AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 87 



stove, for instance, are far more valuable than the ashes of a log heap. 

 The lime of shells is more valuable than that from rocks, for immediate 

 effect, for the simple reason that it comes from organized life, and pre- 

 vious to that it had existed perhaps thousands of years in plants and other 

 animal life. 



Prof. Mapes continued his original and interesting theory by many other 

 illustrations. The delicious perfume of flowers are due to the condition of 

 their constituent parts ; by crushing the flower it vanishes ! The learned 

 professor has long conceived this beautiful and just theory of the power 

 of animal and vegetable life to receive their original constitutents and to 

 render them progressively more and more perfect, until it is now proved 

 by him to be true that 07ie 'pound iveight of the same (apparent substance — 

 the same by the most profound chemical analysis) material which has 

 existed in animal or vegetable for ages, and which has been a million times 

 used by them, is worth more to the animal and vegetable than one thousand 

 pounds weight of the original material ! And this is due to forms which 

 are assumed, and establish what I call the condition of the animal or plant. 



The members manifested their gratification with the learned gentlemaji's 

 explanation of his theory. 



LUNAR INFLUENCE. 



Solon Robinson. — I have a letter from Charles S. Weld, of Penobscot 

 county. Me., who appeals to this club against the opinion of his neighbors, 

 upon the subject of lunar influence. He says that he has thoroughly pre- 

 pared his ground for sowing peas. May 15, but his neighbors declare that 

 if he puts his seed in the ground before the moon changes he will grow 

 nothing but vines and blossoms. They have tried it and know it, and that 

 is the end of the argument. 



The reading of this letter and the comments upon it created a great deal 

 of merriment. Solon Robinson said he knew one man who would not, upon 

 any account, lay the worm of a rail fence in the old of the moon, because 

 he " had tried it and knew it," that it would rot down in half the time. 



Thomas W. Field said that he could prove that planting near the sea 

 shore in a certain time of the moon would produce a very serious efi^ect 

 upon the crop, because at the planting it would be the time of low water, 

 and when the tide turned the seed would be submerged. He could not 

 conceive of any other possible effect that the moon could have upon seed, 

 and, in short, that all the belief in lunar influence was a sort of lunacy 

 that the world had been afiiicted with quite long enough. 



In this opinion all present appeared to concur, and treated this belief in 

 the moon's influence as more laughable than serious. 



Subject for the next meeting, proposed by Solon Robinson, " The most 

 economical method of renovating worn out lands." 



By R. a. Pardee, " The small fruits." 



By Solon Robinson, " The mud and shells of our salt water rivers and 

 bays as manure." 



The Club then adjourned to May 31. H. MEIGS, Secretary. 



