Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1822-09-14
AGRiCVA 'YVR.AA.
ON THE PRODUCTION OF PLANTS.


in this enlightened age, that there are
some vegetables, which spring up spon-
taneously, being produced from no root
or seed, but from some imaginary virtue
in the soil. The advocates of this OPT
Mon, refer us to the growth of white
clover, where ashes or gypsum have
been strewed, to the weeds which grow
on lands recently burnt over, and to the
production Of plants in other places,
where no seed has been sown, and where
none is supposed to exist. This notion
of spontaneous ropagalion was general
ly received among the ancients, and Vir-
gil tells us of nullo de semine fruges.-
1t is now, however, universally xploded
by men of science; and witt. view Of
correcting this too common error among
other classes, we have selected the fol-
lowing remarks from DR.. Dw1GHT's
TRAVELS.
Sir Humphrey Davy observes, that
"seed excluded from the air will re-
main for years inactive in the soil, and
yet germinate under favorable circum-
Stances HAMPSHIRE MS. J Gaz.
The lands III Addison, which have been
once cultivated, and again permitted to
lie waste for several years, yield rich
and fine growth of hickory. OF this
wood there is not, believe, single tree
in any original forest within SO miles
from this soil. The native growth here
is white cane of which did not see
single stem amid whole grove Of hick-
ory. Similar specimens of an entire
change in the forest vegetation are COM
mon in maly, perhaps in all parts Of
New England, where the land has been
cultivated, and again covered with wood.
This change is comm ,nly attributed by
minimizing, as il has often been by think
ing men, to equivocal generation; the
material elements being supposed to
possess chemical power Of originating,
and perfecting vegetation, without the
aid of seeds. To support the SUPPOSE
ton, however, philosophy, although she
has frequently adopted, has never been
able to find single fact, or allege par
iicle OF positive evidence. The opinion
obviously contradicts all known analogy;
and is sustained only by that broken
reed, inerhAcableness.
The seeds of vegetables, when lodged
beneath that thin stratum Of earth, with
in which they germinate, have no appa-
rent tendency to decay but continue to
possess all their vegetative power
through an indefinite number of centu-
ries. When the existing forest is cut
down, and its seeds are destroyed by cul-
tivation, those which were shed by a
more ancient growth, being thrown up
by the plough within the limits of this
stratum, spring up in their turn; and
cover the surface with trees OF new
kind The following facts will throw
some light on this subject.
A field, about five miles from North
ampton, ON an eminence called Rail Hill,
was cultivated about century ago. The
growth here, and in all the surrounding
region, was wholly oak, chestnut, sc.
AS the field belonged to my grandfather,
l had the best opportunity of learning its
history. 1t contained about FIVE acres,
inthe form of an observation-disclosures.
As the savages rendered the cultivation
dangerous, it was given up. On the
ground there sprang up grove OF white
pines, covering the field, and retaining
its figure exactly. So far as ! remem-
Der, there was not in it a single oak or
chesnut tree. Pines were as thick as
they could conveniently grow and when
first saw them, about the year 1850,
had attained a considerable size. When
last saw them, more than twenty years
afterwards, they were large trees; yet
there was not single pine, whose seeds
were, or, probably, had for ages been,
sufficiently near 10 have been planted on
the spot. The fact that these white
pines covered this field exactly, SO as to
preserve both its extent and figure, and
that there was none in the neighborhood,
are decisive proofs that cultivation
brought up the seeds Of former forest
within the limits Of vegetation, and gave
shom an opportunity to germinate. The
regularity and limits Of the process are
entirely Inconsistent with the doctrine Of
equivocal generation.
A respectable farmer in Guilford in
formed me, some years since, that 80
years before the event, TO which prin-
cipally refer in this paragraph, took
place, his father, while reaping field Of
wheat, found quantity Of chess, which