26 



flesh, wliicli wastes away very niiicli in cooking; while that of animals 

 fed upon clover is yellow and of a poor flavor. Oil-cakes and oilseeds 

 produce a loose, i'atty flesh, of an unpleasant taste: beans a hard, indi- 

 gestible, and unsavory meat; and acorns are but little better. 



Preventing the germination of potatoes in cellars. — Much 

 trouble is experienced by farmers aud others who have occasion to store 

 potatoes for a considerable length of time, in preventing their germina- 

 tion, and consequent depreciation in value as food ; and our readers 

 may be interested to know that experiments, prosecuted in Germany, 

 have shown how this maj" be measurably prevented. This is accom- 

 plished by exposing the potatoes to the va])or of sulphurous acid, by 

 tiny of the various well-known modes, and a large mass of i)otatoes can 

 be treated at one time. This process, if not entirely eflective in accom- 

 plishing the object, will retard or modify the sprouting of the potato to 

 such an extent as to render the injury caused thereby very slight. The 

 flavor of the potato is uot aflected in the least by this treatment, nor is 

 its vitality diminished ; the action being simply to retard or prevent the 

 formation aud growth of the eyes. 



Absorbent power of soils. — We hear more or less nowa-daysof the 

 " absorbing power of the soil ;" this referring to that peculiarity by which 

 the various soluble substances, particularly, however, inorganic, and 

 among them a series of j)lant nutrients are so deposited or hehl that their 

 solution, filtered through the earth, emerges much poorer in these sub- 

 stances, in consequence of this filtration, than when entering. A ])roof 

 of this property in the soil is shown by a simple experiment, which 

 consists in filling a bottle (having a small hole at the bottom) with fine 

 river sand, or dug and sifted garden earth. If, now, dung-water, quite 

 offensive in smell, be poured into this gradaall}", until the whole nuiss 

 is saturated with the liquid, this, on emerging from the lower opening, 

 will appear colorless and odorless, the [)eculiarities of the water being 

 entirely changed. It is certain that this property, possessed by soils, of 

 attracting soluble substances from their solutions, has a very im])ortant 

 influence upon the practice of agriculture, although much remains to be 

 done in order to utilize it. This much is certain, that the finer con- 

 stituents of the soil, especially the clay and humus, possess the prop- 

 erty, ])artly bj' capillary attraction and partly by chemical transmission 

 aud exchange, of attracting definite quantities of soluble plant-nurri- 

 ents, especially' amnuinia, potavsh, phosphoric acid, and sulphuric 

 acid, and other salts, and from dilute watery solutions to make them so 

 mucli less soluble that they can only be extracted again, very slowly, by 

 the long-continued action of water. It is to this that we owe the fact 

 that the substances most im])ortant for the uutrition of plants are not 

 continually removed from the soil by the rain, and that putrescent or 

 oftensive liquids undergo a i)urificatiuu by striking through the earth ; 

 that with insufficient manuring, clay soils lose their fertility more slowly 

 than sand}' soils, &c. 



The absorbing power of the soil appears to be in direct proportion to 

 its adhesiveness ; and as sandy soils possess this peculiarity in a less 

 degree, the numures applied to them pass ofl' more readil^^ to the injury 

 of vegetation. This fact has been acted upon for a long time, since it is 

 the ])ra(;tice to ap])ly a slight but oft-repeated manuring to sandy soils, 

 while with the hea,vier soils the reverse may be the case. 



iScARCiTY OF SMALL BIRDS IN FRANCE. — A reccut writer in Les 

 Mondes remarks upon the great scarcity in France during the present 

 year of small insectivorous birds, and ascribes this to the extreme 

 rigor of the preceding winter, which caused myriads of the feathered 



