292 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



MARCH 86, 1S34. 



SCIENCE OP AGRICULTURE. 



Origin and Principles of Culture as derived from 

 the study of vegetables. — The final objects of all the 

 sciences is their application to purposes subservient 

 to the wants and desires of man. The study of the 

 vegetable kingdom is one of the must important in 

 this point of view as directly subservient to the 

 arts which supply food, clothing and medicine ; 

 and indirectly to those which supply bouses, ma- 

 chines for conveying us by land or by water, and 

 in short almost every comfort and luxury. With- 

 out the aid of the vegetable kingdom, few mineral 

 bodies would be employed in the arts, and the 

 great majority of animals, whether used by man 

 as laborers, or as food, could not live. 



Agriculture and gardening are the two arts 

 which embrace the whole business of cultivating 

 vegetables, for whatever purpose they are applied 

 by civilized men. Their fundamental principles 

 as arts of culture are the same ; they are for the 

 most part suggested by nature and explained by 

 vegetable chemistry and physiology, and most of 

 them have been put in practice by man, for an 

 unknown length of time, without much reference 

 to principles. All that is necessary, therefore, for 

 effecting this branch of culture is to imitate the 

 habitation, and to propagate. This is, or ought to 

 be, the case, wherever plants are grown for medi- 

 cal or botanical purposes, as in herb or botanic 

 gardens. Nature is here imitated as exactly as 

 possible, ami the result is, productions resembling 

 as near as possible, those of nature. 



To increase the number and improve the quali- 

 ties of plants, it is necessary to facilitate their 

 mode of nutrition by removing nil obstacles to the 

 progress of the plants. These obstacles may eith- 

 er exist uuder or above the surface; and hence 

 the origin of draining, clearing from surface in- 

 cumbrances, and the various operations as digging, 

 ploughing, &c. for pulverizing the soil. Nature 

 suggests this in accidental ruptures of the surface, 

 broken banks, alluvial dispositions from overflow- 

 ing rivers, and the earth thrown up by under- 

 ground animals. Many of the vegetables within 

 the influence of such accidents are destroyed, but 

 such as remain are ameliorated in quality, and the 

 reason is that food is increased, because their roots, 

 being enabled to take a more extensive range, more 

 is brought within their reach. 



It is necessary, or at least advantageous, to supply 

 food artificially ; and hence the origin of manuring. 

 All organized matters [animal and vegetable sub- 

 stances] are capable of being converted into food 

 for plants. But the best manure for ameliorating 

 the quality, and yet retaining the chemical proper- 

 ties of plants, must necessarily be decayed plants 

 of their own species. It is true that plants do not 

 differ greatly in their primary principles, and that 

 a supply of any description of putrescent manure 

 will cause all plants to thrive, but some plants, as 

 wheat, contain peculiar substances, (as gluten and 

 phosphate of lime,) and some manures, as those of 

 animals, or decayed wheat, containing the same 

 substances, must necessarily be a better manure 

 or food for such plants. Manuring is an obvious 

 imitation of nature, everywhere observable by the 

 decaying herbage of decaying plants, or the fall- 

 ing leaves of trees, rotting into dust or vegetable 

 mould about their roots, and by the effect of the 

 dung left by pasturing or other animals. 



Amelioration of climate is farther advantageous, 

 in improving the quality of vegetables, by in- 



creasing or diminishing its temperature, accord- 

 ing to the nature of the plant ; unless indeed, it is 

 situated in a climate which experience and ob- 

 servation show to be exactly suited to its nature. 

 Hence the origin of shelter and shade, by means 

 of walls, hedges, or strips of plantation ; of sloping 

 surfaces or banks, to receive more directly or in- 

 directly the rays of the sun ; of rows, drills and 

 ridges, placed north and south in preference to 

 east and west, in order that the sun may shine on 

 both sides of the row, drill or ridge, or on the soil 

 between rows and drills, every day in the y< ar ; ot 

 soils better calculated to absorb and retain brat ; 

 walls fully exposed to the south or the north ; of 

 training or spreading out the branches of trees 

 upon these walls; of hot-walls; of hot-beds; and 

 finally of all the variety of hot-houses. Nature 

 suggests this part of culture, by presenting, in 

 every country, different degrees of shelter, shade 

 and surface, and in every zone, different climates. 



The regulation of moisture is the next point de- 

 manding attention ; for when the soil is pulveriz- 

 ed, it is more easily dried by the penetration of 

 the air ; when an increase of food is supplied, 

 the medium through which that food is taken up 

 by the plant should be increased, and when the 

 temperature is increased, the evaporation becomes 

 greater. Hence the origin of watering by surface 

 or subterranean irrigation, manual supplies to the 

 root, showering over the leaves, steaming the sur- 

 rounding atmosphere, &c. This is only to imitate 

 the dews and showers, streams and floods of na- 

 ture; and it is to be regretted that the imitation is 

 in most countries attended with so much labor, 

 and requires so much nicety in the arrangement 

 of the means, and judgment in the application of 

 water, that it is but very partially applied by man 

 in every part of the world, except in Italy. But 

 moisture maybe excessive; and on certain sods 

 at certain seasons, and on certain productions at 

 particular periods of their progress, it may be ne- 

 cessary to carry oft* a great part of the natural 

 moisture, rather than let it sink into the earth, or 

 draw it off where it has sunk in and injuriously 

 accumulated, or prevent its falling on the crop at 

 all: and hence the origin of surface drainage by 

 ridges, and of under-draining by covered conducts 

 or gutters; and of awnings and other covers to 

 keep off the rain or dews from ripe fruits, seeds, 

 or rare flowers. 



The regulation of light is the remaining point. 

 Light sometimes requires to be excluded and 

 sometimes to be increased, in order to improve 

 the qualities of vegetables; and hence the origin 

 of thinning leaves which overshadow fruits and 

 flowers, the practice of shading cuttings, seeds, 

 &c. and the practice of blanching. The latter 

 practice is derived from accidents observable 

 among vegetables in a wild state, and its influence 

 on their quality is physiologically accounted for 

 by the obstruction of perspiration, and the pre- 

 vention of chemical changes effected by light on 

 the epidermis. 



Increasing the magnitude of vegetables, without 

 reference to their quality, is to be obtained by an 

 increased supply of all the ingredients of food, 

 distributed in a body of well pulverized soil as 

 the roots can reach to ; of heat and moisture ; of 

 the partial exclusion of the direct rays of the sun, 

 so as to moderate perspiration ; and of wind, so 

 as to prevent sudden desiccation [drying.] But 

 experience alone can determine what plants are 

 best suited for this, and to what extent the prac- 



tice can be carried. Nature gives the hint in the 

 occasional luxuriance of plants accidentally placed 

 in favorite circumstances, anil man adopts it, and 

 improving on it, produces cabbages and turnips 

 of half a cwt. ; apples of one pound and a half; 

 and cabbage roses of four inches -in diameter; 

 productions which may in some respects be con- 

 sidered diseased. 



The preservation of vegetables for future use, is 

 effected by destroying, or rendering dormant, the 

 principle of life, and by warding off, as far as 

 practicable, the progress of chemical decomposi- 

 tion. When vegetables or fruits are gathered for 

 use or preservation, the air of the atmosphere 

 which surrounds them is continually depriving 

 them of carbon, and forming the carbonic acid 

 gas. The water they emit:, i FI , by its softening 

 qualities, weakens the affinity of their elements; 

 and heat produces the same effect by dilating 

 their parts, and promoting the decomposing effect 

 both of air and water. Hence drying in the sun 

 or in ovens, is one of the most obvious modes of 

 presen ing vegetables for use, as food, or for other 

 purposes, but not for growth if the drying process 

 is carried so far as to destroy the principle of life 

 in seeds, roots or sections of the shoots of ligneous 

 [woody] plants; Potatoes, turnips, and other es- 

 culent roots, may be preserved from autumn to 

 the following summer, by drying them in the 

 sun, and burying them in perfectly dry soil, which 

 shall he at the same time at a temperature but 

 a few degrees above the freezing point. Corn 

 (grain) may be preserved many years by first dry- 

 ing it thoroughly in the sun, and then burying jt 

 in dry cool pits, and closing these so as effectually 

 to v hide the atmospheric air. In a short time, 

 the air within is changed to carbonic acid gas, in 

 which no animal will live, and in which, without 

 an addition of oxygen or atmospheric air, no plant 

 or seed will vegetate. The corn is thus preserved 

 from decomposition, from insects, vermin, and 

 from vegetation, in a far more effectual manner 

 than it can be in a granary. In this way the Ro- 

 mans preserved their corn in chambers hewn out - 

 of dry rock, the Moors in the sides of hills, the 

 Chinese, at the present time in deep pits, in dry 

 soil, and the aboriginal natives of Africa, ill earth. 

 en vessels hermetically sealed. The origin of 

 these practices are all obvious imitations of what 

 accidentally takes place in nature, from the with- 

 ered grassy tussock to the hedgehog's winter 

 store; and hence the origin of herb, seed and 

 root rooms and cellars, and packing plants and 

 seeds for sending to a distauce. 



The whole of the art oj vegetable culture is but 

 a varied developemcnt of the above fundamental 

 practices all founded iii nature, and for the most 

 part rationally and satisfactorily explained on 

 chemical and physiological principles. Hence 

 the great necessity of the study of botany to the 

 cultivator, not in the limited sense in which the 

 term is often taken, as including mere nomencla- 

 ture and classification, but in that extended signi- 

 catiou in which we have here endeavored, pro- 

 portionately to our limited space, to present the 

 study of the vegetable kingdom. — Enc. of J}gr. 



FAMILY ALBUM. 



We were not long since informed of a practice 

 observed in the family of an excellent widowed 

 lady of this city, which must be of great utility to 

 her children, and which we venture to recom- 

 mend to the readers of our paper. A folio if we 



