No. 11. Remarkable Discovery — Electricity and Agriculture. 



353 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Remarkable Discovery— Electricity aud 



Agriculture. 



To THE Editor. — Her Britanic Majesty's 

 Consul in this city, placed in my hands yeS' 

 terday, a copy of the London Economist, for 

 the 'ZQih. of last month, a quarto sheet of 

 23 pages, and drew my attention to the in- 

 teresting article in it "on the influence of 

 electricity on agriculture," an abstract of 

 whici] I have the pleasure to send for the 

 Farmers' Cabinet, with the hope that the 

 experiment detailed will be repeated by some 

 American farmer, and the result given to 

 our countrymen through the medium of your 

 excellent work. Science is at last made to 

 aid the operations of the practical farmer, 

 but in no instance has this aid been so truly 

 scientific as in the experiment to be related. 

 It has called to my recollection a fact com- 

 municated to me more than forty years since, 

 by a very intelligent lady of this city, viz: 

 the very rapid growth and flourishing state 

 of a grape vine, which was planted in the 

 immediate vicinity of the lightning rod at- 

 tached to her house, to which circumstance 

 she ascribed the vigour of the vine. 



With best wishes, I remain very respect- 

 fully, James Mease. 



Philadelphia, May27t)l, 1845. 



Of all the uses to which this new and 

 marvellous agent has been applied, none 

 promises such remarkable results as its ap- 

 plication to agriculture. It is a principle 

 which has been long admitted and under- 

 stood, that electricity had a considerable ef- 

 fect on vegetation, but it has not been till now 

 that any practical application of that aid, has 

 been attempted. Of late, many experiments 

 have been made, in a manner too, which af- 

 fords means of judging, not only the compara- 

 tive result, but comparative cost. And we 

 are bound to say, that they are such, that we 

 look upon this new agent, as one likely, be- 

 fore long, to produce as great a revolution in 

 agriculture, as the inventions of the steam- 

 engine or the spinning-jenny have done in 

 manufactures. 



We have before us the result of one ex- 

 periment on a considerable scale, which, we 

 think, cannot prove otherwise than highly 

 interesting to our readers. It took place in 

 the north of Scotland. 



A portion of a field of barley, to which the 

 electric application was made, produced last 

 year at the rate of thirteen quarters and a 

 half to the acre, while the surrounding land, 

 similarly treated in other respects, produced 

 the usual quantity of five to six quarters to 

 the acre. The following is a detail of the 

 very simple mode in which the electric fluid! 



is collected and applied to influence the land. 

 A field is divided into oblongs 80 yards long 

 and 60 yards wide, and containing, therefore, 

 just about one acre each. The following is 

 a plan of such a lot : — 



C E A 



H 



D 



G 



B 



At each of the points A, B, C and D, pegs 

 are driven into the ground ; the external lines 

 represent strong iron wires, extending from, 

 and fastened to each of the four pegs, and 

 communicating with each other, so as to form 

 an oblong of wire, sunk three inches below 

 the surface ; at the points E and F, poles are 

 fixed in the ground 15 feet high ; a wire is 

 connected with the cross wire beneath the 

 surface at the point E, — carried up the pole 

 at E, and thence to the pole at F, down which 

 it is conducted and fixed to the cross wire 

 beneath the surface at that point. We must 

 here remark, that the oblong must be so 

 formed, to run north and south, so that the 

 wire passing from E, to F, shall be at right 

 angles with the equator. It is well known 

 that a considerable body of electricity is 

 generated in the atmosphere, and constantly 

 travelling from east to west with the motion 

 of the earth. This electricity is attracted 

 by the wire suspended from E to F and com- 

 municated to the wires forming the square 

 under the surface of the ground, from the 

 points A, B, C and D. 



It has, however, been suggested to us by 

 a very competent authority, who has at this 

 moment a number of experiments going for- 

 ward to test this extraordinary new power in 

 a variety of ways, that any quantity of elec- 

 tricity could be generated tliat might be re- 

 quired, by placing under the ground, at the 

 point G, a bag of charcoal, and plates of zinc 

 at the point H, and connecting the two by a 

 wire passing over two poles similar to those 

 at E and F,and crossing the longitudinal wire 

 passing from those points. 



