THE CULTIVATOR 
155 
stone being applied ; to say nothing of the Saving to the public in 
wear and tear of horses, carts and tackle; to say nothing of the 
comfort of travelling a smooth road, and also to say nothing of em¬ 
ployment found for the poor; yet a road can be maintained good 
and perfect for half the sum, under the new system, which under 
the old, is expended Without improvement.” 
Spreading. —Cause the load to be shot down a short distance 
from the place upon which you wish the materials to be finally 
spread; and direct the spreader to cast every shovel full from him 
equally, all over the surface, and in such a manner as he would do 
if he Were sowing wheat broadcast. The road will then be not 
thicker in one place than another, and a section will be produced 
perfect and true. 
The writer on the subject of roads, in the Farmers’ Series, sug¬ 
gests some alterations in the British road laws, which have a par¬ 
ticular bearing upon our condition, and seem well worthy of our 
consideration. He suggests, 
1. That the business of road making and repairing should be en¬ 
trusted to the authority of a county, and not of a parish; because, 
first, the public interest will govern more, and private interest 
less; and secondly, the limited extent of the funds of a parish will 
not admit of giving such a salary to a surveyor—an officer there 
deemed indispensable— as will secure the services of a person edu¬ 
cated in the principles of road management , and otherwise qualified 
for the office of surveyor —an office whose duties are here performed 
by path-masters. 
2. That the means for maintaining roads be no longer obtained 
by statute labor, which is similar to our road assessments—because 
the law operates in this respect partially, and the time spent by the 
farmer in paying this tax, is worth more to him than it benefits the 
public. He recommends that the cartage be done by contract, by 
which he calculates a saving of 50 per cent, and that the manual 
labor be judiciously applied under the supervision of a competent en¬ 
gineer. 
3. That the surveyor, or manager, be appointed for a longer peri¬ 
od than one year, that he may be enabled to carry out a systematic 
plan of improvement, and give efficacy to his skill and science. 
Scraping .—If it is desirable to keep a road dry at the foundation, 
it must be equally so at the surface. 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE. 
A letter from a correspondent at Paris, gives the following ac¬ 
count of this distinguished institution : 
“ This society publishes yearly one or two volumes of memoirs. 
The number of corresponding French members is 400: there are 
from two to four or five in each department of France. The number 
<oi associes ordinaire (common associates,) who regularly assemble 
•every fortnight, is limited to forty; that of associes libres to ten; 
that of associes etrangers (foreign members,) to twenty—to which 
latter you belong. The king is the protector of the society.— 
The president and vice-presidents are chosen annually; the se¬ 
cretary is perpetual. The members of the government consult 
this society on every great question relating to agriculture, and 
previous to its discussion by the chamber of deputies. The mem¬ 
bers who attend the meetings, receive a card, which entitles them 
to a remuneration of five franks (= to 94 cents,) for each sitting. 
All the expenses of the society are defrayed by the government. Prizes 
are adjudged annually. After their distribution, the members dine 
together. 
“Agriculture is now making great progress in France, by the in¬ 
fluence of the corresponding societies of the Royal and Central Ag¬ 
ricultural Society, which assemble in the Hotel de Ville of this 
city.” ____ 
Corn Stock Fodder .—It is observed by a writer in the Vermont 
Farmer, and correctly too, we think, that the stocks and shucks of 
an acre of good corn, well managed, will go as far in keeping neat 
cattle as the hay cut from the same acre of ground. What we 
mean by being well managed, is, that the crop be cut at the ground, 
and immediately stocked, as soon as the grain is glazed—that the 
corn be picked off as soon as it is sufficiently dried, and the forage, 
bound, and well stacked or housed,—and that when given out, it be 
cut and fed to the stock in mangers. If, when fed, it can be steam¬ 
ed, or wet with a weak pickle, and sprinkled with a small matter of 
ship stuff or bran, all the better. The defects in managing this fo¬ 
rage crop are, that either the corn is topped, and the tops left in the 
field in stooks, or the entire stocks are left to stand, till they are 
nearly spoilt by the weather,—that they are badly housed, and fed 
in the yard without cutting. The consequence is, that much of their 
nutritious matter is dissipated,—that much is often destroyed, and 
that of what remains eatable, the cattle are only able to consume 
the leaves, tops and shucks—the main stock being lost, for want of 
being cut, so that the cattle can masticate it. Our cows and oxen 
were kept last winter almost wholly upon cut corn stocks, and they 
were in as good condition in spring as when fed entirely on hay. 
NEW HORTICULTURAL WORK. 
G. C. Thorburn has just published, in pamphlet form, “An Outline 
of the First Principles of Horticulture, by John Lindeev, F. R. S., &c., 
Professor of Botany in the University of London, and Assistant Se¬ 
cretary of the Horticultural Society,”—price twenty-five cents— 
sold also by W. Thorburn, Albany. We know of no individual bet¬ 
ter qualified to explain the phenomena of vegetable life, and to se¬ 
parate that part of vegetable physiology which relates to the sci¬ 
ence of cultivation, from what appertains to pure botany, or to other 
subjects, than Professor Lindley. Connected as he has been for 
many years, with the Horticultural Garden of London, and filling 
with distinguished honor the professor’s chair of botany in one of 
the first universities in the world, his opportunities of studying the 
science of horticulture have been great. “ My intention,” says he, 
“ has not been to write a work on the philosophy of horticulture ; but 
simply to point out, in the briefest manner, what the fundamental prin¬ 
ciples of that philosophy have been ascertained to be.” “ In the first 
place,” he continues, “ a distinction must be drawn between the art 
and the science of horticulture ; the former teaches the manner, the 
latter the reasons of cultivation; and it is to the latter only that 
these propositions apply. Secondly, the plan of this sketch excludes 
every thing that is merely speculative, or that is incapable of being 
reduced within certain fixed principles.” As agriculture and horti¬ 
culture are sister arts, and are governed hy the same general laws, 
this little work will be alike serviceable to the farmer, the gardener, 
and the florist, to all of whom we heartily commend it. We think 
of publishing the entire treatise in the next volume of the Cultiva¬ 
tor, but in the meantime we make an extract, to afford the reader a 
sample of the work. The figures introduced in parenthesis refer to 
the paragraphs in which the terms preceding the figures are ex¬ 
plained. 
U X. SAP. 
“260. The fluid matter which is absorbed, either from the earth 
or from the air, is called sap. 
“261. When it first enters a plant it consists of water, holding 
certain principles, especially carbonic acid, in solution. 
“ 262. These principles chiefly consist of animal or vegetable mat¬ 
ter, in a state of decomposition, and are energetic in proportion to 
their solubility, or tendency to form carbonic acid, by combining 
with the oxygen of the air. 8 
“263. Sap soon after acquires the nature of mucilage or sugar, 
and subsequently becomes still further altered by the admixture of 
such soluble matter as it receives in passing in its route through the 
alburnum, or newly formed woody tissue, (65.) 
“ 264. And when it reaches the vicinity of the leaves it is attract¬ 
ed into them, and there, having been exposed to light and air, is con¬ 
verted into the secretions peculiar to the species. 
“265. It finally, in its altered state, sinks down the bark, whence 
it is given off laterally, by the medullary rays, and is distributed 
through the system. 
“ 266 . No solid matter whatever can be taken up by the roots; 
for this reason metals, which in a state of oxydes are poisonous, are 
perfectly harmless in their metallic state, as mercury ; and this is, 
no doubt, the Cause why liquid manure, which contains all the solu¬ 
ble parts of manure in a fluid state, acts with so much more energy 
than stimulating substances in a solid state. 
“267. The cause of the motion of the sap is the attraction of the 
leaf-buds and leaves. 
“ 268. The leaf-buds, called into growth by the combined action 
of the increased temperature and light of spring, decompose their car¬ 
bonic acid, (279) and attract fluid from the tissue immediately below 
them; the space so caused is filled up by fluid again attracted from 
below, and thus a motion gradually takes place in the sap from one 
extremity to the other. 
“269. Consequently the motion of the sap takes place first in the 
branches, and last in the roots. 
