So much for my list ; and now I hope it may wake up a retort, as if there is a 

 better selection to be made I should like to own them. 



N. B. — I unintentionally omitted that my Cry|)tomeria japonica was used simi- 

 lar to Mr. H. W. Sargent's, of Woodnethc, having great difficulty in keeping it 

 heretofore, but the past winter it had no protection, and has lived beautifully; but 

 may go next winter, who knows ? 



VEGETABLE PH Y SIOLO G Y. — NO. 2. 



BY YARDLEY TAYLOR, LOUDON COUNTY, VA. 



Almost all vegetable physiologists, in describinff the assimilation and growth 

 of trees and plants, assume that the sap, being imbibed by the roots, and con- 

 taining mineral and other matters necessary for growth, is first carried by the 

 pores of the plant to the leaves, and there uniting with the carbonic acid gas 

 imbibed by them, is, by the aid of sunlight, decomposed, and thus adapted to the 

 growth of the plant. It is then returned downward by another set of vessels, 

 and is deposited as new layers in the growth of the plant. This theory, like 

 many others in the infancy of investigations, is likely to be modified, and one 

 assumed more in conformity with the simplicity always observable in nature's laws 

 when fully understood. Where is the evidence that sunlight does decompose car- 

 bonic acid gas, or release oxygen from its combination with carbon ? The fact 

 that carbonic acid gas is imbibed by the leaves, and oxygen given out, may account 

 for the origin of the theory, but now, when chemistry is shedding its light on this 

 branch of science as well as others, it would seem that electricity can, with more 

 plausibility, be considered as the decomposing agent. 



Professor Gray, in his Botanical Text-Booh, considers "light" as affecting "the 

 chemical decomposition of one or more of the substances in the sap which con- 

 tains oxygen gas, and the liberation of this oxygen at the ordinary temperature 

 of the air." He then continues: "The chemist can, in certain cases, liberate 

 oxygen gas from its compounds, but only by the aid of powerful reagents, or of a 

 heat equal to red-hot iron." But does not the beautiful art of electrotyping, or 

 gilding by galvanism, separate " oxygen from its compounds" without a degree of 

 "heat equal to red-hot iron?" And who will say that a very small stream of 

 electricity from a galvanic battery, may not effect the same object, only requiring 

 longer time ? Nature effects by imperceptible degrees what man can only accom- 

 plish with more rapidity in less time, and on a smaller scale. 



In the Farmers^ Guide, published in numbers, and commenced in 1850 by 

 Leonard, Scott & Co., and edited by Henry Stephens and John P. Norton, is an 

 essay on "Electro-Culture" that serves to explain the theory under consideration. 

 In this essay, William Sturgeon, of Manchester, who had successfully applied this 

 principle to cultivation, and has shown the relation which exists betwixt the elec- 

 tricity of the air and the earth, says that "this active element of nature is so 

 universally diffused throughout every part of the terrestrial creation, that it be- 

 comes an occupant of every part of the earth's surface, and of the shell of air 

 that surrounds it," and considers that " trees, shrubs, plants, flowers, and crops of 

 every kind, partake of this electrical distribution, and that each individual object 

 is possessed of more or less of this extraordinary element. A disturbance of 

 the electric fluid, in any body, may be accomplished either by abstraction, 

 addition, or by merely forcing a part of it to some particular side of the body 

 operated on. 



"In the first condition, the body would be electro-negative, in the second, electro 



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