matter for general congratulation. It gives 
hope that we may soon have satisfactory 
scientific answers to numerous questions 
which have often puzzled farmers, and direct 
proofs of facts at which they have only 
guessed. 
Dr. V.’s paper relates only to organic 
changes in the composition of root crops, 
but there are evidently only types of equal 
or greater variations in other plants. We 
are told that roots grown on peaty soils are 
frequently spongy and of low feeding quality, 
which Dr. Voelcker attributes to the de¬ 
ficiency of lime. Well matured roots depend 
mainly for their feeding value on the quan¬ 
tity of carbonaceous matter, chiefly sugar, 
which they contain, and not at all on their 
nitrogenous matter. A large percentage of 
nitrogen and of mineral matter in roots is 
therefore not an indication of high feeding 
value, but the reverse. Unripe roots are 
richest in nitrogen and mineral matter, and 
poor in sugar and starch. Dr. V, also 
says that unripe turnips and mangolds are 
not only poor in sugar, and for this reason 
not so nutritious as well matured roots rich 
but they also contain a number of 
unprepossessing as the stem, leaves and 
flower, consisting of a globular, spongy 
entanglement of what, under a glass, looks 
like a IU088 of little worms or gelatinous 
tubes. We could not discover that they 
were in the least attached to the roots of 
VARIATION IN THE ELEMENT8 OF 
PLANTS. 
Dr. Augustus Voelcker President of the 
London (Eng.) Farmers’ Club read a remarka¬ 
ble paper recently on root crop# as affected 
by soil, climate and manures. It contain 
in sugar ; 
organic acids, which together with an excess 
of imperfectly elaborated nitrogenous sub¬ 
stance, appear to be the chief cause of the 
unwholesome properties of unripe roots. 
If such roots are given to stock it is well 
known that they produce scour and other¬ 
wise disagree with the health of sheep or 
cattle. Of the organic acids prescDt In roots 
oxalic acid, *a powerful vegetable poison, is 
the most important, it has been found in 
mangolds and sugar beets and probably oc¬ 
curs in all unripe roots, and also in larger 
quantities In their leaves. Men ley found 
22 per cent, of oxalic acid in sugar beet, 43 
percent, in the stalk of the same plant and, 
1.86 per cent, on the leaves. The presence 
of so large a quantity of this poisonous acid 
in mangold and turnip tops explains the 
scouring effects which mangold tops produce 
when cattle are fed upon them in large 
quantities. The leaves of root crops contain 
much more nitrogen than the bulbous roots, 
amd as turnip or mangold tops are not to be 
compared with the roots in nutritive proper¬ 
ties we have another proof that, the feeding 
value of roots is by no means proportioned 
to the nitrogen which they contain. Dr. 
Voelcker confirms this view by the result 
of a feeding experiment made by Mr. J. B. 
Lawk-:. 
Dr. Voelcker takes sugar as the basis for 
estimating the value of root*, and on this 
basis finds the following extraordinary varia¬ 
tion in the value of different sizes of man¬ 
golds and sugar beets : 
Manuoia,»lbs., per cent, of Miaarand peeUne.. 2.80 
MaiiKokl.TM Ibs.percerit.ot aucar and Jiectim*. 8.85 
Mjwiituld, 4 lb#., pi-r cent. of sugar and pectins.. 7.B8 
ALuigold, 1 to 2 li *.. per cent, uf suuui und pec¬ 
tin®.10-51 
Segar beet, S*< lba„ per cent, uf sugar.5.CO 
Sngar beet, IX lbn.. per cent, of sugar .8.10 
Small roots are thus shown to contain 
much more value than large ones, and this 
fact is shown oven rnoru strikingly by 
otiher analyses. The practical conclusion of 
Dr. Voelcker is that, a crop of small or 
medium-sized roots well-matured is far bet¬ 
ter-than of overgrown specimens produced 
by high manuring. Barnyard or other ma¬ 
nures causing excessive growth are, there¬ 
fore, objectionable, for they tend to retard 
maturity and thus diminish the value of 
roots for feeding. Mineral manures, es¬ 
pecially superphosphates, tend to Austen 
maturity and improve the feeding quality of 
roots. 
We have not time nor space to pursue this 
subject further. Dr. Voelcker has opened 
many new questions as to the- effects of ma¬ 
nures on other crops than roots, and we 
t rust that as his attention is directed to this 
subject, he wiil follow it into all i r s details. 
In the meantime, the experience and obser¬ 
vation of practical farmers in this country 
on the variation in character and quality of 
plants from manuring, climate and seasons 
will be interesting as throwing light on 
questions whose discussion has only just 
begun. 
with earth, may thus bo inferred ; an infer¬ 
ence that verges closely upon fact, when we 
consider the growth that seeds will make in 
pure sand, and that the first plants upon 
this earth, of whatever lands, must have 
germinated in purely inorganic matter. 
The TillandsiO, or Black Moss, that grows 
in matted, drooping musses upon the trees 
of Southern swamps, is an air-plant familiar 
to many of our readers, that, except it is 
put to several uses in the mechanic artB, we 
might suppose was created to communicate 
an intensity of gloom to those somber, grief- 
ridden regions attainable by no other means. 
If a friend of ours, oppressed with melan¬ 
choly, and—unwilling to commit suicide, and 
deeming a convent not, gloomy enough—were 
to ask us what he should do, we “should an- 
BW6r _ we should tell him” to hire a log- 
cabin in a Vtltandsia woods, us a remedy so 
homeopathic to his distemper that, if it did 
not promptly afford relief, would prove, to 
our mind, the utter unreliability of the 
homeopathic system. But tastes, happily 
for mercantile activity, differ. It is but 
lately we saw this plant lauded as a Winter 
ornament to a North room—a sprightly asso¬ 
ciation of plant, season and location quite 
extraordinary. This is a digression. The 
intelligent reader knows it. We tell him so 
that he shall know that wo know it. 
There are two kinds of parasites—the green 
and the greenless. The first attaches itself 
to the sapwood of the tree, imbibing only 
crude sap from the foster-plant, which it 
elaborates by its own leaves. The second 
penetrates its roots into the bark to the cam¬ 
bium, either of the stem or roots, and ex¬ 
tracts only prepared sustenance, having no 
organs by which, it could prepare its own 
food. The American Mistletoe (Phoraden- 
dron, flavesernH, tree-thief) is an instance of 
the former. The stickiness of the pulp of 
the berry enables it to adhere to the branch 
upon which it is deposited until It strikes 
root. 
The Dodder, Fig. 5, and the Indian Pipe, 
Fig. 3, in the illustration, are instances of the 
latter. The Dodder {(.'uncuta Qronovi) is a 
leafless vine, with a coarse stem of a light 
orange color. Of many species this is the 
most common with us—in fact the only one 
in the Eastern states. It loves low, shady 
places, fastening itself upon herbs, shrubs 
and trees. Its seed germinates iu the ground; 
but as soon us it has acquired sufficient 
growth, it fixes itself upon the nearest plant, 
and, preferring a life of dignified repose, its 
original roots are rejected in favor of the 
suckers with which it penetrates its unfor¬ 
tunate neighbor. The flowers, in clusters, 
are small, about two lines in diameter. The 
topmost one in the cut is enlarged to show 
its parts. 
The Indian Pipe (Monotropa uni flora) 
Fig. 3, is about six inches higb, consisting of 
a single stem the size of a i>ipe-stem, -with 
about a dozen sessile leaves and a single 
flower, that, slightly nodding as a flower, is 
upright as fruit. The flower, leaves and 
stem are of the same hue, a deathly, putrid 
white. The whole herb is wax like, and ar¬ 
tificial-looking in the extreme, and one would 
expect to And its place rather among fun¬ 
goid growths than in the family of Ericas, 
where it is placed by some botanists, or in 
Monotropaccae , a nearly related order, by 
others. 
We have found this consumptive thing in 
August and also in October under the big 
leaves of young trees growing along the 
margins of upland woods. The roots are as 
EXPERIENCE WITH FLOWERS 
I received a package of some sixteen rare 
plants by mail, which had been delayed 
somewhere until June 25, at which time 
every leaf had turned black and entirely de¬ 
cayed, and a few of the roots had fared ju3t 
as badly. I prize such packages so much 
that 1 leave no effort untried to Bave them 
when they come. I took some boxes with¬ 
out top or bottom and put around them, 
after putting them out in the open ground, 
then shaded them for two days or move 
with a cloth covering for each box ; then I 
would leave the covers off at night and for a 
little while in the morning, and when there 
was cloudy or showery weather, and only 
gradually allowed the sun to come to them, 
watching each bud daily till now, for a few 
days, I have removed the boxes entirely, 
some of the geraniums being in bloom. Some 
few plants (tri-colored) I have taken up and 
potted, thinking their color would be more 
perfect with less rays of the sun. I Bhould 
have said that 1 put the plants in cool (not 
cold) water at first, washing all the black 
leaves away and letting them remain in the 
soft water some hours. Now I count fifteen 
living plants from the whole. Aunt Flora. 
NITRO GLYCERINE A8 AN EXPLOSIVE. 
In answer to a Kansas correspondent who 
asks about the use of nitro glycerine in 
splitting logs and for similar purposes, we 
would say that it is entirely too dangerous 
to be thus used. The objection to gunpowder 
that cracks in the Jog would ullow the escape 
of the confined air on which gunpowder ex¬ 
plosion depends is offset by the greater 
danger that on exploding part of the nitro 
glycerioe may be thrown into crevices aud 
remain to be suddenly exploded at some 
other time. Nitro glycerine explode* by 
concussion and not by fire. “Tamping it 
down,” us our correspondent proposes, and 
as is done with gunpowder, would inevitably 
cause an explosion, splitting the log indeed 
but destroying every thing iu the vicinity. 
A spark of fire which would explode a charg6 
of gunpowder would be harmless with Ditro 
glycerine, and no fuse excepting a detonat¬ 
ing one could have any effect. On the other 
hand nitroglycerine will produce a violent 
explosion in the open air which gunpowder 
never does. Its principal use is in exploding 
substances under water or in places too damp 
for gunpowder. 
