182 Cincinnati Ilorticullural Society — Proceedings. [April, 



prepared or perfected vegetable nutriment. By the putrefaction and 

 moldering of manure its constituent elements are put in training 

 for a brisk decay, but by decay are first transferred to those combi- 

 nations •which are consumed by plants for their nutrition. Putre- 

 faction and moldering may be compared, in this respect, to the 

 soaking, maceration, or parboiling of our food ; decay, on the other 

 hand, to its full and finished dressing. Peat is composed of putre- 

 fied vegetable organs ; pond-mud is equally rich therein ; in the 

 same manner, ^\e very frequently find in the subsoil considerable 

 quantities of putrefied or moldering vegetable tissue, for instance, 

 what is called moor-earth, etc. All these substances must notori- 

 ously lie a longer or shorter time in the air, before they are service- 

 able to plants. The transformation they thereby undergo follows 

 from what preceeds ; they pass over from a putrefied or rotten state 

 into that of decay. 



In arable land the decay of manure can only take place in its up- 

 per surface, so far as this is loose and accessible to air. If, there- 

 fore, a rapid operation is desirable, it must only be superficially 

 plowed in, especially in heavy soil. The deeper it is introduced in- 

 to the ground, and consequently excluded from the air, the more 

 tardy and slow must be its decay, and therefore its operation. — 

 Stockhardt's Chemical Field Lectures. 



CIN'TI HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY— PROCEEDINGS. 



Saturday, Feb. 14th. 

 The Report on the Premium List was ordered to be laid over for two 

 weeks. Mr. Scarborough's Resolution to memorialize the Legis- 

 lature for a law to prevent the destruction of insectivorous birds was 

 adopted. 



The special order of the day, the discussion of the points present- 

 ed in Mr. Ward's paper, on the " Bud," of last week, was announc- 

 ed ; and iMr. Cary proceeded to give an exposition of the phenom- 

 ena of vegetative development. Mr. Cary paid a compliment to the 

 paper of Mr. Ward as one well calculated to set us to thinking. — 

 He dissented from Mr. Ward's views in various particulars, and pro- 

 ceeded to present his own, in a manner forcible and agreeable. The 

 postulate of Mr. Ward's views was, that both the bud and the seed 



