540 



NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 



Dec. 



SAUSAGE STUFEER. 

 A convenient meat cutter is wanted at any sea- 

 son of the year, but the sausage stuffer only occa- 

 sionally. The sausage stuffer, however, is a fit cona- 

 panion for the meat cutter, and in many cases 

 ought to go with it. Sausages are stuffed with ex- 

 traordinary despatch with it, and the farmer who 

 makes his own links will find it a convenient and 

 excellent article. There are four sizes, three of 

 which are with one or two tubes. The tubes are 

 made to be attached or taken off by a screw, and 

 differing in size, fit large and small skins. 



.For the New England Farmer. 



WHITEWASHING THEES. 



Mr. Editor : — Both vegetable and animal bodies 

 are subject to diseases, as well as the attacks of 

 parasitic animals, and remedies and preventive or 

 prophylactic measures, are just as proper in the 

 former as in the latter case. Conceding the bark 

 of trees to be endowed with as important vital func- 

 tions as the skin of man, analogy \<ould lead us to 

 the conclusion, that as local applications are efficient 

 remedies in the one, so also they would probably 

 prove to be in the other. Sulphur, and lime and 

 mercury, which are so destructive to human para-j 

 sites, are no less so to vegetables ; and the process I 

 of whitewashing trees is no more unnatural or ir- j 

 rational than applying sulphur or mercurial oint- 

 ment to the epidermic coat of animals. Veterinary 

 surgeons recommend washing the skin of the horse I 

 with a decoction of walnut leaves or tobacco, to pre- 1 

 vent the gad-fly from depositing its ova or nits on i 

 the hairs of the animal, and thus prevent an attack 

 of bots ; is it any more absurd to apply lime to our 

 trees, to prevent the ravages of their winged ene- 

 mies, the aphis and the borer ? I have not stated 

 that the bark has no function ; but I have said that 

 the epidermic layer was chiefly for the purpose of 

 protection to the more important structures beneath, 

 and that its office was not for nutrition, and conse- 

 quently no harm would accrue fiom covering it 

 with an impenetrable varnish. Your correspondent, 

 L. W., seems ignorant of the fact, that the "stoma- 

 ta" or "pores" of which he speaks, arejtund chiefly 

 in the epidermic coat of the under surface of the 

 leaves, and are rarely found elsewhere. "As a gen- 

 eral, rule," says Prof. Gray, "the stomata wholly or 

 principally belong to the epidermis of the lower sur- 

 face of the leaf." ("The Botanical Text Book," p. 

 103.) The experiment alluded to, of placing a 

 dried, shrunk and shrivelled plant (herbaceous) in 

 water, and its imbibing moisture, proves nothing in 

 regard to the vital function of the epidermis of the 

 bark of trees ; it is a phenomenon of purely physi- 

 cal endosmose. Strange that solearned a physiolo- 

 gist should have adduced this as a case in point. 

 That absorption, as well as exhalation, is performed 

 by the leaves of plants, is known to every farmer 

 vrho has observed the effects of a heavy dew in re- 



viving his wilted corn ; but few are so stupid as to 

 imagine that this effect has been produced by ab- 

 sorption from the stalks ! Every tyro in vegetable 

 physiology knows that the bark is compof^ed of 

 three distinct layers, the epidermis, the celhdar in- 

 tegument and the liber or inner layer; that the two 

 outer are cellular in structure, and the inner, or li- 

 ber, both cellular and woody ; that the sap absorbed 

 by the spongioles of the roots, ascends through the 

 outer lajers of the trunk or stem, by the eflects of 

 the alburnum, or sap wood, to the leaves, and is 

 there elaborated by exhalation through the stoma- 

 ta, and bv decomposition through the agency of 

 light, into a nutritious fluid called latex ; that this 

 fluid descends by the lacticiferous tissues of the liber; 

 that a part of the sap is transformed into 

 a viscid matter, called cambium, and depo- 

 sited between the liber and the wood, 

 forming a cellular layer on each, while 

 another part is carried inward from the 

 bark by the medullary ways, and is dis- 

 tributed through the whole stem or 

 trunk, while the remainder passes on to 

 the roots, and is diffused through their substance. 

 He may probably not know that the fluid ex- 

 haled through these stomata is so nearly pure 

 water, that it does not contain the l-2-3,0l)0th 

 part of solid m.atter, proving that it is simple 

 exhalation, and that no vital process of secre- 

 tion is concerned in the process. (Carpenter's 

 "Com. Phys.") He knows, too, that the removal cf 

 the epidermis of the white birch does not injure the 

 growth of the tree any more than covering it with 

 paint or varnish, and he therefore concludes with 

 Prof. Gray, "that it is obvious that the sap-wood 

 and the liber are alone permanently essential to the 

 existence of the trunk." (Lae. Cit., p. 83.) L. W. 

 endeavors, by a garbled quotation, to give a mean- 

 ing to the remarks of Schleiden, which this author 

 did not design to convey. His words are, "In cer- 

 tain places, little orifices are left between the cells, 

 leading into the interior of the plant. These slits, 

 through which the plant communicates with the at- 

 mosphere, and expires gases and watery vapor, are 

 opened wider, or contracted, as may be required." 

 ("Poetry of the Veg. World," by M. J. Schleiden. 

 Am. Ed., 1857, p. 61.) This writer represents the 

 function of the stomata to be, to evaporate the su- 

 perfluous water absorbed by the spongioles. He 

 does not intimate, even, that they ever absorb mois- 

 ture, and no one but L. W. has ever supposed that 

 they are concerned in "nutrition." I am half dis- 

 posed to charge your correspondent with sinning 

 against what light he had, for in the very sentence 

 of Schleiden preceding the one quoted, this writer 

 remarks, — "It (the epidermis) becomes clothed, 

 sooner or later, with a layer of varying thickness, 

 of a homogeneous substance, which receives beside, 

 a thin coating of wax or resin ; thus the enveloping 

 membrane becomes impenetrable by fluids, and 

 even repels them, since water runs off it as from a 

 greasy substance." 



I might safely rest the question here, so far as 

 theory is concerned, having shown that the appli- 

 cation of lime, paint and other substances to the 

 bark of trees violates none of the laws of vegetable 

 physiology, as explained by the highest authorities. 

 But in regard to the particular question we are now 

 discussing, viz ; the application of lime to trees, the 

 whole is irrelevant, inasmuch as whitewash, instead 

 of obstructing the absorption of gases and moisture, 



