Field, Forest and Farm Things interesting to young nature-lovers, including some matters of moment to gardeners and fruit-growers

“Bread is made of flour,” he began, “and flour is wheat reduced to powder under the millstone. What an interesting mechanism that is, the flour-mill, driven by water, by the win...

“Before taking the form of the powder which the user of snuff pushes up into his nose to tickle his nostrils and promote sneezing, before being rolled into the cigar or reduced...

“Fertile or arable soil,” resumed Uncle Paul, “constitutes only the surface layer of earth, that which is worked by the farmer’s implements and yields nutriment to the roots of...

“Four substances, mingled in very variable proportions, enter into the composition of fertile soil, or arable land, namely: sand or silica, clay, limestone, and humus, or vegeta...

“Limestone is the rock from which lime is obtained. It is composed of carbonic acid and lime. To obtain the latter, the limestone is subjected to intense heat in a furnace or li...

“Let us burn a plant, no matter what kind. The first effect of the heat is to produce carbon, which, mixed with other substances, constituted the plant. If combustion continues,...

“Phosphorus, which is a dangerous poison, as we have seen, is nevertheless found in abundance in the bodies of all animals. It occurs in the urine, whence Brandt was the first t...

“The carbonic acid gas produced simply by the breathing of the great human family amounts every year to about 160,000,000,000 cubic meters, which represents 86,270,000,000 kilog...

To make mortar with which masonry is held in place it is customary to use lime. In a sort of trough lined with sand are placed lumps of stone having a calcined appearance, and o...

“To be fertile a soil must contain limestone, sand, and clay, besides the organic substances coming from humus and fertilizers. Now it may be that nature has not endowed the soi...

“Though less important than lime, plaster of Paris is nevertheless much used in building, especially for ceilings, molded chimney-pieces, and in the filling of cracks and caviti...

“In agriculture plaster of Paris has by no means the importance of lime; nevertheless it produces excellent results on clover, sainfoin, and lucerne. It is used in the spring fo...

“Plant-life finds a part of its sustenance provided by nature in the atmosphere; it finds carbonic acid gas, whence it derives the carbon it requires; but the care and ingenuity...

“The stalk is the common support of the plant’s various parts. It is called annual or herbaceous when it lives only one year, as in the potato, spinach, parsley, and all forms o...

“The stalk or trunk is the upward-growing part of the plant, and needs air and light. The root, on the contrary, is the downward-growing part, and it needs soil and darkness. Th...

“Let us take a branch of lilac or any shrub. In the angle formed by each leaf and the branch that bears it, an angle called the axil of the leaf, we shall see a little round bod...

“Buds such as we have been considering appear in the spring and then spend the summer in gaining strength, after which they remain stationary and as if wrapped in deep sleep all...

“After attaining the requisite degree of strength the buds of certain plants leave the parent stalk and, if we may so express it, emigrate; that is to say, they detach themselve...

“There are buds that, though called to an independent existence, do not, before separating from the mother plant, store up provisions nor thicken their scales; but the plant its...

“That jelly,” remarked Jules, “looks just like the paste that I make with laundry starch. Your potato starch there in the bottom of the glass has exactly the same appearance as...

“Next to wheat no plant in our part of the world is of so much importance for food as the potato. Its use was not introduced into this country until toward the end of the eighte...

“Now let us see how the plant is nourished by the various substances of which we have just studied the most important. Every form of plant-life is made up, not of a compact and...

“Ascending sap, a liquid composed of a large quantity of water and a very small proportion of dissolved nutritive substances, is absorbed in the ground by the roots and carried...

“Self-preservation is the first law of a tree’s life, and next to that the preservation of its species, which is to be perpetuated by means of seeds. All this is perfectly natur...

“When the desired shape has been obtained the next thing is to keep it, despite all opposition on the part of the tree, which revolts in its own peculiar fashion; that is, it st...

“If one side of a tree is pruned very short and the other very long, the natural course of the sap is to some extent diverted from the first side toward the second, which is ric...

“The ovary of the flower, after being fertilized by the pollen, becomes the fruit, the apple on the apple-tree, the cherry on the cherry-tree, the walnut on the walnut-tree, the...

“When it has leaves and roots that are sufficiently developed, the little almond-tree will nourish itself by drawing what it needs from the earth and air. But until then it must...

“The germ in the heart of the seed is in a state that may be likened to deep sleep: its life is, as it were, arrested, suspended. But under the stimulus of certain conditions it...

“Here is the fennel-flower, which, with the corn-flower and the poppy, is so common in our fields of grain. It is purplish red, while the poppy is scarlet and the corn-flower, o...

“In a few days, even in a few hours, a flower withers. Petals, calyx, stamens fade and die. Only one part survives: the ovary, which is to become fruit. Now, in order to outlive...

“Now turn your attention to this picture of an ivy seed cut through lengthwise. Where is the germ or little plant in its egg? It is that little white thing, rather long and narr...

“Three modes of plant-propagation are in use among horticulturists, namely: layering, slipping, and grafting. To get an adequate notion of the great usefulness of these operatio...

“Since our fruit-trees and ornamental plants, if propagated by seed, revert sooner or later to the wild type, how can they be propagated without risk of degeneration? This must...

“Some plants, and among them the pink, send out from the base of the mother stalk straight, pliant shoots which can be used for obtaining so many new plants. These shoots are be...

“Propagation by means of a slip or scion cut from the parent tree and so placed that it will develop adventitious roots we may for convenience speak of as slipping. The cut end...

“Grafting is the process by which a twig or a bud [5] is transplanted from one branch to another, or from one tree to another. That which is to serve as support and sustenance t...

“There are three principal kinds of grafting, namely: grafting by approach (also called simply ‘approaching’ or ‘inarching’), grafting by shoots or scions, and grafting by buds...

“The part of a plant or tree above ground and the part under ground are mutually dependent, the development of one implying a corresponding development in the other. If there is...

They are eating dinner at the farm. A large platter of pork cutlets and beans is smoking in the center of the table. Every one has been served. It is a pleasure to see these goo...

“When soil is spoken of as worn out and needing rest, the speaker uses a figure of speech meaning that the soil has been exhausted by the crops it has borne. The crops do indeed...

“In the bottom of a flower-pot you will find a small round hole. Over this hole it is customary to lay a bit of broken tile, and on this, if the plant to occupy the pot is delic...

“You see that man over there on the hillside,” said Uncle Paul, pointing to a laborer who, with a large hoe, was paring the ground, so to speak, by shaving off great squares of...

“When wine is heated, there is first an escape of an inflammable vapor that burns with a bluish flame. A person needs only to have seen once this preparation of hot wine to reca...

“One of the joys of your time of life, I am sure,” resumed Uncle Paul, as he and his hearers seated themselves in the shade of an old oak tree amid the humming and whirring of i...

“I show you here the scarab, clothed all in black. Passionate lover of the sun, it rarely strays beyond the regions bordering on the Mediterranean. It belongs to the band of sca...

“It is a discovery of no small importance in your eyes, my young friends, when you find the first June-bug of the season on the young foliage. In the evening you get together in...

“Of all insects butterflies are the most graceful, the most worthy of childhood’s eager desire. Oh, how beautiful they are! Poised on a flower, they seem to form a part of it an...

“Ants live in communities, each containing many members, in underground abodes, where the young are reared. These communities are composed of three kinds of insects: males and f...

“On the margin of ponds and streams we may see, flying from one bulrush to another, certain insects with large transparent wings and abdomen long and slender like a piece of str...

“Among venomous animals there are some whose poisoned weapon has no other purpose than to serve as a means of defense. Such is the bee, the worker in honey of our hives; such al...

“In our talks on ants a few words were said concerning their milch-cows, plant-lice. You haven’t forgotten those curious herds with udders in the form of two little tubes that e...

“The yellow plant-louse found on the roots of the grape-vine,” resumed Uncle Paul, “has no bent for traveling: wingless, sluggish, and big-bellied, it is ill adapted to locomoti...

“The brown owl, the horned owl, the barn-owl and other species of this family, are known under the name of nocturnal birds of prey. They are called birds of prey because they li...

“Almost all the smaller birds are helpful to us in protecting the fruits of the earth from the ravages of insects. Their services deserve to be recorded in a long and detailed h...

“It is in the building of nests destined for the rearing of a family of young ones that the bird shows in a remarkable way that wonderful faculty which enables the little creatu...

“At the approach of the cold season,” Uncle Paul resumed, in his account of bird habits and bird peculiarities, “before winter clears the fields of insects, covers the ponds wit...

Resuming the subject of bird instinct as illustrated by the migratory flock’s unerring precision in finding its way over thousands of miles to a desired nesting-place, Uncle Pau...

“Fossil remains of all sorts of animals, from the largest to the smallest, are found embedded in stone. There are lizards which, if alive, would hardly find room enough to turn...

“Coal is a fuel of inestimable value. By the heat which it develops in burning it gives movement to divers machines. It makes the locomotive move over the iron rails and the ste...

“By ‘helpers’ I here mean those animals and birds that come to our aid, though not subject to our care and protection, and make war on the insects and divers other devourers tha...

“The hedge-hog’s diet consists especially of insects. The lowest order of vermin is disdained by him as too small, but a June-bug larva or a fat-bellied cricket is a capital pri...