33 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



females ; and for the third, of eleven days, from 19th to 

 29th January inclusive, 9 males against 4 females. 



Table of the Dishley-Mauchamp Merino Lambing, 



AT THE SHEEPFOLD OF BlANC, IN DECEMBER AND 



January, 1855-56. 



First Series. 

 Dec. 27 .... M. Jan. 4 m. Jan. 6 .... M. 



30 .. .. M. 4 M. 7 .. .. F. 



31 .. .. M. 4 M. 8 .. .. M, 



Jan. 3 .... M. 5 .... m. 8 .... m. 



3 F. 5 .... M. 8 .. .. F. 



3 . . . . F. 6 M. 



Males, 76.8 per cent. ; females, 23.9 per cent. 

 Second Series. 



Jan. 9 .... F. Jan. 13 .... f. Jan. 16 .... p. 



9 .. .. F. 15 .. .. F. 16 .. .. F. 



11 .... M. 15 F. 16 F. 



12 .... F. 15 M. 17 .... F. 



12 .... F. 16 .... r. 18 .... M. 



13 .... F. 16 F. 18 .... F. 



Males, 16.66 per cent. ; females, 83.34 per cent. 



Third Series. 

 Jan. 19.... M. Jan. 20.... m. Jan. 24.... m. 

 19 .... M. 20 .. .. F. 24 .... M. 



19 .... F. 22 .... F. 29 .... M. 



19 .... F. 22 .. .. M. 



20 .. .. M. 23 .. .. M. 



Males, 69.23 per cent. ; females, 30.77 per cent. 



At the end of each month, all the animals of the 

 Blanc sheepfold are weighed separately ; and, thanks to 

 these monthly weighings, we have drawn up several 

 tables, from which are seen the diminution or increase 

 in weight of the different animals, classed in various 

 points of view, whether according to age, sex, or the 

 object for which they were intended. 



Two of these tables have been appropriated to bearing 

 ewes — one to those which have borne and nursed males, 

 and the other to those that have borne and brought up 

 females. The abstract results of these two tables have 

 furnished two remarkable facts, 



1st, The ewes that have produced the female lambs 

 are, on an average, of a weight superior to those that 

 produced the males ; and they evidently lose more in 

 weight than these last, during the suckling period. 



2nd, The ewes that produce males weigh less, and do 

 not lose, in nursing, so much as the others. 



If the indications given by these facts come to be 

 confirmed by experiments sufficiently repeated, two new 

 laws will be placed by the side of that which Giron de 

 Bazareingues has determined by his observations and 

 experiments. 



On the one hand, as, at liberty or in the savage state, 

 it is a general rule that the predominance in acts of 

 generation belongs to the strongest males, to the exclu- 

 sion of the weak, and as such a predominance is fa- 

 vourable to the procreition of the male sex, it would 

 follow that the number of males would tend to surpass 

 incessantly that of the females, amongst whom no want 

 of energy or power would turn aside from generation ; 

 and the species would find in it a fatal obstacle to its 

 reproduction. But, on the other hand, if it was true 

 that the strongest females, and the best nurses amongst 

 them, produce females rather than males, Nature would 

 thus oppose a contrary law, which would establish the 

 equilibrium, and, by an admirable harmony, would 

 secure the perfection and preservation of the species, by 

 confiding the reproduction of either sex to the most 

 perfect type of each respectively. 



Martegoute, 

 Former Professor of Rural Economy. 



AGRICULTURAL AND CHEMICAL COLLEGE, KENNINGTON. 



LECTURES ON PLANTS 



Applied to Useful Purposes throughout the World, or otherivise fulfilling obvious offices in the Economy 

 of Nature, commencing with those which are the Principal Objects of Cultivation, as furnishing 

 Food, Fibre for Manufacture, Medicine, Colouring, Astringent and other Properties applicable to the Arts. 



BY CHARLES JOHNSON, PROFESSOR OF BOTANY AT GUY'S HOSPITAL. 



Lecture III. 

 From what has been already observed in illustration 

 of the differential characters separating our five groups, 

 the grasses termed colonizers are evidently plants of 

 no trifling importance, so far even as our own economy 

 is concerned, although neither furnishing food to ani- 

 mals, especially to those in which we are the most in- 

 terested, nor, considered in the aggregate, adapted to 

 any immediate purposes of utility. The rigidity of tex- 

 ture and almost woody hardness, by which they are 

 generally characterized, is chiefly due to the presence of 

 siliceous matter, in comparatively large proportion, in 

 their stems and leaves, and, added to the small quantity 

 of moisture contained in their several tissues, and the 

 absence of sugar, renders them unpalatable to cattle ; 

 thus constituting their principal safeguard, and leaving 

 their growth to the uninterrupted fulfilment of the pur- 

 poses for which they were created. Those purposes are 

 not in all instances confined in their action and influences 

 to the spots on which the grasses themselves vegetate, 

 but are frequently extended to indefinite distances, in- 

 volving results of acknowledged value, but unknown, 

 and therefore unappreciable derivation. This fact is 



evinced by tracing the history of many plants of the 

 tribe belonging naturally to high alpine regions, not 

 vegetating upon the flats and slopes, where soil may 

 rest and accumulate in depth from year to year undis- 

 turbed, but rooting in the clefts of the sharply preci- 

 pitous or, even, perpendicular rock. Here, long before 

 the little grass-seed lighted upon its rugged, bare, or 

 lichen-covered face, alternately were lodged the slanting 

 rain-drop and the drifting snow-flake, while the frosts 

 of many winters have shivered and loosened the texture 

 of the stony mass. The slender, perennial, persevering 

 roots of our grass penetrate slowly every little crevice, 

 and, as they enlarge, loosen still farther the fragments 

 that, eventually, falling or washed down by the torrent 

 or the pelting storm, are destined to renovate and raise the 

 soil of the valley or the plain below. The fertility of 

 these is founded and maintained by this periodical, but 

 often unobserved, supply ; but the action, the office of 

 the alpine colonizing grass is not a merely mechanical, 

 a simply disintegrating process exercised upon the me- 

 dium on which it grows ; the loosened and ground-up 

 rock may form and deepen soil, but its fertilization 

 must come from a difi'erent source ; the decaying tissue 



