NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



207 



time, so as to hinder the light from getting in upon 

 its stems, those stems will be unable to decompose 

 the carbonic acid of the air; they will be unable to 

 procure charcoal to make them hard and woody; 

 they will be white and succulent, without strength, 

 and liable to be laid by the rain; but mow those 

 top leaves off, or let a lot of sheep bite them off, 

 and you let the light in upon those stems, and they 

 will regain the power they have lost, and they will 

 strengthen and harden in consequence of again be- 

 ing able to procure their woody substance from 

 the air. But that they can decompose the carbon- 

 ic acid of the air, and, retaining its charcoal, give 

 off the pure healthy oxygen, can be proved. 1 

 have taken a nuinber of cabbages, one after anoth- 

 er, on successive days, cutting them about mid-day, 

 when they might be supposed to be full of the gas, 

 if ever they took any at all, and exposed them un- 

 der water to the sun. Very soon, bubbles of gas 

 collected in the top of the glass, and on examina- 

 tion it was proved, by their ability to burn things 

 brilliantly, that they were pure oxygen. Those 

 cabbages had been collecting the deadly gas as 

 I and you were breathing it out, and as every 

 chimney over a fire was sending it into the air, 

 and they were decomposing it and sending the 

 healthful part of it back to the air and keeping the 

 charcoal to themselves. See, then, how important 

 the air is to plants, as well as to us; it provides 

 them with all the woody part of their substance; 

 it provides us with the breath we live upon, and 

 the fires that warm us. See how important the 

 process of combustion, whether slow as in the case 

 of ordinary decomposition, or more rapid as in the 

 case of respiration and ordinary burning, is to plants. 

 Unless, in this manner, the air was continually 

 supplied with this poisonous gas, plants might ex- 

 haust it of all the materials on which they feed and 

 live. See how important plants are to us; they 

 keep the air healthy for us, deprive it of those nox- 

 ious gases which would otherwise soon collect and 

 destroy us, forming their own substance at the ex- 

 pense of our enemy; so that every thing whicli 

 would destroy us is made to provide us with food 

 and with fuel through their means. See, too, how 

 admirably the growth of evil, in the natural as well 

 as in the moral world, is checked and made pro- 

 ductive of gfood in the end, by the overruling hand 

 of God's Providence. 



Thus much, then, we have learned regarding 

 the air in connection with agriculture; it provides 

 the plant with its woody substance; it keeps up the 

 warmth of the living animal by burning a portion 

 of its food in its lungs. — .4^. Gaz. 



CHLOROFORM WITH HORSES. 



The Veterinary Record contains an article on 

 the use of chloroform in the castration of colts. 

 The action of it, as an auffisthetic agent, is pro- 

 nounced so uncertain as to render it of little val- 

 ue. The writer says: 



Frcnn what we have seen of the employment of 

 this agent, we may remark that our experience 

 corroborates the accounts before given as to the un- 

 certainty, or irregularity of its operation. Even 

 provided that its mode of being administered is al- 

 ways tlie same, there is a great diffeience in the 

 manner and time of various horses becoming effect- 

 ed with it, and we cannot beforehand tell upon 

 which animals it will produce a favorable or unfa- 



vorable influence. And, again, in some cases it 

 will operate so fully and efficaciously as an anses- 

 thetic, that a horse under its action, though sub- 

 jected to painful operations, may not for a while 

 need the usual securing by ropes and hobbles in 

 order to lestrain his struggles; yet, almost in a 

 moment, and without warning, tlie animal will 

 sometimes begin to writhe and dash al)out with the 

 greatest violence. If chloroform uniformly pro- 

 duced complete stillness and insensibility, and if 

 it acted with a like certainty in every case when 

 given to the horse, it would be an agent worthy of 

 every dependence; but so long as it remains une- 

 qual in its operations, we cannot rely on it as cal- 

 culated to supplant the hobble and ropes usually 

 employed during the performance of operations to 

 ensure safety of the horse, operator, and atten- 

 dants. 



RESULTS OF APPLICATION. 



Many curious illustrations are found in literary 

 biography of what resolution and application may 

 accomplish, in the way of intellectual progress. — 

 One of the most reinarkablecasesof the kind is that 

 of Anthony Purver, an Englishman, who had been 

 brought up as a shoe-maker, with no education, ex- 

 cept a very slender knowledge of his native tongue. 

 Purver was a Quaker, of a serious turn of mind, 

 and after much reflection he resolved to examine 

 the relisrious principles which he had imbibed in 

 his youth, and in the course of his inquiries found 

 himself much embarrassed by the different transla- 

 tions and explanations of the scripture. This de- 

 termined him, though late in life, to study the orig- 

 inal languages. He began with Hebrew, and in a 

 very moderate compass of time made himself a 

 competent master of that and other oriental lan- 

 guages, which are most useful to a critical knowl- 

 edge of the scriptures. He afterwards learned 

 Greek, and at last Latin, and finally undertook the 

 Herculean task of making a new and literal trans- 

 lation of all the books of the old and new testa- 

 ment, with notes critical and explanatory, which 

 was published in two volumes, folio, in 1705 — the 

 fruit of thirty years' laborious application. He 

 was aided by an excellent memory, but the resolute 

 and persevering manner in which he applied him- 

 self to his literary labors is none the less commend- 

 able. 



PRESERVING CORN FROM WORMS. 



In the spring of 1847 we ploughed up one acre 

 in a corner of a six acre meadow, which had been 

 several years in grass, and the whole of which was 

 much infested with cut-worms and the yellow wire 

 worm. The acre was planted with corn, and to- 

 tally destroyed by the worms. Late the ensuing 

 fall, the whole field was manured and turned over 

 smoothly; the spring of 1848 the whole was sown 

 with barley, which was very much injured by the 

 worms — in many places entirely destroyed. In 

 September, it was sown with wheat with the same 

 result as with barley. In the spring of 18.'50, we 

 manured it well with fresh barnyard inanure, 

 turned under; harrowed and marked three feet and 

 a half apart by two and a half, and planted corn, 

 four grains in a hill, the first of June. It carne up 

 in five to seven days, and is now a very promising 

 piece, as forw^ard as any planted in the middle of 

 .May. 



The seed was soaked in a decoction of a pound of 



