THE GREAT POULTRY SHOW AT BOSTON. 
27 
\vpre covered thirty inches deep with quicksil¬ 
ver, and that is as heavy as twelve to twenty 
feet of soil would be; and if you were never 
astonished at the eight or ten inches of soil be¬ 
ing able to grow repeated crops of grass or corn 
or trees without wasting under the process, surely 
you ought not to be astonished at the air, which 
is twelve or twenty times as heavy, being able 
to do the same thing. The leaves of the tree do 
not indeed stretch through the whole air in 
search of food, as their roots do through the 
soil; but then the winds are continually mixing 
the particles of air up and bringing fresh ones 
to be fed upon by the foliage of the plants and 
the trees, so that ought to be no hindrance in 
the way of our believing what is really the 
truth, namely, that plants get everything in them 
which will burn up from the air, and only their 
incombustible part—their ashes, which will not 
burn away from the soil. 
But now I will prove to you that the air real¬ 
ly does contain, in the midst of it, the very par¬ 
ticles of which wood is composed. I have here a 
piece of wood dried at a red heat, under circum¬ 
stances which hindered it from taking fire; it 
is a piece of charcoal in fact, which is nearly 
all that remains of the wood after the water is 
driven out of it. Now, I say that the tree got 
this charcoal from the air; first, because it could 
not get it from the soil, which has not anything 
near enough of the stuff in it, and the air is the 
only other thing which the plant could get at 
to obtain it from. 
The argument merely proves that all the 
carbon in vegetables came originally from 
the air. It does not determine what portion 
of any particular plant came from the air, 
nor what from the soil. In the early stages 
of its growth, the plant derives a good deal of 
its substance from the soil, and some of even 
the carbonic acid of the air it may absorb 
through its roots. To supply the land with or¬ 
ganic matter, in the art of cultivation, it is neces¬ 
sary, not merely for the mechanical effort thus 
exerted on its texture, but for its use as food in 
supplying the plant with a portion of its organ¬ 
ic part. 
Secondly, because the air is heavy enough— 
has matter enough in it to supply many such 
trees or whole forests, if they were wanted, 
from it—for it is many times heavier than the 
soil from which people generally think that 
such trees and plants do come. And, thirdly, 
I believe the tree gets its charcoal from the air, 
because the air is not only heavy 3 nough, but it 
contains the right things, too ; f , contains the^ 
charcoally particles of this black substance 
present in it, as I shall prove in my next lecture. 
THE GREAT POULTRY SHOW AT BOSTON. 
I left New York, last evening, on the Vander¬ 
bilt—a very excellent boat—and a lovely moon¬ 
light passage I had through the sound; arriving 
at Stonington, at 12£, and at Boston, at 4£ A. M., 
over one of the best railroads in the Union, at a 
speed almost fast enough to satisfy Yankee go-a- 
head-i-tive-ness. Whether this is the best of all 
the routes between New York and Boston, I 
am not prepared to say; but I will say it is a 
good one, and as worthy of patronage as any 
other. 
The first sound that greeted my ears, the 
morning of my arrival at Boston, was one uni¬ 
ted, concentrated, tremendous cock-a-doodle- 
doo; uprising in the clear morning air from 
some two thousand throats; with which was 
mixed a fair proportion of gander gabble and 
turkey gobble; with an occasional interlude, 
applicable to the occasion, of quack ! quack !! 
quack!!! Whether there were any real quacks 
present I do not know. The din of hackmen 
and hotel runners, for once, was put to silence. 
“ For a noise went up to heaven as of many 
cocks crowing.” And that noise in imagination, 
is still ringing in my ears; for I have been all 
day wandering among the coops, trying to learn 
what magic influence—what morus-multicaulis 
miracle of speculation hath so wrought upon 
the sober character of this Yankee population; 
as thus to gather together such thousands of bi¬ 
ped beings, feathered and featherless, in one 
great crowing match of all New England. 
The exhibition is held in the public garden, 
west of the Common, under a mammoth tent, 
which covers 23,716 superficial feet—over half 
an acre. This is filled with coops, arranged in 
rows and tiers, containing an uncounted num¬ 
ber of all manner of domestic fowls, vari¬ 
ously estimated from 6,000 to 16,000. From 
the notes which I saw of one gentleman who 
undertook to enumerate the multitude, I am 
satisfied the smallest number comes nearest the 
truth. I am also satisfied that even this will be 
looked upon as an exaggeration, by those who 
were not present and who never felt the fever; 
because they will not be able to conceive how 
dreadfully that disease must rage through a 
community, to induce them to come together to 
the number of three hundred and thirty-eight ex¬ 
hibitors , with 6,000 head of cocks and hens, 
ducks and drakes, gobblers, ganders, geese, and 
Guinea fowls, in all sorts of coops and cages; 
