404 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



be suspended, cover the roots with leaves or any other thing, to 

 keep them from becoming dry. 



CUCURBIT A 'PERENNIS.— {Perpetual Squash.) 



Is an ornamental and useful one ; grows rapidly on walls or 

 trellisses, has a beautiful, velvety, heart-shaped leaf; flowers ex- 

 hale sweet odors in the morning; fruit round, first green, then 

 yellow; as large as a stout peach, (that of Montreuil) the vines 

 die down to the ground in winter, but again send up the vines in 

 spring. The roots are very large. 



Fifteen years ago M. Lindley gave us his Theory and Practice 

 of Horticulture. He entered his subject with a learned disserta- 

 tion upon Life, or Vital Force in Vegetables. What is that life, 

 either in a plant or in an animal ? The great insoluble difficulty 

 which always did and always will divide the learned, must, we 

 admit, with the materialist school, so powerful now-a-days, that 

 it is only the result of organization, that is to say, an act of mat- 

 ter which spontaneously, and by intrinsic and inalienable virtue 

 fashions itself into vegetables, or into animals, or into men, pre- 

 sently. A monstrous doctrine, which contains in itself the Death 

 of Society, and which would accomplish its wicked work, If it 

 was not unceasingly kept in check by the reason and the most 

 immovable instincts of men. 



It would be well for many plants that our gardeners and farm- 

 ers should believe they had souls, for they would then treat them 

 better than they do. How can we explain the growth of some 

 plants at the freezing point, such as the Poa anntia'i How ex- 

 plain the mysterious properties of seeds 1 &c., &c. 



Hon. Judge Bur well, formerly of Buffalo, strongly recommended 

 to the Club, by the late President of our New York State Agri- 

 cultural Society, the Hon. R. L. Allen, and by the Department 

 of Public Instruction at Albany, and by the State Commissioner 

 of the Common Schools of the State of Ohio, for his distinguished 

 capability of giving instruction in agriculture. Mr. Bur well 

 having received a liberal and collegiate education, and having 

 been a lawyer and a judge, found his health declining, and went 

 on a farm to amend it. He has studied the science, and labored 

 diligently several years. 



The Secretary interposed, saying that he hoped that the Hon- 

 orable gentleman would shake hands with members, which he 

 did, and they found his hand as hard as labor can make a man's 

 hand ! The Secretary said that he had the honor to possess such 



