Formula For Kerosene Emulsion

1895

This formula for a kerosene emulsion was given by a professor in one of our agricultural colleges some years ago, and I was requested to experiment with it on greenhouse plants. I did so, with highly satisfactory results, writes Eben E. Rexford in The Ladies' Home Journal. It is made as follows: Two parts kerosene, one part slightly sour milk. Churn together until a union of milk and oil results. When they unite, a white jellylike substance will be secured, which will mix readily with water. Dilute this jelly with 18 or 20 times its quantity of water and shower your plants thoroughly. Soft leaved plants, like begonias, primroses and gloxinias, are frequently injured by it, if applied in the strength advised above. Therefore it is well to dilute the application by using at least 30 parts of water to one of the jelly.


Love of Work

The love of work, which was one of the characteristics of the historian Froude, is well illustrated in a story told of his last illness. The cancerous affection of which he after died was slowly destroying his healthy and vigorous frame. At one time he seemed to be much better, and when the physician came to see him he noted the improvement and told his patient of it. Froude asked whether it was likely that he would he able to go back to his work again. On hearing that this was impossible he said, "If that is the case, I do not wish to live."


A Queer Branch

Uncle George — How do you like arithmetic?
Little Dick — Pretty well so far, but the teacher says that next week we are to begin learning how to extract roots. Guess he must think we're all going to be dentists. — Good News.

Artificial Spring New Device for Seed Analysts

1929

New York, Jan. 2. — A method of simulating spring artificially in a modern version of the old family ice box was described today before the association of official seed analysts.

It is used for testing the germination of farm seeds at the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Immigration, Richmond. By a specially prepared chamber and an artificial refrigerator, controlled temperatures are obtained over test seeds planted in special soil boxes.

Even the breezes of spring, so far as they are useful to the fields of farmers, are preserved through the action of cold water running through the apparatus, and providing the air purification that takes place in open fields.

Spring's sunshine is reproduced in its essential effects through an electric heater whose emanations are distributed from beneath a covering of water.

The apparatus was described by Carroll M. Bass of the Virginia department of Agriculture. The seed analysts met with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which closed its eighty-fifth annual meeting here last night. The seed men held over for a session today.

Transplant in the Fall

1916

In general, the fall is the best time to plant trees and shrubs on the home grounds. When planted in the fall, the plant is given an opportunity to spend its strength in producing new root growth rather than top growth. These new roots are the "feeding" roots, and if well established will give added vigor to the plant the following year. The protection and health of the root system is the most important consideration in plant growing.

There are some exceptions to this rule. If the summer and fall seasons have been unusually dry and the plant has suffered from drought, it may be best to wait until early spring to transplant, as plants may recuperate during the winter. In some parts of the country, late summer planting of evergreens has proved best, but for Missouri early spring planting seems more satisfactory.

It is best to transplant all trees and shrubs in the fall. It is possible to move plants after they have leafed out, but there is some danger of over-evaporation of moisture from the leaves and bark which will exhaust the strength of the roots. The plant will then show wilt and spend its strength on new leaves instead of readjusting its roots. To lessen the danger from evaporation, it is always well to cut the tops back severely, and if in leaf, the trunk of a tree should be wrapped with straw or sphagnum moss to keep it moist. It is better to transplant early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

Rainy or cloudy days are the best ones in which to do planting. Transplant after the leaves drop in the autumn or before they open in the spring. Remove injured roots, broken branches, and cut back the tops. Preserve the fine hair-like roots; they are the feeders, the others only serve as anchors. Never allow the roots to dry out in the wind or sun. Cover them with earth or wet straw. Dig the hole much larger than the spread of the roots and do not bend or crowd them. Tamp the soil firmly and closely about the roots, but leave about two inches of loose soil at the surface. These planting rules are important. A tree lives longer than a man; take time and care in planting it, and, in general, plant in the fall.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 4.

The Flowers of the Sea

1910

Like the land, the sea has its flowers, but the most brilliant of the marine flowers bloom not upon plants, but upon animals. The living corals of tropical seas present a display of floral beauty that in richness and vividness of color and variety and grace of form rivals the splendor of a garden of flowers. The resemblance to vegetal blossoms is so complete that some persons find it difficult to believe that the brilliant display contains no element of plant life, but is wholly animal in its organization. Among the sea animals that bloom as if they were plants are included, besides corals, the sea-anemone and the sea-cucumber. It has been remarked that among the coral gardens the birds and butterflies of the upper world are replaced by fishes of curious forms and flashing colors which dart about among the animal flowers.

Flora of Railroad Yards

1910

It has been noticed that many plants not natives of the locality are to be found growing in the neighborhood of great railroad yards.

Sometimes the seeds of these plants have been brought thousands of miles from their natural habitat. Often they flourish amid their new surroundings and gradually spread over the surrounding country. Thus trains carry unsuspected emigrants, which travel to and from every point of the compass.

In the Mississippi valley are to be found plants which within a few years past have thus been brought together; some from the Atlantic seaboard, some from the gulf region, and some from the other side of the Rocky Mountains. — Harper's Weekly.

The Possible Intelligence of Plants

1914

SENSES OF PLANTS.

A Theory That Flowers See and Hear and May Even Talk.

Jean Viand-Bruant, who is one of the most famous French horticulturists, has just published a little book on flowers, in which he advances the theory (I believe it is not entirely novel) that flowers both see and hear. As a young man, he says, he began to study flowers, for which he has always had a passion, and he sought to understand the habits of the blooms which he cultivated. When he saw the growing plant reach out toward the necessary support he asked himself whether the action was the result of volition and whether the plant had eyes.

M. Viand-Bruaut is now apparently convinced that flowers both hear and see. There are some that are sensitive to anaesthetic substances, ether in particular, which suggests the existence of a nervous system, like that of a nervous woman. And he would even credit them with something analogous to the power of speech.

"One knows," he writes, "that the perfume of flowers is a manifestation of vegetable life, a living radiation. Perfume is as much a vibration as an olfactory sensation. The perfume is the voice of the flower. A bouquet is a wordless romance. Each perfume or, rather, each odorous sensation corresponds with a certain rate of vibration. There is an analogy between the perceptions of sound, light and scent. The strong scent corresponds with the deep notes, while the delicate odors correspond with the shrill notes." — Paris Cor. Cincinnati Enquirer.

Funeral Customs – Old Fashioned Woe Being Replaced

1903

Funeral Reforms Needed

Old Fashioned Parade of Woe Gives Way to Better Customs

It accorded with old beliefs, remarks the Brooklyn Eagle, that a funeral should be a scene and occasion of gloom — absolute, hopeless gloom. The front room, with its dismal ornament, its black hair cloth furniture chairs and "sofy," its framed wedding certificates, its wreaths of flowers preserved from other funerals, was reduced to darkness by the lowering of the shades and closing of the blinds, so that guests fell over one another's legs when they entered and fumbled their way to the chairs. The deceased was dressed in black, nailed into a black coffin that rested on a black bier, and all the company dressed in the blackest things they could dig up from their wardrobes. No light, no air, no color, and from the minister little comfort. His voice creaked for the occasion. Then the company went away in darkened carriages to a bleak burying ground where the last rites were as dismal as might be.

This was the Yankee way. Some other people did differently. The wakes held over the remains were comforting to the survivors and added much to the reputation of the departed for hospitality. And the German fashion of going to a hotel after a burial and ordering unlimited beer proved that there was still a few solaces left on earth. Americans reverence their dead too much to make a funeral a scene of festivity; but they are mitigating the gloom of these occasions to a degree. Flowers and music take the edge from grief, and it is no longer necessary to darken the windows. White is more and more used in place of black for dress and decoration, and in placing the body in the casket — or, better, on a couch — there is avoidance of the stiffness of attitude that suggests a pose before the old fashioned photographer.

Reform in these matters comes, in part, through the holding of funerals in other places than the home. Some undertakers have mortuary chapels as part of their establishments. Cemeteries have buildings for a similar purpose. Mount Auburn, in particular, has a beautiful little chapel, near the gate which replaces the gothic structure in the middle of the grounds, now become a crematory. In this chapel, with its organ, carved oak roof, stained windows and electroliers in the form of funeral torches, the bier is so easily movable that it can be turned by a single hand: hence much of the struggle to place and carry away the casket is foregone.

But what especially marks the difference between the funeral here and the home funeral, between the now fashion and the old, is the lack of mourning emblems and the presence of plants and palms. The chancel is a mass of green — kentias, rubber trees, oleanders, and smaller plants, in rows and groups, so that the casket, with its usual burden of flowers in the center, suggests a great bloom itself in a whorl of leaves than the depository of a dead body. The clergyman delivers his address from a pulpit at one side, and if he is a wise clergyman it is a hopeful and encouraging address; in preference to the old fashioned threnody. When that is over there is music form the organ — a fine instrument — and the company files out into the sunlight. It is far better than the old fashioned funeral — that type of absolute woe.

Secret of a Flower - What Might They Know?

1916

How Did the Trumpet Vine Discover the Bared Stump?

If someone advanced the theory that this plant had some unknown power of reasoning you would probably reply that "plants can't reason because they have no mind." You may change your opinion after you hear this story, related by Royal Dixon, who writes entertainingly about how near like human beings in their actions plants are.

The story is about a trumpet vine, the favorite of many an old fashioned garden. About twenty feet from where it grew was an old pine stump with the bark on. One day a fire was built about the foot of the stump, and the bark was burned off.

Immediately the trumpet vine sent forth a long trailer across the garden to the stump. It raised the tendrils, felt the smooth surface of the stump and started to climb. Before long the whole blackened surface was hidden beneath the leaves and blossoms of the new vine.

With the rough bark on the stump it provided no surface for the clinging tendrils of the vine. After the fire destroyed the bark the vine found a place to climb.

How did the plant know that the fire had prepared the stump? We don't know. Ask the flower! — Philadelphia North American.

Man's Tomato Vines Resemble Jack's Bean Stalk

Irvington, Indiana, 1918

WHAT MIGHT HE HAVE DONE HAD HE KNOWN TOMATOES?

Although a Novice, W. M. Young Declares Vines Resembled "Jack's Bean Stalk"

W. M. Young, 28 Colorado avenue, Irvington, is wondering how large a tomato crop in the rear of his home would have been last summer had he been an expert agriculturist rather than a novice at the game.

Young, who is a busy man as traffic manager for the Nordyke & Marmon automobile and milling machine plant, sought some pastime as a relief from his "grind" at the office — a regular "nightmare" of less than car loads, differentials, freight tariffs, lost shipments and overcharges.

A kind neighbor found a solution. It was gardening. Tomato seeds were supplied and early last spring Young got busy with the spade. He kept busy and cared for the tender plants in the same gentle manner that an experienced farmer does his crops.

The vines continued to grow until they took on astounding proportions. Some of the vines climbed to a height of six feet, and Young says some of the tomatoes were "nearly" as large as red toy balloons. The season's yield from twenty-one vines was six bushels.

Young is planning to establish even a better record next summer and his entire back yard will be transformed into a garden for the exclusive development of a tomato crop.

—The Indianapolis Sunday Star, Indianapolis, November 23, 1918, page 4.

Mistletoe Has Brains -- The Intelligence in Plants

1922
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Mistletoe Has Brains

One of the most curious illustrations of the working of intelligence in plants is offered by the mistletoe, whose sticky berry, finding lodgment on a tree branch, throws out a tiny rootlet, which tries to pierce the bark and thus obtain a foothold. If the bark is too tough, the rootlet swings the berry over to a fresh spot, and makes another trial. In this way such a berry has been known to make five jumps in two nights and three days. On one occasion a number of them were discovered by a botanist in the act of visibly journeying along a telegraph wire, trying to find places to grow.— Exchange.

--The Pointer, Riverdale, Illinois, August 4, 1922, page 4.