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FIELD, FOREST AND FARM CHAPTER I THE STAFF OF LIFE
FIELD, FOREST AND FARM CHAPTER I THE STAFF OF LIFE
With his nephews as willing companions and eager listeners, Uncle Paul continued his walks and talks in the pleasant summer afternoons. “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 wind, sometimes by steam! What wearisome effort, what waste of time, if we had not this invention and were forced to do its work of grinding by sheer strength of arm! “I must tell you that i
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CHAPTER II THE HISTORY OF TOBACCO
CHAPTER II THE HISTORY OF TOBACCO
“Consulted as to future events, the soothsayer first of all inhaled the smoke of several tabagos, while the other persons present, seated in a circle, vied with one another in the energy of their smoking, their ultimate object being to enwrap themselves in a dense cloud. Then from the midst of this cloud [ 13 ] the soothsayer, his imagination wrought to a high pitch by the fumes of the tobacco, delivered his oracles in unwonted terms that made the hearers believe they were listening to the voice
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CHAPTER III THE ORIGIN OF FERTILE SOIL
CHAPTER III THE ORIGIN OF FERTILE SOIL
“Notice how admirably, in the processes of nature, the smallest of created beings perform their part and contribute as best they can to the general harmony. To produce fertile soil there is needed something more than the frosts and thaws that crumble the hardest rock: there is need of plants hardy enough to live on this sterile soil, such as tough grasses, mosses, lichens, which gnaw the stone. It is through the medium of these rudimentary plants, so pitiful in appearance and yet so hardy, that
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CHAPTER IV DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOIL
CHAPTER IV DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOIL
“A clay soil is quite the opposite of a sandy soil: water makes it swell and converts it into a sticky paste which clings tenaciously to farming implements. [ 24 ] Once wet, it is cold, that is to say it dries very slowly. A spade can only divide it into dense clods slow to crumble in the air and not fit for receiving seed. The farmer must be careful to drain off the water and break up the ground by working it before and during frosts. It is improved by mixing with it sand, coal-ashes, and lime.
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CHAPTER V DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOIL (Continued)
CHAPTER V DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOIL (Continued)
“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, this carbon is dissipated in the air in the form of carbonic acid gas, and there remains an earthy residue which we call ashes. Here then are two kinds of material, carbon and ashes, which without exception enter into all plant-life. The plant did not create them, did not make them out of nothing, since it is impossible
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CHAPTER VI POTASH AND PHOSPHORUS
CHAPTER VI POTASH AND PHOSPHORUS
“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 to extract it; it is found still more plentifully in the bones, and from thence it is now obtained. There is some in meat, in milk, and in cheese; also in plants, notably cereals; hence flour and bread contain it. But do not be alarmed: we shall not die of poison like the rats that have nibbled crusts smeared with grease a
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CHAPTER VII PHOSPHATES AND NITROGEN
CHAPTER VII PHOSPHATES AND NITROGEN
“To finish this difficult but very important subject of the nutrition of plants, I must say a few words about ammonia. This word does not tell you anything since it is a new word to you. But I will make its meaning clear to you by a familiar illustration. “You must have noticed the strong, penetrating odor prevalent in ill-kept water-closets; and you have also perceived the same odor when soiled garments are cleaned with a certain liquid that looks like clear water. Well, this odor, so pungent t
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CHAPTER VIII VEGETATION AND THE ATMOSPHERE
CHAPTER VIII VEGETATION AND THE ATMOSPHERE
“And do not think it any easy thing to unburn a burnt substance, to restore to their original condition two substances united by fire. Scientists would need [ 45 ] all the ingenious means and powerful drugs they possess to extract carbon from carbonic acid gas. This task, which would tax the utmost resources of the man of science, leaves accomplish noiselessly, without effort, even instantaneously, and with the sole requirement that they shall have the aid of the sun. “But if sunlight fails, the
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CHAPTER IX LIME
CHAPTER IX LIME
“A similar process goes on in mortar: the lime takes back from the atmosphere the gas that it had lost in the heat of the lime-kiln, and little by little becomes stone again. The sand mixed with it serves to disintegrate the lime, which thus more easily absorbs the air necessary for its conversion into limestone. When the mortar has fully resumed the form of limestone the courses of masonry are so strongly bound one to another that the stones themselves sometimes break rather than give way. “Wha
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CHAPTER X LIME IN AGRICULTURE
CHAPTER X LIME IN AGRICULTURE
“All animal matter makes excellent fertilizer. Of this class are old woolen rags, stray bits of leather, fragments of horn, dried blood from slaughter-houses, and flesh not fit for human consumption. All these substances are rich in nitrogen and phosphates, and if mixed with farm manure they add greatly to its value. Lime furnishes us the means of utilizing one of these substances, flesh, in the best way possible. “Dead bodies of animals, heedlessly left for dogs and crows and magpies to devour,
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CHAPTER XI PLASTER OF PARIS
CHAPTER XI PLASTER OF PARIS
“But this latter has a strong tendency to take on again the moisture parted with in the kiln, and thus to become once more what it was in the beginning—primitive stone. It is this peculiarity that renders gypsum suitable for plaster. Moistened in the trough, the powdery matter quickly incorporates the water that is thus restored to it, and the whole hardens into a block having the solidity of gypsum that has not yet passed through the kiln. Lime turns to stone by being permeated with carbonic ac
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CHAPTER XII PLASTER OF PARIS IN AGRICULTURE
CHAPTER XII PLASTER OF PARIS IN AGRICULTURE
1 The author is not quite accurate here. Franklin was, as he tells us, “the youngest son, and the youngest child but two.”— Translator. ↑ “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 of man have to supplement these natural resources by providing fertilizers. “One of the chief of these fertilizers, farm manure, is furnished by the bedding and excrement of animals.
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CHAPTER XIII NATURAL FERTILIZERS—GUANO
CHAPTER XIII NATURAL FERTILIZERS—GUANO
Common Gull, or Mew-gull [ 69 ] “Guano is the strongest fertilizer known to agriculture. It is scattered broadcast over the field when vegetation is starting, and for the best results a rather damp time is chosen for this work in order that the moisture may convey to the roots of the plants, by gradual infiltration, the soluble constituents of the fertilizer. The action of guano on vegetation is of the promptest, most powerful sort.” [ 70 ] “The stalk is the common support of the plant’s various
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CHAPTER XIV THE STALK OF THE PLANT
CHAPTER XIV THE STALK OF THE PLANT
“A number of observations like the following are familiar: Some foresters cut down a beech bearing on its trunk the date 1750. The same inscription was found again in the inner substance of the wood, but to reach it they had to cut through fifty-five layers on which no mark whatever appeared. If now, we add 55 to 1750 we obtain precisely the year when the tree was felled, or 1805. The inscription carved on the trunk in the year 1750 had passed through the bark and reached the layer of wood that
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CHAPTER XV THE ROOT
CHAPTER XV THE ROOT
“Deep roots, so admirably adapted to the utilization of the lower strata of the soil, become in other circumstances a source of serious difficulty. Suppose a tree is to be transplanted. Its long tap-root will make the operation difficult and hazardous. You must dig deep, both in pulling it out and in replanting it; and then you must be careful not to injure the root, for it is all in one piece and if it does not take hold and grow the sapling will die. In this case it would be much to the tree’s
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CHAPTER XVI BUDS
CHAPTER XVI BUDS
“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 through the winter. The following spring they wake up and grow into branches or blossom into flowers. It is plainly to be seen that these dormant buds, as arboriculture calls them in its picturesque language, must, in order to withstand the summer heat and the winter’s cold, be clothed so as not to be parched by the sun
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CHAPTER XVII ADVENTITIOUS BUDS
CHAPTER XVII ADVENTITIOUS BUDS
“To finish the subject of adventitious buds—buds that persist in multiplying even when the parent stock languishes, and that withstand destruction until utter exhaustion has set in—let us recall for a moment certain weeds such as dog’s-tooth grass, cock-spur grass, and other grasses that are so hard to keep out of our garden paths unless we do something more than merely rake the surface of the ground. You may have taken infinite pains, we will say, to clean the paths, and have left them immacula
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CHAPTER XVIII BULBS AND BULBLETS
CHAPTER XVIII BULBS AND BULBLETS
“From the bulblet to the bulb, from garlic to an onion, there is but a single step. Let us split an onion in two from top to bottom. We shall find it composed of a succession of fleshy scales compactly fitted together. In the heart of this cluster of succulent scales, which are nothing but leaves so modified as to form a food-storehouse, are found other leaves of normal shape and green color. An onion, then, is a bud provisioned for an independent life by the conversion of its outside leaves int
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CHAPTER XIX TUBERS—STARCH
CHAPTER XIX TUBERS—STARCH
“How beautifully,” exclaimed Emile, “those grains of starch are arranged in their little cubby-hole! They might be taken for a nest of eggs. And you say there are heaps and heaps of these little starch cells?” [ 96 ] “Yes, my boy; in a medium-sized potato they could be counted by millions and millions.” “It must be rather a curious sight to look at a little piece of potato through a powerful magnifying-glass.” “It is indeed one of the most curious sights, this countless multitude of starch grain
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CHAPTER XX USES OF STARCH
CHAPTER XX USES OF STARCH
“Such is undoubtedly the origin of the delicious sugar-plum,” was the reply; “and indeed many of [ 101 ] the delicacies of the pastry-cook, of the confectioner, and of the manufacturer of refreshing beverages, which you believe to be sweetened with ordinary sugar, really owe their sweet taste to syrup made from starch—a much cheaper product than sugar. You see the potato furnishes something else besides the modest dishes with which it supplies our table. “Nor is that the whole story. Starch-suga
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CHAPTER XXI HISTORY OF THE POTATO
CHAPTER XXI HISTORY OF THE POTATO
“Behold the potato fairly started on the right road!” interposed Jules. “It cannot fail to become popular now, under the protection of king and court.” “Not so fast, my little friend. Persuasion is a good deal better than command. The tubers patronized by royalty were thrown on the dunghill. At most, here and there a farmer, afraid of being reprimanded, allowed them to grow as best they could in some neglected corner.” “And then?” “Then the only thing to do was to convince, not the nobleman who
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CHAPTER XXII ASCENDING SAP
CHAPTER XXII ASCENDING SAP
“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 to the leaves through the sap-wood. It is not yet a nutritive fluid for the plant; it becomes so in the foliage by a double process. First, on being distributed to the leaves, which furnish a vast surface for evaporation, it exhales its superabundant water in the form of vapor and thus concentrates its usable ingredients.
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CHAPTER XXIII DESCENDING SAP
CHAPTER XXIII DESCENDING SAP
“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 natural, for no posterity would be possible to the tree unless its own existence were maintained in the first place. Accordingly the tree lives first for itself, accomplishing this object by covering itself with buds that develop into branches covered with leaves. It is indeed on the leaves that the fundamental principles of t
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CHAPTER XXIV TREE-PRUNING
CHAPTER XXIV TREE-PRUNING
“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 strives to restore the natural conformation of its branches. Suppose, for example, that a pear-tree, pruned after the manner of wall-fruit, has grown all out of symmetry and developed one side more than the other. How shall the two halves be restored to correct proportions? How shall the too vigorous part be weakened and th
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CHAPTER XXV PINCHING—BUD-NIPPING
CHAPTER XXV PINCHING—BUD-NIPPING
“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 richer in buds and consequently in foliage. We have just seen how this principle is utilized to check the growth of too vigorous a part in order to stimulate that of one that is too feeble and thus redress the balance between the two. But what would be the result if the whole tree were pruned at once? “Let us first see what
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CHAPTER XXVI MAKING FRUIT TREES BEAR
CHAPTER XXVI MAKING FRUIT TREES BEAR
“If these means do not suffice to make the tree bear fruit, there are more violent ones which are employed only in the last extremity. Toward the end of winter, before the sap has started, an incision some millimeters wide and deep enough to penetrate the outer layers of wood is made all around the base of the trunk. Sap, as we know, ascends through these exterior layers, the newest, the most permeable by liquids; so if we partially intercept its passage it will flow less abundantly to the buds
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CHAPTER XXVII THE SEED
CHAPTER XXVII THE SEED
“The little pointed nipple ( r ) is called a radicle. It is the part that, if allowed to grow, would push [ 133 ] down into the earth, send out branches there, and become the root. At the point marked g is a compact bunch of tiny leaves, all white, forming a kind of bud, but one that is much feebler and more delicate than buds that grow on branches. It is called a gemmule. This bud will unfold and send forth the first leaves. Finally, the narrow line of demarcation between the radicle and the ge
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CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEED’S FOOD-SUPPLY
CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEED’S FOOD-SUPPLY
“And this blade of grass, this also that I pick from a corn-stalk?” asked his uncle. “They, too, have parallel veins, both of them; and so their seeds must have only one cotyledon.” “And this grape-leaf, this leaf of the cherry tree?” “It’s my turn now,” Emile hastened to interpose. “The veins form a sort of lace with very fine meshes. The grape and the cherry have two cotyledons.” “It is as easy as that, my friends. The leaf with its arrangement of veins shows us the fundamental characteristics
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CHAPTER XXIX GERMINATION
CHAPTER XXIX GERMINATION
“We have just seen that certain seeds are very slow in coming up, as for example the peach, apricot, and plum, whose thick shells resist the moisture required for germination. Put directly into the ground in the very places that the young plants are to occupy later, these seeds would be exposed to not a few dangers during their leisurely germination. Prolonged rains might make them rot; various marauders that are partial to them, such as rats, field-mice, [ 142 ] jays, magpies, and crows, might
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CHAPTER XXX THE BLOSSOM
CHAPTER XXX THE BLOSSOM
“The corolla or inner garment unites elegance of form and richness of tint with fineness of texture. It is the flower’s finery and is what especially captivates our eye, so that we commonly consider it the most important part of the blossom, whereas it is really nothing but an ornament. “Of the two garments, the calyx is the more necessary. Many flowers have no corolla, but they always have at least a calyx, which in its simplest form is reduced to a tiny leaflet shaped like a scale. Flowers wit
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CHAPTER XXXI POLLEN
CHAPTER XXXI POLLEN
“It is especially in monœcious and diœcious plants [ 152 ] that the pollen’s indispensability is plainly manifest on account of the natural separation of the stamens and pistils. Let us take for example the locust, a tree of extreme southern France, bearing seeds in pods similar to those of the pea, but brown, very long, and very wide, and containing in addition to the seeds a sugary pulp. Supposing we took a notion, if the climate permitted, to grow locust seeds in our garden, what locust tree
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CHAPTER XXXII THE GRAIN OF WHEAT
CHAPTER XXXII THE GRAIN OF WHEAT
“I have just told you that many plants have only one cotyledon. I will add that this cotyledon is usually very small. It is especially in these plants that the perisperm is present. The grain of wheat offers [ 157 ] a notable illustration of this truth. Cut lengthwise and looked at through a magnifying-glass, this seed would reveal to us what is represented in the picture I now show you. At the bottom and toward one side is the germ, forming but a very small part of the seed. At c is the single
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CHAPTER XXXIII CULTIVATED PLANTS
CHAPTER XXXIII CULTIVATED PLANTS
“It is for us, by our intelligence and labor, to work our way out of the difficulty; upon us it is enjoined to put into practice the noble creed, God helps those who help themselves. “Thus from the earliest times it has been man’s study to select from the countless forms of vegetation at his disposal those that best lend themselves to improvement. The greater number of species have remained useless to us, but others, predestined no doubt, and created especially with a view to man’s needs, have r
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CHAPTER XXXIV DIFFERENT WAYS OF PROPAGATING
CHAPTER XXXIV DIFFERENT WAYS OF PROPAGATING
“From the parent stock of the strawberry vine a number of runners start out, long, slender, and creeping on the ground. These runners are also known as stolons or creeping suckers. After reaching a certain distance they expand at the end into a little tuft which takes root in the ground and is soon self-supporting. The new tuft of the strawberry vine, as soon as strong enough, in its turn sends out long runners which follow the example of the first [ 168 ] ones; that is to say, they creep along
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CHAPTER XXXV LAYERING
CHAPTER XXXV LAYERING
“The following method dispenses with this bending, which is impracticable when the wood is too brittle. In the spring the stalk or trunk that is to furnish the layers is cut back. All around this cross-section young shoots soon make their appearance, after which it is only necessary to wait until they are long enough but have not yet lost their tenderness, a state most conducive to the growth of adventitious buds; then the parent trunk is earthed up, or in other words light soil is heaped all ab
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CHAPTER XXXVI SLIPPING
CHAPTER XXXVI SLIPPING
“Instead of breaking off the branch by tearing it away at its base, one can, with a stroke of the pruning-knife above this base and another below it, cut the older limb bearing this branch so that the latter carries with it a piece of the former. With this piece as a sort of natural bourrelet or swelling, success is rendered more assured than in any other way. “To conclude, let us say a few words about slipping by means of buds, a kind of planting that uses buds instead of seeds. This method, wh
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CHAPTER XXXVII GRAFTING
CHAPTER XXXVII GRAFTING
“Accordingly it is the practice to plant the pips of pears and apples, and the stones of apricots and peaches; and on the trees thus obtained to graft cuttings from pear, apple, apricot, and peach trees that bear fruit of recognized superiority. In this way there are united in the same tree the root and trunk of the robust and almost wild kind with the leaves and blossoms of the weak but artificially improved kind. Every variety of pear tree is by nature fitted to receive a pear graft, every var
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CHAPTER XXXVIII GRAFTING (Continued)
CHAPTER XXXVIII GRAFTING (Continued)
Cleft-grafting “We will suppose there is a worthless pear-tree in our garden, grown from a pip or transplanted from its native wood, and we propose to make it bear [ 194 ] good pears. The course to pursue is as follows. We cut off entirely the upper part of the wild pear tree, trimming the cut with our pruning-knife so that there are no ragged edges, since these would not scar over readily and might become the seat of a far-reaching decay. If the trunk is of moderate size and is to receive but o
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CHAPTER XXXIX GRAFTING (Concluded)
CHAPTER XXXIX GRAFTING (Concluded)
“The implement here required is the grafting-knife, furnished at one end with a very sharp blade, and at the other with a short spatula of bone or very hard wood. The first thing to do is to remove the bud to be transplanted. On a branch in which the sap is working we make with the grafting-knife a [ 200 ] transverse cut above the bud and another below; then, holding the branch in one hand and the grafting-knife in the other, as the picture shows, we remove the strip of bark lying between these
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CHAPTER XL ROTATION OF CROPS
CHAPTER XL ROTATION OF CROPS
“Thus we have two successive crops for one coating of manure: we have sacks of potatoes with no additional outlay in fertilizer. Is that all? Not yet. After the wheat and the potatoes there is, to be sure, but meager nourishment left in the upper layer of the soil; but in the lower layers there remains the part of the fertilizer that the rain has washed down and dissolved and that the short roots of the preceding crops could not reach. To utilize this underlying matter and bring it up again to t
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CHAPTER XLI ROTATION OF CROPS (Continued)
CHAPTER XLI ROTATION OF CROPS (Continued)
“Let us examine in detail this series that we have taken as an example. The first year the soil is thoroughly manured. One of the effects of manuring is to start a great crop of weeds that would infest the land and impoverish the crop were they not carefully removed. Hence the necessity of weeding. To weed a piece of ground is to destroy the weeds either by hand or with some implement. But it is not every crop that admits of weeding: the plants must be a certain distance apart, as otherwise they
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CHAPTER XLII LAND-DRAINAGE
CHAPTER XLII LAND-DRAINAGE
“ Draining is so beneficial that it is not confined to marshy ground, which without it would be quite unproductive, but is applied also to ordinary arable [ 218 ] land. Wherever the soil is too clayey, or even where the surface soil is good but the subsoil clayey, rain-water cannot drain off readily and the ground remains soggy and cold. Eventually, however, it dries up, but there being no way for the air to permeate the soil, the latter is left hard and unyielding, so that the roots are by turn
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CHAPTER XLIII PARING AND BURNING
CHAPTER XLIII PARING AND BURNING
“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 recall that curious flame flickering over the boiling liquid and darting up little blue tongues. Now, this inflammable vapor comes from alcohol, a fluid substance that gives to wine its peculiar properties and is hence sometimes called spirits of wine. There are, then, in wine two distinct liquids, one easily reducible to vap
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CHAPTER XLIV WINE-MAKING
CHAPTER XLIV WINE-MAKING
“Some wines force out the corks from their bottles and are covered with foam on being poured into glasses. These are foamy wines, and to produce them the bottling must be done before fermentation is finished. The carbonic acid gas then continues to form, but as it finds no way of escape since the [ 227 ] bottle is tightly corked, it dissolves in the liquid and accumulates there, though all the while endeavoring to free itself; and that is what makes the cork pop with a sharp report when the stri
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CHAPTER XLV THE STAG-BEETLE
CHAPTER XLV THE STAG-BEETLE
“Such a worm, entirely naked, evidently cannot live in the open air, where the thousand little roughnesses of the ground would be continually wounding its delicate skin. It must have a safe shelter that it need not leave until it has become the well-armored insect we now see. The grub of the stag-beetle does [ 230 ] in fact live inside the oak, which affords it at once food and lodging. There, in the depths of the tree-trunk, is its inviolable retreat. “With its two teeth, as hard and sharp as a
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CHAPTER XLVI SHEATH-WINGED INSECTS
CHAPTER XLVI SHEATH-WINGED INSECTS
“The calosoma and the carabid do not fly; they are made for running, as is evident from their long legs, their agile movements, and their lithe form. They chase the game in hot pursuit, or else lie in wait for it behind a leaf, but never pursue it on the wing. On the other hand, the scarab, the common June-bug, and a host of other insects fly very well.” “But why don’t they all fly?” asked Emile. “I will tell you,” replied his uncle. “Look carefully at the June-bug a moment. It has two kinds of
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CHAPTER XLVII THE JUNE-BUG
CHAPTER XLVII THE JUNE-BUG
“Yes, and what else?” “It has six legs, not made for running on the surface of the ground, but for crawling underneath; and it has strong jaws for biting the roots of plants. Its head is capped with horn to help it in boring through the soil.” “Very good,” was Uncle Paul’s approving comment; [ 244 ] “and you see how the stomach is distended with food, which shows in a darker tint through the white skin of the paunch. So gorged is the worm, in fact, that it cannot stand on its legs, but lies lazi
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CHAPTER XLVIII CATERPILLARS AND BUTTERFLIES
CHAPTER XLVIII CATERPILLARS AND BUTTERFLIES
“At rest, butterflies do not all carry their wings in the same manner. Those that fly by day and go from flower to flower in full sunlight, hold their wings erect on the back and folded against each other. These butterflies are also recognized by their brilliant coloring, their lightness on the wing, their grace of form. Those, 1 on the other hand, that fly either by night or at evening twilight bear their wings, in repose, either outspread or else lightly folded in a sort of roof-shape. They ar
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CHAPTER XLIX ANTS
CHAPTER XLIX ANTS
“Three or four of these mount the cocoon and strive to open it at the end corresponding to the prisoner’s head. They begin by weakening the texture of the sac by tearing away a few threads of silk at the point where the opening is to be made; then, nipping and twisting the tissue so difficult to break through, they at last succeed in puncturing it with a number of holes near one another, whereupon the mandibles are applied at one of these holes just as [ 259 ] one would apply a pair of scissors,
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CHAPTER L THE ANT-LION
CHAPTER L THE ANT-LION
Ant-lion “Prey of that sort is incapable of serious resistance when once it has been seized by those terrible [ 266 ] hooks; but it must first be seized, and there is the difficulty. The nimble ant scampers off at the first approach of danger, and if it should chance to be hard pressed it has only to run up a blade of grass and there be out of reach. The ant-lion, on its part, heavy of paunch and short of leg, drags itself along very awkwardly; and, moreover, if it ever undertakes to get over th
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CHAPTER LI VENOMOUS ANIMALS
CHAPTER LI VENOMOUS ANIMALS
“The scorpion seizes it with its two nippers and holds the victim far enough away to avoid the risk of a bite. Then the coiled tail quickly straightens out over the scorpion and proceeds to inflict a sting on the helpless captive. It is all over. The stricken prey gives a momentary shudder in its death agony and then collapses, lifeless. The huntsman can now feast on his victim at leisure and in perfect security. “We have in France, in the southern departments, two species of scorpions, of which
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CHAPTER LII THE PHYLLOXERA
CHAPTER LII THE PHYLLOXERA
“The gardener pulls it all up and throws it on the dung-hill. His care and vigilance have been unable to arrest the invasion. In vain he crushed legions at a time under his angry heel: in a few days the half-dozen survivors had propagated a larger colony than ever. Man is hardly in a position to contend successfully against this lowly vermin which braves extinction by virtue of its countless numbers. “As I told you, the plant-louse does not like to change its place. It plants its sucker on the v
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CHAPTER LIII THE PHYLLOXERA (Continued)
CHAPTER LIII THE PHYLLOXERA (Continued)
“But what queer little creatures! Yellow, wingless, stubby, they look like the lice on the roots, but even smaller. These phylloxeras of the third kind are dwarfs in a family of dwarfs. They have no stomachs for digesting, no suckers for puncturing the leaves and extracting their sap. Self-nourishment, however slight, is not at all their affair. The laying of eggs that shall renew the vigor of the race, the placing of them where they will be safe, and then a speedy death—that is the sole purpose
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CHAPTER LIV NOCTURNAL BIRDS OF PREY
CHAPTER LIV NOCTURNAL BIRDS OF PREY
“Very little,” replied his uncle. “Perched on a branch of some tree, the night bird answers its aggressors by a grotesque balancing of its body, turning its large head this way and that in a ridiculous [ 297 ] fashion, and rolling its eyes in bewildered alarm. Its menaces are vain: the smallest and weakest birds are its boldest tormentors, pecking it and pulling its feathers without its daring to defend itself. “Because of its wide-open eyes the nocturnal bird of prey needs a subdued light like
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CHAPTER LV THE SMALLER BIRDS
CHAPTER LV THE SMALLER BIRDS
“But other species spend their energies in the free [ 302 ] open-air chase: they pursue their game on the wing, hunting for gnats, moths, mosquitoes, and flying beetles. They must have a short beak, but one that opens wide and snaps up unerringly insects on the wing, despite the uncertainties of aërial flight; a beak in which the victim is caught and held without any retardation of the bird’s swift course; in short, a beak with a sticky lining which a tiny butterfly cannot so much as graze with
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CHAPTER LVI BIRDS’ NESTS
CHAPTER LVI BIRDS’ NESTS
“The window-swallow makes its nest in the corners of windows, under the eaves of roofs, and in the shelter of cornices. Its building material is fine earth, chiefly that left in little piles after its digestion by earth-worms in fields and gardens. The swallow fetches it, a beakful at a time, moistens it with a little viscous saliva to make it stick together, and deposits it in courses, shaping [ 307 ] the structure into a sort of hemispherical bowl fastened to the wall and having a narrow mouth
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CHAPTER LVII MIGRATION OF BIRDS
CHAPTER LVII MIGRATION OF BIRDS
“The day for starting on this momentous journey is decided upon in a great assembly, toward the end of August for the window-swallow, and considerably later, even as late as November, for the chimney-swallow. [ 320 ] When once the date has been fixed, the window-swallows gather together daily for several days on the roofs of tall buildings. Every few minutes small parties detach themselves from the general conclave and circle about in the air with anxious cries, taking a parting look at their na
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CHAPTER LVIII CARRIER-PIGEONS
CHAPTER LVIII CARRIER-PIGEONS
“A pigeon having a brood of young is taken from the pigeon-house, put into a closed basket, and transported a distance of a hundred, two hundred leagues, or even further if you choose—from one end of France to the other. There it is set free. It rises in the air, circles about a few times as if to assure itself of the direction to be followed, and then starts off in impetuous flight toward the quarter where pigeon-house and young await its coming. “Does the bird catch sight of the pigeon-house a
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CHAPTER LIX SOME PREHISTORIC ANIMALS
CHAPTER LIX SOME PREHISTORIC ANIMALS
“Let us glance rapidly at some examples of the ancient denizens of land and sea. Look at this picture. The back of the creature here represented resembles a little, in its form and in its regular rows of scales, the tail of a fish; but the front—to what can that be likened? What is the meaning of those large bony plaques arranged side by side like the squares in a tessellated pavement? The animal is armed with coat of mail, perhaps to protect itself from the bite of an enemy. “What is the purpos
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CHAPTER LX THE ORIGIN OF COAL
CHAPTER LX THE ORIGIN OF COAL
“What do you think of it? Have we not here what seems to be actual leaves, and very elegant ones too? They are spread out with a care that would appear to indicate the work of a painstaking human hand. Yes, these are real leaves, but turned to carbon and firmly incrusted in their bed of black rock. “Similar imprints are found in great abundance in all coal mines. Certain coal-deposits, several meters thick, are composed entirely of them, the smallest chip that one splits off bearing on each face
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CHAPTER LXI THE FARMER’S HELPERS
CHAPTER LXI THE FARMER’S HELPERS
[ 344 ] “By what perversity are we, in general, impelled to destroy animals whose coöperation is so much to our advantage? Nearly all our helpers are persecuted. Their good will must be indomitable to make them bear our ill treatment and not forsake our dwellings and fields, never to return. The bat rids us of a host of enemies, and is nevertheless under the ban; the mole clears the soil of vermin, and is likewise proscribed; the hedge-hog wages war on vipers and cut-worms, and it too is an outl
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CHAPTER LXII THE FARMER’S HELPERS (Continued)
CHAPTER LXII THE FARMER’S HELPERS (Continued)
Common American Toad “He continues on his rounds, and when dawn begins to glimmer in the east what kind of a hodge-podge of variegated vermin must there not be in the glutton’s capacious maw? Yet they kill this useful creature—stone it to death because, forsooth, it is not so handsome as it might be. My children, may you never be guilty of such cruelty, such foolish and mischievous cruelty! Never stone the toad, for in doing so you would be robbing the fields of a vigilant guardian. Let the poor
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