AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. 191 



culture. It is the bounden duty of public institutions to have these useful and practical euds 

 accomplished in retiu-u for the liberal support they receive. 



AVho knows — ^-for who has analyzed — the real value of com shucks, for instance, as food 

 for cattle ? And yet no portion of the immense product of corn fodder, in any shape, has 

 been noticed in the decennial returns of our national wealth. We confess the views and 

 reflections presented in the foregoing letter to be in many respects new to us ; and fcU-ther 

 investigations in this new line of inquiry would be far more useful than offering agam, for 

 the ten thousandth time, inducements to see how much of the gi-ain of com can be made on 

 an acre — as if the gi'ain constituted the entire value of the plant ! So far from that, we heard 

 Governor Sprigg, one of the largest and most accomplished planters of Maryland, say, some 

 days since, that as food for milcli cotes in reference to the quantity and richness of the milk, 

 and especially the latter, he was satisfied that the shucks of com are incomparably preferable 

 to timothy hay. " Give us but light." We want inquiries pushed in new du-ections. We 

 want new facts to be developed and " fixed," and principles to be deduced from them, on 

 which practical men may rely for practical results. In lieu of momentary excitement, 

 amusement and humbuggei-y, we want the ascertainment of fjicts with a view to the es 

 tablishraeut of principles as a sure guide for field practice. We want useful knowledge in 

 lieu of " sounding brass " or a " tinkhng cymbal." It is generally supposed, for instance, 

 that gi-een fodder is better than the hay obtained from an equal weight of green grass, but 

 the expeiiments of Boussiugault show that this is not the case : 



" A heifer was weighed, and fed for ten days on gi'een fodder ; each day a quantity equal 

 in weight to that consumed was put aside to dry. The animal was again weighed, and fed 

 for ten days on dry fodder, then weighed again. The experiment was repeated three times, 

 and each time the animal weighed a little more after feeding on dry fodder than after the 

 green. The difference was not enough to jirove that the dry food was the more nuti'itious, 

 although the experiments showed beyond a doubt that it was not inferior in efiect to the 

 other. [Ann. de Chem. et de Phys. xvii. ; Chemical Gazette-'] 



Agricultural Botany. — We have not had time to examine, carefuUy, a small volume 

 tinder this title, from the pen and the ripe knowledge of Doctor Darlington ; but, with 

 om- knowledge of his extensive researches in that department, and of his imambitious de- 

 sire rather to be useful than to make a noise in the world, and from what we have seen of 

 the work, we have no hesitation in commending it to public patronage, and to adoption in 

 all our schools where there is any care to teach what is in after life to be really of value to 

 all who aspire to be intellectual farmers. Apprehending, as is obvious, that the work 

 might appear too technical for farmers, the author has endeavored to pany that objection in 

 his Preface, and the fact ought to be kept m view, that his primaiy and leading ol)ject in 

 undertaking it was to mduce and to aid our young farmers to famiUarize themselves with 

 the scientific names and botanical characteristics of those plants m which they have a di- 

 rect interest. To that end he has used all the means and appliances at his command, to 

 facilitate a knowledge of the plants in question— adding appropriate and familiar obseiva- 

 tions in reference to the several species. The work, in sliort, does not profess to teach Ag- 

 riculture, nor to illustrate the management of plants, but is merely an attempt— and in our 

 judgment a most laudable, successful and needed one— to promote a more accurate knowl- 

 edge of their character as objects of Natural Histoiy, and thereby enable tanners to dis- 

 criminate con-ectly between species, and to treat of them in their discussions understand- 

 ingly and confidently— a sort of knowledge and power which every fatlier should desire 

 for his son, as anxiously as. if his son were going to be a carpenter, he would wish him to 

 know a lohip from a hand-saw— ot if to be a sailor, that he should know something about 

 navigation— ov is it that boys who are intended for the country are yet forever to be put 

 off with any sort of education, as dry catde are whitered on what nothing else will eat ? 



Tnily it would seem so ; nor can we get tlie Press to help us make it otherwise 

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