18 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
tice, (and no doubt from worthy motives,) illy suited to our husbandry. 
It is the province of agricultural editors to discriminate between the 
useful and useless. It was in this spirit that we made our suggestion 
in regard to irrigation in the north. We are sensible it is an essential 
branch of improvement in rural labor, in all tropical latitudes; that it 
is extensively and beneficially practised in the south of Europe, on 
tillage (though in a different form) as well as on grasslands ; and that 
it is considered indispensable in the culture of the rice crop; yet be¬ 
lieving it unsuited to our practice, at this day, we gave this as an apo¬ 
logy for saying se little on the subject; but we shall be prompt to re¬ 
tract the caution whenever we find cause to change our opinions. 
N. B. Since the above was penned, we have read of irrigated mea¬ 
dows near Philadelphia, upon which the average crop of hay is stated 
at 2\ tons per acre per ann. This is less than the average upon young 
meadows well managed in the alternating system. 
We have also received the conclusion of Judge Lincoln’s communi¬ 
cation, from which we learn, that he has practised irrigation some fif¬ 
teen years, and that he is pleased with the result. But we regret to 
say, he has not furnished any definite data as to cost, product or profit, 
very material considerations to those who might wish to make experi¬ 
ment. The only fact given to enable us to judge in this matter, is, the 
declaration, that “ some one” informed him, that a Mr. Wilkinson ob¬ 
tained from a water meadow, a nett profit more than equivalent to the 
interest on 200 dollars per acre. We do not call this a great yield in 
New-York,—it is less than the product of good farming on the dry 
meadows of the Albany barrens. 
HEALTH 
Is the first blessing of life. Without it, wealth, and power, and 
knowledge, and friends, lose half their value. Whatever, therefore, 
teaches us how to preserve this blessing, has high regard to our notice. 
In man, the operations of nutrition are greatly multiplied; the organs 
which perform them are numerous and complicated in their structure. 
“The long series of processes requisite for the perfect elaboration of 
nutriment is divided into different stages; each process is the work of 
a separate apparatus, and requires the influence of different agents.” 
A knowledge of these organs and these processes, is useful to all, not 
so much to enable them to cure , as to prevent disease. Brutes have an 
almost unerring guide, in the instinct with which nature has endowed 
them, for the preservation of health. Man is furnished with higher 
powers and faculties—he is thrown upon the resources of his intellect 
—the animal and vegetable kingdoms are made subservient to. his ap¬ 
petites,—and he is commanded to learn how to use them for his great¬ 
est good. 
The late Rev. Earl of Bridgwater appropriated, in his will, £8,000 
to be awarded, for a treatise, or treatises, “on the power, wisdom and 
goodness of God, as manifested in the creation; illustrating such work 
by all reasonable arguments, as for instance the variety and formation 
of God’s creatures, in the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms; 
the effect of digestion, and thereby of conversion; the construction of 
the hand of man, and an infinite variety of other arguments; as also 
by discoveries, ancient and modern, in arfs, sciences, and the whole 
extent of literature.” Under this legacy eight gentlemen were ap¬ 
pointed to write treatises, most of which have come to hand, and which 
are denominated “ The Bridgewater Treatises.” We are about to 
make an extract from one of these, “Animal and Vegetable Physiology, 
by Peter M. Roget, M. D.”—“ On Nutrition,” accompanied by a cut, 
illustrating the system of vital organs in man. This will show their 
multiplicity, explain their offices, and admonish us of the precaution 
that is at all times necessary, by a careful attention to the quality and 
quantity of our food, to preserve them in the healthy exercise of all 
their functions—and thereby to secure the enjoyment of health. It 
may readily be conceived, that the derangement of any set of these 
organs, by food that is unwholesome in quality, or in excess in quan¬ 
tity, by artificial compression of the chest, sudden transitions of tem¬ 
perature, indolence, sloth, impure air, &c. must more or less derange 
the whole animal system, and cause sickness; and, unless the cause is 
removed, ultimately the death of the patient. They will serve to de¬ 
monstrate, besides, in part, the wonderful mechanism of the human 
system, and lead us to adore the power and wisdom of its Maker. 
These high considerations of utility must be our apology, if an apology 
be necessary, for what to some may seem an indelicate representation- 
“ Besides the stomach,” says Dr. Roget, “or receptacle for the unas¬ 
similated food, another organ, the heart, is provided for the uniform 
distribution of the nutritious fluids elaborated by the organs of diges¬ 
tion. This separation of functions, again, leads to the introduction of 
another system of canals or vessels, for transmitting the fluids from the 
organs which prepare them to the heart, as into a general reservoir. 
In the higher orders of the animal kingdom, all these processes are 
again subdivided and varied, according to the species of food, the habits 
and mode of life, assigned by nature to each individual species. For 
the purpose of conveying clearer notions of the arrangement of this ex¬ 
tensive system of vital organs, I have drawn the annexed plan which 
exhibits them in their natural order of connexion, and as they migh$ 
be supposed to appear in a side view of a quadruped. To this dia¬ 
gram I shall make frequent reference in the following description of 
this system. 
« The food is, in the first place, prepared for digestion by several 
mechanical operations, which loosen its texture, and destroy its cohe¬ 
sion. It is torn down and broken asunder by the action of the jaws 
and teeth; and it is, at the same time," softenedTiy an admixture with 
the fluid secretions of the mouth. It is then collected Into a mass, by 
the action of the museles of the cheeks and tongue, and swallowed by 
the regulated contractions of the different parts of the throat. It now 
passes along a muscular tube, called the oesophagus represented in the 
diagram by the letter (o,) into the stomach (s,) of which the entrance 
(c,) is called the cardia. 
“In the stomach the food is made to undergo various chemical 
changes ; after which it is conducted through the aperture termed the 
pylyrus (p,) into the canal of the intestine, (I, I,) where it is farther 
subjected to the action of several fluid secretions derived from large 
glandular organs situated in the neighborhood, as the liver (L,) and 
the pancreas; and elaborated into the fluid which is termed chyle. 
“The chyle is taken up by a particular set of vessels, called the lac- 
teals, which transmit it to the heart (H.) These vessels are exceed¬ 
ingly numerous, and arise by open orifices from the inner surface of 
the intestines, whence they absorb, or drink up the chyle. They may 
be compared to internal roots, which unite as they ascend along the 
mesentery (M,) or membrane connecting the intestines with the back; 
forming larger and larger trunks, till they terminate into an interme¬ 
diate reservoir (R,) which has been named the recepticle of the chyle. 
From this receptacle then proceeds a tube, which, from its passing 
through the thorax, is called the thoracic duct (T;) it ascends along 
the side of the spine, which protects it from compression, and opens 
at V, into the large veins which are pouring their contents into the 
auricle, or first cavity of the heart, (U,) whence it immediately passes 
into the ventricle, or second cavity of that organ (H.) Such, in the 
more perfect animals, is the circuitous and guarded route, which every 
particle of nourishment must take before it can be added to the gene¬ 
ral mass of circulating fluid. 
. “ By its admixture with the blood already contained in these vessels, 
and its purification by the action of the air in the respiratory organs 
(B,) the chyle becomes assimilated, and is distributed by the heart, 
through appropriate channels of circulation called arteries, (of which 
the common trunk, or aorta, is seen at A,) to every part of the system; 
thence returning by- the veins, (v, v, v,) to the heart. The various 
modes in which these functions are conducted in the several tribes of 
animals will be described hereafter. It will be sufficient for our pre¬ 
sent purpose to state, by way of completing the outline of this class of 
functions, that, like the returning sap of plants, the blood is made to 
undergo farther modifications in the minute vessels through which it 
circulates ; new arrangements of its elements take place during its pas¬ 
sage through the subtle organization of the glands, which no micro¬ 
scope has yet unravelled : new products are here formed, and new pro¬ 
perties acquired, adapted to the respective purposes which they are to 
serve in the animal economy. The whole is one vast laboratory, where 
mechanism is subservient to chemistry, where chemistry is the agent 
of the higher powers of vitality, and where these powers themselves 
minister to the more exalted faculties of senation and intellect.” 
NOTES ON FARMING.— from my memorandumm book.—lime. 
By the fermentation it induces, the earth is opened and divided; and, 
by its absorbent and alkaline qualities, it unites the oily and watery 
