TRUE RELATION OF SCIENCE TO INDUSTRIES 283 



sweeter. You may pour linseed oil around the roots 

 of growing flax, the seed will yield no more oil under 

 the hydraulic press than before. In all the above cases 

 it is of course understood that the yield will be no 

 greater than if an equivalent amount of inorganic mat- 

 ter had been supplied instead of the organic. 



MAKING A GARDEN OF A SAND BED. 



A striking case is found in the gardens of Asnieres, 

 near Paris. These gardens, which now exhibit the lux- 

 uriance of the tropics, a few years ago were worthless 

 fields of sand. Science has converted them to their 

 present beautiful state. It has done this by bringing 

 to them the poisonous sewage of Paris. Here, if any- 

 where, the plant will find opportunity to absorb these 

 filthy organic matters. 



But the vegetables and fruits produced here are as 

 free from sewage taint as if they had been grown on 

 the virgin soil of a Western prairie. 



Here we see hundreds of acres covered with splendid 

 vegetables and luscious fruits, which only yesterday 

 were expanses of yellow sand, on which a few strug- 

 gling weeds eked out a miserable existence. 



In this manner, by the triumphs of science, the seeds 

 of disease and the breath of pestilence have been made 

 to bring forth health and wealth, and an arid waste 

 has been transformed into a blooming field. 



There, by the eye of scientific faith, in the blushing 

 raspberry we see a metamorphosis of cholera infantum, 

 now become a preserver instead of a destroyer of the 

 children. 



Deadly fevers appear, divested of all their terrors, 

 in bulbous cabbages and pendent beans ; miasma is seen 

 quivering in the leaves of the apple and the pear, or 



