ABSTERGENT REMEDIES. 



ACACIA TREE. 



experiments which we have before detailed is, 

 that the disorganized tissue of the spongelets 

 appears to give a much freer passage to the 

 juices than that which had been uninjured. 

 Thus plants can only live for two or three 

 days in a solution of blue vitriol (sulphate of 

 copper}, of which they absorb a large quan- 

 tity ; while they will live eight or ten days in 

 a solution of gum, of which they absorb only a 

 very little. Branches cut and plunged in the 

 different solutions follow similar laws, and 

 absorb both water and its solutions. 



It is very probable that the spongelets of dif- 

 ferent species of plants are not all organized 

 in a uniform manner, and that there are some 

 which more easily admit of certain substances ; 

 but microscopical observations are still far 

 from accounting for these differences, and the 

 facts drawn from culture are equally obscure 

 in directing our judgment upon the point. 



The manner in which plants of different 

 kinds exhaust the soil relatively to each other, 

 the general action of manures, the prodigious 

 number of different plants which we can cul- 

 tivate in the same patch of a garden, tend to 

 prove that the differences of absorption in 

 vegetables are of great importance. Instead 

 of the variety, however, of aliments which sus- 

 tain the life of animals, we find among vege- 

 tables a great uniformity of the substances 

 absorbed. The quantity of liquid absorbed at 

 different epochs of the life of plants, and under 

 the influence of different atmospherical cir- 

 cumstances, appear more intimately connected 

 with the ascent of the sap than with its suction. 



Absorption varies according to the state 

 of the plants and the periods of their growth ; 

 going on more rapidly in proportion as the 

 leafing is rapid. At the time of flowering and 

 fruiting, also, more nourishment is absorbed 

 from the soil. We likewise know that absorp- 

 tion, as well as the progression of the fluids 

 absorbed, depends greatly on the influence of 

 heat and light ; that it is most active in spring, 

 that it diminishes in autumn, and is reduced 

 almost to nothing, if it do not altogether cease, 

 in winter. Miller. 



ABSTERGENT REMEDIES, in farriery, 

 are those used for the purpose of resolving or 

 discussing tumours and concretions on the 

 joints and other parts of animals. They 

 mostly consist of volatile, stimulant, and sapo- 

 naceous matters. 



ACACIA TREE (Robinia Pseud-Acacia Lin- 

 naeus). The Acacia tree is well known in 

 America, from which it was introduced by the 

 name of the Locust tree. It grows very rapidly 

 in the early stages of its progress ; so that in a 

 few years, from seeds, plants of eight and ten 

 feet high may be obtained. It is by no means 

 uncommon to see shoots of this tree eight or 

 ten feet high in one season. The branches 

 are furnished with very strong, crooked thorns ; 

 the leaves are winged with eight or ten pairs 

 of leaflets, egg-oblong, bright green, entire, and 

 without foot-stalks. The flowers come out 

 from the branches in pretty long bunches, 

 hanging down like those of the laburnum, or 

 the still more lovely Wistaria sinensis. Each 

 flower grows on a slender foot-stalk, smelling 

 very sweet It is of a white colour, but there 



is a rose-red variety. It blows in June ; and 

 when the tree is full of bloom makes a hand- 

 some appearance, and perfumes the whole air 

 around. The flowers are followed by seed- 

 pods, oblong, flat, having a longitudinal rib 

 next the seeding suture, on the outside of that 

 being drawn out into a membranous margin ; 

 one-celled, and two-valved. The seeds are 

 sometimes as many as sixteen, kidney-shaped, 

 ending in a hooked beak, like a lens, and are 

 of a rusty colour. 



In North America, where this tree grows to 

 a very large size indeed, the wood is mufeh 

 valued for its duration. Most of the houses 

 which were built at Boston in New England, 

 on the first settling of the English, were con- 

 structed of this wood ; and since then it has been 

 much used in America for various purposes. 



The seeds of the Acacia tree were first 

 brought to Europe by M. Jean Robin, nursery- 

 man to the King of France, and author of a 

 " History of Plants." M. Robin brought the 

 first seeds from Canada; in consequence of 

 which, succeeding botanists have, in honour to 

 his name, termed the genus Robinia to which 

 the Acacia tree belongs. Soon after its intro- 

 duction into France, the English gardeners 

 received seeds from Virginia, from which 

 many trees were raised. 



The wood, when green, is of a soft texture, 

 but becomes very hard when dry. It is as 

 durable as the best white oak of North Ame- 

 rica, and esteemed preferable for axletrees of 

 carriages, trenails for ships, and many other 

 important purposes. The turner finds the wood 

 of the Acacia hard and well suited to his pur- 

 pose, and is delighted with its smooth texture 

 and beautifully delicate straw colour. . 



The tree, when aged, abounds with certain 

 excrescences or knots, which, when polished, 

 are beautifully veined, and much esteemed by 

 the cabinet-maker. It makes excellent fuel, 

 and its shade is said to be less injurious than 

 that of any other tree ; while the leaves afford 

 wholesome food for cattle. A gentleman in 

 New England sowed several acres of it for 

 this purpose alone. 



It has been employed with signal success in 

 Virginia for ship building, and is found to be 

 very superior to American oak, ash, elm, or 

 any other wood they use for that purpose. In 

 New York it has befen found, after repeated 

 trials, that posts for rail-fencing, made of the 

 Acacia tree, stand wet and dry near the ground 

 better than any other in common use, and will 

 last as long as those of swamp cedar. 



The Acacia tree seems happily adapted to 

 ornamental planting. Whether as a single 

 tree upon the grass, feathering to the ground 

 line, or as a standard in the shrubbery, tower- 

 ing above a monotonous mass of sombre ever- 

 greens, the Acacia has great charms for us, 

 and may justly be called a graceful tree; and 

 although its light, loose, and pleasing foilage 

 admits the light, and seems to harmonize so 

 delightfully with the polished lawn, or the 

 highly cultivated shrubbery (and there is 

 hardly a shrubbery to be found without them), 

 yet we should like much to see the Acacia tree 

 planted in the woods everywhere, where forest 

 timber is an object of attention. 



