1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



91 



were, with willow twigs, interlaced into a kind of 

 wicker-work, the interstices of which are filled with 

 puddled clay. The wicker-work lasts but a few 

 years ; so that as it requires to be repeatedly re- 

 newed, a number of willows have to be grown in 

 Holland for the purpose. The base of the dyke is 

 generally jjrotected by masonry, and strengthened 

 by large heaps of stones and rows of piles ; while 

 the summit is mostly planted with trees, because 

 their roots are found to bind the soil firmly togeth- 

 er. — Mayhew's Rhine. 



CAEKOTS FOE SWINE. 



According to Arthur Young, carrots and pars- 

 nips are better food for swine, while fattening, than 

 potatoes, and some persons do not hesitate to assert 

 that parsnips are superior to either for feeding them. 

 A writer in one of the Enghsh agricultural journals 

 asserts that they fatten all their pork in the island 

 of Jersey on this root. They contain a large 

 amount of saccharine matter, and in this important 

 particular are superior to carrots ; and it is well 

 known that no vegetable fattens swine more rapid- 

 ly than sugar cane. Perhaps in this respect the 

 French sugar beet is superior to the parsnip, as it 

 exceeds it in the amount of the sugar-making prin- 

 ciple ; but whether, on the whole, it would be as 

 salutary, \^ hen used as a constant diet, is a matter 

 admitting, we think, of some doubt. The quantity 

 of these roots, which, under favorable circumstances, 

 may be grown on an acre, is much greater than has 

 generally been supposed. Of carrots, we beheve as 

 many as sixteen hundred ' bushels per acre have 

 been realized in tliis State, but such a yield is only 

 to be expected, of course, where the ground is in a 

 very high degree of cultivation, and where great 

 care and attention are bestowed on the crop. But 

 supposing one-half of this large amomit can be pro- 

 duced, and allowing the roots to possess a value 

 equal to potatoes for feeding swine and other do- 

 mestic animals, we shall perceive that the balance 

 will be considerably in favor of the former. The 

 labor of tending an acre of carrots or parsnips, is, 

 it is true, considerably greater than that involved in 

 the cultivation of the same extent cultivated in po- 

 tatoes ; yet this is not all loss. 



All tap-rooted crops, like the parsnip, carrot, and 

 beet, effect a certain amelioration in the lands upon 

 which they grow, by pulveming and disintegrating 

 its particles, and rendering it more light and pervi- 

 ous. The process of preparing the soil for the re- 

 ception of the seed, and the method generally pur- 

 sued in cultivating and removing the crop, contrib- 

 ute also very materially to this result. In some 

 parts of Europe this amehoration is regarded of so 

 much importance, that the cultivation of root crops, 

 once in a certain number of years, is entered as a 

 condition in all leases, and its fulfilment rigidly ex- 

 acted and enforced. That it is not too highly esti- 

 mated, is demonstrated by its highly beneficial ef- 

 fects, which are too obvious to be misunderstood. 



For the New England Famter. 



THE OPEN POLAR SEA. 



IS THE EARTH HOLLOW? 



It appears that late discoveries in the Arctic re- 

 gions have resulted in establishing the fact that it 

 is much warmer towards the North Pole than about 

 the latitude where Sir John Franklin and his crew 

 perished, or where former navigators had reached ; 

 and that there is an open Polar Sea, some 3000 

 miles across. Various speculations are afloat to ac- 

 count for it. The United States Gazette says ; 



"One writer attributes it to the subterranean 

 passage of tropical waters from equatorial seas to 

 the polar regions. Another finds the cause in softie 

 supposed great agitation of the winds about the 

 poles of the earth, consequent upon the motions of 

 the latter. A third calls attention to the well- 

 known fact that the earth is an oblate spheriod, and 

 that the flattening of the poles brings the latter 

 nearer to the internal fires believed to exist at the 

 centre of the globe than any portion of the surface. 

 A fourth revives Symmes's ftvmous theory that the 

 earth is hollow and open at the poles, and adds 

 that this opening, must have been caused by t)ie 

 i-upture of the earth's crust by the internal fir&s, the 

 heat of which, emitted from the opening, keeps the 

 Polar Sea free of ice, and milder in temperature. 

 The same writer undertakes to prove Symmes's 

 theory from the book of Job. If the Polar Sea is 

 not accounted for, it will not be for lack of theo> 

 rising." 



Now I do not know but that the theory that the 

 earth is hollow is as likely to prove correct as any 

 other of the above theories. The theory that 

 the warm water at the North Pole is caused by a 

 "subterranean passage of tropical waters from equa- 

 torial seas to the polar regions," does not look very 

 plausible ; for what agent in nature is in operation 

 to cause such a flow of equatorial waters ? If sucl^ 

 a flow of water from the South, sufficient to heat 

 the northern Polar Sea, is constantly moving on, 

 what becomes of it when it gets to this open Polar 

 Sea ? Would it not, in that case, flow back to the 

 North on the upper surface of the sea ? But there 

 is evidence that it does not, as the fact of the mov- 

 ing of the Gulf Stream from south to north, on the 

 sea's surface, shows the fallacy of that theory. 



As to the agitation of wind about the Pole,, to 

 keep the sea open, it is not at all pix>bable. I should 

 suppose if any part of the earth endured a dead 

 calm, it would be the region about the pole,, as the 

 diurnal motion of the earth near the polo^is so 

 small that it cannot be subjected to such fluctuation, 

 nor by heat and cold, caused by the action of the 

 sun on the temperate or torrid zones. The third 

 argument advanced is, that the earth is flattened 

 towards the poles, and therefore nearer the internal 

 heat of the earth. But this idea is wholly ya/Za- 

 cioits. Is not the whole Arctic region nearer the 

 centre of the earth than that of the- temperate or- 

 equatorial region? Yes, every ons will acknowl- 

 edge that, who believes that the earth is an oblate 

 spheriod — flattened at the poles, and that the sur- 

 face of the equatorial region is much forther from 

 the earth's centre. It remains, therefore, for the 

 theory that the earth is hollow, somewhat like an 

 egg shell — open at l)oth ends — -that is, at the polts 

 of the earth. Can there not be as great or greater 

 argument advanced that the earth is hollow, as 

 there can be that it is one solid mass to its centre ? 



