THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



215 



With coats of veerotation thinly spread, 



Co'it above coat, ilie living on the dead; 



These tlion dissolve to dust, and make a way 



For bolder foliage, nursed by their decay. 



The long-endurins; ferns in time will all 



Die, and depose their dust upon the wall ; 



Where the winged seed may rest, till many a flower 



Shows Flora's Iriumph o'er the falling tower." 

 The lichens being the first purvej-ors of soil, it might 

 be naturally supposed that these plants — whose invisible 

 seeds seem to be ever at hand to fultil their allotted func- 

 tion — would exist on all parts of the earth; and it is so. 

 Their tissues are so little affected by the extremes of heat 

 and cold, that the same apparent species is sometimes found 

 occupying climates the most adverse, situations the 

 most dissimilar in this respect; and regarding the 

 order, or group, collectively, it may be stated as 

 being distributed from the poles to the equator, and from 

 the sea-level to the highest mountain summit, where cer- 

 tain species clothe the perpendicular rocks, amidst snows 

 and glaciers, in the rogions of ever-during frost. In these 

 lofty alpine districts and lands, far beyond the Arctic circle, 

 vegetation does not advance beyond the production of thsee 

 obscure plants ; but they are forming in such situations the 

 basis of a soil which, under some future condition of our globe, 

 maj' be hereafter destined to the support of vegetation of a 

 higher cast. TLus circumstanced, they seem to constitute 

 the first step between death and vitality; they have been 

 called "t!ie first heralds of life," but it is of a life which 

 here commences and terminates with themselves. 



The number of known species of lichen it is difficult to 

 estimate with any approach to correctness, on account of 

 the variations in aspect induced by difference of climate, 

 exposure, and other circumstances. According to the enu- 

 meration of Fe'e, there exist between two and three thou- 

 sand, but not more than half that number has been hitherto 

 accurately examined and described ; and of those which 

 have been subjected to this ordeal, many are, doubtless, 

 mere varieties of well-authenticated species in different 

 stages of development. 



Taken in the aggregate, the lichens present a structure 

 and appearance too much diversified to admit of any general 

 description devoid of the technicalities of botanical science, 

 or, even if so encumbered, without illustrative figures. But 

 we may take the green powder, ahead}' spoken of under the 

 name of Lepraria viridis, as an example of one of the simplest 

 forms of the tribe. An examination of the sides of a chalk- 

 pit or open stone quarry will make us acquainted with a 

 higher series, in the condition of minute black or coloured 

 specks scattered over those parts which have remained for 

 a few months undisturbed. A lens or magnifying-glass will 

 be requisite to detect their organic character; but many of 

 these are of beautiful and complicated structure, and in 

 noticing them we have made, not one step, but over-strided 

 many on the scale of vegetable creation. Patches, often 

 circular in outline, of white, yellow, brown, or grey occur- 

 ring on the walls of ancient buildings, rocks, stones, &c,, 

 lead us a few grades further. Some species, again, of thin 

 leathery or papery consistence, overrun the ground in 

 woods ; others are clustered in bunches round the branches 

 of trees, or hang from them like rags or hair ; while several 



of equally varied aspect vegetate among the slender grasses 

 and heaths on our moors, some branching like tufts of white 

 coral, others spreading over the soil as a grey crust, and 

 sending up numerous little greenish-grey stemmed cups or 

 miniature goblets, bordered with studs of the most vivid 

 crimson. Such are some of the more conspicuous members 

 of the lichen family. 



Highly valuable in the economy of nature, these plants 

 are — Tike their aquatic parallels, the algai — of comparatively 

 small account in that of man. Consisting chiefly of a proxi- 

 mate principle allied to starch, they are generally more or 

 less nutritive; a circumstance that, in cold climates, renders 

 some of them useful articles of subsistence. 



The species which has most attracted attention in this 

 respect is the Iceland moss of our druggists — Celraria 

 hlamUca of botanists — a plant that has long 'been a popular 

 remedy in consumption and diseases of the chest. Though a 

 native of North Britain, all that is used here is imported from 

 Iceland and Norwaj'. In Iceland, it is a common and much 

 prized item in domestic economy, and is collected in large 

 quantities for winter use as food ; and the inhabitants of 

 that barren and uncultivatable land, have a current expression 

 that " tbc bounty of the Almighty gives them bread out of the 

 very stones ;" the lavas and volcanic stones on the western 

 coasts of their island beiug covered with it. Previous to using 

 they steep it in cold water, which extracts a bitter principle 

 fouud in many of the lichens in their na'ural state; it is 

 afterwards dried and reduced to a powder resembling meal or 

 flour, which is either kneaded into cakes, or boiled with milk 

 and eaten as porridge ; in the latter state it is said to con- 

 stitute one of the most wholesome and palatable articles of 

 Icelandic diet. Some other species belonging to the genus 

 Gyrophora, and growing abundantly on the rocks of Arctic 

 America, are eaten by the hunters of Canada and of the Hud- 

 sou's Bay Company, under scarcity of more nourishing food, 

 being known among them by the name of rock-tripe or Tripe 

 de Roche. Another lichen is the favourite food of the rein- 

 deer : this is the Cladonia rangiferina, or rein-deer moss ; a 

 species which, iu Lapland and other high northern regions, 

 attains the height of a foot or eighteen inches, and supplies 

 the place of grass ; covering the ground, according to Liuuseus, 

 over hundreds of miles in extent, and presenting to the eye of 

 the traveller the appearance of a vast tract of snow during the 

 summer. 



Several of the lichens yield valuable dyes : of these archill 

 or litmus, prepared from a maritime species Roccella tinctoria, 

 and cudbear, obtained from Lecanora tartarea, a crustaceous 

 kind, common on our mountains, are the principal. 



A few species are said to be poisonous, bat the repute is 

 doubtful. 



With few exceptions our hardy vegetable pioneers are left 

 undisturbed by their fellow-beings of the auimal kingdom, from 

 the insect to the man, that the work so essential to the welfare 

 of every grade of existeuce may be fulfilled without stint or 

 measure ; and wise indeed has been that dispensation under 

 which their earliest and most important functions are con- 

 cealed from human eye, and placed beyond the control of 

 human judgment, allied as are all its actions with human 

 caprice and blindness to future results. 



THE NEW POWER, AND ITS FURTHER APPLICATION TO 

 AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES. 



In drawing attention to the plough, we have pur- 

 posely avoided referring to a defect, which, according 

 to many, is productive of the greatest practical 

 evil in working — we allude to the padding or poach- 

 ing of the soil hy the horses' feet. Although it is 

 necessarily an evil always attendant upon the plough, 

 it is but right to admit that it is one which is shared in 

 by all cultivating implements, rotary or otherwise, 

 which are dragged, or proposed to be dragged over the 

 land by the power of horses. It is an evil attendant 



upon the mode of working the plough, hut has no 

 direct reference to the plough itself; it is simply a 

 necessity of the mode of working it. It is obvious that 

 this evil can only bo got rid of by the introduction of a 

 new power, which shall bo able to drag the implement, 

 ofwhalo, L. :.'. 1 employed, on and through the soil, 

 without in any degree interfering with the state of 

 its surface, that the soil which the implement has to 

 contend with shall be its natural state ; and that the 

 very means employed to work it shall not, as in the 



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