FARMERS' REGISTER— PLANARIiE. 



191 



should not her agricuUurists rank equally high? 

 These delects in the general agricultural manage- 

 ment of this countrj'^can only be ascribed to the 

 not duly considering the paramount importance of 

 a good system of agriculture to any country; and 

 to this country in particular, with its raj)idly in- 

 creasing po|)ulati()ii, it is of vital importance. The 

 good work requiros only to be begun: Let but a 

 lew of its wealthy, enterprizing, and influential 

 farmers, adopt the proper measures lor renovating 

 their wasted lands, and the prools of their una- 

 voidable success will soon induce one and all of 

 the cultivators of the soil to adopt similar mea- 

 sures. Then will there be fewer painful emigra- 

 tions, greater comfort, and more contentment 

 amongst the citizens of this highly favored land. 



P. S. The hint given by your coiTospondeni 

 S. B, aR to the propriety and necessity "of your 

 agricultural friends in different parts of the coun- 

 try, to give you a monthly report of the growing 

 crops" is, 1 think, of essential importance to every 

 larmer. My own observations are extremely 

 limited, scarcely extending beyond the bounds of 

 the farm I immediately superintend, and on which, 

 I have only resided for a short time back. I will 

 however, give you them as they occcurred to me. 



The wheat on this farm (Brookfield Henrico,) 

 may be considered a deficient crop. It appears in 

 the low lands to have suffered much during the 

 winter, and it has also suffered much from a dis- 

 ease called in this neighborhood stunt; the term 

 is new to me, as are also the general features of 

 the disease, the most prominent of which, are, 

 that fi-om one-fourth to one-half of a great part of 

 the ears from the top of the ears doAvnwards are 

 destitute of grain. From the partial examination 

 which I was enabled to give to tlie matter, I found 

 generally the tap-root of each diseased liead to be 

 in a decayed state, and embedded in the chaff; 

 when the grain was wanting, I could easily detect 

 the presence of a very minute worm, or fly in that 

 stage of existence — I think, deposited there before 

 the flowering of the wheat. On this farm I think 

 the high lands have suffered more from this dis- 

 ease than the low. The generality of farmers in 

 this neighborhood complain much of the ravages 

 of this disease; some of them calculating that their 

 crops are deficient by one-third. 



Our corn on this farm suffered much from the 

 frosts of the 15th 16th and 17th of May— having 

 almost the appearance of being entirely cut down. 

 It however, on the return of mild weather, speedi- 

 ly recovered; and those parts of our crops which 

 appeared to suffer most at that time, are now the 

 most vigorous, and from eight to ten days in ad- 

 vance of those parts which suffered to appearance 

 comparatively little mjur}% 



A. N. 



TO RESTORE FROSTED POTATOES. 



A most effectual method has been discovered by 

 a Cumberiand gentleman. It is simply to allow 

 the potatoes to remain in the pits, after a severe 

 frost, till the mild weather is set in for some weeks, 

 and allowing them to recover gradually. If once 

 exposed to the atmospheric air, no art will recover 

 frosted potatoes. — Repertory of Inventions. 



PLANARI^, 



On January the 27th, at the Royal Institution, 

 Mr. Faraday proceeded to lay before the literati 

 assembled, an account of Dr. R. Johnson's inves- 

 tigations into tlic restorative, productive, and repro- 

 ductive powers of the Planariff, a genus of small 

 animals allied to the Icechj and of which there are 

 several known species, viz. P. toiva, lactea, lias- 

 tata, arethusa, felina, &c., the three first of which 

 are to be found abundantly in a pond near the 

 Red-House, Battersea-fields, 



From Dr. Johnson's experiments it appears, 

 that if an incision be made longitudinally into the 

 head of the aninud, so as to separate its eyes from 

 each other, if the cut has not been carried veiy far 

 down, it will heal in the ordinary manner; but if 

 the head be absolutely cieft in twain, then accord- 

 ing to the extent of the fissui-e, there will be a 

 mass of new matter formed by each Iialf of the 

 head, which will either join tlie two lialve« toge- 

 ther, fbrmmg a head of extraordinary size, and 

 bearing in it one or two additional eyes; or each 

 old halt] thus clell, will form tlie new matter into 

 another half j with an eye, and so the animal have 

 two complete and entire heads. If the fissure be 

 carried farther down through the body of the ani- 

 mal, then not only will there be two heads, but two 

 bodies also formed, joined together only by the tail; 

 and when this is the case, so little unanimity does 

 there exist between these siamoid twin-planariae, 

 that they never pull or swim the same way; and 

 so violent are their efforts, that they frequently, 

 in the course of two or three days, tear the only 

 remaining bond of union, their tail, in sunder, and 

 then two distinct and peifect animals result. 



If in a common plana ria^ the head be cut en- 

 tirely off, a new head will be formed; and if its 

 lower extremity be removed, it will produce a new 

 tail. In a planarice, which, by the operation above' 

 described, had been invesied with two heads, these' 

 "nova capita" were successively severed for three 

 several generations, and were immediately and' 

 perfectly renewed, and subsequently the animal 

 was cut through just below the artificial bifurca- 

 tion, and then only a single head was produced, so 

 that in this more simple "capital" operation, a sin- 

 gle headed animal became a biceps, and, alter 

 having had the use of six heads in succession, was 

 subsequently reduced to the possession of a single 

 one. 



When one of these animals is cut in half, the 

 head, or anterior extremity, swims away as if no- 

 thing had happened, and speedily re-tails itself; 

 but the tail swims to the bottom, and remains tor- 

 pid for two or three days, by which time it has 

 formed for itself a head. If a planariae be cut into 

 three pieces, the head will form a new body and 

 tail, the tail a new body and head, and the middle 

 section, or body, will produce both head and tail. 

 If a quarter be removed by making a longitudinal 

 incision through the head, and half down the body, 

 and then a semi-transverse cut to remove the up- 

 per quarter, not only will the three remaining quar- 

 ters speedily reproduce a new fourth, but also the 

 separated fourth will form to itself three new quar- 

 ters. Indeed, a planarice has been cut into as many 

 as ten pieces, and each piece has become an entire 

 and perfect animal. In fact, this mode of propa- 

 gation, Avhich physiologists artificially institute, 

 seems to be frequently resorted to by the animal 



