1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



169 



with some details of our own experience in the 

 use of lime. But the length to which we have 

 unconsciously extended itj admonishes us to be 

 brief on this head. Suffice it to say, that we have 

 used shell-lime to a considerable extent for a num- 

 ber of years, and have never had our reasonable 

 expectations disappointed. It is true, we never 

 expected it to act like magic and make poor land 

 rich at once. But it has never failed, to increase 

 the crops, to improve the appearance and texture 

 of the soil, and to insure the permanent improve- 

 ment of the land by the subsequent application of 

 putrescent manures. We have, however, always 

 applied it, either in compost, (which we prefer,) or 

 on land that has not been grazed the year pre- 

 vious, and have generally followed it by the appli- 

 cation of alimentary manures. We are now pre- 

 paring to apply about 2000 bushels upon a poor 

 high-land sod ; and as a preliminary step, are 

 covering the thinnest parts of the land with 

 leaves and vegetable mould from the woods. 

 This land has not been grazed for two years, and 

 has a considerable cover of inert vegetable mat- 

 ter. 



Mr. Robert Bailey, one of your subscribers, in 

 this neighborhood, has used lime in compost very 

 extensively for a number of years, and with the 

 most signal success. Having so improved the 

 larm on which he resides, as to increase his ave- 

 rage crop of corn fi'om one and a half, the former 

 product, to six barrels per acre, and to cause 

 it to produce fine crops of wheat and clover where 

 none grew before. He is now applying it on a 

 larger farm, on a much more extensive scale, and 

 during the last summer had on hand, as we were 

 informed, about 10,000 bushels of shells. We 

 have urged him repeatedly to communicate the 

 result of his experience to the Register ; and 

 have threatened if he does not do it very soon, 

 to have his premises surveyed, and a report 

 made by another hand, of the great improve- 

 ments effected by his well-directed energy and 

 zeal. 



We trust that the importance of the subject, 

 and the injurious tendency of the erroneous doc- 

 trines we have been combating, will be deemed 

 a sufficient apology (or this long, and we lear te- 

 dious communication. 



WiLLOuGiiBY Newton. 

 Westmoreland co., Va,, March 8th, 1839. 



[The article which Mr. Newton has answered 

 above, had not escaped our notice, and it would 

 have been republished before, and commented on, 

 if it had not been without the responsible signature 

 of a real name. 



We join in the request to Mr. Bailey to com- 

 municate his experience in improving his farm, 

 for publication in the Farmers' Register. He and 

 ■undry others of the residents of the tide-water 

 region can present flicts in support of the value 

 of shell-lime, as well as of marl and of calcareous 

 manures in general, which would out- weigh the 

 opposing testimony of the writer in the 'Farmer 

 and Gardener,' even if its importance were in- 

 creased an hundred fold.] 

 Vol. VIl-22 



For the Farmers' RBgister. 

 ESSAY ON VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 



[Continued from page 70.] 



Chap. V. 



STEMS. THEIR EXTERNAL FORMS. THEIR IN- 

 TERNAL STRUCTURE. EXOGENOUS STEMS. 

 MEDULLARY RAYS. WOOD. METHODS OF 

 DETERMINING THE AGE OF TREES. SEA- 

 SONING TIMBER. 



Of true stems, that of the white-oak (^quercus 

 alba) may be assumed as the type. The stem of 

 the white-oak, or the trunk, as it is more commonly 

 called, rises like a column Irom the earth ; largest 

 near the surface of the ground, then gradually 

 contracting in size, until near the point at which 

 the first branches are inserted, where it again en- 

 larges ; thus forming a column, the curvature of 

 whose surface is inwards. That this form is the 

 best which the trunk could have, to enable it to re- 

 sist the action of storms and high winds, is easily 

 demonstrable on strict mathematical principles. 

 Of this same fact, a remarkable experimental proof 

 is afforded in the celebrated Eddystone light- 

 house. Before the building of the present struc- 

 ture, several unsuccessful attempts had been made 

 to erect a permanent light-house on the Eddystone 

 rock. A little more than eighty years ago, Smea- 

 ton undertook the work, and as he states in his 

 'History of the Eddystone light-house,' took the 

 trunk of an oak as his model. Since the building 

 was completed, it has been exposed to the most 

 violent storms — storms which have dashed the 

 ocean waves over the very top of the building — 

 and yet it has withstood them all uninjured. 



From the form which the stem presents in the 

 oak, we meet with many departures. In palms and 

 similar trees of tropical countries, it does not divide 

 into branches, but has the form of a simple cylin- 

 der, bearing a tufl of enormous leaves at its top. 

 In other plants it lies like a cord on the ground, as 

 in the cucumber, (^cucumis satitnis.') In others it 

 takes a twining direction, often enfolding the 

 largest trees in its coils. " In the Royal Museum 

 at Paris, there is a specimen of a palm, so sur- 

 rounded by an enormous twiner, as to be perfectly 

 enclosed in it, as in a vegetable sheath; nothing but 

 its extremities being visible." In most plants, the 

 stem is solid ; but in grasses and umbelliferous 

 plants, it is hollow. In the tortoise plant of the 

 Cape of Good Hope, it is a rounded knob, the 

 bark of which is rent by deep fissures, causing it 

 to present to the eye an appearance resembling 

 that of a tortoise. In etapelias and some other 

 south African plants, the stem is gnuty, distorted 

 and succulent, bearing soft projections instead of 

 leaves. In the cactuses, it is sometimes flat, and 

 divided into a number of leaf-like limbs; at other 

 times, globular, and marked with soft projecting 

 ribs, at others, angular and erect, rising into the 

 air, a naked green club. 



Stems, which have too little strength to stand 

 erect, and sustain their own weight, together with 

 that of their leaves and fruit, generally support 

 themselves by fastening to some neighboring bo- 

 dy. This they do either by coiling spirally around 

 their support, as the pole bean, (phaseolus vulga- 

 ris,') or by means of thread-like organs called 

 tendrils, as the common passion-flower, (jpasaijio- 

 ra incarnata,) or by what are termed aerial roots, 



