FARMERS' REGISTER 



677 



exceptions to the rule, and do not impair the va- 

 lidity of the law. Now if our argument be cor- 

 rect, eiik-worm eggs have a period which they re- 

 quire (or their maturity, equivalent to that ol ute- 

 rine gestation. We have already shown that they 

 will not liatch the same season they are produced, 

 however early they may have been laid in the 

 season. If they do not require this period ol' ges- 

 tation, why do they not hatch during the extreme- 

 ly hot weather of July and August? It is clear 

 to our minds that they do require E^ certain time ; 

 but what that time is remains lo be discovered. 

 We never knew any eggs hatched in Jarmary, 

 even in the tar south, and we believe that among 

 all the losses ofeggs by premature hatching, very 

 few ever occurred in New Orleans before the lat- 

 ter end of February. This would show the 

 shortest period at which they are capable of hatch- 

 ing to be six or seven months from the time they 

 are laid, or eight to nine months from the time 

 their parents were hatched. But though, by a 

 change of climate, their time of hatching may be 

 thus accelerated two or three months, the same 

 circumstance will prevent its being prolonged at 

 all ; for all the time that is gained on the one side 

 is most surely taken from the other. We antici- 

 pate being laughed at by the Doctor for our Uto- 

 pian idea of what he will probably call ovogesla- 

 tion : but we can bear it. 



(4) We alluded to the martin and American 

 locust merely as illustrative of the fact of the pre- 

 cision of periodical developements and habits, in 

 insects and animals. We did not rely upon them 

 as any thing but iUustraiions ; nor did we adduce 

 them to " settle" the question. There is no proof 

 whatever, hovvever, that the few stragglers of' the 

 American locust, that appear occasionally, are the 

 result of this vivilying cause, (heat,) being inter- 

 cepted. In other words that they are the result of 

 eggs retarded in their hatching. They are much 

 more plausibly supposed to be individuals from 

 other districts or families, that have strayed from 

 home or been carried to iheir present location by 

 high wind or some other agent. In Loudoun 

 county, Virginia, the American locust appears at 

 alternate intervals ol' eight and nine years. The 

 Doctor would not thence infer, we presume, that 

 one or the other of the families had been, by the 

 interception of heat, retarded in hatching eight or 

 nine years ? 



(5) The least tenable of all his arguments 

 against our system is his reliance upon the ana- 

 logy supposed to exist between vegetable seeds 

 and eggs. If we admit the occurrence of "in- 

 Btances of the dormant state in which the seeds of 

 the plants may remain for many years, and with- 

 out injury to their final production," we cannot 

 shut our eyes to the daily occurrence of facts of 

 an opposite character. Indeed this opposite cha- 

 racter is so frequently presented to our notice, that 

 the lew instances relerred to by the Doctor, of an 

 indefinite dormant state, that these latter may 

 fairly be considered as mere "exceptions to the 

 rule." How many instances can we not adduce 

 of seeds that will not bear retarding in hatching, 

 as well as silk-worm eggs? The white mulberry 

 seed, for instance, every body knows, will not vege- 

 tate, if more than one year old ; and cofl'ee seeds 

 will not vegetatft if more than three months old, 

 nor even then unless it shall have been preserved 

 in a peculiar way. If the Doctor's pocket »nd 



patience have not suffered from the failure of old 

 seeds to vegetate, he is the luckiest of the tribe of 

 Agricola; and in that case we must beg leave lo re- 

 fer him to the seedsmen, v.'ho will inform him that 

 very lew of their seeds will vegetate after they are 

 twelve months old — many indeed will not after 

 they are six or eight months old, and in this 

 respect imitating the habit of silk-worm eggs, by- 

 vegetating not much later than the plants that 

 produced them the year before vegetated. So well 

 is this fact known, that honest and careful seeds- 

 men clear out all their old stock of seeds they 

 know to be of this character, at the close of every 

 season, to make room for fresh ones. Therefore, 

 vegetable seeds, however analogous they may be 

 lo silk-worm eggs, do not prove that silk-worm 

 eggs can be retarded in hatching much beyond 

 the period nature has assigned for the purpose. 



(6) We differ with ihe^Doctor entirely on this 

 point. We believe that the lamp of life is light- 

 ed at the moment of impregnation — that the vivific 

 influence is ihen communicated from the parent to 

 the offspring, in both viviparous and oviparous 

 animals. If this were not so each individual 

 would be an independent creation — the stream of 

 vitality would be interrupted at each generation. 

 This however cannot be. The vital current 

 passes from parent lo progenj', and is only depend- 

 ent on heat and other external agencies, in the 

 egg, or in the uterus, precisely as it is m the per- 

 fect animal. At no time of life can animals exist 

 without the aid of the proper degree of heat ; and 

 they are no more dependent upon heat for exis- 

 tence at one time than another ; nor more so than 

 they are upon other agencies, nutrition, for ex- 

 ample. But heat never imparts to inert matter the 

 principle of life. The vital principle has been 

 I derived from the parent, and may be warmed into 

 ! activity by heat, if before dormant, in certain 

 cases ; or this vital principle may be extinguished 

 by a withdrawal of the heat necessary to its exist- 

 ence, — and it may also be extinguished by confin- 

 ing the egg in a temperature too low for active 

 life, but high enough merely to permit life lo exist 

 during and beyond the period of gestation, when 

 il must expire, — precisely in the manner so many 

 millions of silk-worm eggs were destroyed during 

 the past season by attempts to retard their hatching 

 lo a time beyond Iheir period of gestalion. From 

 what has been said it would appear that the 

 embryo in the egs requires nutrition from Ihe .mo- 

 ment of its becoming an embryo, ihat it becomes 

 an embryo at the moment of impregnation ; and 

 it is no more ihan reasonable that it should be so. 

 This nutrition is furnished by the albumen of the 

 egg. It also requires oxygen, and receives it from 

 the air — perfect exclusion from air, or the forma- 

 tion of carbonic acid gas, and ihus destroying the 

 oxygen of the air in the vessel containing the 

 eggs, is certain death to them. That the embryo 

 from its inception requires nutrition, we suppose 

 will be disputed ; for, if it docs, then there can be 

 no further question as to a limit being assigned 

 to the term or time of its remaining in the ef[g, 

 for that limit will be regulated by the supply of 

 nutriment. To us, however, the question is clear 

 of all doubt. All organized beings, animals or 

 vegetables, require nutrition ; — in some stages of 

 existence more, and in some less, il is true ; but in 

 all some portion. Then may not the length of 

 time silk-worra eggs can be kept without hatchr 



