506 



NEW ENGLAND FAR]VrER. 



July 



a "sap-day," and the sap seemn to answer a 

 solifitinr; influence, a(!ting tlirough the incision 

 made in the live wood. Other outside influ- 

 ences are also indispensable conditions of a 

 sugar year. Mild and frosty, crispy weather 

 must alternate. Action and reaction, move- 

 ment and rest seem to he a lawof the sap-flow, 

 but not of its circulation. For the spring may 

 be all clouds, rain, mist, yet the sap is in the 

 limVis, but you are none the richer or sweeter 

 for it. 



It has rained more or less each twenty-four 

 hours for ten days. The foundation for grass, 

 hay and small grain is well laid. C. N. a. 



Chelsea, Vt., May 22, 1868. 



Rem.\rks. — We feel proud of our race 

 sometimes when we consider the extent of 

 man's knowledge and the greatness of his ex- 

 ploits. There is poetry if not sublimity in 

 the idea of his harnessing up steam as a 

 coach horse ; of his making a servant of the 

 invisible "electric current;" of his resolving 

 air and water to their prime elements ; of his 

 measuring the "mountains of the moon" with 

 his telescope, or of his watching with his mi- 

 croscope the contests of the leviathans that 

 inhabit a drop of water ; but a different feel- 

 ing is excited when he answers our question 

 about the flow of sap, by the humble confes- 

 sion that he cannot "tell whence it cometh or 

 whither it goeth," Our correspondent pre- 

 sents some "posers" for the Maine Farmer, 

 and other learned botanists. We turn to 

 the great American Cyclopaedia, now extended 

 to some twenty-two large volumes, and find 

 the following article, which we suppose em- 

 bodies the gist of present knowledge upon the 

 subject : — 



p Sap, in botany, the fluid imbibed from the 



soil bv plants and carried through their tissues, 

 being the usual source of their nutrition and 

 of their peculiar secix'tions. The external 

 agencies in the vital principle of plants are 

 w'ater. heat and light. Watir does not exist 

 in nature in a pure state, t'Ut is constantly 

 combined with earthy, saline, and gaseous 

 matters. Most plants are furnishe<l with roots, 

 and these organs are so contrived that they 

 can absorb these atjueous solutions, transmit- 

 ting them lliiough the different tissues to the 

 various parts. This trau.-uiission is called the 

 circulation of the sap. and alterations in its 

 constituents are continually going on in its 

 progress, that nearer the roots being destitute 

 of certain i)rineii)les which are found higher 

 up the stem. Thus, before the sap reaches 

 the leaf buds and leaves, a consideral>le change 

 has taken place ; but when exposed to the 

 light by means of the expanded leaves a 



greater one occurs, which may be termed di- 

 gestion, consisting in the decomposition of 

 carbonic acid, the giving out of its oxygen 

 into the air, and the combination of the car- 

 bon with other elements to form the various 

 secretions of the plant, such as gum, sugar, 

 starch, lignine, &c. The manner in which 

 each plant elaborates from the same soil its 

 essential products remains as yet unexplained. 

 The cause of the motion of the sap has been 

 a fruitful source of speculation among physi- 

 ologists, and for a long time capillary attrac- 

 tion was a<lopted as the most probable. The 

 opinion of Dutrochet, that exosniose and en- 

 dosmose were the explanation, is now most 

 generally received. 'J"wo special motions call- 

 ed rotation and cyelosis are also known. The 

 former is to be seen in the joints and cells of 

 certain acjuatic plants, such as vallisneria, 

 chara. niiclla, t&c. This rotatory motion of 

 greenish globules floating in the sap may be 

 increased by raising the temperature till it 

 reaches 77° F. Cyelosis occurs in such plants 

 as have spiral vessels, and especially in the 

 tissues of such as secrete a milky fluid known 

 as the hitex, which seems to bear the same re- 

 lation to the plant that the blood does to the 

 animal, and is more slightly organized and 

 separated from the other fluids. To inspect 

 these phenomena the compound microscope 

 must be employed. 



For the Xew England Farmer. 



FABM LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 



The picture of fiirm life, as drawn by 

 "John" is indeed a gloomy and discouraging 

 one, yet it may have its "sunny side." I 

 have always lived upon a farm, and in an ag- 

 ricultural community, but have seldom seen a 

 specimen of that miserable class of which he 

 remembers "a whole neighborhood full;" nor 

 can I believe that farmers' wives are inferior, 

 physically or intellectually to women of the so- 

 called higher stations of life. I well remem- 

 ber some, whose lives, prolonged to more than 

 fourscore years, were spent in the farm-house, 

 in the days, too, when labor-saving inventions 

 were not, and when spinning, w.aviug. milk- 

 ing the. cows, and taking c:ire of pigs and 

 poultry, were a customary pait of their duties, 

 who were cheerful, actiye, anil intelligent; 

 fond of society and of books, and interested in 

 the great political, moral and soeinl tjuestions 

 of the day. 



The houses, too, which "John" describes, — 

 where could he have found the originals ! Very 

 different is my idea of a farui-liouse. Ihe 

 large, j)leasant old mansion, facing the south, 

 — whetlier the )oad lay before it or behind it, 

 — shaded by stately elms, with lilac and rose 

 bushes growing beside the windows, an<l tulips, 

 peonies and many-coloreil annuals bluonung 

 around the doors. A "best room" seldom 

 used ; a large, east room, with al)inulant win- 

 dows, lloor painted yellow, and an old- 



