Scientific Intelligence. —^Botany. 397 



their delicate forms, which would be destroyed by the slightest 

 shock. 7. To dry, in the usual manner, by a moderate degree 

 of pressure, in grey paper, the Fiaigoids of a thin and papyra- 

 ceous consistence, as well as the epiphyllous fungosities. 8. 

 Lastly, After complete desiccation, to inclose them in paper bags, 

 to prevent the attacks of insects and worms, and especially to 

 defend them against the contact of foreign bodies. In this man- 

 ner, says the author of the Synopsis Fungorum, these produc- 

 tions may be preserved for a long time, in order to compare 

 them with one another, examine them without fear of losing 

 them, and communicate them to others. 



9. Effects of certain Manures on the qualities Xrf Plants, — 

 Among the fertilizers of the soil, high importance is attached, 

 and deservedly, to that mass of matter which results from the 

 process of putrefaction upon organic substances undergoing cor- 

 ruption after death. By reason of its efficacy, it' is assiduously 

 procured to fertihze poor soils, to renovate exhausted ones, and 

 prevent good ones from wearing out. Animal manures have a 

 peculiar rankness. Some of them stimulate, or, it may almost 

 be said, cauterize with vehemence. Hence they require ad- 

 mixture of milder materials to mitigate their force. Yet, after 

 the offal and scrapings of large cities, have been mingled with 

 soil in such proportion as not to destroy the life of plants, but 

 to promote their vegetation, they have been considered as com- 

 municating, in many cases, a disgusting or offensive quality to 

 some of the vegetables they nourish. They have been charged 

 with imparting a biting and acrimonious taste to radishes and 

 turnips. Cabbages are less sapid and delicate. Potatoes have 

 been observed to borrow the foul taint of the ground. It has 

 been traced to the bulb of the onion. Millers observe a strong 

 and disagreeable odour, in the meal of wheat that grew upon 

 land highly charged with rotten recrements of cities. The like 

 deterioration of quality, has even been remarked in tobacco rais- 

 ed in cow-pens. And stable-dung has been accused of impart- 

 ing a disagreeable flavour to asparagus. It seems as if some 

 portion of the foul matter of the manure was absorbed by the 

 vegetable radicles, and, after passing unassimilated through the 

 sap-vessels, was converted by the process of nutrition to living 

 substances. This condition of the vegetable species, seems to 



