which they are now estimated, are those which they would sell for
at a forced sale. I am sensible I have not given you a very scientific
account of the geology of this county ; but to supply those parts in
which I am deficient, I will refer you to the geological map, which
is very generally distributed, and is the most accurate one that has
been published in this country.

I assure you that I remain yours most sincerely.

Letter IV.

Camif.lus, September 23, 1845.

My Dear Friend — What I have said of the geology of Onondaga
county, was designed as preparatory to some statements in regard
to its productions, an account of which I now propose to give you.
On referring to my former letter, you will perceive that I gave pre-
ference to a belt of country running through the county on the canal,
or that terrace which is entirely above the low marshy grounds
forming the swamps of Cicero. It passes, for example, through
Camillus, and a very good sample of it may be seen at Mr. Geddes's
farm. It is from one and a half to three miles wide, and is based
directly upon the green gypseous shales, or upon the Onondaga
salt group. It would be. exceedingly interesting to know in what re-
spects, if any, the wheat grown upon these shales differs from that I
upon the black shales : it would be difficult, probably, to make a
comparison between the products of these shales and the limestones
immediately above, inasmuch as the soil of the shales has been
transported south so as to intermix with that of the pure limestone ;
but the higher portion, at least of the black shales, is nearly all
derived from their own decomposition. There is a recognized differ-
ence, I believe, aside from any change which can be effected by
climate. To show the excellence of some of this land, I will state
what was told me by a person who may be relied upon. A certain
field has been under cultivation for the last thirty years, and has
produced a crop of wheat every alternate year, without a particle of
manure, and its yield has averaged twenty bushels to the acre.

It is the soil of the gypseous shales, and not of the limestone,
which has been supposed to form the basis of the wheat soil of the

farmer' S MISCELLANY. 293

western counties. The opinion of farmers on this point, is founded
upon the distribution of the calcareous gravel. As far south, for in-
stance, as they find the limestone pebbles, they calculate upon getting
good crops of v/heat, especially in the vallies ; but when the lime-
stone disappears, they do not expect to get but two or three crops
of wheat. Now the reliance upon the limestone pebbles is very well
as an indication for wheat land ; nevertheless it is not the presence
of limestone that makes these lands thus productive in wheat, but
the product of the shales below, which has been carried as far
south as these very limestone pebbles of which we are speaking.
The gypseous rocks continue from year to year to disintegrate and
decompose, and hence are continually furnishing fit matter for the
growth of wheat. But again, this soil is also very productive and
superior for Indian corn, which grows large, and forms sound grains,
from the great abundance of magnesia which, I have no doubt, the
soil contains.

The soil of Onondaga does not pack : it contains, in some places,
many cobblestones from the Medina sandstone, interspersed with
short broken fragments of the shale which are frequently brought
up by the plow ; and thus the nature of the material is such that it
does not form a decidedly sliflF clay, but merely an argillaceous soil.
In the lower vallies, a stream flows, which is more or less charged
with tufa and marl, and this is frequently overlaid with peat. But
the quantity of vegetable matter in the soil, in all the farms which
have been worked several years, is extremely small.

There is a conclusion which I will state here, as it was derived
from Mr. Geddes : it is this, that soil, which is ploughed and sowed
for many years, finally becomes so compact below as to require
draining. Mr. Geddes founds his opinion upon the fact, that if you
have a space of 5000 feet which you wish to fill with earth, it will
require 6000 feet of soil to fill it ; or the same thing is seen in filling
post-holes, which receive not only all the earth thrown out, but also
the post itself. Stirring the soil, then, makes it lie in less space, or
more compactly ; and if there is a tendency originally to the accu-
mulation of water, it will require drainage after a time, in order to
be productive.

I shall proceed with this subject in my next.

Yours, &c.

294 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Letter V.

Camillus, September 25, 1845.
My Dear Sir — I closed my last letter, in speaking of the effect of
cultivation in increasing the compactness of soil ; and undoubtedly
the conclusion there expressed is true, aside from the main fact
upon which Mr. Geddes founds his opinion. The same result had
been witnessed by myself; but I had attributed it to the loss, first,
of vegetable matter, which is always removed from a new soil in the
course of a few years cultivation, unless indeed it is abundant as in
that of the Western States ; and, secondly, to the infiltration below
of the calcareous salts. Both these causes operate lo bring about
the result we are speaking of ; and when they are combined with
the one above indicated by Mr. Geddes, a very decided change
must inevitably be produced in the texture of the soil.

On a little reflection, it occurs to me that this one fact will ex-
plain, or at least will go far to explain, some others. We know, for
instance, that in the early settlement of many parts of New- York
and New England, several kinds of fruit were cultivated with suc-
cess. Peaches, for example, grew well in Berkshire in Massachu-
setts ; and I am informed, also, that even in Pompey and Niles and
the towns in that range in this Slate, and farther south upon the
Hamilton and Chemung shales, they grew in great perfection. Now,
however, they are not andean not be raised, or at least not with the
success that attended their first cultivation. This fact may stand
connected with the very change above alluded lo in the condition of
the soil. It is in that state which is usually termed cold : it is so <
compact, that the water, though it by no means stands upon the sur-
face, yet does not pass ofT with sul^cient rapidity, but is retained so
long, and so near the surface, that its evaporation keeps the tempe-
rature slightly below what it formerly was. If this theory is correct,
a general deep draining will remedy the difficulty, and bring the
soil back to the porous and warm condition it originally possessed.

This subject is one of great interest, and worthy of careful in-
vestigation. Against the opinion I have expressed in regard lo the
cause of those changes which now prevent the cultivation of the
peach, it may be urged that the temperature is reduced by the clear-
ing of the country ; or rather that the destruction of the forests has
opened it to the inroads of bleak and cold winds, or removed those

FARMERS MISCELLANY. 295

trees which gave shelter to the more tender productions we are
speaking of. All these are undoubtedly to be considered ; yet it
seems to me that the first named is by far the most important. I
should like to hear your opinion upon it. The fact is clearly esta-
blished, and is known over a wide extent of country ; and if we can
but get at the cause, it is possible we may also find a remedy.

I intended here to have spoken of Mr. Geddes's farming opera-
lions, but I see that I had better delay it until my next, and so you
will not object to my closing this with,

Yours, &c.

Letter VI.

Tyler Post-office, September 27, 1845.
My Dear Friexd — I write you from the residence of my friend
Mr. Geddes, »ho is a distinguished agriculturist ; and in looking
about his place, I am well satisfied that plans of houses, of yards
and barns, are of but little use, or perhaps I had better say they
are only generally useful. Now the location, the exposure, the posi-
tion of the farm-houses, barns, etc. must all be governed by circum-
stances ; and each farm has something sui generis, which must
control the arrangements for its cultivation. Even the inside plan of
the house may be essentially modified by the relations of the spot
on which it stands. Leaving, however, this subject for conversation
when we meet, I propose to speak in this letter of Mr. Geddes's
farm management.

The farm contains 300 acres : it lies on both sides of the great
western turnpike leading from Syracuse to Auburn. The railway
skirts it on the north, and it is about one mile south of the canal.
Mr. G.'s management is this : He rents the greater part of the
farm to two tenants, who cultivate different parts as they may agree ;
but over the whole Mr. G. retains the entire power of directing, not
only what crops are to be raised, but how the land shall be culti-
vated. By this system, unity is preserved in the management, the
land prevented froni too close cultivation, and a system persevered
in which keeps it in excellent condition. To the tenants a house is
furnished, together with stables, garden, pasturing of cows, hogs
and teams, and one half of the seed-grain and grass-seed, and a

296 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

threshing machine. The tenants do all the work, and deliver one
half to the landlord or in market.

Arrangements about the farm-house. It is impossible to give you
a very correct idea of these arrangements, without a plan ; but I
may state that the house is situated upon and near the brow of the
table land of the country, with a creek upon the south fifty-five feet
below the level of the basement story of the dwelling. This makes
a slope from the house to the creek, which is an unfailing stream.
This position of things determines many of the arrangements about
the premises. Along the brow of the slope to the creek, the barns
and sheds for cattle, sheep and hogs, are placed. The position
secures, in the first place, perfect drainage, which is indispensable
to comfort and health ; and yet it gives an opportunity to retain the
water for rotting manure, where it is the most convenient ; and the
creek supplies an unfailing source of water for cattle and other pur-
poses, both summer and winter.

As water is one of the most indispensable of all articles in hus-
bandry, Mr. Geddes has availed himself of his position to supply
himself in part from the creek. This is effected by means of the
power of the waterfall, which sets and keeps in motion a water-
wheel, which moves a double acting forcing pump, which drives the
water through pipes to his house, for washing, bathing, etc ; to the
barn, for cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry, each kind being separate
and in their proper places ; and tlie waste water goes to the manure
heap, for assisting in the decomposition of straw and refuse matter,
which is received in an impervious basin upon the brow of the ra-
vine. Besides this, there is a sufficiency of water for the two tenants,
for which they pay him, and which really amounts to enough to
cover the whole expense of the watering establishment. The water-
wheel is a most excellent one, being ten feet in diameter, moving
with a slow steady motion, every revolution of which forces to the
top of the hill a gallon of water, which amounts to rather more
than six gallons per minute night and day. A good well of water,
near, the sloop leading to the kitchen, supplies water for domestic
purposes.

Mr. Geddes, in his buildings, acts upon a very sound and useful
principle, one which combines economy and profit with convenience
(if the distinction is proper), namely, that each department of hus-
bandry shall have its house, where all that appertains to it shall be

FARMERS MISCELLANY. 297

conveniently placed and arranged. I say arranged, because that is
the true word, meaning that things are not only put in, but classi-
fied ; so that if you please, you may go in the dark and put your
hand upon any article that may be wanted. 'J'hus there is the car-
riage house, with each harness upon its own peg ; there is the tool-
house, with each tool in the chest or upon its hook ; the poultry
being entirely excluded from these premises, which is not always
the case in other establishments : the grain-barn, the hay-barn, the
sheep, the cows, the hogs, etc. each occupying their own places.
The poultry have suitable conveniences for laying and hatching.
The milk-room, in particular, is worthy of especial notice : it is a
beautiful little building, situated in a triangular place in the yard,
leaving space for driving a team with wood or any other load to the
door of the wood-house, and but a few feet from the entrance door
of the kitchen. It is constructed of cobblestone laid up in mortar,
is thirteen feet square, and the corners are of hewn stone : it is one
slory high on the side facing the kitchen, has a stone floor, with
one room for milk, lighted with two windows, which can of course
be darkened by blinds, so as to exclude the flies, and yet allow the
room to be aired. Upon the south side, the descent gives room for
an ash-house, with its door enclosed in stone. Immediately above
the ash-room, which has an arched roof, is the smoke-house ; the
smoke being admitted from the ashery below, through openings in
the arched roof. The hams, and other meat designed for smoking,
are suspended on hooks on cross-pieces, which are then put in for
smoking. The whole arrangement, as you may readily conceive, is
such as to ensure perfect safety from fire, and to combine every
convenience in each operation. The meat is suffered to remain in
its place through the season, as the room is cool, excludes flies, etc.
Some other conveniences are connected with this little but neat
building, the whole cost of which was only one hundred and fifty
dollars.

Mr. Geddes has under culture, differer^t crops, as follows : 80
acres of wheat, yielding upon an average 20 bushels to the acre =
1600 bushels ; 40 do. oats, averaging 60 bushels to the acre = 2400;
19 do. barley, averaging 37 bushels to the acre = 703 ; 16 do. corn,
averaging 50 bushels per acre = 800 ; with a crop of potatoes,
amounting to about 800 bushels. Besides the above, I might specify
the products of the dairy, the root crop, hay, etc. ; but this is suf-
ficient.

298 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

In closing this epistle, I may very properly remark, that the farm
received the premium from the county society ; and in addition to
this, Mr. G. took the first premium for the best sheep and best bull,
from the same society. It is proper to say, however, that Mr. G.
did not enter his farm for the premium ; but the committee gave an
honorary one, which consists in placing it first on the list of farms.

I have omitted probably many things which would interest you in
regard to the husbandry of Mr. G. You will, however,. see, I believe,
that his system is a profitable one, and that there is nothing that looks
like fancy work. I assure you it wants only a few such farmers in
the several counties, to make this business the most profitable and
honorable in the sight of all — to make labor honorable with the
gentry. I mean, by this, the holding of the plow and rake.

Accept of best wishes, and believe me yours, etc.

P. S. You will perhaps wonder that I never speak of the ladies
who preside over the kitchens and parlors. I can only say, that on
this subject, my gifts are very small. I leave all this to our friend
J. S. of the Farmer's Library : he is the man who attends to these
matters.

Letter VII.

Tyler Post-office, September 29, 1845.
My Dear Sir — In one of my former letters, I alluded to the wool
of the saxon, and intimated to you that wool-growers and manufac-
turers had been deceived in its fineness ; that it really is as coarse
as the merino — certainly no better than the best merinoes ; and
hence inasmuch as it is short in its staple, and light in its fleece,
must be the least profitable to the world, provided it costs as much
to rear them. I propose now to take up this subject once more,
for the purpose of giving more in full than I 1 ave yet done, some
of the results of my examination. I shall conline my remarks, how-
ever, to those points which relate to the measurement of the fibre ;
and it is my purpose to give a comparative view of the measure-
ments I have recently made, from fleeces which were exhibited at
the late fair.

In the first place, I will premise, that the wool on different parts
of the body varies in fineness : this is probably pretty well known.

FARMERS MISCELLANY

299

Thus, the wool of the fore shoulder is invariably the finest ; that
of about the middle of the trunk, the next ; and that of the flank
the coarsest : the latter too contains a greater amount of coarser
hairs, or there is a greater inequality of the fibres tiian elsewhere.
From my theoretical views of this diflference, I am inclined to think
that wool of the evenest grade will be found upon wethers, though
I have no facts to prove this, for I have not made examinations of
their wool as yet.

Again : The diameter of the fibre of wool, referred to the French
standard of measures, is equal to the one-hundredth of a millimetre,
which is not far from the ojVo''^ P^rt of an inch. This one-
hundredth part of a millimetre, and the fibre of wool, are both
exposed to the same magnifying power of the microscope ; and each
division of the scale in fig. 1 represents this part of the inch when
seen under the same power as the fibre of wool, so that you may
have at a glance the comparative diameters of any two fibres under
examination. So much is stated by way of preparation for the
remarks which are to follow.

Fig. 1.

Figure 1, with the scale of measurement as the standard of comparison,
exhibits the comparative diameters of the wool fibre of the two
premium sheep; A 1, is the fibre of wool from the shoulder of
the second prenac^m sheep (Mr. Church's) ; 2, do. from the flank.
B 1, fibre from die shoulder of the first premium sheep (Mr.
Crocker's) ; 2, do. flank.

VOL. II. — NO. II.

Q

300

QUARTERLY JOURNAL
Fig. 2.

Fig.

2. No. 1, fibre of bakewell, magnified as above : it is about the
average fineness of this kind of wool. No. 2, fibre from ewe
belonging to Col. Sherwood, 3 years old (Blakesley sheep). No.
3, do. of Mr. Bailey's ewe. No, 4, do. Mr. Atwood's.

Fig. 3.

J)

Fig. 3. No. 5, fibre of Mr. Ellis's ewe, fleece weighing 61b. 13 oz. No.
6, do. Mr. Nettleton's yearling buck. No. 7, do. the imported 5
per cent South American wool, which you see is nearly as fine
as the best of our flocks. No. 8, do. Col. Sherwood's 3 year old
buck, sheared 8i lb. wool. No. 9, do. finest Saxon wool in market

Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. No. 10, fine Ohio wool. No. 12, do. Saxon of the late Mr.
Grove's excellent flock. No. 13, do. original imported Spanish
wool, by Selh Adams. No. 14, do. Morrell's saxoa.

The above measurements and drawings were made with great
care. A great many fibres were measured : some were finer and
some coarser than those given, and I selected in every case the ave-
rage measurements. One measurement, which I think will interest
the wool-grower^ is that of the imported Spanish low duty wool.
From examination, it seems to have been soiled purposely in order
to give it the appearance of poor wool. Wool-growers should look
to this matter, for undoubtedly an immense amount of fine wool has

farmer's miscellany. 301

been smuggled into the country, and it seems impossible that its
fineness should escape the notice of custom-house officers. I know
not, however, how it is ; but I do know that unless each great
interest looks out for itself, nobody else will, and certainly the
manufacturer is the last one who will look after the interest of the
wool-grower.

With these remarks, I close by subscribing, &c.

P. S. Since writing the above, I have been favored with some
Saxon wool by the Hon. Senator Beekman, from his flock, which
I am much gratified to find is finer than any of the above : the
finest specimen is nearly ygVo of an inch in diameter. It is deci-
dedly finer tlian that which I measured from the celebrated flock of
the late Mr. Grove. I finrl one thing peculiar to the fine saxon :
the hollow part of the fibre is larger than in the coarser wool, which
I believe gives it that silky lustre and soft feel. I designed to have
given you the comparative strength of the above examples of wool ;
but I find my lime so much taken up with other matters, that it is
impossible to enter upon experiments which require so much care
and time in order to be of any value. I shall, however, in the next
series, give you these results.

Letter VIII.

Skaneateles, September 30, 1845.
My Dear Sir — I left Mr. Geddes to-day, and am now on the
extreme western border of the county of Onondaga, at Skaneateles.
I have just been looking over the farm of my friend Fuller, who
makes quite a figure at farming, and is another example of the right
sort of farmers. Mr. F.'s farm is about half a mile from Skaneateles,
upon the eastern slope of a range of elevated ground on the western
shore of the lake. The slope is gentle and uniform. The eastern side
is probably based on the upper limestone of the Hydraulic series, but
extends up so as to reach on the western side the Marcellus shales
probably. The soil, however, is deep, and no rock crops out on the
surface. The eastern side was low and wet, and in fact the whole
slope has been found to require draining, or at least one half of
the whole farm. It is a most interesting case, and presents also a
triumph of skill in the draining and reclaiming of lands. A person

302 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

passing over much of the surface, would hardly suspect that an
inclined plane of that slope would require draining at all. There
are several points at which springs make their appearance. More,
it is plain, must be cut off, and conducted to the lower levels by a
drain ; but very large surfaces appear, which require the same ma-
nagement, although the land is neither springy or apparently wet.
Now Mr. Fuller says, that in making drains, he disagrees with our
friend of Singsing, who favored us with a description of his meihod
in our first number. Mr. Fuller dispenses entirely with flat stones,
and uses those round hard-heads, or any other kind which he finds
scattered about his field. The ditch itself is made in the usual way,
and of sufficient dimensions to answer the purpose intended. Then
two rows of round stones are laid, upor. which a row of larger round
ones completes the lop, and the sam6 kind are filled in to the desired
height. The flat stones are not decidedly objectionable, but there is
usually too much difficulty or expense in procuring them ; whereas
the rounded stones of the field answer the purpose, to say the least,
as well as any, and, besides, a good hand will lay them very fast,
and diminish very considerably the expense of ditching.

I would recommend tiiose fanners who wish to construct cheap
drains, to consult Mr, Fuller, who probably has had more expe-
rience in these works than any man in the Stale. He is quite un-
willing to admit that his system of draining has cost him more than
ten cents per rod. I do not, however, now feel free to speak of all
Mr. Fuller's operations in farming, and in draining ; but I would
say, that if full barns are a good test of a man's success and skill
in this business (and I do not see why they are not), then we need
go no farther, for here the barns are full from top to bottom. I hope,
in conclusion, that Mr. F. will give a full account of his method
of draining, in the next number of the Journal. It is only by means
of collecting the methods adopted by different farmers, that the
practice of husbandry can be advanced in this country, and it is
American farming that we want to know most about. I think you
will agree with me in this sentiment ; and I think, too, you will be
willing that I dismiss for a time this subject. Yours, &c.

farmer's miscellany. 303

Letter IX.

Albany, October 2, 1845.
My Dear Friend — You know very well, that in our intercourse
with our friends, we sometimes misunderstand them even on sub-
jecs devoid of all intricacy. At any rate, it so happened with me in
my visit last summer to my venerable friend David Thomas. T will
therefore devote one letter to the correction of one or two statements
which I then made to you ; and at the same time take the oppor-
tunity to state a few more particulars in regard to the rearing of
fruit trees, which I have just obtained from tlie same high authority.

First, in regard to Dearborn's seedling (see page 84, vol. 2, No.
1), I make my friend to say that it is the very best of pears. It
appears, however, that he gives preference to the virgalieur. I
ought probably to have said that Dearborn's seedling was one of the
best summer pears.

Again (p. 84), in regard to the common locust. This grows well
on calcareous soils, if not injured by the horer : it is the Robinia
hispida wliich declines and perishes.

With these corrections, my friend gives me the following addi-
tional facts, which are undoubtedly the result of much experience
and extensive observation. No tree appears to be more benefitted
by animal manures, than the peach tree. We may often observe this
when it grows near a barnyard, so as to reach the manure ; that
the growth is greater, the leaves greener, and the fruit larger, than
when it stands on sterile ground ; and even as a general rule, fruit
of the same variety is flavored in proportion to its size : the larger,
the finer. Urine may be very advantageously applied to this tree,
especially while it is small, as well as to young apple trees. It not
only hastens their growth, but, by its offensive odor, repels the
borer from the lalter, and the peach-worm {ALgeria) from the for-
mer. A small tree will bear a pint once a fortnight, and perhaps more
and oftener ; for I have never injured any of my trees by this ap-
plication, and consequently have not ascertained the amount wiiich
may be used upon them : certainly large trees will bear much more.

Having given you the above important corrections and additions
of my friend, I close by observing that the village formerly called
Union-springs, is now more frequently and more properly called
Springport, and that Aurora is only the name of a village in the
town of Ledyard. I remain yours, &c.

304 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Letter from J. H. Estabrook, to one of the Editors.

Camden (Maine), August 2G, 1845.
Dear Sir — I send you a short article for your useful agricultural
periodical, should you deem it worthy of a place.

It must be a fact known to all, who are in the habit of observing,
that old orchards scarcely have a tree that is not hollow, or, in other
words, deprived of its heart growth. Apple trees have many enemies
that tend to produce this effect. The borer penetrates to the heart
and pith, generating disease and death in that part, while the new sap
wood continues to grow and flourish. Cutting off" a limb too closely
to the trunk, will often cause rot to penetrate to the heart of the tree.
Woodpeckers frequently make holes, which become inhabited by
ants and lice, and at length disease and decay are propagated to the
heart of the tree. A portion of bark is often accidentally removed,
and the wood under it dies. This decay soon reaches the heart,
while nature is depositing new layers of sap-wood. After a time,
the external wound is healed, but the heart is gone never to return.
These are some of the causes that operate to produce the effects
visible in old orchards. We will now look at the change that this
produces in its fruit-bearing powers. The fruit subsequently pro-
duced, will be deteriorated in size, flavor and fairness ; it will be
incapable of reproducing from seed. Apples from this parentage,
after being gathered and housed, decay prematurely. All scions cut
from limbs of this description, will carry with them the imperfec-
tions of the parent stock.

The question now arises, Is there any remedy ? I answer yes :
thin your old orchards, leaving nothing but limbs of three or four
feet in length ; from these will spring out suckers. These suckers
rise from the wood like in appearance to a wart ; they soon push
through the bark, and grow most luxuriantly, so that in a year or
two fruit is produced from them. Apples produced from scions of
this description, will be equal in every respect to the best produc-
tions of the parent stock in its early growth ; and why ? The sucker
thus produced, is in some measure a parasitic plant, finding root in
the bark and wood of the old stock, which gives to it its peculiar
character of fruit, but no farther. It has the means, within itself,
of its own perfect organization, and has freed itself of its parent
imperfections, viz. a want of pith, without which in the tree, no
fruit can be perfect.

FARMERS MISCELLANY. 305

It will readily be perceived, that the above theory must have a
decided intiuence on the art of engrafting. Whenever the pith is not
brought in perfect apposition, and in contact with j)ith, the seeds of
imperfection are sown, and the fruit will partake of the character of
hollow-tree fruit. Whenever scions are taken from twigs, the true
offspring of a diseased parent stock, the fruit will be imperfect. In
taking scions for engrafting, select either from a young healthy tree,
or from suckers such as I have described as parasitic in their cha-
racter on old diseased stocks ; engraft by taking a twig of a young
healthy tree or sucker as above described ; make an oblique incision
with a sharp knife, cutting the twig entirely off, then bring to it the
scion to be engrafted of exactly the same size, and cut smooth with
the right bevel, so as to apply bark to bark, and pith to pith ; and if
properly secured with suitable composition, there will scarcely be
any stint of growth, and the fruit will appear in due time in all its
original perfection. Formerly when I ate engrafted fruit, I supposed,
as the seeds were almost uniformly blasted, that crossing stocks
would produce the individual, but divest it of the power of procrea-
tion, as we notice in some species of the animal kingdom ; but fur-
ther observation has fully convinced me of my error. It is ignorance
on the part of the engrafter, of the necessity of preserving the power
of the pith as well as the bark, that has led so extensively to a
deterioration of engrafted fruit.

MR. PRENTISS'S FREE MARTIN.

In the first number of this Journal, Dr. Monell, of Newburgh,
gave an article on Free Martins, in which he advanced the opinion
that there are two varieties : the first, which is the most common,
is a hermaphrodite, but has the masculine look, has no desire for
the male, and of course never breeds ; the second resembles the
cow, or female, externally, and exhibits the usual propensities : it
may breed, or it may not. This seems to be a correct generaliza-
tion, at least as much so as possible in deviations of the nature and
character of those which exist in the animals under consideration ;
for it will probably be found true, that no two individuals will exhibit
precisely the same structure, configuration and arrangement of parts.

306 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Irregularities of this kind will not be governed by a law ; and we
believe that at least minor deviations will be found on dissection,
that were not suspected from the appearance of the animal while
living. For a general account of free martins, we refer to page 65
of the first volume ; and proceed here to describe Mr. Prentiss's
animal, which was slaughtered September 2d, and which we were
permitted to examine in company with Mr. Howard of the Cultivator.

Fig. 1.

Figure 1, is a portrait of the head of the animal : it will be noticed that
it resembles a steer of the same age.

Dissection. The parts disclosed on dissection, were about one
fourth the ordinary size of those in the well-formed female. The
ovaries were white and fatty : an incision exhibited imperfectly their
glandular structure. Two small round bodies, similar to graafian
vesicles, were seen in the body of the right ovary. We do not say
that these were perfect graafian vesicles, but only that there were
two round reddish bodies of the size of a small pea, and readily
distinguishable from the enveloping tissue. In one side of the animal,
the ovary was kidney-shaped, and an inch and a half in length ; in
the other side, there were two ovary-like bodies of about the same
size and form. The fallopian tubes were obscure, and appeared more
like ligamentous bodies than usual. The uterus did not appear to
be one continuous body. At the point which answers to the fundus,
or at the insertion of the horns of the uterus, were two oval or rather
cylindrical bodies an inch and a half in length, which came in con-
tact at the bifurcation : these were partially interrupted as they
passed down to form the body of the uterus, but assumed their size

FARMER S MISCELLANY.

307

and cylindrical shape again after about an inch, and passed down
parallel with each other, thus forming the body of tlie organ. A
septum passed across their termination, and formed what appeared
to be two orifices into the uterus ; but this septum finally terminated
in the upper part of the vagina, and in fact only a minute orifice
existed at what is termed the os uteri, an orifice which scarcely

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 2, represents the connections of the organs ; the ovaries, fallopian

tubes, vagina, much smaller than usual.
Fig. 3, represents the glandular bodies, with ducts opening into the vagina.
VOL. II. — NO. II. R

308 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

admitted a crowquill. An inch and a half below the os uteri, a thin
fibrous membrane extended across the vagina, forming a complete
cul de sac; the superior cavity diminishing from a diameter just
admitting the finger, until it terminated in a point at the os uteri ;
while the lower division of the canal admitted the introduction of
two fingers with ease, as far as the membranous partition. Near the
termination of the vagina externally, there was a large mass of fatty
cellular membrane, in which were enveloped four oval bodies of a
glandular structure, which might possibly be called testicles : these
were each supplied with a short straight tube, about three fourths
of an inch in length and one fourth of an inch in diameter, which
opened directly into the vagina. No such bodies are found in the
cow in the normal state, and here we consider them analogous to
testicles in the male, but undeveloped : this opinion rests on their
glandular structure. From this dissection, the relation of the animal
to its sex will be understood without comment.

The animal was three years old. It exhibited a remarkable dis-
position to fatten, as will be seen by its weight as stated below ;
especially when it is considered that it was kept during the past
dry summer in ordinary pasture only, and unsupplied with any othes
food than the parched fields afforded.

Weight of the whole animal 824 lbs.

hide .__ 68

.. fat 70

.. beef.__ 686

Total 824 lbs.

MR. HOPKINS'S OPINION ON THE TRANSFORMATION
OF WHEAT INTO CHESS.

We are obliged, in this case, to state from memory the substance
of a communication in regard to the transformation of wheat ; in-
asmuch as, during our absence, the letter containing the opinion of
our highly respected friend was mislaid.

The case upon which Mr. Hopkins in part founds his opinion,
may be stated as follows : The land was new ; the bearing excel-

farmer's miscellany. 309

lent, and the condition of the whole field was all that a good farmer
could wish. The wheat was well cleaned, came up well, and pro-
mised something more than an ordinary crop. The snow disappeared
in March, or early in the spring, leaving a thick mat of wheat. Tn
April, however, or soon after, a heavy snow fell, covering the whole
field evenly, which remained two or three weeks. Now comes the
result : This field, which had been s^o promising up to the time of
the snow, entirely reversed its promise. There appeared, over most
of the surface, a mouldiness of an uncommon character, as if the
ground had been heated by a thick covering of manure ; and the
whole produce of the field, which had been sown with well cleaned
wheat, without wild seed of any kind, was chess, a heavy crop of
chess, instead of wheat.

This is undoubtedly a strong case, and is certainly extremely per-
plexing ; nevertheless there are many analogous cases on record,
and in the observation of many. For instance, when a field has been
burned over, especially among the New-England hills, a crop of
fire-weed surely follows, if it is not otherwise occupied. So the
common red cherry, as we have often witnessed, succeeds other
growths of timber that have been destroyed.

We believe we have slated the case fairly, and we are probably
driven to the adoption of one of two doctrines, either that wheat
does change into chess, or else the seeds of chess are pretty abun-
dant in the soil previous to its cultivation.

ON MANURES.

Of all substances used as manures, those consisting of the different
parts of animals have always been considered as the most efficient
as fertilizers. Whether we regard the quantity of nitrogen as the
criterion, or the inorganic parts, will make little difference here.
The truth is that both have their influence, and the presence of the
former, producing a tendency to rapid decay, the effect of these
substances is upon the present crop. Yet such parts as the hair,
nails, feathers, wool, bones, etc., on account of their solidity of
structure and the little water they contain, being slow to undergo
decomposition, are among the richest and most permanent of ma-

310 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

nures. We know comparatively little of the value of some of these,
practically ; but the Chinese are said to preserve with the greatest
care, even the parings of the nails, and the clippings of the beard,
to be used as fertilizers of the soil.

Very little use is made in this country of the bodies of animals
for this purpose. If one dies, its carcase is buried, or thrown out to
the dogs or crows ; and thus is wasted a quantity of most valuable
matter, which, if made into a compost with swamp muck or peat,
would serve to convert several tons into a most excellent manure ;
and this at very little trouble, and no expense that would not be re-
paid many fold to the farmer in his crop. How much better would
it be to save such substances where they may be applied to benefit
a particular portion of land, than to let them go to scatter a divided
influence on the world?

Precisely similar is the case with the blood and offals of animals
butchered for our markets. Thousands are killed every year, and
yet we venture to say that by far the greater part is carelessly
thrown away, where it will be of no use ; or is carried away by the
streams, to be diffused over all the world. There is by far too much
generosity in this, and a little more economy might be practised
with profit. There is an abundance of peat in every vicinity, and
how easily might this blood and offals be used to convert it into a
most active manure ? How much of this is wasted in our large cities,
where thousands of animals perish annually ? Enough certainly to
supply the grain that is devoured by a very large portion of the
inhabitants.

We have lately seen a statement, that thirty thousand head of
cattle are yearly slaughtered in the city of Troy, the greater part
of whose blood and offals is throw^n into the Hudson river.
• And here we would ask the question of every householder who has
a little garden or only a spot of ground where he raises, or perhaps
we should rather say starves, a few stinted, scrawny vegetables, or
perhaps nothing but a little patch of skeleton flowers, whose an-
cestors were the pride of their soil, but whose children, under the
neglect of ignorance, are fast going to nothing ; how much really
valuable manure he sees wasted every year from his own house ?
Count the woolen rags ; the sweepings of your carpets — a capital
manure ; the bones ; better yet, the soapsuds, the waste of the
kitchen, everything that has ever helped to constitute a plant or an

farmer's miscellany. 311

animal, that is now thrown out to be a nuisance in our streets ; and
how much do you find ? Why enough to make your scanty bit of
ground a productive farm, compared with the desert it is now. It
wants but a Httle economy and prudence to save all these, and
making them into a compost even with a portion of the soil itself in
some small corner, to make your gardens what they ought to be ;
and where now you grow vegetables which you can hardly find
when you want them, you might raise as good as any one.

Bones are a very powerful fertilizer ; but like the other parts of
animals, are apt to be entirely wasted, in this country. The English
can send over to this country, and pay a high price for them, and,
after all the expense, make them profitable; but our farmers have
not opened their eyes yet to their own interest, or they would not
suffer this to be done. All that is necessary to prepare them for use,
is to grind them or break them into small pieces, when they may be
applied directly to the crop, or mixed with the compost heap till de-
composition has commenced. They are sometimes applied whole
about the roots of trees and vines, and with marked effect.

Recent bones contain a considerable quantity of animal matter,
which is slowly taken from them by the action of the air and water.
The benefit derived from these, must be ascribed to this as well as
the earthy salts which constitute by far the greater part of them.
But when bones are burned, the organic part is entirely consumed ;
and when applied in this way, the phosphate of lime contained, is
probably the most efficient substance.

But in the liquid excrements of animals, we have a manure of no
little value ; indeed, far more valuable than the solid. In the former
are found all the soluble salts which the animal system contains,
together with the greater part of the substances producing nitrogen.
The urine consists of the wastes of the body : this is continually,
every instant, undergoing change. Portions of matter which help to
form our bodies to-day, will be gone to-morrow ; and in the course
of a few years, the whole is renovated. Everything, except what
is carried off by the lungs and skin, passes off with the urine.

The solid excrements consist only of those parts of the food
which ure not appropriated to, or fit for the nourishment of, the body,
with a small quantity of the peculiar secretion of the intestines.
Now, from these remarks, it will be seen that in the liquid and solid
excrements, we have the means of replacing all that is taken from

312 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

our fields in the form of crops. What is fed to the animal in the
adult state, is immediately returned, if not in substance, at least in
quantity ; for the full-grown animal, suifering no increase of body,
requires only so much food as will compensate for the waste con-
stantly taking place. In the young and growing animal, a little more
is necessary, to assist in the construction of bones, muscles, etc.;
whilst from the old animal, which is continually becoming smaller,
more is given off than is consumed. Thus the action of crops in
exhausting the land will readily appear, as also the use of the ap-
plication of manures. What is taken off and fed to cattle or con-
sumed by man, is so much of the inorganic matter of the soil taken
away, which, if necessary to the production of one perfect crop, is
as necessary for another ; and as the soil is deprived of these year
by year, its capabilities will be diminished, till it becomes incapable
of producing the same crop. In animal manures we restore all this,
and thus are enabled, for any length of time, not only to keep up,
but to increase its productiveness.

But, on no farm, can the amount of animal manure produced, be
equal to the waste. Grain is carried to the distant market, as also
fattened animals, and consumed there ; all of which is so much
lost to the soil, and unless they are restored, will become so deficient
as to leave the soil entirely exhausted. It becomes necessary, there-
fore, to resort to artificial manures to supply this loss, and the scien-
tific farmer will use the greatest care to convert every convertible
substance into food for his crops.

But as well known as it is at the present day that the liquid are
of more value than the solid contents of the yard, it is matter of no
little surprise that some men, in building their stables, select the
very top of some hillock, for the express purpose, as it would seem,
of draining off all the fluids that would otherwise collect about them,
and in this way lose the greater and the better part of their manure.
Wherever the yard is situated, it should be "made lower in the centre
than at the sides, and well paved with stones or a solid bed of clay.
This will serve as a basin to hold all the drainings of the stables, and
here they may be mixed with the solid manures : this will prevent
the fermentation which they will undergo if collected in pools or
tanks. If such are used, it should only be for the purpose of saving
these liquids in order to restore them again to the dung heap. Much

farmer's miscellany. 313

valuable manure is every year lost to the farmer, who is careless as
to the preservation of them.

A number of methods have been recommended for preserving
their active properties, where the substances themselves are not
wasted. They are disposed to undergo a change in a few hours ;
and any one will be aware of this fact, who reflects upon the power-
ful odor of ammonia which is constantly rising in his stables. This
is the result of the decomposition of the urine of all animals, which
contains substances rich in nitrogen ; and being very volaiile, it
escapes into the air and is lost, unless it is fixed by the application
of some substance which will unite with it or absorb it. Gypsum
has been recommended, to be sprinkled freely every day upon the
floor of the stables. Others have advised that the floor should be
sprinkled with a strong solution of common salt in water, which will
act in a similar way. Saw-dust or chaff, or such substances, which
will absorb the liquids, answer a very good purpose, as thus they
may be carried out and mixed with the contents of the yard.

It does not answer, as was said before, to collect it in a mass by
itself, but it should always be largely diluted with water, or absorbed
by some substance which will fix it, either by forming a chemical
compound, or by holding it in its pores, or should be mixed with
substances which will absorb the gases as they are formed. Where
charcoal can be procured in sufficient quantity, it will be found
valuable for this purpose. This has the power of preventing its
decay, and of holding a large quantity in its pores, till it can be
spread upon the land to be washed out by the showers ; or if it
should undergo decomposition, still the charcoal may absorb a vast
amount of the gases, and preserve them until they are required for
use. When this can not be used, peat will be found an excellent
substitute. But in any case these liquids should always be mixed
with the solid manures, before applied, especially if they are col-
lected in large quantities. They are too powerful to be used alone,
unless very much diluted.

A preparation of urine, under the name of urate, has been made
by mixing with it one-seventh of its weight of powdered gypsum,
and, after it has stood for a few days, pouring off the liquid ; but in
this way, much of the useful matter is lost.

What immense quantities of this kind of manure are yearly suf-
fered to waste ! How few the farmers who make any effort to save

314 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

it, or fix the least value upon it ! In Flanders, the recent urine of
one cow is valued at forty shillings a year (Johnston). What then
will be the amount of waste, upon any moderate sized farm, let each
owner calculate for himself. At very little expense the whole might
be saved, and a large sum added to the gains of the farmer. Tanks
should be constructed in the vicinity of the stables, with suitable
conductors, which would receive it, whence it may be pumped out
and applied to the compost heap, or even to the common mass of
manure in the yard.

NEW BOOKS.

The American Shepherd. By L. A, Morrell. 12mo. pp.437. Harper & Brothers.

We believe Mr. Morrell's book to be an excellent treatise, em-
bracing in its range the history of the sheep, the best and most
approved modes of management in health and disease, their breeds
and their relative value, etc. In illustration of his subject, Mr. M.
has furnished portraits of the different breeds, and woodcuts showing
the anatomy and structure of the most important organs of the
animal. In an appendix, we find a series of letters from distinguished
breeders and wool-growers, relating to the individual management
of their flocks. To the reflecting mind these letters are quite im-
portant, coming as they do from experienced gentlemen located in
different parts of the country : they furnish a great amount of useful
and practical information, as well as hints and suggestions which
may be acted upon and applied to the circumstances «f each indivi-
dual case.

The agricultural press has spoken, we believe, uniformly in com-
mendation of this work. We have not ourselves had time to give it
that thorough study which is required in order to point out what is
most valuable in the book, or wherein it is defective. In reading it
cursorily, we observed frequently words and phrases which we
thought might be improved, so far as composition is concerned. The
work evinces much labor and research, and indeed expense, as any-
one may satisfy himself if he will but consider the amount of cor-
respondence it must have required to procure all the facts necessary
to be used in the compilation of a volume which gives satisfactory
information upon so wide a range of inquiry as is embraced in the
subject of sheep husbandry. The publishers have executed their
share of the task in a beautiful manner : it is just such a book as
we like to see, consisting of good white paper, and printed witli a
very neat and uniform type.

NEW BOOKS. 315

First Annual Report of the Geology of the State or Vermont. By
C. B. Adams, State Geologist.

We arc gratified in receiving the first Geological Report of Prof.
Adams, just as our number was in press. On a hasty perusal, we
find that Prof. A., with his assistants, have accomplished a very-
creditable amount of labor, during the season which has just ter-
minated The report contains an exposition of the economical geo-
logy of the State, embracing some of the results of examinalions of
the iron ore beds and veins, of those of manganese, and of the
marbles and limestone clays and sandstones. In all of these male-
rials, Vermont is rich. We have always believed that when carefully
examined, it would be found far more productive in many of the
most important substances, than has been expected ; and that the
survey will prove a mo'^t valuable means of developing, in a short
period, the peculiar wealth of the State. We hope, however, that
the survey may not be hurried to an end, and we are especially
pleased to know that it is regarded with high favor by ihe most in-
telligent and influential men in the State. The people may well
consider that the expenditures which will be incurred in this enter-
prize will be extremely small, in proportion to the benefits which
will flow from its completion. There is an important consideration
which is worthy of remark now, namely, that Vermont will soon have
facilities to market for the many products of her mountains and
vallies ; that many of these products, which are now of but little
value, will become important by the new means of communication
with Boston and the larger cities of the State of New- York, which
will soon be opened ; and that enterprise and capital will be speedily
doubled, by the discoveries of the survey, and the contemplated
avenues to market. The farmer and mechanic, too, will feel at once
the combined influence of these movements on their prosperity.

We agree, however, with President Hitchcock in his remarks
in a letter to Prof. Adams (p. 67), that the chief use of the survey
will consist in describing and arranging the substances already
known, or only partially described and known ; settling the cha-
racters of the rocks, so as to show what may and what may not be
expected in them, and thus preventing useless expenditures ; in
making suggestions as to the substances only partially in use ; and
in awakening men, all over the State, in respect to the new things
which may be considered as compatible with formations that exist
within their territory.

VOL. II. — NO. II.

316 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

EXTRACTS

FROM

FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC JOURNALS.

[ Frrm the London Athensum.]

TRANSACTIONS OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR
THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

CSIEHIISTRie^.

Experiments on the spheroidal state of bodies, and. its application
to steam-boilers ; and on the freezing of water in red hot vessels.
By Prof. BouTiGNY.

Prof. B. proceeded to show, that a drop of water projected upon
a red hot plate, does not touch it ; but that a repulsive action is ex-
erted between the plate and fluid, which keeps the latter in a state of
rapid vibration. At a wliite heat, this repulsive energy acts with the
greatest force, but ceases or becomes nothing at a brown-red heat.
The temperature of the water whilst in the spheroidal state, is found
to be only 96°, and this temperature is maintained so long as the
heat of the plate is kept up. To bring the water to a boiling point
(212°), it is necessary to cool the plate. These phenomena are ex-
plained by Prof. Boutigny, on the supposition that the sphere of
water has a perfect reflecting surface, and consequently that the
lieat of the incandescent plate is reflected back upon it ; and some
experiments have been made which show that this is the case, the
plate becoming visibly redder over those parts on which the vibrating
globule played. Several experiments were made in proof of this
necessary cooling, to produce ebullition. The red hotplate, with its
spheroidal drop, was renewed from the spirit lamp, and after a minute
or two, the water began to boil, and was rapidly dissipated in steam.
Ammonia and ether were shown, although exceedingly volatile, to
follow the same law. Iodine put upon the heated plate, became fluid,
and revolved in the same manner as other fluids, no vapors escaping
whilst the high temperature of the metal was maintained ; but when
allowed to cool to the point of dull redness, it was immediately dis-
sipated in violet vapors. The nitrate of ammonia fused on the glow-
ing hot plate, and vibrated with great energy ; but on cooling of ihe
plate, the salt entered into vivid combustion. The repulsive action
was shown by plunging a lump of silver, glowing at a red heat, into
water. As long as its bright redness remained, there was no ebulli-

FOREIGN EXTRACTS. 317

tion ; but as it slowly cooled, boiling took place. The application of
these principles, involved in these phenomena that which appears
in the tempering of steel. If a metal to be tempered is in a liighly
incandescent state, the necessary hardening will not take place on
plunging into water. It is therefore necessary that a certain tempera-
ture should be observed. Experiments were made to show that the
repulsive power of the spheroidal fluid existed not merely between
it and the hot plate, but between it and other fluids. Ether and
water thus repelled each other, and water rested on and rolled over
turpentine.

The bursting of steam boilers came next under consideration,
and it was shown that many serious explosions may be referred to
the phenomena under consideration, ]n a great many cases ex-
plosions have occurred during the cooling of the boilers, after the
fire was withdrawn. An experimcni was shown in proof of the view
of the Professor. A sphere of copper, fitted with a safety valve,
was healed, and a litlle water put into it : it was securely corked, and
withdrawn from the lamp. .As long as the metal remained red, every
thing was quiet ; but on coolmg, the cork was blown out with
violence.

The concluding experiment excited great interest. The production
of ice, in a vessel at a red heat, was so anomalous, that every one
was desirous of witnessing the phenomenon. It was performed in
the following manner : A deep platina capsule was brought to a
glowing red heat, and at the same moment liquid sulphurous acid
and some water were projected into the vessel ; the rapid evapora-
tion of the volatile sulphurous acid, which enters into ebullition at
the freezing point, produced such a degree of cold, that a large
lump of ice was immediately formed, and being thrown out of the
red hot vessel, was handed round to the company.

On the chemical changes occurring in iron furnaces. By Dr. Lyon
Playfair and Prof, Bunsen,
The object of the paper was to determine the gaseous products
of hot-blast iron furnaces. It was found that the process of coking
continued down in the furnace to the depth of 24 feet, but the dis-
tillation reached its maximum at the depth of 14 feet, and that the
formation of tar took place at between 14 and 17 feet. A great dimi-
nution of oxygen is found to occur at those points where the gases
become developed, and hence they pass away unconsumed or without
undergoing combustion. It has been estimated that 91 per cent of
the heating material is thus lost in the form of gaseous products.
The authors suggest as a means of remedying these losses, to con-
struct a canal just at the point where the gases are given off, for
the purpose of conveying these products to other parts where their
high heating and illuminating powers may be employed advanta-

318 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

geously. These gases in combustion with a due supply of oxygen,
would give a temperature higher than is necessary to smelt iron ;
and although the authors do not propose to employ ihem for this
purpose, they however suggest the advantage of employing that
waste material for heating steam apparatus, and many manufactur-
ing purposes.

ZOOL.OGV AND BOTAIVIT.

The Rev. L. Jennings read a paper, on the Turf of the Cam-
bridgeshire Fens. This turf was not formed of sphagnum, as most
peat, but from various species of aquatic plants which had accumu-
lated for a long series of years above the remains of forest trees,
which lie buried at the bottom of the moor. There are two di.-^tinct
kinds of turf, the upper and loiver ; the former is the more compact
and heavy of the two ; the latter consists entirely of the bark and wood
of submerged trees. The turf is not now rapidly formed, on account
of the improved systems of draining. Formerly it was supposed to
grow about 20 inches in sixteen years.

Dr. Falconer said that he had observed in Cashmere, at the bot-
toms of the lakes, turf of a very similar kind to the lower bed just
mentioned. It consisted of the remains of Chara, Potamogeton,
Utricularia and Nelumhium. The inhabitants obtained it from the
bottom of the ponds by means of rakes, and used ii as fuel.

Mr. Babington stated that the character of the Scotch and Irish
bogs was different from that of the fens of Cambridgeshire. He
had seen peat procured from the bottoms of lakes, in the same way
as described by Dr. Falconer in Cashmere.

Mr. H. E. Strickland had seen peat in Ireland converted into a
substance as hard as jet, so that it might be used by the turner.
The formation of peat threw much light on the formation of coal.
There could be no doubt but that some of our coal beds were formed
in bogs, whilst others were formed at the bottom of seas.

Mr. Selby had seen peat quite solid and yellow, like amber.

I'he Bishop of Norwich stated that the trees buried in the bogs
of Lancashire, exhibited marks of being burnt, and many of them
had on them the strokes of the axe.

Mr. Dowden pointed out the remarkable fact in Mr. Jenyns's
observations, that the light turf was undermost.

Prof. Allman laid before the section a monstrosity, occurring in
the Saxifraga geum. The three external verticels of the florets
were normal ; but between the stamens and pistil, there was de-
veloped a series of adventitious carpels, crowded upon the margin
of the cup-like production which surrounds the lower half of the
pistil. These adventitious carpels were characterized by their backs
being turned towards the axis of the flower. The carpels bear the

FOREIGN EXTRACTS. 319

ovules on their margins, which acquired a very considerable degree
of development, becoming completely anatropous like those in the
normal ovary.

Prof, Henslow exhibited a specimen of the Papover orientalis, in
which the filaments of the stamens were converted into bodies
bearing ovules.

On mineral manure. By Prof. Liebig.
Soils exist under varying conditions, being greatly influenced by
geological and geographical condiiions. I'hey are improved byadapt-
mg to them those manures which these circumstances require. In a
wet region, tliose mineral manures should be selected which are not
nnmedialely soluble, but which slowly decompose so as to meet the
required exigency of the crop. This is proposed to be obtained
by the manufacture of mineral manures under the guidance of
this principle ; and as each kind of grain requires in part different
elements, or at least different proportions of the same elements, it is
proposed to make manures specially adapted to each kind of grain.
It was, in illustration of the above, pointed out that wheat, oats,
leguminous plants and potatoes, each require a different kind of
manure, to bring it to the highest state of perfection to which it is
susceptible.

Coprolitic Nodules. From the paper of Prof. Henslow, we
learn that these nodules abound in the Green sand, London clay
and Red crag. It appears from analysis that these nodules abound
in phosphate of lime, and may be used to advantage in Agriculture.
They yield from 50 - 60 per cent of phosphate of lime. Equivalent
formations exist in this country, and will probably yield the same
substance.

Ashes of the Narcotic Plants. By F. C. Wrightson.

It is maintained that the great problem of the chemistry of the
present day, in its application to agriculture, is to determine the con-
ditions necessary for a soil to produce the largest amount of any
given crop for the suslenance of man or animals. The solution of
this problem will be made, when it is determined what mineral con-
ditions are essential to obtain vegetables in their full perfection.
The analysis of our cultivated plants will not be sufficient for this
purpose ; but it will be necessary also to analize the weeds which
spring up among them, and which are unfit for the sustenance of
man, for these also rob the soil of much that is essential to the per-
fection of our cultivated plants. Besides robbing the soil of elements
wanted for the valuable ones, they also injure it mechanically,
shading and otherwise interfering with their growth.

320 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

ETHIVOIiOOY.

Dr. G. R. Latham, on the ethnography of the American languages.
He opened by explaining liie extent of the Esquinnaux tongues,
by pointing out tiie character of their locaHty as being one that we
should naturally expect to find transitional to the Fo language of
America and Asia : he stated, however, that tiiey had been cut off
on both sides by broad lines of separation. Tliese lines he consi-
dered exaggerated. Between them and the Athabascan, between
the Athabascan and Cooloch, between the (>ooloch and Oregon, be-
tween the Oregon and Californian, he could draw no definite lines.
The Californian passed into the Mexican, the Mexican into those of
South America. On the other hand, the Curile, Corean and Japan-
ese tongues were akin to the Esquimaux, and so were the Siberian.
He was satisfied that the commonplace view was the true one ; viz,
that the Esquimaux languages connected the old and new worlds.
He further added that the glossorial affinities of the Polysynthetic
tongues were as real as their grammatical analogies. The American
Minister (Mr. Everett) remarked that ihe divisions of Dr. Latham
did not agree with those recognized by American scholars. He ob-
served that the languages of the United States were classed in eight
divisions ; that between these there was certainly a general affinity,
such as between the more distant languages of the old world ; that
the difference between the American tongues was not so great as
to make against the general unity of the human race ; but that still
it was so great as to render the processes by which the alliances
were shown between them, convertible towards showing alliances
between any other languages whatever. He did not see in what
sense Dr. Latham gave the word affinitij, and desired to see the
details by which eight isolated classes were run into each other, and
the particular facts by which the current divisions were broken
down. The contrast between the grammatical analogy and the
glossorial differences of the American tongues was generally re-
cognized.

CiE:OI..OC}T'.

Remarks of the Dean of Westminster, suggested by a lecture of
Mr. MuRCHisoN on the geology of Russia.
The Dean said, that it was not for him to eulogise the scientific
merits of the address they had just heard. He might, however, be
permitted to say, that it appeared to him that Mr. Murchison had,
like a soi-disant old soldier, taken a rapid military glance over the
wide extent of country, and caught, with singular felicity, its great
and leading features ; but in another view, all this was no military
achievement. He had not, with purposes it might be hostile, sur-
veyed that distant land, to discover its weak places for assault, to

FOREIGN EXTRACTS. 321

see where fire and Sword and desolation could most easily be car-
ried into the recesses of its national life : he had gone as a stranger,
but as a friend, to tell the Czar what were the riches of his vast
dominions ; to the inhabitants of Russia, how they might best turn
to account the natural blessings which a gracious Providence had
stored around them. As this seemed to him to be closely connected
with one special feature of this association, nothing in it had been
pleasanter to him, and he doubted not to others, than the sight of
so many foreigners, from every nation, gathered at this friendly
meeting : they seemed to be the deputies from all the civilized
world. And he was well convinced that there was great usefulness
in (his : the more the ties which bind society together are thus
laced and interwoven, the better. The more men come to under-
stand one another, the harder it is to divide and embitter them ;
and this on a smaller scale at home, as well as on a larger scale
with foreigners and strangers, was the work of this association. Its
very character was, for this very purpose, migratory, that it might
be the means of bringing together the lovers of science in all the
different centres of our widely scattered provincial life. In doing
this, moreover, it achieved another good ; for it thus tended to
foster and nourish up many a scattered seed of philosophy, which,
but for this care, would certainly have perished. Many who, from
poverty, or want of acquaintance with the scientific, hardly dared
to aspire to the ciiltivaiion of the science which they loved, were
thus found out of their homes by somebody, had their tastes con-
firmed, their views enlarged, and their love of science fixed ; as they
heard the words and saw the sights which were now around them,
and came to know the faces of these eminent philosophers, each
one's heart kindled within him, and throbbed with secret conscious-
ness that I too am a lover and follower of nature. And believing
that these good results did follow from the existence of this assso-
ciation, he (the Dean of Westminster) was ready to welcome it to
his own neighbourhood, although he was not ignorant of the re-
proaches to which it had been subjected. He need only say, that if
he believed those reproaches, it would receive no welcome from
him. He, with all whom he saw before him, would rather, far, be
ignorant utterly of every scientific fact or principle, than have the
simplicity of his faith in that which was dearer to him far than life
itself, assailed or shaken. But he denied the truth of those re-
proaches : here, happily, they had not been put forward. He indeed
must be a rash man who should dare to whisper, here at Cam-
bridge, that there was any hostility or opposition between science
and religion. Here, where the mighty Newton walked, reasoned
and discovered ; here, where he, qui ingenio genus humanum
superavit, yet bowed himself as a meek believer before the Lord
his God ; here at least such aspersions, we might trust, would not
be heard. But vented they had been elsewhere ; and they there-
fore deserved a passing word. Of those, then, who argued thus,

322 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

if indeed they did so in a real and honest though mistaken fear
that the truths of rehgion might suffer by these inquiries, he would
speak with the utmost tenderness. Feelings such as these, where
they did really exist, were so closely allied to all that was sacred,
that they should receive no harsh or scornful word from him. But
whilst he was thus tender to the men, he was bound to deal fairly
with their argument, and this he must contend was utterly futile.
Instead of such sensitive fear lest this or that discovery might seem
to contradict revelation being a mark of faith, he would contend that
it was a mark of the want of faith. True faith wou'd say, " These
are God's two voices : both must be true." He who had a secret
lurking suspicion that possibly, at last, revelation was not certainly
true, he might tremble when he heard this or that discovery, and
shrink from the leading of science, lest it should shake his faith ;
and thus, therefore, would he (the Dean of Westminster) deal
with such honest fears : he would not admit them to be the marks
of a strong faith, but he would treat tenderly, as weak believers,
those whom they assailed ; and he would endeavor to show to
these, their victims, how unreal they in truth were, for most unreal
they are.

There is no opposition between science and religion. Rather, he
would contend, was science the offspring of Christianity : Chris-
tianity had developed within man the powers he needed to pursue
science truly : Christianity, and that only, had given to man the
patience, humility and courage which could make him truly a
philosopher. Only the christian man could look nature calmly in
the face, and reverently and yet boldly compel her to disclose lo
him her secret laws. The unbeliever might look at nature as a
compound of conflicting powers, bent on capriciously, or with a
deeper malice, vexing and tormenting him ; or, with the sneer of
the cynic on his face, he might resolve all into a purposeless, law-
less chance : but he only who knows of a designer, can trace out
the design ; he only who has the interpretation given him by reve-
lation can trace in the marred, altered, disfigured works around, the
true and all-pervading laws of the one Supreme and Universal
Cause. And if, as he admitted, there was a temptation to unbelief,
which in one way beset such studies, still this was no argument
against their use ; it did but show that, like all other high and noble
things, they might be abused as well as used. But the unbeliever
who called himself a philosopher, was an unbeliever, not because,
but in spite, of his philosophy : just so far as he was truly a philo-
sopher, a simple, humble follower of facts, a tracer of God's book
of works ; just so far was he in the right temper of mind to be a
believer and a tracer of God's other book of revelation. No ! there
was no opposition between true science and revelation. This fear
was nothing more than the unreal phantom, which, in former and
darker times, had led men to try to put down all knowledge of na-
ture, lest it should at any time deny their own traditions, which

FOREIGN EXTRACTS. 323

they fondly put instead of revelation. It was the very same fear
as that which had troubled the life and embittered the end of Co-
pernicus and Gallileo. Instead of yielding to it, let them, under the
wise restraints on theorizing laid down for them the other night
by Sir J. Herschell, pursue calmly, humbly and patiently, their re-
searches into nature : let them feel here that He who made liglit to
be, and fashioned the eye to receive it, did mean that it should re-
ceive it ; and that, in like manner. He who framed the mind of
man, with its capacity for observation, and its deep longing to
reduce all around him to some orderly arrangem'^nt and directing
laws, and who stored the earth beneath him and the heavens above
him with fit materials for observation and inquiry, did really intend
that man should search them out, and read in all these revelations,
and discover in these laws, the marks and evidence of His directing
hand, who planned, created, and sustains them.

The British Parliament have made liberal appropriations, during
its last session, to various scientific enterprizes. Among the objects
provided for, are the following : £"50,020 for rooms to be added to
the British Museum ; £6217 for the purchase of certain collec-
tions ; £1500 for the National Gallery ; £8850 for the geological
survey of the present year ; £5839 for the expenses of magnetic
observatories at home and abroad ; and £1500 for the monuments to
Lord de Saumarez, Lord Exmouth, and Sir Sidney Smith, intended
for Greenwich Hospital.

The Report by Mr. Watt on the Iron Trade in Scotland, read
before the British Association, contains the following particulars :
At the present moment (July 1845), there are extensive new iron
works erecting in Scotland, and important additions are being made
to the old furnaces now at work. The increase in the annual quantity
of pig iron smelted in that country, in April 1845, amounts to 37.4
per cent.

The following remarks were made by Mr. Porter, in regard to
the iron trade, at the close of the Report :

The iron made at the beginning of the present century, amounted
to

150,000 tons

In 1806

258,000

1823...-

452,000

1825

581,000

1828

703,000

1835

1,000,000

1836

1,200,000

1840

1,500,000

VOL. II. — NO. II.

324 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Mean height of the continents above the surface of the sea : By
Baron von Humboldt. — Since immense and lofty chains of moun-
tains occupy our imaginations, by presenting themselves as evi-
dences of vast terrestrial revolutions, as the boundaries of climates,
as great water-sheds, or as the bearers of different vegetable worlds ;
it becomes so much thc3 more necessary to show, by a correct nu-
merical estimate of their volume, how small the whole quantity of
the elevated masses is in comparison with the area of entire coun-
tries. The mass of the Pyrenees, for example — a chain, the mean
height of whose summits, and the superficial extent of whose base,
are known bv accurate measurements — would, if distributed over
the area of France, increase the height of that country only 115
English feet. The mass of the eastern and western chains of the
Alps would, in the same manner, raise the height of the flat country
of Europe by only 21 "^ English feet. By means of a laborious inves-
tigation, which, from its very nature, only gives the upper limit,
i. e. a number which may be smaller, but can not be larger, I have
ascertained that the centre of gravity of the volume of the land
which rises above the present level of the sea, is situated at a height
of 671 and 748 English feet in Europe and North America, and
1131 '8 and 1151 English feet in Asia and South America.* These
calculations indicate the lowness of the northern regions ; the great
steppes of the plains of Siberia are counterbalanced by the enor-
mous swellings of the surface of Asia between lat. 28^° and 40°,
between the Himalaya, the northern Thibetian Kuen-Lun, and the
Sky mountains. We can, to a certain extent, determine, from the
estimated amounts, where the plutonic force of the interior of the
globe has operated with greatest power in elevating continental
masses. The mean height of the non-mountainous portion of France
does not exceed 512 English feet.

[From the New- York Tribune, October 18.]

AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

The Farmers' Club held its regular semi-monthly meeting
yesterday. The hour devoted to miscellaneous matters was fully
occupied. An interesting paper on guano, and its application to
plants, was read and commented on. It appears that the best method
of using guano for iiorlicultural purposes, is to dissolve one pint of
it in fcnir gallons of water, and use freely about the roots. A paper
was next read, translated by Mr. Meigs, from the Paris Horticultural
Review, on the palm and date tree, giving an account of the nu-
merous varieties ; and another paper by Mr. Renier, on the cultiva-
tion of the potato, with some interesting statements regarding the

* The corresponding amount for the whole globe will consequently be somewhat
less than 1000 feet.

DOMESTIC EXTRACTS. 325

cultivation of potatoes which he had imported from Madagascar.
A letter from Brussels, addressed to the Club, was read, and con-
tained an account of the annual meeting of the Agricultural and
Floral Society of Brussels. Some statements were then made re-
garding the effect of galvanism on grape vines, which had been
found to flourish wonderfully under its influence. A lelter was then
read from Lieut. Marshall, U. S. N,, of U. S. Ship Portsmouth,
dated at Rio Janeiro, detailing the results of his discoveries and
investigations in regard to a new and valuable plant, the New-
Zealand flax : he hopes to be able to send to the Institute a speci-
men of this plant. An invitation was received from the Westchester
Horticultural Society, for a visit from the Farmers' Club, or a de-
legation from it, yesterday, and another from Flushing to-day : both
were accepted, and delegates appointed to each. The subject of the
preservation of fruit trees then came up, and was treated de novo in
all its branches. Tiic chairman, Col. Clark, having stated that coal
tar had been found very eflicacious employed about the roots of
peach trees, suggested that this remedy be adopted and recommended
by the Club. Dr. Underhill was afraid of doing so, as he knew that
the coal tar, or residuum of bituminous coal, was a very powerful
agent, and, in his opinion, must prove injurious if not positively
destructive to the trees. In England it had been the practice many
years to saturate fence posts in this bitumen, while hot, so as to
render them impervious to moisture ; and in the operation, many
persons contracted violent inflammations in their faces, by the mere
exhalations wliich escaped from it. Col. Clark withdrew his sug-
gestion, and thought it better that farther experiments should be
made before the Club endorsed the coal tar. He, however, alluded
to the residuum produced by the Gas Works in Centre-street, where
anthracite coal was used, and the carbureited hydrogen disengaged
by the agency of fluid rosin. The Gas Works in Eighteenth-street
were carried on with bituminous coal : of the tar thus produced, he
knew nothing. Later in the discussion, a gentleman mentioned that
he had kept a large peach orchard of over two hundred trees per-
fectly free from the grub for seven or eight years, by the use of
hard soap freely rubbed upon the body and hmbs of each tree. A
committee was then appointed to consider the project of publishing
in a volume the proceedings of the Club for the past year.

The regular topic of discussion was then announced — the cul-
tivation of corn ; and Dr. Field was called on. He stated that he
had made close observations during the four or five years of his
farming experience, and had become satisfied that the old system of
cultivating corn was decidedly erroneous, although he would not
deny that farmers were in the habit of producing very good crops in
old times. During his first year he had followed the old system, and
he did not obtain so much corn from ten acres as he now got from
two. The old way was to begin by ploughing ; then to hoe ; then
plough and then hoe again, and this sometimes done three times

326 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

instead of twice. This, he was fully convinced, was a most injurious
practice. In the first place, ploughing disturbed the manure buried
with the turf which had been turned over, and permitted the volatile
and nourishing gases, the essence as it were of the manure, to
escape ; and the process of hilling brought the roots too much
exposed to the sun, and permitted too much moisture to gather
round their extremities. In the next, ploughing cut off a great many
of the little roots, which were all-important in the process of nutri-
tion. His plan was to first prepare the ground well; manure it
plentifully ; plant the corn in hills about three feet apart, and six or
eight seeds in each, not forgetting to manure the seed in each hill
very powerfully. When it had fairly come up, he put in his cul-
tivator, an excellent affair of his own invention ; then hoed again ;
pulled out all but three or four stalks in each hill, and again applied
the cultivator — sometimes a third time. He always cut his corn
close to the ground.

Dr. Underhill agreed that the cultivator was much belter than the
plow : too much ploughing and hilling was very injurious. There
was no danger of manuring corn too much. He stated that common
bog swamp could be turned into excellent corn land, by first drain-
ing, cutting down the bogs, and then applying a light coat of four
or five inches of sand ; silex being a necessary constituent in the
production of corn, especially in the stalk, enabling it to stand.
From swamp land thus prepared, he had gathered eighty-five bu-
shels of corn to the acre. As to cutting up corn at the roots, that
had long been decided. Judge Buel had discovered, several years
ago, that seven or eight per centum was gained in the grain by this,
while the stalks were worth three times the money, six or seven
tons of excellent fodder being produced from every acre.

Some farther remarks were made by different gentlemen, in re-
gard to modes of cullivalion, manure, preserving from crows, etc.
etc.; and some fine pear grafts, inserted in the roots of the pear
tree, and some Isabella grape cuttings, were exhibited by Mr. Kel-
sey. The subject for the next general discussion was then announced,
the treatment of root crops for soiling ; and the Club adjourned.

[From the Philadelphia Gazette.]

THE WEALTH OF A NATION.

We find the following excellent article on this subject in the Mas-
sillon (Ohio) Gazette of the 4th instant :

The wealth of a nation arises from the labor of its people, directed
by intelligence : 19,000,000 of inhabitants in the United States, if
they earn on an average 50 cents per day, obtain for 300 days an
annual aggregate productive labor of 2,850 millions of dollars.
Enormous as this sum may appear, it is not less the result of mere
arithmetical computation ; and in this we find the true secret of the

DOMESTIC EXTRACTS. 327

Wealth of Nations, and the true reason why misfortunes seemingly
overwiielming are eusily triumphed over by any nation whose in-
dustry has full and constant employment. If France, under Napo-
leon, wasted enormous sums in war ; if her disasters in Spain, if
her disasters in Russia, if the invasion of her territory by an innu-
merable host, and the tribute she paid to the allied armies, caused
her an enormous loss of money, that loss was easily repaired by the
masses of industry which the genius and the institutions of the same
Napoleon had set in motion, and had rooted so deeply that not even
such commotions could eradicate them, or destroy the daily exube-
rance of their fruits The 800,000,000 of dollars lost by the contri-
bution to the evacuating armies were easily recreated by eighty
days labor of 38,000,000 Frenchmen, at an average earning of
thirty-three cents per day ; and scarcely a trace either of her losses
or of her misfortunes can now be found in la belle France, whose
governing monarch ( a banker, a trader, a merchant, and a thrifty
man), having learned in the school of misfortune the value of
productive industry, is incessantly occupied in giving to the French
people productive occupation, by protecting their home industry,
and by unfolding the resources of the whole country ; by a well
digested and extensive system of internal improvements, carrying
out (with the more modern inventions) the vast plans designed for
the public welfare, by the towering genius and the practised talent
of the mighty mind of Napoleon.

Occupation, then, constant occupation is the true source of wealth.
If, by any blunder of legislation, if by any neglect or oversight in
using the gifts placed in our hands by a kind Providence, we throw
into idlenes-s for one-third of the year our 19,000,000 of people, it
is a loss to the country of the product of their labor for one hundred
days ; and if their average earnings, when occupied, are 50 cents
per day (equal to 9,500,000 for every day), it gives for 100 days of
idleness a loss of 950,000,000 of dollars.

By productive labor, we not only mean the labor of him that tills
the earth and of him that saws wood and works by the day, but we
also mean the labor of all who in any vocation (whether as mer-
chants, lawyers, shoemakers, schoolmasters, seamstresses, or in any
other way), present something so useful and so acceptable to some
in society, that money is voluntarily and freely paid ior the service
by them rendered.

What we have stated is true of nations, as it is of individuals :
industrious nations, like industrious individuals, invariably thrive ;
while idle nations, like idle imlividuals, are a constant prey to
poverty, and to what is even worse, namely, to the numerous vices
which are the natural offspring of the want of occupation.

It is by such considerations that we are led to appreciate as an
estimable blessing, the permission to carry freight on the New- York
railroad from Buffalo to Albany in the winter. The permission was
granted by a law passed May 7, 1844. This law unfetters the in-
dustry of the west from its icy chains. It has opened a new field ;

328 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

it has made it the duty of every press, and of every lover of his
country, to impel the whole connmunity to unfold the sources of con-
stant occupation which it has placed within our reach. It furnishes us
new sources of occupation in the summer, and sources of constant
occupation at the heretofore dead season. The Ohio canals as well as
lake are open one month earlier, and are closed one month later than
the Erie canal. Two months in the year are therefore at once added
to the capacity of the productive industry of the West ; and as soon
as the West wills it, four months more will be added in every year
by the construction of a railroad (via Toledo) to the Mississippi
river, with a branch from Toledo to Detroit. We say " as soon as
the West wills it;" because, when in her might she wills to bespeak,
this great work into existence, no power on earth can arrest the
execution of that v^rill. The reasons in favor of it are so strong that
they cannot, in this enlightened age, be resisted, when clearly and
boldly held up to public view.

Let us at once avail, to the utmost, of the two months in every
year already added to our active existence, and let us also avail of
all the means within our reach to make every one perceive each
individual source of wealth thus created. Let us also wake up the
whole nation to the necessity of a railroad from Buffalo to the Mis-
sissippi, and from Toledo to Detroit ; to its advantage in this time
of peace to carry the mail, and to fructify the labor of the whole
country ; to its almost superhuman uses as a tower of strength, for
it will give warning to one of the most powerful nations on the
earth, that if she were to provoke us by an unjust war, public sen-
timent would pour upon this railroad an overwhelming force against
her Canadian possessions.

To enumerate the various articles and the various occupations
which, in all times, in time of peace as well as in time of war, will
be favorably affected by the new system, would be to enumerate
every article which we of the great West import, and every product
which our prolific soil is susceptible of bringing forth. It would be
like attempting to enumerate every thing which the ingenuity of
man can create. Suffice it to say, that the capacity acquired by the
new system of getting our supplies everyday as fast as wanted and
no faster, and the capacity also created by the new system of con-
verting into money at our pleasure on the sea board whatever we
may produce at home, will give active efficiency to our capital, to
an extent which will tenfold our capacity for acting in the various
new sources of industry, placed within our reach by the new sys-
tem.

Let then the great West be awakened to the new duties of her
position, by every one who perceives the boundless sources of
wealth, prosperity, and good morals, which a kind IVovidence offers
to us, by giving us the capacity of constant occupation throughout
all the seasons of the year.

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 329

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES.

[From the (New-York) Farmers' Library.]

FALL PLOUGHING :

UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES TO BE RECOMMENDED.
On the ILL EFFECTS OF PLOUGHING LAND WHEN WET.

There are few points of husbandry, about whicli fanners differ
more in practice, than about fall ploughing ; and this difference, like
most others, occurs from want of reflection on the principles that
should govern the particular case ; or rather, we might say, from
want of knowledge of the principles, or reasons involved in every
agricultural problem. You shall sometinnes see a farmer turning his
" glebe" at every odd time he can catch of open weather, in fall
and winter ; while another, his next neighbor, does not strike a fur-
row ; and yet both may be right, for both may have been taught by
experience that his system is the better one of the two. But were
they to exchange estates, they would, too probably, each carry his
practice along with him, because his action had been the result of
habit rather than of investigation ; and so they would proceed until
after some years of costly experiment, each would find that in
changing his land he should have changed habits also. The truth is,
that whether land should be ploughed up in autumn and exposed
for amelioration to the winter's frost, or whether left undisturbed
under whatever coating it may be wearing, depends on various cir-
cumstances, and especially on the natural texture and composition
of the soil. These circumstances are so well explained in the fol-
lowing essay, that we have concluded to preserve it in the Journal
of Agriculture. The reader will find in it also observations that can-
not be too well remembered, in reprobation of one of the grossest
blunders that a farmer can commit, that of plowing his land when
wet. We have long been so well satisfied, from personal observa-
tion as well as by the common-sense view of the case, of the very
pernicious effect of stirring land when wet, not only on the succeed-
ing crop, but on the land itself; effects from which it sometimes does
not entirely recover for years, that we take the first occasion, in a
sense of duty, to impress it upon the reader, by the following forci-
ble remarks on it in connexion with winter plowing. The rationale
in both cases is here made apparent :

330 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

How TO AFFORD THE NECESSARY SUPPLY OF AIR TO THE ROOTS OF

PLANTS.

BY MR. J. MAINE, BROMPTON.

The breaking up, or turning the surface of cultivated land, either
by the plow, spade, or hoe, for the reception of seeds or plants, is a
process so universally practised and indispensable for the well-being
of the crops intended to be raised thereon, that it may be deemed
incredible that such a common and simple affair should not be uni-
versally understood. And yet it cannot be denied that many and fre-
quent mistakes are commilled in this matter, and these must proceed
either from indolence or ignorance.

As the surface of the earth is the natural station for the generality
of plants, and where they obtain the necessary elemental food requi-
site for their developement and maturation, certain conditions of the
said surface are absolutely necessary. Humidity, heat, and air, in
due proportions, are indispensable, both to the fibrous roots which
are extended in the earth, and to the head which is expanded in the
air. There is more danger, however, from an excess of moisture
than from the extremes of either heat or air ; because, when the soil
is saturated with water, the access of the genial air and its gaseous
properties is excluded, and the delicate fibres, imprisoned and
choked, it may be said for want of breath, must, in such a case,
necessarily languish. That a porous soil is requisite for the free
growth of every plant is an axiom in cultivation, and on this axiom
all our operations of ploughing, trenching, digging, etc. are founded;
and, that no excess of water should at any time remain to chill,
sodden, and consolidate the staple, draining in all its branches and
modifications is had recourse to.

Soils are various in quality, and particularly in texture and con-
sistency. The success of crops appears to depend as much on the
texture of the land as upon any other property. For, where air and
rain can permeate freely, a constant supply of both aqueous and
gaseous nourishment is afforded, independently altogether of the
richness of the soil, whether natural or artificial. While, on ihe other
hand, if the soil be compact, baked hard by drouth, in consequence
of its having been previously labored or stirred when too wet, no
plant can possibly flourish. The conclusion, therefore, is, that the
soil for any kind of crop should never be impervious to air from
being saturated with water, nor impervious to both air and water
from its dry adhesiveness.

Sandy soils, upon a gravelly or chalky sub-soil, are never liable
to be drenched with water but only for a very short time after heavy
rain, or sudden thaw when snow is on the ground. All the water
absorbed by such a soil sinks deep into the sub-soil, and far below
the roots of corn or any agricultural plant on the surface. Such a
soil needs neither draining nor sub-soil plowing. Neither does it
ever require to be exposed to the frosts of winter, or any kind of
treatment by implements to produce amelioration. It is almost al-

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 331

ways in such an open friable state that it may be plowed and sown
at any season, without risk of bcinn; plowed and harrowed into tlie
condition of mud, or of being poached into the state of mortar by the
horses' feet.

In some countries there are large tracts of such land, and on these
farmers are generally fortunate men. The culture is easy, and exe-
cuted at a moderate expense. The crops of turnips are heavy ; and
if, besides the ordinary supplies of dung and tail dress, the farmers
can manage to give their fields a liberal coat of marl or reducible
clay every eighth or tenth year, the heart and fertility of the staple
is maintained unimpaired for ages.

In such descriptions of land, however, it often happens that beds
of clay lie alternately with those of sand at different depths beneath
the surface. These beds of clay, if the general surface of the farm
or field lies sloping, crop out at different distances below each other,
and above each the surface staple will be either occasionally or con-
.siantly wet. If a pasture, rushes will appear accompanied by the
worst grasses, and herbage produced that will certainly rot sheep,
especially if introduced from drier pasturage. If the land be arable, the
crops raised thereon will be unequal ; on the wet places, the corn
will be either loo rank and inferior, or fail altogether. In such cases,
efficient under ground drainage is the remedy to get rid of the super-
fluous moisture, either by gently-falling, diagonal or direct channels.
The proper direction of the drains depends on the depth, extent, and
inclination of the beds of clay ; and it is well to have a professional
man to stake them out, unless the tenant has a sufficient know-
ledge of geology himself. It is surprising to those who know but
little of the nature of the various strata of the earth's surface, how
easy it is in some cases to get rid of surface water. For instance, if
there be wet and dry places on the same field, the owner may be
assured that a bed of clay, or other kind of earth impervious to
water, lies beneath the wet, and a porous sub-soil beneath the dry
places. A drain of sufficient depth opened (and filled nearly to the
surface with stones or loose gravel) from the wet to the dry places,
will certainly render the whole dry. In my own practice, and acting
on this principle, I have been in many cases very successful in lay-
ing arable fields dry. Two cases I may mention as examples : A
field of eleven acres, of a fine loam, suitable for wheat, beans, or
indeed any other crop, had a hollow near one of the ends, which was
every winter filled with water, and ruinous to wheat or grass, very
frequently to the extent of between two and three acres. This I re-
solved to drain. A neighboring farmer predicted that the attempt
would be a failure ; because his father, when tenant, sunk a shaft to
the depth of above seventy feet, in the lowest dip of the hollow, and
filled it with stones, expecting that this would form a siuallow for
all the rain and melted snow retained by the hollow. But this expec-
tation was not realized ; the water first filled the pit, and then flowed
over the land as before. The cause was easily comprehended ; the

VOL. II. NO. II. U

332 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

pit did not reach to the chalk rock, nor did it pierce through any
porous stratum ; its loanny sides and bottom were perfectly water
light, so that little or none could escape.

My plan was different. I saw marks in an adjacent field of where
chalk had been drawn at some former time ; thither I opened a
stone-filled drain below the plowshare, from the lowest dip of the
hollow ; and when the water had accumulated, it ran towards the old
chalk pit, but totally disappeared long before arriving at the place,
and thus was a valuable field laid dry. Another arable field contained
a. pond which very often overflowed its boundaries. Lower ground
was at the distance of half a mile ; and the- expense of forming so
long a drain prevented all attempts to get rid of the annoyance. I
advised the tenant to dig a deep drain from the pond up into a hiyh
bank of gravel, into which the water oozed away immediately ; and
ever after carried off all excess. By this simple expedient a large
piece of excellent land was reclaimed, and brought into a regular
course of culture at a very trifling expense.

It is by such means that land, naturally friable and loose in tex-
ture, may be relieved of superabundant water, and give admittance
to the necessary supplies of air at all times. I have already observed
that sandy soils require no exposure for the purpose of reducing
adhesiveness either by the action of frost or machinery ; and yet we
often see such land carefully fallowed up in the autumn, and
even laid in ridges, to receive the advantages supposed to be im-
parted to it by the contact of frosty air. That such an idea, namely,
that arable land is benefitted by exposure to frosty air, has been long
entertained, is evident from what has been written on the subject by
old authors. Even our amiable poet, Thomson, in one of the flights
of his pregnant imagination, says,

" The frost-concocted glebe
Draws in abundant vegetable suul.
And gathers vigor for the coniing year." — Winter.

Showing that the notion was held by philosophers as well as culti-
vators ; and, at the present time, there are many among the latter
who mistake the disrupting, ameliorating effects of frost on tenacious
soils for its enriching property, which they imagine is connnunicated
to all soils. But this is a mistake : the less light sandy soils are
exposed to the sun and air, the less are they exhausted of their
humid riches. Their best qualities are as liable to be washed away by
winter rains as dissipated by the summer sun ; and, therefore, they
cannot be too close and level during winter, if it is intended that they
should be cropped in the spring.

I have often noticed the mismanagement of a field of light soil by
the following culture : It was fallowed, cleaned, dunged, ploughed,
and sown with tankard turnips about the middle of June. The crop
■was abundant, and a flock of full-mouthed wethers was put on in
the end of September, Within a month, the turnips were eaten oflf,
and the field was ploughed into single 'bout ridges to lie for the win-

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 333

ter. In April, the ridges were ploughed and harrowed down, and
barley and seeds were sown. Both rose well ; but, throughout tlie
siunmer growth, the ridges were as visible in the crop as they were
after the plow, the centres of the ridges bearing the finest and
strongest plants of the crop. And the reason was obvious : the
centres of the ridges canne up fresh, moist, and mellow ; while the
intervals were filled with the bleached dry crests of the ridges,
which, though more pulverized, were much less fertile and stimu-
lating than the fresher portions of the surface. Hence it was quite
evident that if the whole field had been permitted to lie undisturbed
till the spring, the crop would have risen more equally and much
more vigorously. I have seen fields of similar soil sown with oats
after wheat ; a bad custom, certainly, and as badly executed ; the
wheat stubble being ploughed in October, and the oats sown and
harrowed in February ; whereas, had the wheat-stubble been only
scufiied off and harrowed to bring up a crop of seed weeds, and so
rested till February or March, and then ploughed and sown, the crop
of oats would have been much more abundant both in straw and corn
than by the former method.

Here it is necessary to observe that, as I set out with showing
how absolutely necessary an open porous soil is to all vegetation,
and no measures being reconunended in the above statements for
that purpose, but rather the contrary, it is to be rememliered that I
have been treating of sandy land, which is at all times, except when
too wet, sufficiently porous for the reception of air. But in other de-
scriptions of soil, such as that whose particles are minute and have
a tendency to adhere closely together, either by gravitating subsi-
dence or by a flow of rain water ; in such a case, every practicable
means must be'taken to alter and break this solidifying nature of
the staple, in order to admit a free range of air and the gases it con-
tains.

There are many intermediate descriptions of soil between sand and
clay, and all of these, according as they approach to the one extreme
or the other, require a peculiar management. But the grand object
is to work the soil in such a manner that it shall always be pervious
to air, rain, and all atmospheric influences ; and this result is obtain-
ed by the timely application of the iinplements, rather than by the
efficiency of the implements themselves. The soil is sometimes in a
fit state to be worked, and very often is not. Under such circum-
stances, the judgment of the cultivator must be exercised. The con-
dition of the land depends very much on the season and character of
the weather; and on this account, seed time cannot always be com-
menced at the times which would be most convenient to the farmer.
In such a case, he must wait until the land is in right order to be
stirred ; and that state is when it is neither too wet nor loo dry.
I am alluding to land which has either been thoroughly drained, or
which needs no draining, and is only aficcted by the season, whether
very wet or very dry. But as the exact time cannot always be hit

334 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

upon, it is better that the arable surface be rather too dry than too
wet when moved. Because, if too dry, it may be reduced to the
necessary fineness by labor, and will then be in the best possible
state for the reception of seeds ; the interstices between the particles
of the soil being filled with air, amid which the imbedded seeds
germinate in the greatest vigor. But if the soil be too wet when
moved, and especially by the pressing or pushing action of the plow,
it acquires from the excess of water, a stale of fluidity, like mortar,
and settles down again so compactly that no seed laid therein can
be developed in a healthy condition, in consequence of the want of
air.

That the contact of air to the roots of plants was always consi-
dered necessary, is evident from old writings ; but the fact has never
been so generally noticed and acted upon as it is now. The first and
most srtriking instance confirmatory of the opinion, was the fact of
large full grown ornamental forest trees having been killed by their
roots being too deeply covered up with earth when levelling lawns ;
and planters and gardeners have been long aware of the injurious
effects of planting as well as sowing too deep. The same individuals
formerly fancied that their prepared composts, for exotic or favorite
flowering plants, could not be too finely sifted for their reception,
whether in pots, or in the open ground. But slovenly or careless
management in these particulars showed that too much nicety of
execution was not at all necessary. Sifting the composts was given
up, and composts made up chiefly of nodules of turf, broken stone,
brick rubbish, etc. are substituted with evident success; and the
cause is obvious : when the compost is sifted, it becomes a solid
mass, especially after it is watered, and repulsive of all atmospheric
influences ; whereas among the loose materials, a considerable body
of air reposes, and in this the more active fibres extend themselves
much more luxuriantly than they do in compact soil.

The gardener's improved practice is only another proof how much
a porous soil and presence of air are necessary to the roots of plants ;
and yet we often see the most luxuriant vegetation produced by
soils which are apparently very close in texture, viz. alluvial soils
and fertile clays. Both these descriptions of soil being composed of
the finest atoms, become exceedingly close and compact if undis-
turbed ; but when ploughed, or otherwise moved periodically, the
stirred portion attracts as much of the qualities of the air as suffices
for the following crop. It is rather remarkable that, while oak thrives
best on a clayey subsoil, it does not seem to affect rich alluvial land ;
and this I imagine to be entirely owing to its closeness of texture
preventing all access of air to the place of the roots.

Aquatic plants which live entirely submerged, although defended
from external air, receive as much as they need from the surrounding
water, which always contains a notable measure, besides nutritive
bodies in solution, which form the pabulum of plants, whether
aquatic or terrestrial.

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 335

Another tribe of plants are attached to earth, but so slightly that
their system of roois is nothing compared with the bulky heads sus-
tained ; and as these plants are mostly found on rocks, or on the
driest tracts of country, it is evident that the greatest portion of their
nutriment is drawn from the atmosphere. Another tribe of curious
and beautiful flowering plants is called Epiphytes [or parasitical
plants, as the Misleioe], because they attach themselves to the stems
and branches of trees, not to sustain themselves by extracting their
juices, but to be supported in the deep shade and moist air of thick
tropical woods. Some of these are called air plants, and grow as
well in a basket without earth, suspended in a warm, damp, shady
place, as if they were in their native habitat.

Thus we see that air is particularly necessary to plants, and as
much so to the roots as to the head and foliage ; and it is this fact,
as already observed, that justifies all the means of cultivation which
we have recourse to with a view of rendering the staple more loose,
and consequently more permeable to all atmospheric influences.

There is one circumstance, however, which deserves to be noticed
along with these general remarks : it is this, that all seeds require
to be closely embedded in the soil, that is, they should be in close
contact with the mould all round ; and, that this should be completely
secured, some seeds require to be laid in heavy, as wheat for instance.
Now we have only to consider that as the soil has been previously
prepared, and more or less reduced to the finest practicable state, a
considerable volume of air is incorporated therewith ; and that this
air, according to its temperature and the moisture of the soil, facili-
tates the germination of the seed, and continues to assist the deve-
lopement of the plant. To obtain this close embedding of the seed,
it IS the practice to tread it in ; a practice which is foimd of service
to wheat, peas, beans, andahnost all small seeds ; but which would
be of no avail without the previous disruption and aeration of the
soil.

All these matters premised, it only remains to conclude with a
general declaration that, in all our practices and means employed for
the amelioration of the land, every thing that can be added or taken
away, every operation performed, and every implement used in the
culture, should all have for their ultimate object, either directly or
indirectly, the breaking up of the compact and impervious surface,
so that copious and constant supplies of air may be freely admitted
to the roots of the plants.

336 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

[From the Albany Cultivator.]

SPECIMENS OF SOILS FROM WISCONSIN.

The samples of soil alluded to in the following letter, were handed
to Prof Emmons, by whom they were subjected to an analysis, the
results of which, with accompanying remarks, will be seen in the
subjoined article. The Professor's remark that " it would be easier
to make suggestions on the spot than at a distance," is obviously
correct, and should always be borne in mind in soliciting iiiforma-
tion on such subjects,

Geneva (Wisconsin Territory), May 27, 1845.

Mr. Tucker — I take the liberty to send you a sample of marl
found in this vicinity, and also a small quantity of the soil taken
from my farm, both of which I wish to have analyzed.

My object is to ascertain, in the first place, the nature of my
soil, that I may be able to apply such manures, if they are within
my reach, as will be most likely to facilitate the growth of wheat ;
and I wish also to know whether this marl will probably be valuable
as a manure on such soils as mine ; and will charcoal be likely to
increase the wheat crop here ; and you will confer a great favor
by suggesting any thing that would be of service in the cultivation
of our great staple.

Such lands as mine in their present state, will yield about twenty-
five bushels to the acre, with good cultivation, without manure ;
but I suppose the average is not over fifteen bushels, under our
present poor management. I wish to see what can be done on our
new lands in increasing our yield of wheat, and intend to make my
experiments with care, and keep an exact account of expense, that
I may determine how well we may cultivate our new lands and
make it pay.

You will oblige me much by assisting me to obtain such informa-
tion as will enable me to start right in this matter.

C. M. GoODSELL.

To C. M. GooDSELL — I hereby acknowledge the receipt of two
specimens, one of soil, and the other what was supposed to be marl.
I have analyzed both, and below I give you the results. The soil is
extremely fine, and very different in this respect from any of the
soils of New-York or of New-England ; as the latter are always
coarse, or at least when compared with that from your farm. It is
of the color and ap(iearance of ground emery ; it will all pass
through the finest sieve. When examined under the microscope, a
few white grains of quartz may be seen, the largest of which are
about the size of a mustard seed. If this is a sample which repre-
sents the soil of your farm, its fineness is its most characteristic
property. It will lie too compactly after it has been cultivated for a
few years longer, or when its vegetable matter is expended, and will

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 337

require more strength of team to plougli it than coarse soils. It is
evidently silicioiis, and seems to be a fine sediment which was
deposited far from land and in a deep sea.

Analysis — 100 grains gave the following result :

Water 5-00

Vegetable matter 9- 50

Silex 80-21

Carbonate of lime 1*08

Phosphate of alumine and lime 0*50

Protoxide of iron and alumine 3 -62

99-83
The so called marl is really tufa, and is composed of 97 per cent
of carbonate of lime. Some parts of it are entirely soluble in warm
muriatic acid ; in others, there is a sediment of silicious matter. It
is to all intents and purposes a pure carbonate of lime, and may be
used for quicklime for mortar, water or agricultural purposes.

The questions which are put in your letter are not easy to answer,
inasmuch as the composition of the soil is not defective. The way
to improve it, as it appears to me, is to add coarser materials to it,
that is, im|)rove it mechanically — as fragments of old brick, pot-
tery, plaster, broken stone, etc. ; also coarse charcoal, bones. A
good plan would be to add the broken tufa without burning. I feel
that it would be easier to make suggestions on the spot than at a
distance ; for, after all, local circumstances must greatly modify the
treatment in any given case. E. Emmons.

[From the same.]

GESTATION OF COWS.

Mr. Editor — While living on my farm, I foimd it not only useful,
but very necessary, to keep a record of the time my cows were put
to the bull, as well as the time of calving. By the means of keep-
ing a record, I was enabled to make a calculation on the probable
period parturition would lake place, and be prepared for the event,
and avoid accidents which might occur when no attention was paid
to the subject.

The experiments and facts which I am about to state, may not
be considered of much importance to farmers generally, but to the
breeders of cattle, and the inquiring mind, they may, I trust, be
interesting ; and some good may possibly result from their publicity.

Earl Spencer, in a paper comnuinicated to the " Journal of the
Royal Agricultural Society of England," says the shortest period
of gestation, in which a live calf was produced, was 220 days, and
the longest 313 days : difference 93 days.

M. Tessier, in a memoir read to the Royal Academy of Sciences
at Paris, says that in 1131 cows, which he had the opportunity of

338 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

observing, the shortest period of gestation was 240 days, and the
longest 321 : difference 81 days.

Both of the foregoing statements differ from my experience.
Among my cows, though numbering only 62, the shortest period
of gestation was 213 days, and the longest period was 336 : dif-
ference 123 days. But as regards the shortest period of 213 days,
I must confess I have had my doubts as to the correctness, though I
kept the record myself, for in no other instance have they fallen
below 260 days.

It would appear from the Earl's statements, that a calf produced
at an earlier period than 260 days, must be considered decidedly
premature ; and any calf produced at any period of gestation ex-
ceeding 300 days must also be considered irregular, but in this latter
case ihe health of the produced is not affected.

There are some facts presented in my record, which differ from
any statements which have fallen under my observation. For in-
stance, in 1839 I had fourteen cows, three of which produced heifer
calves ; and the period of gestation averaged 284 days, while the
other seven produced males, and averaged 280 days. This, in regard
to the time allowed for males and females, is contrary to the prevalent
belief among farmers, and differs very materially from the result of
the following year, 1840. I had that year thirteen cows, six of
which produced heifer calves, whose period of gestation averaged
278 days ; and seven produced bull calves, averaging 299 days ;
the shortest period of the heifer calves was 213 days, and the
longest 336 days, being the greatest extremes of either year. The
shortest period of the bulls was 278 days, and the longest period
was 289 days. In this year the number of males and females were
nearly balanced.

The next year, 1841, eleven cows produced eight heifer and
three bull calves. The shortest period of gestation for the heifer
calves was 277, and the longest 292 days, averaging 286 days. For
the bull calves the shortest period of gestation was 284, and the
longest 299 days, averaging 293 days.

In 1842, the order seemed to be reversed ; for out of thirteen
cows, nine produced males, and four females. The shortest for the
males was 281, and the longest 294, averaging 287 days. There
was but very little difference in the time for the females ; the
shortest period being 280, and the longest 286, averaging 284 days.

In 1843, the proportion of males to females, was, as in 1840,
nearly balanced. From eleven cows, six male and five female calves
were produced. The shortest period for the males was 277, and
the longest 290, averaging 282 days ; and the shortest period for
the females was 276, the longest 286, averaging 282 days.

In the five years, which embraced my experiments, sixty-two
cows produced twenty-six females, and thirty-six male calves ; the
period of gestation for the bull calves averaged 288 days, while the
heifers averaged nearly 283 days.

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 339

In the experiments of Earl Spencer, of those cows whose period
exceeded 286 days, the number of females was only 90, while the
number of males was 150. Now, in my experiments, of those cows
that exceeded 286 days, the number of females was 7, while that
of the males was 12. The number of female calves produced un-
der 28;} days was 24, while that of the males was 31. In most
cases, therefore, 283 or 288 days may be assumed as the usual
period for gestation, and not 270 days, as staled in Youatt's work
on cattle.

My experiments were not confined to any particular breed or
variety of cattle : they consisted of durhains, dtvons, herefords,
ayrshires, and grades ; and 1 think these results, though derived
from the observations of one person only, will be found equally ap-
plicable ; at any rate, we should be pleased to hear the results of
others. C. N. Bement.

American Hotel, Albany, July, 1845.

[From the same.]

SELF-ACTING PUMP.

Luther Tucker, Esq. — It is with much pleasure that I comply
with the request of a gentleman connected with your journal (Mr.
Howard), in furnishing a few statements in regard to a new self-
acting pump which I have lately set in operation, and which, I think,
promises to be of some value to the public ; and to no portion of it
more so than to agriculturists. Notwithstanding the multitude of
ingenious contrivances which have hitherto been devised for ob-
taining v*ater for economical and ornamental purposes, the most
valuable is the old and simple plan of bringing it from some neigh-
boring spring or water-course which flows upon a higher level than
that on which the supply is needed. This method, although fre-
quently attended with considerable expense, is almost universally
adopted where it is practicable, in preference to the best constructed
pumps for raising water from a lower level to a higher. The situa-
tions, however, where this plan can be adopted, are not numerous,
except in mountainous regions. Buildings occupied as dwellings,
or otherwise, except in such places, are generally located on high
ground, where water cannot be procured by an aqueduct or conduit
pipe. In such places it is universall)^ obtained from wells situated
on such high ground, and in innumerable instances in the immediate
vicinity of ravines and small vallies deeper than those wells. In such
cases it is obvious that a syphon might be led from the bottom of a
well over into the low ground, tiie current through which syphon
would afford a mechanical power, which, if it could be economically
applied, would be sufficient to raise a steady and perpetual supply
of water upon the elevated level where it was wanted.

VOL. II. — NO. II. V

340 QUARTERLY JOURNAL,

These considerations induced me some months since to consider
whether a syphon might not be so constructed as to discharge water
at the summit of its curve, that is, at the highest point in the pipe
of which it should be constructed. The idea at first appeared some-
what absurd, as those who are acquainted with the operation of the
common syphon may suppose, inasmuch as in no point of a syphon
is there so strong a resistance to any force tending lo divert a por-
tion of the enclosed fluid from the pipe than at the summit of the
curve. The problem, however, is solved, and the contrivance which
has accomplished the solution has been tested, and proved perfectly
successful. The preponderance of the column of water in the longer
leg of a syphon, which I have recently laid from a well fourteen feet
deep, over into a neighboring ravine twenty-two feel deep, furnishes
a sufficient mechanical power to deliver about one-third of all the
water which enters the pipe at tlie bottom of the well, at the summit
of the curve, two feet above the mouth of the well The length of
the pipe which goes down into the ravine is about ten rods, more
than half of which distance it is laid in ground nearly level. The
shorter leg of the syphon descends perpendicularly into the well,
and is constructed of lead pipe of an inch calibre. At the summit of
this pipe, and connected also with the pipe which passes down the
hiU-side, is the apparatus for discharging the water, of such dimen-
sions that it might be enclosed in a cubical bo.x ten inches square.
I have omitted to mention that the pipe which passes into the ravine
is about three-fourths the calibre of that which descends into the well.
The amount of water discharged by the apparatus, two feet above
the level of ihe ground at the mouth of the well, through a half-inch
pipe with a free aperture, is a little more than a gallon per minute.
If the pipe is laid upon the ground, and its adjutage contracted by
a jet tube with an aperture of one-eighth of an inch in diameter, the
jet rises seven feet and a half above the mouth of the well ; with
another jet tube of one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, it rises
thirteen feet ; and with another of orve-twentielh of an inch diameter
of adjutage, between eighteen and nineteen feet. Indeed there is no
definite limit to the altitude to which water might be raised by this
method, if the size of the syphon be increased, and a sufficient
supply of water obtained for working it.

It may appear incredible that a syphon can be so constructed that
no definite amount of pressure shall be sufficient to restrain the
escape of a portion of water from an opening in the summit of the
curve, while in the ordinary syphon, a very small aperture at that
point, communicating with the open air, destroys its action instantly ;
yet this apparatus demonstrates that it can be accomplished, by an
extremely simple and compact contrivance, and on any scale that
may be required, from a miniature model that will discharge its gill
per minute, to an engine that v«ill elevate a hogshead of water in
the same space of time.

The apparatus is, moreover, so extremely durable, and so constant

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 341

and certain in its operation, that it furnishes all the advantages of
an aqueduct which brings water from an elevated level. The inven-
tion is capable of application to any good well or water-course,
which admits of the operation of a syphon, even though such well
or water-course should be a hundred rods, or more, distant from
the lower level which sliould furnish the working power.

When applied to wells, I think it cannot fail to improve the qua-
lity of the walcr, as it is constantly changed and kept in motion.

Such an invention, if successful, places at the disposal of thou-
sands of farmers, manufacturers, and gentlemen who appreciate
matters of taste and luxury as highly as those of mere utility, a
supply of water for use or for ornament, which it w^ould be im-
possible for them to obtain in a more simple, cheap, or economical
manner.

When my arrangements are completed for offering my invention
to the public, I shall be happy, with your permission, to avail my-
self of your valuable journal, for the publication of a more minute
description of this syphon, accompanied perhaps with a drawing. In
the meantime, I shall take pleasure in showing the practical opera-
tion of the one which I have already constructed, to any of your
numerous subscribers who may be suflicienily interested in the
foregoing statements to call and see it.

I am, sir, most respectfully yours,

Erastus W. Ellsworth.

East-Windsor Hill (Connecticut), July 18, 1845.

[From the same.]

FOOT-ROT (so called) IN SHEEP.

Luther Tucker, Esq. — A late number of the Boston Cultivator
contains an article on this subject from Mr. Jewett of Weybridge,
Vermont, which induces me to send you this communication. The
importance to the sheep-raising community of this whole continent,
to understand the nature and causes of the many diseases to which
sheep are liable, is incalculable ; and, wiien well understood, they
will be surprised to find the ease with which they can be cured,
and in most instances prevented. When Mr. Jeweit is informed that
I was born and raised a shepherd, and that the little infornriation I
possess is the result of long and attentive practice, he will, I am
sure, readily give me credit for the true intention with which I write,
namely, to set him and others right, as to the true cause of, and
remedy for, this (so called) disease, and not to find fault with him,
or enter into any controversy about it ; for I willingly admit that he
gives evidence of some practice and observation, and that I believe
it is only necessary to direct that observation to make him a valuable
shepherd.
Properly speaking, there is no such disease of itself y as foot-rot.

342 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

It is invariably the result of the neglect of another disease, simple
and easy to cure, or the result of accident by a bruise qf the foot in
some way, and always evinced by a slight but visibleTameness in
whichever foot is injured. It is not contagious, neither can it be
communicated by inoculation. I saw the latter tested myself by the
late Mr. Field, father of the present able veterinary surgeon, of Lon-
don, on a visit to an extensive flock-master in Liecestershire ; and
I think by the time you read this through, you will be convinced
yourself as thoroughly as though you saw the experiment tried, of
the impossibility of its being so communicated, inasmuch as foot-
rot is not a disease of itself.

Sheep have a secretory outlet between the claws, peculiar to them,
which is liable to become obstructed ; and when obstructed for a few
days, the tender skin between tiie claws becomes red and inflamed,
the sheep becomes lame on that foot, and more lame immediately
after its first rising in the morning than at any other time of day ;
the inflammation making greater headway while at rest during the
night, than at any other period. The watchful and observant shep-
herd will see the lame sheep at once on putting his flock up in the
morning, and will apply the remedy, which is siniple. first clean
the claw by running your finger or thumb up and down through it,
wet with your spittle, if you have no water convenient ; then lake
out your bottle of spirits of turpentine, and wash it well with your
finger with that ; let the sheep lie a few minutes until the claw is
thoroughly dry (I shall afterwards describe the simple mode of se-
curing a sheep so as that it cannot get ofl" its side until loosened by
the shepherd), and then rub between the claw a mixture of two
parts tar and one part sheep's suet boiled together, well blended and
let cool, which the shepherd should always have prepared and in a
tin box to take out with him. This done, let the sheep go to pasture
ao^ain, and repeat the same dressing every second day until the sheep
becomes well of the lameness, or until the skin breaks, which it
sometimes will do in spite of the dressing, and assumes the nature
and appearance of the disease called a scald, when you must then
apply the liquid dressing described below. The scald is a disease
of itself, though sometimes produced by the stoppage of the secre-
tory outlet of the claws in the manner described above, is generally
produced by very heavy dews, or a long continued series of humid
weather, which predisposes the foot to this injury. It is as the other
disease, first discovered by the shepherd from lameness, but at a
diff"erent hour of the day. When the flock are first put up in the
morning, the dew is heavy, is cooling to the foot, and washes be-
tween the claws clean ; and though the scald has made its appear-
ance, yet at that hour the moisture prevents the friction of the parts
from hurting and causing lameness, and it is not discovered until
towards noon, when the dew is all gone, and between the claws be-
comes dry, and the friction commences to hurt and irritate the parts,
and then the lameness becomes apparent. When this is the case, the

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 343

shepherd knows it is the scald. He collects his flock, catches the
lame sheep, ropes tlieai as it is termed, and lays them on their side.
He then takes his wash, previously prepared, composed of two parts
tar and one of oil of turpentine well mixed together, and then slowly
added and stirred in ; one part of muriatic acid (spirit of salt), with
after that four parts blue vitriol, very finely powdered, to which add
spirits of turpentine sufficient to make the whole, when well shaken
up in a bottle, of a liquid consistency, so that the wash may be ap-
plied by dipping a feather into it, with which anoint the scalded
parts with the feather. The bottle mdst be well shaken every time
the feather is dipped in ; and when the claws are dressed, the sheep
must then lay tied until the wash is perfectly dried in, and a sort of
incrustation is formed on the scalded pans : every second day is
enough to dress. It sometimes occurs that notwithstanding every
care, this scald turns to a sore ; and then it is, that it is called the
foot-rot The sore is produced generally by something getting in
between the claws, such as a bit of gravel or hard clay, or struck
by some substance that would produce extra irritation, proud flesh
and sloughing. Tlie treatment then is, if the sore extends either
way to the horny substance, to pare it away to the healthy edge ;
then shake a little fine powdered loaf sugar on the part, which will
entirely take away the proud flesh ; and then after half an hour
apply the wash, and, when dry, loose ihe sheep to pasture. Care
should be taken never to wrap the foot with a clotii, unless when
the horny substance is taken away and the pari is left entirely bared
to the ground, and then the one claw only should be bandaged ; or
if both are bared, each claw should be separately bandaged, to pre-
vent greater friction of the parts, and to keep them the more cool.
Und'-r this circumstance alone, is a bandage on the foot of a sheep
ever admissible, because it contains greater heat, and of course
greater friction, by keeping the claws bound together and not allow-
ing them to spread. In this stage of the disease, it is necessary to
dress every day ; and it must be noticed, that the cool of the morn-
ing is the best hour for dressing, because the sheep in hot weather
is much oppressed by being tied down on its side for the length of
time, sometimes an hour or more, that the proper application of the
dressing requires. It not unfrequently happens that sheep show
lameness, when you can neither see a scald, nor discover inflamma-
tion between the claws, from the stoppage of the secretory outlet ;
and then the shepherd must look for the cause by pressing and ex-
amining the hoof round, in the same way as the cause of lameness
is sought for in the horse's hoof; and when discovered, the horny
substance must be pared down to the part aflTected, and then the ap-
plications made as before described. In this case the lameness is
produced from precisely the same causes as the lameness in a horse's
foot, by a bruise or hurt, or by the prick of a nail, or the gradual
working-in of some sharp gravelly substance, which, when dis-
covered, and on opening, matter is found, it is immediately pro-

344 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

nounced as foot-rot in the sheep ; but who ever heard of foot-rot
under similar circumstances in the horse, or who ever supposed that
the matter, if apphed to another horse by inoculation, would pro-
duce lameness and a similar sore, in the same region, the foot ? On
this I deem any other remark unnecessary. No other help than the
shepherd and his dog is required ; nor no other instrument than a
strong, sharp and well pointed two-bladed knife, the large blade to
pare down the hoof, the smaller one to cut out down to the part
affected.

The way of tying down the*sheep is as follows : Get a soft rope
made of tow with three plies, each ply as thick as your middle fin-
ger, five feet long ; then splice both ends together, and you have a
double rope two feet six inches long. When you catch your sheep,
turn him gently on his side ; then raise him to a sitting posture,
having his head bent over under your stomach ; take your rope and
put it over the left hind leg just above the hock, catchmg the sinew ;
then give your rope two or three twists, so as to confine the leg, and
pass it along the belly and on the side of the chest close under the
elbow of the right fore leg or shoulder, and pass the other end over
his head on to his neck ; lay him down on his side, and there he
must remain secure until you choose to loose him. When you go to
dress him or pare his hoofs, the easiest position for the sheep, and
the handiest for the shepherd, is to place him in a sitting posture,
the rope still left on until he is ready to be let out to pasture. The
paring of the hoof can alone be well performed with a strong, sharp
bladed knife, and is very simple : leave the bottom of the hoof as
even as possible, so that the sheep may have an even and flat sur-
face to stand upon, taking care of not cutting down to the quick ;
the toes should be left smooth and rounded, and no portion of the
heel touched, unless some /aggy part is hanging.

The shepherd with his dog and crook, and twenty-four tow ropes
on his shoulder, his knife and vials in his pocket, can go out and
pen his sheep in any clean and convenient corner, catch the lame
ones and rope them, let the rest of his flock out to pasture, and
then in a very few hours dress his invalid sheep, and be prepared
for his other work. Suppose the shepherd to have the charge of a
flock of 1000 sheep, he must be very ignorant, or very careless,
ever to require to use more than twelve or eighteen out of his twenty-
four ropes on any one day : there is no busmess at which a man is
engaged, that " a stitch in time is more certain to save nine," than
in herding a flock of sheep.

With much respect, I remain, dear sir, your humble servant,
Louisville (Kentucky), July, 1845. GRAZIER.

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES, 845

[From the Ohio Cultivator.]

PLANTING STRAWBERRIES.

Every body loves strawberries, and the man who has a garden or
a few yards of ground that can be appropriated to the purpose, and
does not plant a good bed of strawberries, does not deserve to taste
any thing belter than "pork and dodger," during his mortal life !
Don't you say so, boys, girls, ladies, all? Well, then, why don't
you make a stir about it, and keep a stirring till the object is accom-
plished ? Not quite yet, however; for the ground is too dry, and the
sun too hot. But the latter part of September, or the fore part of
October, as soon as the ground is well moistened through, and the
heat of summer is over, is a first rate time to set out the plants.
They will take root immediately, will bear considerably next spring,
and abundantly the spring following.

If there is room for choice, select good deep loamy soil, rather"
inclining to sand than clay, and where it is well exposed to sun and
air. Apply a heavy coat of rotted manure, from the stable or hog-
pen, or both (mixed), and dig the ground deeply, burying the ma-
nure eight to ten inches deep ; rake it smooth, and it is ready for
planting.

Select plants from runners of this year's growth, and from beds
that are young or in a healthy bearing state, otherwise many of
them will be apt to prove barren and useless. As to the kinds, get
any of the good sorts in cultivation that can be found in your town
or neigliborhood, and plant two or three kinds near together if you
can get them, as they will assist in impregnating each other, and a
larger crop will be obtained. If plants are to be obtained from a
nurseryman, any of the following will be found excellent (the first
named is finest of all, but should never be planted far separate from
other kinds). Hovey's Seedling, Large Early Scarlet, Hudson's,
Ross's, Phoenix, Keen's Seedling, Elton, Myatt's Seedlings ; and for
variety and late bearing, a few of the Red and White Alpine or
Monthly.

In planting, set them in rows about tw^o feet apart, and eighteen
inches apart in the row. Or, if beds are desired, make the beds
four feet wide, and set three rows on each ; then leave an alley not
less than two and a half feet wide between the beds. Keep clear of
weeds, and if more plants are not desired, cut off the runners three
or four times a year. A thin sprinkling of lettuce or radish seed may
be sown on the beds the first year, but afterwards the strawberries
will need all the space. It is a good plan to cover the surface be-
tween the rows with straw or hay at the time of fruiting in the
spring, to keep the fruit clean, and partially to protect against
drought.

346 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

[From the (New- York) American Agriculturist].

ROOT-GRAFTING.

After reading this article, every farmer can easily provide himself
with an orchard of the choicest fruit, and without other cost than a
little of his own labor ; for he has only to procure a few apple seeds
and sow them, and then do his grafting in the winter evenings,
when there is scarce anything else to occupy his attention.

Root-grafting is now more generally practised than tree-grafting,
for the following reasons. 1. It is stronger than budding, and the
scions have as straight and handsome a growth of trunk as seedlings.
2. A tree may be brought to bear from one to two years sooner by
this method. 3. It can be done in the winter as well as the spring,
a season when the nurserymen are least employed. 4. Three times
the number of trees can be thus obtained from the same stock.

Pi'epm'ing the seed. Take apple-pommace at the cider-mill, and
transport it to any place near where it is desired to plant the seeds,
and spread it on the ground ; then turn it over with a rake or pitch-
fork, and gather the principal part of the straw from it, leaving the
pommace in beds not more than one and a half to two feet thick.
If left thicker, or much straw remains in it, the pommace heaps are
liable to ferment and destroy the vitality of the seeds. Leave it in
this state all winter, without covering. If the seed is to be obtained
from any great distance, it must be washed clean, thoroughly dried,
and then packed in a box for transportation.

Planting. The soil should be of reasonable fertility, and free
from springs or standing water ; indeed, it is better to have it too
dry than too wet. As soon as the frost is out of the ground, plow,
harrow, and prepare the land where the apple seeds are to be planted,
the same as for a good crop of corn. Now stretch a garden cord any
length required ; lake a hoe in hand ; as you walk forward, let it
be drawn behind you, straight with the line, and about one inch
deep in the ground. This makes a drill six inches wide, and deep
enough for planting the seeds. Into this scatter the pommace an
inch thick, and then cover it over with the hoe about an inch deep.
The drills should be from three to four feet apart, according as one
has more or less ground to spare. The latter distance is best, be-
cause it gives more room between the rows ta work the plow or
cultivator, to stir the earth and keep the weeds down. If the trees
come up thicker in the rows than wheat or rye usually does after
sowing, they should be thinned out by pulling up whatever is neces-
sary, and thrown away, as they will hardly repay the trouble of
transplanting.

After culture. This may be the same as with a crop of corn. It
is very important to stir the earth, and keep it loose, for the better
spreading of the apple tree roots ; also to check the weeds, other-
wise they will choke the growth of the trees, and frequently over-
shadow and kill them.

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 347

Diseases and insects. Apple trees, the first and second years, are
very subject to mildew, the attacks of lice, and a small green fly,
wl<ich olten do tiicm great injury by cliccking iheir growth. For the
destruction of the first, we recommend strewing lime and charcoal,
mixed m equal quantities, along each side of the rows of the seed-
lings ; and for the second, sprinkle snufT all over the leaves, or a
mixture of sulphur, soot, and fish oil.

If in a good soil, and well taken care of, the trees will grow from
two to three feet high the first season. Treat them the second year
in the same way as the first.

Taking up and securing the trees. If the trees have had a good
growth the first season, they will be large enough the following
winter for grafting ; if not, they must remain till the second fall.
To prepare them for grafting, they should be taken up before the
ground freezes. To do this with facility, run a plow down each side
of the rows, turning away the soU from them, and then pull out the
trees carefully by hand ; or let two men go down on opposite sides
of the row, and thrust their spades into the ground near it, loosen-
ing the soil and somewhat lifting it up, while a third person follows
and pulls out the trees. After this, tie the trees together in moderate
sized bundles, and put them into a glass-lighted cellar, or anyplace
where they will be secure from frost or drying up of the roots, 'i'he
cellar bottom must be of a dry soil. Here dig trenches, and place
the roots of the trees in these, in bundles, and cover up till wanted.
Or, if the roots can be kept moist by wrapping them in moss or any
other way, it will answer, though covermg them with earth is the
safest and best method.

Grafting. As one has time during the winter, these bundles of
trees may be taken from the trenches and grafted. From one to tour
roots may be cut from each tree, dependant entirely upon its growth,
and still leave enough for the support of the stock taken up. This
should be closely trimmed and cut otf about two feet from the root,
to be set out the following spring, to be budded in August, Now
cut the grafts as wanted, and use ribands made in the following man-
ner for bandages : Take common cotton cloth, and cut it crosswise
into pieces six inches wide ; on one side of these pieces, spread
grafting wax, composed of I lb. beeswax, 1 lb. rosin, and 2 lbs.
lallow : then cut these pieces parallel with their width, into ribands
half an inch wide.

The most simple method of grafting, and as sure as any, when
the roots are so small, is the splice or whip method. Some adopt
cleft-grafting, and do not use wax or binding ; but as the graft by
this method is very apt to get displaced, we cannot recommend it.

After management. Take the trees after they are grafted, and put
them into boxes of any convenient size six inches deep, and fill the
same up with moist sand or light loam all around the roots, taking
care to leave the top of the scion out a little above the earth. These
boxes should now be taken to the green-house, and set in a shady

VOL. II. NO. II, W

348 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

place out of the way of the sun. Here let ihem remain till the graft
gets well united to the root, which will take place in a week, or
fortnight, according to circumstances. After being united, place the
boxes in the cellar, and let them remain there till ready to set out in
the spring. During this time, keep the earth in the boxes moist. By
giving the pieces an opportunity to unite, immediately after grafting,
if it comes a dry time in the spring subsequent to setting them out,
they are not so liable to die, and their growth is quicker and better.
As few farmers have a green-house to start tlie grafts in, they may
place the boxes containing them in a warm room during the day,
and in the cellar during the night. Those who are not too busy in
the spring, can do their root-grafting as soon as the frost is out of
the ground, and set the trees out in rows as fast as done.

Transplanting. Early in the spring, transplant tlie grafted trees
from the boxes mto rows about four feet apart, and one foot apart
in each row. Stir the earth occasionally, keep the weeds down be-
tween the rows, and let the trees grow till they are wanted to plant
in an orchard. By this method, apples have been gathered three
years after first saving the seed ; and if properly attended to, one
may always calculate on a little fruit the sixth or seventh year.

[From the same.]

FENCES.

We cannot do without some fencing in America ; but to be forced
to build innuvierable lines of it in every direction, is a positive curse
to the country, and a plague upon its morality and industry. It would
be hardly possible for law or custom, in a free community, to in-
vent and put in practice anything more burdensome, unjust, and
tyrannical upon the agricultural class, than the present system of
fencing. This may seem to our readers very strong language. It is
so, and we mean it as such ; nevertheless, it is bitterly true, every
word of it, as we shall endeavor to show. It is a long conviction of
its truth, and a knowledge of the deep hold that the apparent ne-
cessity of fencing their land has upon the habits and minds of the
people, which compel us to express ourselves so decidedly against
an odious and tyrannical custom, that has been forced without pro-
per reflection upon the cultivated portions of North America ever
since its settlement.

On the continent of Europe, fences are scarcely known ; neither
are they found in many parts of England, Scotland, or Ireland ; and
where they now exist in these countries the people are fast lessen-
ing their number, and we fully believe that half a century hence
such a thing will scarcely be in existence.

The following are our decided objections to fences :

1. They are the occasion of more angry words and brutal per-

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 349

sonal conflicts, sometimes ending with the death of one or both of
the parlies to it, law suits, and lasting ill-feeUngs among neighbors,
than all other causes put together.

2. They cost immense sums of money.

8. They take up at least two to tiirce acres out of every hundred
of the land.

4. They harbor large numbers of vermin, and are a complete
nursery for bushes and every noxious weed iliat grows.

5. They are much in the way of plowing, harrowing, and other-
wise working the land ; and unless a considerable number of gales
are erected along their lines, tiiey make it inconvenient getting to
the fields ; and by the circuits which have to be taken, greatly in-
crease the distances in carting out manure, bringing home the crops,
and driving the stock to and fro.

(3 They have a sensible effect in delaying the warmth of spring,
by occasioning snow-drifis and water puddles. Land, for a strip of
several feet wide, on the north side of the fences, docs not become
dry and warm ami tit for working so soon as in the open fields, by
at least three to seven days. This is frequently highly vexatious to
the farmer, and positively injurious in causing delay in his plowing
and planting.

7. They totally mar the beauty of the landscape, and make the
fields look as if they were all imprisoned. Strangers coming among
us from an unfenced country, unquestionably at first sight think us
and our cattle awfully vicious to require such ugly hedging in and
around.

All the above objections to fences, must strike the reader as so
plain and forcible, that they need but one elucidaiion, and that is as
to their cost ; and for a calculation of this, we will take New- York
as an average example of one twentieth part of the Union.

This State is supposed to contain a surface of 30,000,000 acres.
Deduct one half for unenclosed lands and water, and it leaves
15,000,000. Wc are of opinion that the average size of fields here
is about 15 acres ; but we will suppose, for fear of making too large
a calculation, that they average 20 acres. To surround one of these,
allowing a trifle for inequalities of surface, it would require 230
rods of fence. On account of numerous roads and lanes, all of this
does not answer for division fences ; instead, then, of throwing half
of It off for this purpose, we will suppose 110 rods enough, and
call the remainder (120 rods) sufiicient on the average for each 20
acre field. Dividing 15,000,000 acres by 20, they make 750,000
fields : these multiplied by 120 rods, the length of fence requisite
to enclose each field, make 90,000,000 rods. Farm fences cost, in
this State, from 40 cents to 150 per rod. We will suppose, on an
average, that the cost is 75 cents per rod ; this would amount to the
enormous sum of |67,500,000 for fencing iNew-York alone. Now,
allowing this to be one twentieth the cost of all the fences in the
United Slates, the result would be ^1,350,000,000 ! These enclo-

350 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

sures, including stone and wood, do not last, on an average, over
25 years ; the cost, then, is $54,000,000 per annum, which, with
$81,000,000 of interest at 6 per cent on the first cost, amounts to
$135,000,000 annually expended in the republic for fences ! It is
absurd to suppose that so much fencing is necessary ; and we now
respectfully ask whether, in the outset of this article, we too strongly
reprobated the law and custom compelling the farmers of this
country to submit to so grinding and odious a lax upon their industry ?

[From the same.]

THE SWINNY, OR DISEASE OF THE SHOULDER.

This is an affection not uncommon, but yet little understood If of
recent occurrence, it will be seen that the shoulder is swelled ; if of
long standing, that the shoulder is diminished in size, the muscles
having shrunk away. The shoulder is frequently shrunk when there
is no disease in it : this shrinking arises from disuse of the muscles.
To retain its full volume, a muscle must have constant action. Now,
disuse of the muscles of the shoulder may arise Irom two causes :
1st, lameness of the foot or leg ; 2d, lameness of the shoulder. If it
arise from the foot, no treatment is necessary for the shoulder. It
may be easily known if it proceeds from the foot, fn such case the
horse, when he moves, lifts his foot clear from the ground ; and
when he points his foot forward, he places it flat on the ground. If
the injury be in the shoulder, when he moves he drags the toe of
the foot along the ground, seemingly unable to lift it clear ; when
he points his foot out, his toe only rests on the ground, not the sole
of the foot. If the injury is in the shoulder, the horse reluctantly
turns his head towards the opposite shoulder : this strains the
muscles ; but he will willingly turn his licad toward the lame
shoulder, as this relaxes the muscles.

The common causes of shrinking or swinny of the shoulder, when
it arises from the foot or injury to the leg below the shoulder, are
all the diseases of the fool and leg, which continue long enough to
occasion s.ich a disease of the muscles of the shoulder as to occasion
their shrinking. Such diseases are foot-founder, contraction of the
foot, strain of the navicular joint, ringbone, pumiced foot, sand-
crack, quitlor, gravel, any separation of the foot ; in short, any of
the various diseases of the foot which induce the horse to favor it,
and thus use as little as possible the whole leg and shoulder.

The shrinking of the shoulder, where it arises from an injury in
the shoulder itself, has but one ordinary cause, namely, a strain of
the shoulder. When there is a strain of the shoulder, it is known at
once. Within a few hours after its occurrence, the shoulder is
swelled, perhaps in its whole length, but generally only at the lower
end. The strain lies almost always in the muscles which attach the

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 351

shoulder-blade to the body ; yet the swelling is on the outside, but
this arises from sympathy.

When the horse is observed to be lame, and it cannot at once be
determined where the lameness is, let him be walked ; and if he
dras[ his toe, it is in the shoulder. Let the shoulder be examined in
front ; if the affection be of long standing, the shoulder will be seen
to be less than the other. If, on feehiig it, it be found to be free of
heat, there will be no fever : the disease is then chronic. If, how-
ever, the shoulder be enlarged, it will be found, on feeling, to be
hot : the injury is then recent and intlammatory. Where the disease
is in the shoulder, and is chronic, it has gone through the inllam-
matory stage, and is of some considerable standmg. The chronic
slate is rarely cured. It is not unlike rheumatism. For the chronic
state, the best remedy is active blistering : this will rouse the
vessels to activity. It may be necessary to blister repeatedly ; and
exercise should accompany the biisterinij, with good grooming and
general care. Let the exercise commence as soon as the blister
begins to diminisii its discharge. This treatment, continued judi-
ciousl}' and energetically for some time, may cure chronic disease
of the shoulder. When the strain is recent, and inflammation exists,
the horse should be bled from the neck, and from the plate vein on
the inside of the leg, as near the body as possible. Rest, cooling
physic, both purgative and sedentary, should be given : no blistrring
should be allowed. Embrocations of a cooling nature should be ap-
plied. No stimulants should be applied externally, or given : they
but add to the inflammation. When the inflammation is subdued,
and the shoulder has fallen back to its natural size, the horse needs
nothing but rest, with gentle exercise. Let him be turned out, if in
the summer, to grass ; in tne winter, into a small yard in good
weather, and a loose box at night in bad weather. It will take him
some lime to get over the effects, and be flt for work again.

When the shoulder is shrunk or swinnied from lameness in the
foot or leg, below the shoulder, no attention should be paid to the
shoulder. When both feet or legs are diseased, so that the horse
seeks to relieve each alternately from pressure, both shoulders will
be swinnied ; they will be both shrunk, and the breast in front will
be diminished and tall in. The treatment in these cases is to be
addressed to the place of disease. If in the feet, cure them ; if in
the legs, cure them. .*Some diseases in the feet cannot be cured ;
and, of course, if there be swinny from such cause, it cannot be
removed. When the feet and legs are cured, and the horse recovers
thereby his wonted action, the muscles of the shoulder will, by
exercise, recover their former size, and the swinny be gone.

Among the ignorant there is a variety of remedies for the swinny,
as pegging (that is, thrusting a knife in the shoulder, and blowing
in stimulating powders), swimming, selons, etc. A recent writer in
the Soutliern Cultivator, says, " Introduce the small blade of a
common pocket knife (the point of which must be sharp), into the

352 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

thinnest part of the shoulder, which will be near the upper margin
of the shoulder-blade, holding the knife as you would ;i pen when
writing, and scratch up the membrane tnat covers the bone for a
space the size of a silver dollar ; the knife may be then withdrawn.
The knife may then be introduced in one or two places below the
first, and used in the same way, and the operation is over." Now,
if the disease be in the shoulder, lliis method can only cure by
rousing the vessels to action. Blistering will do this better, and is
more humane and less dangerous. Wounded membranes frequently
produce fatal inflammation. Blistering is never dangerous in chronic
aftections, and therefore is preferable on that score, and by general
action does far better. It is done within two days. Scraping the
membrane cannot be through its operation short of weeks.

Buffalo, January, 1845, A. STEVENS.

[P'rom the same."]

FATTING SWINE.

One of the most important duties demanding the farmer's attention
this month, is the fattening of his swine. The practice of some at
the north is, to commence one month later ; but this is very bad
economy, for all animals will fat much faster in mild weather than
in cold. Besides, there is a good deal of stuff about the farm which
is never so valuable as in this month ; and if gathered up and
cooked, is the best food which can be given for the commencement
of the fatting process. We would name small potatoes and roots
of all kinds, cabbages, turnips, pumpkins, apples, and unripened
and imperfect ears of corn. After these have been fed a month or
so, commence with a mixture of the diflerent kinds of meal, or corn
alone, and shove the animals as fast as posible, getting them ready
for the market by the middle of November to the first of January.
If delayed longer than this last mentioned period, however cheap
food may be, or high the pork may sell, fatting swine will be a
losing process.

The hogs should be allowed to exercise a little in the open air,
and have charcoal and rottenvvood to eat twice a week, and what-
ever water they may wish to drink. Some contend that they will
not fat as fast for this, but that remains yet to be proved by careful
experiment At any rate, we know that the meat is much superior
when fatting animals have a moderate degree of exercise, and plenty
of fresh air and water. If closely confined they become feverish, and
their meat is not only flabby and tasteless, but positively unhealthy.

Another thing. Sufficient attention is not paid to the cleanliness
of swine. Depend upon it, no animal pays better for keeping lum
clean than the hog ; and, after all, he is not half as dirty a beast as
he is usually set down to be. No creature enjoys clean quarters
better than he does ; tempt him with a good bed of fresh straw, and

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 353

see. The following experiment was recently tried in England : Six
pigs of the Norfolk breed, and of nearly equal weight, were put to
keeping at the same time, and irealed the same as to food and liltcr
for about seven weeks. Three of them were lefi to shift for them-
selves as to cleanliness ; the otiier three were kept as clean as
possible, by a man employed for the purpose, with currycomb and
brush. The last consuined in seven weeks fewer peas by five
bushels than the other three, yet they weighed more when killed
by seventy-two pounds.

Northern farmers may talk as they please, but they don't under-
stand, or rather carry into effect anything like so good a system of
fatting swine as those do at the west. There they commence feed-
ing early in September, in a nice grass pasture, with plenty of
shade trees, and a clear stream running through it. Here Master
Porkibus daily bathes his sleek sides, eats luscious roasting ears to
his fill, drinks and walks about, or sleeps at his pleasure ; and the
way he contrives to extract the fat from the corn to cover his rotund
ribs, is quite charming, completely distancing any other chemical
process that the wit of man has yet invented. It is worth a journey
of a thousand miles, any lime, to take a look at a small field of corn
of five hundred acres, crowning the rich bottoms of the west on one
side of a fence, and a little herd of tivo or three hundred lusty
grunters making away with it on the other. Indeed, we speak
within bounds in saying, that we have seen thousands of acres of
corn stretching along these valleys, seeming at a little distance like
one continued field ; and we once counted 537 hogs in one herd.
Talk about pork and corn in New-York ! Take a trip to the Sciota,
the Miami, and the Wabash, and one will then get his eyes open,
and know something about them.

[From the same.]

INCUBATION.
In an impregnated egg, previous to the commencement of incuba-
tion, a small spot is discernible upon the yolk, composed apparently
of a membranous sac or bag, containing a fluid matter, in which
swims the embryo of the future chick, and seemingly connected with
other vesicles around it.

1st Day. In a few hours after exposure to the proper temperature,
the microscope discovers that a humid matter has formed within the
limits of the embryo. At the expiration of twelve or fourteen hours,
this matter bears some resemblance to the shape of a little head : a
number of new vesicles also successively appear, foreshadowing the
different parts of the future body of the chick ; those first formed,
and most easily distinguished, may afterwards be recognized as
assuming the shape of the vertebral bones of the back.

364 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

2d Day. The eyes begin to make their appearance about the
thirtieth hour ; and additional vessels, closely joined together, indi-
cate the situation of the navel : the brain and spinal marrow, rudi-
ments of the wings, and principal muscles, become observable ; the
formation of the head is also evidently proceeding.

3d Day. The heating of the heart is perceptible, although no blood
is visible : after a few hours, however, two vesicles, containing
blood, make their appearance ; one forming the left ventricle, the
other the great artery : the auricle of the heart is next seen, and, in
the whole, pulsation is evident,

4ih Day. The wings now assume a more defined shape ; and the
increased size of the head render.s the globules containing the brain,
the beak, and the front and hind part of the head, distinctly visible.

5th Day. The liver makes its appearance ; and both auricles, now
plainly seen, approach nearer the heart than before : that splendid
phenomenon, the circulation of the blood, is now evident.

6th Day. The lungs and stomach are distinguishable, and the full
gush of blood from the heart is distinctly apparent.

7ih Day. The intestines, veins, and upper mandible become
visible, and the brain begins to assume a distinct form.

8lh Day. The beak for the first time opens, and the formation of
flesh upon the breast commences.

9th Day. The deposition of matter forming the ribs takes place,
and the gall-bladder is perceptible.

10th Day. The bile is distinguishable by its green color ; and the
first voluntary motion of the body of the chick is seen, if separated
from its integuments.

llth Day. The matter forming the skull now becomes cartilagi-
nous, and the protrusion of feathers may be noticed.

12th Day. The orbits of sight are apparent, and the ribs arc
perfected.

13th Day. The spleen gradually approaches to its proper position
near the stomach.

1 4th Day. The lungs become enclosed within the breast.

15th, 16th and 17th Days. During these days, the infinity of
phenomena in this wonderful piece of vital mechanism elaborate it
into more perfect form, and it presents an appearance closely
approaching the mature state ; the yolk of the egg, however, from
which it derives its nourishment, is still outside the body.

18th Day. On the eighteenth day, the outward and audible sign
of developed life is apparent, by the faint piping of the chick being,
for the first time, heard.

19th, 20th and 21st Days. Continually increasing in size and
strength, the remainder of the yolk gradually becomes enclosed
within its body ; then, with uncommon power for so small and frail
a being, it liberates itself from its prisun in a peculiar and curious
manner, by repeated efforts made with its bill, seconded by muscular
exertion with its limbs, and emerges into a new existence.

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 355

The position of the chicken in the shell, is such as to occupy the
least possible space. The head, which is large and heavy in propor-
tion to the rest of the body, is placed in front of the abdomen, with
its beak under the right wing : the feet are gathered up like a bird
trussed for tiie spit ; yet in this singular manner, and apparently
uncomfortaiile position, it is by no means cramped or confined, but
performs all the necessary motions and efforts required for its libera-
tion with the most perfect ease, and that consummate skill which
instinct renders almost infallible.

The chicken, at the time it breaks the shell, is heavier than the
whole Qgg was at first.

An egg will not hatch in vacuo.

The infinite wisdom of the Great Architect of the animal frame is
remarkably manifested in its providing the chick with a sharp and
hard substance on the tip of the bill, by means of which it is enabled
to fracture the shell to liberate itself from its imprisonment. Its own
bill is too soft to enable it to break the shell therewith ; and in two
days or les^s, this hard and pointed substance disappears, the young
bird no longer requiring to use it.

Equally extraordinary and wonderful is the fact that the germ of
the chick is provided with the ability to keep itself always on the
top of the yolk of the egg, to the end that it may take the heat from
the parent bird when setting to produce incubation.

[From the (Chicago) Prairie Farmer.]

BREEDS OF CATTLE FOR THE WEST.

Those who advocate the adoption of any one particular breed of
cattle for our climate and soil, seem to proceed on the supposition
that a breed once established will always retain its peculiarities
under every variety of situation and circumstance. IN ever was a
greater mistake made than this. A breed of animals will most in-
fallibly adapt itself to its food and treatment. Durham cattle, for
instance, can never long be made, on the hills of New-England, to
retain their size. How is it at present with Berkshire swine ? It
would not be out of the way to say that there will soon be an end-
less number of varieties, all springing from this breed, having as
little resemblance to each other as to other breeds. Let us ask the
question how the present distinct breeds of cattle, swine, and sheep
were produced. It was by uniform courses of feed, treatment, and
propagation. So well fixed in the breeds are certain peculiarities, by
this treatment, continued for a long time, that they will resist, /o;- a
while, changes of circumstances ; but they cannot continue to do it.
For instance, let cattle from the cold hills of Scotland be placed
upon warm rich prairies, and bred in their own line for twenty
generations, and then be compared with those fresh from their

VOL. II. NO. II. X

356 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

native region, and who does not believe that very evident clianges
would be produced ? The mistakes which our farmers are con-
tinually making in stock breeding, grow out of incorrect ideas in
this matter. For instance, a fine breed of cattle or swine is intro-
duced. A farmer thinks if he can only get somo of that slock once
on his farm, he will be made. He pays a high price for a pair of
calves whose ancestors have been accustomed to a fixed course of
tender treatment ; having been stabled much, and fed with great
care on the best of food. He turns out his calves to gel what they
can catch, without shelter or salt, or any tiling else which this breed
has been accustomed to, and he wonders that their blood does not
show itself omnipotently against all these disadvantages. He no-
tices, perhaps, that ihey do not thrive as well as his scrubs. The
fact is, the shock of the transition is too great. Many have inferred,
in this way, that the short-horns would never answer for our farms,
because they cannot endure rough treatment. The short-horns have
undoubtedly been more petted and tenderly treated than any other
breed ; but if the transition from tender to rough treatment be pro-
perly conducted, they will probably endure it as well as any other.
If a man gets an animal which has been stabled all his days, and
suckled till a year old ; and turns him out to shirk, the animal will
run down. But we are told by stock-growers that the short-horns, if
once accustomed to rough treatment and coarse feed, will endure it
as well as oiher cattle. This may be so ; but they will not continue
to retain the peculiarities of short-horns. This belief the fire will
not melt out of us. To produce a uniform race of cattle, there must
be uniform treatment, as well as correct breeding. An animal's body
is made of lohat he eats and drinks.

Hence the great disappointment of those swine-breeders in the
Southern iS tales, who rushed into the Berkshire growing, without
any reference to their mode of keeping hogs. They are accustomed
much in the South to let their swine range, and get their own living
by eating roots, snakes, acorns, and corn in the field. An animal, to
do this, must liave legs and wind. The berkshire had neither, and
of course soon fell in the rear. He was as much out of his element
as a horse in a singing school : he had not "the hang of that school-
house." He might be kept till he got it, perhaps ; when he could
get his living as well as others. But he would cease to be a berk-
shire — he would become a sharkshire. A berkshire's place is a
snug clover lot in summer ; a pen in winter, with good food brought
to him. With these, he is himself; without them, somebody else.
Our readers will easily see the conclusion to which we come.
The men who say "Give us the durhams for tlie West," or "Give
us the ayrshires," or "the devons," without any reference to what
use they are intended for, or what treatment they are to receive,
have none of our sympathies.

We have but room here to notice another error, which is, in
breeding. The individuals of a breed differ much. Some short-horns

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 357

are no belter than some no-horns or no-names. What propriety is
there, then, in supposing that superior stock will be obtained from
such a source. True, a poor thorough-bred animal will be njore
likely to produce good stock than one not thorough-bred, because
the excellence of some ancestor may appear in his issue ; Ij^t it is
great folly to breed from a poor animal of any blood. We hear
people complain that Berkshire hogs are no better than others ;
while others prefer them to every thing else, and with reason on
both sides.

[From the Maine Cultivator.]

SOAP-SUDS — COMPOST.
This is, perhaps, one of the most powerfully fertilizing articles
produced on a farm. It contains the food of plants in a state of
almost perfect solution, and consequently in a condition the most
easy to be appropriated and assimilated when applied as a stimulant
to vegetable life, in order to avail himself of this important source
of wealth, the farmer should provide himself with a tank of a size
sufficient not only to contain the suds made in the family, but a
large quantity of other materials, such as sods, turf, bones, ashes,
straw and muck ; in short any substance not actually and neces-
sarily prejudicial to vegetation, and which may, partly by imbibing
the liquid, and partly by chemical action, become an ingredient in
the food of plants. The tank or cistern provided for this purpose,
should be proportioned to the size of the family, and so situated as
to admit of an easy approach with the cart. It should also be so
constructed as to be exposed as little as possible either to the wash-
ing of heavy rains, or the influence of the sun and air. W'e have
often been surprised, on visiting the premises and farm yards of
some v\ho have enjoyed an honorable reputation for economy in
other matters, to find them cluttered and encumbered with useless
rubbish, which a little time, properly devoted, would have reduced
to a healthy and valuable assistant in the fertilization of a perhaps
unfertile and unproductive farm. Bones, shells, chips, are all ex-
cellent ingredients in the compost heap, and will well reward any
person for the trouble and expense of gathering them up. It is often
the case that soil in low places by the road side, which receives the
wash from the highway, may be converted into a valuable stimulant
simply by throwing it into lieaps. This, however, should be done
in the fall, as the wash during the summer adds greatly to its stimu-
lant powers, and the operation of the frost in winter conduces greatly
to its improvement, by thoroughly breaking up and disintegrating
the earthy particles composing the mass. Such soil, or indeed any
other, moderately indued with fertilizing properties, and the powers
of imbibing and retaining moisture, may be greatly increased in
value by being placed in a situation where it will remain open to
the action of rain and the clastic gases.

358 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

[From the (Philadelphia) Farmer's Cabinet.]

MANAGEMENT OF HENS.

From the statement of James L. Child:
My hens laid nearly as well during the winter as in the warm
weather. Their habitation was warm, and so constructed as to bring
them to the ground, where they found at all times a good supply of
old plastering, ashes, pulverized oyster shells, charcoal, fresh water,
beef liver once or twice a week, or some other kind of meat. I feed
chiefly upon baked or boiled potatoes, giving their food to them
warm in the morning and at night, occasionally dealing to them a
little corn or oats, and giving them all the crumbs, and skins, and
fragments of the cooked vegetables. To prevent their being infested
with lice, about once a fortnight I mixed in dough, so as to discolor
it, a quantity of flour of brimstone, which is a sure preventive as
well as remedy, and may be safely given in small quantities to
young chickens for the same purpose.

It will be seen from my mode of keeping my hens, which average
about twenty-five and three roosters, through the winter, that I can
not give the precise cost of keeping ; but I am satisfied that potatoes
may be given as a general food, and fovAls kept cheaper in this mode
than in any other, and they will always be ready for the spit, if
not stinted in quantity. I find my fowls fat at all seasons.

I estimate that my hens aff"ord me from their eggs, without regard
to their meat, a clear profit of 50 per cent. 1 confine them to their
yard, hen-house, and barn cellar, during gardening, and to their
house and cellar in the winter ; and think, with that degree of con-
finement, they lay better than they do when allowed to wander at
large. Hen-houses and roosts should be kept neat, and often white-
washed ; and their nests should always have half an inch or more of
ashes or lime on the bottom, under the hay. Broken or rotten eggs
should never be allowed to remain in the nests. Dirty water should
not be given them. To do well, they require pure water, and all
their food fresh and uninjured from taint or fermentation. I estimate
that during the year ( deducting the time of their moulting, and
inclination to set ) , I have got daily one half as many eggs as I
have had laying hens.

Every family can, with a very little trouble, with their flock of a
dozen hens, have fresh eggs in plenty during the whole year, say
in all 2000, and 100 full grown chickens ; and of all the animals
domesticated for the use of man — if such be the fact — the hen
is capable of yielding the greatest profit to the owner. It is a plea-
sant recreation to feed and tend a bevy of laying hens.

Care should be taken to change roosters often, as otherwise the
best variety in the world will run out, and cease to be profitable
from breeding in and in ; and I feel great confidence that much im-
provement may be made by due attention to crossing, and in this
way some of the evils from breeding be averted. I have stated that

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 359

I give my fowls meat : this is indispensable, if ihcy are not allowed
to go at large. If corn is fed out, it should be soaked, and fifteen
bushels is a fair yearly allowance for twelve hens and a rooster. But
they should always have food by them, and after they have become
habituated to find enough at all times in the trough, they take but
a few kernels at a time, except just before retiring to roost, when
they will take nearly a spoonful into their crops ; but if they are
scantily or irregularly fed, they will greedily snatch up a whole
crop full at a time, and stop laying, and not unfequenlly engender
some latal disease.

[From the same]

PREPARATION OF SEED.

Mr. Editor — I do not know any subject in the whole range of
agricultural pursuits, upon which labor can be so profitably be-
stowed as in the preparation of seed. It is lamentable to obsei-ve
the immense loss which is continually sustained in consequence of
indifference and carelessness on this point ; and it is really to be
feared that every species of grain will continue to degenerate in
quality and diminish in quantity, unless the farmer is awakened to
a proper sense of the importance which he should attach to this part
of his business. It has been the observation of almost every man,
that those products of the farm which are less valuable, and which,
therefore, the farmer is more indifferent about, are annually growing
worse in quality. Oats are lighter in the grain and upon the ground
than they were formerly ; and rye is becoming so exceedingly bad in
quality, and so uncertain a crop, as to be scarcely worth committing
to the ground. Farmers are heard constantly to express their wonder
why the product of the rye crop is not as it was formerly, and that
they can not raise as much oats to the acre as they used to do ; but
they will cease to wonder, if they will but reflect how exceedingly
indifferent they have been with regard to the quality of the seed
which they have used. The importance and value of the wheat and
corn crops, have sometimes induced them to make an exertion to
procure belter seed than their own ; but who ever takes the trouble
to go beyond his own granaries, to seek for seed rye or oats ? Or
who ever takes more pains in its preparation, than to measure it
into his bags from the pile, as it comes from the barn floor ? To this
alone is attributable the fact that these crops make but a scanty
return for the labour bestowed upon them. I do not urge the recol-
lection of these things for the sake of these crops, for I do not deem
them essential to the farming interest, beyond the small amount of
them which the farmer may be supposed to require for his own
immediate consumption ; but the same reasons and principles pre-
cisely are applicable to wheat and corn, to which we attach so much
importance. If, in the preparation of seed wheat, we take the grain

360 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

as it is prepared for grinding, and run it through the wind-mill at a
speed which will blow one-fourth or one-third of it out, and with
this, nearly all the weed and grass-seeds ; then run it through the
rolling screen, and thus separate any cockle, weed, or cheat seed,
which may remain ; then wash it, and if there has been any smut
in it, wash it again in salt water, and spread it upon the barn floor
and sift lime upon it and mix it, I will venture to assert, that in any
soil, the product will be increased from 15 to 20 per cent over what
it would have been, if the wheat had been sown without this prepara-
tion. If this be so, what labor and pains so profitably spent ? And
that it is so, is not only constantly taught us by experience, but is
perfectly consistent with those reasons which are so familiar to us all.
Cheat, cockle, rag-weed and smut, are principally what infest the
wheat field. Where weeds grow, they occupy the place of wheat,
and take that nourishment from the ground which ihe wheat should
have ; and I need not use any argument to prove that they will not
grow unless the seed is in the ground, and that it will not be there
— at least in such quantities — unless it be put there. Indeed I
know from experience, that in the course of a few years these
weeds will be wholly exterminated by that strict attention to the
cleansing of seed which is here recommended. Smut is but an in-
fectious disease of the grain, and is common to wheat, corn and
cats ; but no one need have it in either, if he will but take the trouble
to cleanse his seed. For several successive years have I made the
experiment of cleansing smutted wheat, by washing a small portion
of it in salt water and putting lime upon it, and venture the assertion
that it will never fail to purify it. I have also taken pure wheat and
mixed smui with it, and thus communicated the disease, and it will
never fail to produce smutted wheat. The same remark may be
made with regard to oats and corn ; for the blighted head of oats,
and the large black excrescence which sometimes grows upon corn,
although different in appearance, are essentially the same thing.

It is a very common impression that wheat is improved by
changing it from one kind of soil to another. It may be so ; and if
*' what every body says must be true," it is so : but I may be per-
mitted to doubt it, if it be only for the purpose of inducing thought
and observation on this point. Each one of your readers is prepared
to say, " I know this from experience ; but, notwithstanding, it is
still worth the inquiry, whether his experience is not this, that when
he went from home after seed, he went aUer good seed, better liian
his own, which he sowed in the next field, and cultivated in the
same way, and upon which his observation induced him to come to
the conclusion, that the seed he got from the slate land produced
better than his own ? I am not prepared to enlist myself upon the
one or the other side of this question.

Seed corn should be selected while it is upon the stalk ; it can
not be so well done afterwards. Every one has observed how much
sooner some ears of corn in the same field ripen than others, and

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 361

that some stalks bear two and some three ears, while others have
but one. All analogies and experience teach the advantages which
are derived from the selection of those ears which possess these
advantages. The same reason which would induce us to select a
good breed of hogs, is equally applicable to our corn and wheat.
The farmer who will turn his attention to a proper selection and
preparation of his seed, will be much suprised how little labour will
produce a great result. W.

Carlisle, March 17, 1845.

[From the same.]

TO MAKE GOOD BUTTER.

Mu. Editor — There is nothing requires more care than the
making of good butter, and nothing is more wholesome when it is
good. Aware of this, 1 found that strict attention, care and perse-
verance on my part, were ultimately crowned with success. Good
butter ought to be made in winter, as at any other time. The heat
of summer is as hard to contend with as the cold of winter ; and
this convinced me that there was a certain degree of heat more
favorable than another : this, after many trials with the thermo-
meter, I thought to be about 60°. 1 will relate to you some of my
discoveries and observations, which no doubt will seem rather stale
among so many good butter-makers ; but let me premise that these
were in my own dairy, and under peculiar circumstances.

First objection : The milk was often left too long standing in the
bucket, before strained and put away. I think the sooner it is put
away the better, and should not be disturbed while the cream is
rising.

Second objection : The milk pans, of stone ware, were never
warmed, but frequently taken from the shelf out of door, and the
milk, already cooled by standing, strained into the almost freezing
pans ; the consequence was, the too chilled milk would stand a long
time without casting its cream ; and being skimmed at regular
intervals, we fell short of the proper quantity of that necessary
article, and of butter.

Third objection : The skimming process was not carefully done ;
too much milk, and in the summer too much " clobber," clopper,
or " clabbaugh," or whatever it may be called, is thrown in with
the cream, which, in summer, gave a rancidity to the churning,
creating a difficulty, and sometimes entirely preventing the gather-
ing of the butter, and in the winter filling the churn to no purpose.
Fourth objection : Inattention while churning ; leaving the churn
after having commenced ; stopping, as they would say, to rest ;
not regular enough in turning : we use a barrel churn. All these
things tend to prevent the coming of the butter in a proper time,
and long churning tends to deteriorate the quality. I found, too,

362 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

that after the butter had come, instead of moving the paddles slower
to allow it to gather, they continued the same quick movement,
keeping up and even raising the temperature till it meked, or went
back, as one of my women told me. Hence you perceive the ne-
cessity of close attention in churning. Beginning with a good velo-
city, and continuing the same motion till a little pressure is felt on the
handle, which signifies the approach to butter ; and then decrease
the motion gradually till the butter begins to gather or break, when
a few turns backward and foward will end the process. Now if the
cream was good and sweet, churned properly, and has come in 15
or 20 minutes, I will warrant good butter so far. But it is as often
spoiled after taken from the churn, as before.

The best temperature for the whole process of the dairy is, as I
have before stated, between 50 and 65° ; the latter, perhaps, the
best. This winter I brought my milk to the house, and appropriated
a closet to it in a room where I have kept the temperature to an ave-
rage rate of 60°. The past winter, however, has been very mild,
and during some of the warm days I observed the milk turned
within twenty-four hours ; during which time I leave the milk to
cream. My observations after taking the butter from the churn, and
objections, were these :

First objection : They would leave the butter too long after churn-
ing, in the butter-milk. I think, as soon as the vessels for working
it can be made ready, it is best to take it out and rinse it off in
strained water, and then commence the working : do not let the
vessels be too warm — nay cool.

Second objection : Working by hand, the short scoop paddle being
the neatest and the best. Working does not mean paddling it over
and over, but means pressure ; and when carefully done, two or
three times working over by small parcels, will be quite sufficient ;
the best evidence of a sufficient working, however, is the purity of
the water with which it is washed : when it runs clear as a bell,
then stop. Salt to the taste next, is a safe recommendation ; but I
put in half an ounce to every pound, which seems to be best suited
to the taste of mtj customers The common Liverpool salt, free from
motes and rolled very fine, is the kind I use. I would recommend
now a sufficient paddling over to mix the salt well ; and after stand-
ing an hour or half hour, cut it in half pound prints, and observe
if it be streaky, which is occasioned I think by the salt abstracting
the coloring matter of the butler : work over each print by itself, and
then if the butter is not fit for any table, I'll give up.

Yours truly. F. H.

Baltimore, March 28, 1845.

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 363

[From the Boston Cultivator.]

ON THE RAISING OF PEACHES.

PROCURING HARDY VARIETIES.

Last week we made some general remarks on raising peaches,
in New England. This can only be done with success by a choice
collection adapted to this climate. The first thing is to gel good seed,
whether you intend to raise natural fruit, or raise selected kinds by
budding. The most hardy and durable trees are those raised from
seed, without budding. Select seed from hardy trees and good bear-
ers, that produce good sized handsome fruit of an excellent quality :
prefer those from natural trees, that is, such as have never been
budded or grafted. Then you will generally get the same excellent
fruit as that from which the seed is taken ; and if you bud, it is but
to get hardy stocks. It may be well to plant seed from some highly
valuable budded varieties, in order to get new kinds.

In almost ever}'' section of the coiinlry, where any attention has
been paid to the cultivation of this fruit, excellent kinds of natural
growth can be obtained. We collected seeds from a number of su-
perior varieties last fall, from which we now have trees. We found
five excellent sorts of natural fruit, in the distance of seven or eight
miles.

By all means avoid southern trees, seeds, and buds for grafting ;
as a large list of highly valuable varieties can be found in this nor-
thern region, which have been acclimated, and, with a judicious se-
lection, may be found free from disease, constitutional or incidental.
We have long recommended the use of northern seeds either for
trees or stocks, and have refused southern peach stones when offer-
ed as a gift, and paid a high price for those grown in the north. Too
many trees grown in this" section are from southern fruit ; hence, in
a measure, the deslruciion of trees by cold winters.

One cultivator who has had much experience, informs us that he
used to save carefully every peach tree that came up under his trees
of excellent budded fruit ; but he found such stocks soft, short-lived,
and liable to be winter-killed : he now digs up such trees as he would
a weed, and late in the fall, he looks out for some peaches from old,
long-lived, natural trees, and from these he takes seeds to form
stocks, and though they may not grow so rapidly, they will be firm,
hard and durable. This is what we advised some years ago, as we
had learned from experience and observation.

In getting trees or seeds from the south, besides the disadvantages
we have named, we are liable to introduce the yellows and other
diseases. We have seen some peach trees, of natural growth, that
were over thirty years old, and yet produced good fruit. The seeds
of such old standards that have braved the blasts of many winters,
are highly valuable.

VOL. II. NO. II. Y

364 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

After obtaining the stones, it is not material whether they be im-
mediately buried, or continue dry a few months ; but before the
ground freezes, bury them ten or twelve inches in sandy soil, and
there let them remain till spring, and the ground is dry, ploughed,
and prepared ; then carefully crack the stones, and plant the seed
about as deep as you would corn, and they are about as sure to
grow.

[From the same.]

PROPAGATION OF FRUIT TREES.

Messrs. Editors — Being considerably engaged in the cultivation
of fruit trees, it may not be uninteresting to tlie readers of your valu-
able paper to become acquainted with the different modes of man-
agement in the rearing of nurseries. In the commencement of a nur-
sery, too much care cannot be taken in the choice of seed ; no seed
should be sown, except those procured from large matured fruit.
Such selected seed seldom fail of producing ihritiy plants. Apple
and pear seeds should not be sown till spring ; as in autumn sowing,
the soil becomes so hard as to cause the plants to come up in a
crooked, deformed state. The following mode I have practised for
several years with the greatest success. Seed should be sown in
beds after the mode of common garden seed. When they are of suf-
ficient size to engraft, they may be taken from the seed bed, their
tap roots shortened, and transplanted into a rich loamy soil, in rows
four feet apart, and twelve or eighteen inches distant from each
other. When this is properly done, they may be grafted close to the
ground, after the mode of whip or splice grafting. This mode is
practised mostly on small stocks, and succeeds best when the scion
and stock are of an equal size.

The scion, which consists of the young wood of the former year's
growth, is cut to the length of about four inches. This and the stock
are each to be cut in a sloping manner for an inch and a half, and
tongued. Tonguing consists in cutting a transverse slit in the mid-
dle of the slope of the stock downward, and a corresponding slope
in the scion upwards. Both are now to be nicely put together, so
that one of the sides at least, if not both, shall exactly meet ; and to
be carefully bound together with a string of cotton wick yarn, pre-
viously dipped into a composition of soft, melted, grafting wax. As
soon as the scion and stock are firmly united, the string should be
carefully removed to prevent girdling.

The scion to be applied should contain three buds, which will
throw out as many small shoots or branches the first season. When
the two lower branches are of sufficient length, they may be trained
in such a manner as to form two perfect and natural trees, while tiie
top branch forms another tree upon the stock. This mode consists

SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 365

in bending down the two lower branches in the form of a knee or
layer, four inches below the soil, leaving the extreme ends out of
the ground in a perpendicular position. The knee or bend must be
so short as to always crack the bark just below an eye. By this pro-
cess roots will soon form from the bended part, whicii will in a few
months be sufficient to support the trees. They may then be severed
from the parent scion, and transplanted to any other part of the nur-
sery. This mode of proceeding supersedes the necessity of grafting
ever afterwards, except wlien any other varieties are wanted, in
which case grafting may be done on trees produced in this way.
Trees propagated by layers are much more durable, and are not so
liable to defect as grafted ones. S. 8. Dimond.

Meriden (New-Haaipshirc), February 2, 1845.

[From the same.]

CULTIVATION OF CRANBERRIES.

In answer to the inquiries of a subscriber on this subject, we will
remark as we have often before, that the cultivation of this plant is
not yet reduced to any regular system. They come into some lands
and disappear in others unexpectedly and unaccountably, unless it
be owing to a rotation of crops by nature, as oaks succeed pines,
and the reverse.

If the land be not naturally wet, it is best to prepare for flowing,
and there is sometimes an advantage in flowing very wet lands.
The water is a protection against severe cold in winter ; and by
flowing late in the spring, the blossoming may be retarded until the
frosty season has passed ; and if flowing can be efl"ecied rapidly, it
may be done any time in summer, when there are indications of a
frost.

As to the preparation of the soil, if it be naturally too dry, mud
will improve its texture, by rendering it more retentive of moisture ;
and if the land be naturally wet, and the soil composed mostly of
mud or peat, sand will be a good manure. When land has been long
in grass, and cranberries have not grown, the cranberry plants would
be likely to displace the grasses, aided by the tendency of nature to
rotation ; but if the ground has been in cranberry vines, and they
have disappeared, the land should be ploughed, or in some way
inverted, burying the grass completely, and tolerably deep.

In transplanting, take up shovelfuls of the soil at places about four
feet apart ; and place in the holes shovelfuls of earth taken from a
cranberry bog, with the vines therein, and they will soon run and
occupy the whole ground.

366 QUARTERLY JOURNAL

MISCELLANIES.

THE ZEUGLODON CETOIDES (Owen).

In our July number, we figured and described the teeth of the
Zeuglodoti cetoides of Owen, with the intention of proceeding with
the descriptions of other parts as we have prepared them, or as we
have disclosed them by the removal of the matrix. Our space is
now entirely occupied with other matters, and we therefore transfer
that subject to our first number for 1846. We, however, take this
opportunity to notice Mr. Koch's specimen, which has been put up
in New-York. It is undoubtedly made up in part, and put up erro-
neously. Thus the paddles are the cast of a chambered shell, A
portion of the skeleton, placed for the head, is probably a part of
the pelvis, and the lower jaw is extremely defective ; and to ensure
a wonderful animal, parts of two or more skeletons seem to have
been put together. It is called a Sea-serpent ; but every part of the
skeleton shows that it is not a serpent or a lizard, as both these
families have vertebras with a ball and socket joint. The paddles
which are affixed show that the owner has but a scanty knowledge
of comparative anatomy, inasmuch as they have not the slightest
analogy to those structures as they are found in nature.

Our skeleton has the base of the lower jaw ; the anterior terminal
portions of both jaws, with teeth ; a portion of a scapula, with the
heads of the humerus ; an entire humerus ; a perfect femur ; a
distinct portion of a forearm, radius and ulna ; a portion of a pelvis,
with about seventy feet of vertebra, which were found in a line
together, and numbered as they were removed from the rock. The
neck is evidently long, and comparatively slender and serpentine ;
yet the jaw and other bones prove it a mammiferous animal.

We informed Mr. Kocii that his paddles were parts of a cham-
bered shell ; and that the bone which he called the head, was a part
of the pelvis. Wc make these remarks, not with a view of diminish-
ing the value of Mr. K.'s specimen : what we wish, is that this
remarkable relic should be properly put up, and every thing removed
which does not belong to it.

MISCELLANIES. 367

AMMONIA DESTRUCTIVE TO INSECTS.

Mr. Jordan, of Brooklyn, having a fine large peach tree decaying,
tried unsuccessfully various means, till at last it occurred to him that
carbonate of ammonia might prove useful. He immediately inserted
small pieces of this substance in the holes made by the insects in
the trunk of the tree. The result was the destruction of the insects,
and the entire resuscitation of the tree, so that it bare a remarkable
quantity of line fruit this season. The remedy is perfectly rational,
and we have no doubt it will prove invaluable.

NATIVE LAMELLAR IRON.

We have in our possession a mass of native lamellar iron, which is
quite remarkable. The laminre are about ~^i\\ of an inch thick, and
columnar, Sp. gr. G"58, from one trial of a thin plate. At first we
supposed it an artificial production, but we were soon satisfied this
opinion was incorrect. It dissolves rapidly and perfectly in warm
sulphuric or muriatic acid, disengaging hydrogen. Ammonia pre-
cipitates the pcroxitle. It is attracted strongly by the magnet : streak
and lustre metallic. But its lamina? are only slightly flexible, and it
is entirely destitute of malleability. On being heated, it is converted
into the black oxide ; and we were entirely unable to flatten it under
the hammer when red hot, although it is apparently pure iron. We
submitted a specimen to the examination of Dr. Beck, with the
results we had previously obtained. We hope he will give it a tho-
rough examination, for we consider it one of the most curious and
interesting varieties of iron that has ever fallen under our notice.

OXIDE OF COPPER.

Fine octahedral oxide of copper, associated with native copper, has
been put into our hands by Dr. Eights : it was taken from one of
the Lake Superior mines. This variety is rare, we understand, in
the copper region.

VEINS OF HEMATITE.

We discovered, last July, in Adams (Massachusetts), veins of this
substance in the granular quartz. They are in connection with that
curious mass of quartz breccia which lies adjacent to the base of
the Green mountains. Il; has been an interesting inquiry, how the
granular quartz was broken into those sharp angular pieces. It now
appears to us that the sudden application of heat may have shivered
entire strata, accompanied by an ejection of melted oxide which
flowed into the broken mass and cemented it together. Whether
so or not, we were much gratified with having discovered that the
hematite of the Taconic system exists in veins in connection with
the breccia spoken of above.

368 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

CONGLOMERATE OF THE GRANULAR QUARTZ.

Beds of conglomerate exist also at the base and upon the tops of
the Green mountain range, which may be traced within a few feet
of granitic beds. Thus upon the top of Oak hill, two miles and a
half northeast of Williams College, this interesting mass is well
developed. This fact establishes what we have long contended for,
namely, that the granular quartz should be separated from the
Gneiss and Mica slate systems, or from the Primary system.

LFrom the Edinburgh Journal.]

A FARM CULTIVATED BY THE INSANE.

In our former notices of the systems employed in France for the
amelioration and cure of insanity, we pointed out that the occupa-
tion of the patient in various useful employments was amongst the
most successful modes of treatment. When the increase of patients
in the two asylums, the Bicetre and the iSalpetriere at Paris, de-
manded further accommodation, the unfortunate inmates were em-
ployed to assist in the new buildings ; and with results extremely
favorable to themselves. When these works were finished, the me-
dical directors of the hospital dreaded the effects of a relapse into
inactivity on their patients, and employed them in the fields and
grounds adjoining the two edifices. So active were the laborers,
and so delighted with their work, that they did everything which
could be done in a very short time, and want of work was again
threatened. To avert it altogether, M. Ferrus, one of the physicians
of the Bicetre, conceived the idea of obtaining a farm for the per-
manent employment of his willing laborers. With this view he ap-
plied to the government ; but as there were no funds at the disposal
of the ministry, which could be applied to the commencement of
such an undertaking, and as every acre of cultivated ground near
Paris was of course occupied, his scheme seemed at first hopeless.
Still the benevolent projector was not to be daunted, and as he could
not find a cultivated spot of ground fit for his purpose, he looked
out for a barren one.

After many inquiries and surveys, M. Ferrus fixed upon an estate
situated about two miles from Bicetre, near the Barriere de la sante.
It was the most wretched piece of ground imaginable. So entirely
was it covered with stones, that there was not an acre in tlie whole
tract which seemed capable of being successfully cultivated ; and
though formerly occupied by enterprising farmers, it had long been
abandoned. A homestead which they had built was in ruins, and
the barns and sheds in the last stage of decay. Upon this unpromis-
ing farm M. Ferrus fixed ; and by the end of 1832, several of the
Bicetre patients were set to work to enclose about ten acres of the
least barren portion. This enclosure was levelled with such success,

MISCELLANIES. 369

that its first year's produce was sold for about jC57, nearly ten
pounds more than the annual rent of the entire farm. Encouraged
by this result, M. F'errus applied to the admistration des hospitcaiix
to have the patients transferred from the Bicetre altogether, that
they might live entirely on the farm. The ruined house, and the
want of funds at head-iiuarlcrs applicable to its repair, seemed at
first powerful objections to this measure ; but M. Fcrrus, having
good workmen at his command, overcame them. He got the govern-
ment to supply tools, as it had previously done for the farming
operations ; the homestead was soon put in a habitable stale by
those for whose occupation it was designed, and, in 1835, was ten-
anted by a number of the insane The farm is now regularly orga-
nized ; an experienced agriculturist, M. Beguin, was engaged to
direct and superintend the operations of the laborers ; the whole
land belonging to the estate was taken into the original enclosure,
and each succeeding year has been crowned with not only an increase
of agricultural produce, but with an increase in the list of cures
amongst the patient^<. The only inconvenience the managers of the
farm have to contend with, arises from an accidental want of em-
ployment which may happen. So anxious are the majority of the
unfortunates for work, that they become troublesome when ihcy do
not obtain it. This was most fell in the winter, when farming ope-
rations are for a time suspended ; but to fill up this blank space,
the farmers at St. Anne are annually set to bleach the whole of the
linen used in the two hospitals ; a tas^k which they perform cheer-
fully and well, saving to those establishments upwards of four hun-
dred pounds per annum.

Besides the excellent effects which have been produced on those
patients employed and residing on the St. Anne farm, it has been
found of the utmost benefit to less convalescent inmates of the in-
sane hospitals. By allowing them at first to see the others at work,
they soon get a desire to join in it, which, when the medical officers
deem them well enough, they are allowed to do. In short the effects
of such healthful employment as that necessary to the culture of
land, has been found of the utmost benefit to all classes of insane
patients. The success of the French farm will, we trust, encourage
the directors of our native lunatic asylums to adopt similar methods
of cure ; which, properly managed, appear to be as profitable as
they are efficacious.

THE YOUNG PHILOSOPHER.

Children, says Professor Olmsted of Yale College, in the preface
to his Rudiments of Natural Piiilosophy and Astronomy, are natu-
rally fond of inquiring into the cause of things. We may even go
farther, and say that they begin from infancy to interrogate nature
in the only true and successful mode — that of experiment and ob-

370 QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

servation. With the taper, which first fixes the gaze of the infant
eye, the child conannences his observations on heat and hght. With
throwing from him his playthings, to the great perplexity of his
nurse, he begins his experiments in mechanics, and pursues them
successively as he advances in age, studying the laws of projectiles
and of rotary motion in the arrow and the hoop, of hydrostatics in
the dam and the water-wheel, pneumatics in the windmill and the
kite. I have in my possession an amusing and well executed en-
graving representing a family scene, where a young urchin had cut
open the bellows to find the wind. His little brother is looking over
his shoulder with innocent and intense curiosity, while the angry
mother stands behind with uplifted rod, and a countenance which
bespeaks the woe that impends over the young philosopher. A
more judicious parent would have gently reproved the error ; a
more enlightend parent might have hailed the omen as indicating a
Newton in disguise.

MORAL POWER OF A KIND SPIRIT.

One of the most pleasing acquirements that adorn mankind, is aflfa-
bility. This one virtue calls into action many others, which, were it
not for its influence, would probably be dormant. But of itself in its
own intrinsic worth, it assuredly is the certain avenue of success in
gaining the esteem and respect of others. Man's chief aim through
this transitory life is happiness ; and the safest and shortest method
to obtain this blessing, is by the strict cultivation of amiability of
manners and softness of temper. How frequently do we hear the
morose and sullen acknowledge that in their intercourse with man,
an impression exists that they had dealt wiih a gentleman, because
he was amiable and gentle ; and yet it does not follow that every
one who shows forth this amiableness is a gentleman, but he can
be no gentleman who does not possess it. In all walks of society,
this gentleness of temper and of conduct sheds its beloved influence
upon those with whom it comes in contact ; for the truth of Holy
Writ assures us that a " soft answer turneth away wrath :" and
where, I would ask, is that being, young or old, that hath not ex-
perienced this truth ? And does not this gentleness of temper ensure
to their heart calmness of mind, and with it does it not command
the respect of others ? This is undeniable ; for, gentle reader, have
you not heard the remark of the ungoverned, " I could not say
another angry word to him, he was so mild, so gentle in his speech
and manners." Oh how insignificant does sucii an acknowledgment
make the morose appear in comparison with this heaven-like ascen-
dancy over our faults !

MISCELLANIES. 371

[From the New- York Express.]

THE FREED BIRD.

Among the superstitions of the Senecas, is one which, for its singular
beauty, is already well known. When a maiden dies, they imprison
a young bird until it first begins to try its powers of song ; and then
loading it with kisses and caresses, they loose its bonds over the
grave, in the belief that it will not fold its wing or close its eye until
it has flown to the spirit land, and deUvered its precious burden of
affection to the " loved and lost." It is not unfrequent, says the
Indian history, "to see twenty or thirty birds loosened at once over
one grave."

We find the following beautiful stanzas, founded on this legend,
in an exchange paper. It is true poetry, and for such we have al-
ways a welcome and a corner.

Speed away! Speed on the errand of light !
There's a young heart awaiting thy coming tonight :
She will fondle thee close; she will ask for the loved,
Who pine upon earth since the " Day-Star " has roved :
She will ask if we miss her — so long is her stay.

Speed away ! speed away !

Wilt thou tell her, bright songster, the old chief is alone ;
That he sits all the day by his cheerless hearthstone ;
That his tomahawk lies all unnoted the while,
And his thin lips wreathe ever in one sunless smile :
That the old chieftain mourns her, and why will he stay ?

Speed away ! speed away !

And, oh ! wilt thou tell her, blest bird on the wing,
That her mother hath never a song to sing ;
That she standeth alone in the still quiet night.
And her fond heart goes forth for the being of light
Who had slept in her bosom, but would not stay.

Speed away ! speed away !

Go, bird of the silver wing, fetterless now :

Sloop not thy bright pinion on yon mountain's brow ;

But hie thee away, o'er rock, river and glen,

And find our young "Bay-Star' ere night close again.

Up ! onward ! Lt nothing thy mission delay !

Speed away ! speed away !

VOL. II. — NO. II.

INDEX.

Adams (Prof.), report, page 315.
Agricultural geology, 1 & 179.

— productions, etc. 196.

— items, 324.

— science, 50.
American mastodon, 203,

— cheese, 176.

— shepherd, 314.

— Association : proceedings, 132.
Ammonia destructive to insects, 367.
Analysis of soils, 126.

Anatomy of the mastodon, 209.

Animals useful to man, 101.

Ann. report of geology of Vermont, 315.

Artichokes, 130.

Artificial means for arresting the rava-
ges of the wheat-fly, 252.

Ashes of narcotic plants, 319.

Bement's birdseye view of vegetable pro-
ductions, 221.

Botanical Text Book, 281.

Brazil, 225.

Breeds of cattle for the west, 355.

Buenos-Ayres, 224.

Bulbous roots, 90.

Butter, how to make good, 361.

Carnation rose, 94.

Cccidomyia, 261, 262, 264.

Character of granitic rocks, 12.

Chemical changes in iron furnaces, 317.

Chih, 224.

Classification of rocks, 3.

Climate, 182.

Composition of simple minerals, 9.

Compost, 357.

Conglomerate of the granular quartz, 367.

CorUandville, and Randall's farm, 69.

Cultivation of cranberries, 36.

Culture of teazle, 79.

Description of the clear-winged wheat-
fly, 257.

Do. spotted-winged wheat-fly, 261.

Disease of the shoulder, 350.

Dissection of a free martin, 306.
Drift, 26.
Drifted soil, 13.

Education of American farmer, 50, 212.
T^^lFicacy of manures, 34,

Estabrook's letter, 304.

Ethnology, 320.

Experiments on the spheroidal state of
bodies, 316.

Do. manures and electricity, 119.

Face of the country, 189.

Fall ploughing, 328.

Farm and farming of Mr, Hopkins, 76.

Farm cultivated by the insane, 368.

Farmer's & Emigrant's Handbook, 117.

Farmers' library, 118.

Fatting swine, 352.

Fences, 348.

First annual report of the geology of Ver-
mont, 315.

Fitch on insects, 233.

Foot-rot, 341.

Forest trees, 188.

Freed Bird, 371.

Geology (agricultural), 1 & 179.

Germination under colored glass, 177.

Gestation of cows, 337.

Gleanings from Greatficld, 83.

Gray's Botanical Text Book, 281.

Great American mastodon, 203.

Greatest iron mines, 129.

Guano, 40.

Guiana, 225.

Habits of the wheat-fly, 243.

Hens, management of, 358.

History of the foreign wheat-fly, 234.
— domestic do 239.

Hopkins' opinion of transiimtation, 308.

How plants absorb carbonic acid, 45.

How to supply air to roots of plants, 330.

Husbandry in Central N. York, 64, 286.

Improvement in agriculture, 104.

Incubation, 253.

Insects injurious to vecretation, 233.

Letters, No. i. 64, 69, 72, 76, 79, 83,
86 ; No. ii. 286, 288, 290, 292, 294,
295, 298, 301, ?03, 304.

Lost races, 199.

Lyell's travels, 265.

Management of hens, 358.

Manures, 34, 226, 309, 310,

Mexico, 222. *

Moral power of a kind spirit, 370

INDEX

373

Native lamellar iron, 367.
Odd Spells, 21.

On the raising of peaches, 363.
Oxide of copper, J67.
Peru, 223.

Philadelphia and horticulture, 123.
Planting strawberries, 345.
Plants kept in rooms, 98.
Practical directions for flower garden, 89.
Prentiss' free martin, 305.
Preparation of seed, 359.
Proceedings of the American Associa-
tion, I3i.
Propagation of fruit trees, 364.
duantity of rain in Washington co. 184.
Randall's stock, 72.

Relations of vegetables and animals, 15.
Report of J. W. Go wen's farm, 170.
Rheumatism, 118.
Root-grafting, 346.
Ryder, about manures, 226.
Seed, preparation of, 359.
Self-acting pump, 339.
Soapsuds, 357.
Soils of the Taconic region, 192,

Soil of Wisconsin, analysis of, 336.
Sparry limestone, 186.
Species resembling the wheat-fly, 263.
Spotted-winged wheat-fly, 261.
Springs of water, 187.
Study of entomology, 218.
Swinny, 350.
Swine, fatting of, 352.
Texas, 222.

The Botanical Text Book, 281.
The young philosopher, 369.
To make good butter, 361.
Transactions of the New- York Agricul-
tural Society, 109.
Travels in North America, 265.
Underbill on cultivation of corn, 326.
Universal pronouncing gazetteer, 284,
Veins of hematite, 367.
Vermont geological report, 315.
Wealth of a nation, 326.
Wood's Class-book in Botany, 107.
Wool and its structure, 86, 298.
Zeuglodon cetoides, 59, 366.
Zoology, 318.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

PLATE IV.

Exhibits the osteology of the Mastodon entire, with the tusks as found on
the same skeleton.

PLATE V.

WHEAT INSECTS, AND THEIR ANATOMY.

Fig. a. Kernel of wheat, with its husks, and the worms feeding upon its
pulp. m

Fig. b. Pupa greatly magnified.

Fig. c. Wheat-head, with the chaff bent down by the yellow-bird, in
getting at the worms leaving the grain, as at * * *.

Fig. e. Male antenna.

Fig. / Ovipositor when drawn out, with three segments of the abdomen.

Fig. g. Leg of the insect, showing its joints, greatly magnified.

Fig. h. Female antenna magnified.

Fig. i. Insect in its natural size.

Fig. 1. Clear-winged wheat-fly.

Fig. 2. Spotted-winged wheat-fly.

Fig. 3. Cecidomyia tergata.

Fig. 4. Male of the Clear-winged wheat-fly.

Fig. 5. Cecidomyia thoracica.

Fig. 6. Insect at rest, with its wings in their natural position.