446 rHE FARMER AT HOME. 



take a direction to the place where moisture or other aliment exists ; 

 for their nourishment. Plants will distinguish between heat and 

 cold, darkness and light, and the other sensible properties of the 

 atmosphere which promote, from those which retard vegetation, with 

 unerring certainty. Thus when plants are placed by our windows, 

 we see them present the upper surface of their leaves to the light ; 

 and when their position is reversed, a new arrangement of the leaves 

 takes place, by which the same surface is again exposed to the rays of 

 the sun. Some flowers which shine with distinguished lustre in the 

 morning, shrink from the dazzling brightness of the noonday sun ; 

 some court his meridian glory, while others at the approach of dark- 

 ness, expand their tender blossoms, loading with perfume the breezes of 

 evening. Thus too, we find the leaves of some plants closing around 

 their tender blossoms, to protect them from the injurious effects of 

 cold and moisture ; and others exquisitely sensible to the touch of 

 extraneous bodies. The flowers of the barbary, a shrub, which grows 

 abundantly in our country, evince a susceptibility of impression from 

 external objects, at once curious and surprising. The leaves of the 

 sensitive plant, so often the innocent source of interest and amuse- 

 ment, exhibit the same phenomena in a still more remarkable degree. 



VELVET. A rich kind of thick, shaggy stuff made of silk ; the 

 nap, or velveting, of this stuff' is formed of part of the threads of the 

 warp, which the workman puts on a long narrow channelled ruler, 

 and which he afterwards cuts by drawing a sharp steel tool along the 

 ruler to the end of the warp. The principal and best manufactures 

 of velvet are in England and France ; there are others in Italy, as at 

 Venice, Milan, Florence, Genoa, and Lucca, and in Holland at Haer- 

 lem ; those in China are the worst of all. A good imitation of silk 

 velvet is now to be obtained, made of cotton ; but the dyes are less 

 permament on cotton than on silk. 



VENTILATION. It is much to be regretted, that in connexion 

 with the various improvements, which the style of building, and the 

 internal arrangement of our houses, have undergone within the last 

 ten years, more attention has not been paid to the means for insuring 

 a free ventilation throughout every apartment. In the large and 

 sumptuous dwellings of the rich, the wide halls, lofty ceilings, and free 

 communication existing between the principal apartments, prevent, it 

 is true, most of the causes of complaint in this respect ; but in the more 

 numerous and humble dwellings, occupied by the laborer, as well as 

 by the industrious mechanic and artisan, and in the buildings, appro- 

 priated for workshops, stores, and warehouses, the means of ventila- 

 tion, have in too many cases been sadly neglected. As a necessary 

 consequence, cleanliness is prevented, and the health arid comfort of 

 the inhabitants and inmates prejudiced to a greater or less extent. 

 A free circulation of air, in arid about a building, is of too much 

 importance, to allow of its being sacrificed from motives of economy 



