WOOD-PRODUCIiNG FORCE, &c., IN VEGETABLE LIFE. 



most solely in the hands of carpenters, nine-tenths of whom can neither draw, nor under- 

 stand a drawing. When, therefore, a person presents a country carpenter in New-England 

 with a design for a cheap cottage, of a form superior to, or different from, the stereotyped 

 bastard pediment style, so common all over New-England, the latter immediately says, — 

 "Oh! that is a very dear style of cottage. But I will build you one like deacon C.'s, 

 Avhich is ten feet larger each way, for $200 less." This, of course, decides the proprietor 

 of moderate means, who is ignorant of the true state of the case, to build in the bastard 

 pediment style. The truth is, the carpenter has the latter by heart, and knows to a dol- 

 lar what he can do the job for. The other he has only a vague idea of — and would lose 

 money on, from experimental blunders of all kinds — though not a farthing dearer in itself. 

 Knowing this fact by heart, (by constant contact with it,) and knowing also, how supe- 

 rior to any other mechanic a Yankee carpenter is, whose thinking and working faculties 

 have been educated — we long for the time when the common schools of New-England shall 

 do something more than common. If they would only teach drawing, taste would just 

 as sure follow, as spelling follows the alphabet. It is impossible for man or woman, how- 

 ever well he may think, to express his ideas on paper, (or in houses and grounds,) in any- 

 thing better than hard lines and "pothooks," till he has learned how to make the men- 

 tal and the material correspond. 



ON THE WOOD-PPtODUCIXG FORCE AND THE SEED-BEARINa 

 FORCE, IN VEaETABLE LIFE. 



BY L. YOUNG, SPRINGDALE, KY 



According to the received doctrines in Botany, in the case of exogens, a wood or leaf 

 bud in development, forms an axis or branch with its appropriate leaves, arranged in an 

 order peculiar to each genus; each leaf, in its foot stalk, being furnished with an inner and 

 an outer set of ducts and vessels, which vessels, in the course of a growing season descend 

 by extension to the roots; the inner set upon the smooth, cylindrical surface of the al- 

 burnum; the outer, (if Lindley's notions of the proper office of cambium be true,) upon 

 the inner surface of the bark; the annual deposit of wood and bark lying between these 

 inner and outer ducts and vessels. In time, during the season's growth, anastomosis 

 takes place in the axilla of every such leaf; a new wood bud is formed and installed upon 

 the apex of the bundle of vessels, woody fibre and bark, which, originating in the foot stalk 

 as before stated, has already descended by extension to the roots. 



In this waj', every wood bud is in a state of direct communication with the roots, ready 

 by vitality and capillarity, to pump up supplies of food for the formation of still other 

 leaves and branches — destined in their turn, still farther to increase the vigor and size of 

 the trunk and roots. A fruit bud is a metamorphosis of one of these wood buds; " it is a 

 wood bud excited into growth; but which, in growing, elongates neither upward nor 

 downward." It is obvious then, that being seated in connection with vessels extending 

 to their roots, the fruit bud pumps for itself food from the general circulation, but not ex- 

 tending downwards in growth, it has no chance by which to send succor and strength to 

 the stem and roots. The fruit bud is, therefore, a sort of parasitical plant, living at the 

 expense of the wood system, and as it is generally expressed, in a state of " antagonism 

 with it." To the practical cultivator, it is a matter of secondary interest whethefthis 

 metamorphosis result from some innate power peculiar to the life of plants, as the learned 



