56 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
the humiliating trouble to publish their mistakes to the world; although the 
latter practice would be equally instructive with the former. 
Water acts upon seeds, in the first place, mechanically. The germ derives] 
the whole of its sustenance from the food stored up for its use in the seed, until 
it acquires the necessary organs for absorbing its nutriment from the air and 
soil. Hence fertilizing steeps are useless, under any circumstances. If steep¬ 
ing be deemed advisable, pure water must be equally efficacious with the rich¬ 
est fertilizing solutions. Some substances, like chlorine, accelerate germina¬ 
tion by their stimulating effects; but this is always at the expense of the vital 
principle. They do not furnish aliment to the embryo plant . I am borne out in 
this position by several able writers on the science of agriculture, and with 
your permission, at the risk of extending this communication to an undue 
length, I will make a few quotations touching upon this point as well as upon 
the propriety of steeping in general. 
Professor Rennie, in his “ Alphabet of Scientific Gardening,” says, “It will 
be an obvious inference respecting water, that, like the oxygen and the heat, 
if it be in too great quantity, it will render the contents of the seed loo thin 
and weak, and will also increase their quantity so much, that the vessels of 
the embryo plant will be gorged, and disease or death will follow. When the 
quantity again is not enough to produce this effect, still it may be in such large 
proportions as to push the growth too rapidly for the health of the plants.**** 
“ Hence the practical error, at least in most instances, of steeping seeds.** 
AH steeps which contain any thing but water and oxygen are unnatural, and 
must be injurious; such, for instance, as urine, or drainings of dunghills load¬ 
ed with humic acid, which embryo plants cannot feed upon, no more than a 
new-born infant could drink strong ale or wine with impunity. Some strong 
infants might survive taking such drinks, as some strong seeds may survive 
the steeps; but these survivals would not justify the practice.” 
“ During the first stages of vegetation,” says Chaptai, “ the feeble plant re¬ 
jects those other aliments which, as it advances in strength, become the prin- 
pal agents in its nutrition.” 
Sir Humphry Davy says, “ I steeped radish seeds for twelve hours in a so¬ 
lution of chlorine, and similar seeds in very diluted nitric acid, in very diluted 
sulphuric acid, in weak solution of oxysulphate of iron, and some in common 
water. The seeds in solutions of chlorine and oxysulphate oi iron, threw out 
the germ in two days; those in nitric acid in three days, in sulphuric acid in 
five, and those iu water in seven days. But in the cases of premature germi¬ 
nation, though the plume was very vigorous for a short time, yet it became at 
the end of a fortnight weak and sickly; and at that period less vigorous in its 
rowth than the sprouts which had been naturally developed, so that there can 
e scarcely any useful application of these experiments. Too rapid growth 
and premature decay seem invariably connected in organized structures; and 
it is only by following the slow operations of natural causes, that we are capa¬ 
ble of making improvements.” 
Judge Peters, in his “ Notices for a Young Farmer,” although he slightly re¬ 
commends the steeping of Indian corn in solutions of hellebore, copperas or 
salt-petre, adds as a caution, “ But do not soak or steep too much. In dry 
weather, the germination is accelerated, by stepping, injuriously; so that the 
plume and radicals perish; and in long wet seasons they rot.” 
I do not attribute the failure of the portion of corn planted on the 25th of 
May to any direct and immediate injury sustained from the hot water or tar. I 
will mention as a singular circumstance, and to show that the corn was not 
scalded to death as some may suppose, that so late as the 17th of June, while 
engaged in hoeing the corn, planted in the place of the portion which failed, 
quite a number of grains, planted on the 25th of May, were disinterred, which 
were then just beginning to sprout. The coating of tar and plaster was found 
incasing each grain, in an indurated state; and it is not improbable that this 
coating may have prevented the access, to the seed, of the air, so essential to 
germination, and thus have been one of the causes of the failure. 
But I must conclude. I have extended this communication to a length 
which, I fear, will preclude it from the columns of your truly useful journal. 
I send it to you, however, as it is. If my view's are erroneous, I wish them 
corrected; if they are just, it will subserve, though to a trifling extent, the 
cause in which you are so ably engaged, to give them publicity. 
Greenbush, Rensselaer co. March 2 3d, 1837. M. 
REMARKS. 
Steeps, we admit, do not furnish nutriment to the embryo; yet we think 
they are often beneficial in two other ways—viz: in quickening the germina¬ 
tion, and, by impregnating the soil with saline and fertilizing matters, giving 
vigor to the early growth of plants. Steeps answer a further purpose, if they 
contain salt or lime—they destroy the seeds or infection of smut, and the eggs 
of insects, which may exist in the seed. The Chinese, we are told, steep all 
their seeds. In plants as well as in animals, the degree of perfection to which 
the individual is likely to attain at maturity, is judged of, in no small degree, 
by the health and vigor of its early development. Old seeds generally make 
weak shoots, and are tardy in coming; yet if they are steeped in a liquid high¬ 
ly charged with oxygen, they germinate quick, and send up strong shoots. By 
means of such steeps, Humbolt and other German naturalists have grown seeds 
that were a century old, and which had apparently lost the vital principal of 
life. 
The failure of the seed to grow in the first experiment., was probably ow ing 
to the great temperature of the liquid. We believed that scalding water would 
not prove prejudicial to corn more than to the seed of the locust, until, by 
recent experiment, we have found that the vitality of the seed is completely 
destroyed at the boiling temperature. Hence we should advise that the steep 
be not made hotter than can be borne by the hand.— Conductor. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CROSSES. 
Few persons who have reflected on the matter at all, will be disposed to de¬ 
ny, that between the animal organization of man and of brutes, there exists a 
striking similarity. In the functions of reproduction, nutrition, digestion; in 
the materials of bodily structure; in the gradual reaching of the highest point 
of animal vigor and perfection, and in a gradual decay; in the purely animal 
propensities and their consequences; the accomplishment of the same ends by 
the same means, and an identity of results; man as an animal, and the brute, 
scarcely differ. This fact does not in the least affect his moral and intellectual 
distinction and superiority; it is not these things, strictly speaking, that con¬ 
stitute the Man. This community of constitutional feelings and functions be¬ 
ing clear; the fact may we think be advantageously used in many questions of 
animal sympathies, habits, and organization; by illustrating those things 
which are but imperfectly understood in the animal, by the corresponding ha¬ 
bits and sympathies which belong to man as an animal, and which have been 
made the subjects of closer investigation, and rigid analysis. 
The effect which the intermixture of different races of horses, cattle or sheep, 
or what in other words is called the crossing of breeds, has upon the progeny, 
in raising or lowering the character of the animal, uniting the good qualities of 
both, or sinking both to a common standard, is a question of the greatest inte¬ 
rest to the farmer; and which it is presumed may be made intelligible, and the 
results better understood by a consideration which such processes have upon 
man. Dr. Pritchard has laid down two rules as the result of extensive obser¬ 
vation on this matter,—“First, that the organization of the offspring is always 
modelled according to the type of the original structure of the parent; and, 
secondly, that changes produced by adventitious or external causes in the ap¬ 
pearance or constitution of the individual are temporary; acquired characters 
in general being transient, terminating with the individual, and having no ef¬ 
fect on the progeny.” 
Illustrations of the first proposition may be found in the mixed races of white 
and Indian in Canada, in North America; the Spanish and Indian in South 
America; the English and Hindoo in India; as well as other less distinctly 
marked instances in other parts of the world. In these cases it is invariably 
found, that the progeny is far superior in hardihood and capability of enduring 
the peculiarities of climate to the imported parent, but inferior in mental ca¬ 
pacity and endowments; while it§ moral and intellectual capacities are pro- 
portionably elevated above the native races of those countries. As proof, we 
refer to the half-breeds of the Canadas and Cherokees, many of whom appear 
to combine the native cunning of the Indian with the cool deliberation of the 
white:—to the mulattoes of St. Domingo, who now hold the rule of that fer¬ 
tile island in defiance of both whites and negroes;—to the mixed race in Co¬ 
lombia, many of whom are prominent characters in the republic, Gen. Paez, 
now president of Venezuela, for instance;—-and to India, where the half-breeds 
are so decidedly superior to Europeans in physical, and to the natives in men¬ 
tal qualities, that they may already be considered as marked out for the future 
sovereigns of the east. 
In applying these principles to the crossing of breeds of cattle, it will be suf- 
ficient'to mention the improvements effected by Sinclair and others in Scot¬ 
land, and by Bakewell and others in England. In Scotland, the native breeds 
of cattle were a small black buffalo looking race, worth little for labor, and still 
less for the dairy. . Some men, called book farmers, determined to make an ex¬ 
periment of improving the stock by crossing the breed, and combining, if pos 
sible, the size and valuable qualities of the English cattle,- with the extreme 
hardihood of the native black cattle; as the former, when pure blooded, with¬ 
stood with difficulty the severe winters of the Highlands. The result fully 
justified their anticipations, some most valuable breeds of cattle, among which 
is the celebrated Ayrshire, were gradually produced, and have become fully 
acclimated; while the black cattle and the tartan have disappeared, except 
from some of the most remote and unfrequented vallies of that wild country. 
What has been done in England in improving cattle, we have had occular de¬ 
monstration before us, in the beautiful full bred animals that within a year 
have been imported from abroad; particularly those introduced by the patriotic 
agriculturists of Ohio. 
The horse too, may be mentioned as illustrating the principle laid down in 
the above extract. The swift and beautiful Arabian would be unable to with¬ 
stand our severe climate and exhausting labor; yet by mixing his pure blood 
with our hardier and heavier races of animals, breeds are obtained, adapted to 
the climate; yet combining the fleetness of one, with the bone and muscle of 
tho other. The original qualities of the parents are generally decidedly shown 
in the offspring, or if partially obscured in one individual, succeeding ones 
show they are not lost; the constitutional type remains permanent and unim¬ 
paired. 
Perhaps the pernicious effect of breeding in and in, as it is called, that is, 
propagating races and families without crossing, or paying proper regard to the 
qualities of the parents; and the obvious benefits of selecting the best breeds 
and improving them by crosses, cannot be better shown, than by an example 
or two selected from well known facts respecting the human family. In Spain 
and Portugal, and in a less degree, some other European countries, the degene¬ 
racy and even idiocy of some of the noble and royal families, caused by con¬ 
stantly intermarrying with each other nephew's, neices and cousins, is a subject 
of common remark, and obvious to the most careless observer. Viewed phreno- 
logically, their heads show that the mental and moral powers are diminished 
to the lowest ebb, while their animal organization continually gains in ascen¬ 
dency. The late king of Spain, Ferdinand the 7th, was a striking example of 
this; as his projecting lips and chin, and retreating and sunken forehead, gave 
his head an aspect more resembling a baboon than a man; and as was to be 
expected from such a conformation, in him the animal powerfully predominat¬ 
ed. 
On the contrary, all travellers agree, that the finest specimens of men any 
where to be seen, are to be found among the higher ranks, the nobility and 
princes of Turkey and Persia. This is accounted for by the fact, that from 
time immemorial the custom has existed in those countries of purchasing the 
most beautiful and perfect Georgian and Circassian girls, and forming connex¬ 
ion with them as wives. Perhaps there is no country in which can be found 
individuals in whom the moral and intellectual development is higher than 
among these beautiful captives; and thus, by constantly crossing the blood of 
the nobles of those countries, who alone can be the purchasers, the constan 
