FARMERS' REGISTER 



595 



I killed last fall about fifteen thousand weight 

 ol pork, most of which were pigs Crotn six to eight 

 months old. Two that were pigged the 23d of 

 April, were killed on the r2ih December, and 

 vveighedl87and22-llb3.net meat. These two 

 were Irorn a litter ol' ten, that the sow had rais- 

 ed, eight of which had been selected lor breeders. 

 My June pigs, killed at the same time, averaged 

 124 lbs. These are not given as extraordinary 

 weights, but as san^ples of what this stock will do 

 in the hands of any body that will take proper 

 care of them. Enclosed you have a plate of 

 one of my Woburn boars, wliich was taken 

 when he was nine months old. This plate will 

 serve to give a better idea of the formalion of the 

 Woburn hog than I could by description. Their 

 bodies to the eye appear to be perfecily round ; 

 but measurement siiovvs they are rather deepest 

 lioni the back to the breast. 



Besides the Woburn, [ have the Berkshire, 

 (black and white.) the Neapolitan, the Lanca- 

 shire, the Irish, and have liad most uf the pojiular 

 breeds. I have made many experiments to test 

 the relative value of the diifereni breeds, some of 

 which liave been detailed in the Franklin Farmer. 

 My experiments have not been sufficiently varied 

 and exact, to prove all that 1 wished to know con- 

 cerning them, but as flir as they have gone they 

 have been decidedly in favor of the Woburn. 1 

 iiave also proposed, in the Franklin Farmer, ma- 

 king a more thorough test of the different hogs. 

 An experiment was lately ntade in Jessamine 

 county, Ky., by Isaac and William Barclay. They 

 fed for thirty days, a Woburn and a Berkshire 

 boar. — The Berkshire gained fifty-seven pounds, 

 and the Woburn one hundred and seven pounds. 



I have Berkshires of Haws and Lossing's im- 

 portation, a description of which has been publish- 

 ed in many of the agricultural papers. 



I sent last year an oriler to England for four of 

 the best hogs that could be procured, and my 

 agent sent me the While Berkshire, the Neapoli- 

 tan, the Lancashire, and the big white China. 

 My white improved Berkshire was purchased at a 

 price that would have purchased half a dozen 

 black Berkshires. He has all the good qualities 

 of the best of the black ones, and a size, and soft- 

 ness in feeling, which the black ones lack. His 

 value must depend upon his breeding, and I am 

 willing for time and experience to lest this matter. 

 Yours, very respectfully, 



Samuel. D. Martin. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE EXCRETOKY POWERS 

 OF PLANTS, &C. 



From tlie British tanners' Magazine. 

 The lately discovered doctrine of the excretory 

 powers of the roots of" plants, although it was ra- 

 ther startling to us, and slowly received at first, is 

 now beginning to tie emliraced by the generality 

 of scienlilii; men. The doctrine being first adopted 

 and promulgated by several leading men, about 

 the same time in England as well as on the conti- 

 nent, gained lor it a ready acceptance with many, 

 who, however, had some difficulty in explaining 

 and proving what they prolessed to believe. That 

 the soil immediately in contact v/ith the roots and 

 other parts of the plant which grows in it, must 



receive some kind of faint, either by exudation, re- 

 spiration, or other mode of discharge of its fluids, la 

 perfectly feasible; and that this taint is apprecia- 

 ble by our senses, both of sighi and scent, is unde- 

 niable. But whether this taint or discharge from 

 the plant be poisonous, or only useless to plants of 

 the same kind which succeed, is the question not 

 yet clearly decided. Objectors insist that it is not 

 what is left that is deleterious, but what is taken 

 away which renders the soil lesa suitable to the 

 second crop of the same kind. Every different 

 species of plant, say they, selects its own peculiar 

 kind of food, and therefore the second cannot find 

 so much as the first, unless the exhausted plot be 

 replenished with that of which it has been depriv- 

 ed. But the abettors of the exudation notion, say 

 this is impossible; that no replenishment of even 

 the richest dress will operate so as to make the 

 second as good as the first crop. This is, perhaps, 

 carrying the idea of excremental poisoning too far; 

 because a farm may be so exhausted under a 

 regular rotation of cropping, as to be at last unfit 

 to bear any kin.l of crop until again visited by the 

 dung cart. We often see in cottage gardens 

 onions and cabbages repeatedly grown on the same 

 spot, without any material falling off, provided the 

 annual application of ashes and other sweepings 

 about the house are bestowed to assist the'crop. 



It is quite possible, however, that one species of 

 plant may be not only unhurt by the exuvia of 

 another, but even thrive in it, as beans and wheat 

 are known to do, alternating lor many consecutive 

 years. And, moreover, as beans, drilled and pro- 

 perly labored by horse and hand hoes, are a cleans- 

 ing crop, and if the drill? of this year were to oc- 

 cupy the intervals of those of the last, it might be 

 possible, as Tull used to say, to grow beans every 

 year upon the same field ; but this, lor many rea- 

 sons, would not be eligible, even if practicable. 



But some of those who strenuously support the 

 theory of Professor De Candolle, relative to the 

 injurious ejectments of previous crops, not only in- 

 sist on the validity of the professor's opinion, but 

 maintain that it is consistent with a fixed law of 

 nature, namely, that no plant is destined by nature 

 to occupy constantly the samesiation. That they 

 are constitutionally endowed with powers or ten- 

 dencies by which they desert or fly from the place 

 of their birth ; as if by a kind of preception they 

 knew that their parents had devoured all the food 

 which they would require lor themselves. 



We have many instances of the progeny forsak- 

 ing the mother; some seeds have parachute wings 

 to fly away with ; others are contained in seed 

 vessels, which when acted upon by the heat of the 

 sun, burst with such elastic force as to scatter the 

 seeds to a considerable distance around. By many 

 other means are seeds dispersed: by winds, by 

 currents of water, by birds and other aniniaie. But 

 besides seeds, plants have other modes ofinciense 

 or extension : witness the numerous offsets and 

 suckers produced by many dlfl'erent sorts of plants, 

 and all these take divergent direction?, so that they 

 should not rob the parent or be starved themselves. 

 The strawberry plant is a fimiiiar example of how 

 far the living progeny depart fiom ihe mother'ssta- 

 tion before they fix themselves in 'he ground. To 

 ihese instances a hundred others might be adduced; 

 all which go to prove that plants are constitution- 

 ally inclined to a change of place. Trees, indeed, 

 are fixed to one spot ; but they are ever finding 



