vol.. XIV. NO. *. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL 



27 



Apples may bo a|)plleil to otiior purposi's 

 ,1. s that of ciilor making. Tlicir uses i'or tlie 

 inn, the parlor, tlio sick rhamber, &c. aro not 



imobjectioiiablo, but very salutary. Even 

 11 it was the fasiiion to talk about teni|ieranco, 

 II c-itler drinking was considered inilispensable 

 .1.1,1 living, not one farmer in ten made any 

 1. \ by makino- cider, "for it cost more than it 

 , to." Besides, it has been found that apples 

 :.'.iod for swine. [See N. E. EarnuM-, vol. xiii. 

 (Ill, IIG.] If a fanner should set lire to his 

 .'lop of rye, for fear it should be made into 

 r-kov, he would not be more foolish than those 



I li'stroy their orchards lest apples should be 



:ito cider; which is almost the oidy bad use 



h apples are susceptible. If a fruit tree 



i.it produce good fruit, let it be grafted from 



. other which does ; but unless rotten or 



II out by age, let it not he destroyed as worth- 



3. In the address to which our correspondent 

 1 iiiiis, the practice of giving cider to children is 

 . ml. limed, as creating an unnatural appetite for 



i'\i.uting drink — p. 8. Likewise, a table is ap- 



ii.l. .1 in the pamphlet containing that address, 



II I'lrande's Manual of Chemistry, by which it 



- that strong cider is composed of about one 



■nhol — p. 43. Brandy and gin are said by 



lie author to contain almost one half alco- 



■A bottle of Madeira," said M. Brande, " has 



It 111 arly apint of proof spirit ; a quart of strong 



. I. 1. more than six ounces; and a bottle of ale, 



; lilt four ounces." Alcohol is the evil sjtirit with 



■ lich the advocates of temperance are contend- 



1 r ; ■uid whether the demon puts on the shape of 



lie, rum, gin, brandy or cider, is a matter of'little 



< nparative consequence. Alcohol, however, is 

 I use in the arts, and perhaps sometimes in med- 

 i or, and the same may be said of arsenic and 



< ler poisonous substances. We do not always 

 1 use a glass of wine, nor a tumbler of beer or 



< er, (though of late years we never take ardent 

 f rit) but we believe that abstinence from ferment- 



< li'iuors, including cider, as well as distilled 

 t rit, is alone consistent with the genuine canons 

 ( tiiuperauce. If an old farmer, like us, the 

 ^ oil!.' side of 50, wishes for a little cider, let him 

 1 \i' it; and if he does not drink more than a pint 

 ! Ia\ , we won't put him in the newspaper. But 

 1 viiiing folks are better off without it. In the 

 ( ir counties in England, the farmers in the habit 

 ( diiiiking cider, are visited with gout as decid- 

 € y severe and genteel as ever twinged the great 

 t of a nobleman. 



4. We doubt whether the people in wine coun- 

 t s are so very temperate. We have testimony 

 t It intoxication is common in France. See a 

 1 :ir from J. F. Cooper, Esq. — N. E. Farmer, 

 »!. xi. p. 413. 



5. The Editor's ])ractical knowledge of hus- 

 idry was obtained from hard work on a farm, 

 m infancy till he was nearly twenty-one years 

 age ; and since that time, he has always been 

 newhat attentive to agricultural pursuits and 

 provements. Every sort of work performed in 

 ! ordinary routine of farm cultivation, is as fa- 

 liar to us as to any other farmer wli,o ever fol- 

 ved that occupation (as we once did) in New 

 impshire — in which State, and near Connecticut 

 er, we had the honor to be born and brought 



LOCOMOTIVE POVVKRS OP SEEDS. 



The forms of seeds aro very curious, and 

 infinitely diversified ; some are like a horn, a 

 crescent, a shield, or a horse-shoe ; others resem- 

 ble a snail (medicago) or a caterpillar (scorpus) 

 — others again will be found like a shuttlecock, as 

 the cyanus ; all these forms, we reasonably con- 

 clude, have their design — " nothing cometh by 

 chance." These peculiarities in structure are 

 connected with their ])reservation, their dispersion 

 their insertion into the soil, and the depth to 

 which they penetrate, as well as their mode of ger- 

 mination. The feather grass, stipa pennata, is 

 plumed like an arrow, which will preserve the 

 seed in a particular direction ; and as soon as it 

 darts down upon the earth, it worms or screws it- 

 self into the soil, to a certain depth ; when the 

 plume, having fulfilled its office, breaks off, flies 

 away, and becomes the sport of the winds. Though 

 this be a very singular phenomenon, the shuttle- 

 cock seeds of the thistle and dandelion afford ex- 

 amples of contrivances of a somewhat sinular 

 kind. The seeds of the tillansia, or wild pine of 

 the West Indies, a parasite on other plants, are 

 supplied with long threads, which have the prop- 

 erty of coiling themselves round the branches of 

 trees, and thus become fixed, until the seeds ger 

 minate. Many seeds are remarkably susceptible of 

 moisture. The seeds of the inusk cranes-bill are 

 connected with an apparatus which unscrews itself 

 when moist, and coils up again when dry. When 

 these seeds are moistened, they begin to move, and 

 the minute hairs serve as feet to direct their move- 

 ments. When the bearded oat is left for some, 

 time undisturbed in the barn, along with other 

 grain, it is found to have escaped from the husks, 

 and crept to a distance from its former attachment. 



The grains of equisetum sylvaticuni, when 

 placed on a table, and viewed through a lens pre- 

 sent an appearance like insect motion, and may be 

 seen to leap over an intervening object. If W(! 

 shake a frond, for instance over damped paper 

 when examined by a lens, the minute seeds will 

 appear to crawl about like so many spiders. Thus 

 the application of the awn of the wild oat for the 

 purpose of hygrometry, and the still more sensible 

 Indian grass employed in Captain Kater's inge- 

 nious and beautiful instrument. The peculiar in- 

 clination in the inequalities of the surface in the 

 awn of barley will prevent its retrogression, 

 while its expansion by moisture will impel it from 

 the spot where it originally fell ; its march onward 

 therefore, will be incessant fro;ti moisture, and it 

 will merely pause in its progress, when that mois- 

 ture exhales. Mr Edgeworth constructed an 

 automaton figure on the principle ofthe animated 

 oak, which in a few weeks, walked across the 

 room. The screw like structure of the bearded 

 oat is very apparent, resembling in some measure 

 the remarkable stem of the screw pine, which is 

 perhaps designed to serve a somewhat similar pur- 

 pose in its relations to moisture ; if we breathe on 

 the seed, the awn, which is a little elevated above 

 the plane of the horizon, will be put in motion, 

 and describe the segment of a circle. When the 

 avena fatua. or mad oat, is therefore moistened, it 

 writhes like a being possessing life: of this de- 

 scription is the seed of the geranium cicutarium, 

 and others. The seed vessel of the didyma car- 

 pus rexii, which is twisted u)) in the f.^rm of a 

 spiral coil, unwinds with moisture, and drops its 

 seed under circumstances favorable to their ger- 

 mination. — Murray's Physiology of Plants. 



A Protection for VVall Fruit Trees is now 

 exhibited in the Horticultural Society's Garden at 

 Chiswick, which deserves the attention of every 

 gardener : it is simply that of stretching straw 

 ropes in front of the trees, the lowest about 4 feet 

 from the ground, and about 2 feet from the wall ; 

 and the highest a few inches under the coping, 

 and from 6 inches to 1 foot from the wall. The 

 intermediate ropes are about 2 feet apart. The 

 ropes are kept at regular distances from each other 

 and from the wall, by being tied to cords : one end 

 of which is fastened to a nail or hook driven in un- 

 der the coping, and the other end to a stake driven 

 into the ground about 4 feet from the wall. In 

 this way the lines serve as rafters, and the angle 

 formed by the lines with the perpendicular of the 

 wall being about 15 degrees, the rough straw 

 ropes, though two feet ap.irt in the direction of 

 the slope, are not above six inches apart, measur- 

 ed horizontally. It is in consequence of this 

 closeness horizontally that they protect the trees, 

 by preventing the perpendicular radiation of the 

 heat from the surface of the groimd ; and it is in 

 consequence of their distance vertically that th*-y 

 do not injure the blossoms by shading them from 

 the sun. It is clear, from the trial in the Horti- 

 cultural Society's Garden, that these ropes are 

 just as effective in jirotecting the trees as netting 

 or bunting ; and as the cost is so very much less, 

 especially in the country, where coarse wheat straw 

 or litter is abundant, no gardener who is allowed 

 hands sufficient to do the work of his garden 

 need ever have his wall trees injured by frost. — 

 Loudon's Magazine. 



Wheat CRorg destroyed by Field-Mice 

 IN France. — From Angerville it is stated that 

 the ten bad crops which have occurred during 

 the last fifteen years have almost ruined our culti- 

 vators, and have caused many farms to be tenant- 

 less, the occupiers returning them on to the hands 

 of the landlords as the leases fall in. One pro- 

 prietor alone in this district has now five or six 

 farms in this predicament. The cause of all this 

 distress is attributed to the field mice. They de- 

 vastate every spot, and this year they have invad- 

 ed fresh districts, and some growers have delayed 

 sowing their wheat till spring, there being no 

 chance of protecting it from these vermin ; and 

 in such cases the mice have forsaken the fields 

 where they could not find subsistence, to prey on 

 the seed in situations where such precautions had 

 not been used. 



The Crown of Thorns. — There still e.\ists 

 a plant in Palestine,' known among Botanists by 

 the name of the " Thorn of Christ," supposed to 

 be the shrub which afforded the crown worn by 

 the Saviour at his crucifixion. It has many small 

 sharp prickles well adapted to give pain, and as 

 the leaves greatly resemble those of ivy, it is not 

 improbable that "the enemies of the Messiah chose 

 it from its similarity to a plant with which empe- 

 rors and generals were accustom.ed to be crowned ; 

 and thence that there might be calumny, insult, 

 and derision, meditated in the very act of punish- 

 ment. 



The white mulberry besides its admirable quali- 

 ity of aflbrding food for silk worms, is said to fur- 

 nish a wood as durable for posts as the best locust 

 or cedar. — Baltimore Farmer. 



