AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 335 



The Secretary read the following papers prepared by him : 



Sir Walter Scott {on Drainage) says iu "Old Mortality." 

 " Trenches filled with water, out of which peats and turf have 

 been dug, and some straggling thickets of alders, which loved the 

 moistness so well that they continued to exist as bushes, although 

 too much dwarfed by the sun, soil and stagnant bog-water to 

 ascend into trees.'' 



The plants of every former period of the earth's history are 

 distinguished from those of the present by the inconsiderable de- 

 velopment of their roots. The fruit, leaves, seeds and nearly 

 every part of the plants of a former world, except the roots are 

 found in the brown coal formation. Eut when we examine oaks 

 and other trees, which in consequence of revolutions of the same 

 kind occurring in latter ages, have undergone the same changes. 

 We never find the roots absent.'' The earth was not then drained. 



A timber tree on bog or wet soil is stinted in growth, false at 

 heart, gnarled in appearance. The roots refuse to enter the stag- 

 nant, unw'holesome water, send oif a few slender horizontal roots 

 which soon exhaust the surface soil and all that is therein con- 

 tained, and his race is run. Again a plant is placed in a closed 

 vessel, in which, therefore, the carbonic acid cannot be renewed, 

 dies exactly as it w^ould in the vacuum of an air pump, even 

 though its roots be fixed in the richest mold ; and small better 

 luck has the plant stuck in an impervious, undrained soil, even 

 though its roots be bathed in a never failing pool of stagnant 

 water. Perfect drainage is the only eifectual means by which 

 such land can be sweetened and rendered fertile. 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. 



The excellent advantages gained by the talented and industrious 

 men who have directed every effort to aid practical agriculture, 

 deserve golden praises from mankind. When they have discovered 

 any error in their course they promptly admit, and try again. 

 The problem which they have undertaken to solve is a mysterious 

 cause, and no w^onder that it is slowly revealed to the most zealous 

 of the seekers. 



We find very valuable remarks as to this matter, in the Journal 

 of Agriculture, and the Transactions of the Highland Agricultu- 

 ral Society of Scotland for July, 1855. 



Liebig has the merit of being the first who laid distinctly before 

 the public sound views as to the sources of the constituents of 

 plants. 



