of stem and root? Under what circumstances is it advisable to promote the formation of leaves? Are the leaves really the organs of assimilation? What change in the functions of leaves does time produce?

Blooming.-a. Essential changes take place in the entire plant during the period of blooming, but the plants are thereby differently affected. Such species as have a distinctly fixed inflorescence (as the species of corn) have a strictly separate period of vegetation and another of blooming; others are blooming and vegetating at the same time.

b. How does nutrition take place during the blooming period; how do air and warmth operate during fructification? Since the period of fructifi cation is very short, and the crop depends mainly upon it, the sowing is to be done so that fructification will take place on favorable days. Nothing is as yet known as to this point.

c. Is it more conducive to the crop to increase the number of germs at the cost of their power, or vice versa? Is it a fact in the cultivation of corn grains that small grains contain relatively more albumen than large ones?

Formation of Fruit.-Is the absorption of nutritious matter still of any use during the formation of fruit? Whence does fruit principally take its substances?

There are, besides these questions on the functions of the organs, many more on the functions of textures common to the organs. Experiments ought, moreover, to be made on a large scale as to the formation of varieties. Every fruit and vegetable gardener is aware that the entire success of his art depends upon the peculiarities of a variety. The known varieties of the cultivated plants need a thorough revision. The most rational method of culture must lead to bad results as long as the cultivated variety is not understood beyond any doubt.

There can be no doubt as to the importance of all these investigations for agriculture. But all these questions are not chemical ones: they are physical, anatomical, and physiological. Much, very much, can be done here without chemistry, but it is only the combination of Chemistry with Physiology that can create an accomplished science.

We have thus, at considerable length, indicated some leading topics, a practical knowledge of which would enable the farmer to economize labor to a much greater extent than can at present possibly be done.

A proper estimate and appreciation of the value of labor, has never been acknowledged by any government during the historic period of human existence. Labor has always been held to be menial and to be subordi nate to every other human acquirement. The present rebellion may be viewed as a renewal of the struggle for the continuance of the mastery or

despotism of capital over labor. Educated and intelligent labor was making more rapid strides in the Northern or free States, than anywhere else in the known world, and bid very fair, in a short time, as a legitimate con sequence, to compete with capital in the great work of civilization, enlightenment and refinement of society. In direct competition with intelligent labor, slave-labor became unprofitable; hence the necessity of restricting and limiting the area of intelligent labor, and not only enlarging that of dave-labor, but requiring additional protection for the institution of slavary. In the free States capital appreciated the dignity of labor-did what it could to educate and elevate it, and, when educated, accepted it as a partner upon terms of perfect equality-hence the rapid progress made in improvements of all kinds in the free States. Labor was interested in de veloping new sources of industry, and consequent wealth, whilst capital was equally interested in giving permanence to our institutions, and develaping new sources of wealth. Intelligent labor in the North has never assembled as a mob to destroy threshing machines, and reapers and mowers,

the farm-laborers did in England; neither did the hand-loom weavers congregate as a mob to destroy the power-looms. What then? The free American laborers combined to purchase these very machines which were performing the same office which the laborers formerly did. All could not do this, and those who were unable to make such purchases, found an abundance of labor in other directions. The American laborers in the free North rejoice over the invention of every machine which relieves their "bones and sinews" from the performance of that particular kind of labor. Why? Because these laborers are intelligent and know perfectly well that capital will cheerfully aid them in any new enterprise which will open up a new source of industry, or which will more fully develop one already initiated. The tendency in the North and "Great West" has been to secure reciprocal co-operation between capital and labor; the rebellion has given this tendency an impetus which could scarcely have been acquired in half a century of profound peace.

No person is more deeply and directly interested in this reciprocal co-operation of capital and labor than the agriculturist, and to show clearly how much more important labor is than capital, if there should be any occasion to draw a broad line of demarcation between them, may be infer red from the statement of a single fact, viz.: that if all the property, real and personal, in the loyal States, at the time of the breaking out of the rebellion, had been put to sale at aution, and the terms "cash," to be paid in gold and silver, it could not have been sold for more than two cents on the dollar of the estimated value as returned by assessors for taxation. The

actual cash capital of the country then bore the proportion of two, to ninety-eight of the labor capital-because property is intensified labor, and property is valuable only in proportion to the amount of labor which has been bestowed upon it. It may be stated that a vacant city lot in Columbus is worth $5000, whilst an entire section of land may be purchased for less money in Paulding county. If labor makes the great difference, then what extraordinary labor has been performed on the vacant city lot? We reply that when the same amount of every kind of labor is represented by its products within the radius of a mile from all the boundaries of the seotion in Paulding, that has been performed within that distance of the city lot, that then it will be relatively just as valuable as the city lot.

It is not always the scarcity of an article which causes its price to be comparatively high; neither is it the great abundance of an article which invariably causes it to be cheap. From 1840 to 1850 gold seldom was more than one per cent. premium, and notwithstanding the millions of gold brought into the Eastern, Northern and Western States from 1850 to 1860, gold did not decline one per cent.; neither was there an advance on labor or on articles of industrial product in a corresponding degree, which the influx of gold should have produced, if abundance always cheapens. In 1864 there is probably as much gold in the United States as there was in 1860, and yet it has risen to 1.75 per cent. premium. But this premium on gold is purely speculative, for the government is under just the same obligation to redeem its issues of gold as it is to redeem its issues of "greenbacks," or any other evidence of indebtedness. The commerce and productive industry of the country are pledged for the redemption of either or both.

The present high prices of labor are not entirely due to the scarcity of labor, and in fact the price of labor, except for that of coal diggers, has not advanced in the same ratio with many of the products of labor. IRON, for example, is just as abundant in the whole country as it was at any time, and yet it is worth just eight times as much as it was in 1860. Taking iron as the standard of value, instead of gold, labor should command eight times as much as in 1860.

Since the advance in the rates of wages, labor has been much more judiciously, and therefore more economically, applied than heretofore. All the assistance which machinery could give to manual labor, has been conjointly applied with it, and therefore, if not as cheap as heretofore, produces greater results.

Annexed will be found a table of the present rate of wages (1864) in the various departments of productive industry in several counties in the State:

Brickmakers and farm laborers receive their board in addition to their wages.

Farm laborers receive their board in addition to their wages.

Brewers, butchers, millers, bakers and carriage trimmers receive their board in addition to their wages,

Mechanics from $3 to $4 per day.

Millers and tailors receive their board in addition to their wages.