170 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
JUNE. 
to the atmosphere just carbon enough to grow another 
cord. By passing into the air, the carbon is not lost; 
there is no such word as lost in the whole vocabulary 
of nature. Carbonic acid gas, though much heavier 
than common air, is by the great law of gaseous dif¬ 
fusion equally diffused through the atmosphere, com¬ 
posing about l-25Q0th part of it. 
When sugar or salt is mixed with water, it dissolves 
and becomes invisible—when carbon is burned, it is in 
fact dissolved in oxygen gas, and the carbon becomes 
invisible. By evaporating the water holding the sugar 
or salt in solution, we again obtain the sugar and salt 
in precisely the state they were in before solution. But 
we cannot by any known chemical or other process, ob¬ 
tain carbon from carbonic acid in the form of wood, oil, 
or starch. To do this requires the more efficient agency 
of vegetable chemistry. 
In the economy of nature, it has been so arranged 
that the healthy leaves of plants in sun light, can and 
do inhale from the air with which they are surrounded, 
the carbonic acid that seems so sparsely mingled with 
it—to do this, the leaves have been endowed with very 
nice discriminating powers—and further, they have the 
power of decomposing the carbonic acid, that is, sepa¬ 
rating the oxygen from the carbon, which they retain, 
and returning to the atmosphere the oxygen in a pure j 
form. ; 
When a fresh leaf is examined by a microscope, its 
whole surface is seen to be covered with minute pores 
on each side of the leaf; each of these pores is a species 
of mouth, intended to receive food or to give off some¬ 
thing that the plant no longer requires. A high mag¬ 
nifying power discovers more than 100,000 openings in 
a square inch upon the surface of some leaves; others 
have not more than 6 or 700. Analogous to this is the 
skin of animals, which is perforated with a thousand 
pores in the length of an inch, through which the in¬ 
sensible perspiration passes 
It is no more marvelous that the leaf of a plant can 
take in the carbonic acid of the air, separate it, and 
retain the carbon and reject the oxygen,* than it is 
that a grown up boy can take into his mouth a ripe 
peach and separate the stone and pulp, and swallow the 
pulp and spit out the stone. From whence did the boy 
derive his ability to pass the pulp of the peach through 
the gullet into the stomach 7 From the same Being 
that endowed the leaf with its inhaling and exhaling 
and separating powers. One of these cases is as much 
a miracle as the other. 
To all land animals, when alive, has been given the 
power of inhaling atmospheric air. While in the lungs 
it undergoes a chemical change—the oxygen inhaled 
combines with carbon derived from the food, and is ex¬ 
haled from the lungs as carbonic acid. This process 
goes on continually, and alike successfully in the wise 
man and in the idiot, in the sane and insane, asleep or 
awake; and man is almost as unconscious of this ope¬ 
ration as the brute; and the brute is as unconscious of 
it as is the leaf, in reversing the osder of this opera¬ 
tion. 
From the foregoing physiological views, we are en¬ 
abled to draw some useful and practical hints in farm 
culture. 
As it is through the agency of the roots of plants 
* In 22 lbs. of carbonic acid, there is 6 lbs. of carbon and 
16 lbs. of oxygen. 
that they derive their moisture and earthy constitu¬ 
ents, and about one-third of their carbon, it is reason¬ 
able to suppose the greater the number of roots a plant 
has, the more rapid and larger its growth ; for at the 
ends of the rootlets are placed the mouths of the plant 
for supplying it with that portion of its food derived 
from the soil; therefore a deeply worked and finely 
pulverized soil is much more favorable to a luxuriant 
growth of plants (other conditions being equal,) than 
a hard shallow-worked soil. In the well prepared soil 
the roots can freely penetrate every square inch of it in 
search of food and moisture everywhere disseminated 
through it, while the roots in the hard ill-prepared soil will 
be few in number, feeble and stinted, and unable to sup¬ 
ply the plant with food necessary to a luxuriant growth. 
After a farmer has prepared his land in the best pos¬ 
sible manner for a corn crop, can it be for his interest, 
at the second and third time hoeing it, to run the 
horse plow or other deep-stirring implement be¬ 
tween the rows, so as to sever or cut off a large por¬ 
tion of the roots of his growing corn 7 We have wit¬ 
nessed such a performance many a time. Corn under 
such circumstances may, in favorable seasons, throw 
out new roots, and in part restore the loss, and a tole¬ 
rable crop may he harvested, but it is our impression 
that such a course of culture not only retards the 
growth, but lessens the amount of the crop. Why does 
the cabbage and turnip plant wilt and droop when 
transplanted 7 ’Tis in consequence of having lost a 
portion of their roots, and the exhalation of moisture 
by the leaf is greater than its supply by the multila- 
ted and reduced number of roots. 
Every one that has transplanted evergreen trees 
knows how important it is to preserve the fibrous roots 
and keep them moist, if they expect to be successful 
in planting them out. 
Cut off the root of a maple tree in “ sap time,” and 
the sap will flow from the severed root as freely as it 
will from an augnr hole bored into the body of the tree. 
Sever the roots of growing corn, and the sap will ooze 
from the cut roots so as to render the soil about them 
quite wet. This loss of moisture by the roots, with 
that escaping by evaporation by the leaves, causes the 
corn to wilt, and in very warm and dry weather, we 
have known the leaves to become completely dried un¬ 
der such management, while adjoining rows of corn, 
not having been disturbed by the plow, remained un¬ 
scathed. 
As already observed, by the leaves the surplus wa¬ 
ter is exhaled, and carbonic acid inhaled and decom¬ 
posed, and doubtless there are other important chemi¬ 
cal combinations and changes effected by and in the 
leaf. If so, is it good policy to pluck from growing 
cabbages, beets, turnips, carrots, and other succulent 
plants, a portion of their leaves for feeding cows, hogs, 
&c. 7 
Is the quality of the grape improved, and its ma¬ 
turity hastened by removing a portion of the leaves 
from the fruit-bearing branches of the vine a month 
or so before the usual time of the ripening of the fruit? 
We have seen this plucking off the leaves of a grape¬ 
vine performed more than once, from the mistaken 
idea that the fruit would be larger and earlier by the 
removal of a goodly portion of the leaves of the vine. 
Will the crop of corn be as heavy and valuable, if 
the stalks are cut when the kernels are in the milk, as 
