MO. 6. 



THE FARMERS' CABINET. 



that some like one, and some another situa- 

 tion. For example, to take plants which 

 are very closely allied, the lichens are dry 

 plants, and never grow under water; the 

 fuci are watery plants, and never grow out 

 of water; and the same may be said of many 

 other plants, some of which are, as it were, 

 the living boundaries of land and sea : thus 

 the Samphire {Cr'dhinam Maritimum) never 

 grows but' on the sea-shore, and yet it never 

 grows within reach of the wave;--, — that is 

 to say, it is never so near as to be wholly 

 covered by tlie waters. It happened not 

 long since, that a knowledge of this fact was 

 useful in a way and at a lime when botanic 

 knowledge miglit, beforehand, have been ex- 

 pected to be of little practical importance. 



During a violent storm in November, 1831, 

 a vessel passing through the English Chan- 

 nel, was driven on shore near Beachy Head ; 

 and the whole of the crew being washed 

 overboard, four escaped from the wreck, only 

 to be delivered as they thought to a more 

 lino'erinsr and fearful, from its being a more 

 gradual and equally inevitable death ; for, 

 having in the darkness of the night been cast 

 upon the breakers, they found, when they 

 had climbed up the highest of these low 

 rocks, that the waves were rapidly encroach- 

 ing on their asylum ; and tliey doubted not, 

 that when the tide should be at its height, 

 the whole range would be entirely covered 

 with water. The darkness of the night pre- 

 vented any thing being seen beyond the spot 

 upon which they stood, and this was con- 

 tinually decreasing by the successive en- 

 croachments of each advancing wave. The 

 violence of the storm left no hope that their 

 feeble voices, even if raised to the uttermost, 

 cou'.d be heard on shore ; and they knew that 

 amidst the howling of the blast, their cries 

 could reach no other ear than that of God. 

 What human arm could give assistance in 

 such a situation 1 even if their distresses 

 were known, how vain were the help of man! 

 The circle of their existence here seemed 

 gradually lessening before their eyes; their 

 little span of earth gradually contracting to 

 their destruction: already they had climbed 

 to the highest points, and already the furious 

 waters followed them, flinging over their 

 devoted heads the foremost waves, as heralds 

 of their speedily approaching dissolution. 

 At this moment, one of these wretched men, 

 while they were debating whether they 

 should not, in this extremity of ill, throw 

 themselves upon the mercy of the waves, 

 hoping to bo cast upon some higlier ground, 

 as, even if they failed to reacli it, a sudden 

 would be better than a lingering death — in 

 this dire extremity, one of these despairing 

 creatures, to hold himself more firmly to the 

 rock, grasped a weed, which, even wet as it 



was, he well knew, as the lightning's sud- 

 den flash afforded a momentary glare, was 

 not a fucus, but a root of Samphire; and he 

 recollected that this plant never grows under 

 water. This then became more than an olive 

 branch of peace, a messenger of mercy ; by 

 it they knew that He who alone can calm 

 the raging of the seas, at whose voice alone 

 the winds and the waves are still, had placed 

 his landmark, had planted his standard iiere, 

 and by this sign they were assured that He 

 had said to the wild waste of waterp, 

 '• Hitherto shall thou come, and no further." 

 Trusting, then, to the promise of this Angel 

 of the Earth, they remained stationary during 

 the remainder of that dreadful, but then com- 

 paratively happy night; and in the morning 

 they were seen from the clifl^s above, and 

 conveyed in safety to the shore. — Burnett's 

 Introductory Lecture. 



Samphire, or <S7. Peter's Wort, very pro- 

 bably derives its English name, as etymolo- 

 gists contend, from the French name, " Herhe 

 de St. Pierre,'^ and hence, ifsuch be the case, 

 it would be more correctly written, accord- 

 ing to Smith, Sampire, or, as degenerated 

 from St. Pierre, san-pire. The botanical 

 name Crithmum has been given to this plant 

 from the resemblance its seeds bear to grains 

 of barley, the crithe of the Greeks. 



The Philadelpliia Horticultural Society 



Closed its ninth annual exhibition at the 

 Masonic Hall, on Friday evening the 23d 

 September. We learn that it was of the 

 most gratifying character. We were not 

 able to attend, but as the Secretary has 

 kindly offered to furnish us with an account 

 of the exhibition, our readers may expect it 

 in our next. 



Apples for Hogs. 



We have frequent enquiries, says the Cul- 

 tivator, for trees of sweet apples, to cultivate 

 for hogs and other farm stock, as though 

 none but sweet apples were fit for that pur- 

 pose. This opinion originates from a mis- 

 apprehension of the qualities of the apple. 

 In the first place, the nutritive property of the 

 apple consists principally in the saccharine 

 matter which it contains. This is deter- 

 mined by the specific gravity of its juice — 

 the heavier this, the more saccharine matter 

 it contains. Now the heaviest juice is found 

 in acid as well as sweet apples. The acid 

 is superadded to the sweet. In the second 

 place, sour apples are as grateful to the 

 stomach, and so they are to the stomach of 

 our farm stock, as sweet apples are, and a 

 mixture is at least desirable. Sweet apples 

 soon clog the stomach. A friend related so 

 us, a few days ago, that he last year turned 



