252 
OF GARDENING AS A SCIENCE. 
The vapour of carbon alluded to is the separation of the carbon during the act of 
electrical disturbance, whereby a portion of the liberated electricity combines with 
the solid carbon, and separates its atoms, reducing them to a state of infinitely 
minute division : all vapour is an electrical division of particles, and chemical 
phenomena depend upon the play of their electric equivalent affinities. We may 
wind up our articles, appropriately, perhaps, by extracting a passage or two from 
an essay which we penned some years since on vegetable electrisation by solar 
influence. 
" The Sun is a body or vehicle of luminous matter, containing in itself the elements 
or principles of light, magnetism, electricity, and heat. These elements reach the 
earth in rays or beams, which furnish direct evidence of being primarily composed 
of light and magnetism : they also contain electrising and calorific principles, which 
when brought into action in a suitable medium, produce and develop electricity 
and heat. 
" The rays of the sun are also, under certain circumstances, refracted, reflected, 
and absorbed, but are never lost or extinguished ; every particle being devoted and 
applied to the efl'ectuation of a specific purpose. Among the chief and most 
important media of conduction and absorption are vegetable organized beings — trees, 
shrubs, and herbs of all descriptions ; and by this process of absorption the most 
beautiful phenomena are operated. 
"Plants abound in pointed terminations, and contain a vascular system, 
composed of vessels and cells abounding with juices, which qualify them to become 
the recipients, and most ready and perfect conductors of electricity in any 
of its specific modifications." The solar rays thus absorbed during their passage 
through the vegetable organs, operate chemically ; they disturb the electricity 
of the various combinations of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, and produce 
specific fluids — gums, resins, salts. The woody fibre is also formed, deposited, and 
solidified. 
" Each individual process is performed by specific means, each particle of the 
rays is devoted to specific purposes. Magnetism must not be overlooked, for it is 
identical w^ith, or a modification of, electricity ! At all events, it evinces peculiar 
powers, which remind us of the * plus and minus,' ' vitreous and resinous ' qualities 
of the old electricians. Perhaps the day is not far remote when these two grand 
ethereal agents will be found to interpret the phenomena of positive and negative 
electricity ! " 
Thus then, every individual phenomenon in chemistry and vegetable structure, 
all combinations and decompositions, are effected by agencies or by organs adapted 
to the express purpose, and all in beautiful harmony, find in accordance with the 
purposes of Infinite Wisdom. 
