1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



463 



As the ozygen which supports life is so small, we 

 ought to be very particular how we permit other 

 gases to mix with it and vitiate it. The blood 

 when it enters the lungs, is black, but when the 

 oxygen acts on it, it becomes red, and sends it 

 through the veins to impart life and animation. 

 This black blood is produced by carbon, and im- 

 parts the blackness which we see in the face of 

 persons who lose their lives by suffocation, because 

 the air was not allowed to reach the lungs to puri- 

 fy it. When we send out the air from the lungs 

 we do not send it in the same manner, as we in- 

 haled it, for when exhaled it is as deadly a poison 

 as arsenic or corrosive sublimate. The lecturer 

 showed this by experiments, and filled a vase with 

 his own breath in which a lighted candle would 

 not live. It was such air as killed persons who 

 went down into wells in the country, or who died 

 when a pan of charcoal was placed in a room. 

 The danger of taking impure matter into the stom- 

 ach was not so great as into the lungs, for the 

 etomach had power to eject impurities which the 

 lungs had not. Beside the impure air which we 

 exhale there are 2,800 pores on every square inch 

 of the surface of the body, and to a body of large 

 size there are 2,590 square inches; and these mul- 

 tiplied make 7,000,000 of pores. There is a sort 

 of drainage pipe in the body, which sends out mat 

 ter as well as gas, and this pipe is calculated at 

 twenty-eight miles long. Tlie particles of matter 

 which are sent out and which do not dissolve, are 

 so numerous, that in China, where the houses are 

 low, and a great many persons are in the habit of 

 assembling in one room, it has been discovered 

 that, after fifteen or twenty years, these particles 

 adhere to the ceiling of the rooms, that the farm- 

 ers will contract to put up a new ceiling if they 

 are allowed to take down the old one, so valuable 

 has it been found for manure. — Scknlijic Ameri- 

 can. 



ROOTS. 



Roots are divided, botanically, into three grand 

 divisions, or classes, viz. : Annual, Biennial and 

 Perennial. 



The first embraces all such as exist but one 

 year. They are produced from seed, sown in the 

 spring, and survive only to maturity. Of this 

 class are pears, beans, cucumbers, &c. 



The second, or biennial, as the name indicates, 

 live two years. The first season they produce no 

 flowers, but infloresce the next summer, and the 

 roots, as soon as the seed has matured, die. The 

 cabbage, onion, beet, carrot, parsnip, turnip, are 

 biennial. If these are reset in the soil in the sec- 

 ond year, they will produce flowers, the petals of 

 which will fiill, and the germ proceed rapidly to 

 perfection. This is supposed to exhaust the vital 

 principle of the plant, and the root having per- 

 formed its office, and accomplished the great cir- 

 cle of vegetable mutation, dies, and no power can 

 again restore it to life. 



Of the perennial class there is a vast number, 

 as for instance, the rose, geranium, asparagus — 

 likewise trees and shrubs. The existence of these 

 is prolonged indefinitely. The effect of climate 



and culture on the duration of vegetables, is very 

 remarkable. Many of the perennial plants, by 

 transplanting, are transformed into annuals, if 

 the change is from a warmer to a colder climate. 

 The common nasturtium^ which, in South Amer- 

 ica is perennial, in the gardens of North Ameri- 

 ca is an annual. Other instances of a similar mu- 

 tation might be named. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 FORCING THE GROWTH OP TEE^gS. 



Mr. Brown: — Your Wisconsin correspondent, 

 June 28, has replied to one of the objections to 

 high cultivaton of apple trees, which is duly ap- 

 preciated. There are several others to which he 

 has not replied, and which are quite as objection- 

 tionable as the one ho has selected — one is, the 

 danger of being injured by the cold winters. We 

 had, in this region, nursery trees very hardly dealt 

 with in the winter of 1851 — 2. Some trees which 

 I took from a nursery were injured, some entirely 

 killed, others but part way down, and started out 

 from the roots ; since, many more were affected ia 

 the same manner that were left in the same nur- 

 sery. A little harder winter would have swept 

 the whole of the Baldwins from the nursery and 

 orchard too. 



A distinguished pomologist said to me yester- 

 day, while looking at some trees, for which he 

 had taken the first premium, some two or three 

 years ago, that he should lay the ground down 

 to grass and only keep cultivated about six feet 

 square about the tree ; he said he was afraid of 

 the cold winters. 



Probably a medium between very high culti- 

 vation and total neglect, would be as sure a course 

 as any to pursue with trees. 



I suppose we may manage a tree in such a man- 

 ner as to make it grow the fore part of the year 

 and not the latter part. In this way the wood 

 that made in the early part of the year would get 

 so hardened as not to be susceptible to cold. — 

 This may be done by keeping the grass and weeda 

 from growing the fore part of the year and ne- 

 glecting them the latter part. 



I think that a tree will come forward fast enough 

 in this way without applying any manure to it. 

 Some that I set out last year grew from the bot- 

 tom, above the budding, from two to four feet. 

 They were not in cultivated ground where corn 

 was planted, and they have grown quite as well 

 this seasou, the land being in Indian corn again. 

 We think with your western correspondent, that 

 the question of high or low cultivation is an im- 

 portant one, and we should be very happy to hear 

 some remarks from the editors of the New Eng- 

 land Farmer. M. 



Topsfield, August 8. 



Remarks. — We think the opinions expressed 

 above are worthy of being put in practical opera- 

 tion. We see fine trees every spring, even when 

 the winter was as mild as the last one, injured by 

 the cold, and this happens invariably among trees 

 under a high state of cultivation. We cannot say 

 more now, but shall be glad to refer to this sub- 

 ject at some other time. 



