E[,K 



ELE 



su(;li as contact of difrerent metals." 

 See Gahautxm. — {Bnunli's Dirf.) 



ELEOTRFCITY APPLIED TO 

 AGRICTl/rnRE. Much interest lias 

 been taken of late in the application 

 of this agent to forwarding garden 

 vegetables, and indeed field crops. 

 Two plans are pursued. Wires are 



Wire. 



A number of these, at distances of 

 t\\:o to four feet, are arranged through 

 the field, and the grain or plants sown 

 on the soil or in drills. It is stated 

 on good authority that rye, oats, 

 wheat, &c., so treated are singularly 

 developed and advanced in maturity: 

 it may be worthy of trial. In this 

 case the atmospheric electricity is 

 supposed to act. 



The second plan is a galvanic ar- 

 rangement, but may be best intro- 

 duced here. I^arge plates of sheet 

 copper and zinc are used, the size 

 depending upon the distance at which 

 they are placed : 18 inches deep and 

 three feet long may be used at a dis- 

 tance of 50 feet ; these are sunk into 

 the soil vertically, excepting three 



supported upon a trellis running north 

 and sduth, at a height of four or six 

 feet ; at the ends of each trellis they 

 are bent down to the ground and 

 about three inches below it, and are 

 conveyed at this depth through the 

 soil, from one to the other end, so that 

 the wire forms a parallelogram, thus : 



Surface of the earth. 



inches of the top, which is left ex- 

 posed ; from one to the other pass- 

 es a stout copper wire, which is 

 well soldered to both and sustained 

 by a few sticks or a trellis. Such an 

 arrangement may be made to enclose 

 four or five drills of potatoes, carrots, 

 parsnips, &c. The fluid of the earth, 

 acting on the zinc, produces a corro- 

 sion, which gives rise to the galvanic 

 or electric current that traverses the 

 soil, and is said to cause plants to 

 grow very rapidly. This experiment, 

 tried with potatoes by Mr. Ross on 

 Long Island, was very successful, in 

 his opinion ; it is so manageable and 

 cheap as to be worthy of considera- 

 tion to market gardeners. The whole 

 will appear thus : 



Wire supported by sticks above the soil. 



Surface of the soil. 



Zinc plate. 



ELECTRODE (from rjleKxpov, and 

 66og, a %oay). The surfaces by which 

 electricity passes into and out of oth- 

 er media have been called by Mr. 

 Faraday electrodes. The term has 

 also sometimes been derived from 

 TiXiKTpov, amhcr, and eiSo^, like, and 

 applied to substances wjiich, like am- 

 ber, become electric by friction. 



E L E C T R 0-D Y NAM I G S (from 

 rjACKTpov, and i)vva/ti(, power). The 

 jjhenomena of electricity in motion. 

 2.')4 



Copper plate. 



ELECTROLYTE (from r,leKTpov, 

 and 7.VU, I set free). Sulistanees sus- 

 ceptible of direct decomposition by 

 the action of the electric current : 

 hence, also, the verb electroli/ze, i. e., 

 to resolve compounds into their ele- 

 ments by the agency of electricity. 

 Faraday has shown that in many 

 supposed cases of electrolysis the 

 evolution of elements is the conse- 

 quence of a secondary action ; the 

 sulphur, for instance, which is thus 



