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OF GARDENING AS A SCIENCE. 
NO. XI.— ELECTRICITY. 
We have now arrived at the grand climax of our theory, at the main-spring of 
all the great natural agencies, and it is with pleasure we recur to those papers 
on electricity, a series of which is in progress in tlie Magazine of Domestic 
Economy. 
When we consider the agency of the ethereal fluid upon vegetable vitality, it 
will soon appear that little or no reference will be made to the common experiments 
of the lecturer. Our object is to prove that every leading phenomenon of life and 
growth is dependent upon one great principle, derived from the Sun ; and the 
solitary example we shall seek in machinery will be cited to prove tliat there is no 
such things as a minus condition of the electric fluid ; and therefore that the term 
ought to be abandoned, as inexpressive of facts. Electricity is described to be " a 
subtile, impenetrable fluid, of prodigiously rapid motion and action, which pervades 
the substance of our planet, and, when in perfect equilibrium, is in a state of 
complete repose ; therefore, when by any means its presence is evident on sealing- 
wax, amber, glass, or any other substance, the equilibrium of the electric mass is 
partially disturbed, and the energetic efiects produced by this agent are always 
the result of an attempt to regain the state of equilibrium. The chemical opera- 
tions of matter are nothing more than a disturbance of the electrical equilibrium. 
Not only the motion and change of inorganic matter, but the motion and life of 
organised matter ; the nervous action of the organic or vegetative, and the animal 
or voluntary life in animated beings, are constantly producing such electrical 
excitement. Thus all the various actions and habitude of matter connected with 
the laws of dynamics, or motion in a partial and independent sense, and not with 
reference to the general motion of the mass — all decomjDositions and new combina- 
tions, all changes of condition, from the solid to the liquid, from the liquid to the 
gaseous, from this latter back again to the liquid, and so forth, are invariably and 
necessarily attended with a disturbance of the general electric repose.*' 
This is exactly the point to which we have been labouring for years to bring 
the Electric Theory ; and, now, a writer in a monthly periodical steps forward 
and boldly asserts what we have only suggested. But the gardener may inquire, 
" What have I to do with electric disturbances ? " This may be fairly put, because 
nothing is seen or observed which can convince the eye ; but when the mind con- 
templates the fact that every act of friction and percussion induces a chemical 
action, which, however slight it be, reveals a corresponding quantity of electricity, 
(as is manifested to the eye with hundreds of dry substances,) then the gardener will 
perceive that in every one of his operations by spade, fork, garden-trowel, — of mixing 
of soils, manures, composts, potting, re-dressing, or even stirring the surface of his 
VOL. VIII. NO. XCV. K K 
