Section D Zoology and Botany
President — Sir Ely Phante. Vice-Presidents — Proffs. Munky and Nape
“A New Method of Supplying Agricultural Surfaces.” By S. Sappy.
The author had often remarked the tendency of thatched roofs to grow corn; and it struck him that these, at present unemployed surfaces, should be made use of to conduce to the support of the inmates of houses. By growing corn in this manner a family might render itself partially independent of the farmer, grow its own wheat, and thus, at once, be elevated in the scale of existence! He would call this practice stegoculture. He had introduced it in some of his tenants’ cottages, and could assure the Association that nothing could have answered better than that experiment.
Mr. Soft observed it was one of those beautifully simple discoveries of application, as he would phrase it, which, like Columbus’s egg, only required to be set up in the right manner, to stand a monument of ingenuity and genius to all future ages!
Mr. Plunkey (from the Statistical section) said, that this discovery had relieved his mind of a heavy weight; he had long hoped for some light to dissipate the gloom with which he viewed the increase of population, while the land did not increase, but, on the contrary, diminished; for, as generations sprung up, houses rose also; thus, as more crop-ground was needed, more ground was needed for buildings. But with the aid of stegoculture, he had now no reason to apprehend a scarcity of growing-room, but, on the contrary, it was evident to any geometrist, that the two sides of a roof were of greater area than the ground they cover, thus giving an increase instead of a diminution of surface. With the impressions he had of the usefulness of this mode of culture, he looked forward to the time when agriculture would vanish before the spread of human habitations, and the science of stegoculture become of universal application.
The President read a letter from Professor de Lenz, and the Schah Pyez, (Professor of Twigology in the University of Cairo), giving an animated description of their discovery of the skeleton of a male flea in the folds of a mummy cloth.
The secretary then read the report of the committee which was appointed last year to inquire into the reason, “why crocodiles laid eggs.” The report stated, that, the Association having furnished them with means (£500) to prosecute this inquiry, so important to science; they found it absolutely necessary to take a long and arduous journey into Egypt, to investigate the facts upon the spot. They had run great risks in pursuing their researches: having killed a crocodile for the purpose of dissection (which act had filled the Arabs with horror, as they consider the crocodile holy), they had narrowly escaped becoming martyrs in the cause of science. They had examined many hieroglyphics, and had discovered upon some of the most ancient, figures of a crocodile with wings,—this proved them to have been at one and the same time inhabitants of the water, the earth, and the air, and therefore, from their assimilation to the functions of birds, they laid eggs. This the committee had concluded was the reason of the phenomenon. They also stated, that, from the various facts which had come under their notice during this inquiry, they had no doubt that dragons at one time existed,—and proposed that a grant should be made for the purpose of searching for the skeleton of the famous Dragon of Wantley.
Mr. Smith (of London) read a paper showing that the popular story of “Jack and the Bean-stalk” was founded upon the old tradition of the Lotus-eaters, and that the idea of the tale had been taken from the alleged power the Lotus-fruit had in producing an elevation-above-the-clouds sort of feeling in the eater,—which was only transferred into reality in the case of Jack: the injunction of Pythagoras to his disciples to abstain from beans, being supposed to refer to the Lotus, may have given the idea of a bean-stalk to the novelist.
Dr. Daub stated, that by watering the ground round the roots of flowers with different chemical solutions, suited to the changes in colour wished for, he had been able to alter the tints of the petals to various colours, thus producing an agreeable and novel effect.