Southern planter : devoted to agriculture, horticulture, and the ...

done a day's work, and until Ihe dew goes
off next morning. If a high temperature,
your hay will then be so dry that it will
take no sweat; hence no flavour, and
much less nutriment. The trouble with
those men who make a trial of cutting
green, is that they dry it so much in the
hot sun that it cannot sweat in either cock
or mow. I have seen stacks of hay in
many places, the hay having been put up so
dry, that if my arm had been long enough
I could have put my hand through them,
and that after they had stood for months,
and the hay had no inore flavour, (except
the little ripe seed left on,) than brush
from a dead tree. I want to see no stacks
or hay mows put up for me but will in a
week or ten days become so solid that it
is with difficulty you can push your hand
into them one foot.
Now, Messrs. Editors, I have given you
as lucidly as I can my views and reasons
for deviating from the rules laid down by
far more learned men, as to the time for
cutting and manner of curing timothy hay,
and indeed all other kinds of hay I have
had any experience with in this hot climate.
Yet I have no doubt but some of
those men, possessed of good talents, will
criticise my mode not a little, but all I ask
is, that my brother workmg farmers will
prove me and try me, and see whether I
know anything of the true principles of
making and time of cutting hay. Let
them follow my plan strictly, and then
either approve or condemn it, according
as they find it. As haying will be in less
than two months, I should be pleased if
five hundred farmers in the State of
New York would give my plan a trial and
report.
It is high time, in this age of enterprise
in the world, that the true time and
method of catting and curing hay was
known, so as to make it most pleasant to
the taste of the dumb brutes, and most
profitable to the owner.
Mear Geneva.
THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 415
John Johnston.
Few things tend more to alienate friendship
than a want of punctuality in our engagements.
I have known the breach of
a promise to dine or sup, break up more
than one intimacy.
Functions of the Eoots and Leaves of
Plants.
A growing plant gains a new mouth and
stomach with every additional root and
new leaf. The moisture of the soil which
forms the sap of the plant, is taken into it
by the extremity of the roots, or rather
by the spon^ioles which terminates the
ends of the fibrous roots. These possess the
power of absorbing and selecting the appropriate
food required for each variety of
plants. At least, we cannot on any other
principle, so well assign a plausible reason
for the many and varied phenomena in
vegetable life with which we are so fa-
miliar. As a simple illustration of this,
we will refer to chemical analysis.
The straw of wheat requires much silica
in its composition, amounting in the ash of
good wheat straw to over 28 per cent.,
while in the straw of haulm of the field
bean there is less than 2^ per cent, of
silica. In the ash of the stems and leaves
of beans there is 16| per cent, of potash,
in the ash of wheat straw is less than one
per cent. Why this difference of mine-
ral matter in the two plants ? We all
know they can be successfully grown side
by side in the same field. Each different
plant selecting from the soil just so much
and no more, of the several soluble inorganic
substances as are required for the
perfection and maturity of each particular
variety or species of plant. All the various
phenomena of nature are the results
of fixed laws, and no other reason can be
assigned for their existence, than the will
of the Creator—He hath so ordained it.
The fluid taken from the soil by the
roots of a plant, consists chiefly in water,
holding in solution some of the gases and
minute portions of saline and earthly ingredients,
such as potash, soda, lime, silica,
&.C. The soluble substances in water or
sap, as it rises into the stem and branches
of the plant, for aught we know, may be
gradually undergoing a series of changes
from the time it enters the roots till it passes
into the leaf. In the leaf we know it is
to experience various important changes or
modifications.
The nearly crude sap in the leaf is subjected
to the process of exhalation. By
carefully conducted experiments, it lias
been pietty clearly ascertained, that of
the whole amount of the water taken up
by the roots of plants, about two-thirds of