166 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
May, 
iLgeictbk Pjtimologg. 
Motion ol Sap in Plants. 
reckon them worth as much per bushel for fattening 
hogs, as corn. The crop leaves the ground clean 
and mellow, furnishing an excellent preparation for 
other crops, especially wheat. We sometimes sow 
them with oats, in the proportion of one-third peas 
to two-thirds oats. The peas and oats, ground, are 
excellent food for horses, cattle, sheep or swine. A 
variety of peas which has rather a light vine is pre¬ 
ferable, as the ranker kinds are apt to overrun the 
oats, and lay too close on the ground, but the straw 
of the oats will hold up the lighter ones, so that 
both the oats and peas will fill well. 
A loamy soil, rather inclining to clay, is best 
adapted to peas. Early sowing generally gives the 
best crop. Very hot weather is unfavorable to their 
filling, and it is hence advisable to have the crop 
well advanced before the hottest part of the season 
comes on. A sod which was plowed the previous 
autumn, well harrowed, makes a good bed for peas, 
but any good sward, well broken up and mellowed, 
will answer—and if sod ground cannot be had, that 
which has been under cultivation one or more sea¬ 
sons may be taken. No manure is generally needed; 
but if any is put on, it should be a small quantity 
of that which is thoroughly rotted, ■ spread on the 
furrow and harrowed in. A large quantity of ma¬ 
nure, or that which is in a green state, makes too 
great a growth of vines and tends to blight. 
The quantity sown per acre Varies somewhat with 
the kind of pea, some being of a more spreading 
growth than others, and requiring less seed. It is 
usual also, to sow a larger quantity of very large 
peas, than of small ones, because the number of 
peas or germs is greater in the same measure of 
small ones. The large marrowfats, for instance, 
are double the size of some others. From three to 
four bushels of seed per acre is the quantity usually 
sown. 
The covering of the seed is best performed by a 
small plow, or by a cultivator. It is difficult to bu¬ 
ry peas with a harrow, many being always left on 
the surface, where it is attempted. A depth of 
about two inches is the proper one for covering. A 
good way is to pass the harrow over the field after 
the peas are sown, which will prevent them from 
rolling into rows or bunches, and then plow them in 
with a shallow furrow. The varieties adapted to 
field culture are the Canada field pea, the marrow¬ 
fat, and the black-eyed pea. The yield on good soil 
is from twenty-five to forty bushels per acre. 
To destroy the pea-weevil, or bug, which in some 
sections is so troublesome, immerse the peas in wa¬ 
ter* boiling hot, for two minutes; then take them 
out and mix plaster, dry ashes, or slaked lime with 
them, till they will separate in sowing or planting. 
No fears need be entertained that the hot water will 
prevent the peas from vegetating—not one in twen¬ 
ty will be hurt at all. T. M. Essex county , N. 
Y., March , 1850. 
Parsneps for Pigs. —The Sussex (Eng.) Ex¬ 
press, says, “ at our farm we have been in the habit 
of employing parsneps for this purpose for some* 
time. Upon reference to our books, we find that on 
the 11th of October, 1847, we put up two shoats of 
eleven weeks old, and fed them on skim milk and 
parsneps for three months, when they were killed, 
weighing 231 and 238 pounds. They were well 
fattened, firm in flesh, and the meat of excellent 
flavor. The quantity of parsneps consumed by 
them was nine bushels each. 
O” If a man could have half his wishes, he would 
double his troubles. 
Eds. Cultivator—I herewith send you some 
thoughts and facts upon the flow of sap, which were 
addressed to me by a respected friend,—a man of 
science, who has given to nature a wide observation. 
I have read his manuscript with much satisfaction, 
and think its publication in The Cultivator would 
afford equal pleasure to other readers. F. Hol¬ 
brook. 
Motion of Sap. Not circulation—suspension in 
winter—in spring, what causes its ascent — pecu¬ 
liarities of different plants, as birch, butternut, 
beech, oak, sugar-maple and grape — wonderful. 
In the human body, the arteries carry the blood 
from the heart to the extremities, and there, veins , 
beginning in extreme minuteness, take up the blood 
and return it to the heart. In the arteries, the 
blood is passed by pulsations; in the veins, it flows 
with a slow and insensible stream. From the blood 
is taken out, at the extremity of the arteries, the 
portion necessary to nourish the body; in the veins 
flows the unused blood, which is mixed on its way, 
with the wasted and lifeless matter taken up by the 
absorbents from every part of the system; and the 
venous mass is thrown by the heart through the 
lungs, to be purified and fitted for its object. This 
is a real circulation of the blood. 
In plants, there are vessels in the outer part or 
wood, to carry the sap into the leaves, or to the 
surface of leafless vegetables, where the sap is form¬ 
ed into latex or nutritious matter; which then is 
passed down the vessels in the inner bark to be con¬ 
veyed by the medullary rays inwards through the 
wood, and even into the pith, to support the whole 
by its nutriment. There is not a real circulation of 
the sap. 
By the vital operations of the plant in summer, 
the leaves and stems are gorged in autumn with nu¬ 
triment ; the absorption by the roots and leaves is 
diminished; the evaporation from the plant dimin¬ 
ishes, and less is absorbed by the roots; the motion 
of the sap slackens, and finally nearly ceases in 
winter, as the requisite compounds have been produ¬ 
ced in the plant. The vegetable world nearly sus¬ 
pends its operations in winter, as if resting in pre¬ 
paration for the active energies of spring and sum¬ 
mer. The elaborated sap or nutriment has merely 
descended to its needed places, and wood, starch, 
oils, gums, &c., have been formed. No descent of 
sap into the roots. 
In the autumn and winter, the roots have shot 
out new radicles, terminated b} r a sort of mouths, 
to take up the matter, that is, the sap, from the 
earth. In the sugar maple this sap is sweet. 
As the frost is leaving the earth, activity is seen 
in the roots, and the sap ascends through the plant, 
even to the buds, which are to form the leaves and 
flowers. The immediate cause of the ascent is not 
understood. The heat and light stimulate the buds 
into action, which uses up the contiguous sap, whose 
place is supplied by the ascent from below. 
Besides this, there may be another reason, viz: 
the expansion of the vessels, enlarging the spaces, 
and more than all, the operation of life, whatever 
that is. 
Some kinds of wood are more compact in winter 
than in summer. The observing farmer long ago 
found that a barn floor of frozen and green hemlock 
plank will be more close than the one put down from 
the same plank, unfrozen, in summer. The frozen 
