THE FARMER AT HOME. 445 



cutting wheel is made of cast iron, faced on one side, through which 

 are inserted three knives like plane-irons. These cut the vegetables 

 into thin slices with great rapidity, and then by cross knives they are 

 cut into slips of convenient form and size for cattle or sheep to eat, 

 without danger of choking. The pieces after cutting lie loosely and 

 angularly thrown together, and can be easily taken up by the animal. 



VEGETABLE HABIT. Plants, like men, are much under the 

 power of habit. The following examples are sufficient to evince the 

 extent of this power. Several plants which are natives of warm 

 climates, where their existence is prolonged for several successive 

 years, have been removed to less temperate regions. They are unable 

 to endure the cold of their new situations, and consequently must 

 change their habits of growth ere they can be cultivated with success. 

 To secure this object some of them pass through the successive stages 

 of their existence with astonishing velocity, and accomplish in a 

 single summer what they had been accustomed to require years to 

 perform. Our garden Nasturtion was originally a shrub which flour- 

 ishes without cultivation on the banks of the Peruvian streams ; yet, 

 transferred to this country, it has become an annual plant, which 

 arrives at maturity in a few short months. 



The habits of other tender plants are with more difficulty sub- 

 dued, and they to be successfully cultivated must be gradually trans- 

 ferred from their native soil. In the latter case the habit and the 

 power they acquire to accommodate themselves to their new situation, 

 overcome the natural impediments to their growth, which under 

 different circumstances would have been irresistible. Therefore it is, 

 that plants whose seeds were ripened in northern latitudes, are less 

 liable to injury from frost, than they would have been if their seeds 

 had been brought from a temperate climate. By thus gradually 

 accustoming it to a diminution of temperature, rice was at one time 

 cultivated with advantage in New Jersey, though without these 

 precautions it rarely comes to maturity even in Virginia. The habits 

 of the Indian corn aided, by climate and culture have suffered still 

 more remarkable changes. After having been for several years 

 raised in Canada, it arrives at perfection in a few weeks, and on that 

 account is employed by us as an early corn. But that which has 

 been repeatedly cultivated in Virginia will not ripen even in New 

 England, yet originally the small early Canadian, and the luxuriant 

 Virginia corn were the same, both in habit and in every known 

 property. They probably originated from the same identical seed. 

 Numerous other examples might be mentioned, but enough has been 

 done to justify the conclusion, that vegetables as well as animals are 

 under the dominion of habit. 



VEGETABLE INSTINCT. A little attention to the subject of 

 physiology will satisfy us that plants have a most curious kind of 

 instinct or sensibility, as it is sometimes called. Their roots will 



