230 
| afloat. 
AQUATIC PLANTS. 
only spouty or very wet soil; and, in some in- 
stances, are capable of thriving on almost any 
ordinary ground; and they comprise some pop- 
| lars, and numerous willows, grasses, and other 
plants of considerable economical value to the 
farmer. 
Most aquatics are very curious in structure ; 
and many of the larger herbaceous aquatics of 
the rivers, ponds, and marshes are eminently 
handsome in either their foliage or their flowers. 
Were they not provided with some special float- 
ing apparatus, they would not possess sufficient 
air in their leaves to be buoyant, and would sink 
and drown like animals; and nearly all, except 
the palustrine and semi-terrestrial kinds, are, in 
consequence, the subjects of some remarkable 
and beautiful contrivance for keeping them 
The genera pontederia, trapa, and utri- 
cularia exhibit a distension of the leaf-stalk, so 
great as to have a swollen and gouty aspect; the 
genera typha, sparganium, nymphea, and sagit- 
taria, display myriads of air-chambers in the solid 
_ stem; the genus jussieua has its roots distended 
into vegetable swimming bladders; and the beau- 
tiful stove aquatic, Linunocharis Humboldtiz, pos- 
sesses such an enlargement and air-expansion of 
the midriff of the leaf, that the leaf, though loaded 
with thrice the actual weight it has to carry 
could not possibly sink,—yet not all the midriff, but 
| only the under side of it, and this in such adjust- 
ment to the adjoining flat or marginal portions, 
| that the suffocation of the leaf by the upsetting 
of it, and the consequent placing of its upper or 
breathing surface in contact with the water, is 
effectually prevented. . 
Quick growing ligneous aquatics, such as sey- 
eral of the most common kinds of willows, may 
sometimes be very advantageously planted by a 
farmer, When gaps exist, or injuries occur in 
such fences as are situated in low, swampy, or 
bogey places, the best method of filling or repair- 
ing them is to plant truncheons of willow, alder, 
_ and similar aquatics along the gaps for hedge- 
stakes, and along the banks for subsequent plash- 
ing down; and this method possesses the addi- 
tional recommendation of preparing a consider- 
able future supply of fuel. In such places, also, 
and in waste spots which cannot easily be sub- 
jected to any better kind of improvement, the 
planting of longer truncheons for pollard trees 
will make very compensating returns. In low, 
| spongy, boggy tracts near a stream, or in any 
other situation which combines the retention 
with the circulation of water, the planting of 
osiers and similar sorts of willows is probably as 
remunerating as any other business of a farm. 
| See Oster. 
A considerable number of the grasses are either 
wholly aquatic in the paludal or palustral sense, 
or possess such constantly thirsty habits that 
they will flourish only upon decidedly moist soils ; 
and they require, either as weeds or as cultivated 
plants, to be subdued or encouraged for the farm- 
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ARABLE LAND. 
er’s purposes, in a manner strictly adapted to 
their peculiarly aquatic nature. The most use- 
ful of these are Alopecurus geniculatus, Festuca 
Jiuitans, Aira aquatica, Poa aquatica, and Agros- 
tis stolonifera. All these, except the last, if 
sown in mixture with other grasses, no matter 
how thickly, upon chalky, peaty, or very wet 
clayey lands, gradually and rapidly smother all 
the kinds sown with them, so as eventually to 
become solitary ; yet they well deserve attention 
on most wet soils,—they may, by good manage-. 
ment, be successfully sown among other grasses 
in the laying down of meadows,—and, whenever 
they truly thrive, they produce a great abun- 
dance of valuable fodder. The Agrostis stolonifera 
longiflora is so very peculiar and remarkable a 
grass, that the reader’s special attention to it, 
through the medium of our articles AcrostiIs and 
Frorin, will be well repaid. “The choice of these 
aquatic grasses must be regulated by the differ- 
ent degrees of moisture in the soil. On fens and 
morasses, if fiorin should not be chosen, perhaps 
there is none better, after a first drainage, than 
the water poa, which, by its spontaneous growth, 
will afford large crops, and at the same time allow 
the land time to settle. Such soils, however, 
consisting chiefly of decayed vegetable matter, 
require the aid of lime or some alkaline substance, 
to bring it into action; after which they may be 
brought, in the regular course of cultivation, to 
produce good permanent pasture. In situations 
not quite so wet, the flote fescue, flote foxtails, 
and rough-stalked poa may be added; and on 
land still better drained, the following mixture | 
has been recommended,—four quarts of flote fox- 
tail, two quarts of flote fescue, two pecks of | 
rough-stalked poa, two pecks of meadow foxtail, | 
two pecks of meadow fescue, and two quarts of | 
vernal grass.’"—The Botanical Legister.—Keith’s 
Botanical Lexicon—Youngs Farmer's Calendar. 
—Treatise on British Husbandry in Lib. of Useful 
Knowledge.—Loudon’s Encyc. of Agriculture. 
AQUILARIA. See Aton-TREE. 
AQUILEGIA. See CotumsBine. 
ARABIS. See Watt Cress. 
ARABLE LAND. Land capable of being tilled | 
with the plough. Arable land is very often, by 
an abuse of words, made to mean land in a state 
of actual tillage ; and, in this sense, it is not only 
much more limited than in its proper one, but 
constantly shifts and varies in its application to 
any one district or farm, with the alternations of 
ley or grass and active courses of rotation. Arable 
land, in its true meaning, comprises, not only all 
ground in actual tilth whether by the plough or 
by the spade, but all gardens, lawns, and deep- 
soiled meadows in thoroughly cultivated coun- 
tries, and all tracts of deep-soiled, open ground in 
the countries of the wild beast or the savage ; and 
it is contrasted to woodland, mountain pasture, 
morass, sandy wilderness, rocky ground, and all 
other varieties of the earth’s surface which are 
impracticable to the plough. Most of the arable 
