BOYS DEPARTMENT. 
m 
Defence of Romps. — Never find fault with 
girls, young girls in particular, if they are decided 
romps ; but be thankful that they have the health 
and spirits necessary for romping. Better a romp 
than have a narrow chest, or a hectic flush on the 
cheek. Better wild as a hawk than tame as a dove. 
Better pay the butcher and the shoemaker than the 
physician and the undertaker. — Chicago Journal. 
« 
Bug Poison. — An ounce of quicksilver, beat up 
with the white of two eggs, and applied to the 
bedstead, with a feather, it is believed is the clean- 
est, safest, and surest bug remedy known. 
« 
How to Remove White Spots in Furniture. 
— A warming pan or shovel of coals held over var- 
nished furniture, it is stated, will take out white 
spots. The spots should be rubbed with flannel 
while the furniture is warm. 
How to Remove Ink Spots from Linen. — Take 
a piece of tallow, melt it, and dip the spotted part 
of the linen therein. It may then be washed, 
and the spots will disappear, without injuring the 
linen. 
How to Restore Colors to Cloth. — An ox 
gall, it is said, will set any color, in silk, cotton, or 
wool. 
33023 1 JBepartttunt. 
AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.— NO. 11. 
I will now endeavor to acquaint you with the 
structure of plants, or their organization, and de- 
scribe to you the manner in which the various 
organs perform their respective offices. 
In describing the various parts belonging to 
plants, it is essential, in order to obtain an easy 
and perfect comprehension of the subject, to have 
the attention directed to some particular member 
of the great vegetable family, and after becoming 
well acquainted with that, you can easily apply 
the description or character to any other, as there is 
a remarkable correspondence between them all. 
In the largest plants, we may expect to find the 
different organs most distinctly developed. I will, 
therefore, select a forest tree as the most fit embodi- 
ment of those organs common to nearly all vegeta- 
bles. In examining a tree, three parts at once pre- 
sent themselves for investigation, namely, the root, 
the trunk, and the leaf. 
1. The Root. — The office of this is to give the 
tree a firm support in the soil, to extract nutriment 
for its supply, and to return to the earth such mat- 
ter as has been separated from the nutritive part of 
the food. Roots absorb liquids by means of the 
fine, spongy texture of their extremities which act 
as mouths and imbibe the moisture that surrounds 
them. I say they absorb liquids, for we have no 
proof that solid matter, although reduced to the 
finest powder, can gain admittance, nor that gases 
can enter except when combined with liquids. But 
all liquids are not admitted, for the root seems to 
possess a discriminating power, which enables it to 
reject such aliment as would be injurious or devoid 
of nourishment • just as animals, by their sense of 
taste and smell, are the roots enabled to distinguish 
wholesome and unwholesome food. There are, I 
admit, exceptions to this statement, for roots will 
imbibe brine and many other liquid substances not 
congenial to the nature of plants, just as an animal 
may be made to swallow arsenic by mixing it with 
its food ; but this no more proves that the root has 
no discriminating power, (as some contend,) than 
the fact that animals may be made to eat poison 
proves them to be without taste or smell. As brine 
and other poisonous solutions which roots have 
been made to absorb, are not common to the soil 
where they grow, it was not necessary that Nature 
should endow them with the power of rejecting 
such substances ; for she is a good economist, and 
does not furnish either plants or animals with such 
faculties as are not of general use. We cannot in 
the present state of science define the nature of 
this selecting power which roots possess, but nu- 
merous experiments have proved its existence. 
I mentioned that the root possesses another 
power — that of returning to the soil such matter as 
is not required by the plant. This is called the 
excretory power. Some writers on this subject deny 
its existence, while others not only contend that 
roots have this power, but also assert that the 
matter which they return to the soil is detrimental 
to the succeeding crop, providing it be of the same 
kind, though not injurious to any other kind of 
plant. This theory was evidently formed to ex- 
plain the reason why the same kind of produce does 
not thrive when repeated for a succession of years, 
or in other words, to account for the advantages of 
rotation. But while we admit that the roots of 
plants have an excretory power, I do not think we 
have any good reason for believing that the matter 
excreted has any influence on the succeeding crop. 
I will explain the advantages of rotation in a sub- 
sequent letter, and, I trust, on more philosophical 
principles than any contained in the above hypothe- 
sis. 
2. Tlie Trunk, or Stem. — We will now direct our 
attention to the stem or trunk. The several parts 
belonging to this, with which you are familiar, are 
the bark, the wood, and the pith. The bark, or outer 
covering, may be easily separated into two portions 
— the outer called the epidermis, the inner, lying 
next to the wood, the liber. The sap, or juice, in 
its descent, flows through the liber, as will be pre- 
sently described. The woody part of the trunk is 
usually found to consist of two portions differing 
in appearance ; the inner portion is called the heart, 
and is commonly of a brownish color ; the outer, 
enclosing this, is called the sap wood, or alburnum. 
The pith is of a spongy texture, sometimes occu- 
pying a considerable space in the centre, as in the 
elder, but more frequently small, as in the oak, ma- 
ple, &c. 
You may have observed in the ends of logs sawed 
transversely, small white lines, running from the 
centre to the circumference, or from the pitch to the 
bark, like spokes in a wheel. These are called 
medullary rays. They are composed of a similar 
substance as the pith, and seem to form a medium 
of communication between the pith and bark, 
though for what purpose is not known. Although 
