No. 12. 



Dialogue — Cultivation. 



365 



healthy, and the soil in the finest condition 

 imaginable, until I discovered, that a small 

 and tender root had extended itself, until it 

 had reached a small oozing of water, the 

 colour of the rust of iron, which proved to 

 be the head of a mineral spring of the strong- 

 est quality. This small root was decayed, 

 for a considerable way towards the body of 

 the tree, and at least three feet from the 

 source of the evil ; and this was, no doubt, 

 the cause of the disease and death of the 

 finest tree I ever saw. 



Frank. — How very strange, that so trifling 

 a circumstance as the point of a small root 

 reaching a little water at such a distance 

 from the tree, should be the cause of such 

 Budden destruction ! 



Father. — It is ; but to show you how cer- 

 tainly this ivas the cause, I will copy from 

 our favourite Tull an account of some ex- 

 periments, which he made expressly with 

 the view of showing the truth of the posi- 

 tion, that vegetables will take up and circu- 

 late indiscriminately, the most deleterious, 

 as well as the most wholesome substances ; 

 and that they often do, to their destruction. 



Exp, 1, " I put a mint stalk into a glass 

 of water, but I immersed one string of its 

 roots, being brought over the top of that 

 glass, into another glass of salt-water, con- 

 tiguous to the top of the other glass — this 

 mint very soon died. 



Exp. 2. I put the upper root of another 

 root into a small glass of ink — this plant 

 was also killed by some of the ink ingre- 

 dients. 



Exp. 3. I made a very strong liquor, with 

 water and the bruised seed of the garlick, 

 and placed the top of it close to the top of 

 another glass, having in it a mint plant, two 

 or three of whose upper roots put into this 

 stinking liquor, and there remaining — it kill- 

 ed the mint in some time ; and when the 

 edges of the leaves of the mint began to 

 change colour, I chewed many of them in 

 my mouth, and found at first the strong fla- 

 vour of the mint, but that was soon over, 

 and then the nauseous taste of the garlick 

 was soon perceptible." So, you see, how 

 readily plants, whose roots reach to a poison- 

 ous sub-soil, imbibe and circulate to their 

 destruction the deleterious matter. I once 

 grew some turnips on land having a wet 

 sub-soil, and on storing them for winter use, 

 I observed that the point of the tap-root of 

 everyone was decayed ; but as that was not 

 near the bulb, I did not consider the circum- 

 stance of any consequence. On opening the 

 pit in the winter, however, I found that three 

 parts of them were rotten, and the stench 

 arising from them had infected the remain- 

 der, so that the cattle refused to eat them. 



Frank. — How satisfactorily you have ac- 



counted for the decay and death of our favour- 

 ite tree ! what a pity that you could not have 

 ascertained the cause during its life-time, as 

 it might so easily have bcien prevented, 

 merely by dividing that small root from the 

 body of the tree ! 



Father. — Truly; but the lesson has not 

 been lost upon us, for you know I have re- 

 covered many trees that have been infected 

 by the yellows and worms, by trenching and 

 dressing the water with lime, and removing 

 the bad soil from amongst the roots. An3 

 now, do you know any young and promisinor 

 individual, whose untimely death might be 

 likened to the decay and death of our favour- 

 ite tree ■? 



Frank. — Yes, Henry Templeton. 



Father. — Exactly — of an excellent and 

 highly-respected family, he was the brightest 

 hope — an only son — with a mind and body 

 cast in beauty's mould, he was truly "the 

 observed of all observers :" even in the 

 nursery his education had commenced ; and 

 the wisdom displayed by his amiable parents 

 in this particular, was crowned with perfect 

 success. His youth was spent in acquiring 

 knowledge of the most useful and valuable 

 kinds; and the commencement of his public 

 life, which might be compared to the plant- 

 ing out our tree from the nursery, was hailed 

 by his friends with the brightest expectations. 

 We well know the esteem and respect which 

 he won from all who knew him, while his 

 gentle, and amiable, and refined manners, 

 •were the admiration of every one. I remem- 

 ber the time when he commenced the study 

 of the law, under counsellor S., and how for- 

 tunate his family considered him in the choice 

 of his fellow-student, Charles E., as his 

 particular friend — alas! that very circum- 

 stance proved the total ruin of him. and the 

 hopes of his family; for Charles E. was a 

 young man addicted to every s}tecies of vice 

 and wickedness, and possessed of the most 

 consumate hyprcrisy ! on one fatal evening 

 he prevailed upon Henry to accompany hira 

 to the gaming-table, and his destruction was 

 sealed. 



In a short year from this time, he returned 

 to his father's house, an emaciated being — 

 his health destroyed, his mind frenzied, and 

 in the last stage of consumption, only to 

 sigh out his soul in penitence in the arms of 

 his broken-hearted parents and sisters ! Poor 

 Henry Templeton ! one small root, pene- 

 trating to tiie poison in the sub-soil, was tire 

 cause of indescribable suff"ering, misery, re- 

 morse, anguish, and death to himself, and 

 distress un^speakable to his tenderly attached 

 family, and a numerous circle of young and 

 much-loved friends. 



Fraiik. — Poor Henry Templeton! who 

 would have thought that we could find so 



