INFLUENCE OF ELECTRICITY ON VEGETATION. 99 



penetrating the pores of the substance which separates them. 

 The interesting experiments of Porret and Dutrochet are de- 

 scribed, and the conclusion drawn, tliat thougli electricity is one 

 of the causes of these plienomena, it is not the only one, because 

 the effects produced are often in the opposite direction to what 

 would be the result of mere electric action. It appears evident 

 that M. Becquerel does not acknowledge any influences of elec- 

 tricity on vegetation, except those which it produces in facilitat- 

 ing or retarding chemical action. 



Among those who have devoted much time and attention to 

 the study of electricity, and its influence on vegetation, the 

 names of Mr. Pine and Mr. Weekes ought not to be omitted. 

 Numerous papers by these gentlemen on the conducting power of 

 vegetables, the nature of vegetable points, the relation of vege- 

 tables to charged clouds, &c., are contained in the proceedings 

 of the London Electrical Society, and in various journals. 



In the spring of 1843 great interest was excited by the state- 

 ment which then became current, that a discovery had been made 

 of a means of collecting the natural electricity of the atmosphere 

 so as to increase vegetation in a most extraordinary manner. The 

 statement on which this account was founded originated with 

 Dr. Forster, of Findrassie, Elgin ; who, having stretched certain 

 wires in particular directions over a crop of barley, had observed 

 a most luxuriant vegetation produced. About the same time 

 accounts of some American experiments were circulated, from 

 which it appeared that equally extraordinary effects on vegeta- 

 tion had been produced by the influence of feeble currents of 

 voltaic electricity. 



The account given by Mr. Gordon at the Tring Agricultural 

 Association, in 1844, of Dr. Forster's experiments at Findrassie, 

 was briefly as follows. A portion of a field of Chevalier barley, 

 measuring twenty-four poles, was enclosed by a parallelogram of 

 iron wire, sunk about three inches below the surface of the soil, 

 and so arranged that its longest dimensions were north and south ; 

 in tiie middle of tlie two shorter sides, and therefore, due north 

 and south, poles were fixed about eleven feet high; and over 

 these was stretched another iron wire, well connected at either 

 extremity with the shorter sides of the buried parallelogram of 

 wire. Besides this, two smaller plots of ground in the same field, 

 of eight poles each, were enclosed in the same manner, only the 

 poles were much lower. In all these squares a very marked 

 effect was observed : the young barley was remarkably dark in 

 colour, and grew very rapidly. In the two smaller squares this 

 effect gradually went off, but in the larger parallelogram with the 

 higher poles, it continued to harvest-time ; the enclosed barley 

 being considerably finer, larger, and more healthy than the rest 



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