Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1871-07-18
GROWTH UNDER GLASS.
Utilization OF the Prismatic Colors In the Early
Maturation OF Plaots and ais-inte rest
ing Account OF Experiments upon Pigs,
Calves, and Grapes During q Period
OF Ten Years Children and
Violet Rays, Etc,

delphia Society for Promoting Agri
culture, held in that city, General A
}. Pleasanton, by request of the
society, read an interesting memoir
upon his experiments in acceleratine
the growth Of plants and animals by
the use of colored glass which ''selec.
ted" certain rays Of the solar spec-
trum. The paper has been printed
under the curiously inexact title Of
"The Influence of the Blue Color OF
the Sky in Developing Animal and
Vegetable Life, as Illustrated in the
Experiments of General A. j. Pleas
anton between the Years 1861 and
1871, at Philadelphia" A slight
sketch of the results of these expert
ments may not be uninteresting to
our readers:
Sir Isac Newton, to whom we owe
the first real positive experiments
upon light, although prism attic analy-
sis was shown from the earliest times
in the rainbow, first discovered the
different refrangibility Of the rays of
light, and Sir John Herschel subse-
quently showed that different parts of
the solar spectrum are remarkable
for different properties. Bearing
these two facts in mind, General
Pleasanton, following in the track of
Robert Hunt, of England, and other
European experimentalists, under
took to test the powers of the differ
ent rays of light in Fastening the
maturation of plants and animals.
He determined to make the first ex-
pertinent upon grapes, and for this
purpose in the early part of 1861 he
set about building acold grapery. He
says:
Finding no beaten track. | was
left TO group my way as best | could
under the guidance of the violet ray
alone. Ny grapery was finished in
March, 1861. It's dimensions were
eighty-tour feet long, twenty feet
wide, sixteen feet high at the ridge,
with double-pitched roof 1t was
built at the foot of a terraced garden,
ia the direction Of n. E. by E. to S.
w. by w. On three sides of it
there was border twelve feet wide,
and on the fourth or n E. by Z side
the border was only five feet wide,
being walk of the garden. The
borders inside and outside were ex-
cavated three feet six inches deep,
and were filed up with the usual
matter, carefully prepared for grow
ing vines / do not think they diff
fered essentially from thousands of
other borders which have been made
in different parts of the world. The
first question TO be solved on the
completion of the frame of the crap
cry was the proportion Of blue or
violet glass to be used on the roof.
Should too much be used it would re
duce the temperature too much, and
cause failure of the experiment, if
too little it would not afford a fair
test. At venture | adopted every
eighth row Of glass on the roof to be
violet colored, alternating the rows
on opposite sides of the roof, so that
the sun in its daily course should cast
beam of violet light on every leaf
in the grapery. Cuttings of vines of
some twenty varieties of grapes, each
one year old, of the thickness of a
pipe stem, and cut close 10 the pots
containing them, were planted in the
borders inside and outside Of the
grapery, in the early part of April,
1861. Soon after being planted the
growth of the vines began. Those
on the outside were trained through
earthen pipes in the walls to the in
side, and as they grew they were
tied up to the wires like those which
had been planted within. Very soon
the vines began TO attract great no
tice of all who saw them from the
rapid growth they were making.
Every day disclosed some new ex-
tension, and the gardner was kept
busy in tying up the new wood which
the day before he had not observed.
In few weeks after the vines had
been planted, the walls and inside of
the roof were closely covered with
the most luxurious and healthy de-
velopment of foliage and wood"
In September of that year a noted
scotsman r. BUST, ST., } from whom
the General had procured his vines
visited his grapery. He measured
some of the vines and found them
forty-fve feet long, and en- inch in
diameter, while varieties of like age
and size when pIanted-at the same
time too--were, under the ordinary
treatment, only puny spindlings not
more than FIVE feet long and scarcely
increased in diameter since they were
planted.
In the following season the growth
was if any thing more remarkable
They were started to grow in March,
after having been cleaned and prun-
ed in the preceding January. "Bo-
sides the formation of new wood"
saws the General, "and the display
of the most luxuriant foliage, there
was a great number of lunches OF
grapes, which soon assumed the most
| remarkable prOporLlous-JCe puncn-
es being of extraordinary magnitude,
and the grapes of unusual size and
development" In the following Sep
TENDER the same scotsman came to
visit the same grapery again, and
after having critically examined its
contents, estimated the weight OF
grapes as being 1900 pounds. One
may we'll be astonished at this pro-
duct when it is considered that in
grape-growing countries where that
fruit has been cultivated for centu'
ries, period of time of from five tc
six years will elapse before a single
bunch of grapes can be produced
from a young vine, while here were
plants only seventeen months under
cultivation giving a most remarkable
yield. 1t was of course predicted
that the fertility of the vine would
be soon exhausted, but up to May
1871, nothing of the kind had oc
Cured.