268 



VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 



NOTES ON VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 



BY D. TOMLINSON, SCHENECTADY. 



It was formerly the general practice of far- 

 mers to cut off the tops of their Indian corn 

 stalks, so soon as the corn was glazed. It 

 is yet done by the majority of corn plant- 

 ers, although it has been proved by a wri- 

 ter in the Cultivator, that the loss of weight 

 in the corn produced by cutting off' the tops 

 before the corn becomes fully ripe, is great- 

 er than the value of the tops of the stalks. 

 This practice is continued, probably from 

 Avant of faith in the proposition ; and want 

 of faith exists, because vegetable physiolo- 

 gy is not generally understood by farmers. 

 If it were understood and believed, that 

 the leaves performed the part in plants that 

 lungs do in animals, by exposing the crude 

 Sap to the atmosphere, parting with oxygen 

 and secreting carbon, and returning the 

 fluid thus improved, back to the whole sys- 

 tem of the tree, thereby nourishing and per- 

 fecting the seeds, as well as the trunks, 

 then the growers of vegetables would un- 

 derstand the reason why the tops of corn- 

 stalks are and must be useful in ripening 

 the grain or seeds. This being the fact, 

 the same reasoning is applicable to other 

 vegetables. Fruit trees ripen their fruit 

 under the action of the same laws. If the 

 leaves which act as lungs, are taken off" the 

 trees, they must put out new leaves soon, 

 or both the fruit and tree suffers, and if re- 

 peated must perish. I have known per- 

 sons to take off' the leaves from grape vines, 

 to expose the grapes to the sun, in order to 

 ripen them more perfectly, and add to their 

 sweetness. This has also proved to be an 

 error ; as the grapes thereby remained un- 

 ripe, sour and worthless. A neighbor of 

 mine took off" all the leaves from his grape 

 vines, last year, with a view to ripen and 



improve the grapes, and the vines appeared 

 naked last spring till late, as if dead, and 

 did not expand their foliage fully till sum- 

 mer. They yielded no fruit this season. 



As both the wood and fruit of trees are 

 nourished and matured by the returning 

 sap, after it is digested or elaborated by the 

 leaves or lungs, so it is presumed, that it is 

 through this law, that when a variety of 

 scions are engrafted on one trunk, they pro- 

 duce fruit like the stock from which they 

 were taken. If it were not so, and that the 

 proper nourishment was from the roots only, 

 it would follow that the trunk would pro- 

 duce its own natural fruit on the various 

 scions grafted on it, although they were of 

 a variety of other sorts. 



A friend of ours in the'country, near this, 

 a few days ago, gave us several apples, 

 which Were on the one side yellow and 

 sweet, on the other side green and acid. 

 They were produced by dividing and in- 

 serting in the stock, half of a bud from a 

 Tallman Sweeting apple tree, for the sweet, 

 and half of a bud split, from a Rhode Island 

 Greening tree, for the acid. The fruit 

 partakes of both kinds in each apple.* This 

 we found to be the fact in eating them. 



* This prodigy, of an apple "half sweet and half sour," 

 is not very uncommon ; we have twice found it in various 

 parts of the country. But the explanation of the matter given 

 and repeated above, is, we believe entirely fallacious. In the 

 first place, it would, we think, be impossible to split two 

 buds and unite them so as to secure a union and the growth 

 of both ; and in the second place, if they did grow, each side 

 corresponding to each half of the bud, would produce its 

 proper fruit. To prove this, it is only necessary to take 

 from a pear tree a circle of bark, and replace it by another 

 circle of the bark of the quince. An union will take place, 

 and after a {e\v year's growth, if the tree is cut down, and 

 the trunk examined, it will be found that the fibres of wood 

 underneath the circle of quince bark are quince and noipear. 

 Hence if a bud could be divided, and made to unite with a 

 portion of another bud, each side would be as distinct in its 

 bark, buds, leaves and fruits, as two separate grafts. 



We do not see why a fruit half sweet and sour should ex- 

 cite any more surprise than that every day miracle of a 

 flower half red and half white, which may be seen in the 

 common Four-o'clock, and several other plants. — Ed. 



