120 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 2 



reiruhir applicants lor quinine, are one or two t'am- 

 ilie.s in the fork of IJanister and Ddn, where there 

 still exist extensive imdrained Hats. But although 

 the ajTue and iever projiei', is of rare occurrence in 

 the county, yet it is by no means intended to be as- 

 serted that there is an end of diseases caused by 

 marsh uiiasrnala. A sullicient number of mill 

 ponds yet exist, to poison the atmosphere, to a 

 considerable extent, with their noxious exhala- 

 tion. Our bilious and continued fevers are as re- 

 gular visitants as the seasons themselves. More 

 than a moity of tiiese are, doubiles>', caused by 

 mill ponds and undrained flats. Dr. A re- 

 lated a fact in relation to Mr. A 's planta- 



tation, that might shock the fancied security of 

 those who believe that they are out of the influ- 

 ence of malaria, merely because ihey are out of 

 the vicinity of a mill pond. The flat land of this 

 plantation contains five hundred acres, the whole 

 of which was ke[)t wet by a smail stream that ran 

 tlirouijh the body of it, with so liille fall as to enter 

 the Banister at an oblique angle, in the direction 

 up-i<tream. The large hotly of flat land has been 

 eflectually drained, and the river Banister well 



diked. Dr. A informed me, that before 



this improvement, this plantation was a fruitful 

 hot-bed of disease — so sickly, that he would not 

 have risked the health of his family upon it, one 

 year, for the value of the estate. Since it has 

 been drained and diked, he regards it as healthy 

 as any situation in Halifax coiinty. This dike, 

 I am informed, is well executed, and perhaps the 

 Jartrest work of the kind in the county of Haliftx. 

 Although I have seen it once, (several years since) 

 such a minute and accurate oliservation of" it was 

 not made, as to justify an effort at a detailed ac- 

 count of its operation. 



Bef"ore closing these promiscuous remarks, it 

 may not be improper to notice a vein of lanre, 

 round, black rock, that runs through Halifax, 

 Charlotte, Prince Edward. &,c., which has been 

 before noticed, by Dr. Morton of Prince Edward, 

 in the farmers' Register. Some of the most fer- 

 tile plantations, in the counties just mentioned, 

 lie adjoining, or near this vein. Mr. J. Edmunds' 

 plantation, (of Charlotte,) is intersected by it. The 

 land near if, seems to have derived its fertility from 

 the disintegration of a ferruginous rock, which con- 

 tains, occasionally, sulphuretnf iron, and also lime. 

 I have seen several tracts of latid, very obviously 

 improved, by the disintegration of bog iron ore, in 

 the part of Halifax above referred to; for, fre- 

 quently, in the same plantation, the grade of fer- 

 tility varied with the presence of more or less of 

 this rock, disintegratetl into a rountl, rusty look- 

 ing gravel. A survey of the soil of the counties 

 lying at the foot of llie last parallel hills of the 

 Blue Ridge, would furnish an interesting subject, 

 to a well informed mineraloffist — particularly with 

 a view to ascertain their mineral ingredients. The 

 presence or absence of a rich mineral ingredient, 

 seems to constitute the great difference between 

 the soils in this section of the state. 



E. 



From tlie Genesee Farmer. 

 IMPREGNATIOIV OF PLANTS. 



[The January number of Professor Silliman's 

 Journal — a work which deserves the support of 



all interested in the hiijher departments of the 

 natural sciences — in addition to a great variety 

 of other valuable papers, contains one by Dt. 

 Gray, of' New York, being in part a translation of 

 the celebrated Corda's researches on the imjjreg- 

 nation of plants. As the subject is one of interest, 

 we have thought that a condensation of the pa- 

 per, adapted to the general reader, miirht prove 

 acceptable to at least some of tfie readers of the 

 Farmer.] 



'•Omnc ex ovo, everything from an egsr," was 

 the exclamation of an old philosopher, in reirard 

 to the animal creation; and later investinations 

 show that it is scarcely less applicable to the ve- 

 getable one. The fertilizing properties of the fa- 

 rina or pollen of plants has long been known, but 

 the n)anner in which this effect was performed, as 

 was to be expected where the operation was con- 

 ducted in the silence and mystery of nature, led 

 to a great variety of speculations. Every farmer 

 knew that the yellow dust, which fell in such 

 quantities from the corn blossoms upon the silken 

 tassels of the ear, was necessary to the fbrmatiotk 

 of the kernel, but few are able to explain the cause 

 of this necessity, or the mode in which the plant 

 was rendered fruitlid. Every housewife has, du- 

 ring the sunmier months, seen her reservoirs or 

 cisterns of ram water covered with a yellow pow- 

 der, which by most is considered sulphur, as it ap- 

 pears most pleniiliiHy during thunder sjusts ac- 

 companied by high winds. The peculiar odor 

 which belongs to this substance when burning, 

 may have assisted in originating the error with 

 regard to the origin of this dust, which is the pol- 

 len of the forest trees, as any one may be con- 

 vinced by walking in the woods when tliis lecun- 

 dating dust is falling. This dust may be easily 

 seen and collected for observation on the blossoms 

 of the difl(?rent varieties of tlie melon, pumpkin, 

 and cucumber. 



Pollen, when examined by a moderate mncrni- 

 fying povv'er, is seen to consist of a multitude of 

 grains of some regular form, which is uniform in 

 ihesame st;ecies, but often widely diflerent in dif- 

 ferent kiiids of plants. These grains are compo- 

 sed of two coals, of which the exterior is thick 

 and nearly elastic, while the inner is exceedingly 

 delicate and hishly extensible. The cavity is 

 filled with a fluid which, under a powerful lens^ 

 appears slightly turbid, on account of a vast num- 

 ber of minute granules which float in it. A mag- 

 nifying power of three hundred reveals the ex- 

 istence of two kinds of granules in the fluid of the 

 pollen grains. The first is larije and ihw in num- 

 ber, and from the 4000ih to the 5000th of an inch 

 in diameter. The smaller particles, or ntolecitles, 

 as they as they are termed b\ Brown, who here 

 seems to have led the wav in the discovery, are 

 from the 15,000th to the 30,000ih of an inch in 

 diameter. The microscope shows a motion of 

 these particles in the fluid, movements not confi- 

 ned to a mere chauire of place, but a change of 

 form in the particle itself; and Brown asserts that 

 he was "convinced fi-om repeated observations, that 

 they are produced neither by evaporation nor cur- 

 rents in the fluid, but they pertain to the particles 

 themselves." 



But whatever may be the nature of this fluid, or ■ 

 the granules it contains, it is evident that to the 

 pollen, the power of impregnation belongs, and 



