~ STAGNANT-WATER. _ 
blood taken away in three minutes will have 
much greater effect than will be produced if it 
is allowed to dribble away in twice the time. If 
the sheep is on the road to the butcher, nothing 
further is necessary ; but, should it be attacked at 
home, the shepherd must change its pasture, and 
keep the bowels freely open by repeated doses of 
Epsom salts.” 
STAGNANT-WATER. Water which has ac- 
cumulated on land from rain or snow or drainage, 
and which cannot find a vent, but lies on the 
surface till it is dissipated by evaporation. It 
always contains more or less of dead and decom- 
posing organic matter, which has been washed 
or absorbed into it in the course of its accumula- 
tion ; and, in some instances, it is so full of this 
as to emit very offensive effluvia, and send off 
gases of highly noxious action on the health of 
man and of all domesticated animals. The nature 
and effects of it on bogs, marshes, and retentive 
_ arable lands are noticed in the articles Boa, 
Marsu, and Drarnine. Ponds of it in the vicinity 
of human dwellings, especially in situations which 
catch the drainings of yards or of dunghills, are 
exceedingly pestiferous, and ought never to be 
allowed. Some kinds of it, particularly steeps of 
flax and hemp, fetid ponds, farm-yard drainings, 
' and foul ditches, are very fertilizing, and may 
be usefully employed in saturating dung-heaps, 
and making earthy composts. 
STAKE. An upright piece of wood, fastened 
in the ground. 
STALING. See Unive, Repwater, and D1a- 
BETES. | 
STALK. A stem ofa plant. 
STALL. The compartment for a horse in a 
stable, for a cow in a cow-house, or for an ox in 
a feeding-house. See the articles § STABLE, Cow- 
‘Houss, and Ox-Srauts. 
STALL-FEEDING. The confining of cattle 
wholly to stalls during the processes of ulterior 
feeding and of fattening. The peculiar advantages 
of it, additional to those of soiling, consist in 
keeping the animals quiet, in nicely adapting 
their food to their circumstances, and in accelerat- 
ing the grand result of fitness for the market. See 
the articles Somnine, Feeping or ANIMALS, and 
Farrenine or ANIMALS. 
STALLION. See Horss. 
STAMENS. The fecundating organs of plants. 
They perform functions which Linneus fancied 
to be analogous to those of males in animals, and 
were therefore treated by him as chief characters 
in framing his artificial system of botany. See 
the article Borany. They are always present in 
flowers, as well in those which have no corolla as 
in those which have ; and when a corolla is pre- 
Sent, they are always situated immediately within 
it, and generally alternate with its segments. 
Hach consists of a filament and an anther; and 
produces in the latter the fecundating dust. See 
_the articles AntHER and Porien. Those of the 
same flower sometimes cohere by the filaments, 
STANHOPEA. 325 
and, if in one set, are called monadelphous,—if 
in two sets, diadelphous,—and if in more than 
two sets, polyadelphous. They sometimes also, 
as in the nineteenth class of the Linnzan system, 
cohere by the anthers; and they are then said 
to be syngenesious. 
STAMWOOD. The grubbed up roots of felled 
trees. 
STANDARD. A young tree reserved at the 
felling of a wood; also, a fruit-tree growing in 
an open exposure, or apart from any wall or 
trellis, and allowed to assume its natural shape 
instead of being contorted by pruning and train- 
ing. A young standard fruit-tree, in general, 
should not exceed two years from the bud or 
graft when it is planted, and should be fortified 
by a-stake till it acquire sufficient strength to 
make a firm resistance to the strongest wind by 
which it is likely to be assailed. 
STANHOPEA. A genus of ornamental, tropi- 
cal, epiphytous plants, of the orchis family. It is 
one of the most natural and interesting of the 
orchidaceous genera; it has one leaf to each 
pseudo-bulb, and sends out the flowers from the 
bulb’s base ; and it comprises a number of species 
of great beauty and brilliance. 
All the species require to become firmly rooted, 
and must therefore be grown in peaty soil of the 
most fibrous nature, so that no water may lodge 
about the roots to cause any of the radicles to 
rot; and, whenever fine specimens are desired, 
they must be placed either in pots with an ele- 
vation of about a foot above the rim or in large 
baskets,—for all push their flowers downwards, 
and cannot possibly make a good show unless 
placed either high above the pots or in sufficient- 
ly capacious and open baskets. Every pot should 
be filled with large potsherds to within about | 
two inches of the top; the mound above its rim 
should be built as nearly as possible of the same 
width as the pot ; the heathy portion of the peat 
should be laid immediately over the potsherds ; 
and the rest of the peat may be either cut or 
torn into small portions for building the mound, 
and may be fastened on with a few pegs. LHvery 
basket should be formed of oak billets, each 
about one inch in diameter, and should be open 
all round and below with distances of two inches 
between the bars, and should have a depth of. 
about three inches. The plants must be kept in 
the same pots or baskets without shifting for 
several years; and, whenever a shift becomes 
necessary, they must be removed and repotted in 
the growing season, about the end of July or 
beginning of August. Most of them, as soon 
as they have done flowering, commence grow- 
ing; and from the time of their beginning to 
show signs of growth till they complete their 
-pseudo-bulbs, they should have great heat and 
abundant moisture; and then they should be 
taken out of the moist house and kept in the 
dry. one till they show flower, when they must 
—|be taken back to the moist house, and receive 
