VEGETABLE ELECTRICITY. 
131 
produced, and ascertain it to be the light of the sun — the vivifying principle of 
Nature, the assured source and fountain of electricity and magnetism, and, as a 
natural consequence, of that effect which we term heat — little doubt can remain of 
the relationship which exists between electricity and vegetation, or that the latter 
and all its productions are excited and governed by it. 
We now claim attention to a paper of extraordinary merit, which forms the 
second article in the last number of the "Journal of Agriculture," {March, 1846,) 
" On the Electro-culture of Farm Crops,'" by that eminent Electrician, Mr. William 
Sturgeon, Editor of the "Annals of Electricity, Magnetism, and Chemistry," &c, 
&c. &c. It does not, in reality, apply to farm-crops alone ; but being written for an 
agricultural work, and Electro-culture having, during the previous year, become a 
prominent subject, the writer consistently addressed himself chiefly to agriculturists. 
But the few extracts which our limits permit us now to offer will evince that 
the principles of the article apply to every vegetable production, useful or ornamental . 
Our Author appears to take as his foundation the great principle (which a variety 
of experiments, familiar to electricians, have demonstrably established) that "the 
particles of electric fluid are repellent of each other, a property which finds its 
analogue in all aerial fluids ; hence it is said, with propriety, that the electric fluid 
is elastic, and that bodies similarly electrified repel each other. From the results of 
another class of experiments we infer, that bodies in different electric conditions 
attract each other ; and as no facts are known to contravene this inference, it has 
become an established principle in electric science. Upon these attractions and 
repulsions the doctrine of electro-chemistry is essentially based ; and to those 
principles alone are chemical changes due. The elements of compounds have only 
to be assailed by electric forces more powerful than those which hold them together, 
and decomposition is a certain result ; and bodies which will not associate with each 
other under ordinary electric circumstances, can easily be forced into combination by 
the aid of additional forces properly applied. 
" Contemplations on electro-chemical forces, thus disencumbered of complexity, 
are well calculated to afford a clue to those atomic operations which select the appro- 
priate materials, convey them to their destination, and elaborate them in the structure 
of every vegetable tissue that is formed within and upon the surface of the land." 
The second great position assumed by Mr. Sturgeon is Electro-polarity, occa- 
sioned by electric disturbance. Such is the condition of the prime conductor of a 
common machine when at work. " Now," he observes, " as this is a universal law 
when electric fluid is transmitted from one body or object to another, it follows that 
the electro-polar state of the air contiguous to growing plants causes the latter to 
become electro-polar, even when they are in the act of transmitting fluid to the 
ground, their upper parts being negative relatively to the roots, while the latter, in 
their turn, are positive to the contiguous manure and soil, to which they deliver up 
the fluid (or rather, such portions of it as are not retained for the expansion and 
growth of the plants) as faithfully as the leaves and stems receive it from the air." 
