The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-12-22
TALKS WITH FARMERS.
FTof. w. F. Massey, in Practica Farmer.

terms. But more careful reading 2t
the book shows that it abounds in hurt
ful errors, and is far from being the
book 1T should be to put into the hands
OF children. IN the first place, the Eng
lieh language is at times badly mutilatod
The author seems to have confused
idea as to what constitutes an element,
since he places humus among the elc-
ments, while 1t is one Of the most com
pick OF compounds. Then he repeats in
writing about how plants get food from
the soil, the old exploded notion that the
roots have absorbent "spong gioles. at their
tips. We now know that there is TO
such thing spongiole on the rootlets,
but that each rootlet has q more or less
pointed root cap at its tip, ard that the
absorption of water from the soil is ac-
complished by means OF the microscopic
root hairs just back of the tip, which
are continually drying off and being re-
neWed as the rootlet pushes through the
soil, and that the cap is continually re-
newed by the increase of cells behind 1t
and at the growing point of root, so that
the extreme tip OF root is a little Older
than the part just back Of it. He says,
''Circulation is TIE law Of plant life"
| Now, it is we'll known that there is no
| circulation in plants at all compare Bile
| to the circulation OF the blood in ami
mails. Through the soil comes the sap
The roots take UP water from the soil
IL which the plant food is dissolved, but
this Is simply water and not sap, for
the true sap is the elaborated material
for growth which the leaves make from
the carbon they get from the air and the
food that the roots bring up in water.
Then we have tne astonishing statement
| that the carbon must pass from the at
mOsphere to the earth and through the
roots into the plant. Now. il there IS
one thing completely established it is
/ the tact that plants get their carbon
| from the carbon doXide in the air, which
enters the pores Of the leaves and is
there decOmposed by the green matter
IL the cells and the carbon taken and
1 the oxygen thrown off, and there is no
! evidence whatever that carbon in the
soil gets into the plant through the roots
Then he repeats the error about the
spongioles, and says that they take up
water which is called sap and which
runs up and down through the pores or
the plant when it does nothing of the
sort, but simply carries up plant fooG
and is evapcrated from the leaves 70
cOndense the plant food so that the
leaves can make building material from
1t. These and numerous other errors 81
an elementary nature are enough to con
denim the book a text book for young
people, and we regret the hasty view
that caused us to give favorable notice
CT the book. From the press of CHM and
Co. we have another little book that
comes nearer being The true thing for
the rural schools than any yet published
This is by Professors Burkett, Stevens
and Hill of the North Carolina College
of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. It's
English is pure, its scientific facts are
o-date, and its elementary lessons IT
farm practice are just what a school boy
can grasp and set interested in. Then
too, the book is on fine paper and has q
wealth of beautiful illustrations, a thinG
o. great Importance in a book intended
to attract school children. Then, too
! there is not too much of it, bue it i
simply what it purports to be, the A. b
C. Of the farm.