A First Report on the Relations Between Climates and Crops

Front Cover
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1905 - Crops and climate - 386 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 27 - ... exact degree of its action by day and by night. An atmosphere of carbonic acid gas might also be created, such as is supposed to have existed in the coal period. Then it might be seen to what extent our present vegetation would take an excess of carbon from the air, and if its general existence was inconvenienced by it. Then it might be ascertained what tribes of plants could bear this condition, and what other families could not have existed, supposing that the air had formerly had a very strong...
Page 68 - There has been comparatively little study of the chemical principles of plants from a purely botanical view. It promises to become a new field of research. The Leguminosae are conspicuous as furnishing us with important dyes, eg, indigo, logwood, catechin. The former is obtained principally from different species of the genus Indigofera, and logwood from the Hcematoxylon and Saraca indica.
Page 306 - SC, obtained some of these seeds from Georgia and planted them. This crop failed to mature, and the first successful crop of long staple cotton grown in South Carolina was planted in 1790, by William Elliott, on the northwest corner of Hilton Head, on the exact spot where Jean Ribault landed the first colonists and erected a column of stone, claiming the territory for France a century before the English settled on the coast. Mr. Elliott's crop sold for 10£d.
Page 68 - The discovery1 of haematoxylin in the Saraca indica illustrates very well how this plant in its chemical, as well as botanical, character is related to the Hcematoxylon campechianum ; also, I found a substance like catechin in the Saraca. This compound is found in the Acacias, to which class Saraca is related by its chemical position as well as botanically. Saponin is found in both of, these plants as well as in many other plants of the Leguminoss.
Page 27 - ... seen, the observer would himself be inside the apparatus and could arrange the plants as desired. He might observe several species at the same time — plants of all habits, climbing plants, sensitive plants, those with colored foliage, as well as ordinary plants. The experiment might be prolonged as long as desirable, and probably unlooked-for results would occur as to the form or color of the organs, particularly of the leaves. Permit me to recall on this subject an experiment made in 1853...
Page 25 - I propose would allow of light being passed through colored glasses or colored solutions, and so prove the effect of the different visible or invisible rays which enter into the composition of sunlight. For the sake of exactness nothing is superior to the decomposition of the luminous rays by a prism, and the fixing the rays by means of the heliostat.
Page 316 - The ideal climate for wheat is one with a long and rather wet winter, with little or no frost, prolonged into a cool and rather wet spring, which gradually fades into a warmer summer, the weather growing...
Page 137 - In our earlier papers we had concluded that, excepting the small amount of combined nitrogen coming down in rain and the minor aqueous deposits from the atmosphere, the source of the nitrogen of our crops was, substantially, the stores within the soil and subsoil, whether derived from previous accumulations, or from recent supplies by manure. More recently...
Page 26 - Accordiag to the experiments we have on this subject, they would appear to have but little power over any of the functions ; but it would be worth while to investigate further the calorific regions of the spectrum by employing Dr. Tyndall's process, that is, by means of iodine dissolved in bisulphide of carbon, which permits no trace of visible light to pass. How interesting it would be to make all these laboratory experiments on a large scale ! Instead of looking into small cases, or into a small...
Page 270 - July 26 July 27 July 28 July 29 July 30 July 31 Aug. 1 Aug. 2 Aug. 3 Aug. 4 Aug. 5 Aug. 6 Aug. 7 Aug. 8 Aug.

Bibliographic information