664 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



Mr. Marsh, in his learned work entitled "Man 

 and Nature," says the vitality of seeds "seems al- 

 niost imperishable while they remain in the situa- 

 tion in which nature deposits them." He gives 

 many instances in which one crop of plants had 

 disappeared on a change of conditions, and an- 

 other, of ditfercnt nature, had promptly assumed 

 its place, originating evidently from seeds preexist- 

 ing for ages in the soil. 



In a book entitled "Sketches of Creation," by 

 Prof. Winchcll, of the University of Michigan, re- 

 cently published, there is a chapter on the vitality 

 of buried vegetable germs, which fully corrobo- 

 rates the views expressed by Mr. Marsh. The 

 ■writer alludes to the facts that on removing a pine 

 forest, hard wood often succeeds, and vice versa ; 

 that earth thrown out of wells sends up a ready 

 crop of weeds, and, not unfrequently, of species 

 previously unknown; that on breaking up a sod 

 of grass land, after any number of years, a crop of 

 annual weeds will immediately resume possession ; 

 that a dressing of raw muck develops sorrel; and 

 to a great many similar facts. He also cites the 

 fixct, as an authenticated one, that some well dig- 

 gers in a town on the Penobscot river, in Maine, 

 about forty miles from the sea, came, at the depth 

 of about twenty feet, upon a stratum of sand. No 

 such sand was to be found in the neighborhood, 

 and none like it was known nearer than the sea, 

 forty miles away. It was saved and piled up by 

 itself and on the completion of the well it was 

 spread about the spot on which it had been placed. 

 As some peculiar plants soon showed themselves, 

 they were protected out of curiosity, and on grow- 

 ing up they were ascertained to be beach-plum 

 trees, and actually bore the beach-plum, which had 

 never been seen except immediately upon the sea- 

 shore. Now, geologists and other scientific men, 

 suppose that the seeds from which these shrubs 

 grew were deposited in this sand when that part of 

 the State was the shore of the slowly receding sea; 

 a period anterior perhaps to the creation of man. 



Well known instances of the preservation of 

 wood in water and swamps are cited as confirma- 

 tory of this theory of the long continued vitality 

 of seeds. The piles that sustain the London 

 Bridge are still comparatively sound, after having 

 been driven five hundred years. Venice stands on 

 piles that were driven in the seventh and eighth 

 centuries — more than a thousand years ago. And 

 in New Jersey are swamps filled with timber so 

 valuable that it is "mined" for lumber. Prof. 

 Cook, in his Geology of New Jersey, says, "the 

 number of annual rings in the trunk of one of 

 these buried trees, six feet in diameter, was one 

 thousand and eighty; while Ijcneath it was an- 

 other trunk counting five hundred rings, which 

 had evidently grown and fiillen down before the 

 huge log above it had commenced its growth. 

 This carries us back much further into the past 

 than human records reach, but it is by no means a 

 solitary case. Buried trunks of trees are often 



found from twenty to sixty feet deep in the earth, 

 in what the geologists call the glacial deposits. 

 At Salem, Ohio, fifteen miles north of Dayton, a 

 mass of drift wood is found from thirty-seven to 

 forty -three feet beneath the surface of the ground, 

 embedded in mud. 



And up in Siberia the flesh of the extinct mam- 

 moth has been preserved in ice so completely that, 

 on being exposed, dogs and bears greedily de- 

 voured it. 



Prof. Winchell asks, if a material so perishable 

 as muscular fibre could be preserved since an epoch 

 which antedates authentic history, is it not more 

 probable that the oily tissues of vegetable seeds 

 could resist the tendency to decay under similar 

 circumstances ? 



Now, m reply to your question, why the clover 

 seed, if in the ground, did not germinate before 

 you burned the brush, it may be said that possibly 

 the hardy spear grass, having got possession of the 

 soil held it with a conqueror's power, and thus 

 made it impossible for the clover to raise its head. 

 The destruction of this grass and of the tough sod 

 it had formed by its innumerable roots, not only 

 gave the poor over-powered clover a chance to 

 germinate, but the ashes of its old oppressor, 

 as well as that of the brush you burned, furnished 

 the needed stimulus to rouse to life and action the 

 dormant powers of the sleeping, but not dead, 

 germ of the clover plant. 



AN ACRE OF CORN ON A VERMONT HILL FARM. 



The late decline in prices, the drought, grasshop- 

 pers. Western competition, &c., are discouraging 

 many farmers in this section. Some have sold, 

 others are trying to sell their fiirms, to g ^ into oth- 

 er kinds of business. But as I have lived through 

 several "hard times" in the past, I am disposed to 

 look on the bright side, and to hope we may sur- 

 vive the present dark day, and perhaps be all the 

 stronger for the lessons of economy it may force 

 upon us. 



Having just filled one of my com bins, which by 

 measurement holds one hundred bushels of ears, 

 from an acre of land which was broken up last 

 spring, I have referred to my account with this 

 field, and think it shows that properly managed 

 farniing is still not entirely unprofitable. The fol- 

 lowing is a statement of the expense of this crop : — 



Ploughing, one acre, $4.00 



HaiTowirig, gg 



Furrowing and putting manure in hill 3.75 



Covering manure and plantiDg 2.75 



noting twice 7 50 



Harvesting and husking 10 40 



$29 20 

 Com here is now worth about one dollar a bush- 

 el, and at present prices, the fodder is worth $;20, 

 — making, say, ^70, as the value of the crop. No 

 manure was spread on the land, and the value of 

 that put in the hill, which would be differently es- 

 timated by diflTcrcnt individuals, should be added to 

 the expense of the crop, after proper allowance for 

 its benefit to other crops. This is only a common 

 yield, such as common fiirmers may expect; still 

 many claim they can buy corn cheaper than they 

 can raise it. Perhaps fhcy can, bnt I do not know 

 of any way by which I could have earned the value 

 of this crop of corn easier than by raising it. 

 Hard times with mechanics, manufacturers, and 



