89 
after every thing had been put in such a train as to en¬ 
sure success, our agricultural and silk bills must have 
had the go by, under the paltry excuse that they could 
not be suffered to pass without a full discussion. From 
Mr.-, I should have expected nothing better; he 
has been opposed to aiding agriculture from the begin¬ 
ning; but that Mr.-—should have done the same 
is to me surprising. Talk of importing silk to obtain 
the state premium, under a law for the protection of 
domestic silk culture, and as carefully guarded as was 
ours, how absurd? It was enough to make the blood 
of an honest man boil, to read the debates in the assem¬ 
bly on the agricultural bill. To hear the men whom 
the farmers sent there for far different purposes, than 
to abuse them, putting the horse jocky, the blackleg, 
and the avowed swindler on a par with the owner and 
cultivator of the soil, is intolerable. How came these 
men in the assembly ? how came they by the education 
which was supposed to have fitted them for that place, 
and which in its legitimate effects should have made 
them gentlemen? They received, the most of them, 
their education at places for which the farmers of this 
state have paid above two millions of dollars; farmers by 
their votes placed them there, and gave them their power; 
and when farmers asked that they should have the use 
of some $25,000 annually, these men had the effrontery 
to talk of legislative aid to agriculture, being “arrant 
quackery?” Was it quackery when legislative grants 
endowed colleges and academies; and fenced the pro¬ 
fessions with legal enactments, which in effect has made 
them a privileged class? which has given them a power 
they are now using, to kick down the men who claim 
the right to rise to the same level with themselves ? Do 
not understand me as casting these censures upon the 
whole legislature. We had some noble hearted sup¬ 
porters there among the professions; men whom our op¬ 
ponents dared not meet with an argument, but r ather 
chose that dishonorable weapon, a sneer. But it is a 
melancholy truth, one apparent to all, that every thing 
in state legislatures and in congress, is opposed or sup¬ 
ported, more with reference to political effect than any 
thing else: every thing is made subservient to the sup¬ 
port or the overthrow of a party. It is one of the 
darkest of the signs of the times, that the merit or de¬ 
merit of a cause has little to do with the success or 
failure of a measure, and that the mass of the people 
“ love to have it so”. After all the farmers have no one 
to blame but themselves. It is for them to say, whether 
they approve or disapprove the conduct of their ser¬ 
vants, or rather as the times go, their masters. It is 
for them to say whether the sneers of a-, or the 
atrocious language of a -, shall be submitted to 
with patient approval; whether when they ask for bread, 
they shall not only be turned away with a stone, but 
cudgelled off with blows and flagellation. 
There is in my opinion no disguising the fact, that we 
are fast becoming a people of caste; and that rank in 
reality, if not in name, is as much felt here as in Eng¬ 
land. On one side are the producers, on the other the 
non-producers; on one side the mass of the people, the 
“ laymen” as they were contemptuously called in the late 
legislature, on the other the professions, as they are in 
courtesy called. The mechanic and the farmer wish to 
improve, to rise; and the beneficed, and privileged, 
are determined they shall not. Their rights are secured 
by law, and they make, they frame, and they expound 
the laws. They say what interest shall be aided and 
protected, what depressed or punished for its presump¬ 
tion. They grant millions for colleges to educate their 
sons, and keep their ranks full; we ask for hundreds or 
thousands to instruct and benefit the mass, to endow a 
school of agriculture, or societies for promoting it, and 
are told by these men we are fools, do not know our 
own business, and that aid to us would be the vilest 
quackery and folly. Well, unless I am mistaken, “we 
bide our time;” we will have our place in the temple 
we have erected, or we will pull it down. 
1 know not what you think of these matters, for I 
have not seen the present volume of the Cultivator, but 
I think I know your opinion so well as to have no doubt 
of your sentiments. At any rate I have written freely, 
for I feel deeply, and on this subject it is the duty of 
farmers to speak fearlessly. We must not be discouraged, 
but gird up ourselves for another effort. The subject 
must not sleep; we can, and we will be heard. We will 
not forever pay, and receive nothing; forever be filling 
the treasury to see it squandered on objects and for pur¬ 
poses, which to the improvement of agriculture in con¬ 
sequence, are but as the dust of the balance. 
Cure for the Stifle. 
Lincolnton, N. C. May 28, 1839. 
J. Buel —Dear Sir—I noticed in your February num¬ 
ber of the Cultivator, page 207, a cure for stifle, by ex¬ 
ternal applications; to wit, a decoction of sumach and 
white oak bark, &c. This is new to me and may be 
very effectual, but there is a remedy which I have prac¬ 
tised, which is certain, simple and quick, which I will 
communicate, and if you think it worth notice, may re¬ 
commend it. 
“ Fasten a strong rope or chain round the foot-lock of 
the injured leg, and let a strong man hold it; then have 
the horse moved forward, while the rope is held fast 
by the person behind, .pulling the rope so as to occasion 
the leg to be extended back as far as it can be drawn. 
Let this be done three or four times before the rope is 
taken off.” 
I have never known it to fail to make a cure on the 
first application, but the gentleman who gave me the 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
information, and applied it to a horse of mine, told me 
that when the stifle had remained for some time, the 
first jerking might not effect a cure, and in that case it 
would be necessary to repeat it in a few days. I do not 
know the cause of the lameness, but was told by the 
same gentlemen, who informed me of the remedy, that 
it was occasioned by the slip of a bone, about as big 
and long as a man’s fore finger, at the thigh joint, near 
the flank, and that the jerking the leg back restored the 
small bone to its place. If that be the cause, perhaps 
the decoction mentioned In your February number might 
assist in the cure; but I never failed to relieve a horse 
of lameness of stifle, by putting the leg back, as above 
described, and have cured several. 
It might be of importance to some to know how to 
judge when the lameness of a horse is what is called 
stifle. That can be ascertained by leading the horse 
over a log, fence or bars, eighteen inches or two feet 
high. When the horse is stifled he will drag the lame 
leg over the log, and the pain in the thigh joint, pre¬ 
venting the animal from raising the leg up, as it does 
in stepping over a fence or log, and when first afflicted, 
seems to be very painful, and makes the animal sweat 
very much. Respectfully yours, &c. 
ROBERT H. BURTON. 
P. S. In pulling or jerking the leg back, care should 
be used that it should be directly behind, for if turned 
to the one side or the other, it may be injured. My 
horse, which was relieved in this way, had travelled a 
hundred miles quite lame, and sometimes in great pain, 
and when turned out after one operation, showed no 
more lameness, and set to playing. 
Mr. Whalen’s Cultivator. 
[Fig. No. 20.] 
Whalen’s Store, May 17, 1839. 
J. Buel, Esq.—Dear Sir—In 
compliance with the request of 
Mr. Bailey, I herewith send you 
a description of my drill-bar¬ 
row, with a drawing of the 
same. It excels, for cheapness 
and simplicity, anything I have 
seen. 
A A are side pins or arms, 5 
feet long, 1£ inches thick, made 
of white ash or oak. B, tin 
barrel or cylinder 8 inches long, 
5 inches diameter in the middle. 
3 inches the ends. C, wheel 13 
inches diameter, made of 1J inch 
oak plank, banded with hoop 
iron. D D, pulleys or wheels, 
turned tapering, 5 inches dia¬ 
meter at large end, 5 grooves in 
each. E, band made of cotton, 
ginchdiameter. F,hoppersus- 
pended below tin box to catch and carry seed to ground, 
tapering to 1| inches in the clear. G, trace chain drag¬ 
ging behind to cover seed. H II, cross ties. I, coulter 
suspended from cross tie, so guaged as to make a small 
furrow for seed. 
The tin barrel is perforated in the middle with 4 holes, 
equidistant from eaeh other, large enough to pass a No. 
3 shot, or 2 or 3 seeds at a time; about an inch from 
the end is a hole 1 inch in diameter, for receiving the 
seed, stopped with a cork. The axle of the tin barrel is 
of wood, passes through the same, and is about 1 inch 
diameter. I generally use 2 trace chains instead of 1. 
With the tapering whirrs, the barrel can be geared to 
drop faster or slower. I have found it preferable to 
sow an extra quantity of seed, and thin down in order 
to get a good stand. A communication appeared a short 
time since in the Cultivator, recommending to transplant 
or dibble out the plants. I never could succeed well 
with the plan, and all that Cobbet and others may have 
said in its favor will not persuade me to adopt it. 
In conclusion, 1 would say, I grew last season 1,600 
bushels ruta baga, large measure, on 2 acres ground. 
Respectfully yours, 
SETH WHALEN. 
Physiology—Vegetable and Animal. 
J. Buel —Dear Sir—By the way of extracts, I now 
further proceed to observe, that while all writers agree, 
that the origin of the vegetable kingdom is by genera¬ 
tion, its growth by nutrition, and a termination by death, 
but in an organized structure and an internal living prin¬ 
ciple; physiologists differ in the powers with which the 
living principle is endowed, and the effects it is capable 
of exerting. In the plant it is limited, so far as we are 
capable of tracing it, to the properties of irritability, 
contractibility, and simple instincts; in the animal, it 
superadds to these properties those of muscularity, sen¬ 
sation, and voluntary motion. 
There have been, indeed, there still are, physiologists 
who, not adverting to the extraordinary effects, which 
the power of irritability is capable of producing, when 
roused by different stimulants, and under the influence 
of an internal and all-pervading principle of life, opera¬ 
ting by instinctive laws and instinctive actions, or those, 
as we shall show hereafter, which are specially directed 
to the growth, preservation, or production of a living 
frame, or any particular part of it,—have conceived 
plants as well as animals to be possessed of sensation 
and muscular fibres; and as sensation is the result of a 
particular organ, and the organ producing it is connected 
with various others, have, at the same time, liberally 
endowed them with a brain, a heart, and a stomach; 
and have very obligingly permitted them to possess 
ideas, and the means of communicating ideas; to fall 
in love and to marry, and thus far to exercise the dis¬ 
tinctive faculty of volition. The whole of which how¬ 
ever, is mere fancy, grounded altogether upon an erro¬ 
neous and contracted view of the effects of the princi¬ 
ple of irritability, when powerfully excited by the in¬ 
fluence of light, heat, air, moisture, and other causes. 
In reality, such kinds of loves and intermarriages are 
not peculiar to plants, but are common to all nature; 
they exist between atom and atom, and the philosopher 
calls them attractions; they exist between congeries and 
congeries, and the chemist calls them affinities; they 
exist between the iron and the loadstone, and every one 
denominates them magnetism. Nor let it be said, that 
in these cases of mutual union, we have nothing more 
than a mere aggregation of body; for we have often a 
third substance produced, and actually generated, as the 
result of such union, far more discrepant from the pa¬ 
rent substances, both in quality and feature, than are 
ever to be met with in vegetable or animal life. Thus, 
if an acid be married to an alkali, the progeny brought 
forth will be neutral salt, possessing not the remotest 
resemblance to the virtues of either of its parents. In 
like manner, if alcohol be married to any of the more 
powerful acids, and the bans be solemnized over an al¬ 
tar of fire, the offspring engendered will be a substance 
called ether, equally unlike both its parents in its dispo¬ 
sition. 
But in this it may be said that we have no instance of 
a multiplication of species; only the production of a 
third substance; yet in many cases we have instances 
of multiplication also. Such especially are those won¬ 
derful increases that occur in the case of ferments and 
contagions. 
A few particles of yeast lying dormant in a dessert¬ 
spoon, are introduced into a barrel of beer, or of any 
other fermentable fluid, and in a few hours propagate 
their kind through the largest vessel that was ever manu¬ 
factured; so that at length every particle of the fluid is 
converted into a substance of their own nature. 
The terms loves and marriages will just as well ap¬ 
ply to these as to the vegetable creation. The cause 
of the respective unions, and of the changes that take 
place in consequence of such unions, are nothing more 
than elective attractions; in the mineral and gaseous 
kingdoms produced by what chemists have denominated 
the principle of affinity, and in the vegetable, by what 
physiologists have called the principle of irritability. 
No experiment or observation has hitherto proved 
vegetables to be possessed of any higher powers than 
those of irritability, contractibility, and those instinc¬ 
tive energies which we shall hereafter show, are depen¬ 
dent upon the principle of life. 
Plants, then, like animals, as has been already ob¬ 
served, are produced by generation, and through the 
medium of ova or eggs. The exceptions to this com¬ 
mon rule are few, and they occur equally in both king¬ 
doms. The egg of the plant is its seed; which is some¬ 
times naked, but more generally covered with a peri¬ 
carp, or called in popular language, pod. Stripping off 
this outer covering, we find theseed to consist internally 
of a corculum, or heartlet, and externally of a fleshy 
substance, surrounded with a double integument, some¬ 
times single, and sometimes bifid; these are called seed- 
lobes or seed leaves. In the common kidney-bean, we 
have as striking an instance as in any plant, just peep¬ 
ing in two distinct segments above the ground, as soon 
as the seed has began to germinate. The cotyledon is 
thatpart necessary for the germination and future growth 
of theseed, and may be denominated its lungs. Plants 
possess lymphatics and air vessels: through the former 
of these it absorbs the moisture of the soil into which 
it is plunged, decomposes a part of it into its elemen¬ 
tary principles, and conducts these principles, together 
with the undecomposed water, to the corcle or heartlet, 
which becomes stimulated to the process of germination 
by the oxygen thus set at liberty. It is the corcle which 
is the true punctum saliens of vegetable life, and to this 
the cotyledon is subservient. The corcle consists of two 
parts, an ascending and a descending; the former called 
its plumule, which gives birth to the trunk and branches; 
the latter named its rostel, which gives birth to the root 
and radicles. The position o 1 the corcle in the seed is 
always in the vicinity of the hilum or eye. The first 
radicle or 'germinating branch of the rostel uniformly 
elongates, and pushes into the earth, before the plumule 
evinces any change. The radicles consist chiefly of lym¬ 
phatics and air-vessels, which serve to separate the wa¬ 
ter from the soil, in order that the oxygen may be sepa¬ 
rated from the water. 
Hence originates the root, unquestionably the most 
important part of the plant, and which in some sense 
may be regarded as the plant itself; for if every other 
part of the plant be destroyed, and the root remain un¬ 
injured, this organ will regerminate, and the whole plant 
be renewed; but if the root perish, the plant becomes 
lost irrecoverably. 
The solid parts of the trunk of the plant consist of 
cortex, cuticle, or outer bark; liber, cutis, or inner bark • 
alburnum, or soft wood; lignum, or hard wood; medula 
or pith. The trunk enlarges, by the formation of a new 
liber or inner bark every year; the whole of the liber 
of one year, excepting its outermost layer, which is 
transformed into cortex, becoming the alburnum of the 
next, and the alburnum becoming the lignum. 
All the concentric circles which are produced in the 
trunk of a tree by the growth of every year, are still 
visible after the conversion of every other part into lig¬ 
num or hardwood, and we can trace its age with a con¬ 
siderable degree of certainty, by allowing a year for 
