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

with its inhaling and exhaling and separating
powers. One of these cases is as
much a miracle as the other.
To all land animals, when alive, has
been given the power of inhaling atmospheric
air. While in the lungs it undergoes
a chemical change— the oxygen inhaled
combines with carbon derived from the
food, and is exhaled from the lungs as carbonic
acid. This process goes on continually,
and alike successfully in the wise man
and in the idiot, in the sane and insane,
asleep or awake ; and man is almost as unconscious
of this operation as the brute ;
and the brute is as unconscious of it as
is the leaf, in reversing the order of this
operation.
From the foregoing physiological views,
we are enabled to draw some useful and
practical hints in farm culture.
As it is through the agency of the roots
of plants that they derive their moisture
and earthly constituents, and about one-
third of their carbon, it is rea^^onable to
suppose the greater the number of roots a
plant has, the more rapid and larger its
growth ;
THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 427*
for at the ends of the rootlets are
placed the mouths of the plant for supplying
it with that portion of its food derived
from the soil ; therefore deeply worked
and finely pulverized soil is much more
favorable to a luxuriant growth of plants
:
(other conditions being equal,) than a
hard, shallow-worked soil. In the well
prepared soil the roots can freely penetrate
every square inch of it in search of
food and moisture every where disseminated
through it, while the roots in the hard,
ill-prepared soil will be few in number,
feeble and stinted, and unable to supply
the plant with food necessary to a luxuriant
growth. After a farmer has prepared
his land in the best possible manner for a
corn crop, can it be for his interest, at the
second and third time hoeing it, to run the
horse-plow or other deep-stirring imple-
ment so as to sever or cut off a large
portion of the roots of his growing corn ?
We have witnessed such a performance
many a time. Corn under such circumstances
may, in favorable seasons, throw out
new roots, and in part restore the loss, and
a tolerable crop may be harvested, but it is
our impression that such a course not only
retards the growth, but lessens the amount
of the crop. Why does the cabbage and
turnip plant wilt and droop when trans-
27^
planted.? 'Tis in consequence of having
lost a portion of their roots and the exhalation
of moisture by the leaf is greater
than its supply by the mutilated and reduced
number of roots.
Every one that has transplanted evergreen
trees knows how important it is to
preserve the fibrous roots and keep them
moist if they expect to be successful in
planting them out.
Cut off the root of a maple tree in " sap
time," and the sap will flow from the
severed root as freely as it will from an
auger hole bored into the body of thti tree.
Sever the roots of growing corn, and the
sap will ooze from the cut roots so as to
render the soil about them quite' wet.
This loss of moisture by the roots, with
that escaping by evaporatioh by the leaves,
causes the corn to wilt, and in very warih
and dry weather, we have known the
leaves to become completely dried under
'such management, while adjoining rows of
corn, not having been disturbed by the
plow, remained unscathed.
As already observed, by the leavesMiie
surplus water is exhaird, and carbonic
acid inhaled and decomposed, and doubtless
there are other important chemical
combinations and changes effected by and
I
in the leaf. If so, is it good policy to
pluck from growing cabbages, beets, tur-
nips, carrots, and other succulent plants, a
portionof their
hogs, &c.
leaves for feeding cows,
Is the quality of the grape improved,
and its maturity hastened by removing a
portion of the leaves from^ the fruit-bearing
branches of the vine a month or so
before the usual time of the ri[iening of
\ the
j Will
fruit } We have seen this plucking off
the leaves of a grape vine performed
more than once, from the mistaken idea
that the fruit would be larger and earlier
by the removal of a goodly portion of the
leaves of the vine.
the crop of corn be as heavy and
(Valuable, ii the stalks are cut when the
kernels are in the milk, as if left uncut, or
until they had become dry? Says R. L.
Allen:
" The talks of corn ought never to be
cut above the ears. The sap which nourishes
the grain is drawn from the soil, and
passing through the stem, enters the leaf,
where a material change in the sap takes
place. This prepares the sap for conden-