THE FARMERS' CABINET, 



DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



Vol. H.-No. 15.] 



Pliiladelpliia, April 16, 1838. 



AVhole No. 39. 



PUBLISHED BY JOHN LIBBY, 

 No. 45 Nortlx Sixth Street, Pliiladelpliia, 



Above Arch Street, 



AT ONE DOLLAR PER YEAR. 



Fijr the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Traiismiitatioii of Plants. 



■ Mr. Editor: — It appears by a couple of 

 communications in the 13th number of the 

 second volume of the Farmers' Cabinet, that 

 the obsolete doctrine of the transmutation of 

 plants still finds believers, and advocates, 

 among a portion of our respectable agricultu- 

 rists. This antiquated notion was formerly 

 very prevalent; nor is it surprising that it 

 should have been so, when intelligent men 

 were content to receive specious appearan- 

 ces for unquestionable facts, and had a ready 

 faith for all the pretended wonders of Astrolo- 

 gy and Alchymy. The present state of sci- 

 ence, however, requires that all theories and 

 seaming facts, whicli are inconsistent witJi 

 the known laws and operations of nature, 

 should be rigorously investigated before they 

 are admitted ; and hence we find that natu- 

 ralists have been compelled to discard, as un- 

 I tenable, all such doctrines as equivocal gene- 

 ratian, or spontaneous production, and the 

 transmutation ofjjlunts and metals. Many 

 errors of opinion have originated, no doubt, 

 from our proneness to consider successive phe- 

 nomena as connected with each other by the 

 relations of cause and effect — when they have 

 been entirely distinct — and their association 

 altogether incidental. This I take to be the 

 fact, in the supposed case of the transmuta- 

 tion of plants. When we see one kind of 

 plant growing up, in places where we had 

 every reason to expect another kind, it is per- 

 haps natural enough — but certainly not very 

 philosophical — to imagine that the expected 

 plant has been transmuted, or changed, into 

 the one which we find actually growing. 

 The manner in which crops of different plants 

 Cab.— Vol. 11— No. 15. 



succeed each other, is very remarkable, — nor 

 do we yet thoroughly comprehend the economy 

 of Nature, in the distribution of seeds, and the 

 wonderful preservation of their vitality ; but 

 it is unquestionably more consistent with all 

 that we do know of the vegetable creation, to 

 suppose that every plant, wherever found 

 growing, has sprung from seeds of its own kind 

 — than that its botanical characters have been 

 utterly changed by the influence of external 

 causes. We all know that seeds are exten- 

 sively disseminated in the soil ; and that the 

 vitality of many kinds will remain dormant 

 for long periods, under certain circumstances; 

 but I have never met with any satisfactory 

 evidence of the conversion of one species of 

 plant into another — much less of the trans- 

 mutation oT distinct genera.* That different 

 tribes of vegetables do succeed and super- 

 sede each other, in our fields and meadows, 

 we every year see to be a fact. Our 

 wheat crops, in this vicinity, are generally 

 succeeded by a copious growth of Bitter- 

 weed, and Foxtail grass, — which spring 

 up after harvest, and are then in turn super- 

 seded by the cultivated and natural grasses, 

 until the soil is again disturbed by the custo- 

 mary rotation of crops. Pine forests, when 

 cut off, are apt to be succeeded by a growth 

 of oak ; and so of many other plants. I have 

 often sown Timothy and Orchard grass, 

 plentifully, in low grounds; and have had, 

 instead of those plants, an abundant growth 

 of Rushes, and Cyperacece : but 1 never for 

 a moment suspected that my favorite grasses 

 had been transmuted into those vile weeds. 

 I have also had Brovius, or cheat, to grow 

 up where 1 had sown wheat ; and I have often 

 seen cheat, and other species of the same 



* Tlie beauiitul theory of tiie metamorphosis of 

 organs (such as that of leaves into Bracts, Se- 

 pals, Petals, Stamens, and Carpels) is a very 

 ditfcrent doctrine from liiat of the transmutation 

 of species, and is in no wise available Ln sustaining 

 the latter uotion, 



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