those qualities and attributes of animals, resulting from brain or mind, would be and are to them totally impotent. The faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling (unless where such feeling depends upon mechanism), and which convey to animals all those powers which influence them, would be, even if vegetables had them, perfectly useless. They have no medullary substance to receive them; and therefore they would have the same effect on them as they have on man or beast whose brains are affected by disease, inebriation, or violence. They have indeed some qualities which appear to partake of sensation, such as spontaneous motion to the light or to an upright position; shrinking from the touch, as in the sensitive plant, or closing their petals on the fly, like the Dionæ a muscípula: but these actions are the result of a mechanical process, quite distinct from voluntary action; and resemble the instinct of animals given them for their preservation and defence. The vegetable and the animal, in those cases where the mind or brain is uninfluenced, are wonderfully governed by similar laws, are obnoxious to similar evils, influenced by similar causes, and display similar effects. Life. The first and most essential bond of union and resemblance between the animal and vegetable world is the vital principle, called life. In what that principle consists, where situated, and whence derived, have hitherto eluded the researches of all. That it is distinct from the soul and mind is clear, because it is as necessary to the vegetable, which has neither, as it is to man, who is endued with both. It lies equally dormant in the egg of the bird, as in the germ of the vegetable, and, till called into action at a certain stage in the progress of their respective formations, the embryo lies apparently without it: but, as soon as it is roused from its inactivity, it accompanies each during their infancy, maturity, and decay; and when old age or accidental causes have completed the term of their existence, it equally resigns the body to the well-known consequences of dissolution. In animals, as well as vegetables, there are some mortal parts which, if wounded, hasten its termination, or render them feeble and sickly; and there are others which bear the effects of injury without being materially affected. The same terms, expressive of life and death, health and disease, vigour and weakness, are applied to both; and, when their qualities render them fit for food, they both supply to man his necessaries or his luxuries. Structure and Functions.-The next affinity between the ani trunk or body is in both their main support; the limbs and arms of each; the head or crown; the hair or leaves; both porous, and exuding a sensible perspiration. The feet or roots, which keep their bodies upright; the epidermis and cuticle, which varies, from the delicate film that covers the eye of the animal and the parts of a flower, to the hard skin of the foot and the equally hard bark of the oak; the cellular membrane, under the cuticle of each, which gives to each its colour, and which causes the white of the European, and the black of the African; the flesh or wood; the heart (cor), or the pith (core); the blood and the sap; the veins through which the blood flows, and those through which the sap is propelled; the perspiration of both; and, lastly, that peculiar construction, which adapts each to live in the earth, or in the water, or renders them both amphibious. All these analogies, and many others, show the resemblance of each in their material parts, uninfluenced by that medullary part which I denominated the mind, and in which consists the chief distinction between them. Food. The analogy is still more strongly marked, when we consider the necessity there is for each, not only of having food for nourishment, but of having that food wholesome and appropriate. Vegetables as well as animals are enfeebled by improper nourishment; and as animals, having mind, can refuse whatever is improper, so vegetables, having no power of choosing, must take whatever we give them. Here again is an important distinction between the two, arising from the passive nature of the one, and the voluntary action of the other. Every practical agriculturist must daily witness the effect on vegetables, grain, and plants, produced by soils more or less adapted to their different natures, or powers of secretion; and how, as in animals, so in vegetables, their vigour, growth, and even existence, depend on the quality and quantity of their food. The knowledge of soils and manures, which are the diet of plants, is essentially necessary to the farmer and gardener; as it is from this food that the fibres of all roots collect what is necessary for the support of the parent stem. The veins of vegetables are the sap-vessels, as the veins of animals are the blood-vessels, to convey their nourishment to every part of the tree; and as the chyle poured into the veins, and mixed with the blood, is, through the medium of the heart; so the nutrimental juices of plants, taken up from the earth, are carried by sap-vessels into the leaves, for similar purposes. Thus, the improved sap, like the arterial blood, proceeds to nourish and invigorate the whole frame; and the secretions which each is able to form, from the sub stances they each live upon, produce fat in the one, and gum or sugar in the other. Sexes. As in animals the two sexes are distinct, so in vegetables they are equally marked and cognizable. The female blossom, or that part of it which is to perfect seed, would be barren without the presence of the male; and the necessity of the pollen coming in contact with the female stigma before the seed can be perfected, is too well substantiated to require further illustration here. In blossoms which have no male, the winds, insects, and even the horticulturist himself, must promote the hymeneal union. The entomologist, as well as the botanist, in tracing the wonderful provisions of nature for the perpetuation of the different species in each of their respective pursuits, can easily appreciate the truth of their wonderful analogy, Seeds. The growth and preservation of vegetable life is promoted and maintained, as in animals, by the plentiful and regular motion of their fluids. Thus, when the seed has been perfected by the pollen, and deposited in the womb of the earth, and has swelled by the moisture which its vessels absorb, and which stimulate its vital principle, the embryo contained in it derives its nourishment by means so strictly analogous to the infant animal, that the same terms may be applied to either. The mother of the animal supplies it with appropriate nourishment, so the vegetable has a similar fluid, provided for its support; and the albumen or white, and the vitellus or yolk, which nourish the tender plant till it can obtain its appropriate food by its own powers and exertions, are in no way different from the blood and juices of the parent animal till the birth of its young, and the milk which sustains it afterwards. Each developes itself, and when at maturity becomes something totally different from its original appearance, either the giant oak of the forest, or the painted beauty of the garden; and there has taken place no greater change, from the stage when the vital principle was first called into action, than what has taken place in the tadpole that swims in the water, or in the butterfly which flies in the air. Training. In animals as well as vegetables, in their wild and uncultivated state, nature has been left to range free and uncontrolled; and the same grandeur of character marks each in their respective attributes: but, when restrained by man, and domesticated for his use, or cultivated for his food or pleasure, then the education of the one and the training of the other become equally necessary. The young plant, if left to itself, would, like the animal, be injured by the luxuriance and rankness of its growth, and be rendered useless to man if VOL. VI. unrestrained and undirected by his skill and guidance. His art is to eradicate the evil habits of the one, and to prevent or remedy the bad propensities of the other. The shape, growth, and symmetry of both must be scrupulously attended to; the wildness of their natures controlled; and the most efficient means applied, to render them productive. The tender sapling must be trained with as much address and attention, to render it profitable for timber, or beneficial for food, as the animal must be educated for the purposes for which he is designed. In either case, neglect would be fatal; and constant attention can alone render either profitable. To enumerate the various other analogies between the vegetable and animal kingdom would swell this letter to a volume. The effects of cold and heat upon both, either in too great or too little a degree; excessive moisture or dryness; too much or too little exposure to air; the difference of climates, of food, or of soils; pestiferous air, fogs, smoke, and vapours; not omitting the accidents to which each are liable, and the effects from wounds and other injuries; these, and many others, must strike the most superficial observer as common to both. Nor ought I to omit the diseases which are common to both; such as tumours, canker, distortions, gout, measles, carbuncles, ulcers, fungi, gangrenes, and excessive bleeding: but, as I intend to show, in my next letter, that the diseases in both are occasioned by the same causes, and produce the same effects; so shall I then demonstrate that, by keeping in view the distinction between the animal and vegetable world, as consisting in the absence of that medullary substance called mind, we may palliate or cure most of the diseases of plants by remedies analogous to those applied to the material or vegetable part of animals. A. W. N. ART. IV. On preserving tender Plants in Winter by means of the THERE is a curious coincidence between the annual mean temperature in the open air, and the annual mean temperature of water in a deep spring well at the same place. In a spring well of that description at Annat Gardens, I find the temperature of the water to indicate from 46° to 47° in the winter months, unaffected in the least by atmospheric temperature, however low that may be. As spring wells are frequently to be met with, and are always desirable appendages to a farm-stead or cottage, it occurred to me that many plants, useful to the cottager, or amusing to the farmer's wife or daughters, might be easily preserved in the winter months, in the coldest regions of Scotland, by that class of people whose finances would not enable them to erect more costly structures for the purpose. To ascertain how far this theory was correct, I placed a small frame over the well on a floor of deal 2 in. wide by 1 in. thick, and 14 in. between each spar, to admit of the heat rising in the frame from the water. Knowing that glass would not be purchased by that class whose advantage I had in view, I covered the sash with cotton wrapper at 4d. per yard, and in the frame I placed pots of cauliflowers, lettuce, pelargoniums of different sorts, Chrysanthemum indicum, Prímula sinénsis, &c. The circumambient air is generally, as might be supposed, nearly saturated with moisture; and, consequently, fresh air has to be admitted as frequently as possible. The vegetables and plants continue fresh, and the Pelargonium odoratíssimum has been all along in flower; and I am fully convinced that, where such spring can be rendered available, by means of a cut 2 ft. deep, 2 ft. wide, with 2 or 3-inch offsets at each side of the rill to support the ends of boxes 9 in. wide and 4 or 5 in. deep, placed within 2 in. of each other over the rill, into which boxes lettuce and cauliflower plants, chiccory, &c., might be planted, the whole to be covered over with hoops and loose matting to prevent the descent of what meteorologists call frigorific pulsation, a winter conservatory might be easily constructed on one spring, for the use of a whole village. As the rill brings a continual flow of water at the temperature of 46° or 47°, the earth in the box will always be kept considerably above the freezing point in the coldest nights. It may also be useful for nurserymen and others for preserving cauliflower plants, which in this country are always scarce and high-priced in the spring months. A glass cover, when it can be obtained, will be of infinite advantage, and will admit of a greater variety of tender plants for preservation. I am, Sir, &c. Annat Gardens, February 4. 1830. A. GORRIE. ART. V. Method of destroying the A'carus or Red Spider, Slugs, and other Insects on Plants, without injuring the Leaves. By N. T. Sir, As the time approaches in which insects begin to make their appearance on hot-house and green-house plants, you |