THE CULTIVATOR. 
213 
Who that looks upon the inexhaustible water-power of 
our state, and at her vast mineral resources; the iron 
and the coal, which the hand of a bounteous Creator 
has so lavishly bestowed upon her, can doubt, that she 
is yet to become one of the principal manufacturing 
states of the union. Thus will she possess within her¬ 
self a market for all that her farmers can produce by 
the most skilful cultivation. The James River improve¬ 
ment will soon open a grand highway, from the valley 
to the very centre of this market. Our climate is well 
adapted to the growth of every species of grain; our 
soil is already good, and susceptible of the highest de¬ 
gree of improvement. What then is there to forbid the 
hope, that the valley of Virginia may yet rival in ferti¬ 
lity the fairest portions of the west? Let our farmers 
but improve the advantages which they have ; let them 
engage in earnest in the work, and this hope must soon 
become a reality. 
The traveller as he rests for a moment on the top of 
yonder mountains, will cast his eye over a broad land 
of golden harvest. As he descends and mingles amongst 
us he will receive the hospitality of an intelligent, a 
blest, a happy people. The inhabitant of the valley 
has already much to rejoice in. He trembles not before 
the chill wind of the north, neither is he stricken down 
under the oppressive heat of the south; surrounded by 
a scenery so grand and beautiful, that no part of the 
country can boast of a superior; possessed of a mount- 
girt home, such as has always been the strong hold of 
the freeman, let! him but add to these, that fertility 
which he can bestow upon the soil, and with an honest 
pride may he exclaim, my own, my native valley, is 
the fairest spot on which the sun shines. 
Science of Gardening— continued. 
[From the Alphabet of Gardening.'] 
SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES OF DIGGING AND RAKING. 
It must be evident that a soil having - a hard crust 
on the surface, will neither admit water and air, nor 
allow the water and air already below the surface to 
escape and circulate freely—circumstances indispen¬ 
sable to the healthy growth of plants. It is with such 
views, as well as to render it more easy for plants to 
extend their roots in search of food, that digging is 
performed. The extraordinary effect thereby produc¬ 
ed is strikingly shown by the experiments of Mr. 
Curwen, who found that the quantity of water which 
rose in the form of vapour from an undug surface was 
exceedingly small, whereas from an acre well labored 
there were no less than 950 pints carried off into the 
air in one hour. 
So great a loss of water might, however, be in ma¬ 
ny gardens injurious, by rendering the soil too dry, 
and, in that case, it might be useful to employ the 
roller when the plants would admit of this, or place 
fern leaves, or the like, so as to prevent too rapid a 
loss of water. 
Raking very smooth will have a similar effect, by 
diminishing the extent of the surface exposed ; and 
hence where there is too much moisture, smooth ra¬ 
king must be bad practice, and rough digging or 
trenching the best for sending off the superabundant 
moisture into the air. 
When a soil is what is popularly termed sour , that 
is, too moist in consequence of water lodging in it 
without free circulation, it is often advantageous to 
turn it over by repeated rough digging, going as deep 
as it may be advisable, according to the quality of the 
under soil. This indeed is always of importance in 
regulating the operation of digging ; for otherwise, if 
the upper soil is rich in the materials of the food of 
plants, it may be turned too deep for the roots to feed 
upon it, while if the under soil is the richer in the 
food of plants, it will be useful to bring it up from 
some depth to the surface. The testing of the soil to 
be dug, at various depths, will therefore be always im¬ 
portant before proceeding. Dr. Home, as we have 
seen, found barren under soil or till usually impreg¬ 
nated with iron. 
ACTION OF FROST ON SOILS. 
Very erroneous notions, it would appear, are com¬ 
monly held respecting the action of frost upon soils, 
which it may be well to examine here. Even scien¬ 
tific men have concluded, that frost, by crystallizing 
the water retained in clay soils, tends to loosen it, by 
separating the particles; all which seems very plau¬ 
sible, but plain facts and experience demolish the theo¬ 
ry. Instead of being expanded, and the particles se¬ 
parated from the swelling of the ice accordingly, it is 
found, that wet clay squeezes out the water to the 
surface, while the particles of the clay become more 
tenacious, solid, and close; the process being similar 
to what takes place upon freezing salt dissolved in 
water, in which case, all the sa.lt is forced either into 
the centre, or into separate solid masses surrounded 
by ice. This view is farther proved by the well known 
fact of newly transplanted strawberries, and the smal¬ 
ler pebbles on a garden walk being loosened and 
thrown out by the frost squeezing the soil more firm¬ 
ly around their lower bevelled parts, from the action 
of which they escape gradually upwards; whereas 
the larger pebbles on a gravel walk will, in slight 
frosts, be seen to sink a little, from the pressure caus- 
VOL. V.—-NO. 12. -FEB. 
ed by the frost not being below them. It will hence 
be injudicious to rough dig a stiff or watery clay soil 
with the view of mellowing it by frost, and still more 
to expose clay intended for composts to freezing. _ An 
ample dressing of fresh farm-yard dung, containing 
much straw, or of wood or coal-ashes, will answer 
much better with such a soil, from the straw facilitat¬ 
ing the introduction of air, and the circulation of wa¬ 
ter, and the ashes separating the particles of clay. 
Dressing clay with sand, at least in any small quanti¬ 
ty, which has been recommended, will only tend to 
stiffen the clay, as must be evident from the processes 
of brick and porcelain making, in which sand is indis¬ 
pensable to mix with clay to harden the goods. In 
order to be beneficial, the sand must be in proportion 
of at least one half, or more, to the clay. 
I may mention here, also, that the common notion 
of frost tending to kill insects, is far from correct. 
LEVELLING AND DRAINING. 
One of the most important things effected by dig¬ 
ging is the levelling of the surface in cases where the 
soil is very light, and liable to become parched for 
want of a sufficient supply of moisture ; for the sun, 
having less effect upon a level surface, because the 
rays of light run in straight lines from the sun, will 
not carry off so much water as from a slope. By the 
same principle, when a soil is too wet and cold, the 
forming of the garden into a slope, if the expense can 
be afforded, will be of great advantage. 
Although draining is rather extensively practised, 
I question whether its principles are sufficiently un¬ 
derstood ; for it is obvious, from what I have already 
detailed, that this will not depend altogether on get¬ 
ting rid of superfluous water, but upon the circula¬ 
tion thereof which is effected, and also upon the cir¬ 
culation ot air that must be consequent upon all un¬ 
der ground drains formed with potsherds, broken 
slates, or brush-wood. I even question whether 
such drains might not, on this account, be of advan¬ 
tage in gardens, in which the soil was dry enough not 
to require any lodged water to be carried off. 
SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES OF SEED SOWING. 
I have already hinted, that the.food of young plants, 
when they first germinate, or begin to braird, as it is 
provincially termed, is very different from that of full 
grown ones; for, instead of taking up the ordinary 
food, they depend in a great measure upon the mate¬ 
rials stored up in the seed, in much the same way as 
the chick, before it breaks out from the egg, depends 
in a great measure upon the food stored up there. I 
have used the qualifying phrase, “ in a great measure,” 
both in the case of the young plant, and of the chick, 
though it may appear, at first view, to some that the 
chick enclosed in the shell has no means of obtaining 
any food not included in this form without,—but two 
other principles are indispensable ; I refer to heat 
and air. 
Heat, if it do not form a portion of the food of the 
chick, and of the plant, is indispenable, either for ex¬ 
citing and stirring up into activity the vessels which 
carry the nutrient materials to the parts where they 
are wanted, or, as all fluidity depends on heat, for 
rendering the food sufficiently liqu d to pass into and 
along these vessels. 
Such is the theory, and it accords with the esta¬ 
blished facts, that a chick cannot be hatched in a heat 
less than one hundred and four degrees of Fahrenheit, 
while seeds require heat from forty to eighty degrees, 
above or below which they will not germinate well. 
As we have seen, however, that buds once roused in¬ 
to growth, will go on to grow even when cold recurs, 
so seeds, after germinating in artificial heat, may 
have the plants thus produced planted with success in 
the open air. 
[Fig. No. 70.] 
Eggs during the process of hatching, broken open to show 
the vessels supplying nutriment to the chick, which is shown 
separate from the egg on the left. 
Air is supplied to the chick in the egg through 
the minute pores, or holes, in the shell, and probably 
to the seed of the plant in a similar way, though this 
is a point not well known. It is the oxygen of the 
air which is the indispenable material, both to the 
chick and the plant, for when confined in carbonic 
acid gas, or in azote or hydrogen, they both die. Too 
much oxygen, however, like too much heat, will ex¬ 
cite growth too rapidly, and disease, and at last death, 
will be the consequence. 
[Fig. No. 71.] 
The nutrient vessels in the seed lobes of a germinating 
bean, magnified. 
EFFECTS OF WATER AND STEEPING. 
So far the chick and the seed have a close resem¬ 
blance ; but water, so indispensable to a grown fowl, 
would, in the smallest quantity, kill the chick in the 
egg, while it is equally necessary for the evolution of 
the plant from the seed, as it is to the full grown 
plant. Seeds that appear to have germinated with¬ 
out water, must have derived moisture from the air. 
The principal effect of the water, when introduced 
within the shell of the seed, appears to be that of dis¬ 
solving or, at least rendering more liquid, the portion 
of it whose use is similar to the contents of a bird’s 
egg. The starch also, which is generally, if not al¬ 
ways, in this portion of the seed, is converted into 
sugar, a process that can be imitated artificially.— 
Along with this some mucilaginous matters are ob¬ 
served rendering the food of the embryo plant not 
much unlike, in chemical qualities, to animal milk. 
The contents of the seed, thus changed into a sort of 
milky pulp by the addition of water, swell by degrees, 
and the first point of the future root having formed, 
breaks through the shell in a downward direction ( a ) 
and about the same time, the first point of the future 
stem comes forth in an upward direction (ft,) as may 
be seen in the figures. 
It will be an obvious inference respecting water, 
that, like the oxygen and the heat, if it be in too great 
quantity it will render the contents of the seed too 
thin, and weak, and will also increase their quantity 
so much that the vessels of the embryo plant will be 
gorged, and disease or death will follow. When the 
quantity of water again is not enough to produce this 
effect, still it may be in such large proportion's as to 
push the growth too rapidly for the health of the 
plants, which will in that case be too pale on appear¬ 
ing aboveground. Hence the importance is clear, of 
sowing in dry rather than moist weather. 
Hence also the practical error, at least in most in¬ 
stances, of steeping seeds; which is chiefly useful in 
separating the infertile seeds that may swim on the 
water. All steeps which contain any thing but water 
and oxygen gas, are unnatural, and must be injurious ; 
such, for instance, as urine, or drainings of dunghills 
loaded with humic acid, which embryo plants cannot 
teed upon, any more than a new born infant could 
drink strong ale or wine with impunity. Some strong 
infants might survive taking such drink, as some 
strong seeds may survive the steeps, but these survi¬ 
vals would not justify the practice. Steeps are re¬ 
commended with a view to destroy the eggs of in¬ 
sects, but I am not acquainted with any destructive 
garden insect that lays its eggs upon seeds, and I am 
quite positive, supposing them to exist, that no steep 
would kill such eggs which would not at the same 
time kill or greatly injure the seed. 
I am not aware of the effect of light upon the hatch¬ 
ing of the eggs of birds, though with respect to the 
eggs of many insects, light certainly does not prevent 
them from being fertile. On seeds light acts so pow¬ 
erfully in retarding their germination, that though they 
have a due degree of heat and a due supply of oxygen 
and water, they will not grow, at least healthily, unless 
in the dark. The reason is that light causes the oxy¬ 
gen which is indispensable for their growth, to be 
carried off, and fixes in them the carbonic acid gas 
which is yet as improper food for the embryo plant as 
beef would be to a new born infant; whereas in the 
dark, the carbonic acid gas escapes into the soil, while 
the oxygen is taken up into the embryo plant. 
Hence the importance of putting seeds deep enough 
into the soil to exclude the light, taking care at the 
same time not to put them too deep to be out of the 
influence of fresh circulating air. From half an inch 
or less to an inch, is about the average depth for gar¬ 
den seeds. b 
TIME OF GERMINATING. 
Some seeds, such as those of the coffee plant, re¬ 
quire to be sown immediately on being gathered 
otherwise the nutrient matters contained in the shell 
become too hard to be dissolved in water. Others 
as holly berries, require to be kept for about twelve’ 
months to mellow. It is said, and I believe in many 
instances proved, that seeds, such as those of the bal¬ 
sam, if kept for several years, are more apt to produce 
plants with double flowers, in consequence, it would 
