678 
MR. DICK ON COOKING FOOD FOR HORSES. 
rendered more easily capable of expanding in the soil into which 
they are afterwards thrown as by accident, and have their pro¬ 
ductive power very greatly increased. The olive-tree has, till of 
late years, only been raised in the south of France by cuttings, 
or wild plants obtained from the woods. It was remarked by an 
attentive inhabitant of Marseilles, that, when produced naturally, 
it is by means of kernels carried into the woods, and sown there 
by birds which had swallowed the olives. By the act of diges¬ 
tion,” he further observed, “ these olives are deprived of their na¬ 
tural oil, and the kernels hence become permeable to the mois¬ 
ture of the earth, the dung of the birds at the same serving for 
manure; and, perhaps, the soda which the dung contains, by 
combining with a portion of the oil that has escaped digestion, 
still further favouring germination. Following up this fact, a 
number of turkeys were made by the experimenter to swallow 
ripe olives, the dung was collected containing the swallowed ker¬ 
nels : the whole was placed in a stratum of earth, and frequently 
watered. The kernels thus treated vegetated easily, and a num¬ 
ber of young plants were procured ; and in order to produce upon 
olives an effect similar to that experienced from the digestive power 
of the stomach, a quantity of them were afterwards macerated in 
an alkaline lixivium ; they were then sown, and proved highly 
productive. 
“ Most of the plants found on coral islands, and in various 
other places, are propagated by the same means of passing 
through the digestive canal; and it is probable that the seeds 
of many of them are equally assisted by the same process. And 
even when they are completely disorganized and digested, the 
material to which their refuse is converted, and which, com¬ 
bined with the animal secretions that accompany it, is called 
dung, very powerfully contributes, as every one knows, to ren¬ 
der the soil productive; so that, in the wisdom of Providence, 
animal digestion and vegetable fructification are equally depend¬ 
ent on each other, and are alternately causes and effects.” 
The fact, however is, that the birds he alludes to derived not 
their nourishment from those seeds which passed through them 
entire, but either from the pulp with which the seeds were sur¬ 
rounded when they were swallowed, or from the seeds which were 
broken down in the stomach of the animal; and, in the case of 
the turkeys, it is evident that, at least in regard to the olives, the 
pulp with which the kernel was surrounded was sufficient to nou¬ 
rish the animal, while the excrement when the seed escaped 
would serve well the purpose he has noticed. There was, how¬ 
ever, a striking fact, which occurred about six years ago, and 
which I recollect meeting with in the Glasgow Courier newspaper, 
