Pl^, 



EDITOE'S TABLE. 



% 



We are apt to think that vegetation lies dormant during the winter months. Her powers, 

 I should think, were not entirely suspended; the perfecting of leaf and flower buds may be 

 slowly but surety proceeding. On mild, warm days, the ascent of the sap is felt, for I have heard 

 of maple sugar being made early in the month of February. Even those animals that hybernate, 

 experience the vivifying influence of a change of temperature, from extreme cold to warmth, and 

 come forth for a few hours or days to recruit themselves. During these intervals of sunshine and 

 warmth, doubtless the vegetable life becomes quickened and the results of her operations mani- 

 fest themselves in due season. 



It is during the month of April that the animals that have been locked up in winter's sleep 

 come forth. The squirrels may then be seen running along the rail fences, or on the loo-s ; the 

 little chipmunk chasing his fellows among the fallen timbers, full of playful glee ; the deer steals 

 out from among the budding under-wood, crosses our clearings, and leads his companions to the 

 margins of our lakes and pools ; the lakes and rivers are alive with fish, and dark nights are 

 illumined by the torch of th* Indian, in his bark canoe, as he quietly glides over the surface with 

 his well-poised spear dealing the death blow to his scaly prey. 



"We hail April with gladness because we know that the reign of winter ia at an end, and even 

 thoiigh he sometimes reappears and frowns upon us, it can be but for a short season, and that 

 bright days and sunny skies, and all spring's joyous things, are in store for us. April might be 

 called the month of many hopes. Where the season is sufficiently mild, seeds of various kinds are 

 sown or the ground prepared for them. It is also the season of grafting. 



" By the violet's soft perfume, 

 By the fragrance of ihe broom, 

 By the blossom on the bough, 

 By the hillock's flower-crowned brow, 

 A.nd the young leaves' verdant pride, 

 And a thousand traits beside 

 Of purest joy and holiest mirth, 

 Spring, creation hails thy birth !" — Agnes StrieMand. 



ExcRETioxs OF Plaxts. — I must be a poor, very poor, physiologist, since, with all ray patience 

 in reading over and over again and trying to understand something about the article "on the 

 excretion of plants," published in your February number, I know not much more than before ; that 

 is to say, I do not understand of what importance it would be to agriculture, etc., to know with 

 certainty that the excretions of plants are poisonous to the soil. Would that certitude render the 

 soil any better for raising crops, without any antidote to the poisonous excretions — I mean with- 

 out any manure ? If so, the excrementitious doctrine is good to know, and I will likely agree 

 with Dr. LiXDLET and others. 



One more question : — Is any one who understands that soils become exhausted, by being con- 

 stantly cropped with one kind of plant, a physiologist? If so, we are all more or less physiolo- 

 gists. Whether, that besides this knowledge, we should believe, with some, that the deterioration 

 of the soil is caused by the doubtful deleterious excretions of the roots, or by their more probable 

 excessive absorption of the nutritive gases; or, with some others, that sourness is only the result of 

 an acid, without any doubt caused by a superabundance of water ? 



Let us suppose now, that we should all be of one opinion about those pliysiological subtilties, 

 where would be the good of it? Would the soil be more or less fertile? No! Then wherefore 

 those digressions about finding a knot in a bulrush. If the advocates of those two diifcrent doc- 

 trines should give us the means of re-establishing the fertility of deteriorated soils, whether the 

 exhaustion be the result of poisonous excretions or enervating absorption, some good might be 

 effected. But no , the only thing we get from those doctors' arguments are quotations from all 

 ■s, all probably very exact, but which taken together, in my opinion, would not be as 



