No. 144.] 349 



This apiculture of M. Debeauvoys is a small duodecimo of 256 

 pages, with a number of small woodcuts of bees, &c. Interesting 

 and useful. 



COURSE OF HORTICULTURE. 



[By M. Poiteau. Paris, 1848.] 

 FROM ALEXANDER VATTEMARE. 



Jl very accurate view in the least number of words. 

 On grafts.— Re remarks that a bud of the Prime, whose wood 

 is dark colored, grafted on almond, whose wood is white, never 

 darkens the almond wood below the graft. The conclusion is that 

 the graft sends nothing down. But the fibres of all woods are 

 white, as white in ebony as in any white wood. We know that 

 the coloring matter of vegetables is furnished only by the cel- 

 lular tissue which always radiates across the fibres horizontally, 

 while the fibres are always perpendicular, or near it, that is to 

 say, the fibres are always parallel Avith the axis of the plant. 

 The cellular tissue pierces the bark, and when the bark is torn 

 off their ends are broken off. The coloring matter in this tissue 

 neither ascends nor descends. 



Vegetable is a producing apparatus. Animal a consuming appar- 

 atus. 



M. Payen has given a bold idea, viz., that the azotised matter 

 found in plants is animalized, and that great microscopic power 

 may reveal that fact. That the fibre is merely a sheath within 

 which animal life exists. This is consistent with my views and 

 those of the astronomer, Lahire, two hundred years ago. (Note 

 by H. Meigs, and with the vegetable theory of Theophrastus 

 2200 years ago.) Twenty years ago azote was hardly suspected 

 of existence in vegetable matter. It was even supposed to mark 

 a distinction between that and animal matter, the latter being 

 abundantly supplied with it. To-day it is acknowleged that 

 azote plays a principal part in vegetation, and is active in every 

 part of the plant, although its name implies without life. Ac- 

 cording to our most able chemists, twelve molecules of carbon 

 and ten molecules of water form ligneous tissue, cellular tissue, 

 starch and dextrine, and diastase. Twelve molecules of carbon^ 

 and eleven of water, form crystallizable sugar. 



