294 



Gastric Juice. 



Notice. — Germinating Seeds. 



Vol. VI. 



with manure, as suggested, or without 1 Some 

 men of great experience are of the opinion, 

 that we ougiit always to avoid having the 

 surface of the fields bare during the winter 

 season, and therefore oppose the system of 

 fall ploughing; and for the same reason, fa- 

 vour sowing clover among the corn, as a pro- 

 tection to the fields during the winter, after 

 the corn-crop is removed. 



Will some of the numerous and able cor- 

 respondents of the Cabinet make such replies 

 to the above interrogatories, as their import- 

 ance may seem to deserve ? Pubucola. 

 Chester Co., 3d mo., 1842. 



The Gastric Juice. 



It is found by chemical experiments that 

 the juice which is in the stomach of animals 

 (called the gastric juice) has very peculiar 

 properties. Although it is for the most part 

 a tasteless, clear, and seemingly a very simple 

 liquor, it nevertheless possesses extraordinary 

 powers of dissolving substances which it 

 touches or mixes with, and it varies in differ- 

 ent classes of animals. It will not attack 

 living matter, but dead matter only ; the con- 

 sequence of which is, that its powers of eat- 

 ing away and dissolving, are perfectly safe to 

 the animals themselves, in whose stomachs 

 it remains, without ever injuring them. This 

 juice differs in different animals according 

 to the food on which they subsist — thus, in 

 birds of prey, as kites, hawks, owls, &c., it 

 will only act upon animal matter, and does 

 not dissolve vegetables; while in other birds, 

 and in all animals feeding on plants, as oxen, 

 sheep, rabbits, lirc, it dissolves vegetable mat- 

 ter, as grass, but will not touch flesh of any 

 kind. This has been ascertained by making 

 them swallov; balls with meat enclosed, with 

 several holes drilled through to let the gas- 

 tric juice reach the meat; no effect was pro- 

 duced upon it. The use of this juice is to 

 convert what they eat into a fluid, from which, 

 by various other processes, all their parts, 

 blood, bones, muscles, &c., are afterwards 

 formed; but the food is first of all to be ob- 

 tained, and then prepared by bruising for the 

 action of the juice. Now birds of prey have 

 instruments, their claws and beaks, for tear- 

 ing and devouring their food ; but these in- 

 struments are useless for picking up and 

 crushing seeds; accordingly, they have a 

 gastric juice which dissolves the animals they 

 devour, while birds which have only a beak 

 fit for picking and eating seeds, have a juice 

 that dissolves .sfet/s nnd \m\. Jlcsh: and it is 

 found that the seeds must be bruised before 

 the juice will dissolve them, and accordingly 

 these birds have a gizzard, and animals which 

 graze have flat teeth, which grind and bruise 

 their food before the gastric juice is to act 

 upon it. — Brougham. 



For the Farmers' Cnhinnt. 



Philadelphia Society for Promoting 



Agriculture. 



The committee of arrangements give notice 

 that the trial of the Prouty centre draught 

 and subsoil ploughs, will take place at the 

 Lamb Tavern, on the Lancaster turnpike, one 

 mile from the Permanent Bridge, on Thurs- 

 day the 21st day of April. And as it is the 

 wish of the Society to give every one an oj)- 

 portunity to judge of the merits of these 

 ploughs by actual experiment, the business 

 will commence at 10 o'clock in the morning, 

 and be continued through the greater part of 

 the day. By order. 



Philad., April 8, 1842. 



Germinating Seeds under coloured Glass. 



The following remarks by Mr. Hunt, the 

 Secretary of the Royal Polytechnic Society, 

 in England, relate to a most curious disco- 

 very ; and one which may prove very useful 

 to the cultivators of rare exotics. We hope 

 some of our readers will be stimulated to repeat 

 the experiments, and to send us the results. 



"It is scarcely necessary to explain tli^t 

 every beam of light proceeding from its solar 

 source, is a bundle of different coloured rays, 

 to the absorption or reflection of which we owe 

 all that infinite diversity of colour which is 

 one of the greatest charms of creation. These 

 rays have been long known to possess differ- 

 ent functions. 



" The light which permeates coloured glass, 

 partakes to some considerable extent of the 

 character of the ray which corresponds with 

 the glass in colour; thus blue glass admits the 

 blue or chemical rays, to the exclusion, or 

 nearly so, of all the others; yellow glass ad- 

 mits only the permeation of the luminous 

 rays; while red glass cuts off all but the heat- 

 ing rays, which pass it freely. This affords 

 us a very easy method of growing plants 

 under the influence of any particular light 

 which may be desired. 



"The fact to which I would particularly 

 call attention is, that Ihe yellow and red rays 

 are destructive to germination, whereas un- 

 der the influence of violet, indigo, or blue 

 light, the process is quickened in a rnost ex- 

 traordinury manner. 



"The plants will grow most luxuriantly 

 beneath glass of a blue character ; but beneath 

 the yellow and red glasses the natural pro- 

 cess is entirelv checked. Indeed, it will be 

 foimd that at any period during the early life 

 of a plant, its growth may be checked by ex- 

 posing it to the action of red or yellow light. 



" It is with much satisfaction that 1 find the 

 results to which 1 have arrived, corroborated 

 by Dr. F. R. Horner, of Hull." 



Blue glass for hot-beds could be very con- 

 veniently employed. — ?iew Genesee Farmer. 



