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THE 
 
 THEORY AND PEACTICE OF 
 HORTICULTUEE ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE CHIEF OPEEATIONS OF 
 GARDENING UPON PHYSIOLOGICAL GEOUNDS. 
 
 BEINQ THE SECOND EDITION OF THE 
 
 THEOEY OF HOETICIJLTUEE, 
 
 MUCH ENLARGED. 
 
 By JOHN LINDLEY, Ph.D. F.R.S. 
 
 Correspondingr Member of the Institute, 
 
 Vice-Secretary of the Horticultural Society, Professor of Botany in University College, Ltjndon, 
 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 " Thougli I am very sensible tliat it is from long experience chiefly that we are to expect 
 the m.ost certain rules of practice, yet it is withal to he remembered that the likeliest 
 method to enable us to make the most judicious observations, and to put us upon the 
 most probable means of improving any art, is to get the best insight we can into the 
 nature and properties of those things which we are desirous to cultivate and improve." 
 
 Hales's Vegetable Staiicks, I 376. 
 
 LONDON: 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 
 
 1855. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 BRADBtTRY AND EVANS, PR1NTEE3, WI-TITEFIITA"BS, 
 
EIGHT HONOTJEABLE THOMAS FEANCIS KENNEDY, 
 
 Lately one of Her Majesty's Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, 
 
 B!S{)0 ffinSeafaanteU to i&datm 
 
 A PUBLIC DEPAETMEMT 
 IN WHICH UNSKILFUL MANAGEMENT HAS BEEN MOST DI3ASTB0UB, 
 
 THIS EDITION 
 
 OS A WORK ON THE PEINCIPLES 0! CULTIVATION, 
 
 JEs Eiwcvibetf 
 
 AS A MARK OF RESPECT FOR HIGH OFFICIAL CHARACTER AND ILL-REQUITED 
 PUBLIC SERVICES, 
 
 BT HIS FAITHFUL SBBVANT, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 (1840.) 
 
 This book is written in the hope of providing the intelligent 
 gardener, and the scientific amateur, correctly, with' the 
 rationalia of the more important operations of Horticulture ; in 
 the full persuasion that, if the physiological principles on 
 which such operations, of necessity, depend, were correctly 
 appreciated by the great mass of active-minded persons now 
 engaged in gardening in this country, the grounds of their 
 practice would be settled upon a more satisfactory foundation 
 than can at present be said to exist. It is, I confess, sur- 
 prising to me, that the real nature of the vital actions of plants, 
 and of the external forces by which they are regulated, should 
 be so frequently misapprehended even among writers upon 
 Horticulture ; and that ideas relating to such matters, so very 
 incorrect as we frequently find them to be, should obtain 
 among intelligent men, in the present state of what I may be 
 permitted to call horticultural physiology. There must be a 
 great want of sound knowledge of this subject, when we find 
 an author, who has made himself distinguished in the history 
 df English gardening, giving it as his opinion, " that the weali 
 drawn state of forced Asparagus in London is occasioned by 
 the action of the dung immediately upon its roots ! " 
 
 It does not seem possible to account for this in any other 
 way than by referring it to the want of some short guide to the 
 horticultural application of vegetable physiology, unmixed with 
 
vi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 other things ; and so arranged that the intimate connexion of 
 one branch of practice with another, and of the whole with a 
 few well ascertained facts upon which everything else depends, 
 may be distinctly perceived from a single point of view. The 
 admirable papers of Mr. Knight are scattered through the 
 Horticultwal Transactions ; and the writings of other physi- 
 ologists are dispersed through so many different works, that 
 the labour of finding them, when wanted, is greater than is 
 willingly undertaken even by those who have access to ample 
 libraries. With regard to general works on Horticulture, it is 
 very far from my wish to say one word in disparagement of the 
 many excellent publications upon this subject which have 
 already appeared in this country 5 on the contrary, the 
 improved state of gardening among us may be reasonably 
 ascribed to the influence of some of these valuable works : but 
 it must be admitted that the true principles of physiology are 
 not, in such books, so separated from the details of routine on 
 the one hand, or so applied to them on the other, as to be 
 readily understood by those who want either the skill or the 
 inclination to distiuguish empirical directions from rules which 
 are plainly founded upon the very nature of things. I must 
 also be permitted to observe that, although results are correctly 
 stated in such books, they are not unfrequently referred to 
 wrong causes. 
 
 In preparing the following pages for the press, my anxious 
 desire has been to strike out all unnecessary matter, even 
 although it may be required to complete the physiological 
 explanation of common facts ; and to introduce little beyond 
 that which every gardener can verify for himself. Vegetable 
 anatomy is no doubt the foundation of all correct views of 
 physiological action ; chemistry is of the first importance, when 
 the general functions of plants are considered in a large and 
 general way ; and electricity probably exercises an important 
 
PfiEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. vii 
 
 influence over the vital actions of all living things. But these 
 are the refinements of science, belonging to the philosopher in 
 his laboratory, and not to the worker in gardens; they are 
 indispensable to the correct appreciation of physiological 
 phenomena, but not to the application of those phenomena to 
 the arts of life ; electricity, in particular, appears to me, in the 
 present imperfect state of our knowledge of its relation to 
 vegetable functions, altogether incapable of forming a part of 
 any horticultural theory. 
 
 What the gardener wants is, not a treatise upon botany, nor 
 a series of speculations upon the possible nature of the 
 influence on plants of all existing forces, nor an elaborate 
 account of chemical agencies inappreciable by his senses and 
 obscurely indicated by their visible results ; but an intelligible 
 explanation, founded upon well ascertained facts which he can 
 judge of by his own means of observation, of the general nature 
 of vegetable actions, and of the causes which, while they control 
 the powers of life in plants, are themselves capable of being 
 regulated by himself. The possession of such knowledge will 
 necessarily teach him how to improve his methods of cultiva- 
 tion, and lead him to the discovery of new and better modes. 
 
 It is very true that ends of this kind are often brought about 
 by accident, without the smallest design on the part of the 
 gardener ; and there are, doubtless, many men of uncultivated 
 or idle minds, who think waiting upon Providence much better 
 than any attempt to improve their condition by the exertion of 
 their reasoning faculties. For such persons books are not 
 written. 
 
 I hope that what has now been said will not lead any one to 
 suppose that this sketch is offered to the reader as a complete 
 theory of Horticulture in all its varied branches ; such a work 
 would be alike tedious to the author and the reader, and, I fear, 
 as unprofitable ; for, if a gardener, when once made acquainted 
 
viii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 with the general principles of science, has not the skill to apply 
 them to each particular case, it is to be feared that no disquisi- 
 tion, however elaborate, would enable him to do so. So far has 
 it been from my intention to enter into subordinate details, 
 that I have carefully avoided them, from a fear of complicating 
 the subject, and making that obscure which in itself is suffici- 
 ently clear. All that a physiologist has reaUy to do with 
 Horticulture is, to explain the general nature of the Yital 
 actions of a plant, and the manner in which these are commonly 
 applied to the arts of cultivation ; if he quits this ground, he 
 extends his limits so much that there is no longer a horizon in 
 view. No one, indeed, could advantageously investigate the 
 minor points of cultivation in aU their branches, unless he 
 were both a good physiologist and a practical gardener of the 
 greatest experience, a combination of qualifications which no 
 man has ever yet possessed, and to which I, most assuredly, 
 have not the shadow of pretension. 
 
 In conclusion, let me, in impressing upon the minds of gar- 
 deners the importance of attending to first principles, also 
 caution them against attempting to apply them, except in a 
 limited manner, and by way of safe experiment, until they fully 
 understand them. The difference between failure and success, 
 in practice, usually depends upon slight circumstances, very 
 easily overlooked, and not to be anticipated beforehand, even 
 by the most skilful ; their importance is often unsuspected till 
 an experiment has failed, and may not be discovered tUl after 
 many unsuccessful attempts, during which more mischief may 
 be done by extensive failures than the result is worth when 
 attained. No man understood this better than the late 
 Mr. Knight, the best horticultural physiologist that the world 
 has seen, whose experiments were conducted with a skiU and 
 knowledge which few can' hope to equal. So fuUy was he aware 
 of the uncertain issue of experimental investigations in Horti- 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. ix 
 
 culture, that he thought it necessary, in recommending a new 
 mode. of ctiltivating the Pine-apple, and in ohjecting to methods 
 at that time commonly in use, to express himseK in the fol- 
 lowing words : — ■" I beg it to be understood that I condemn the 
 machinery only which our gardeners employ, and that I admit 
 most fully their skill in the application of that machinery to be 
 very superior to that which I myself possess. Nor do I mean, 
 in the slightest degree, to censure them for not having 
 invented better machinery, for it is their duty to put in 
 practice that which they have learned ; and, having to expend 
 the capital of others, they ought to be cautious in trying 
 expensive experiments, of which the results must necessarily 
 be uncertain; and, I believe, a very able and experienced 
 gardener, after having been the inventor of the most perfect 
 machinery, might, in very many instances, have lost both his 
 character and his place before he had made himself sufficiently 
 acquainted with it, and consequently become able to regulate 
 its powers." 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Aftee a lapse of fifteen years the author has been called 
 upon to prepare for the press a Second Edition of this work. 
 In obeying the call, he gladly avails himself of the only public 
 opportunity that he can have for thanking his foreign editors 
 for the honour they have done him by translating the book into 
 German,* Dutch,t and Eussian.I , 
 
 He has always felt that the naked principles laid down in the 
 First Edition were less interesting than they would have been 
 if they had received more extensive illustration from examples 
 and frequent reference to practical operations. He has now, 
 therefore, greatly extended the matter, and endeavoured, when- 
 ever it appeared necessary, to support the doctrines of physiology 
 by an appeal to facts which are or should be familiar to culti- 
 vators. In doing this he has to express his sincere gratitude 
 to the numerous intelligent contributors to the Gardeners' 
 Chronicle, who during more than fourteen years have honoured 
 
 * Theorie der Gartenkunde, &c., uebersetzt mit Anmerkungen von Ludolpli 
 Christiau Treviranus. Erlangen, 1843. 
 
 Theorie der Gartnerei, &o., aus dem Englisohen iitersetzt von S. G., mit eiaer 
 Vorrede, Amnerkungen, und einem Anhange, versehen von einigen Freimden der Horti- 
 cultur. Wien, 1842. 
 
 + Gfrondbegiuselen der Horticnltniir (Tuinkunst) naar het Engelsch van John 
 Lindley, &c. ; mit hijlagen door W. H. de Vriese. Amsterdam, 1842. 
 
 J Teoria Sadovodstva Hi opoit izjasnenia glaTneiahich proizvodstv sadovodstva iz 
 natshal rastitelnoi phisiologii. Edited, with Tarious notes and additions, by J. 
 Sohyehowsky. St. Petersburg, 1845. 
 
xii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 him with their confidence, for avast accumulation of horticultural 
 information upon almost every point that can engage the 
 thoughts of a gardener ; it is they who have put principles to 
 the test of experience, and who have shown how little there is 
 of doubtful or unsound in the Theory of gardening ; and he 
 thinks it due to them to acknowledge that whatever new merit 
 this book may possess is owing greatly to the experience 
 gained by their friendly cooperation. 
 
 AOTON ©KEEN, 
 
 April, 1855. 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 101, for Baroness RoUe read Baroness RoUe. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 OP THE PRINCIPAL CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH VEGETABLE LIFE 
 
 WHICH ILLUSTRATE THE OPERATIONS OF GARbENING . . 5 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Vital Force .... . . 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GEEMINATION. 
 
 The Nature of a Seed. — Its Duration. — Power of Growth. — Causes of Ger- 
 mination. — Temperature. — Light. — Humidity. — Chemical Changes . 13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ftEOWTH BT THE KOOI. 
 
 Boots lengthen at their Points only. — Absorb at that Part chiefly. — Increase 
 in Diameter lite Stems. — Their Origin. — Are feeding Organs— without 
 much Power of selecting their Pood. Nature of the 'latter. — May be 
 poisoned. — Are constantly in Action. — Have been thought to poison 
 the Soil in which they grow. — Have no Buds — but may generate them . 17 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GEOWTH BY THE STEM. 
 
 Origin of the Stem. — The Growing Point. — Production of Wood, Bark, Pith, 
 Medullary Eays. — Properties of Sap-wood, Heart-wood, Liber, Rind, &c. 
 Nature and Office of Leaf-buds. — Embryo-buds. — Bulbs. — Conveyance 
 of Sap, and its Nature 33 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ACTION OF lEATES. 
 
 Their Nature, Structure, Veiiis, Epidermis, Stomatea. — Effect of Light. — 
 Digestion or decompositiou of Carbonic Acid. — Insensible Perspiration. 
 Formation of Secretions. — ^Fall of the Lea£ — Formation of Buds by 
 Leaves 54 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ACTION OF PIOWEES. 
 
 Structure of Flowers. — Names of their Parts. — Tendency of the Parts to 
 alter and change into each other, and into Leaves. — Double Flowers.^ 
 Analogy of Flowers to Branches. — Cause of the Production of Flowers. 
 Of Productiveness. — Of Sterility. — Uses of the Parts of a Flower. — 
 Fertilisation. — Hybrids.— Crossbreds ....... 81 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF THE MATTTEATION OF THE FETJIT. 
 
 Changes it undergoes. — Is fed by Branches upon Organisable Matter fur- 
 nished by Leaves. — ^Physiological use of the Fruit. — Nature of Secre- 
 tions. — The changes they undergo. — Effect of Heat — of Sunlight — of 
 Water. — Seeds. — Source of their Food. — Cause of their Longevity — of 
 their Destruction. — ^Difference in their Vigour 97 
 
 CHAPTER VIII, 
 
 OF TEMPBEATUEE. 
 
 Limits of Temperature endurable by Plants. — Effects of a too high Tempe- 
 rature — of a too low Temperature. — Frost. — Alternations of Tempera- 
 ture. — Day and Night. — ^Winter and Summer. — Temperature of Earth 
 and Atmosphere 106 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 OP THE PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH THE OPERATIONS OF 
 
 HORTICULTURE ESSENTIALLY DEPEND I33 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Of Bottom Heat • j3^ 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Of the Moisture of the Soil. — Watering jgg 
 
CONTENTS. XT 
 
 CHAPTER III. -'""' 
 
 Of Atmoepherical Moisture and Temperature I77 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Of Ventilation „■.„ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Of Seed-sowing 227 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Of Seed-saving 039 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Of Seed-packing and Plant-packing 245 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Of Propagation by Eyes and Knaurs 263 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Of Propagation by mere Leaves 271 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Of Propagation by Cuttings 281 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Of Propagation by Layers and Suckers 301 
 
 CHAPTER XII, 
 Of Propagation by Budding and Grafting 303 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 On Pruning . . 361 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Of Training 421 
 
xTi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 OfPotting ... *^^ 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 445 
 Of Transplanting . • • 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Of the Preservation of Races by Seed . . ... • 463 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Of the Improvement of Races ^°^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Of Resting ... 507 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Of Soil 525 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Of Manure ... 539 
 
 Index 581 
 
THE 
 
 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF 
 HORTICULTURE. 
 
 HoETicuLTURB is that branch of knowledge which relates to 
 the cultivation, multiplication, and amelioration of the Vege- 
 table Kingdom. It divides into two branches, which, although 
 mutually dependent, are, in fact, essentially distinct : the art 
 and the science. Under the art of horticulture is compre- 
 hended whatever concerns the mere manner of executing the 
 operations connected with cultivation, multiplication, and 
 amelioration ; the science explains the reasons upon which 
 practice is founded. It is to the consideration of the latter 
 subject that the following 'pages are dedicated. 
 
 It must have been remarked by aU intelligent observers, that 
 in the majority of works upon horticultural subjects, the 
 numerous directions given in any particular ramification into 
 which the art is susceptible of being divided, are held together 
 by no bond of union, and that there is no explanation of their 
 connection with general principles, by which alone the sound- 
 ness of this or that rule of practice may be tested ; the reader 
 is therefore usually obliged to take the excellence of one mode 
 of cultivation, and the badness of another, upon the good faith 
 of gardening authors, without being put into possession of any 
 
laws by which they may be judged of beforehand. Horticulture 
 is by these means rendered a complicated subject such as none 
 but practised gardeners can hope to pursue successfully ; and, 
 like all empirical things, it is degraded into a code of 
 peremptory precepts. 
 
 It will nevertheless be found, if the subject is carefully 
 investigated, that in reality the explanations of horticultural 
 operations are simple, and free from obscurity ; provided they 
 are not encumbered with speculations, which, however inter- 
 esting in theory, are only perplexing in practice in the present 
 state of our knowledge. When, for example, refined chemical 
 disquisitions or minute anatomical details, or references to 
 electrical action, are introduced, a plain subject becomes 
 embarrassed with considerations too learned for the majority of 
 readers of gardening works, and having Kttle obvious applica- 
 tion to practical purposes. Instead, therefore, of introducing 
 points of obscure or doubtful application, or such as are merely 
 speculative and which only tend to complicate the theory of 
 horticulture, it seems better strictly to confine attention to the 
 action of the simplest vital forces ; for the general nature of 
 these has been undoubtedly ascertained, and is easily under- 
 stood by every class of readers. It is certain, for instance, 
 that plants breathe, digest, and perspire ; but it may be a 
 question whether the exact nature of their respiration, digestion, 
 and perspiration is beyond all further explanation ; it is there- 
 fore better to limit our consideration to the naked fact, which 
 is all that it imports the gardener to know, without inquiring 
 too curiously into those phenomena. For it must always be 
 remembered that the object of a work like the present is not to 
 elucidate the laws of vegetable life in all their obscure details, 
 but to teach, to those acquainted with the art of gardening, 
 what the great principles are upon wliich their practice is 
 founded. 
 
In order to attain this end it is necessary, in the first place, 
 to explain, however briefly, the nature of those vital actions which 
 have a direct reference to cultivation ; and further to show how 
 those facts bear upon the routine of practice of the horticulturist, 
 by making them explain the reason of the practical methods 
 employed in various branches of the gardener's art. 
 
 The first part of this work therefore embraces the principal 
 laws and facts in vegetable physiology, as deduced from the 
 investigations of the botanist ; and the second an apphcation of 
 those laws to practices established by the experience of the 
 horticulturist. 
 
 If the laws comprehended in the first book are correctly 
 explained, and the facts connected with them rightly interpreted, 
 they must necessarily afford, in all cases, the reasons why one 
 kind of cultivation is better than another; and all kinds of 
 practice at variance with those laws must be bad. Seeing that, 
 from the very nature of things, this cannot be otherwise, it 
 follows that, by a careful consideration and due understanding 
 of such laws, the intelligent cultivator will acquire the most 
 certain means of improving his practice. 
 
 B 2 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 OF THE PRINCIPAL CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH VEGETABLE 
 
 LIFE WHICH ILLUSTRATE THE OPERATIONS OF 
 
 GARDENING. 
 
 A PLANT is a living body composed of an irritable, elastic, 
 hygrometrical matter, called tissue. It is fixed to the earth by 
 roots, and it elevates into the air a stem bearing leaves, flowers, 
 and fruit. It has no power of shifting its place except when it 
 is acted upon by wind or other external forces ; it is therefore 
 peculiarly susceptible of injury or benefit from the accidental 
 circumstances that may surround it ; and, having no free 
 agency, it is above aU other created beings suited to acknow- 
 ledge the power of man. 
 
 In order to turn this power to account, it is necessary to 
 study the manner of life which is peculiar to the vegetable 
 kingdom, and to ascertain what the laws are by which the 
 numerous actions essential to the existence of a plant are 
 regulated. It is, moreover, requisite that the causes which 
 modify those actions, either by increasrug or diminishing their 
 force, should be understood. 
 
 The vital actions of plants have so little apparent resem- 
 blance to those of animals, that we are unable to appreciate 
 their nature in even the smallest degree by a reference to our 
 own sensations, or to any knowledge we may possess of animal 
 functions. Nevertheless, when we carefully reflect upon the 
 phenomena of vegetation, we discover certain unquestionable 
 analogies of a general nature, between the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms. And although it is necessary that plants should be 
 
studied by themselves, as an abstract branch of investigation, 
 without attempting to reason as to their habits from what we 
 know of other organised beings ; still it must never be forgotten 
 that they are living things, possessed, like animals, of vitality, 
 that mysterious force which modifies all chemical and mechanical 
 phenomena, and which so essentially distinguishes the organic 
 world from the brute materials of which it is composed. 
 
 In discussing this subject, it will be most convenient to 
 divide the matter into the heads of, 1. Vital force; 3. Ger- 
 mination; 3. Growth by the Boot; 4. Growth by the Stem; 
 5. Action of the Leaves ; 6. Action of the Flowers ; and, 
 7. Maturation of the Fruit. By this means the life of a plant 
 is traced through all its principal changes, and an opporttmity 
 is afforded of introducing under one or other of these heads 
 every point of information that can be interesting to the 
 cultivator ; who will be most likely to seek it in connection 
 with those phenomena he is best acquainted with by their 
 effects. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 VITAL FORCE. 
 
 Me. Andeew Knight asserted that, in the course of his 
 numerous experiments, he had never been able to trace the 
 existence of anything like sensation or intellect in plants, but 
 that they always appeared to be influenced by the action of 
 surrounding bodies, and not by any degrees of sensation and 
 passion analogous to those of animal Hfe. This seems to have 
 led to the belief that they do not even possess a vital principle, 
 but are mere chemical laboratories. 
 
 One writer ventures to call a plant a porous system — endowed with 
 no mtality other than the power of forming Cytohlasts," and arranging 
 cellules after a definite type {Gardner in Phil. Mag. xxviii. 432). Even 
 here it is admitted that some vitality exists ; for the arrangement of 
 cells, or in other words the construction of plants, each after its kind, 
 out of cells, implies vitality of a high order, although the writer seems 
 to have meant that a plant is little more than a hag of quaternary 
 compounds, and to have overlooked the fact that a plant when dead is 
 a porous system as much as when alive. Nee dens intersit is however a 
 favourite maxim with a certain class of modern writers, although nee 
 absit would appear to be more consistent with all we know of the 
 living world. 
 
 But many discoveries have been made since the days of 
 Knight, and a body of facts, showing the existence of high 
 vitality, if not sensation, among plants, has been collected, 
 with which he was wholly unacquainted. So that it is not too 
 much to say, that the vegetable kingdom is now known to stand 
 at least as high in the scale of life as the inferior orders of the 
 animal kingdom. 
 
 * A Cytoblast is the vital centre round which the cell and all its contents is even- 
 tually formed. 
 
8 PROOFS OF VITAL FORCE. 
 
 This is shown, a, by the influence exercised over plants 
 by substances such as laudanum and arsenic ; h, by the active 
 and visible motions of the fluid contained within their cells ; 
 c, by the unerring directions taken by the delicate apparatus 
 which ensures reproduction by seed ; and d, by the locomotive 
 power possessed by the reproductive apparatus of the lower 
 classes of plants. 
 
 M. It was long ago shown by Marcet, that if the common Kidney 
 Bean, the Lilac, and other plants, were exposed to the action of such 
 poisons as destroy animal life, they will perish not only under their 
 influence, but in a manner analogous to what occurs among animals. 
 If an animal is dosed with arsenic, or corrosive sublimate, or any 
 poisonous metallic salt, it perishes by inflammation or corrosion : plants 
 die in a similar way, their leaves turning yeUow and withering, no art 
 sufficing for their recovery. On the other hand, vegetable poisons 
 destroy life by a species of paralysis, leaves bending, and becoming 
 flaccid, and the whole plant rapidly falling into a state resembling 
 stupefaction, and ending in death. Every one knows that if the inner 
 face of the stamens of the common Berberry is touched they suddenly 
 rise upwards and dash their anthers against the stigma ; that after a 
 time they fall back, and then become able again to present the same 
 phenomenon. Macaire showed that when a twig of the Berberry in 
 flower is placed in weak Prussio acid, or a solution of opium, the stamens 
 lose their irritability, and become so flexible that they may be moved 
 backwards and forwards without difficulty. When, however, the 
 Berberry is placed in solutions of arsenic or corrosive sublimate, the 
 stamens equally lose their excitability, but instead of becoming flexible, 
 they are made stiflF, hard, and brittle. Similar efieots are produced 
 upon the Sensitive Plant and other species. Here we have direct 
 proof that the life of a plant is affected by destructive agents in the 
 same manner as animals. 
 
 The curious effect of ansesthetic substances is the same upon plants 
 as on animals. Dr. Marcet has shown this by means of Chloroform. 
 "If," he says, "a drop or two of pure chloroform be placed on the 
 point of the common petiole of a leaf of the Sensitive Plant, the petiole 
 is soon seen to droop, and directly afterwards the leaflets collapse in 
 succession, pair by pair, beginning with those that are situate at the 
 extremity of each branch. A minute or two afterwards (the time vary- 
 ing with the irritability of the plant), most of the leaves near that on 
 which the chloroform was placed, and situate below it on the same 
 stem,, droop one after the other, and their leaflets collapse, althoun-h 
 not in so decided a manner as those of the leaf to which the chloroform 
 was applied. After a certain time, which vaaies with the condition of 
 
VITAL FORCE IN SENSITIVE PLANTS— IN CHARA. 9 
 
 the plant, the leaves gradually open ; but when touched they can no 
 longer be irritated so as to ooUapse, as they do in their natural condition. 
 They remain iu this passiye state, benumbed, as it were, for a consider- 
 able time, and generally it is not untU some hours have elapsed that 
 they regain their original sensibility. If, however, while ia this passive 
 state, the leaves be again touched with chloroform, they coUapse as 
 before. It is not till after several doses that they lose their sensibility 
 entirely, or at all events until the next day ; sometimes they wither 
 completely after too many applications of the chloroform. The purer 
 the chloroform and the greater the excitability of the plant, the greater 
 are the effects produced." 
 
 Similar experiments with rectified ether gave results quite analo- 
 gous. When the author repeated the experiment with chloroform, he 
 found that the leaflets remained paralysed, as it were, and still unable 
 to open after eighteen hours' rest ; they seemed to be dead. This was 
 apparently caused by excess of chloroform, a laiger dose than that em- 
 ployed by Dr. Marcet having been used. It is thus seen that overdoses 
 of chloroform kiU. plants as well as animals, though small doses are 
 inaoouous. 
 
 b. There grows commonly ia ditches and stagnant water a plant 
 called Chara, in the large cells of which a current of green globules 
 steadily rises up one side and falls by another, presenting an appearance 
 calling to mind the motion of an endless chain. If one of these cells is 
 choked by a Ugaioire, then the motion contiuues exactly as before in 
 each of the two divisions so produced. The singularity of the 
 motion, and the ease with which it may be observed, have rendered this 
 plant a favourite object of examination by young microscopists. Those 
 philosophers who refused to admit this to be a vital motion analogous 
 to that of the blood, imagined that they had found an explanation in 
 electrical action. But Dutrochet, who once held this opinion, when 
 he attempted to establish his hypothesis upon experiment, found that 
 the magnetic force, even when prodigious, exercises no influence 
 whatever upon the circulation of fluid within the cells of Chara, and he 
 was obliged to admit the presence of a vital force, of the nature of which 
 we are whoUy ignorant. Motion of an analogous nature has been now 
 remarked within the cells of so many plants that we cannot doubt it to 
 be a universal phenomenon. It is to be remarked that this kind of 
 movement is whoUy independent of the general motion of the sap. 
 
 c. When a grain of pollen falls upon a stigma, it protrudes a tube of 
 extreme tenuity. The tube penetrates the stigma, much in the same 
 manner as the root of a seed pierces the earth. Thence it proceeds 
 unerringly to the tiny opening which it is destined to enter, passing by 
 all obstacles, turning to the right or to the left, and now ascending, 
 now curving back again, with the same constant certainty as would 
 attend an act of consciousness. Nor is this all ; in certain cases the 
 
10 MANIFESTED BY POLLEN-TUBES, ETC. 
 
 entranoe of the pollen- tube into the young seed through its foramen,* is 
 assisted by movements on the part of the seed itself, as in the common 
 garden Thrift ( Armeria) in -which a horizontal strap, interposed between 
 the pollen-tube and the foramen, is spontaneously removed in order to 
 enable the former to enter the latter. These phenomena, varying as the 
 structure of plants itself varies, and destined as they evidently are 
 to ensure that great end, the propagation of species, are wholly inex- 
 plicable upon any other principle than that of high vitality ; so high 
 indeed that they are only less than voluntary actions. 
 
 d. But perhaps nothing places the presence of a powerful vital force 
 in stronger evidence than the facts which modem botanists have 
 discovered in connection with the propagation of the lower orders of 
 plants. It has been known from the observations of the younger 
 Agardh, that in fresh-water Confervse the seeds (technically called 
 spores) swim about with activity in the interior of the cell which 
 generates them, that they eventually force their way through a thin 
 part of the cell waU, andthenoe darting into the water move about with 
 great activity, the lighter end downwards, and therefore contrary to the 
 force of gravitation. These motions last for several hours. More 
 recently it has been demonstrated that the motion is caused by delicate 
 vibratile cilia or fringes attached to the small and narrow end of the 
 seed (spore). This motion is stopped instantaneously by any poison, 
 such as iodine, being allowed to mingle in the water. Discoveries of a 
 similar nature have been made among other races of plants. Modem 
 research has shown that in the greater part of the lowest forms of 
 vegetable Ufe, and probably in all, minute spiral bodies exist having 
 the power of active locomotion in many cases. These are called 
 Aniheeozoibs in consequence of the bodies or antherids which contain 
 them being regarded as analogous to the anthers of the higher orders of 
 plants. Sea-weeds bear both spores and antherozoids. According to M. 
 Thnret, whose observations are not open to doubt, by placing certain sea- 
 weeds in a damp atmosphere, the spores and antherids are freely 
 expelled, and remain on the surface of the fronds, from which they can 
 be readily collected and transferred to vessels containing sea-water. 
 M. Thuret found that when put iato separate vessels, the antherids 
 placed by themselves immediately emit their antherozoids ; the latter 
 move about with great activity, even for two days successively, but on 
 the third, begin to decompose. Spores, also, when placed in sea-water 
 by themselves, retaiu their vitality for some time, not decomposing in 
 less than a week ; they even make attempts at growth, but abortions 
 are the only consequence, and at last they perish also. It is 
 otherwise when the spores and antherozoids are mingled in the same 
 
 • The foramen is a mmute passage through the integuments of an ovule or young 
 seed, into which the pollen-tube must enter in order to vivify the latent embryo 
 
VEGETABLE IRRITABILITY. H 
 
 vessel of sea-water. Then ocoviis a series of most curious phenomena. 
 The antherozoids attack the spores, creep, as it were, over their surface, 
 and communicate, by means of their vibratile cilia, a rotatory 
 motion, which is sometimes very rapid. "Nothing," says M. Thuret, 
 "is more curious than the appearance of great brown spores rolling and 
 tumbling about in the midst of a swarm of antherozoids." The result 
 is the fertilisation of the spore, which then begins to grow, and in ten 
 days becomes a little cellular brown oval body, supported by a trans- 
 parent rootlet. Sea- weeds are by no means the only plants in which 
 these most remarkable phenomena have been detected. Most cryptogamic 
 plants have now been observed to possess locomotive organs, analogous 
 to antherozoids and bearing the same name. Liverworts, Mosses, 
 Lycopods and Perns themselves are supplied by nature with parts of 
 the same description. When a Fern-seed vegetates it forms a small, 
 thin, two-lobed green plate or scale lying horizontally on the damp 
 surface of the ground. In this scale, called a protothaU, lodge anthero- 
 zoids and spores. By unknown means the former creep up to the latter, 
 and fertilisation is accomplished. Wherever Fern-seeds have fallen, 
 there a crop of these scaly protothalls springs up, as may be seen on the 
 walls, or pots, or damp earth of any Fern-house. In each protothaU. is 
 lodged an abundance of antherozoids and spores, the former active and 
 capable of moving from place to place, the latter passive and stationary. 
 Nor is there any thing in their structure which enables the observer to 
 say whether the motions are voluntary or involuntary, so much do they 
 resemble what is witnessed in animal life. 
 
 So far then as the important phenomena of reproduction are con- 
 cerned, we have indications not only of vitality, but of such a force 
 being present in plants in great activity. 
 
 Evidence of this kind, proving as it does beyond all 
 doubt the presence of a vitality among plants identical with 
 that of animals, though different in its manifestations, is greatly 
 strengthened by the many known cases of what is called 
 vegetable irritability. 
 
 That of the Sensitive Plant, which shrinks from the touch ; of the 
 OsciUating Saintfoin (Hedysarum gyrans) whose leaves move with as 
 much appearance of spontaneousness as the polype ; the sleep of leaves 
 and flowers which close at night and expand in the day; the violent 
 recoil of the column of Stylidium, or of the lip of Draksea, when 
 touched ; the oscillation of the labellum of many BolbophyUs and 
 Pterostyles ; the snap of the traplike leaf of Dionsea which closes 
 with great force whenever' one of its six bristle-shaped springs is 
 disturbed — phenomena familiar to the naturalist — are all intelligible 
 
12 VITAL PRINCIPLE UNIVERSAL. 
 
 upon the supposition tliat they are the result of high vitality, inexpU- 
 cahle if referred to the operation of mere material forces. 
 
 One of the causes which have most embarrassed the 
 progress of cultivation is not perceiving the presence among 
 plants of this vital principle. Because plants neither walk, nor 
 fly, nor crawl ; because they are not endowed with the sense of 
 pain or pleasure ; because they neither struggle nor shriek, we 
 are too apt to forget that they are aUve, and consequently to 
 treat them as if but rods of metal or plates of leather. Once 
 grant that they are living beings, that they breathe although 
 we see no mouths, that they digest although no stomachs are 
 discoverable by common eyes, and above all things, that they 
 feel, however low their sensations may be, and half the modes 
 of cultivation employed by unskilful gardeners will stand con- 
 spicuous as palpable errors. Only show that plants are endowed 
 with a life, identical in its nature with that of animals, and men 
 must necessarily make it their first businesS'to study the history 
 of that life, and to master all which interferes vrith its healthy 
 exercise. Such a step once taken, no cultivator would poison 
 plants by a contaminated atmosphere, or paralyse them by an 
 eternal footbath of cold water, or suffocate them in places where 
 no air can reach them, or starve them by withholding the food 
 without which they cannot exist, or cram them with incessant 
 meals of heavy indigestible matter, which can but reduce them to 
 the condition of an apoplectic glutton. That power which causes 
 the bud to sprout, the leaves to form, the poUen to act, the seed 
 to produce its embryo ; which enables vegetation to breathe, 
 and feed, and grow ; which distinguishes aU organised beings 
 from the brute matter of which they consist, is the same as 
 what gives to man the high attributes of his nature. It is 
 VITALITY ; a word which so-called philosophers in their ignorance, 
 or presumption, may sneer at, but which in truth is the un- 
 known force that controls the energy of matter, and directs it 
 to special ends. It is only when cultivation is conducted with 
 a fuU appreciation of this fundamental truth that Horticulture 
 rises above the level of unreasoning custom, and acquires a 
 solid base upon which the rationaUa of the practices which 
 experience seems to sanction can be permanently secured. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 GERMINATION. 
 
 THE NATTIRE OF A SEED. — IIS BTTEATION. — POTVES OF GBOWTH. — CAUSES 
 OF GEBMINATION. — TEMPERAITJEE. — LIGHT. — HXTMIDITT. —CHEMICAL 
 CHANGES. 
 
 A SEED is a living body, separating from its parent, and 
 capable of growing into a new individual of the same species. 
 It is a reproductive fragment, or vital point, containing within 
 itself all the elements of life, which, however, can only be called 
 into action by special circumstances. 
 
 But while it will with certainty become the same species as 
 that ia which it originated, it does not possess the power of 
 reproducing any peculiarities which may have existed in its 
 parent. For instance, the seed of a Green Gage plum will 
 grow into a new individual of the plum species, but it will not 
 produce the peculiar variety called the Green Gage. This 
 latter property is confined to leaf-buds, and seems to be owing 
 to the seed not being specially organised after the exact plan of 
 the branch on which it grew, but merely possessing the first 
 elements of such an organisation, together with an Lavariable 
 tendency towards a particular kind of development. 
 
 Under fitting circumstances a seed grows ; that is to say, the 
 embryo which it contains swells, and bursts through its integu- 
 ments ; it then lengthens, first in a direction downwards, next 
 in an upward direction, thus forming a centre or axis round 
 which other parts are ultimately formed. No known power 
 can overcome this tendency, on the part of the embryo, to 
 elevate one portion in the air, and to bury the other in the 
 earth. It is an inherent property with which nature has 
 endowed seeds, in order to insure the young parts, when first' 
 
14 PHaiNOMENA OF GERMINATION. 
 
 called into life, each finding itself in the situation most suitable 
 to its existence ; that is to say, the root in the earth, the stem 
 in the air. 
 
 The conditions required to produce germination are, exposure 
 to moisture, and a certain quantity of heat ; in addition, it is 
 necessary that a communication with the atmosphere should he 
 provided, if germination is to be maintained in a healthy state. 
 A seed, when fuUy ripe, contains a larger proportion of carbon 
 than any other living part, and so long as it is thus charged 
 with carbon, it is unable to grow. The only means it possesses 
 of ridding itself of this principle, essential to its preservation, 
 but forming an impediment to its development as a new plant, 
 is by converting the carbon into carbonic acid, for which 
 purpose a supply of oxygen is necessary. It cannot obtain 
 oxygen in sufficient quantity from the air, for it is cut off 
 from free communication with the air by various means, either 
 natural, as being inclosed in a thick layer of pulp, or in a hard 
 shell or stone ; or artificial, as being buried to a considerable 
 depth below the surface of the soil. It is from the water 
 absorbed in germination that the seed procures the requisite 
 supply of oxygen ; fixing hydrogen, the other element of water, 
 in its tissue: and thus it is enabled to form carbonic acid, 
 which it parts with by its respiratory organs, until the propor- 
 tion of fixed carbon is lowered to the amount suited to its 
 growth into a plant. 
 
 It has been objected that the evidence adduced in support of this 
 explanation is not conclusive ; and that there is nothing to show that 
 the hydrogen of decomposed water enters into new combinations or is 
 fixed ia tissue. But since no hydrogen is evolved during germination, 
 it must necessarily be fixed or recombined after water has been decom- 
 posed. That this last phenomenon occurs is proved by the experiments 
 of Edwards and Colin, as given in the Comptes rendus (vii. 922), and 
 quoted in Lindley's Introduction to Botany (4th edit., II. 261 and 272). 
 
 But the formation and respiration of carbonic acid takes 
 place most freely, though not exclusively, in darkness; if 
 exposed to light, the seed again parts with some of its oxygen, 
 and again fixes its carbon by the decomposition of its carbonic 
 acid. 
 
INFLUENCE OF WATER AND HEAT UPON GERMINATION. 15 
 
 In addition to this, the absorption of water causes all the 
 parts to soften and expand; many of the dry, but soluble, 
 parts to become fluid ; sap, or vegetable blood, to be formed ; 
 and a motion of fluids to be established, by means of which 
 a communication is maintained between the more remote parts 
 of the embryo. 
 
 Heat seems to set the vital principle in action, to expand the 
 air contained in the numerous microscopic cavities of the seed, 
 and to produce a distension of all the organic parts, which thus 
 have their irritability excited, never again to be destroyed 
 except with death. What degree of heat seeds find most 
 conducive to their germination, probably varies in different 
 species. Chickweed (Stellaria media) and Groundsel (Senecio 
 vulgaris) will germinate at a temperature but little above 
 33° Fahr. 
 
 It has been imagined that electbicai action also promotes the 
 germination of seeds. Sir H. Davy found that seeds placed in the 
 vicinity of the positive pole of a voltaic pUe, germinated sooner than 
 those near the negative pole ; and judging from the known powers of 
 electricity it was not unreasonable to expect, that, Kke light and heat, 
 it would exert influence on the growth of vegetables. Professor 
 Edward SoUy, however, has shown, experimentally, by an extensive 
 series of trials in the Garden of the Horticultuial Society, that this is 
 not so. Seeds of Barley, Wheat, Rye, Turnip, and Radish, were, in 
 several different experiments, found to germinate with increased 
 rapidity, when exposed,to the influence of a feeble current of electricity 
 of very low tension, and the plants not only came up sooner, but were 
 more healthy than others; but, on the other hand, a number of 
 experiments on other seeds had given quite opposite results, proving 
 either that the germination of some seeds was retarded, whilst that of 
 others was facilitated, by electricity ; or, that the effects, observed in 
 both cases, were merely accidental. Out of a series of ftfty-five 
 experiments on different seeds, twenty appeared in favour of electricity, 
 ten against it, and twenty-five showed no effect whatever; and, on 
 oarefoily counting the whole number of seeds up in the entire series, it 
 was found that twelve hundred and fifty of the electrified, and twelve 
 hundred and fifty-three of the non-electrified seeds had grown. 
 
 Germination being established, by the absorption and decom- 
 position of water, and by the requisite elevation of temperature, 
 all the parts enlarge, and new parts are created, at the expense 
 
16 INFLUENCE OF WATER AND HEAT UPON GERMINATION. 
 
 of a mucilaginous saccharine secretion which the germinating 
 seed possesses the power of forming. With the assistance of 
 this substance, the root, technically called the radicle, at first a 
 mere point, or rather rounded cone, extends and pierces the 
 earth in search of food ; the young stem rises and unfolds its 
 cotyledons, or rudimentary leaves, which, if they are exposed to 
 light, decompose carbonic acid, fix the carbon, become green, 
 and, by processes hereafter to be explained, when speaking of 
 leaves, form the matter by which all the pre-existing parts are 
 solidified. And thus a plant is born into the world ; its first 
 act having been to deprive itself of a principle (carbon) which, 
 in superabundance, prevents its growth ; but, in some other 
 proportion, is essential to its existence. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 GEOWTH BY THE ROOT. 
 
 BOOTS LENGTHEir AX THEIE POnSTTS ONLY. ABSOBB AT THAT PAST CHTEI'LT, 
 
 — ^INCEEASE ISr DIAMETBE LIKE STEMS. THEIR OEieiN. — ^AEE EEEDDfG 
 
 OEGANS. — ^WITHOTTT ITTJCH POWES OF SELECTING THBIB. POOD. — l<rATTJEB 
 
 OP THE lATTEE. MAT BE POISOITED.' — -AEE CONSTANTLY IN ACTION. — ■ 
 
 SOMETIMES POISON THE SOIL IN "WHICH THET GEOW. HAVE NO BITIIS. 
 
 BITT MAT GENERATE THEM. 
 
 The root, being the organ through which food is conveyed 
 from the earth into the plant, is the part which is the soonest 
 developed. Even in the embryo, at the earliest commencement 
 of germination, it is the part immediately connected with the 
 root, that first begins to move, by lengthening all its parts, and 
 protruding itself beyond the seed-coats into the earth. 
 
 But as soon as this primitive lengthening of the root has 
 taken place, and the upper part of the embryo, namely, the 
 young stem, has begun to exist as a separate organ, the root 
 changes its property, ceases to grow by a general distension of 
 its tissue, and simply increases in length by the addition of 
 new matter to its point. A root is therefore extended much in 
 the same way as an icicle by the constant superposition of layer 
 over layer to its youngest extremity, with this difference how- 
 ever, that an icicle is augmented by the addition of matter from 
 without, while the root lengthens by the perpetual creation of 
 new matter from within. 
 
 For this reason, the extreme points of the roots are ex- 
 ceedingly delicate, and are injured by very trifling causes; 
 moreover, since all newly formed vegetable matter is extremely 
 hygrometrical, they have the power of absorbing, with rapidity, 
 
18 NATURE OF SPONGELETS. 
 
 any fluid or gaseous matter that may be presented to them. 
 On this account they are usually caUed spongelets. 
 
 In the roots of ordinary exogens, when the tissue is very 
 young, the spongelet (Fig. I. a) consists of very lax tender 
 
 Fig. I. — Section of a Spongelet, magnified. 
 
 cellular tissue, resting upon a blunt cone of woody matter, 
 composed principally of woody tubes, and connected with the 
 alburnum of the stem (Fig. I. h) ; it is, therefore, placed in the 
 most favourable position possible for communicating to the 
 general system of circulation the fluids taken up by its highly 
 absorbent tissue. In some roots a cap exists, called a 
 •pileqrhw, which guards as it were the spongelet beneath it, 
 or forms part of the spongelet. 
 
 It is the opinion of most vegetable physiologists, that the 
 absorbing or feeding powers of roots are conducted principally 
 at these points; and that the general surface of the root 
 possesses little or no power of the kind. And, indeed, it seems 
 highly probable that this is so, when we consider how thick is 
 the bark of the root, through which fluids would have to pass 
 before they reach the alburnum- 
 
 But although there can be no doubt that the spongelets act 
 as absorbents with more force than any other part of the root, 
 yet it is equally certain that the whole surface of young roots 
 also possesses an absorbing, property, only in a more limited 
 degree. It is not until their tissue is solidified that roots 
 
THEIR ABSORBING FORCE. 19 
 
 become incapable of passing fluid through their sides ; and 
 when very young and soft, there is probably but little difference 
 between their action and that of the spongelets themselves ; 
 for it is to be remembered that the latter are not special organs, 
 but are only the very youngest part of the root. 
 
 The absorbent power of the spongelets must be much greater 
 than would have been supposed, if we consider that it is almost 
 entirely through their action that the enormous waste of fluid, 
 which takes place in plants by perspiration, is made good ; and 
 hence their importance to plants, and the danger of destroying 
 them, become manifest. 
 
 Boots being furnished with the power of perpetually adding 
 new living matter to their points, are thus enabled to pierce 
 the solid earth in which they grow, to insinuate themselves 
 between the most minute crevices, and to pass on from place 
 to place as fast as the food in contact with them is consumed. 
 So that plants, although not locomotive like animals, do per- 
 petually shift their mouths in search of fresh pasturage, although 
 their bodies remain stationary. 
 
 Many examples of tMs migLt be adduced. The foUowing are, however, 
 sufBLcient. In a Garden at Tumham Green, a Popnlus monilifera 
 (Canadian Poplar) was found to have sent a root thirty feet horizontally, 
 including its dip beneath the foundations of a waU, and then to have 
 passed into an old well to the depth of eighteen feet, having then broken 
 up into a mass of fibres so finely divided as to resemble yarn. 
 
 In another case, a root of the Deciduous Cypress was foimd by the 
 author, eleven feet long, which had passed nearly to that length without 
 division in search of water. 
 
 Mr. Tyso, a Florist at WaUingford, mentions the case of a Mignonette 
 plant which had penetrated through several courses of bricks, and 
 descended far into a wine cellar. Over the cellar, which was outside 
 the dweUing-house, was a brick pavement, between the joints of which 
 Mignonette seed had been sown from year to year. At the extreme end 
 a small portion of soil was allowed, and here a plant or two grew more 
 vigorously than the rest, though not so luxuriantly as is often found in 
 a common border. ' The roots of these plants had penetrated through 
 eighteen inches of brickwork, and some of them were hanging inside the 
 arched roof, nourished by the damp atmosphere only. A few, more 
 favourably situated, were attached to the end wall of the cellar, and had 
 descended five feet five inches down the waU into the decaying sawdust 
 of the wine-bin. Others were beautifully spread over the wall, with a 
 
 2 
 
20 
 
 EXCESSIVE DEVELOPEMENT OF HOOTS. 
 
 thousand ramifying rootlets, bespangled with 
 minute crystal-like damp drops, and extending 
 over a space of five feet in width. It was dif- 
 ficult to trace the brittle roots that had pene- 
 trated the sawdust, but he measured some 
 upwards of seven feet below the surface of the 
 brickwork on which the plants were growing. 
 It is this peculiarity which renders it so diflS.- 
 cult to keep draias or wells in working order 
 where roots have access. A well sis feet wide 
 has been known to be filled with roots by a 
 common Laurel bush. Turnips and Mangel 
 "Wurzel, as well as mere weeds, have great 
 power ia this way. Patrick NeHl mentions an 
 instance of a plant of Ragwort (Senecio 
 Jaoobsea) which had insiauated the point of 
 its roots into a drain, and had then extended 
 them so much as to fill the drain completely 
 for about twenty feet. And thus it is seen 
 that it is by the point that roots extend, with 
 an indefinite power of branching, and that the 
 finest thread once introduced into a drain-pipe 
 will rapidly become the origin of most exten- 
 sive mischief, provided the plant is perennial. 
 A still more remarkable case is mentioned in 
 the Gardeners^ Chronicle for 184;9, of a line of 
 pot-pipes from forty to fifty feet long, socketed 
 and cemented, and thought to be perfectly 
 closed, having become so choked by roots as to 
 be unserviceable in fifteen years. In the side 
 of one of the pipes there had been one mere 
 chink ; and through that chink some tree had 
 insinuated the point of some root. .Once in- 
 serted the point lengthened and divided, and 
 lengthened and divided over and over again, 
 till at last the drain-pipe was filled by an en- 
 tangled mass of fibres which had pressed so 
 firmly against each other as to form in some 
 places a tolerably perfect mould of the cavity. 
 Roots lengthen, as already stated, not by 
 extension, but by pei-petaal additions of very 
 soft ceUnlar matter to their points. That mat- 
 ter is in fact in the beginning mere mucilage 
 capable of organisation. A small portion of this 
 mucilage finds itself in contact with a minute 
 
INCREASE OF BOOTS IN DIAMETER. 21 
 
 cleft; conditions, the real nature of which is unknown, cause the muoUage 
 to press against the cleft; the mucilage is iatroduced, it organises, solidi- 
 fies, and the point of a root is established ia the cleft..' The point forms 
 more mucilage ia advance ; that also solidifies, and a further lodgment 
 is made ; and thus the growth goes on, through all the sinuosities of the 
 narrow passage that it traverses. In the annexed figure, the space from 
 o to 6 represents the part where the root passed through the pipe, which 
 must have been nearly two and a half inches thick ; the root, there, 
 was as tldn as paper, and had followed every bend in the crack. As 
 soon as it reached the inside of the pipe ^at b) it swelled, acquired its 
 usual cylindrical form, and thence proceeded to develop and branch in 
 the manner already described. The thiu connecting plate was sufficient 
 to maintain the vitality of the roots for many years. 
 
 The only known exceptions to the rule that roots do not 
 lengthen by a general distension of their tissue, occur in parts 
 growing in air or water, which are non-resisting media, or in 
 certain 'endogenous trees, whose roots lengthen to such a 
 degree as to hoist the trunk up into the air, off the ground with 
 which it at first was level. 
 
 It is not, however, merely in length that the root increases ; 
 if such were the case, all roots would be mere threads. They 
 also augment in diameter, simultaneously with the stem, and 
 under the influence of exactly the same causes. Neither is it 
 by an embryo alone that roots are formed. A plant, once in a 
 state of growth, has the power' of produciug roots from various 
 parts, especially from leaves and stems. 
 
 The well-known emission of roots by the stems of the common Laurel 
 is a phenomenon due, as it seems, to the death of the lower part of the 
 stem, the live part of which is thus compelled to organise its descending 
 sap in the form of roots. Vines in damp hot-houses, with their roots 
 in a cold border, habitually exhibit the same tendency. And as a further 
 illustration, one published by Mr. W. B. Booth may be introduced. 
 This was the case of a Spanish Chestnut between ninety and one hundred 
 years old, and of considerable size,, cut down in 1849. With the excep- 
 tion of its foliage, which always had a yellowish, sickly tinge, there 
 was scarcely anything else about it that indicated decay. Its trunk 
 seemed perfectly sound, and the young shoots it annually made, 
 appeared to be pretty strong and healthy. No sooner, however, had 
 the workmen commenced cutting, than it was discovered that for ten 
 feet high, as much as two-thirds of the bark round the trunk was dead 
 and reduced to a mere shell. On removing this thin covering, the sap- 
 
22 
 
 FOEMATION OF ROOTS BY THE STEM. 
 
 wood was foimd to have become a mass of decayed vegetable matter, 
 through which a complete net-work of roots passed to the ground, and 
 extended themselves for a considerable distance from the main stem. 
 Some of these roots were about the size of an ordinary walking-stick. 
 
 Fig. III.— Spanish Chestnut which had thrown out roots under the bark ten feet 
 above the ground. 
 
 On tracing them to their source, they were observed to spring from the 
 edge of the healthy portion of the tree, immediately above the part 
 that had been injured and gone to decay ; and as only a few of the 
 larger ones reached the ground, the whole of the nourishment conveyed 
 by the others to the tree, must have been derived from the gradual 
 decomposition of its own sap-wood. A still more remarkable case is 
 
FORMATION OP ROOTS BY LEAVES. 
 
 23 
 
 mentioned in the Gardeners' CJironicle oi 1846, p. 43, where an old 
 Apple-tree, blown entirely out of the ground, so that aU its roots were 
 broken off, nevertheless produced roots from the hard trunk, although 
 the accident occurred in summer when the tree was loaded with fruit. 
 The same observer mentions an Episoia bicolor that happened to have 
 one of its leaves injured by an accident, which cut,the midrib and a 
 portion of the leaf on both sides of it. After a certain time the wound 
 
 Fig. IV. — Leaf of Bpiscia bicolor, which had its midrib cui; across by accident, and formed a 
 young plant at the part that had been injured. 
 
 healed, the part next the base of the leaf remaining of the same thickness 
 as before the injury, while the edge of the outer portion gradually 
 thickened, and developed a small bud close to the midrib, from which 
 a number of minute fibrous roots issued, and eventually a stem and 
 leaves, as represented in the accompanying sketch. Por several months 
 the perfect plant continued to exist in this state, with no other nourish- 
 ment thaai what the portion of the leaf on which it grew, and the air 
 of a warm, damp, hothouse afforded it. As the plant increased in size, 
 the old leaf gradually became exhausted, and perished altogether as 
 soon as the young leaves gained the ascendancy and deprived it of the 
 
24 f OKMATION OF ROOTS BY LEAVES. 
 
 .scanty means that had preYionsly supported it. Similar instanoes are 
 fanuliaito careful observers, not the least interesting of which is that 
 of a broken Celery leaf which had sent out roots from the lowermost of 
 its wounded edges. 
 
 Fig, V. — Leaf of Celery producing roots from thie lower edge of a woimd. 
 
 The immediate cause of the formation of roots is involved in 
 obscurity, and is one of the most important parts of vegetable 
 physiology still to be investigated with reference to horticulture. 
 We all know how difficult it is to cause the cuttings of some 
 kinds of plants to produce young roots, and how rapidly they 
 are emitted by others ; it is to be supposed, that the difficulty 
 would be diminished in aU such cases, if we knew exactly under 
 what circumstances roots are formed. Nothing, however, 
 sufficiently certain and general to merit quotation has yet been 
 ascertained concerning this important property, which appears 
 to be connected with specific vitality, except the following 
 facts, viz. that roots are most readily, if not exclusively, formed 
 
CAUSE OF THE FORMATION OF BOOTS. 25 
 
 in darkness and moderate moisture; that they are not, like 
 branches, the development of previously formed buds, but 
 appear fortuitously and irregularly from the woody rather than 
 the cellular part of a plant ; and that their production is in 
 some way connected with the presence of leaves or leaf-buds, 
 because portions of a stem having neither leaves nor leaf-buds 
 produce roots unwillingly, if at all ; and such roots perish 
 if their appearance be not speedily followed by the formation of 
 leaves. Thus although the first appearance of the root in the 
 embryo plant, at the time of germination, precedes the expansion 
 of the seed-leaves, yet the young root wUl not live unless the 
 seed-leaves are enabled to act. It is certain moreover that 
 their formation is greatly facilitated by the soil being warm, as 
 is sufficiently proved by the readiness with which they are 
 emitted by trees transplanted in August and September; as 
 also by the abundance of them in warm soU, and their fewness 
 and weak condition in soil not warmed by good drainage. 
 
 It has beea remarked by a translator of this work that "the young 
 roots of some genera live for a very considerahle time without the 
 cotyledons exereisirig any functions. The seeds of the Pseony, sown in 
 January, will have formed roots in September, but the cotyledons ■will 
 not be visible for four or five months later, viz., in January or 
 February of the next year." 
 
 But, although the immediate cause of the formation of roots 
 is unknown, the remote cause is apparently the elaboration of 
 organisable matter by the leaves ; for there can be no doubt 
 that the development of roots is much assisted by the descending 
 sap. When a ring of bark is removed from a branch, if the 
 wound is wrapped in damp moss, roots will invariably push 
 from the upper lip of the wound, while the lower will produce 
 none ; a fact so well known, that it has been one of the causes 
 of an opinion, that roots are bundles of wood liberated from the 
 central perpendicular system, and that the wood itself is nothing 
 but a mass of roots formed by the leaves and buds. 
 
 The principal office of the root is to attract food from the 
 ground. For this purpose it is furnished, as has been seen, 
 with an extremely hygrometrical point or spongelet, which is 
 capable of absorbing incessantly whatever matter of a suitable 
 
26 BOOTS ABSORB AT ALL SEASONS. 
 
 kind may lie in its neighbourhood. Its force of absorption is 
 always proportioned to the quantity of food that a plant 
 requires : when the sap is consumed rapidly by the leaves, as 
 in the spring, the roots are in rapid action also ; and as the 
 autumn advances, and leaves require a smaller quantity of 
 food, the roots become more and more torpid. 
 
 The proportion borne by the root to the stem is very variable- 
 In such plants as succulent Euphorbias, and probably in all 
 plants whose perspiring powers are feeble, the roots are much 
 smaller than the stem ; but, in others the circle occupied by 
 these organs must be very much greater than that of the 
 branches. In young Oaks this is well known to be the case^ 
 but the disproportion diminishes as such plants advance in age. 
 
 There is . no period of the year when the roots become 
 altogether inactive, except when they are actually frozen. At 
 all other times, during the winter, they are perpetually attract- 
 ing food from the earth, and conveying it into the interior of 
 the plant, where, at that season, it is stored up tUl it is required 
 by the young shoots of the succeeding year. The whole tissue 
 of a plant will therefore become distended with fluid food by 
 the return of spring, and the degree of distension will be in 
 proportion to the mildness and length of the previous winter. 
 As the new shoots of spring are vigorous or feeble in propor- 
 tion to the quantity of food that may be prepared for them, it 
 follows, that the longer the period of rest from growth, the 
 more vigorous the vegetation of a plant will become when 
 once renewed, if that period is not excessively protracted. 
 
 A critic remarks that, of the contitiually-absorbiiig power of the 
 roots, the simile of a wick of a candle is certainly one of the most 
 appropriate. The wick (as well as the spongioles of the root) by its 
 hygrometric quality continually conducts fluids to the flame, only the 
 spongioles, being continually renewed by their constant formatioij 
 onwards, are permanent. Others doubt whether any winter absorption 
 occurs, a fact however familiar to practical observers, and proved by such 
 examples as those quoted at pages 50 to 52. 
 
 Powerful as the absorbing action of roots is found to be 
 those organs have Httle or no power of selecting their food • but 
 appear, in most cases, to take up whatever is presented to them 
 
BOOTS CAN SELECT THEIR FOOD. 27 
 
 in a sufficiently attenuated form. Their feeding property- 
 depends upon the mere hygrometrical force of their tissue, set 
 in action in a peculiar manner by the vital principle ; this 
 force must be supposed to depend upon the action of capillary 
 tubes, of which every part of a vegetable membrane must, of 
 necessity, consist, although they are, in all cases, invisible to 
 the eye, even aided by the most powerful microscopes. 
 Whatever matter is presented to such a set of tubes will, we 
 must suppose, be attracted through them, provided its 
 molecules are sufficiently minute ; and, as we have no reason 
 to believe that there is, in general, any difference in the size of 
 the molecules of either gaseous matter or fluids consisting prin- 
 cipally of water, it will follow that one form of such matters 
 will be absorbed by the roots of plants as readily as another. 
 For this reason, plants are peculiarly liable to injury from the 
 presence of deleterious substances in the earth, and it is 
 probable that, if in many cases they reject it, it is because it 
 does not acquire a sufficient state of tenuity ; as in the case 
 of certain coloured infusions. 
 
 But, although .this appears to be a general rule, there are 
 some exceptions of importance. If a Pea and a grain of Wheat 
 are placed side by side in earth of the same kind, and made to 
 grow under the same circumstances, the Wheat plant will 
 absorb abundance of silex in solution from the earth, and the 
 Pea will absorb little or none ; whence it would seem that the 
 Pea is unable to receive a solution of flint into its system, and 
 that, consequently, it possesses what amounts, practically, to a 
 power of selection. In like manner. Dr. Daubeny has proved 
 that Pelargoniums, Barley, and the Winged Pea (Tetragono- 
 lobus) wUl - not receive strontian ; and it is mentioned by 
 Saussure, that he could not make Polygonum Persicaria 
 absorb, by its roots, a solution of acetate of lime, although it 
 took up muriate of soda (common salt) freely. 
 
 It is a curious fact that the poisonous substances which are 
 fatal to man are equally so to plants, and in nearly the same, 
 way. So that, by presenting opium or arsenic, or any metallic 
 or alkaline poison, to its roots, a tree may be destroyed as 
 readily as a human being. 
 
28 . THE NATUEE OF THEIU FOOD. 
 
 The natural food of plants consists of carbon in the state of 
 carbonic acid, of nitrogen, certain earths and salts,- and water. 
 The latter, if distilled, has little power, by itself, of sustaining 
 vegetable life : but, as in nature it is universally mixed with 
 various other substances, it conveys to the roots the nutritious 
 matters that are required ; and it furnishes, by its decomposi- 
 tion, a considerable supply of the oxygen consumed in the 
 formation of carbonic acid, as well as much of the hydrogen that 
 is assimilated by plants. It has been proved, experimentally, 
 that plants cannot long exist upon pure water ; but, if they are 
 so circumstanced as to be able to obtain and decompose 
 carbonic acid, they wUl grow in the absence of other matters. 
 It is only, however, when the peculiar principles, whether 
 earthy or saline, on which they naturally feed, are presented to 
 them, that they become perfectly healthy : and especially when 
 they have the means of obtaining nitrogen, which appears, from 
 its great abundance in the youngest parts, to be indispensable 
 to plants upon the first formation of their tissue. 
 
 The researclies of chemists have shown that all rain-water contains 
 ammonia, a compoiind of hydrogen and nitrogen, and thus the source 
 of the nitrogen absorbed by plants was explained. But it has also 
 been shown, especially by M. Barral, that other substances, upon which 
 plants feed, are contained in rain-water to a much greater amount than 
 was suspected. This observer was led, during sis months of 1851, to 
 examine minutely the water collected in the rain-gauges of the 
 Observatory at Paris. His mode of investigation is declared by 
 Messrs. Dumas, Bonssinganlt, Gasparin, Regnault, and Arago, names 
 foremost in French Science, to be free from all objection, and to bear 
 the most severe counter trials to which they could expose it. M. Barral 
 states, that although the quantities of the following substances varied 
 in different months, yet the monthly average, from Jidy to December 
 inclusive, was as follows : — 
 
 SUBSTANCES IN A OUBIO METRE OE RAIN-WATEB. 
 
 Nitrogen 
 
 8.36 
 
 grammes 
 
 = 129 grai 
 
 Mtric acid 
 
 19.09 
 
 
 = 294 „ 
 
 Ammonia . . 
 
 3.61 
 
 
 = 55.7 „ 
 
 Chlorine . 
 
 2.27 
 
 
 = 35 „ 
 
 Lime . 
 
 6.48 
 
 
 = 100 „ 
 
 Magnesia . 
 
 2.12 
 
 
 = 32.7 „ 
 
ROOTS FEED ON WATEE, ETC. 29 
 
 He did not ascertain whether all these substances are contained in 
 rain-water collected at a distance from towns. But Dr. Benoe Jones 
 found at least nitric acid in raia- water collected in London, at Kingston 
 in Surrey, at Melbury in Dorsetshire, and far from any town at 
 Clonakelty in Ireland. If we assume that M. Barral's averages 
 represent what occurs on an English acre, the quantity of such 
 substances deposited on that extent of ground may be safely estimated 
 as foUows : — 
 
 The average depth of rain which falls in the neighbourhood of 
 London is well ascertained to be about twenty-four inches per annum. 
 This is at the rate of 87,120 cubic feet, or 2466 cubic metres of rain- 
 water per acre ; and this, according to the proportions per cubic metre 
 in the preceding table, would afford annually of— 
 
 Nitrogen 45^ lbs. 
 
 Nitric acid 103 ,, 
 
 Ammonia ....... 194 ,, 
 
 Chlorine 12^,, 
 
 Lime 35 ,, 
 
 Magnesia 11 i, 
 
 Annual total per acre 227 
 
 Of these substances the three first are of the utmost importance, on 
 account of their entering so largely into the indispensable constituents 
 of the food by which vegetable life is sustained. The quantity of 
 ammonia thus ascertained to exist is about what is expected ia two 
 hundred weight of Peruvian guano ; and bountiful nature gives us, 
 moreover, nearly one hundred and fifty pounds of nitrogenous matter, 
 equally suited to the nutrition of our crops. 
 
 It has been confidently asserted that in addition to their 
 feeding properties, roots are the organs by which plants rid 
 themselves of the secreted matter which is either superfluous 
 or deleterious to them. If you place a plant of . Succory in 
 .water, it will be found that the roots will, by degrees, render 
 the water bitter, as if opium had been mixed with it ; a Spurge 
 will render it acrid; and a leguminous plant mucilaginous. 
 And, if you poison one half of the roots of any plant, the other 
 half will throw the poison off again from the system. Hence it 
 has been thought to follow that, if roots are so circumstanced 
 that they cannot constantly advance into fresh soil, they will 
 by degrees be surrounded by their own excrementitious 
 secretions. More correct experiments have however shown 
 
30 THEIE SUPPOSED BXCEETIONS. 
 
 that such results are only obtained when roots are lacerated, 
 and that they have no greater power of excreting matter than 
 other parts of the surface of a plant. 
 
 TUs theory of root excretions was sustained by Liebig, who regarded 
 excretion as the necessary result of secretion. It is now abandoned. 
 A correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle rightly observes in 
 answer to the question of what becomes of the inorganic matters which 
 plants are constantly taldng up? that in many instances, when taken 
 up in large quantities, they are deposited in the tissues themselves so 
 profusely as to obstruct the fnnetions necessary to the life of the plant, 
 and death is the consequence. Where these inorganic substances are 
 not taken up in sufficient quantities to destroy the life of the plant, 
 they are deposited in the tissues of the plant, either externally or 
 internaUy, or both, according to its structure. Plants growing on the 
 sea-shore, as Salsola and others, when exposed to the absorption of 
 large quantities of sea-water, deposit in great abundance crystals of 
 chloride of sodium in their tissues and upon their epidermis. He 
 has examined Gharas growing in pools, where the waters, from the 
 presence of carbonic acid, hold in solution great quantities of carbonate 
 of lime, and he has found this salt filling their large interceUular 
 cavities, and forming a crop of beautiful crystals on their epidermis, 
 •whUst those of the same species, growing in ponds with a less quantity 
 of carbonate of lime, have exhibited a comparative paucity of crystals. 
 The colouriag of wood, also, by introduoiag solutions of the metaUic 
 oxides into trees, is a good illustration of the mode in which superfluous 
 iaorganio matters are disposed of in the tissues of a plant. 
 
 As to the excretion of organic matter, there is no need to limit that 
 function to roots, for nature assigns it to all parts of the surface, stems, 
 leaves, flowers, and fruit, as is seen by such familiar facts as honey- 
 dew, glandular discharges like those of the Sweet-Briar Rose, nectarial 
 emissions, &c. 
 
 In general, roots have no buds, and are, therefore, incapable 
 of multiplying the plant to which they belong. But it con- 
 stantly happens, in some species, that they have the power of 
 forming what are called adventitious buds ; and, in such cases, 
 they may be employed for purposes of propagation. There is 
 no rule by which the power of a plant to generate such buds by 
 its roots can be judged of ; experiment is therefore necessary, 
 in all cases, to determine the point. 
 
 Exceptions to the common rule are found in the Moutan Pseony, 
 in the Plum tree, or the Pyrus (Cydonia) japonica, which may be 
 
BOOTS CAN GENERATE BUDS. 
 
 31 
 
 increased with great facility by small bits of the root being inserted 
 in a shady border and covered with a hand-glass; but in none of 
 them does the power reside in the same degree as lathe Japan Anemone. 
 If a root of this plant be taken from the ground after flowering, it wiU 
 be foTind to resemble brown oord, divided iato a great nnmber of 
 ramifications, as is represented in the accompanying cut. Fpon its 
 surface wiU be perceived a multitude of white conical projections, 
 sometimes growing singly, sometimes springing up in clusters, and 
 
 Kg. VI. — ^Boot of Anemone japonica. 
 
 occasionally producing scales upon their sides. A magnified view of 
 these bodies is shown at Fig. VI. a. They are young buds, every one of 
 which, if cut from its parent, wiU grow and form a young plant in a 
 few weeks. These buds are not confined to the main trunk of the root, 
 but extend even towards its extremities ; so that every fragment of the 
 plant is reproductive. It is certain that vitality is stronger in the roots 
 than in any other part of a plant. Live roots have been found in land 
 many years after the trunks to which they belonged had been destroyed. 
 I have myself seen live Whitethorn roots taken out of a field on the 
 London clay where no one could recollect having seen a Whitethorn 
 hedge. This fact was long since pointed out by Mr. Knight, who, in 
 his experiments with fruit-trees, found continual evidence, as he has 
 
32 ROOTS CAN GENERATE BUDS. 
 
 stated, of the roots of such, trees possessing far more constitutional 
 vigotir ttan the branches. See his Physiological Papers, pp. 83, 325. 
 
 The following is another instance of the kind : — On the banks of the 
 river Derwent stood a large Hawthorn hedge, which, being imdermined 
 by the water, fell in, and left the greater part of the roots in the bank, 
 about one or two feet below the surface ; the bank still wearing away 
 has exposed them to the air for the length of three feet or more, and 
 they are now in every respect similar to branches, developing buds, and 
 consequently aU the appendages of the axis ; they appear anatomically 
 the same as branches, excepting the pith, of which they are destitute. 
 Wow, it appears that roots when so circumstanced perform aU the 
 functions of the stem, confirming Knight's theory, that sap can at any 
 time generate buds, without any previously-formed rudiment, when 
 circumstances are favourable to their production. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GROWTH BY THE STEM. 
 
 OaiGIN OP THE STEM. THE GEO-WINa POINT. — ^PEODTJCTIOlir OP WOOD, BAEK 
 
 PITH, MEDITLIABT EATS. PEOPESTIES OF SAP-WOOD, HBAET-WOOD, 
 
 IIBEE, EIIfD, ETC. — ^NATirEE AND OFFICE OF LEAF-BITDS. — ^EMBETO- 
 BTTDS. — ^BtJlBS. — CONVETANCE OF SAP, AND ITS NATHBE. 
 
 As soon as the root is fully in action, which is shortly after 
 it has begun to lengthen, the vitality of the living point that 
 exists at the bottom of the seed-leaves is excited, and a stem 
 begins to be formed. At first the stem is a mere point of 
 living matter, often invisible to the eye, but sometimes partially 
 developed ; in which latter case it is called the plumule. But, 
 as soon as nutritive matter is conveyed into it by the nascent 
 root, all its parts receive an impulse, which forces them into a 
 growth upwards; what matter already exists is distended, 
 enlarged, and solidified ; new matter is rapidly generated in all 
 directions from the vital centre, and if it were not for the 
 current setting upwards from the root, it would possibly grow 
 into a spherical figure. Pressed upon, however, by the 
 surrounding earth, impelled upwards by the current of sap 
 ascending from the root, and attracted into the air by the 
 necessity of respiration, the young stem assumes a cylindrical 
 form, its sides having a tendency to solidify, and its point to 
 grow longer. This point, or plumule, or first leaf-bud, soon 
 attracts to itself the food which the root procures from the 
 earth, and a part of the nutritive matter which is stored up in 
 the seed-leaves. It feeds especially upon the latter until they 
 are exhausted, and by the time this happens it is clothed with 
 leaves which are themselves able to feed it after the seed-leaves 
 
Si ORIGIN OP STEM AND WOOD. 
 
 have perished. In brief, the stem is a branch produced by the 
 first leaf-bud which the embryo plant possesses. 
 
 "When the stem is first called into existencej it is merely a 
 vegetable cell, afterwards increased into a small portion of 
 cellular tissue: an organic substance, possessing neither 
 strength nor tenacity, and altogether unsuited to the purposes 
 for which the stem is destined. If the stem consisted exclu- 
 sively of such matter it would have neither toughness nor 
 strength, but would be brittle like a mushroom, or like those 
 parts of plants of which cellular tissue is the exclusive com- 
 ponent, such for example as the club-shaped spadix of an 
 Arum, or the soft prickles of a young Eose branch. Nature, 
 however, from the first moment that the rudiment of a leaf 
 appears upon the growing point of a stem, occupies herself 
 with the formation of woody matter, consisting of tough tubes 
 of extreme fineness, which take their rise near the leaves, and 
 which, thence passing downwards thrpugh the cellular tissue, 
 are incorporated with the latter, to which they give the neces- 
 sary degree of strength and flexibility. In trees and shrubs, 
 they combine intimately with each other, and so form what is 
 properly called the wood and inner bark ; in herbaceous and 
 annual plants, they constitute a lax fibrous matter. No woody 
 matter appears till the first leaf, or the seed-leaves, have begun 
 to act ; it always arises from near their bases ; it is abundant, 
 or the contrary, in proportion to the strength, number, and 
 development of the leaves ; and in their absence is absent also 
 as a general rule. 
 
 The exceptional oases are those of "leafless" plants; that is to say, 
 of plants in which leaves never advance heyond the condition of scales, 
 and usually drop off soon after their formation. To this class belong 
 green succulent plants like StapeUaa, Cacti, and many Euphorbias. 
 Here the bark is excessively developed, and has the colour, texture, and 
 structure ^of leaves, of which it performs the functions. Such plants 
 form true wood, but of little solidity and in small quantity compared 
 with their bulk. It is also found that in them the wood has a lateral 
 communication with every leaf-bud, as that of ordiaary plants has with 
 every leaf. 
 
 When woody matter is first plunged into the cellular tissue 
 of the nascent stem, it forms a circle a little within the circum- 
 
GROWTH OF STEM. 35 
 
 ference of the stem, whose interior it thus separates into two 
 parts : namely, the bark or the superficial, and the pith or the 
 central, portion ; or, in what are called Endogens, into a super- 
 ficial coatiag analogous to bark, and a central confused mass of 
 wood and pith intermingled. The effect of this, in Exogens, is, 
 to divide the interior of a perennial stem into three parts, the 
 pith, the wood, and the bark. 
 
 Since the cellular tissue of the stem is not sensibly length- 
 ened more in one direction than in another, and as it is that 
 kind of organic matter, which, in stems, chiefly increases later- 
 ally, it is sometimes convenient to speak of it under the name 
 of the horizontal system ; and, for a similar reason, to designate 
 the woody tubes which are plunged among it, and which 
 increase by addition of new tubes having the same direction as 
 themselves, as the perpendicular system. 
 
 Wood properly so called, and liber or inner bark, consist, in 
 Exogens, of the perpendicular system, for the most part ; while 
 the pith and external rind or bark are chiefly formed of the 
 horizontal system. The two latter are connected by cellular 
 tissue, which, when it is pressed into thin plates by the woody 
 tubes that pass through' it, acquires the name of medullary 
 rays. It is important, for the due explanation of certain 
 phenomena connected with cultivation, to understand this 
 point correctly, and to remember that, while the perpendicular 
 system is distributed through the wood and bark, the horizontal 
 system consists of pith, outer bark, and the medullary pro- 
 cesses which connect these two in Exogens, and of irregular 
 cellular tissue analogous to medullary rays in Endogens. So 
 that the stem of a plant is not inaptly compared to a piece of 
 linen, the horizontal cellular system representing the woof, and 
 the woody system the warp. 
 
 Whenever the stem is wounded, the injury is repaired by 
 the eellular or horizontal system, which forms granulations 
 that eventually coalesce into masses (Fig. VII. a), within which 
 the perpendicular system or woody matter (b) is subsequently 
 developed. Thus the restoration of the communication between 
 the two sides of an annular excision is effected by granulations 
 of the upper and lower lips, and of the medullary rays, which 
 
 D 2 
 
RENOVATION OF WOOD. 
 
 finally run together over the wood (Fig. VII. b), and form a 
 coating below which new Hber and alburnum may be generated. 
 
 Fig. VII. — Iteproduction of tissue upon a decorticated space. 
 
 In cuttings, the " callus," which forms at the end placed in the 
 ground, is the cellular horizontal system, preparing for the 
 reception of the perpendicular system, which is to pass down- 
 wards in the form of roots. Many plants will endure extensive' 
 lacerations of their surface, and close up such wounds with 
 great facility. The weU known fact of large inscriptions cut in 
 trees deeper than the bark (which inscriptions were effected by 
 removing very broad spaces of the bark and wood) being 
 covered over in time by new bark and wood, so as to be no 
 longer visible from the outside, sufficiently prove this. In such 
 cases, however, the reparation of the injury takes place chiefly, 
 if not exclusively, by the annual addition of new matter to the 
 lips only of the wound, the effect of which is to reduce its area 
 annually till at last the wound is closed. 
 
RENOVATION OF WOOD. 
 
 37 
 
 "Certain it is," says Mr. Towers, "that the bark of trees, when 
 wounded or cut in amputation of branches proceeding from the trunk, 
 converges from all points, and not solely, as some assert, from the upper- 
 most cross incision. The Elm-tree may furnish the best examples for 
 investigation, some of which are to be seen in every hedge-row. In the 
 public road leading from "Waddon to Mitcham Common, there stand 
 several large Ebns in front of a gentleman's house. A wovmd was 
 made in one of them fully eighteen inches long, and in the middle five 
 or six: wide, by which the bark stripped off to that extent, exposed the 
 wood below it. The young Uber came rolling forward on every side, 
 
 Pig. VIII. — Closing up of an oval wound. 
 
 and is now seen approaching pretty equally, though with projections of 
 a redder colour, which mark the more recent processes. A line of posts 
 and rails, with a chain at top, extends along the front, close to the row 
 of trees. An abrasion or wound had been made in close contact with a 
 part of the chain, which now is buried, and firmly fixed in the bark, by 
 a knotty boss formed of cortical matter." 
 
 A striking instance of the power of reparation by mere superficial 
 increase has been recorded by the Eev. M. J. Berkeley : "A vigorous 
 Oak had been mischievously barked aU round, and to such an extent as 
 to preclude all probability of ultimate union of the severed edges. The 
 tree, however, for a year or two seemed to suffer very little from the 
 injury, as new tissue was thrown out from the exposed extremities of the 
 medullary rays ; and to such an extent, that had not the parties who 
 
INSCKIPTIONS BURIED IN WOOD. 
 
 first injured the tree been so bent on its destruction as to cut away &e 
 newly-formed tissue, union would have speedily been effected, and the 
 tree in all probability preserved. The growth of new tissue was not 
 assisted by any thin strips of the inner bark still adhermg to the tree 
 by which the descending tissue could haye been conducted, but proceeded 
 simply as indicated above, from the meduUary rays." 
 
 M. Tr6oul has shown {Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Oct. 1853) 
 that the denuded surface of the young bark (in the Elm for example) is no 
 less capable of giving rise to a simUar growth, and this whether the 
 strips of bark separated from the stem are torn upwards or downwards, 
 and are connected therefore with the tree above or below. New wood 
 and bark may also be formed where there is not a single leaf, as in the 
 case of vigorous trees cut off level with the ground. Many such 
 instances are on record, but none more remarkable than that described 
 by Goeppert in the Silver Fir (Abies picea, &c.) In some cases of this 
 sort there was an inosculation with the roots of other trees ; in others 
 no such inosculation was possible. 
 
 The manner in which figures or letters carved in trees are gradually 
 fiUedup affords another Sample of the process in question. Of this 
 the following striking instance is lEustra^d in the Gardeners^ Chronicle 
 of 1841, by Professor Henslow : — 
 
 An Ash-tree ia Coxwold, near Thirsk, was ordered to be feUed and 
 split for firewood. Upon being riven asunder, the outer part of the 
 tree was cleft in two, like a case, leaving the inner portion of the trunk 
 entire ; and the rude inscription represented in the accompanying cut 
 was discovered, distinctly legible, both upon the inner part of the trunk, 
 and with the letters inverted, upon the outer easing. 
 
 There is no date to the inscription, but the period at which it was 
 made may be ascertained, with much probability, from the following 
 considerations. The tree is deposited in the Museum of the Hospital at 
 Kirk Leatham, between ■ Stockton-upon-Tees and Redcar. The porter 
 of the Hospital, now living, can vouch for its having been there upwai-ds 
 of seventy years ; and the tradition respecting the tree is, that it was 
 given by Lord Faloonburg, from his manor at Coxwold, to Mr. Cholmley 
 Turner, who died on the 9th of May, 1757. It would therefore appear 
 that the tree had been cut down nearly a hundred years. Also, by the 
 number of rings in the wood, each indicating a year's growth, the tree 
 appears to have been about fifty-five years old when the inscription was 
 made, and to have subsequentiy grown for nearly two hundred years. 
 The closeness of the rings near the circumference renders it highly 
 probable that the inscription was made about three centuries ago. 
 The height of the fragment of the tree is 6 feet 4 inches. The cir- 
 cumference of the inner block measures, at the upper part 2 feet 
 1'5 inches; and at the lower part, 2 feet 10-75 inches : that of the 
 outer block measures 4 feet 8-5 inches at the upper part, and 6 feet 
 
INSCRIPTIONS BURIED IN WOOD. 
 
 39 
 
 4-5 inolies at the lower part. The manner in which this inscription has 
 been preserved and brought to light is in every respect most interesting. 
 The letters were cut through the bark into the alhumimi, or white 
 wood below, and this very marring of the bark became the means of 
 
 Fig. IX. — Ancient inscription covered over by new wood. 
 
 perpetuating and discovering the inscription. As the tree continued to 
 grow, new wood would be formed between the inscription and the bark ; 
 and thus the record became buried for centuries in the heart of the tree. 
 
 In the bark of trees and shrubs, two distinct parts are 
 found : the one external and cellular ; and the other internal, 
 resting upon the wood, and consistiag of woody matter mixed 
 with cellular. The external is the bind or cortical integument, 
 
40 HBAETWOOD AND SAPWOOD. 
 
 the internal is the liber. These two parts grow independently 
 of each other, by their inner faces ; the rind belonging exclu- 
 sively to the horizontal system, the liber composed of the 
 perpendicular and horizontal systems intermixed. 
 
 In all Exogenous plants whose stems acquire an age beyond 
 that of a very few years, the wood is distinguishable into two 
 parts, heart-wood, and sap-wood or alburnum. The former is 
 more or less central, and coloured brown or some other tint ; 
 the latter is external, pale yeUow, and much softer. Heart- 
 wood was originally alburnum, and altered its nature with 
 age, in consequence of the solid matter with which all its 
 tubes and vessels were choked up ; alburnum is the youngest 
 wood, with all its communications free and open, no solid 
 matter having had time to accumulate within them. The 
 reason why solid matter collects in the tubes of wood, so as 
 gradually to choke them up, is this : the wood is the channel 
 through which all the fluid matter of a plant, whether crude 
 or digested, passes, in its way upwards to the leaves, or in 
 its horizontal direction from the bark to the central parts 
 of the stem. When sap leaves the earth and passes into the 
 stem, it ascends by the woody matter of the finest fibres of the 
 root : having left them, it flows into the new wood with which 
 those fibres are connected, and passes along this until it 
 reaches the leaves; on its return from them it descends 
 through the liber, in part passing off horizontally towards the 
 centre through the medullary rays. Wherever it passes it 
 deposits a portion of its solid parts ; and, consequently, that 
 portion of the wood, namely, the oldest or the heart-wood, 
 through which it has passed the most frequently, will have the 
 greatest quantity of matter accumulated within it, independently 
 of all other reasons for its hardening. 
 
 In consequence of their peculiar manner of growth, new Kving matter 
 teing continually formed near the circumference of the trunk, and over 
 that which is older. Exogenous trees arrive at an old age wholly 
 unknown in the rest of the creation. And although some of the state- 
 ments on this subject may be exaggerations, yet as there is a certainty 
 that some individual trees have Uved for more than one thousand years, 
 so it is quite possible that others may have existed for a veiy much 
 
LONGEVITY OF PLANTS. 41 
 
 longer period. It is, howeYer, not probable that Exogenous trees have 
 a power of indefinite life. Upon this subject the foUowing remarks by 
 Professor Mohl are among the best which have been made : — 
 
 "The peculiarity of their origanisation, and the unlimited power of 
 growth of plants, offer many difficulties to the definition of the duration 
 of plants, and have given rise to many incorrect theories. Every 
 individual cell, and evesry individual organ, has a determinate end to 
 its life ; but the entire plant has not, since the individual shoots run 
 through their periods of development quite independently, and only share 
 in the weakness of age of the older organs when these are no longer 
 able to convey to the young shoots the needful amount of nourishment, 
 in which case the latter do not die from deficiency of vital energy, but 
 are starved. It therefore depends wholly upon the mode of growth of a 
 plant whether this occurs or not. When a plant possesses a thallus 
 spreading horizontally by the growth of its circumference, it can 
 annually extend itself into a larger circle, after the old parts in the 
 centre have been long decayed, as is seen in old specimens of orustaceous 
 Lichens, in the fairy rings caused by Fungi, &c. In like manner when 
 a higher plant has a creeping stem, and possesses the power of sending 
 out lateral roots near the vegetating points, and in this way conveys 
 nourishment directly to the young terminal shoots, the latter are wholly 
 independent of the death of the older parts of the stem and of the 
 primary roots, and there exists no internal cause for death in such a 
 plant. It is truly a different plant every new year and vegetates in a 
 new place, but there is no definite boundary between it and its prede- 
 cessors ; such a plant is Uko a wave rolling over the surface of a sheet 
 of water; it is every moment another and yet always the same. 
 Thousands of inconspicuous plants, of Mosses, Grasses, Rushes, &c., 
 have vegetated in this manner upon peat bogs and similar localities 
 perhaps for thousEtnds of years. Plants with upright stems are placed 
 in much more unfavourable circumstances. It has been declared of 
 these alsOj and particularly of the Dicotyledonous trees (De Candolle, 
 Physiohgie V4gitale, ii. 984), that they have no internal cause for 
 death, but I believe incorrectly. Examples of very old trees, such as 
 De CandoUe coUeoted (e. g., Taxus 3000, Adansonia 5000, Taxodium 
 6000 years old, &c.), only prove, naturally, that death occurs at a very 
 late period in many plants placed in favourable circumstances, but not 
 that it does not necessarily happen. To me there appears to exist in all 
 trees, whether they belong to the Dicotyledons (Exogens), or, like the 
 Palms,, to the Monocotyledons (Endogens), an internal cause which 
 must produce death in time — namely, the increasing difficulty of 
 conveying the necessary quantity of nourishment to the vegetating 
 point, resulting from the elongation of the trunk from yeax to year. 
 Even when the force which carries the sap up, suffices to raise it to two 
 hundred feet or more (many Pabns, as Ceroxylon andicola, Areca 
 
42 LONGEVITY OF PLANTS. 
 
 oleraeea, attain a height of one hundred and fifty to one himdied and 
 eighty feet; some Coniferse, e. ^., Pinus Lamherti, Abies Douglasi, of 
 more than two hundred feet), yet a maximum is reached there, and the 
 terminal shoot is less perfectly nourished every succeeding year, becomes 
 stunted more and more, and the tree at length dies. If we are surprised 
 at the intensity of the vegetative force of individual plants, in conse- 
 quence of which it re-appears with new, unweakened energy in every 
 bud, so must we marvel at the force committed to so simple an organ as 
 a ceU is, if we reflect what an influence it exerts upon the total economy 
 of nature, as one of the grandest of phenomena. The plant lives almost 
 solely upon inorganic substances ; its cells are chemical laboratories in 
 which these are combined into organic compounds. The plant 
 prepares in this way not only the nutriment required for its own 
 development, but also the food on which the entire animal kingdom 
 depends. But plants not only nourish animals, they maintain the air 
 in a fit state for their respiration, since their breathing process removes 
 carbonic acid from the atmosphere and replaces it by oxygen gas. In 
 all these functions the plant is thoroughly dependent upon the outer 
 world ; its food is brought to it without its own cooperation by water and 
 air ; its respiration takes place without activity of its own, through a 
 penetration of its substance by gases with which it is in contact, in 
 consequence of a physical law ; not even does its internal circulation of 
 juices depend on a, mechanical activity of a circulating system ; thus 
 every necessity for motion is removed. It is true we here and there 
 meet with movements in this or that organ, hut these, occurring isolated 
 in the vegetable kingdom, are also altogether of subordinate kind in the 
 individual plant." 
 
 The stem of a plant consists, then, of the following paxts, viz. : 
 
 1. Wood, the oldest of which is heart- wood, and the newest 
 alburnum ; this is the substance through which sap ascends : 
 
 2. Bark, the external coating, down the liber or inner face of 
 which sap descends : 3. Pith, a central portion of the horizontal 
 system : and, 4. Medullary Bays, serving to connect the bark 
 with the pith, to hold all the parts together, and to maintain a 
 communication between the centre and the circumference of a 
 stem. The stems of all plants have these four parts more or 
 less evident. They are most visible in European trees or 
 shrubs, in any of which they can be distinctly observed ; they 
 are least apparent in annual and herbaceous plants, because 
 their lines of separation are not defined, aU the four parts 
 adhering to each other so firmly as to render it difficult to 
 
EXOGENS AND ENDOGENS. 43 
 
 separate them ; and in Endogens they are all mixed together, 
 in consequence of the manner of growth of those plants not 
 requiring the same kind of arrangement of parts as is indispen- 
 sable in Exogens.* This wiU be sufficiently illustrated by. 
 the comparison of the stems of an Oak, a Cabbage, and an 
 Asparagus. 
 
 Tubers, the root-stock of the Iris and Ginger, what are 
 called the roots (corms) of the Colchicum and Crocus, are all 
 so many different forms of stem. 
 
 It is the property of a stem, during its growth, to form upon 
 its surface, at irregularly increasing or diminishing distances, 
 minute vital points of the same nature as that in which the 
 stem itself originated. Each of those points becomes, or may 
 become, a leaf-bud, capable of forming other stems or branches 
 like that on which it appeared ; and each is protected and 
 nourished by a leaf which springs from the bark immediately 
 below the bud. Such leaf-buds are the parts that enable a 
 stem, when reduced to the state of a cutting, to produce a new 
 individual like itself; and, without them, propagation by 
 portions of the stem is, under ordinary circumstances, impos- 
 sible. 
 
 Leaf-buds are capable, under fitting circumstances, of 
 growing when separated from their mother branch, whether 
 they are planted in the earth, or inserted below the bark of a 
 kindred species. In the former case, they emit roots into the 
 soil ; in the latter they produce wood, which adheres to the 
 
 * As tliiB -wort excludes everything botanical that does not directly bear upon horti- 
 cultural purposes, I have not explained the difiference between Exogens and Endogens ; 
 wishing the reader to refer for information upon such points to works upon pure 
 botany. Nevertheless as these words are of frequent occurrence, I may as well state 
 that they denominate the two greatest classes in the vegetable kingdom, to one or 
 other of which almost all the flowering plants of common occurrence are referable, apd 
 that they derive their names from the peculiarity of their manner of growth. Exosens 
 (literally, oviside-growers) jaie plants whose woody matter is augmented annually by 
 external additions below the liber ; and, consequently, they are continually enclosing 
 within their centre the woody substances formed in previous years ; to such plants, a 
 lateral communication between the centre and the circumference, by means of 
 medullary rays, seems necessary. Endosehs (literally, inside-growers) are plants 
 whose woody matter is augmented annually by internal additions to their centre ; and, 
 consequently, they are continually pushing to their circumference the woody substance 
 formed in previous years. 
 
44 
 
 LEAP-BUDS AND B0LBS. 
 
 wood on which they may be placed. Under ordinary circum- 
 stances, leaf-buds wiU not form anywhere except at the axils * 
 of leaves ; but occasionally they appear from other parts, such 
 as the root (see page 31), the spaces of the stem which lie 
 between the leaves (the internodes), and even from the leaves 
 themselves (see page 33). In all such cases, they are termed 
 adventitious, because of the uncertainty of their appearance. 
 A very remarkable state of them is the embryo-btid, a name 
 applied to the knaurs, knurs, nodules, or hard concretions, 
 found in the bark of various trees, which seem to have, occa- 
 sionally, the power of propagating the individual, notwith- 
 standing their deformed and indurated state. 
 
 The connection between the formation of timber and the action of 
 buds will be considered hereafter, when speaking of the wood-forming 
 power of leaves, which are organs resulting wholly from the develop- 
 ment of buds. 
 
 Bulbs are buds of a particular kind, larger than common, 
 containing an unusual quantity of organizable matter, and 
 separable, spontaneously, from the part which bears them. 
 
 Pig. X.— A. Bulb of Tigor Lily oonti-asted with b. a Leaf-bud. 
 
 They are magazines in which certain plants store up the 
 nutritive matter assimilated by the leaves. The identity of a 
 bulb and a bud, in all essential circumstances, is obvious if the 
 
 * The axil is the acute angle formed by a leaf and stem, at the origin of the f 
 all bodies growing within that angle are said to be axillary. ormei , 
 
COURSE OF THE SAP. 45 
 
 bud of any tree (Fig. X. e.) is compared with the bulbs of the 
 Tiger Lily (Fig. X. A.) 
 
 Since leaf-buds are thus the parents of wood, one of the 
 means of propagating the individual to which they belong, the 
 origin of branches, and consequently the source of the develop- 
 ment of leaves themselves, they may be considered the most 
 important organs of vegetation, so far as any one organ can be 
 called most important where aU are so mutually dependent the 
 one on the other, and so powerfully concur in maintaining the 
 system of vegetable life, that it is difficult to abstract one part 
 without impairing the efficiency of the remainder. 
 
 The office of the stem is, to convey the crude fluid obtained 
 by the roots from the soil, and called sap, into the leaves for 
 elaboration, and then to receive it back again. Sap is, 
 originially, water holding in solution gaseous matter, especially 
 carbonic acid, together with certain earths and salts, but as 
 soon as it enters the stem, it dissolves the vegeta,ble mucilage ■ 
 it finds there, and becomes denser than it was before; it is 
 further changed by the decomposition of a part of its water, 
 acquires a saccharine character, and, rising upwards through 
 the whole mass of wood, and more especially the alburnum, 
 takes up any soluble matter it passes among. Its specific 
 gravity keeps thus increasing till it reaches the summit of the 
 branches ; by degrees, it is wholly distributed among the 
 leaves. In the leaves it is altered, and then returned into the 
 general system, more especially into the fruit, and the bark, 
 through which it falls, passing off horizontally through the 
 medullary rays into the interior of the stem, and fixing itself 
 in the interior of the bark, especially of the root, when it 
 undergoes various changes, the results of which are known 
 under the name of vegetable secretions. 
 
 It may be said, that, in trees, the alburnum and liber have 
 each two equally important offices to perform : the alburnum 
 giving strength and solidity to the stem, and chiefly conveying 
 sap upwards ; the liber not only conveying sap downwards, but 
 covering over the alburnum, protecting it from the air, and 
 enabling it to form without interruption. The central wood is 
 of little consequence, and may be destroyed, as it constantly is 
 
iS COURSE OF SAP NOT PREVENTED BY WOUNDS. 
 
 in hollow trees ; and the outer rind is of comparatively smaU 
 importance, for it is continually perishing under the influence 
 of the atmosphere : hut liber and alburnum are the seats of 
 vitality in trees and cannot he permanently injured without 
 destruction to the plant. 
 
 If indeed this were absolutely the case it would be indis- 
 pensable that liber and alburnum should be most carefully 
 guarded ; and so they are in nature by the thick integument 
 of mere bark, which overlies them. But it continually hap- 
 pens that the usual vegetative processes are interrupted by 
 accidents, while the power of repairing injuries is so great 
 that many of the usual functions of a plant may be destroyed 
 without serious injury, such functions being performed ad 
 interim by other organs until the injury is repaired; so 
 that although, tinder ordinary circumstances, the sap of exogens 
 rises through the wood and descends through the liber, yet 
 the simpEcity of structure in plaiits is such, that, together 
 with the permeability of their tissue, it enables them to propel 
 their fluids by lateral instead of longitudinal communica- 
 tions. The trunk of a tree has been sawed through beyond 
 the pith in four opposite directions; namely, from north to 
 south, from west to east, from south to north, and from east 
 to west, at intervals of a foot, so as completely to cut off 
 aU longitudinal communication between the upper and lower 
 parts of the stem, as effectually as if those two parts had been 
 dissevered ; and yet the propulsion of the sap from the roots 
 into the head of the tree, and vice versd, went on as before : 
 which could only have been effected by a lateral transmission 
 of this fluid through the woody tissue. So when " ringing " 
 is practised, and the alburnum is partially destroyed, tixe 
 descending fluid diverges into the stratum of wood beneath the 
 annulation ; and when it has passed by, it again returns into 
 its accustomed channels. 
 
 A striking example of this was given by Mr. Curtis in the Gardeners' 
 Chronicle for 1846 (p. 697). It was the case of a Pollard Ash-tree 
 (Fig. XI.) struck with lightning on the 7th or 8th of May, 1845 and 
 thus deprived of the bark all round the trunk for a space of eight feet at 
 fig. 3, and of three feet two inches at fig. 1. Nevertheless in July 1846 
 
DECOETICATED TREES. 
 
 47 
 
 the tree was in fuU leaf as shown in the cut. In this case the descend- 
 ing sap must have either accumnlated ahove the wound, or, which is 
 
 Fig. XI. — Decorticated Ash-tree. 
 
 more probable, must have reached the lower part of the system by 
 passing through the wood itself, till it reached the point 2 ; as indeed 
 Knight showed must happen in other but less striking instances of 
 complete decortication (Physiol. Papers, p. 130), such as ringing. 
 
48 AETIPICIAL OBSTACLES TO SAP. 
 
 Some curious experiments upon this subject were contrived 
 by Mr. N. Niven (Gardeners' Magazine,\o\. xiv.). In one case, 
 he divested the stem of a tree of a deep ring of bark, and of the 
 first twelve layers of wood below it (Fig. XII.) ; nevertheless the 
 
 Fig. XII. — Einged tree, having wood removed as well as bark, 
 
 tree continued to live and be healthy. From the exposed 
 surface of the wood no sap made its appearance, except from a 
 cut which had been inadvertently made with the saw on one 
 side, to the depth of, perhaps, five or six layers of wood beyond 
 the twelve actually removed. From that cut a flow of sap took 
 place, and continued to run during the whole of the season in 
 which the operation was performed. In this case, the sap 
 cannot have ascended exclusively by the alburnum, but must 
 have chiefly passed through the central wood. 
 
 In another case, by making four deep and wide incisions into 
 the trunk of a tree (Fig. XIII.), and removing the centre, the upper 
 part of the trunk was placed upon four separate pillars of bark 
 
ARTIFICIAL OBSTACLES TO SAP. 
 
 49 
 
 and alburnum ; and the tree upon which the operation was 
 performed continued to live for two years, after which it was 
 not observed. In this instance, no doubt can be entertaiaed 
 
 Fig. XIII. — Crucial incisions- in the trunk of a tree. 
 
 that the whole of the sap was directed into the four pillars, 
 after passing through which it was conveyed laterally both in 
 ascent and descent until the whole system was again filled. 
 
 The cause .of the _/?ow of the sap appears to be the attraction 
 of it by the leaves, which continually diminish its quantity ; 
 and the necessity that the sap abstracted should be replaced by 
 a further supply sent upwards from the roots. The conse- 
 quence of this is, that sap always begins to flow at the ends of 
 branches, a circumstance which has led to the erroneous idea 
 that it proceeds from above downwards through the alburnum. 
 The flow of the sap must not, however, be confounded with the 
 motion of the sap, which takes place in the winter as well as 
 
50 BLEEDING FROM ROOT AND STEM. 
 
 in the Bummer, and is a mere impletion of the system, caused 
 by the absorbing force of the roots, unaffected by the exhalation 
 of the leaves. 
 
 Occasionally they discharge sap iq such abundance from the 
 wound that they are said to bleed ; and when the sap is red, as 
 in Pergularia sanguinolenta, the discharge has the appearance of 
 being identical with the bleeding of animals. When trees 
 begin to grow in the spring, sap flows abundantly from their 
 wounds ; it may even be collected for fermentation, as occurs to 
 the Birch-tree, whose juice, obtained by tapping, in the early 
 spring, becomes converted into a sparkling wine ; or, by boiling, 
 the saccharine matter dissolved in sap may be collected in abun- 
 dance, as is the case in North America with the Sugar Maple. 
 If allowed to continue for too long a time such bleeding causes 
 incurable debility or death. The roots of a tree will bleed as 
 much as the stem ; and with the same consequences. A case 
 is mentioned by the Hon. Jas. Stuart Wortley of a very fine 
 Birch-tree, whose roots were cut through in making a new walk 
 near it. They were about five in number, and averaged about 
 an inch and a half in diameter, and continued bleeding so 
 incessantly for a fortnight, that the walk at the end of that time 
 stood in puddles, and the sap still bubbled up through the 
 gravel. The same circumstance was observed in lowering the 
 ground near a large Walnut-tree, when some great roots having 
 been cut through, so much bleeding took place in consequence 
 that the tree died. 
 
 A third occurrence of the same nature has been recorded by 
 Mr. Spencer, gardener to the Marquess of Lansdowne, at Bowood. 
 Informing anew walk, he had occasion to cut through three 
 large roots belonging to an adjoining Beech which remained 
 exposed. Some time about the middle of March he observed 
 the roots were bleeding considerably, and they continued to do 
 so tUl the end of April, the flow being materially influenced by 
 the state of the weather. By the beginning of April the bleeding 
 was sufficient to saturate the walks. On examining the roots 
 with an ordinary microscope, he observed the discharge pro- 
 ceeded from the whole of the exposed cells through the section- 
 but, from the larger diameter of the vessels towards the exterior 
 
CAUSE OF BLEEDING. 51 
 
 of the root, the bleeding, as a natural consequence, was greatest 
 at that part. He also remarked that bubbles of air were 
 frequently formed on the cut surface, evidently showing that 
 some kind of gas was present, either in the sap or in the 
 cells'. The discharge was perfectly visible to the naked 
 eye, and in bright weather the microscope enabled him to see 
 distinctly the downward passage of the sap, through all the 
 root cells. 
 
 Such cases are doubtless . much more common than is 
 supposed. The cause of the phenomena was in part demon- 
 strated more than a century since by Hales. In discussing 
 the question of the circulation or non-circulation of the 
 sap, this great experimentalist uses the following words ; — 
 "We see in many of the foregoing experiments, what 
 quantities of moisture trees do daily imbibe and perspire. 
 Now the celerity of the sap must be very great, if 
 that quantity of moisture must, most of it, ascend to the 
 top of the tree, then descend, and again ascend, before it is 
 carried off by perspiration. The defect of a circulation in 
 vegetables seems in some measure to be supplied by the much 
 greater quantity of liquor which the vegetable takes in, than 
 the animal, whereby its motion is accelerated ; for by Experi- 
 ment 1st, we find the Sunflower, bulk for bulk, imbibes and 
 perspires seventeen times more fresh liquor than a man every 
 twenty-four hours. Besides, Nature's great aim in vegetables 
 being only that the vegetable life be carried on and maintained, 
 there was no occasion to give its sap the rapid motion which 
 was necessary for the blood of animals. In animals, it is the 
 heart which sets the blood in motion, and makes it continually 
 circulate ; but in vegetables, we can discover no other cause of 
 the sap's motion but the strong attraction of the capUlary sap 
 vesselsj assisted by the brisk undulations and vibrations caused 
 by the sun's warmth, whereby the sap is carried up to the top of 
 the tallest trees, and is there perspired off through the leaves : 
 but when the surface of the tree is greatly diminished by the 
 loss of its leaves, then also the perspiration and motion of the 
 sap is proportionably diminished, as is plain from many of the 
 foregoing experiments ; so that the ascending velocity of the 
 
 b2 
 
62 CAUSE OF ASCENT OF SAP. 
 
 sap is principally accelerated by the plentiful perspiration of 
 the leaves." 
 
 The sap then ascends in consequence of an attracting force 
 exercised from above downwards by the foliage of plants. But 
 it is evident that this is only a partial explanation of the 
 phenomenon ; for it does not account for the ascent of sap in 
 winter when leaves are absent. In order to explain that fact 
 we must have recourse to the action of endosmose, a force the 
 effect of which is to produce propulsion. A tree may be 
 assumed to be a combination of hollow tubes freely communi- 
 cating with each other, and enclosed in a skin through which 
 fluids are capable of being absorbed on the one hand and 
 expelled on the other. If we conceive a body of this kind, in 
 which the tubes are nearly empty, to have its lower extremity 
 plunged in water, the absorbing power of the skin at that part 
 will begia to introduce the water into the interior, and this 
 continuing to go on for a sufficient time, the tubes must neces- 
 sarily become at last filled with water rising upwards from 
 below. To effect this, no attracting force at the upper end of 
 the cylinder was necessary ; every particle of water which was 
 absorbed by the lower end, having driven before it a corre- 
 sponding volume of the water previously existing in the appara^ 
 tus. Under the influence of this operation the tubes would in 
 time become full, and if unelastic the introduction of more 
 water would be impossible. But if such tubes and the skin 
 that encloses them were elastic and extensible, then any such 
 further quantity of water might be introduced as the apparatus 
 could receive without bursting. If we then suppose that the 
 one end of the apparatus were cut open the sides of the tubes 
 would collapse, and the water would be forced out till there was 
 no more left than the tubes held in their original unstretched 
 condition. A tree is just such an apparatus. Its tubes are 
 nearly empty at the fall of the leaf. During winter the roots 
 absorb water from the soil and fiU the tubes again. By the 
 arrival of spring they are filled almost to bursting, and then if 
 the stem is cut it bleeds ; or if the roots are cut they bleed. 
 Bleeding ceases as the leaves unfold. The Vine, the Walnut 
 the Birch, are all as incapable of bleeding as other trees when 
 
BLEEDING. 53 
 
 their leaves are formed ; because the leaves gradually empty 
 the tubes, put an end to their distension, and prevent its 
 recurrence so long as they remain in an active state. 
 
 The excessive loss of sap in the above-mentioned cases 
 would not have taken place if the roots had been wounded in 
 the summer or autumn. It is probable, moreover, that the 
 bleeding was increased by the unusual coldness of the spring 
 in which these instances occurred. Hales himself was aware 
 that sap falls back at night in consequence of the contraction 
 of the tubes by cold ; Mr. Knight observed the same fact : and 
 it has more recently been proved experimentally by M. Biot. 
 It may therefore be supposed that excessive cases of bleeding 
 occur, because, in addition to the natural contraction of the 
 tubes of the wood, their mechanical contraction by unusual 
 cold has to be taken into account. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ACTION OP LEAVES. 
 
 THEIR NATTTEE, STKrCTTTEE, TEIlirS, EPIBEEMIS, STOMATES. — ^EEEECI OP 
 LIGHT. — ^DIGBSTIOIT OE DECOMPOSITION OE CAEBONIC ACID. — ^INSENSIBLE 
 
 PEE8PIEATI0N. — EOEMATION OP SECEEIIONS. FAIL OF THE LEAF. — 
 
 FOEMATION OE BTTDS BY LEATES. 
 
 A LEAF is an appendage of the stem of a plant, having one 
 or more leaf-buds in its axil. In those cases where no buds 
 are visible in the axil, they are, nevertheless, present, although 
 latent, and may be brought into development by favourable 
 circumstances. As this is a universal property of leaves, to 
 which there is no known exception, it follows that all the 
 modifications of leaves, such as scales, hooks, tendrils, &c., and 
 even the floral organs, hereafter to be described, may have the 
 same property. 
 
 Buds axe, liowever, formed with, difficulty by such, modified leaves as 
 brown scales or mere membranous expansions, even although the 
 latter are capable of assuming the usual condition of leaves when 
 anythiug occurs to increase their force of development. The more 
 green, the more succulent, the more perfectly organized a leaf is, the 
 greater is its power of forming axillary buds ; and vice versd. That 
 the power of forming buds reaUy exists among leaves even when most 
 unlike their usual state is proved by such examples as that at p. 90 of 
 this work, where they are appearing even from among oarpeUary leaves. 
 In the Author's JElements of Botany, p. 75, -a. case is figured of buds 
 from the axils of leaves in the state of petals, and he has now before him 
 an example of a Clematis Sieboldi, received from Mr. WUson, Gardener 
 to the Earl of Burlington, in which six buds are formed in the axils of 
 stamens. Such examples are, however, whoUy exceptional. 
 
 All leaves arrive at their final condition through intermediate 
 states ; and if their growth is arrested by any cause, whether 
 
DEVELOPMENT OP LEAVES. 65 
 
 constitutional or accidental, then they remain fixed in the 
 state in which the arrest occurred. Owing to this cause, we find 
 them in the form of points, scales, straps, or perfect organs on 
 the same plant. 
 
 The Mstory of their development has heen explained by M. TrScul 
 better than by any other writer. The foUowing is the substance of 
 his remarks : — The stem terminates in a very deKcate cellular tumour 
 (growing poiat) from the sides of which the leaves are developed. 
 These first present themselves in the shape of stiU. smaller tumours, 
 alternate, opposite, or verticillate. When opposite or vertioUlate leaves 
 are to be united at the base, a circular elevation precedes them on 
 the axis ; when they are not confluent the tumours are isolated ; lastly, 
 when alternate leaves are sheathed, the sheath either takes its rise 
 from a circular eminence round the stem, or else the rudimentary 
 tumour which first shows itself, enlarges, and finally embraces the 
 stem. Leaves are developed after foxir principal types, the centrifugal 
 (from below upwards), the centripetal (from above downwards), the 
 mixed and ^e parallel. In the CBNTEinjGAL formation all the parts are 
 formed from below upwards, the leaf is pinnate, and furnished with 
 stipules, the petiole (raohis) first makes its appearance ; on its sides 
 come the stipules, then the lower pair of leaflets, then the second pair, 
 then the third, fourth, and so on. If the leaf is supra-decompound the 
 primary tumoxu or raohis in growing throws out secondary petioles, and 
 these latter tertiary ones, &o., according to the composition of the leaf 
 at the extremity of which the leaflets form. The development of simple 
 leaves may be explained by that of the Lime-tree. This leaf commences 
 with a rudimentary tumour at the apex of the stem. This tiunour 
 lengthens and enlarges, leaving at its base a contraction which repre- 
 sents the petiole. The blade, at first entire, is soon divided from side 
 to side by a sinus. The lower lobe is the first secondary nervure ; the 
 upper part is subdivided in the same manner five or six times, in order 
 to form as many nervures of the same sort. About the time that the 
 third or fourth upper lobe makes its appearance, the lower one, which was 
 formed first, having also extended, becomes sinuous at its edges. These 
 sinuosities are the indications of the origin of five or six ramifications 
 of the lower nervure. At this period the leaf is furnished with as 
 many toothings as there are nervures. But in a short time fresh 
 toothings appear between those first formed, these correspond with the 
 development of as many secondary nervures. The nervures which 
 unite transversely with the adjoining nerves are produced at the same 
 time. The hairs which cover the under surface of the leaf are also 
 formed from below upwards. Thus the various kinds of nervures in the 
 leaf of a Lime-tree develope like the different sorts of shoots in the tree 
 that bears them. To leaves developed centkipetallt belong those of 
 
56 ANATOMY OF LEAVES. 
 
 Biimet, Roses, &c. In these plants the terminal leaflet is produced 
 before all the others, the pair of leaflets nearest the apex of the leaf 
 next make their appearance, then the second pair, the third, and so on, 
 from the apex to the base. All digitate and radiate leaves belong to 
 the centripetal mode of formation. In PotentiUa reptans, &o., not 
 only do the leaflets grow from the top downwards, but their secondary 
 nervures and toothings appear in the same way. In plants belonging 
 to the MiXEB TTPE, the two preceding modes of development are combined. 
 The lobes of the leaves of Acer platanoides, &c., and the midribs of 
 those lobes which are digitate, form from above downwards ; the lower 
 lobes are produced last, but the secondary nervures and the toothings 
 are developed like those of the Lime-tree. The paeallbl roEMAiioif is 
 common to many Endogens. All the nervures are formed in a parallel 
 manner ; but in this, as well as in the case of dicotyledonous plants, 
 the sheath is the first that makes its appearance (Carex). The leaf 
 lengthens more especially by the base of the blade, or that of the 
 petiole when it exists (Chamserops) ; the sheath, often extremely small, 
 does not increase in growth tiU a later period ; the same holds true with 
 regard to Exogens when they have a sheath. As regards the growth of 
 leaves, which has been confounded with their mode of formation, 
 M. Trfioul has shown that all leaves which are furnished with sheaths, or 
 those which are very much protected by having their lower portions 
 enveloped with other organs, grow most by the base ; on the other 
 hand, those of which the whole petiole is exposed to the air at a very 
 early period, in oonseq^uence of the stem lengthening, grow much more 
 towards the -upper part of the petiole (Tropasolum majus, ^sculus, &o.) 
 Nevertheless, there is a short space near the insertion of the petiole in 
 the blade where the increase in length is less than a little lower.down. 
 
 Considered with respect to its anatomical structure, a leaf is 
 an expansion of the bark, consisting of cellular substance, 
 among which are distributed veias. The former is an expan- 
 sion of the rind ; the latter consist of woody matter arising 
 from the neighbourhood of the pith, and from the liber. As 
 the tissue forming veins has a double origin, it is arranged in 
 two layers, united firmly during life, but separable after death, 
 as may be seen in leaves that have been lying for some time in 
 water. Of these layers, one is superior and arises from the 
 neighbourhood of the pith, the other inferior and arises from 
 the liber ; the former maintains a connection between the wood 
 and leaf ; the latter establishes a communication with the bark. 
 Since sap, or ascendiag fluid, rises through the wood, and more 
 especially the alburnum, afterwards descendiag through the 
 
THE EPIDERMIS. 57 
 
 liber, it follows from what has been stated, that a leaf is an 
 organ of which the upper system of veins is in communication 
 with the ascending, and the lower system with the descending, 
 current of sap. 
 
 This statement must be understood to express nothing more than 
 what may be called the typical condition of a leaf, and especially of 
 such, as are thin and abundantly furnished with veins. In succulent 
 plants no layers can be distinguished, but the veins are dispersed among 
 pulp ; in membranous leaves it is uncertain whether more than one 
 layer is present ; finally in some there are three distinct layers, as in 
 Brexia spinosa, which has a middle system of coarsely and irregularly 
 netted veins, and immediately below both the upper and lower skin a 
 layer of much finer and closer oblique veins. 
 
 A leaf has moreover a skin, or epidermis, drawn over it. 
 This epidermis is often separable, and is composed of an 
 infinite number ©f minute cells or cavities, originally filled with 
 fluid, but eventually dry and filled with air. In plants 
 growing naturally in damp or shady places it is very thin; 
 in others inhabiting hot, dry, exposed situations, it is hard 
 and thick; its texture varies between the two extremes, 
 according to the nature of the species. The epidermis is 
 pierced by numerous invisible pores, called stomates, through 
 which the plant breathes and perspires. Such stomates are 
 generally largest and most abundant in plants which inhabit 
 damp and shady places, and which are able to procure at all 
 times an abundance of liquid food ; they are fewest and least 
 active under the opposite conditions. It wiU be obvious, that, 
 in both these cases, the structure of a leaf is adapted to the 
 peculiar circumstances under which the plant to which it 
 belongs naturally grows. Now as this structure is capable of 
 being ascertained by actual inspection with a microscope, it 
 follows, as a necessary consequence, that the natural habits of 
 an unknown plant may be judged of with some certainty by a 
 microscopical examination of the structure of its epidermis. 
 The rule will evidently be, that plants with a thick epidermis, 
 and only a few small stomates, will be the inhabitants of 
 situations where the air is dry and the supply of liquid food 
 small ; while those with a thin epidermis, and a great number 
 
68 ITS PEOPERTIES. 
 
 of large stomates, will belong to a climate damp and hiamid; 
 and intermediate degrees of structure wUl indicate intermediate 
 atmospherical and terrestrial conditions. It is, however, to be 
 observed, that the relative size of stomates is often a more 
 important mark in investigations of this nature than their 
 number; those organs being in many plants extremely 
 numerous, but small and apparently capable of action in a very 
 limited degree ; while in others, where they are much less 
 numerous, they are large and obviously very active organs. 
 Thus the number of stomates in a scLuare inch of the epidermis 
 of Crinum amabile is estimated at 40,000, in that of Mesem- 
 bryanthemum at 70,000, and of an Aloe at 45,000 ; the first 
 inhabiting the damp ditches of India, the last two natives of 
 the dry rocks of the Cape of Good Hope : but the stomates of 
 Crinum amabile are among the largest that are known, and 
 those of Mesembryanthemum and Aloe are among the gmaHest, 
 so that the 70,000 of the former are not equal to 10,000 of the 
 Crinum. Again the Yucca aloifolia has four times as many 
 stomates as a species of Cotyledon in my collection, but those 
 of the latter are about the y-j-g- of an inch in their longer 
 diameter, large and active, while the stomates of the Yucca are 
 not more than -a-sVo- of an inch long in the aperture, and 
 comparatively inert. The Yucca, therefore, with its numerous 
 stomates, has weaker powers of perspiration and respiration 
 than the Cotyledon. 
 
 A leaf, then, is an appendage of the stem of a plant, con- 
 sisting of an expansion of the cellular rind, into which veins 
 are introduced, and enclosed in a skin through which respiration 
 and perspiration take place. It is in reality a natural con- 
 trivance for exposing a large surface to the influence of external 
 agents, by whose assistance the crude sap contained in the 
 stem is altered and rendered suitable to the particular wants 
 of the species, and for returning into the general circulation 
 the fluids in their matured condition. In a word, the leaf of a 
 plant is its lungs and stomach, traversed by a system of veins. 
 
 It is well known to Gardeners that the eflloieney of leaves is much 
 promoted by their being kept perfectly clean. The great cause of the 
 Tinhealthiness of plants in towns is the amount of dirt which unavoidablv 
 
ACTION OP THE EFIDERMIS. 59 
 
 collects upon their surface. If such impurities are constantly washed off, 
 plants wUl grow as well in cities as in country places. This was found 
 experimentally by M. Grarreau, who in the course of his inquiries into 
 the functions of the skin of plants, found that soap and water had great 
 value ; plants well washed acquiring a power of absorption much 
 beyond what they possessed ia their unwashed condition. Thus the 
 rate of absorption in the Tangiers Ferula was as 4 to after ablution ; 
 and in the yellow Grentian as 30 to 20. In like manner, the petals of 
 the Pseony took up five and six times as much after as before being 
 cleaned ; and the leaves of the Lilao, Lily of the VaUey, Ivy, and 
 Clematis about twice as much. It was found that soap and water had 
 a far greater cleansing effect than mere water ; thus, a Pig-leaf, which 
 had been lathered, absorbed 90 parts, while after a mere water-bath it 
 took up only half the quantity ; and a bramble, which soap and water 
 provided with 130 parts of water absorbed, could only consume 10 parts 
 when cleaned with water alone. It was thus shown that perfect 
 cleanliness is as indispensable to plants as to animals, and that dirty 
 gardening is necessarily bad gardening. Plants breathe by their 
 leaves ; and if their surface is clogged by dirt of whatever kind, their 
 breathing is impeded or prevented. Plants perspire by their leaves ; 
 and dirt prevents their perspiration. Plants feed by their leaves, and 
 dirt prevents their feeding. So that breathing, perspiration, and food, 
 are fatally interrupted by the accumulation of. foreign matters upon 
 leaves. Let any one, after reading this, cast an eye upon the state of 
 plants in sitting-rooms, or ill-kept greenhouses ; let them draw a white 
 handkerchief over the surface of such plants, or a piece of smooth white 
 leather, if they desire to know how far they are from being as clean as 
 their nature requires. Half the business of a good gardener consists 
 in sponging and washing the leaves of his plants. 
 
 As the leaf is an extension of the rind of a stem, its 
 epidermis is also an extension of the skin of the same part; 
 and hence it is that in plants which produce no true leaves,' 
 such as the Stapelia, the office of the leaf is performed by the 
 rind and epidermis of the hark. 
 
 The functions of respiration, perspiration, and digestion, 
 which are the particular offices of leaves, are essential to the 
 health of a plant ; its healthiness being iu proportion to the 
 degree in which these functions are duly performed. Conse- 
 quently, whatever tends to impede the free action of leaves, 
 tends also to diminish the healthiness of a plant. 
 
 One of the translators of this work objects to the word digestion 
 employed in the preceding paragraph, upon the ground that the essen- 
 
60 SOLAK LIGHT. 
 
 tiality of digestion in the animal organism consists in the conversion 
 of food into a homogeneous fluid, a function which plants do not 
 exercise. But digestion also means the conversion of raw materials 
 into substances capable of being assimilated or rejected ; and in that 
 sense the word is here employed. 
 
 These functions are performed by means of the vital forces 
 of vegetation, which we cannot estimate or comprehend, 
 assisted by the influence of an external agent, the nature of 
 whose action may be understood from its effects. That agent 
 is solar light. 
 
 It is the property of solar light, when striMng upon the leaf 
 of a plant, either directly or indirectly to cause : 1. A de- 
 composition of carbonic acid ; 2. An extrication of oxygen ; 
 and, 3. Insensible perspiration. By their vital forces plants 
 appear to decompose water, independently of the action of 
 light. 
 
 Carbonic acid is originally introduced into the interior of a 
 plant, either dissolved in the water it imbibes by its roots, or by 
 attraction from the atmosphere, or by the combination of oxygen 
 resulting from the decomposition of water or from other sources, 
 with the carbon in its interior. "When a leaf is exposed to the 
 direct influence of the sun, it gives off oxygen, by decomposing 
 the carbonic acid ; whereupon the carbon remains behind in 
 the interior of the leaf in a solid state. In the total absence 
 of solar light, there is little or no extrication of gaseous matter, 
 and what little is given off will be found to be carbonic acid, 
 which plants exhale at all times in small quantities ; oxygen 
 however, which was before expelled, is inhaled. Hence plants 
 decompose carbonic acid during the day, and acquire it again 
 during the night, and, during the healthy state of a plant, the 
 decomposition by day, and recovery by night, of this gaseous 
 matter, is perpetually going on. The quantity of carbonic acid 
 decomposed is in proportion to the intensity of the light which 
 strikes a leaf, the smallest amount being in shady places ; and 
 the healthiness of a plant is, caieris paribus, in proportion to 
 the quantity of carbonic acid decomposed ; therefore, the 
 healthiness of a plant should be in proportion to the quantity 
 of light it receives by day. 
 
EFFECTS OF LIGHT. 61 
 
 "Most physiologists have conuected the exhalation of carbonic acid 
 during night -with the absorption of oxygen from the atmosphere, and 
 consider this function as the real respiration of plants, which (as we 
 know) produces in animals a decarbonisation of the blood. There is 
 scarcely an opinion which rests on such a feeble basis. The water 
 received by roots contains carbonic acid, which is not decomposed in 
 the absence of light, but remains dissolved in the sap which pervades 
 aU parts of a plant ; and every moment, along with the water evapo- 
 rating through the leaves is a proportionate amount of carbonic acid 
 expelled. Soil in which plants vegetate luxuriantly contains a certain 
 quantity of moisture (an indispensable condition of their life), and such 
 a sou is never deficient in carbonic acid, either derived from the atmo- 
 sphere or from the putrefaction of vegetable matter. No water, either 
 rain or that of springs, is free from carbonic acid ; and at no period of 
 the life of a plant does the capability of its roots to absorb moisture, 
 and consequently air and carbonic acid, altogether cease. Can it 
 therefore surprise us that carbonic acid, conjoiutly with the evaporating 
 water of the plant, is returned to the atmosphere, when the cause of 
 the fixation of carbon, viz. light, is deficient? That exhalation of 
 carbonic acid is as unconnected with the process of assimilation and 
 with the life of a plant as the absorption of oxygen. They do not bear 
 the least relation to each other ; the one is a purely mechanical, the 
 other a chemical process. A wick of cotton shut up iu a lamp which 
 contains a fluid impregnated with carbonic acid will be in just the 
 same position as a living plant in darkness. Water and carbonic acid 
 are absorbed by the power of capUlaiy attraction, and both evaporate 
 again on the surface of the wick." — lAehig^s Organic Chemutry, 1840. 
 The foregoing passage is objected to by some physiologists who do not 
 believe that carbonic acid can pass through a, plant without being 
 decomposed. And Mr. Haseldine Pepys, in his careful experiments on 
 Vegetable Respiration, arrived at the conclusion that no carbonic acid 
 whatever is parted with either by night or day. 
 
 Whether plants do or do not give oflf some small quantity of carbonic 
 acid, this at least is certain, that they do not in this way deteriorate 
 the atmosphere in any appreciable degree. If there is one absurdity 
 among popular prejudices greater than another, or leading more to 
 privation of comfort when most wanted, it is that of fancying that 
 growing plants vitiate the air of an apartment by the carbonic acid they 
 emit. The reasoning on which this is founded is as follows: — 
 1. Growing plants form carbonic acid in their interior, by absorbing 
 oxygen from the atmosphere ; they thus rob the air of that which is 
 most necessary to animal Ufe, and therefore they are prejudicial, espe- 
 cially to sick persons. 2. Growing plants also give out carbonic acid 
 or fixed air, a pernicious gas, in which animal life cannot be main- 
 tained ; therefore, they should be expelled from all apartments, espe- 
 
62 EFFECTS OP LIGHT. 
 
 cially those occupied by invalids : for how can a physician, careful of 
 the health of his patient, permit the presence of objects which are thus 
 incessantly contaminating the air ? It may be true that plants destroy 
 oxygen gas and form carbonic acid ; but if everything that produces 
 that effect was also to be expelled, the patient herself must be 
 separated from herself, for a human being consumes more oxygen, and 
 gives off more carbonic acid, in five minutes, than aU the plants in. a 
 sitting-room in twenty-four hours. It is wonderful that this notorious 
 fact should not have removed the prejudice about plants deteriorating 
 the air of sitting-rooms. It is still more surprising that the idea 
 should be retained at the present day, at least when it is also well 
 known that plants, in fact, purify instead of vitiating the atmosphere. 
 If it is true that they do a minute amount of harm, by destroying some 
 vital air, and producing some fixed air, it is equally true that they do 
 a great amount of good by producing a large quantity of vital air, and 
 destroying a large quantity of fixed air. It is one of the most beautiful 
 provisions we know of in nature, that the deleterious air breathed forth 
 by animals is purified and rendered salubrious by plants ; if it were 
 otherwise, the globe would become uninhabitable. But every leaf, 
 every blade of grass — ^nay, the finest of the green silken threads that 
 float about in pools of water, is incessanliy occupied, during daylight, 
 in effecting this most important change of pestilent air into an atmo- 
 sphere of life. One thing, however, is to be observed regarding plants. 
 Although it is false that they contaminate the air of a sitting-room, in 
 the way that is supposed, or in any other way, in the majority of cases, 
 yet it is certain that unpleasant effects are occasionally produced upon 
 peculiar constitutions by their odour. The flowers of the glaucous 
 Magnolia are said, to bring on sickness and headache ; the Jonquil, the 
 Tuberose, and the Lilac, are apt to cause faintness — an effect, indeed, 
 which we have seen produced by a few Violets, even in the open air ; 
 and Linnseus mentions a case of death, said to have been occasioned by 
 sleeping in a room where the Oleander was in flower. But this class of 
 effects does not in any way justify the exclusion of all plants from 
 sitting-rooms ; it only shows the necessity of avoiding the presence of 
 such as have powerful and oppressive odours. 
 
 But, while this is true as a general axiom, it is necessary 
 to observe that some plants are naturally inhabitants of shady 
 situations, and are so organised as to be fit for such places and 
 for no others : plants of this description will not endure full 
 exposure to the sun ; not because an abundant decomposition 
 of carbonic acid is otherwise than favourable to them but 
 because their epidermis allows the escape of water too freely by 
 insensible perspiration, under the solar stimulus. 
 
MOONLIGHT. 63 
 
 As far as is yet known, solar light alone has the power of 
 producing any practical effect upon vegetation. That of the 
 moon has, however, been shown to be not without influence. 
 That the moon has a great mechanical effect upon our globe is 
 undisputed. Of this, we need not say that the perpetually 
 alternate ebbing and flowing of the tide affords the most 
 evident proof. But, whilst the effects of the moon are 
 admitted to be extremely powerful in this respect, the influence 
 of her light, except as regards illumination, has been 
 often considered by scientific men as inappreciable ; and the 
 proverbs to the contrary, cm:rent among the unlearned, have 
 been accordingly estimated as popular errors. It has, however, 
 been at last demonstrated that the moon's rays are very far 
 from powerless. We learn from a note by M. Zantedeschi 
 (Comptes Bendus, October, 1852), that these rays do affect vege- 
 tation. This philosopher states that, " the influence, physical, 
 chemical, and physiological of the moon's light, which has 
 hitherto been the object of so much research and speculation 
 amongst scientific and agricultural writers, has been recently 
 investigated by him in consequence of his having had occasion 
 to give a historical summary of the works on the subject. In 
 the course of his inquiries he found it necessary to clear many 
 doubtful points, in doing which his attention was forcibly 
 arrested by the movements exercised in mere moonlight, under 
 certain circumstances, by the organs of plants ; and this led 
 him to make the whole subject a serious and profound study. 
 His observations were commenced in 1847, in the Botanic 
 Garden at Venice ; they were continued in 1848 in the Botanic 
 Garden at Florence, and at Padua in 1850, 1851, and 1853. 
 In the whole series of his experiments M. Zantedeschi always 
 remarked certain motions in plants having a delicate organiza- 
 tion as soon as they were brought under the influence of 
 the lunar rays. In those experiments the rays were always 
 diffused, being neither concentrated by lens nor mirror. Such 
 movements could not be obtained by the action of heat, in 
 whatever way thermal influences were applied. It was in vain 
 to elevate or depress the temperature : in the absence of 
 moonlight the phenomena in question could not be elicited. 
 
64 MOONLIGHT. 
 
 The plants on which M. Zantedeschi principally experi- 
 mented were Mimosa cUiata, Mimosa pudica, and Desmodium 
 gyrans. He always took great care to determine exactly the 
 position of the leafstalks and leaflets of the plants after they 
 had been exposed to the open air, and before they were directly 
 illuminated by the lunar rays. He thus avoided any causes of 
 error which might have arisen from the imperceptible motion 
 of the air, or from a slight change of temperature ; and he 
 satisfied himself fully that the effects observed did result 
 entirely from the action of the rays of light from the moon. 
 Without entering into minute details, it is sufficient to say 
 that the results were ascertained when the temperature of the 
 air was 70° Fahr. ; and when Saussure's hygrometer indicated a 
 medium state of humidity. Under such conditions, the leaf- 
 stalks of Mimosa cUiata were raised half a centim.etre, or about 
 four-tenths of an inch ; those of the Mimosa pudica were raised 
 one inch and two-tenths; whilst the leaflets of Desmodium 
 gyrans exhibited distinct vibrations. It was thus demonstrated 
 that moonlight has the power, jper se, of awakening the Sensitive 
 Plant, and consequently that it possesses an influence of some 
 kind on vegetation. It is true that the influence was very 
 feeble, compared with that of the sun ; but the action, such as 
 it is, is left beyond further question. This being so, the 
 question remains ; what is the practical value of the fact ? 
 It will immediately occur to the reader that possibly the screens 
 which are drawn down over hothouses at night, to prevent loss 
 of heat by radiation, may produce some unappreciated injury 
 by cutting off the rays of the moon, which Nature intended to 
 fall upon plants as much as the rays of the sun. 
 
 Even artiftoial light is not wholly powerless. De Candolle succeeded 
 ia making Crocuses expand by lamp-light, and Dr. Winn, of Truro, 
 has suggested that the oxy-hydrogen lamp may be made subservient to 
 horticulture in the long dark days of winter. It does not, however, 
 appear that this hypothesis rests upon any experimental basis. 
 
 The mere fact of plants absorbing water from the earth 
 would render it probable that they have some means of parting 
 with a portion of it by their surface ; but that they do perspire 
 
PERSPIRATION. 65 
 
 is susceptible of direct proof, and is by no means a mere 
 matter of inference. We do not indeed see vapour flying off 
 from the surface of plants ; neither do we from that of animals, 
 except when the air is so cold as to condense the vapour ; yet 
 we know that in both cases perspiration is perpetually going 
 on, and it would appear that in plants it takes place more 
 abundantly than in animals. If a plant covered with leaves is 
 placed under a glass vessel, and exposed to the sun, the sides 
 of the vessel are speedily covered with dew, produced by the 
 condensation of the insensible perspiration of the plant. If 
 the branch of a plant is placed in a bottle of water, and the 
 neck of the bottle is luted to the branch, so that no evaporation 
 can take place, nevertheless the water will disappear; and 
 this can only happen from its having been abstracted by the 
 branch which lost it again by insensible perspiration. Hales, 
 an excellent observer, devised many experiments connected with 
 this subject ; * among others the following, which he relates 
 thus : — " August 13. In the very dry year 1723, I dug down 
 two and a half feet deep to the root of a thriving baking Pear- 
 tree, and laying bare a root half an inch in diameter (Fig. XIV.), 
 I cut off the end of the root at i, and put the remaining stump 
 (i n) into the glass tube d r, which was an inch in diameter, and 
 eight inches long, cementing it fast at r; the lower part of the 
 tube d z was eighteen inches long, and a quarter of an inch 
 diameter in bore. . . . Then I turned the lower end of the 
 tube {z) uppermost, and filled it full of water, and then imme- 
 diately immersed the small end z into the cistern of mercury 
 at the bottom, taking away my finger which stopped up the end 
 of the tube z. . . . The root imbibed the water with so much 
 vigour, that in six minutes' time the mercury was raised up the 
 tube d z B& high as z, namely, eight inches. . . . The next 
 morning at eight o'clock the mercury was fallen to two inches 
 in height, and two inches of the end of the root i were yet 
 immersed in water. As the root imbibed the water, innume? 
 rable air bubbles issued out at i, which occupied the upper 
 part of the tube at r as the water left it." On another occasion 
 
 * See Vegetable Statichs, London, 1727. 
 
PERSPIEATION. 
 
 he planted a sunflower three and a half feet high in a garden 
 pot, which he covered with thin milled lead, cementing all the 
 joints so that no vapour could escape except through the sides 
 
 Pig. XIV.— Halos's exporiment to determine the amount of poi-apiration. 
 
 of the pot and through the plant itself; but providing an 
 aperture, capable of being stopped, through which the earth in 
 the pot could be watered. After fifteen days, viz., from July 3 
 to August 8, he found, upon making all necessary allowances 
 for waste, that this sunflower plant, three feet and a half high, 
 
PERSPIRATION. 67 
 
 with a surface of 561"6 square inches above the ground, had 
 perspired as follows : — 
 
 OtTHOES AVOIKDDPOIS. 
 
 In twelve hours of a very dry warm day . . .30, 
 
 On stnotlier day ; 20, 
 
 In a dry warm right without dew . . . -3, 
 In a night with some small dew . . . . ; 
 
 and that when the dew was copious, or there was rain during 
 the night, the plant and pot were increased in weight two or 
 three ounces. Other persons hav^ instituted other experiments 
 of a similar nature, the result of all which is, that the insensible 
 perspiration of plants is very considerable. Hales says his 
 sunflower perspired seventeen times more than a man. There 
 is, however, this important peculiarity in vegetable perspiration, 
 that it takes place only or principally in sunlight. The last 
 experiment shows that, whUe the sunflower was losing from 
 twenty or thirty ounces of water daily during the day, it lost 
 only three ounces during the night without dew, and that there 
 was no loss whatever if a slight dew were present. Here it 
 is probable that the small amount which was lost at night was 
 parted with by the sides of the garden pot, and that the 
 plant itself lost nothing ; for it is in evidence that the perspi- 
 ration of plants is in proportion to the quantity of sunlight 
 that strikes them, and that in darkness they perspire little or 
 not at all.* It is no doubt true, that in a dry atmosphere 
 plants will lose their water day and night ; but it is equally 
 certain that under such circumstances they will lose very 
 much more by day than by night. They will, however, lose 
 much more by day in a dry atmosphere in a given time, than 
 they will in an atmosphere abounding in moisture. 
 
 Although perspiration thus appears to be principally excited 
 by the solar rays, and to be in a given plant in proportion to 
 their intensity, yet we are not authorised in concluding that 
 perspiration is not increased or diminished by the medium in 
 
 * M. De Candolle distinguisheB between exhalaison, or perspiration, whioh is a 
 vital action, and deperdUion or evaporation, which is merely physical. But the 
 latter is too small in amoant to be worth taking into account for practical purposes. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 GARKEAU'S BXPEEIMENTS. 
 
 which a plant grows. Submerged in water, perspiration is 
 necessarily arrested; in an ordinary atmosphere, it wiU he m 
 proportion to the quantity of elastic vapour the atmosphere may 
 contain ; and it is probable, although there are no experiments 
 upon the subject, that it is increased in proportion to the 
 rarefaction of the air. 
 
 Among tie experiments of M. Garreau to wMoi allusion has been 
 already made, was one on the relative amoimt of perspiration hy the 
 two surfaces of ordinary foliage. Leaves growing on healthy plants 
 were selected, and a circular portion inclosed between two closely 
 fitting glass receivers, so arranged that the leaf formed the division 
 between the two glasses — ^the upper surface was in the one glass, whilst 
 the under surface of the leaf was in the other. The quantity of 
 moisture given off was ascertained by placing in each glass a weighed 
 .portion of dry chloride of calcium, which, being very greedy of 
 moisture, would absorb aU the vapour as fast as the surface of the 
 leaves gave it out. The result of this experiment was that the lower 
 surface of leaves gives off, irom an equal quantity, three times as much 
 as the upper surface ; sometimes the proportion was as high as five to 
 one ; and the ratio was independent of the position of the leaf itself. 
 This exhalation of water has some connection with the number and size 
 of the stomates, but is by no means wholly dependent on it, as there is 
 evidently a large quantity of water given off independently of them. 
 The evaporation is most abundant along the course of the nerves, and 
 in those parts of the epidermis, on which there is the least quantity of 
 oily matter. Hence it is apparent why carefully washing with soap 
 and water proves so beneficial (see- p. 68). The operation increases 
 greatly the power of evaporation, 
 
 AU such experiments teach us that under ordinary circumstances the 
 growth of a plant causes the formation and development of certain 
 substances, which in time fiU up its pores, check perspiration, and 
 consequently interfere with the nourishment and farther growth of the 
 plant. But, on the one hand, it is possible that in hot weather these 
 matters may be useful in checking extreme perspiration, and in 
 diminishing for the time the powers of the plant to absorb too much 
 food from the air, or to part with water and oxygen too rapidly. On 
 the other hand, the effect of rain must be to wash away a portion of 
 these deposits, and so to favour the perspiration and consequent growth 
 of the plant. Moreover, as the more heat a plant is exposed to, the 
 more it perspires, and the faster it grows, the greater will the tendency 
 be to fiU up its pores ; so it foUows that when plants are exposed to 
 great heat in a close house, and are not washed or syringed, they are 
 placed in an unnatural condition, where the care of the gardener 
 defeats, to some extent, the object which he has in view. 
 
FOKOE OF SUCTION BY LEAVES. 69 
 
 Since a plant does not perspire at night, and since its 
 absorbing points, the roots, remain during that period in con- 
 tact with the same humid medium as during the day, they will 
 attract fluid into the system of the plant during the night, and, 
 consequently, the weight of the individual will be increased, as 
 Hales found to be the case. In like manner, if plants iu the 
 shade are abundantly supplied with moisture at the roots, they 
 also will gain more than they can lose ; and, as this wiU be a 
 constant action, the result must necessarily be to render all 
 their parts soft and watery. , 
 
 It is evident, from what has been stated, that leaves must 
 derive the food they digest from the earth through the medium 
 of the roots, and from the air ; and that they, while alive, 
 maintain a kind of perpetual sucking action upon the stem, 
 which is communicated to the spongelets. That this must be 
 of a very powerful nature is apparent from the fact, that the 
 smallest leaf at the extremity of the branch of a lofty tree must 
 assist in setting in action the absorbing power of roots, at a 
 distance equal, perhaps, to three thousand times its own length. 
 If this reciprocal action is not maintained without interrdption, 
 and if anything occurs to check it during the period of vege- 
 tation, the plant will suffer in proportion to the amount of 
 interruption. For example, if the roots are placed in a warmer 
 medium than the branches, and are thus induced to absorb fluid 
 faster than the slower action of the leaves can consume it, the 
 superfluous sap wiU burst through the stem and distend its 
 tissue till the excitability is impaired or destroyed. Or if, on 
 the other hand, a branch is caused to grow in a warm medium,- 
 while the roots remain in a very cold medium, the former 
 will consume the liquid sap faster than the latter can 
 supply it, and the consequence will be, that the leaves will 
 die, or the fruit will fall off, or the flowers be unable to set their 
 fruit, from want of a constant and sufficient supply of food ; or 
 the fruit will shrivel, or, as it is said, wiU " shank." Not that it 
 is necessary for the temperature of the earth and air to be 
 equal, for this does not happen in nature ; but it is requisite 
 that they should have some near relation to each other. 
 
 It is generally, however, believed, that leaves absorb fluid 
 
70 FORMATION OF SECRETIONS. 
 
 from the air. Their stomates appear well adapted for that 
 purpose, by their position in most abundance on the under side 
 of leaves ; and the possibility of recovering drooping or sickly 
 plants, by syringing their epidermis copiously, seems to render 
 this fact almost certain. It is, however, imagined by some, 
 that leaves have no power of absorbing water, even in an elastic 
 state ; and that the renovation of plants by syringing is merely 
 owing to a diminution of perspiration, which is improbable. 
 
 It is to the action of leaves, — ^to the decomposition of their 
 carbonic acid, and of their water ; to the separation of the 
 aqueous particles of the sap from the solid parts that were 
 dissolved in it ; to the deposition thus effected of various earthy 
 and other substances, either introduced into plants, as silex 
 and metallic salts, or formed there, as the vegetable alkaloids ; 
 to the extrication of nitrogen ; and, probably, to other causes 
 as yet unknown, — ^that the formation of the peculiar secretions 
 of plants, of whatever kind, is owing. And this is brought 
 about principally, if not exclusively, by the agency of light. 
 Their green colour becomes intense, in proportion to their 
 exposure to light within certain limits, and feeble, in proportion 
 to their removal from it ; till, in total and continued darkness, 
 they are entirely destitute of green secretion, and become 
 blanched or etiolated. The same result attends all their other 
 secretions; timber, gum, sugar, acids, starch, oU, resins, odours, 
 flavours, and aU the numberless narcotic, acrid, aromatic, 
 pungent, astringent, and other principles derived from the 
 vegetable kingdom, are equally influenced, as to quantity and 
 quality, by the amount of light to which the plants producing 
 them have been exposed. 
 
 It is evident that the possibility of the downward distribution 
 described m the previous paragraph rests upon the certainty that 
 elaborated sap descends and is dispersed through the system. That this 
 occurs is so certain, that it would have been needless to maintain it by 
 further proof if some modern naturalists had not ventured to caE it in 
 question. To deny it is tantamount to questioning the existence of 
 wood, or its formation as it appears to our eyes when the bark is 
 stripped from a young growing shoot; as in a Lilac for example. In 
 such a case new wood can be demonstrated to descend from each leaf 
 downwards, till it is lost among the multitude of descending currents. 
 
DESCENDING SAP. 71 
 
 Upon this has been built the theory that wood grows downwards from 
 leaves — ^whieh is now known to be erroneous ; but although wood does 
 not descend from leaves, it is certain that the organised matter out of 
 which wood is formed does descend. If, indeed, the descent of elabo- 
 rated sap is denied, it becomes impossible to explain why, when a ring 
 of bark is removed from a branch, the new growth takes place princi- 
 pally on the upper edge of the wound and very slightly on the lower ; 
 and why gum, prepared by the leaves of a Potato, is afterwards found 
 in the tubers, in the final form of starch. It is impossible for those 
 who have any practical acquaintance with living plants not to agree 
 withProf. Mohl(2%eFe^e<a6fe cell. p. 71, English edition), that a denial 
 of a descending current of sap in bark is quite incomprehensible. 
 Certainly, as he says, it is no improvement upon the theory which men 
 attempt to cast aside to say that increased growth above an anntdar 
 wound is explained by artificial interruption of the upward current of 
 crude sap, in consequence of which the fluids contained in the upper part 
 of the plant must soon become greatly concentrated and potential for 
 development. "When we can succeed in fattening an animal by 
 depriving it of a portion of its accustomed food this explanation may be 
 received as satisfactory." 
 
 This explains why there is usually more wood on the south 
 side of a tree than on the north ; and why depriving trees of 
 their branches (and leaves) is invariably attended by a 
 diminution of the quantity of timber. 
 
 Upon this curious subject some of the best observations are those of 
 Van HaU, as recorded in one of the reports of the Ray Society. This 
 gentleman remarked that the growth of trees in thickness only com- 
 mences after the leaves are capable of fulfilling their functions ; this 
 was proved by aU hia measurements. The influence of the leaves upon 
 the increase of trunks in thickness exhibited itseK most distinctly in 
 the Italian Poplar. On one of these trees being deprived of almost all 
 its branches, in the month of March, the increase in thickness was pro- 
 portionably sUght during the months of Jxme and July. The growth 
 of a Lime-tree, on the other hand, in which the side branches, also 
 those lower down on the trunk, as weU above as beneath the point of 
 measurement, had, for the greater part, been purposely left, was consi- 
 derable, and increasing every year. An experiment was made with 
 two equal sized Oaks, situated under the same circumstances ; all the 
 lateral branches were taken from one and left on the other ; the result 
 was, that the iacrease of thickness, in the tree which had not been 
 pruned, was much more considerable than in the one which had been 
 pruned. But the fact is familiar to all intelligent woodmen. 
 
 It may be regarded as an axiom in horticulture that the health of 
 
72 IMPOKTANOE OP LEAVES. 
 
 other parts of a plant is in proportion to the health of leaves, Tnere is 
 no real exception, and the neglect of it is the fciiitM parent of failures. 
 Nature has given plants leaves not merely to decorate them or to 
 shade us, but as a part of a wondrous system of life quite as perfect as 
 that of the animal kingdom. It would be of no use for a plant to suck 
 food out of the earth by its roots, unless there was some place provided 
 in which such food, consisting principally of water and mucUage, could 
 be digested, aud so converted into the matter which maintains the 
 health of the individual. The stem cannot do this ; firstly, because it 
 is a mere channel through which" fluids pass ; and secondly, because 
 many plants have no visible stem, as in the instance of the Primrose ; 
 and yet in all such cases the plant feeds and m\ist digest its food. It 
 is to the leaves that this important office is assigned, and to enable 
 them to execute it God has formed them with wisdom no less infinite 
 than has been displayed in the creation of man. The leaves have veins 
 through which their fluids pass, and cells in which they are held while 
 digesting, myriads of little caverns through whose sides respiration is 
 maintained, a skin to g^ard them from the air, and pores for carrying 
 off perspiration. A leaf is, in fact, both a stomach and lungs ; and to 
 destroy it, is to do the same injury to a plant as would be effected in 
 an animal by the destruction of the parts to which those names are 
 given. Of this we may be certain, that neither taste, perfume, colour, 
 size, nor any other property, can be given to a plant except through 
 the assistance of the leaves ; and that the more numerous these are, the 
 larger, and the more luxuriant, so, within certain limits, wiU be aU 
 that a plant is capable of forming. Strip the leaves off a tree, and no 
 more wood wiU appear until the leaves are restored; feed its roots in 
 the hope of thus compensating for the loss of its leaves, and the stem 
 will be fiMed indeed with watery matter, but the latter wiU collect in 
 the interior untH it forces its way through the bark, and runs down in 
 putrid streams, as happens to the Mulberry-tree when it is incessantly 
 stripped for sUk-worms, and as occurs to trees whose leaves are con- 
 tinually destroyed by a noxious atmosphere. Strip the ripening 
 Grapes of their green garments, and no colour or sweetness will be 
 coUeoted in their berries. Rob the Potato of its foUage, and you wiU 
 seek in vain for nourishment in its tubers ; and so of aU things else. 
 On the other hand, leave the Mulberry, the Vine, and the Potato unin- 
 jured, to the genial influence of the sun and the air, and the dews of 
 heaven, and wood is formed in the one case, sugar and colour in the 
 other— and flour, the staff of Kfe, in the last: and these products will 
 all be in exact proportion to the health and abundance of the foliage. 
 Why then mow off the leaves of Strawberry plants in the autumn aS 
 some do ?— the only effect of which must be to rob the plants of the 
 materials out of which the fruit of the succeeding year is to be pro- 
 duced, and to destroy the natural protection afforded duiing winter by 
 
LEAVES MAY BE REMOVED. 73 
 
 the foKage to the tender and delicate flowers ■which are to spring up on 
 the return of warm weather. Why mutilate forest-trees by barha- 
 rous summer pruning ? Every leaf that is then removed would have 
 added something to the quantity and solidity of the timber, had it been 
 spared ; and although the quantity of timber formed by the separate 
 action of each particular leaf may be, and doubtless is, extremely small, 
 yet it must be remembered, that, in pruning, millions of leaves are 
 removed, and that it is by miUions of minute quantities that a forest is 
 constructed. 
 
 But although the general rule is to allow as many leaves to remain on 
 a tree as can be kept ia health, yet there are circumstances which justify 
 their removal, and., indeed, render it necessary. For example, when a 
 tender tree is trained to a wall, a great object with the gardener is to 
 secure ripe wood ; for unless he does this, the frost of the succeeding 
 winter may destroy the branches, or the buds may be so imperfectly 
 formed as to produce feeble shoots the ensuing season. To attain this 
 object, those leaves must be removed which prevent the sun from 
 striking upon the branches to be ripened, the effect of this being to 
 stop the rapid growth of the branches and to consolidate their tissue, in 
 consequence, partly, of the excessive perspiration, and partly of the 
 rapid digestion of the sap, which is thus induced; for the rate ofdiges-' 
 Hon and perspiration in a healthy plant is in proportion to the quantity 
 of light and heat to which it is exposed. Hence the removal of those 
 shoots which in summer overshadow that wood of the Peach-tree which 
 is intended to be preserved another year, is useful ; there can be no 
 doubt, however, that as few shoots as possible should be thus removed. 
 Another case in which the removal of leaves is justifiable occurs in the 
 Vine. In this plant the fruit is borne near the base of lateral shoots, 
 which will, if unchecked, go on lengthening and producing leaves to a 
 considerable distance. Now all the food of such a lateral shoot is 
 obtained from the main branch, which, however, is only capable of 
 famishing a certain quantity. If the lateral shoot is allowed to grow 
 unchecked, it will consume its portion of food in the production of 
 many leaves and some Ghrapes ; and the more there is of the former, the 
 less wiU be the weight of the latter. But if the shoot is stopped after 
 having formed two leaves, all that quantity of food which would have 
 been consiuned in the production of other leaves is applied to the 
 increase of size in the Grapes and the two leaves that are left ; while, 
 on the other hand, the general crop of leaves on the Vine will be amply 
 sufflbient to prepare those secretions which are to give flavour, colour, 
 and sweetness to the Grapes. This' will, perhaps, be better explained 
 by the annexed diagram. Let the line a g represent a lateral Vine- 
 branch, bearing fruit at B, and leaves at c, d, e,f. Suppose six ounces 
 of sap are destined to support this lateral a g, during the summer ; 
 i\ is evident that, if equally distributed, each leaf and branch will 
 
/ 
 
 74 GROWTH WITHOUT LEAVES. 
 
 receive one ounce of sap as its proportion. But if e, f,g, are 
 removed, it is obvious that the three which remain wiU have 
 two ounces each, or double the supply. j t i 9 
 
 Why, then, it may be asked, not remove c and j? also:- 
 because, in that case, S, the bunch of fruit, would have the 
 whole six ounces of sap to itself. The reason why this should 
 not be done is this : if aU the leaves on the lateral aie removed 
 there will be no force left upon it wherewith to attract from 
 the main branch the food that belongs to it; for the power 
 which the parts of plants possess of attracting fluid is in pro- 
 portion to the amount of their perspiration. Now leaves per- 
 spire copiously, but the Grapes themselves scarcely at aH: 
 whence their gradual conversion from a substance of the texture 
 of a leaf into a mass of pulp. In the instance of Vine-pruning, 
 the great object is to leave on the laterals just as much force 
 as may be required to secure for the bunches the food that is 
 intended for them, and at the same time to deprive the laterals 
 of the means of expending that food uselessly in the production 
 of leaves instead of fruit. 
 
 B 
 
 Notwithstanding the unquestionable importance of leaves to 
 plants, yet a class of facts is familiar to practical physiologists 
 which seems to point to an opposite conclusion. Twenty years 
 ago Dutrochet brought to notice the unexpected fact that in 
 the Jura may be found the roots of Fir-trees, stiU aJive and 
 growing, at the end of forty-five years after the trunks were 
 felled. A similar example is recorded by the Rev. Mr. Berkeley 
 in the case of an Ash-tree which had been sawn over level with 
 the ground. Gardeners know very well that the tuberous 
 Tropseolums, the stems of which have been accidentally broken 
 off, will continue to grow for a long time afterwards ; as also 
 will tuberous Bindweeds. It chanced that in the Conservatory 
 of Chiswick House a plant of SeUo's Ipomoea was in November, 
 1840, destroyed to the ground by frost, from which period 
 to 1852 it had neither made buds nor leaves. Nevertheless, its 
 root continued increasing rapidly in size. In fact it was fre- 
 quently repotted as its increase in size demanded it ; for in 1840, 
 at the time of the accident, it was but a small root. During 
 this long period it was subjected to a high temperature. At last 
 the root formed a coil, one foot across, six inches deep, and 
 weighing seven pounds and a quarter. We have no record of 
 
GEOWTH WITHOUT LEAVES. 75 
 
 its weight at the time when the stem perished, but as it con- 
 tinued to grow for nine years and a half, and was originally in 
 a small pot, it is not unreasonable to assume that it had 
 acquired at least seven times its original weight. Although no 
 leaves had been formed, yet many attempts at the production 
 of stems were visible upon the specimen, in the form of short 
 stunted tubercles or incipient branches ; and the root was in 
 1853 full of vitality. Here we have a striking proof that 
 plants may possess an inherent power of growth without leaves. 
 It is probable that in this case the bark, of which a large 
 surface had been exposed to light, acted as a substitute for 
 foliage, perspiring, and assimilating food, as all green parts do, 
 whether leaves or not. It is also possible that the surface of 
 the root which rested upon the earth, had constantly attracted 
 from the soil the food which the bark is assumed to have 
 assimilated. But if such a power can be recognised in an 
 Ipomoea, we must also admit its existence in the tuber of a 
 Potato, even although that tuber is not exposed to light ; and 
 the vital force of the latter must be allowed to be capable not 
 only of converting into starch the gum supplied by the leaves, 
 but of absorbing gaseous and fluid matters from the soil, and, 
 by their assimilation, of continuing to grow, although perhaps 
 for only a limited time. 
 
 M. Dnrand, of Caen, arrived at similar oonclusions. In some experi- 
 ments published in the Comptes Hendus, Aug. 16, 1852, it was foxmd 
 that Poplars, Apple-trees, Acacias, &c., on which nothing was left 
 except Miselto, grew in diameter notwithstanding the loss of their 
 green organs. The two following experiments were more especially 
 conclusive : — Exp. 1. At a yard and a half above the soil, an old Elm- 
 tree was cut across before winter. The tree thus mutilated was a mere 
 fragment of trunk under whose baxk some adventitious buds were 
 collected, so as to form a bur. The wound was covered with plastic 
 clay. As soon as the adventitious buds began to move in the spring, 
 they were carefully removed as fast as they appeared. Nevertheless, a 
 layer of wood was formed. In the following years the same thing hap- 
 pened, that is to say, in the absence of leaf-buds, leaves, or any green 
 parts, a layer of wood was formed every year ; and it was ascertained 
 that the roots of the Elm under experiment were not accidentally 
 grafted with the roots of other Elms, as is said to have been the case 
 with the Fir-trees brought into notice by Dutrochet, Lime-trees 
 
76 THE LOIS WEEDON PBACTICE. 
 
 operated upon ia the same maimer gave the same result. Exp. 2. A 
 ring was cut out of a Beet-root standing above ground ; the incision 
 was made between two and three inches below the orown, where the 
 buds and leaves grew. The crown was out off immediately below the 
 first leaves, excepting that a rudimentary leaf-bud was saved on one 
 side of the plant. Xke bud grew ; the root increased in all diroptions. 
 Below the bud was formed a small protuberance, which, when 
 examined, was found to consist of five new woody layers ; but those 
 layers did not extend round the root ; they went no further than the 
 protuberance itseH. Eight and left of the protuberance the plant had 
 the same number of layers of wood as it had when the experiment com- 
 menced, which was seven. Nevertheless, the diameter of the Beet-root 
 had much increased in the parts not beneath the protuberance. Some 
 variation was made in this experiment, but the result was the same ; it 
 was clear that bulk increased without the assistance of leaves, &c. 
 
 A most interesting practical example of this neglected fact is 
 recorded by the Rev. J. Smith, of Lois Weedon, the soundness of 
 whose physiology is attested by his briUiant success where he applies 
 priaciples to practice. 
 
 This gentleman has recorded in the Gardeners' Chronicle, for 1852, 
 p. 707, the unexpected fact that he is able to take off his Turnips, when 
 they have become fully organized, a crop of tops, for the use of his 
 stock ; that nevertheless the roots continue to swell, and produce a 
 second crop of foliage, to be applied like the fijst : so that this part of 
 the Turnip crop is in some sort doubled. It would be unjust not to put 
 this fact upon record in Mr. Smith's own words. "I have made the 
 experiment this year on an acre of Swedes, which, on my usual plan of 
 cultivation, were managed thus:— The land— a heavy clay, with a 
 staple originally of only five or six inches— has been gradually brought, 
 by trenching and horse-hoeing, to a pulverised state eighteen or twenty 
 inches deep. In the autumn I buried the manure. (made by cows and 
 swine, fed on Swedes and bran, with the other usual fodder) with two 
 or three inches of the bottom of the rows intended for my plants; and 
 in April, over that manure, and within five or six inches of the surface, 
 I stirred in one hundred weight of guano. The first week in May I 
 driUed my seed, together with a sprinkling of superphosphate, in single 
 rows five feet apart. The result was— as it always has been under the 
 same system, pursued for several years— that dt the beginning of 
 September the leaves of the plant met across the five feet intervals, and 
 that I am promised a yield equal, perhaps, to the measured produce of 
 last year, which amounted to twenty-seven tons. It will be understood 
 by those who know; the constituents and the properties of clay made 
 friable to the depth I have described, how the continuous and 
 inexhaustible supply of moisture in such a soil saves the plant from 
 mildew, the common result of early sowing in shallow ground, but from 
 
EEASONS WHY ORGANS MAT GROW WITHOUT LEAVES. 17 
 
 which. I have never suffered, even in the driest season. Now for the 
 conflrmation of your statement, that plants will increase in bulk in the 
 absence of leaves. Early in September, when the roots had reached 
 their state of complete organization, when the tops had grown from 
 two and a half to three feet in height, the lower leaves generally 
 extending five feet wide, I began to out the tops as they were wanted 
 about half an inch from the crown; and from that time to this the 
 bulbs have been proved by actual measurement to continue to grow, 
 and are throwing out, aU round the crown, a fresh supply of luxuriant 
 leaves for another feed. From this source the bulk of keep for my 
 cattle has been enormous; and the importance of such a supply 
 at a time when, in conrmon seasons, the Grass begins to fail, is 
 beyond a doubt, especially for growing stock, since it has been proved 
 that the leaves of the Turnip contain more of the bone-making 
 material than even the bulb itself. I claim no merit for this experiment 
 as a novelty, for there is a report of a somewhat similar process in the 
 Prize Essays of the Highland Agricultural Society, vol. iii. ; the only 
 difference being that in that instance the Swedes had been transplanted. 
 I would add, that it is there shown, besides, that, on analysis, as com- 
 pared with Swedes treated in the common way, the root only suffered in 
 value to the extent of containing a small per centage more of water, the 
 quantity of solid matter being displaced in the same proportion, while 
 the quality of the food remained uninjured." The practice of cutting 
 off the Potato haulm in order to arrest the Potato disease, one of the 
 best remedies for the evil yet known, points to the same general fact. 
 
 It must, however, be borne in mind, tbat we have no warrant 
 for supposing that roots can grow in the absence of branches 
 and leaves, until roots have arrived at a state of complete 
 organization. If a plant producing tubers loses its top when 
 the tubers are young, the latter perish or cease growing ; but if 
 the tubers are considerably advaiiced in formation, then they 
 will continue to grow, notwithstanding the loss of the leaves. 
 It would seem from this undoubted fact that a considerable 
 amount of vital force is required in order to render a plant 
 independent of its green organs ; but that it becomes indepen- 
 dent as soon as that amount, whatever it may be, has been 
 acquired. In the beginning the green organs, exposed to light, 
 appear to possess exclusively the property of elaborating the 
 aqueous and gaseous matters which they absorb, and of so 
 forming the material out of which growth or increase of size 
 elsewhere is provided for. This operation takes place at that 
 
78 REASONS WHY OEGANS MAT GROW WITHOUT LEAVES. 
 
 time exclusively in the cells of the green organs, the tubes and 
 vessels of the vegetable structure being mere recipients organ- 
 ized by the matters so elaborated. This power of assimilation 
 is believed to be owing to the high vitality of the cells of the 
 green organs; but in proportion as the subterranean parts 
 become organized their vital force increases, and at last it 
 becomes suf&cient to enable them to act independently of the 
 leaves or green parts. If, then, at the time when a subterranean 
 organ is cut off from communication with the leaves, its vitality 
 is sufficiently high, its cells not only absorb water and other 
 matters, as was the case from the beginning, but also decompose 
 and elaborate them, in the same way as the cells of the leaves. 
 The result of that elaboration is increase in bulk, partly 
 arising from the distension of the cells and the consolidation of 
 their contents, partly from the increase of the number of 
 the cells themselves, and also from filling the last formed 
 cells with the matter peculiar to the species. What is 
 required in order to secure increase in bulk is the power of 
 organization ; that power depends upon the presence of a 
 sufficient amount of vital force ; therefore, when a subterranean 
 body has gained enough vital force, it has gained all the 
 organic capabilities which are necessary for increase of size, or 
 growth, and is able to enlarge even though cut off from 
 communication with green organs. It must not however be 
 inferred that an underground organ will increase as rapidly 
 in the absence of leaves as it will if they are present. On the 
 contrary, m the latter case, it grows by virtue of its own vitality 
 and that of the leaves combined ; a double power is brought 
 to bear upon its increase, and at least twice as much food in 
 an organizable condition is presented to it for consumption. 
 All that we are justified in asserting is, that although leaves 
 may be gone, growth will go on— and to a much greater extent 
 than is supposed. If, then, a root-crop is from any accident 
 deprived of its leaves, it is by no means a necessary conse- 
 quence that the crop is arrested ia its growth ; on the contrary, 
 provided the defoliation does not occur till towards the end of 
 the season, growth will go on notwithstanding. 
 
 It is to be observed that, as has already been stated, the 
 
FALL OF LEAF. 79 
 
 capabiKty of plants to bear the action of direct light varies 
 according to their specific nature. One species is organized to 
 suit the atmosphere of a dense wood, into which diffuse light 
 only will penetrate ; another is planted by nature on the 
 exposed face of a sunburnt rock, upon which the rays of a 
 shadeless sun are daily striking : in these cases, the light 
 which is necessary to the one would be destructive of the other. 
 The organic difference of such species seems to consist chiefly 
 in the epidermis, which regulates the amount of perspiration. 
 It is therefore to be remarked, that it is not the greatest 
 quantity of light which can be obtained that is most favourable 
 to the healthiness of plants, but the greatest quantity they wiU 
 bear without injury. If the former were true, the concentrated 
 light of a lens would be better than the strongest ordinary 
 light ; but the effect of the concentrated light of a lens is to 
 burn the surface, and the ordinary solar rays produce the same 
 effect upon many plants, probably by exhausting the tissue of 
 its water faster than it can be supplied from the roots. 
 
 In the course of time, a leaf becomes incapable of performing 
 its functions ; its passages and surface are choked up by the 
 deposit of impurities ; there is no longer a free communication 
 between its parenchyma and that of the rind, or between its 
 veins and the wood and liber ; or the air and its interior. It 
 changes colour, ceases to decompose carbonic acid, absorbs 
 oxygen instead, gets into a morbid condition, and dies : it is 
 then thrown off. This phenomenon, which we call the fall of 
 the leaf, is going on the whole year round, except mid-winter, 
 in some plant or other. Those which lose the whole 
 of their leaves at the approach of winter, and are called 
 deciduous, begin, La fact, to cast their leaves within a 
 few weeks after the commencement of their vernal growth: 
 but the mass of their foliage is not rejected till late in 
 the season. Those, on the other hand, which are named ever- 
 greens, part with their leaves much more slowly ; retain them 
 in health at the time when the leaves of other plants are 
 perishing ; and do not cast them till a new spring has com- 
 menced, when other trees are leafing, or even later. In the 
 latter class, the functions of the leaves are going on during aU 
 
80 MULTIPLICATION BY LEAVES. 
 
 the winter, although languidly ; they are constantly attracting 
 sap from the earth through the spongelets, and are, therefore, 
 in a state of slow but continual winter growth. It usually 
 happens that the perspiratory organs of these plants are less 
 active than in deciduous species. 
 
 In general, a leaf is an organ of digestion and respiration, 
 and nothing more ; some leaves have, however, the power of 
 forming leaf-buds, if placed in or upon the earth, under suitable 
 circumstances. 
 
 The BryophyUum oalyomimi forms buds at the indentations of its 
 margin ; Malaxis palndosa throws off young buds from its edge ; 
 Tellima grandiflora oooasionally buds at the margins of its leaves ; the 
 same thing happens to many Ferns ; the five leaflets of a pinnated 
 Eose-leaf yield, under proper culture, five little plants ; Cape Omitho- 
 galums often produce bulbs from the edge of their leaves ; the same 
 fact has been observed by Mr. Rogers on the broken edge of a 
 Laehenalia leaf; and numerous similar instances might be quoted. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ACTION OF FLOWERS. 
 
 STETTCTTIEE OF FLO WEES. — NAMES OF THEIB PARTS. — lENDENCr OP THE 
 PAEIS 10 ALTEE AND CHANGE INTO EACH OTHEE, AND INTO lEATDS. 
 
 ^DOITBIE FLOWEKS. — ^ANAIOGT OF FIOWEES TO BEANCHES. — CAUSE OF 
 
 THE PEODTTCIION OF FtOWEES. — OF PEODTJCTITENBSS. — OF STEEIIITT. 
 — USES OF THE PAETS OF A FLOWEE. — FEETIIISATION. — HXBEIDS. — 
 CEOSSBEEDS. 
 
 A FLOWEE is that part of a plant which is formed for the 
 purpose of reproducing the species by means of seeds. It 
 consists of floral envelopes and sexes. 
 
 The floral envelopes are : 1, the calyx, which is usually 
 green, and always the most external ; and 2, the corolla, which 
 is commonly thin, gaily coloured, more fugitive than the calyx, 
 and placed next within it : each of these consists of leaves, 
 called sepals in the calyx, and petals in the corolla. Both 
 calyx and corolla are usually present ; but in some cases only 
 one envelope is formed, as in the Marvel of Peru ; and in other 
 eases the flower has no envelopes, as in the Willow. Envelopes 
 are, therefore, not a necessary part of a flower. 
 
 In the middle of the flower stand the sexes, called stamens 
 ^nd pistU, of which the pistil occupies the centre, and the 
 stamens surround it ;' except in those cases where the ,se?:es 
 are produced in separate flowers, when each sex is central in its 
 own flower. The stamens consist of a filament ^nd an anther, 
 in the interior of the latter of which is secreted a powdery 
 substance termed pollen. The pistil consists of ovary, style, 
 and stigma, in thp. interior of the first of which are ovules or 
 young seeds. 
 
 Although the floral envelopes may be, and often are, absent. 
 
82 
 
 TRANSFORMATIONS OF FLOWERS. 
 
 wholly or in part, yet the sexes are always present. Conse- 
 quently the latter are all that is essential to a flower, and no 
 part can be a flower from which they are absent. 
 
 Notwithstanding the difference inform and office of the parts 
 of a flower, they have evidently a strong tendency in cultivated 
 plants to change into or assume the appearance of each other. 
 In the Poppy, the Garden Anemone, and many others, the 
 
 Fig. XV. — Transformation of origans in an Amaryllis. 
 
 stamens change into petals ; in the Anemone, the Ranunculus, 
 &c., the pistil changes into petals ; in the Primrose, Cowslip, 
 &c., the calyx changes into petals ; in the Houseleek, the 
 stamens become pistils ; and so on. Hence the origin of 
 double flowers. In a double Barbadoes Lily, described by me 
 in the Transactions of the Horticuliwal Society, in which the 
 parts were very much confused, the young seeds were borne by 
 the edges of the stamen-like petals (Fig. XV.). 
 
 In their ordinary state the parts of a flower are extremely 
 unlike leaves, -and each has its allotted office, which is not the 
 
TEANSFORMATIONS OF FLOWERS. 
 
 83 
 
 office of a leaf; they are also incapable of forming leaf-buds 
 in their axils. But, although such is the case, there is found a 
 strong and general tendency on the parts of both the floral 
 envelopes and sexes to change to leaves, similar to the leaves of 
 the stem. 
 
 Fig. XVI.— Tranaformation of Clover. 
 
 In the white clover (Trifolium repens, Fig. XVI.) all the parts often 
 become leaves ; in the Fraxinella (Fig. XVII.) this has also been 
 
 Fig. XVII.— TransformaUoii of Fraxinella. 
 
 remarked.* Partial alterations into leaves are in fact of very frequent 
 occurrence in the parts of a flower. In the Kose, the sepals and pistil 
 
 Proceedings of the fforticvMmral Society, toI. i. p. 37. 
 
 a 2 
 
84 FLOWERS GROW INTO BRANCHES. 
 
 are frequently changed into leaves, of whiot tie case represented in the 
 foUomng cut (Fig. XVIII.) is a most striking example. In tHs case the 
 
 Fig. XVIII. — Transformation of a Rose into a branclj. 
 
 calyx- tube was absorbed or not developed ; the sepals were half converted 
 into leaves ; the petals were more than half changed iiito sepals ; the 
 outer carpels were partly in their customary state, those nearer the centre 
 were converted into small leaves, and the remainder were carried up 
 upon the axis or centre, which had lengthened into a branch in every 
 conceivable state of transition, imtil the last-formed, namely, the 
 
FLOWERS PRODUCE BUDS AND TUBERS. 
 
 85 
 
 uppermost, assumed tte usual appearance of the leaves of the stem, 
 (See Gardeners^ Chronicle, 1847, p. 171, for this and similar facts.) 
 In the Double Cherry, the pistil is almost always to he found in the 
 form of a leaf; and hooks on structural botany abound in the records of 
 similar cases. It sometimes happens that buds are not only formed, 
 but developed, at the axils of the parts of a flower, as in a Celastrus 
 
 Fig. XIX. — Trausformation of Celastrus, 
 
 scandens observed by Kunth (Fig. XIX.). Eose-buds are frequently 
 seen growing out of Roses. A very striking and uncommon accident 
 was observed by the late Mr. Knight in the Potato (Fig. XX.), whose 
 
 Fig. XX. — Tubers produced in the axils of sepaJs and petals. 
 
 flowers produced young potatoes in the axils of the sepals, and petals.* 
 Occasionally, the centre of a flower lengthens and bears its parts upon 
 its sides, as in the Pear and Apple, whose fruit is often found in the 
 state of a short branch. Still more rarely a flower lengthens, and 
 produces from the axils of its parts other flowers arranged over its sides, 
 as in the Double Pine-apple of the Indian Archipelago. 
 
 * Proceedings of the BortieuMwral Society, vol. i. p. 39, fig. 2. 
 
86 FKUIT GEOWS INTO BRANCHES. 
 
 The following cuts represent three Pears, produced in 
 different places, and in different conditions. A Pear blossom 
 consists of a calyx composed of five sepals ; within these appear 
 five petals, next to which stand about twenty stamens ; and m 
 the centre of all are five carpels, or hollow cases, arranged ma 
 ring, and containing seeds. AU these parts are regarded m 
 theory as leaves in an altered state, and the whole flower as a 
 very short branch, destitute of the usual power of lengthenmg, 
 or, which is the same thing, as a leaf-bud, the centre of which 
 will not extend. In the begianing the sepals, petals, stamens 
 and carpels of a Pear flower were scales, placed upon a fleshy 
 centre, and not distinguishable from those scales which ia the 
 leaf-bud become leaves. To use a gardener's language, there 
 was at first no difference "between the blossom-bud and the 
 wood-bud. But, after a time, the parts which were identical 
 begin to be organized differently; in the blossom-bud they 
 gradually change into sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels ; in 
 the wood-bud they become young leaves. But if anything 
 occurs to disturb the development of the blossom-bud as a 
 blossom, then it becomes a wood-bud, or approaches that state, 
 more or less, according to the period at which the disturbing 
 force began to act. It thus appears that whether a bud 
 becomes a flower or a branch, depends entirely upon some 
 unknown force, which acts at a particular moment upon parts 
 originally of identical nature and quality, and capable of 
 becoming leaves ; if this action is complete, a flower is the 
 result ; if incomplete, a monster ; if altogether withheld, then 
 the rudimentary parts, not having their nature changed, proceed 
 to acquire the condition of leaves. Hence it is that when from 
 accidents, such as unusual heat and wet at a critical moment, 
 exuberance caused by the excessive application of rank (azotized) 
 manure, or any circumstances of a similar nature, the usual 
 order of development is disturbed, flowers are not formed — or 
 we have them converted into tufts of leaves, or even branches. 
 The following examples offer conclusive evidence as to the 
 truth of this theory : — 
 
 Fig. XXI. represents a Pear, in which the calyx and its five 
 sepals are not much disturbed, but in which the petals and 
 
FRUIT GROWS INTO BRANCHES. 
 
 87 
 
 part of the stamens, deyeloped in tlie form of leafy scales, 
 adhere round the centre of the flower, which has lengthened 
 somewhat like a branch, while the remainder of the stamens 
 and the carpels are concealed within the summit, in the form 
 of withered rudiments. The constitutional tendency to fleshi- 
 ness, which is the characteristic of the Pear, is not lost, in this 
 or either of the two other cases, but is preserved throughout, 
 only diminishing towards the eye. 
 
 Fig. XXI. 
 
 Transformed Pears. 
 
 Fig. XXII. 
 
 In Fig. XXII. the phenomena take a somewhat different 
 direction, the leafy tendency being greater in some of the 
 sepals, but the tendency to acquire succulence having been 
 preserved in a far greater degree ; as if the disturbing cause, 
 whatever it may have been, which originally prevented the 
 young parts from becoming petals, &c., and which forced the 
 centre to lengthen like a branch, was effectually withdrawn 
 and overcome by the tendency to become succulent, which 
 the parts had already acquired, when the disturbing cause 
 began to act. 
 
88 FEUIT BBANCHES. 
 
 In Fig. XXIII. the change advances further, and in another 
 direction. That dislocation of the rings of parts belonging to 
 the flower, which was so visible in the two last cases, is here 
 carried stiU further ; and, in addition, two of the young parts 
 near the middle of the whole structure have each formed in 
 
 Fig. XXIII.— Transformed Pear. 
 
 their axil one bud, which has become a deformed flower, and 
 produced a deformed Peair. No organ of the plant, except 
 leaves and their modifications, has the power of producing a 
 flower from its axU. 
 
 The following additional illustrations of these facts may be mentioned : — 
 Fig. XXIV, represents a branch, of a Pear in which, one flower (a) is in a 
 deformed state, but still sufficiently recognisable, and another completely 
 changed into a branch ; the calyx assuming the appearance of leaves or 
 leafy scales (« s), the petals also partially transformed into leaves {pp)f 
 while the whole apparatus of stamens and pistils is converted into an 
 
FLOWERS BECOME BRANCHES. 
 
 89 
 
 Tig. XXIV.— Transformed branch of Pear-tree. 
 
90 
 
 FLOWERS BECOME EOSETTES OF LEAVES. 
 
 ordinary braucK Fig. XXV. shows the state of P^; J^/J^^^^St 
 nepalensis with their fiowers changing to branches : » ^^^^^J.™^^ 
 orLaxy condition ; at 6 it is partly changed xn a shght ^e^^^' ^^ ^ J^ 
 
 the sepi, petals, and stamens are o^^^^f ^ ^^° J^"^^^' ^"* tut ^S 
 are little Changed; at d the sepals, petals, and stamens are hut httle 
 
 Fig. XXV.— Transformed Potentilla. 
 
 altered, hut the receptacle of the fruit is lengthening into a branch, and 
 is coTered by the carpels partly converted into leaves, and some of them 
 near the apex producing flowers from their axils ; finally, at e, the 
 whole of the floral apparatus is changed into a rosette of leaves. A 
 monstrous Foxglove has been seen to present analogous appearances. 
 
FLOWERS OTHERWISE TRANSFORMED. 91 
 
 Of such a case, Fig. XXVI. is a representation of the natural size. Its 
 structure was as foUows :— Firstly, a calyx, consisting of 12 sepals, 
 distinct to the base. Secondly, a corolla as large as the Hebe's Cup 
 Rose, lobed with considerable irregularity; deep rich rose, with the 
 peculiar oeeUated spots of Digitalis. Near its base were 12 perfect 
 stamens. Thirdly, another calyx, regular, cup-shaped, with 13 short 
 triangular teeth. Fourthly, within this a second corolla, paler, with 
 
 Fig. XXVI.— Transformed Foxglove. 
 
 piirple not ocellated spots, almost hemispherical, very irregularly lobed, 
 in three irregular whorls, with 1 1 stamens in a more or less monstrous 
 state. Fifthly, in the midst, a lengthened axis covered with numerous 
 leafy, petal-like or stamen-like lobes, forming a confused tuft. No 
 pistil ; but all sorts of transitions from stamens to scales and leaves. 
 This further evidence assists in proving not only that a flower is a branch, 
 but that irregular flowers wiU oqcatfenally become regular ; and that, 
 becoming so, they make up for aU the deficiencies and peculiarities of 
 the ordinary structure, by taking on the customary state of regular 
 flowers ; that all the parts of a flower are leaves in various states of 
 development ; and that the axis of a flower is a growing point, capable 
 of indefinite extension as soon as the forces which determine the 
 production of a flower are disturbed. 
 
 It is therefore clear that although the parts of a flower are 
 different both in appearance and ofiice from leaves, yet they do 
 
92 INFERENCES. 
 
 all assume, under particular circumstances, the same appear- 
 ance and office. Hence it is inferred that they are really 
 nothing more than leaves in a modified state; and, conse- 
 'quently, that a flower is a very short branch, and a flower-bud 
 analogous in many respects to a leaf-bud. A leaf-bud is a 
 collection of leaf-scales of the same or similar form, arranged 
 round a central very short branch, having a growing point. A 
 flower-bud is a collection of leaf-scales of different forms, 
 arranged round a central very short branch, not having a 
 growing point under ordinary circumstances. In this latter 
 respect it resembles those buds of the Larch which form leaves 
 in starry clusters, without extending into a branch. Many 
 points in horticulture could not be explained untU the exis- 
 tence of this analogy was made out.* 
 
 What it is that causes a plant to convert some of its buds 
 into flowers, by fashioning the leaves into calyx, corolla, 
 stamens, and pistils, while other buds Become branches clothed 
 with ordinary leaves, is beyond the reach of explanation. 
 There are, however, certain facts connected with it which 
 require notice. It is clear that plants begin to fructify at 
 some determinate period, varying in different species. In 
 annuals this occurs in a few weeks or months after germination; 
 
 * Tliis doctrine has been taught at different times, by different independent 
 observers. Among other persons, I find that Mr. Knight had come to the same con- 
 clusion, at a time when the views of Wolffius and Goethe were quite unknown in 
 England. He says: "The buds of fruit-trees which produce blossoms, and those 
 which afford leaves only, in the spring, do not at all differ from each other, in their 
 first stage of organization, as buds. Each contain the rudiment of leaves orly, which 
 are subsequently transformed into the component parts of the blossom and in some 
 species of the fruit also. I have repeatedly ascertained that a blossom of a Pear or 
 Apple-tree contains parts which preimusly existed as the rudiments of five leaves, 
 the points of which subsequently forff the five Segments of the calyx ; and I have 
 often succeeded in obtaining every gradation of monstrosity of form, from five congre- 
 gated leaves (that is, five leaves united circularly upon an imperfect fruit-stalk), to 
 the perfect blossom of the Pear-tree. The calyx of the Rose, in some varieties . pre- 
 sents nearly the perfect leaves of the plant, and the large and long leaves of the 
 Medlar appear to account for the length of the segments, in the empalement of its 
 blossom. The calyx of the blossom of the Plum and Peach-tree is formed precisely as 
 in the preceding cases, except that the leaves which are transmuted into the calyx 
 separate at the base of the fruit, and become deciduous, instead of passing through 
 and remaining a component part of it." {Tramactions of the RorticuUm-al Soeietii, 
 vol u. p. 364. May 6, 1817.) 
 
AGE AT WHICH PLANTS CAN BEAK FRUIT. 93 
 
 in biennials a longer period is required before tbis condition is 
 arrived at ; and in sbrubs and trees a still greater age must be 
 acquired. The American Aloe will not flower before it is thirty 
 years old, under the most favourable conditions ; and, under 
 unfavourable circumstances, the age at which it fructifies is so 
 much increased as to have given rise to the vulgar behef that 
 it flowers only after a hundred years. This curious subject has 
 been little investigated, and we Jiave no comparative state- 
 ments of the ages at which different species begin to bear ; but 
 the fact is certain. It is often, however, in the power of man 
 to advance or retard these periods artificially. Whatever pro- 
 duces excessive vigour in plants is favourable to the formation 
 of leaf-buds, and unfavourable to the production of flower-buds ; 
 while, on the other iand, such circumstances as tend to 
 diminish luxuriance, and to check rapid vegetation, without 
 affecting the health of the individual, are more favourable to 
 the production of flower-buds than of leaf-buds. Thus, a plant 
 in a sterile soil and exposed situation flowers sooner and more 
 abundantly than one in a rich and shaded place ; young vigorous 
 -plants flower later and less abundantly than old ones. In 
 India and China fruit-trees are made to bear by cutting their 
 roots, or exposing them periodically to dryness ; and in this 
 •country the same practice is observed, especially with the Fig 
 tree. An apparent exception to this law is found in the fact 
 that a seedling fruit-tree may be made, by grafting upon an 
 old stock, to bear flowers at an earlier age than it otherwise 
 would have done ; for the effect of grafting it thus is certainly 
 tiot to render it less vigorous, but the contrary. But it is 
 probable that aU these facts arise out of one common law, which 
 is, that the period when a plant begins to flower depends upon 
 the presence in its system of a Sufficient quantity of secreted 
 matter fit for the maintenance of the flowers when produced. 
 Under ordinary circumstances, a considerable part of all the 
 nutritious secretions elaborated by the leaves are expended in 
 the production of new leaves ; but after a time, a greater supply 
 is formed than the leaves require, and the residue collects in 
 the system ; as soon as this residue has arrived at the necessary 
 amount, flowers may begin to form. If the sterile branch 
 
94 AGE AT WHICH PLANTS CAN BEAR FKUIT. 
 
 of a tree is ringed,* it ceases to he sterile ; and this can only 
 be accounted for upon the supposition that the secreted matter 
 of the branch, instead of being conveyed away into the trunk 
 and roots, is stopped by the annular incision, above which it is 
 compelled to accumulate. If a tree that is unproductive be 
 transplanted, it begins to bear; in this case the operation 
 injures its roots, sap is therefore less abundantly supplied in the 
 succeeding season to the leaves ; the leaves are therefore less 
 able to grow than they previously were, and they consequently 
 do not consume the nutritious matter lying in the branches, and 
 which they would have expended, had they been able to grow 
 with their former vigour ; hence the nutritious matter accumu- 
 lates, and flower-buds are formed. In this country, if a fruit- 
 tree has its crop destroyed one year, it bears the more abun- 
 dantly the next ; owing, no doubt, to the accumulation in its 
 system of that nutritive matter which would not have been 
 present there, had the crop which was destroyed been allowed 
 to grow : and the reverse of this is well known to be the fact ; 
 an excessive crop one year being followed by a scanty crop the 
 succeeding year. So, when a young seedling fruit-tree is 
 made to bear prematurely by grafting it upon an old stock, the 
 effect of which will apparently not be to diminish its vigour, it 
 may be conceived that, in the first place, the seedling will 
 receive a considerable quantity of nutritive matter from the old 
 stock, where it had been already collected, and that thus the 
 supply will be greater than the consumption, however large the 
 latter may be ; and, secondly, that, at the time of union of 
 itself with the stock, there will be sufficient interruption of 
 continuity in the bark to oppose some obstacle to the descent 
 from the seedling of whatever matter it may have received or 
 
 * One of the effects of ringing tas been otserved to consist in the formation of 
 numerous barren shoots below the wound, while fertile shoots appear above it. This 
 is conformable to the theory of the formation of flowers being determined by a super- 
 abundance of nutritious matter in a given place. The bark below the annular excision 
 is out off from a supply of the sap elaborated by the leaves above it ; and, at the same 
 time, in consequence of the obstruction of the wound to the ascent of the crude sap, 
 an unusual supply of the latter is forced towards the buds in the bark below the 
 wound, which buds, being chiefly fed with oi-ude sap, push forth into branches and 
 leaves, but bear no flowers. 
 
USES OF THE PARTS. 95 
 
 formed. Hence, it is an axiom in vegetable physiology, that 
 the production of flower-buds depends upon the presence of 
 nutritive matter in sufficient abundance for their support. 
 
 The use of the calyx and corolla is too uncertain and unim- 
 portant to demand much notice. The calyx is usually regarded 
 as a protecting organ, and the corolla as a part for the 
 embellishment of the sexes. They neither appear to be of 
 much- physiological importance ; more especially not the coroUa, 
 or it would not be absent in such large numbers of plants. 
 
 The use of the stamens is to effect the fertilisation of the 
 young seed contained in the pistil. To this end, the pollen of 
 the anther must be applied to the stigma, the result of which 
 is, that an embryo, the rudiment of a future plant, is generated 
 in the inside of the young seed, and, when mature, is capable 
 of multiplying the species. It is, however, to be observed, that 
 the seed, when ripe, will not renew the species from which it is 
 derived, with all its individual peculiarities ; the seed of a Green 
 Gage Plum, for instance, will not, with any certainty, produce 
 a plant having the sweet green fruit of that variety, but it may 
 produce a 'Plum whose fruit is red and acid. All that the 
 seed will certainly do is to produce a new individual of the 
 Plum species : the peculiarities of individuals are perpetuated 
 by other means, and especially by leaf-buds. (See Book II.) 
 
 It has been remarked that the freshness of flowers may he much 
 prolonged by any circumstance which hinders the act of fertilisation. 
 Orchidaceous plants in hothouses are an instance of this. In general, 
 from the absence of insects, or of those other disturbing causes to which 
 Orchidaceee are exposed in their native places, the poUen cannot come 
 into contact with the stigma, and so long as this is prevented the flowers 
 of many species wiU retain their freshness for weeks, as if in expecta- 
 tion of that event for which they were created. But as soon as the act 
 of fecundation is accomplished, that is to say, from twelve to twenty- 
 four hours after the poUen touches the stigma, the flowers coUapse, the 
 bright colours become dim, the ovary begins to enlarge, and the beauty 
 of the flower is gone. The same fact has been noticed in the Mght 
 Flowering Cereus, whose flowers will retain their beauty during the 
 day after blossoming, provided the stigma is removed. 
 
 If the pistil of one species be fertilised by the pollen of 
 another species, which may take place in the same genus, or if 
 
96 HYBRIDS AND CROSSBREDS. 
 
 two distinct varieties of the same species be in like manner 
 intermixed, the seed which results from the operation will be 
 intermediate between its parents, partaking of the qualities of 
 both father and mother. In the first case the progeny is 
 hybrid, or mule ; in the second it is simply crossbred. 
 
 In general, crossbreds are capable of producing fertile seed, 
 and thus of perpetuating one of the species from which they 
 sprang. Hybrids, on the contrary, are often sterile, and 
 therefore incapable of yielding seed. 
 
 Reasoning from a few facts, and from the analogy of the 
 higher orders in the animal kingdom, it has been believed that 
 all vegetable hybrids are sterile ; and, when sterility is not the 
 consequence of the intermixture of two species, it has been 
 thought that such species are not naturally distinct, however 
 different their appearance. But facts prove that undoubted 
 hybrids may be fertile ; and when we consider that plants are 
 not analogous to the higher orders of animals, but to the 
 lowest, concerning whose habits we know little, it is obvious 
 that no analogical inferences can be safely established. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 — + — 
 
 OP THE MATURATION OF THE FRUIT. 
 
 CHAlfGES IT TJlTDEa&OES. — ^IS FED BT BKANCHES ITPOlir OEGANIZABLE MATTER 
 
 I'TJENISHED BT IBATES. PHYSIOLOGICAL ITSE OF THE FBTTIT. — NATtTEE 
 
 OF SBCEETIONS. THE CHANGES THEY TrNDEEGO. — ^EFFECT OF HEAT. 
 
 OF SUNLIGHT. — OP -WATEE. — SEEDS. — OEIGIIt'oF THBIE FOOD. — CATTSB 
 
 OF THEla LONGETITY. — OF THEIE DESTEITCTIOISr. DIFFESENCE IN 
 
 THEIB TIGOTTE. 
 
 After the fertilization of the seed has taken effect, the 
 pistil by itself, or the pistil and surrounding parts, go on 
 growing ; alter their appearance, as well as size ; acquire new 
 qualities of colour, texture, flavour, &c. ; and become the fruit. 
 
 A flower being a kind of branch, as has been already shown 
 (see page 83), and the fruit being the advanced stage of a flower, it 
 follows that a fruit is also a kind of branch. It has originally 
 the same organic connexion with the plant as other branches, 
 and like them requires to be supplied with food, in the 
 absence of which it perishes or languishes. 
 
 It may be conceived that, as the fruit is an altered state of a 
 leaf, its physiological action will resemble that of a leaf, in pro- 
 portion as it retains its organic similitude ; and this is found to 
 happen, a fruit decomposing carbonic acid, &c., under the 
 influence of light, so long as it retains its original green 
 foliaceous character. In the Pea, for example, whose pod is 
 green until it begins to die, the action is always similar to that 
 of a leaf, but in the Peach, whose texture becomes pulpy and 
 unlike that of a leaf, the physiological action eventually ceases 
 to be that of the latter organ. 
 
 But although a fruit has, like a leaf, the power of forming 
 secretions by elaborating the sap which is attracted into it, yet 
 
98 EXHAUSTING EFFECT OF FRUIT. 
 
 because of its smaUness, the amount of this power is incon- 
 siderable : it contributes Httle to the general secretions of the 
 plant that bears it, depends for its nutriment upon the 
 neighbouring leaves, and expends its powers in the elaboration 
 of matter for its own use. That it does, however, form wood, 
 Uke ordinary leaves, is evident, if the flower-stalk of a Cherry 
 is compared with the stalk of the fruit of the same tree ; and 
 this becomes stiU more apparent when the elaborating forces 
 of many separate fruits are, in consequence of their compact 
 arrangement, brought to contribute to the lignification of a 
 common stalk, as in the Piuaster tree. 
 
 The exhausting action of fruit is well illustrated by the well 
 known fact, that when plants cultivated for the sake of their 
 flowers only, are permitted to ripen their fruit, the power of 
 flowering in a succeeding season is diminished. This is seen 
 iu Rhododendrons, and Azaleas. When the Ehododendron goes 
 out of flower, it forms clusters of seed-vessels, which swell 
 during the summer, and by the autumn become ripe, whether 
 the seeds they contain are good or not. In their mature state 
 they are of considerable size ; and they arrive at it by feeding 
 upon the organizable matter formed in branches during summer 
 by the leaves. This organizable matter, if not consumed by 
 the seed-vessels, is stored up and applied to the formation of 
 flowers : if it is consumed in the creation of fruit it is abstracted 
 from whatever means the plant may have of generating flowers. 
 It is, therefore, obvious that to prevent the formation of fruit 
 is to promote the future production of flowers, and, acting upon 
 this principle, all good gardeners break off the young Ehodo- 
 dendron fruit, as soon as the flowers have fallen. The same 
 rule applies to all other «ases. 
 
 The great purpose for which the fruit is formed seems to be 
 the protection and nutrition of the seed, the perfect maturation 
 of which is essential to the perpetuation of the races of plants. 
 In most cases the whole of the fluid or nutritious parts is 
 consumed in effecting this end ; but in certain instances there 
 is a surplus, which, if sweet, and unmixed with deleterious 
 secretions, becomes fit for food. In either case, the fruit has, in 
 common with leaves, the power of attracting food from the 
 
ACTION OF LEAVES ON. FRUIT. 99 
 
 surrounding parts ; and we see that this property causes the 
 destruction of some fruits by their neighbours which are more 
 advanced in growth, or accidentally more vigorous, and whose 
 attracting power is so great as to draw to themselves all the food 
 intended for the weaker fruits, which then fall off. Of the food 
 thus to be consumed in the maturation of the fruit, a portion 
 is derived from the atmosphere, but the principal part has to 
 be prepared by the leaves, which obtain it in a great measure 
 from the earth through the roots. It is, therefore, evident, 
 that all causes, of whatever nature, which interfere with the 
 healthy and regular action of the leaves and roots will also 
 interfere with the fruit. Or, if the leaves are placed in such a 
 manner with respect to the fruit, or at so great a distance from 
 it, that the fruit is unable to attract food from them, it must 
 either suffer or perish. 'This explains why fruit formed upon 
 naked branches will not continue to grow, and why the presence 
 of a leaf immediately above a fruit, on the same branch, is so 
 beneficial to it. The size and excellence of fruit will hence be 
 in proportion to the abundance of organizable matter prepared 
 and stored up in its vicinity.* 
 
 It occasionally happens that stone-fruit will swell upon naked 
 branches ; but such cases are exceptional, and probably depend upon 
 circumstances unrecorded by those who have observed them. It has 
 been admitted that, in some instances, such fruit has been altogether 
 deficient in flavour ; though in others it is said to have been otherwise. 
 See the Gardener's Chronicle for 1842, p. 588, and for 1843, pp. 43 and 
 115. 
 
 * The accumulation of sap, and its consequent viscidity, may, ho-weTer, be 
 attended witli disadTantage to a plant, aa really happens in the Potato, the most 
 farinaceous varieties of which are liahle to a disease called the "curl." Mr. Enight 
 attributed this to the inspissated state of the sap, which, he conceived, if not 
 sufficiently fluid, might stagnate in and close the fine vessels of the leaf during its 
 growth and extension, and thus occasion the irregular contractions which constitute 
 this disease. He therefore sufiered a quantity of Potatoes, the produce almost whoUy 
 of diseased plants, to remain in the heap, where they had been preserved during 
 winter, tiU each tuber had emitted shoots of three or four inches in length. These 
 were then carefully detached, with their fibrous roots, from the tubers, and were com- 
 mitted to the soil, when, having little to subsist upon except water, not a single 
 cm-led leaf was produced, though more than nine-tenths of the plants which these 
 identical tubers subsequently produced were much diseased. The same effect has 
 been produced by other persons, by taking up the tubers intended for seed before 
 they were full grown, and, consequently, before the excessive inspissation of their 
 secretions had taken place. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 RIPENING FRUIT. 
 
 Although fruit 'has, in common with leaves, the property of 
 elaborating the sap, yet there is this difference between them ; 
 that, whUe leaves return back into the stem what matters they 
 form, fruit retains the principal part of what it secretes for the 
 use of itself or of the seeds it contains. This difference is 
 probably to a considerable extent dependent upon the imperfect 
 condition of the fruit-stalk, which has little power of carrying 
 off from the fruit the matter which is formed within it. In 
 those cases, however, in which the fruit has stomates, the 
 aqueous particles are given off through the surface of the fruit 
 which then becomes hard or dry when ripe ; but in others, in 
 which there are no stomates, or few, or imperfect ones, aqueous 
 particles cannot be extricated to any considerable amount, and 
 the fruit becomes succulent. 
 
 The maturation of the fruit is dependent, then, upon the 
 action of the leaves and roots, and the secretions that it forms 
 are principally derived from the former. Consequently, 
 whatever contributes to the healthy condition of the leaves 
 and roots will have a directly beneficial influence upon the 
 fruit, and vice versa. It is, however, certain, that the juices 
 furnished by the leaves undergo a further alteration by the 
 vital forces of the fruit itself, which alteration varies according 
 to species. Thus the fruit of the Peach is sweet, but there is 
 no perceptible sweetness in its leaves ; and the fruit of the Fig 
 is bland and wholesome while the leaves of that plant are acrid 
 and deleterious. 
 
 Among the immediate causes of the changes that occur in 
 the secretions of fruit are heat and light ; without which the 
 peculiar qualities of fruits are imperfectly formed, especially in 
 species that are natives of countries enjoying a high summer 
 temperature. It is found that among the effects of a high 
 temperatinre and an exposure to bright light is the production 
 of sugar and of certain flavours ; and that under opposite 
 circumstances, acidity prevails. 
 
 In this respect, fruit only obeys the general laws which 
 regulate the formation of vegetable secretions. Heat and light 
 are unquestionably the agents, though perhaps not the sole 
 agents, upon which all the quahties of plants depend. For 
 
IMPORTANCE OP FREE AIR. ^01 
 
 example, the (Enanthe erocata, whose leaves and roots are 
 poisonous in the midland counties of England, is innoxious 
 in the lower temperature and cloudier sky of Edinburgh; no 
 art can induce the Khuharb plant to form in Europe the 
 medicinal substances which give value to the drug in those 
 bright, and heated regions of Asia which it inhabits ; nor can the 
 Tomatoes or Aubergines ripened in England be for a moment 
 compared for excellence to those produced in the North of 
 Africa. 
 
 It must however be observed, that the effect of heat and 
 light is greatly increased by free exposure to currents of air, 
 such as are incessantly acting upon the surface of plants in the 
 open ground. Whether this results from the greater abstraction 
 of moisture, or from a more abundant supply of gaseous food to 
 be absorbed from the atmosphere, or from any unknown 
 circumstance, it is certain that all vegetable secretions, of 
 whatever kind, are improved in quahty when air has the fullest 
 access to the plants. Of this we have abundant proof when we 
 contrast the pallid, subacid Pine-apples of forcing houses, with 
 those ripened out of doors as has been practised in the garden 
 of the Baroness Kolfe at Bicton; or when we compare the 
 brilliant colours and rich perfume of flowers and fruit formed 
 in thoroughly ventilated hothouses, with the same productions 
 taken from glass houses to which the air has very little access. 
 
 The following is tte maimer ia whicli tHe Pine-apples above alluded to 
 were grown at Bicton. 
 
 In May Mr. Barnes, having some plants ready, opened a trench, casting^ 
 the earth right and left, so as to form a hank on each side, which would 
 afford shelter from cold winds; in the bottom of the trench he placed 
 bricks in threes, in the form of a triangle, so as to make a dry bottom 
 for the plants to stand on, and at the same time to secure a ready 
 passage for air and water. The plants having been placed on the 
 bricks, Were packed to the rims of the pots in leaves which had been 
 used during the winter. This being done, the whole surface, banks and 
 all, was covered with charredhnj or grass, for the purpose of absorbiug 
 heat, retaining it, and giving it off gradually. Although the weather 
 proved cold, with frosty mornings, and many sunless days, yet no 
 injury was sustained, and when the sun did appear the fruit made 
 great progress ; at the same time the suckers which sprung up grew 
 vigorously and were most healthy. The varieties employed consisted 
 
102 BICTON PINE-APPLES. 
 
 chiefly of Queens, Black Jamaica, Monteerrat, EnvUle, Moscow Queen, 
 Anson's Queen or Otateite, and Black Antigua. The plants employed 
 had never heen subjected to fire heat at any time. They were turned 
 out after they had blossomed. The fruit, ripened under these 
 circumstances, was of the highest quality in point of flaTour ; and 
 although the night temperature to which the plants were exposed, was 
 occasionally below 40°, no injury was sustained by them. The cold 
 winds were kept off by banks thrown up across the prevailing currents. 
 The want of a sufficient amount of earth heat was compensated for by a 
 " linin g" of leaves still capable of fermentation. And by covering the 
 scene of the experiment with a black substance, the heat-absorbing 
 power of tiie ground was so much increased as to enable it to maintain 
 a night atmosphere round the plants high enough to repel the late frosts 
 of Devonshire, and to maintain a healthy growth during the day. 
 The admirable flavour of the fruit could not have been owing to high 
 temperature, nor to bright and long-continued sunshine, for the 
 weather was stormy, with many dark sunless days. It was caused by 
 the free access of air constantly passing over the leaves, incessantly 
 feeding them on the one hand, and helping them on the other to 
 elaborate their juices by the as incessant' removal of their superfluous 
 water. The fruit was not indeed very large, but its size was as great 
 as sufficed to render it an ornament to a table, as the foUowing weights 
 of fruit cut in 1847 prove. 
 
 July 7 — 2 Queens, whose united weights were 8 lbs. 6 oz. 
 
 18-1 » „ „ 4 
 
 28-1 „ „ „ 4 8 
 
 Aug. 11—1 „ „ „ 4 
 
 14-1 .. ., „ 4 7 
 
 21—1 Enville „ „ 6 2 
 
 24—1 Queen „ „ 4 8 
 
 31—1 .. „ „ 4 8 
 
 Sept. 26—1 EnviUe „ 6 
 
 Oct. 4—1 Montserrat „ „ 4 
 
 9—1 
 
 8 
 5 
 
 Total . . . . 55 lbs. 15 oz. 
 
 Others, cut at intervals, weighed from 3 lbs. 8 oz. to 4 lbs. 
 
 One of the most essential of the alterations which occur in 
 fruits during ripening is the decomposition or dissipation of 
 the water that they attract from the stem. A diminished supply 
 of water wiU, under equal circumstances, produce an accelerated 
 maturation, because less time will be required to decompose 
 
VITALITY OF SEEDS. 103 
 
 or dissipate this constituent; and, on the other hand, an 
 excessive supply of water vdll retard or prevent ripening, in 
 consequence of the longer time required for the same purpose. 
 
 Seeds are affected hy all circumstances that affect the fruit, 
 which, indeed, as has heen already stated, appears to he 
 created for their nutrition and preservation. In general, the 
 fruit attracts organizahle matter from the stem through the 
 stalk, and the seed from the fruit through its placenta ; * and 
 this accounts, independently of other causes, for the importance 
 of the fruit to the seed. 
 
 When the seed is ripe it is dry, all its free water being 
 parted with ; and its interior is occupied by starch or fixed oil, 
 or some other such substance, together with earthy matters. It 
 would seem that, so long as these secretions remain un- 
 decomposed, so long does the vitahty of the seed continue 
 unimpaired ; and hence the great age at which certain kinds of 
 seeds have been found to grow. But, as it is difficult to 
 prevent their decomposition, so is it difficult to preserve 
 seminal vitality for any considerable time ; and the differences 
 found in the duration of the growing powers of seeds probably 
 depend principally upon differences in their chemical consti- 
 tution. Oily seeds, which readily decompose, are among the 
 most perishable; starchy seeds, which are least subject to 
 change, are the most tenacious of life. 
 
 Not to speak of the doubtful instances of seeds taken from the 
 Pyramids having germinated, Melons have heen known to grow at the 
 age of forty years, Kidneybeans at a hundred, Sensitive-Plant at sixty. 
 Rye at forty; and there are now living, in the garden of the 
 Horticultural Society, Easpberry plants raised from seeds sixteen- 
 hundred or seventeen-hundred years old. The seeds of Charlock 
 buried in former ages spring up in railway cuttings ; where ancient 
 forests are destroyed, plants appear which had never been seen before, 
 but whose seeds have been buried in the ground ; when some land was 
 recovered from the Baltic sea, a Carex was found upon it, now unknown 
 in that part of Europe. M. Fries, of Upsala, succeeded in growing a 
 
 * The placenta is a soft part of the interior of a fruit, upon wMch the seed ia 
 formed. It is composed of tMn-sided parenchyma, the most absorbent of all the 
 forms of tissue, and is in oommunication, by its whole surface, -with the parenchyma 
 of the firuit. 
 
104 GERMINATION. 
 
 species of Hieracium from seeds which had been in his herbarima 
 upwards of fifty years. Desmonlins has recorded an instance of the 
 opening of ancient tombs, in which seeds were found, and on being 
 planted they produced species of Scabiosa and Heliotropium. And 
 many more such cases are on record, establishing conclusively that, 
 under favourable conditions, the vitality of seeds is preserved for 
 indefinite periods. 
 
 Warmth, moisture, and an excess of oxygen, but especially 
 warmth and moisture, while they are the greatest causes of 
 germination, are probably, on that same account, the chief 
 causes of death. It seems as if seeds remain dormant so long 
 as the proportion of carbon peculiar to them is undiminished ; 
 water is decomposed by their vital force ; and it is bslieved that 
 its oxygen, combining with the carbon, forms carbonic acid, 
 which is given off. The effect of access of water is, therefore, 
 to rob seeds of their carbon ; and the effect of destroying their 
 carbon is to deprive them of the principal means which they 
 possess of preserving their vitality. 
 
 Be this as it may, it is incontestable that as scon as seeds begin to 
 germinate, their vitality is exhausted and they perish, unless the seed 
 is in a condition to continue its growth by obtaining suflSoient food from 
 surrounding media. 
 
 Although a seed, if fully formed, is in all cases capable of 
 perpetuating its race, yet there is a difference in the degree to 
 which this capability extends. All seeds wiU not equally 
 produce vigorous seedlings: but the healthiness of the new 
 plant will correspond with that of the seed from which it 
 sprang. For this reason, it is not sufficient to sow a seed to 
 obtain a given plant : but, in all cases where any importance is 
 attached to the result, the' plumpest and heaviest seeds should 
 be selected, if the gi'eatest vigour is required in the seedling; 
 and feeble or less perfectly formed seeds, when it is desirable 
 to check natural luxuriance. It is apparently for this reason, 
 that old Melon seed is preferred to new ; for the latter would 
 give birth to plants too luxuriant for the small space in which 
 the Melon can be cultivated, under the artificial circumstances 
 required in this country. 
 
KEMOVAL OP FRUIT BENEFICIAL. 105 
 
 Since both fruit and seeds are maintained at tlie expense of 
 the leaves, the destruction of the former, when young, will 
 enable the latter to deposit against a succeeding season, for the 
 support of future flowers, all that organizable matter which the 
 fruits and seeds destroyed would have otherwise consumed. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF TEMPERATURE. 
 
 LIMITS OP TEMPEEATTJIIE ENDTJEABLE BT PLANTS. — ^EPEECTS OP A TOO 
 
 HIGH lEMPEEAIUKE. — OP A TOO LOW TEMPEEAItntE. PEOST. — ALTEE- 
 
 NATIONS OP lEMPEEATTJEE. — ^DAT AND NiaHT. — ^WINTEE AND SUJIMEE. 
 lEMPEEATtTEE OP EAETH AND ATMOSPHEEE. 
 
 The extreme limits of temperature which vegetables are 
 capable of bearing, without destruction of their vitality, have 
 not been determined with precision; it is, however, known, 
 that, on the one hand, certain seeds may be boiled without 
 being killed, and that, on the other, they are capable of bearing 
 many degrees of freeziag without suffering. In Hke manner, 
 some plants are found to endure the most intense cold knowa 
 upon the globe, while others sustain, occasionally, a tempe- 
 rature as high as 140°, as was observed by Dr. Coulter on the 
 banks of the Eio Colorado.* The number of plants, however, 
 capable of sustaiuing such extremes of temperature is small, 
 and the greater part of the species known to us are proved to 
 exist within the limits of 83° and 90°. What amount of tempe- 
 rature a given species will prefer, under different circumstances, 
 seems reducible to no general rule, but has to be determiaed 
 experimentally in each case, or is judged of by the known cKmate 
 of which a plant may be a native. It is probable that every 
 species has a constitution better suited to some particular 
 amount of temperature than to any other, although it can bear 
 a greater or less degree without sustaining injury. 
 
 Although many plants will live in a temperature much below 
 
 * The temperature borne by OsclUatorias in thermal springs is much higher than 
 this ; but no such power is posacssed by cuUimable plants. 
 
EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE. 107 
 
 that of freezing, yet no plant is able to grow unless the 
 temperature is above 32°, for physical reasons that require no 
 explanation. When temperature rises, the air contained in the 
 minute cells of plants expands, the fluids become thinner, the 
 excitability of the tissue is aroused, and, at the same time, 
 insensible perspiration is commenced, the effect of which is to 
 augment the absorbing powers of the roots, and thus to set 
 the machinery of vegetation in action. The degree of tem- 
 perature required to produce this effect is extremely variable 
 in different species of even the same climate, and is, of course, 
 much more variable between plants of different climates. For 
 example, the common weeds called Chickweed, GroundseU, 
 and Poa annua, evidently grow readily at a temperature very 
 near that of 32° ; while the nettles, mallows, and other weeds 
 around them, remain torpid. In like manner, while our native 
 trees are suited to bear the low temperature of an English 
 summer, and, in most cases, suffer if they are removed into a 
 country much warmer, such plants as the Mango, the Coffee, 
 &c., inhabitants of tropical countries, soon perish, even in our 
 warmest weather, if exposed to the open air. 
 
 When, in the case of a given plant, the temperature is 
 permanently maintained at a much, higher degree than the 
 species requires, it is over-excited. If the atmosphere is pre- 
 served in a proportional state of humidity, the tissue grows 
 faster than the vital forces of the plant are capable of solidifying 
 it, its excitability is gradually expended, the whole of its 
 organization becomes enfeebled, the vital functions are 
 deranged, and a state of general debility is brought on. 
 
 According to Mr. Knight, tlie effect of an excessively high tempera- 
 ture is to cause, in imisexual plants, the production of male flowers 
 only, while a very low temperature produces the contrary result. A 
 Water Melon plant was grown in a house, the heat of which was some- 
 times raised to 110° during the middle of warm and bright days, and 
 which generally varied, in such days, from 90° to 105°, declining 
 dtiring the evening to about 80°, and to 70° in the night ; the air was 
 kept dajmp by copious sprinkling with water, of nearly the temperature 
 of the external air, and little ventilation was allowed. The plant, 
 under these circumstances, grew with great health and luxuriance, and 
 afforded a most abundant blossom; but aU its flowers were male. 
 
108 HIGH TEMPERATUEE. 
 
 " This result," he says, " did not, in any degree, surprise me ; for I 
 had many years preYiously succeeded, by long-continued very low 
 temperature, in making Cucumber plants produce female flowers only ; 
 and I entertain but little doubt that the same fruit-stalks might be 
 made, ia this and the preceding species, to support either male or female 
 flowers in obedience to external causes." {Sort. Trans, vol. iii. p. 460.) 
 It would seem that among Cucurbits, the power to form pollen iti 
 the nascent floral leaves is increased by heat ; and that being so, to 
 raise the temperature unduly, will have the effect of forming male 
 flowers instead of females ; on the contrary, cold seems to interfere 
 with the formation of pollen, and in that case a low temperature must 
 produce females in preference to males. In what precise way a high 
 temperature acts upon the Cucimiber, we cannot judge of. We see 
 the effects, but we cannot perceive the immediate operation of the 
 cause. It is, however, notorious, as has already been shown (Chap- 
 ter VI.), that there is something at work in nature which does influence 
 the fashioning of leaves into stamens or carpels ; and there is reason to 
 believe that the former are often the result of increased vigour. Thus, 
 in the Hemp plant, the males may be known from the females by their 
 larger size, and greater strength ; and Fir-trees will bear cones^in the 
 feebleness of youth, but not their clusters of stamens, tUl^the tree is in 
 the prime of its age. And it may very well be, that in the case of the 
 Cucumber, the application of unwonted heat may have, and probably 
 does have, the effect of so increasing the vital force, as to throw into 
 the nascent leaves of the flower-buds that quality which results in the 
 development within their cells of the highly organized material called 
 pollen. 
 
 One of our German translators says that in a moist atmosphere, and 
 low temperature, Pelargoniums wUl form little or no poUen, while, 
 under opposite circumstances, even mules produce poUen enough to 
 become fertile. 
 
 Plants, forced in such an improperly high temperature, are 
 soft and watery, with thin leaves, long joints, slender stems, 
 and with no disposition to produce flowers. A slight lowering 
 of temperature affects them more than a much greater lowering 
 would have done under other circumstances; and a permanent 
 abstraction of light readily destroys them. Their inability to 
 decompose carbonic acid, and to assimUate their food in pro- 
 portion to their rate of growth, prevents their becoming so 
 green as is natural to them, and gives them a palhd hue • and 
 if it IS their nature to form other colouring matter, that also is 
 greatly diminished. But, if, with a preternatural elevation of 
 
LOW TEMPERATURE. 109 
 
 temperature, there is a proportionate abstraction of moisture, 
 the loss of fluid, by perspiration and evaporation, goes on faster 
 than the roots can make it good, or the tissue transmit it; old 
 leaves " burn " and dry up ; and young leaves perish as fast as 
 they are formed. 
 
 Such being the result of preternaturally high temperature 
 in dryness and in moisture, it is 5asy to conceive that, although 
 such extremes cannot but be prejudicial, yet that they may be 
 approached for particular purposes with advantage. A high 
 temperature, and dryness, will be favourable to the formation 
 of secretions of whatever kind, while a high temperature, with 
 moisture, will lead to the production of leaves and branches 
 only. 
 
 According to Humboldt^ this iappens to the Wheat grown about 
 Xalapa in Mexico, which will not mount into ear, but produces an 
 abundance of grass, on which account it is cultivated as a fodder plaat. 
 
 An unnaturally low temperature is productive of evils of 
 another kind. A certain amount of heat is necessary to each 
 particular species, to enable it to grow at all : the immediate 
 effect of heat being to rouse the vital forces, and to bring them 
 into action. If the amount of heat to which a plant is exposed 
 be sufficient to effect this purpose, the functions of the plant 
 are natural and healthy; the consequences of exceeding it 
 have been explained, those of diminishing it are not less 
 disadvantageous. If the temperature to which a growing plant 
 is exposed is not lowered so much as to destroy it, but just 
 reduced to that point within which it will continue to live, the 
 plant is brought, by the absence of a sufficient exciting cause, 
 into a state not unlike that already described as resulting from 
 over-excitement. It absorbs food from the earth and air, but 
 it cannot assimilate it ; its tissue grows, but is not solidified by 
 the incorporation of assimilated matter; aqueous particles 
 accumulate in the interior, a general yellowness ensues, partly 
 from the want of a sufficient power of decomposing carbonic 
 acid, and partly from inability to decompose the water collected 
 in the interior. The consequence is a want of the means of 
 forming the usual secretions; flavour, sweetness, nutritive 
 
110 FEEEZING. 
 
 matter, are each diminished ; and the power of flowering and 
 fruiting is lost. If the unhealthiness of the plant is not so 
 great as to prevent the production of flowers, stiU they may not 
 expand, as often happens to double roses in cold summers in 
 England; or, if the flowers do unfold, the fertilising power of 
 the pollen is impaired or destroyed, and no production of seed 
 takes place. 
 
 That the absence of healthy colour is sometimes owiug to 
 low temperature is certain. But the cause of the formation of 
 different colours in different plants is too obscure a subject to 
 suit the purpose of this work. It is, however, as well to observe 
 that the effect of decomposing carbonic acid and exhaling 
 oxygen is the production of a green colour, the intensity of 
 which is, in general, in proportion to the decomposing cause, 
 that is to say, to light : but that, if from any circumstances 
 water is not given off, but is retained in the system and allowed 
 to accTunulate, the green colour is altered and changes to 
 yellow ; as if the vegetable blue, which must exist in combi- 
 nation with yellow in order to form green, were discharged. 
 Such, indeed, is Macquart's explanation of the phenomenon ; 
 and it appears most conformable to theory and fact. It may be 
 regarded as incontestable, that among the most efficient means 
 of securing intense colo'urs is free exposure to air as well as 
 light. Experience tells us that, all other circumstances being 
 equal, flowers, fruit, or leaves produced without artificial 
 covering and at a moderate temperature, are much deeper in 
 colour than those which are developed under glass, in highly 
 heated buildings, where fresh air has little access. 
 
 Should the temperature be so much lowered as to result in 
 freezing, a destruction of some plants and injury to others takes 
 place, owing to physical causes quite different from those whose 
 operation has been explained in the last paragraph. In what 
 degree frost acts upon the vegetable fabric depends upon the 
 specific nature of a plant, the least frost destroying some 
 species, while others, under equal circumstances, endure any 
 known amount of natural cold. 
 
 The maimer in wMoli cold acts upon plants is one of the problems 
 wMoli have never yet been solved, and probably never wUl be. We see 
 
FREEZING. Ill 
 
 its effects, but all attempts at investigating their causes have proved 
 eminerLtly unsuccessful. That a low temperature, or frost, acts 
 differently upon different plants very nearly allied to each other is 
 notorious ; and this even where they are mere varieties of each other. 
 The China Rose, for iastance, resists any amount of English cold ; the 
 variety called the Tea-scented perishes, or suffers severely, in every 
 ordmary winter. The gay-flowered Senecios of the Canaries, known in 
 gardens under the name of Cinerarias, shrink from the mere approach 
 of frost, and perish upon its first arrival ; yet the Ragworts, and Mug- 
 worts, and Groundsels, all equally Senecios, can bear a Russian winter. 
 In like manner Oaks, Chesnuts, Conifers, exhibit similar differences ia 
 their power of resisting frost. 
 
 It has been suggested that the fluids contained in different species of 
 plants may themselves act differently in the presence of cold; just as 
 oil of turpentine requires a temperature of 14° to freeze, while oil of 
 Bergamot freezes at 23°, and Olive oil at 36°. But although this may 
 be true to a limited extent, yet it by no means explains the phenomenon 
 in question. The plant x,. for instance, perishes from frost, while 
 another, identical with it in nature, lives with impunity within two 
 yards of it, both having been exposed to the same temperature. In 
 this case the fluids of the two will be chemically the same, and yet the 
 results are opposite. Again., the Long-leaved Pine (P. longifolia) is 
 quite tender, while the Gerard Pine, exceedingly like it, is hardy ; in 
 this case there is no ground for supposing that the fluids contained in 
 these species are different. In fact, except that all plants suffer from 
 cold in proportion to the quantity of water they contain, we have no 
 kind, of evidence to show that the quality of their fluids has any 
 material influence upon their power of resisting cold; for it is by no 
 means true, as some Joo hastily assert, that resinous trees, like Conifers, 
 are rendered hardy by the resin they contain ; the Norfolk Island Pine 
 and the Malay Dammar are tender, although both resinous and 
 coniferous. 
 
 In this, as in so many other hortioiHtural questions, the diffleulty of 
 the subject vanishes when we desist from a vain search after im- 
 diseoverables. It is by attempting to explain every phenomenon of life 
 by the known laws of chemistry, electricity, and similar agencies, that 
 we plunge into a labyrinth of perplexity — 
 
 "And find no end, in ■wandering mazes lost." 
 
 But the moment we admit the presence everywhere among all plants 
 of a vital principle, and thus recognise a direct analogy between plants 
 and animals, the principle of life in the two kingdoms being identical, 
 but differently manifested, then we tread on the firm ground consoli- 
 dated by the march of ages, and find in the experience of animal 
 
112 FROZEN PLANTS. 
 
 physiology the elucidation of what is obscure in that of vegetables. 
 It is true that we then abandon the pursuit of flist causes, and confess 
 the vanity of that curiosity which nothing can satisfy ; but we exchange 
 rationalism for materialism, and we learn how to apply experience to 
 daily uses. 
 
 It is an axiom in animal physiology, that "the general effect of cold 
 on living bodies is a diminution of vital activity, which terminates, if 
 the cold be intense, and its application continued, in death." (Pereira.) 
 Hence it is to be inferred, that all living things whatsoever must finally 
 perish beneath the influence of cold, provided it is severe enough, and 
 prolonged enough. But living things have each their separate consti- 
 tutional vitality, the power of which in resisting cold differs between 
 species and species, or variety and variety, and even between individual 
 and individual. It is a peculiarity derived from the great source of all 
 things ; a reality ; inexplicable but indisputable ; Hke light, and heat, 
 and electricity. We see it manifested among plants between the yellow 
 and the spider Ophrys, and the Tea Kose and the China Rose; as 
 among animals between the ass and the zebra, the Negro and 
 the Esquimaux, the terrier and the Italian greyhound. The moment 
 we admit this principle, the mode of dealing with cold in gardens 
 becomes analogous to that which experience teUs us is effectual in the 
 animal world. When a man is frozen, if he is suddenly thawed, he 
 dies, or Ms Umbs drop off; and so of frozen plants; nothing brings 
 them such certain death as a sudden elevation of temperature. AVhen 
 the French retreated from Moscow, frozen noses and limbs were common, 
 but immediate rubbing them with snow removed the tendency to 
 congelation, and hence it became a practice for the unhappy men to 
 look narrowly after each other's noses ; for each could see his neighbour's 
 although he could neither feel nor see his own. As long ago as the 
 days of Hippockaxes it was known that a man who had had his feet 
 frozen, lost them if plunged into warm water. It is exactly the same 
 among plants ; it is certain that a frozen plant, though tender, wUl not 
 perish if it is gradually thawed, by being watered plentifully with cold 
 water. Thus early Peas, Kidney Beans, and the like, are often saved by 
 merely giving them a good watering the first thing in the morning 
 before the sun is on them. It is asserted, and we doubt not with 
 perfect truth, that wall trees, whose blossoms have been frozen, have 
 had their crop saved by copiously syringing before sunrise. In aU 
 these cases it is, however, indispensable that the artificial thawing be 
 practised before the solar rays can fall upon the object frozen ; the 
 sudden elevation of temperature, necessarily produced by morning 
 sunbeams, renders all after-applications useless. And hence it is that 
 the need of artificial thawing is altogether removed by planting tender 
 things at the back of north or west walls, or behind screens. In such 
 situations, sudden changes of temperature will not occur; but the 
 
EFFECTS OF COLD. 113 
 
 natural tlia'wiiigmust of neoesaity be very gradual. In tKe summer of 
 1849, an evergreen Few HoUand Beech, well known to be tender, was 
 planted experimentally on the north of a ruined wall. In th.e 
 succeeding winter it was remarked that the upper part of it was not 
 screened from the sun ; but about three-fourths of it next the ground 
 was perfectly screened. On the approach of spring it was found that the 
 part exposed to the sun was kiRed to the level of the wall ; while the 
 parts below the level were unchanged even in colour. When we add 
 this to the cases of Fuchsias, Camellias, Tree Pseonies, &c., now becoming 
 so generally well known, it seems impossible to doubt that, the vitality of 
 plants and animals being the same, the same methods of treatment 
 which are known to be requisite in the one case are equally effectual in 
 the other. 
 
 The congelation of the aqueous particles contained in plants 
 is in itself sufficient to cause such a derangement of function 
 as may end in death, and other supposed causes may he left 
 out of consideration. It will thus follow that, omitting 
 differences arising out of the peculiar nature of different species, 
 plants mil suffer from frost in proportion to the abundance and 
 fluidity of their secretions ; those whose tissue is driest, and 
 whose secretions are most dense, being the most capable of 
 resisting frost. Hence young shoots are destroyed by a degree 
 of cold which does not affect old shoots of the same species ; 
 and hence, also, the diminished capability of "unripe" shoots, 
 or of plants growing in wet situations, or of trees when they 
 first begin to vegetate, of enduring extreme cold.* 
 
 The effect of cold is, as has been seen, to diminish excita- 
 
 * M. De Candolle gives the following as the laws of temperature with respect to its 
 influence upon vegetation : — 
 
 1. All other things being equal, the power of each plant, and of each part of a plant, 
 to resist extremes of temperatnre, is in the inverse ratio of the quantity of water they 
 contain. 
 
 2. The power of plants to resist extremes of temperature is directly in proportion 
 to the viscidity of their fluids. 
 
 3. The power of plants to resist cold is in the inverse ratio of the rapidity with 
 wliich their fluids circulate. 
 
 4. The liability to freeze, of the fluids contained in plants, is greater in proportion 
 to the size of the cells. 
 
 6. The power of plants to resist extremes of temperature is in a direct proportion 
 to the quantity of confined air which the structure of their organs gives them the 
 means of retaining in the more deUcate parts. 
 
 6. The power of plants to resist extremes of temperature is in direct proportion to 
 the capabilhy which the roots possess of absorbing sap less exposed to the external 
 influence of the atmosphere and the sun. 
 
114 DIURNAL VARIATIONS OP TEMPERATURE. 
 
 bility ; of heat, to stimulate it ; but, if the latter stimulus were 
 constantly equal, it may be conceived that the excitability 
 would soon become impaired or expended. Nature has, how- 
 ever, provided against this result, not only by the fluctuations 
 of temperature that occur at different periods of the day, but 
 more particularly by the periodical fall of temperature at night 
 and its rise during the day ; an arrangement intimately con- 
 nected with all the vital actions of vegetation. In the day, 
 when light is strongest, and its evaporating and decomposing 
 powers most energetic, temperature rises and stimulates the 
 vitality of plants, so as to meet the demand thus made upon 
 them ; then, as light diminishes, and with it the necessity for 
 excessive stimulus, temperature falls, and reaches its minimum 
 at night, the time when there is the least demand upon the 
 vital forces of vegetation ; so that plants, like animals, have 
 their diurnal seasons of action and repose. During the day, 
 the system of a plant is exhausted of fluid by the aqueous 
 exhalations that take place under the influence of sun-light ; 
 at night, when little or no perspiration occurs, the waste of the 
 day is made good by the attraction of the roots, and by morning 
 the system is again filled with liquid matter, ready to meet the 
 demand to be made upon it on the ensuing day. No plants 
 will remain in a healthy state unless these conditions be ob- 
 served.* It is however to be remembered, that the amount of 
 rest, or, in other words, the amount of difference between day 
 and night, varies greatly in different countries, owing to circum- 
 stances imperfectly explained, but especially to radiation at 
 night. Thus, at midsummer, the range of temperature is 
 nearly 33° near London ; in Australia, according to Sir Tho- 
 mas Mitchell, 55° (see Journ. of Hort. Soc, III. 283) ; but at 
 Madras not more than .11°. Such peculiarities point to the 
 different treatment demanded by Australian plants and by those 
 from the peninsula of India. 
 
 Prom very careful comparison of the hourly temperature 1)hserved at 
 Madras, from. 1841 to 1845, Mr. Robert Thompson has calculated the 
 following table, which exhibits the average lowest temperature at 
 
 * The incessant vegetation of arctic countries during their summer is an exception 
 to this rule ; but not such as to affect the general truth of the foregoing propositions. 
 
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE AT MADRAS AND CHISWICK. 
 
 115 
 
 night, the average highest temperature in the day, and the average 
 range of daily temperature, in each month, at Madeas, lat. 13° 4' : 
 
 Months. 
 
 ATerage 
 lowest 
 tempera- 
 ture. 
 
 January . 
 February . 
 March . . 
 April , . 
 May . . 
 June . . 
 July . . 
 August 
 September 
 October . 
 November 
 December . 
 
 Year , . 
 
 72-7 
 72-6 
 76-9 
 81-0 
 82-4 
 82-0 
 81-5 
 80-1 
 79-2 
 77-4 
 74-3 
 73-0 
 
 77-76 
 
 Average 
 highest 
 tempera- 
 ture. 
 
 Average 
 daily range 
 of tempera- 
 ture. 
 
 81-1 
 83-6 
 87-6 
 91-4 
 92-9 
 930 
 92-3 
 90-2 
 88-5 
 84-9 
 82-8 
 80-6 
 
 87-40 
 
 8-4 
 
 11-0 
 
 10-7 
 
 10-4 
 
 10-5 
 
 11-0 
 
 10-8 
 
 10-1 
 
 9-3 
 
 7-5 
 
 8-5 
 
 7-6 
 
 9-65 
 
 He also finds that the average lowest temperature at night, the 
 average highest temperature iu the day, and the average range of daily 
 temperature, in each month, at Chistick, near London, from 1826 to 
 1853, are as follows : — 
 
 Average 
 lowest 
 tempera- 
 ture. 
 
 Average 
 
 highest 
 
 teiupera- 
 
 ture. 
 
 Average 
 daily range 
 of tempera- 
 ture. 
 
 January . 
 February . 
 March . , 
 April . . 
 May . . 
 June . . 
 July . . 
 Aug^t 
 September 
 October . 
 November 
 December . 
 
 Tear . . 
 
 30-78 
 32-42 
 33-72 
 36-89 
 42-90 
 49-16 
 51-98 
 51-01 
 46-64 
 41-36 
 36-22 
 33-95 
 
 40-59 
 
 42-59 
 45-83 
 50-74 
 57-42 
 64-79 
 71-86 
 74-36 
 73-04 
 67-33 
 58-76 
 49-93 
 45-33 
 
 58-50 
 
 11-81 
 13-40 
 17-01 
 20-53 
 21-89 
 22-70 
 22-38 
 22-03 
 20-69 
 17-40 
 13-71 
 11-37 
 
 17-91 
 
 I 2 
 
116 ALTERNATION OF SEASONS. 
 
 "Prom the preceding tables it will be seen, that the average daily 
 range is nearly one-half less in. a tropical climate than, it is in the 
 neighbourhood of London, and that it does not exceed 11°, the average 
 being a little more than 9^°; whilst ia the higher latitude it is 
 nearly 18°." 
 
 The alternation of seasons seems to be intended to produce 
 the like effects in a more extended manner, so that the summer 
 season may be regarded as one long day, and the wiuter as a 
 night of similar duration. The long days, bright light, and 
 elevated temperature of summer, push the powers of vegetation 
 to their limits; towards the end of the season excitabihty 
 becomes impaired, all the vessels and perishable parts are worn 
 out, leaves choke up, and can neither breathe nor digest, and 
 the system of a plant, by the incessant exhalation of aqueous 
 matter, becomes dried up, as it were, and exhausted^ At that 
 time temperature keeps falling, and light diminishing, till at 
 last, upon the arrival of winter, neither the one nor the other 
 is suf&cient to excite the vital actions,' and a plant sinks into 
 comparative repose. At this time, however, its vital actions 
 are not arrested ; if they were, it would be dead or absolutely 
 torpid : they are only diminished in intensity. The roots 
 continue to absorb from the soil food, which is slowly impelled 
 into the system, whence it finds no exit : it therefore gradually 
 accumulates, and in the course of time refills all those parts 
 which the previous summer's expenditure had emptied. In the 
 meanwhile the excitability of the plant is recovered by rest, 
 and may be even conceived to accumulate with the food that 
 the absorbent system of the roots is storing up. At length, 
 when the temperature of the season has reached the requisite 
 amount, excitability is once more aroused, an abundance of 
 liquid food is ready to maintain it, and growth recommences, 
 rapidly or slowly in proportion to the amount of excitement, to the 
 length of previous repose, and to the quantity of food which had 
 been accumulated. In hot climates, where winter is unknown, 
 the requisite periodicity of stimulus and rest is provided for by 
 what are called the dry and the rainy seasons, the former 
 being equivalent to the winter, the latter to the summer, of 
 northern latitudes. 
 
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IMPORTANCE OF TEMPERATURE. 117 
 
 A very extensive and valuable series of temperatures, observed aU 
 over the world, has been compiled by Mr. Thompson, and published in 
 the Journal of the Horticultural Society, Vol. IV., to which the reader 
 is referred. 
 
 As plants have little power of generating heat, like animals, 
 except in particular cases, and very locally,* they are princi- 
 pally dependent upon the media that surround them for the 
 heat which they require. Consideriug the great importance of 
 heat in their economy, it is, for the purposes of gardening, 
 necessary to ascertain what proportion is usually borne to each 
 other, in different countries, by the temperatures of th« earth 
 and atmosphere, the chief media by which plants can be affected. 
 Upon the temperature of the atmosphere there are numerous 
 observations in many countries ; upon that of the earth much 
 fewer. It has been considered that the temperature of springs 
 affords sufficient evidence of the temperature of the, earth ; but, 
 so far as vegetation is concerned, tliis evidence. is .unsatisfactory. 
 Springs, deriving their origin from considerable depths, have a 
 nearly uniform temperature all the year round : but the tempe- 
 rature of the earth's surface varies with the seasons ; is 
 extremely different in summer and winter ; ' and ' is affected by 
 the quality of the soil, in proportion as that is more or less 
 absorbent and retentive of heat. What we want to know, as 
 respects vegetation, is, not the mean temperature of the earth 
 at some distance from its surface, but the temperature imme- 
 diately below the surface ; i. e. of that part of the soil which 
 the roots of plants penetrate, and whence they derive their 
 food. It is also requisite that this should be ascertained 
 monthly, so as to fui'nish the means of comparing the terres- 
 trial temperature with the periodical state of vegetation. Such 
 being the case, the temperature indicated by springs will be too 
 high in winter, and too low in summer, a most material error. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Robert Thompson for the following highly 
 important tables indicating the ascertained temperature of the earth in 
 various parts of the world. 
 
 * AllusioD is here, of course, made to the extrication of leat during the periods of 
 flowering and gennination, phenomena which have no otvions connexion with cultiva- 
 tion. 
 
118 
 
 TEMPERATUKE OF ENGLAND. 
 
 II. — ^Mean Tempebatubb of the Earth and of the Air at Chiswiok, lat. 51° 
 OH the AVEBAQB of 10 YEARS, 1844 — 1853. 
 
 
 Mean TEMPEKAinini 
 
 OF THE BAKTH. 
 
 Meak 
 
 Temp, of 
 
 Atk. 
 
 Difference. 
 
 Months. 
 
 1 foot. 
 
 2 feet. 
 
 Mean of 
 
 land 2 
 
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 Earth 
 warmer 
 thau air. 
 
 Earth 
 
 colder 
 
 than air. 
 
 January 
 February 
 March . 
 April . 
 May . 
 June , 
 July . 
 August 
 September 
 October 
 November 
 December 
 
 
 • 
 
 40-07 
 39-74 
 40-96 
 46-47 
 63-11 
 60-02 
 62-85 
 61-80 
 57-54 
 51-52 
 46-01 
 41-13 
 
 41-02 
 40-51 
 41-57 
 46-25 
 52-01 
 58-47 
 61-71 
 61-26 
 57-89 
 52-79 
 47-28 
 42-83 
 
 40-54 
 40-12 
 41-26 
 46-36 
 52-66 
 59-24 
 62-28 
 61-53 
 57-71 
 52-15 
 46-64 
 41-98 
 
 38-21 
 38-42 
 40-49 
 46-57 
 53-54 
 60-45 
 63-40 
 61-28 
 56-14 
 49-35 
 42-89 
 38-14 
 
 2-33 
 1-70 
 0-77 
 
 0-25 
 1-57 
 2-80 
 3-75 
 3-84 
 
 0-21 
 0-98 
 1-21 
 1-12 
 
 
 50-10 
 
 50-30 
 
 50-20 
 
 49-07 
 
 1-13 
 
 
 From the above it appears that, in the first three months of the year, 
 the thermometer at the depth of two feet indicates a somewhat higher 
 temperature than that at one foot deep. The latter, from April till 
 August, is higher than the one at two feet. But from September till the 
 end of the year, or in fact till April, the ground at two feet deep is wanner 
 than at one foot. Agaia, it will be seen that in AprU, May, June, and 
 July, the earth at one and two feet deep is on the average nearly a degree 
 colder than the air ; but iu aU the pther months it is warmer. 
 
TEMPERATURE OF SWEDEN. 
 
 119 
 
 III. — Temperature of the Earth and op the Air at Upsai, lat. 59° 52' ; 
 ON the averaoe op 8 tears, 1838 — 1845. (Calculated from data in a 
 M6mowe sw la TempSratwre de la Terre a Upsai, par A. J. Angstirom.) 
 
 
 Meak Tempeeattjre of the EAUTm 
 
 Mean 
 Temp, or 
 THE Air. 
 
 DlFEEKENCE. 
 
 Months. 
 
 2 ft. 
 deep. 
 
 3 ffc. 10| 
 in. deep. 
 
 6 ft. 10 
 in. deep. 
 
 9 ft. 9 in. 
 deep. 
 
 Mean of 
 
 2 ft., and 
 
 3 ft. lOJ 
 
 iu. 
 
 
 Mean of Earth 
 at 2 ft. and 
 3 ffc. lOi in. 
 
 ip 
 ^ 
 
 m 
 
 Jairaary 
 
 33-55 
 
 36-85 
 
 41-27 
 
 45-38 
 
 35-20 
 
 23-70 
 
 11-50 
 
 
 February 
 
 31-43 
 
 35*25 
 
 37-57 
 
 43-36 
 
 33-34 
 
 19-96 
 
 13-37 
 
 
 March. 
 
 31-16 
 
 34-22 
 
 36-32 
 
 41-84 
 
 32-69 
 
 25-65 
 
 7-03 
 
 
 April . 
 
 34-87 
 
 34-85 
 
 37-90 
 
 40-66 
 
 34-86 
 
 37-17 
 
 
 2-31 
 
 May . 
 
 46-44 
 
 43-44 
 
 39-86 
 
 41-15 
 
 44-94 
 
 49-07 
 
 
 4-13 
 
 June . 
 
 56-49 
 
 60-38 
 
 48-53 
 
 44-47 
 
 53-43 
 
 57-61 
 
 
 4-18 
 
 July . 
 
 60-12 
 
 55-10 
 
 51-27 
 
 48-90 
 
 67-61 
 
 60-64 
 
 
 3-03 
 
 August 
 
 60-96 
 
 67-79 
 
 53-78 
 
 52-36 
 
 69-37 
 
 60-62 
 
 
 1-14 
 
 Septembe 
 
 r 56-11 
 
 54-91 
 
 53-59 
 
 54-22 
 
 65-31 
 
 52-06 
 
 3-44 
 
 
 October 
 
 . 45-57 
 
 48-48 
 
 49-81 
 
 53-66 
 
 47-02 
 
 40-30 
 
 6-72 
 
 
 Novembe 
 
 r 38-54 
 
 42-63 
 
 47-18 
 
 61-21 
 
 40-59 
 
 31-49 
 
 9-09 
 
 
 December 
 
 35-21 
 
 38-65 
 
 41-41 
 
 48-00 
 
 36-93 
 
 28-41 
 
 8-51 
 
 
 
 44-26 
 
 44-19 
 
 44-22 
 
 47-11 
 
 44-22 
 
 40-68 
 
 3-64 
 
 
 Notwithstanding the intensity of the Scandinayian winters, it appears 
 that the thermometer at two feet deep falls very little below freezing, 
 although the mean temperature of the air is far below that experienced 
 in this country in the most severe winters. The difference between the 
 temperature of the earth at 2 feet and 3 feet 10 j inches, on the average, 
 and that of the air, is no less than 13-37° in the month of February. 
 This great difference is doubtless owing to radiation of heat from the 
 earth being prevented by a covering of snow. From April till August, 
 the air, as at Chiswick, is warmer than the earth. 
 
120 
 
 TEMPEEATUKE OF DENMARK. 
 
 IV.— Tbmpeeature of the Earth and of the Air at Copenhasen, lat. 55° 41' ; 
 OK the average op 8 TEARS, 1842 — 1849. (Trcmsactions of the Eoyal 
 Society of Demmwrk.) 
 
 Name, 
 
 Mean temp, 
 
 of the earth 
 
 at 12 feet 
 
 deep. 
 
 Mean temp, 
 of air. 
 
 DiFFEBENCE. 
 
 Earth 
 warmer 
 than air. 
 
 Earth 
 
 colder than 
 
 air. 
 
 January , 
 February. 
 March. . 
 April . . 
 May . . 
 June . . 
 July , . 
 August . 
 September 
 October . 
 November 
 December 
 
 36-62 
 34-34 
 35-25 
 40-65 
 50-34 
 SS-Vl 
 60-36 
 61-V7 
 57-34 
 50-45 
 44-24 
 39-79 
 
 31-99 
 29-60 
 33-60 
 43-61 
 52-98 
 60-60 
 62-33 
 63-12 
 54-62 
 48-02 
 40-06 
 34-95 
 
 4-63 
 4-74 
 1-65 
 
 2-96 
 2-64 
 1-89 
 1-97 
 0-35 
 
 2-72 
 2-33 
 
 4-18 
 4-74 
 
 47-50 
 
 46-39 
 
 1-11 
 
 Earth warmer than the air in ■winter, early spring and autumn, but 
 colder during the summer, are the results of observations made at 
 Copenhagen by Mr. Weilbach. On the year, the average excess of the 
 ground temperature above that of the air is almost the same as at 
 Chisvdck, the former being 1-11, the latter 1-13. 
 
TEMPERATURE OF THE NILGHEKBIBS. 
 
 121 
 
 V. — ^Mban Tempekahjeb ov the Eakth and ob the Am at Dodabktta, 
 NiLSHBRRT Hills, lat. 11° 23'; elevation 8640 feet above the level 
 OF THE SEA. {Met. Ohs., by T. G. Taylor, Esg^.) 
 
 
 Temperature of the 
 Earth, at 1 foot deep. 
 
 , Temperature 
 OF the Air. 
 
 DiFFEREKOE. 
 
 Months. 
 
 Max. 
 
 Min 
 
 Mean. 
 
 Mix. 
 
 Min. 
 
 ■Meta. 
 
 Ill 
 
 
 January . 
 February. 
 Maret, . 
 April . . 
 May . . 
 June . . 
 July . . 
 August ■ 
 September 
 October . 
 November 
 December 
 
 62-00 
 57-70 
 63-40 
 62-40 
 63-60 
 56-80 
 56-30 
 67-80 
 54-40 
 58-40 
 59-30 
 55-70 
 
 54-00 
 54-00 
 58-30 
 68-60 
 59-60 
 54-70 
 53-30 
 53-80 
 53-70 
 64-40 
 53-80 
 51-00 
 
 58-00 
 55-85 
 60-85 
 60-60 
 61-60 
 55-75 
 54-80 
 56-80 
 54-05 
 56-40 
 56-55 
 53-35 
 
 68-60 
 56-70 
 61-70 
 61-30 
 62-40 
 54-90 
 54-40 
 65-10 
 54-90 
 55-60 
 56-60 
 64-00 
 
 44-40 
 45-90 
 47-10 
 61-20 
 49-90 
 46-10 
 47-90 
 46-80 
 47-40 
 48-10 
 47-20 
 45-10 
 
 61-50 
 51-30 
 54-40 
 66-25 
 56-15 
 50-50 
 61-15 
 50-96 
 61-15 
 61-86 
 51-40 
 49-55 
 
 6-50 
 4-55 
 6-45 
 4-25 
 6-45 
 5-26 
 3-65 
 4-86 
 2-90 
 4-55 
 6-10 
 3-80 
 
 
 
 58-98 
 
 54-93 
 
 66-95 
 
 67-10 
 
 47-26 
 
 52-18 
 
 4-77 
 
 0-0 
 
 At this latitude and elevation, the average temperature of the earth 
 at one foot deep is higher throughout the year than that of the air : 
 the average difference being 4-77. The greatest difference occurs in 
 January and March, and the least in September. 
 
122 
 
 TEMPEKATUBE OF THE HIMALAYAS,'- 
 
 VI. — Tempeeatukb op the Earth and op the Aik at Dobjilins, lat. 27° 3' ; 
 ELETATiou 7430 FEET ABOTB THE LETEi OP THE SEA. (From data in 
 Soaker's BvmaXa/yan Jowrnal.) 
 
 Mean temp. 
 
 of the earth 
 at 24 ft. to 
 8 ft. deep. 
 
 Mean temp, 
 of air. 
 
 DiFPEKENCE. 
 
 Earth 
 wanner 
 than air. 
 
 Earth 
 
 colder 
 
 than air. 
 
 January . 
 February. 
 March. 
 April . . 
 May . , 
 June . . 
 July . . 
 August . 
 September 
 October . 
 November 
 December 
 
 46-0 
 48-0 
 50-0 
 58-0 
 61-0 
 62'0 
 62-2 
 62-0 
 61-0 
 60-0 
 55-0 
 49-0 
 
 40-0 
 42-1 
 60-7 
 55-9 
 57-6 
 61-2 
 61-4 
 61-7 
 59-9 
 58-0 
 50-0 
 43-0 
 
 6-0 
 5-9 
 
 2-1 
 
 3-4 
 0-8 
 0-8 
 0-3 
 1-1 
 2-0 
 5-0 
 6-0 
 
 0-7 
 
 56-2 
 
 53-5 
 
 2-7 
 
 Here, as in tbe Nilgberry Hills, tbe temperature of the earth, is ia 
 every month above that of the atmosphere, excepting in March. The 
 desorepancy, as in lower situations and higher latitudes, is in favour of 
 the earth being on the average warmer than the air, but more especially 
 so 'va. winter. They nearly coincide in March and August. 
 
 VII. — Tempekatuee op the Eakth and op the Am in the Plains op Behsai. 
 
 At Dacca, lat. 23° 50', and 72 feet above the level of the sea. Dr. Joseph 
 Hooker found the temperature of the earth at the depth. of two feet 
 seven inches was 84°, in the end of May ; and the mean temperature 
 of the air ranged at the same time from 75-3 to 95-5 ; its mean therefore 
 nearly corresponded with that of the earth. At ten stations in these 
 plains, varying from 72 to 131 feet, above the level of the sea, the 
 mean of the indications of the ground thermometer during May was 
 85-53 ; the approximate mean temperature of the air was 82-30 ; the 
 difference therefore was only 3-23. 
 
OP THE PENINSULA OF INDIA, AND AUSTRALIA. 
 
 123 
 
 VIII. — Temperahtre of the Eabth and Aib, as obseeved by Captain Newbold 
 
 AT BeLIART, on the CENTRE OF THE TABLE-LAND OF PENINSULAR IhDIA, 
 LAT. 15° 6' N. ; ELEVATION 1600 FEET ABOVE THE LEVEL OF THE SEA. In tie 
 
 hot month of May, skytmclouded; soil reddish and light in texture, completely 
 sheltered by a thatched roof; depth of thermometer for temperatire of the 
 earth one foot. 
 
 Barth. 
 
 Air iu 
 Shade. 
 
 Two P.M. 
 
 Earth. 
 
 Air in 
 Sliade. 
 
 First Day . 
 Second Day. 
 Third Day . 
 Fourtt Day. 
 
 86-5 
 86-0 
 85-5 
 87-0 
 
 81-0 
 
 78-0 
 78-5 
 75-0 
 
 ^1-3 
 89-0 
 90-0 
 89-0 
 
 96-5 
 92-0 
 95-0 
 92-0 
 
 86-0 
 
 78-1 
 
 89-! 
 
 93-9 
 
 Mean temperature of the earth one foot deep at sunrise and 
 
 2p.m 87-9 
 
 Mean temperature of the air at sunrise and 2 p.m. . . . 86'0 
 
 Diflference 1-9 
 
 From the above it appears that the earth was nearly four degrees 
 warmer at 2 p.m. than at sunrise ; and that on the average it was 
 nearly two degrees warmer than the air. 
 
 IX. — Variations of Tempebatttkb in New Holland, aocordino to Sir Thomas 
 Mitohell's Observations. 
 
 a. Noonday Temperatures. 
 
 Lat. 
 
 Months. 
 
 Averages. 
 
 Max. 
 
 Min. 
 
 29° s. 
 
 Nov. Dec. 
 
 of 3 observations 102° 
 
 103° 
 
 62° 
 
 32° s. 
 
 Jan. Feb. 
 
 » 18 „ 971 
 
 115 
 
 73 
 
 31° s. 
 
 Feb. March 
 
 „ 17 „ 90 
 
 110 
 
 80 
 
 30° s. 
 
 March 
 
 „ 20 „ 95 
 
 106 
 
 84 
 
 Nov. Dec, averaging at noon 102° 
 Jan. Feb., „ „ 97| 
 
 Feb. March, ,, „ 90 
 
 March, ,, ,,95 
 
 b. Night Temperatures. 
 
 Occasional Temperature at Sunrise. 
 
 62° 58° 61° 
 
 61 69 47 
 
 61 64 48 
 
 68 65 47 
 
 (See Journal of Horticultural Society, III. 297.) 
 
124 
 
 TEMPERATURE OF EARTH 
 
 -Mean Temperature of the Earth and op the Air at Trevandrum, in 
 India, lat. 8° 30', N.; eievatioh 200 eeet above the level oj? the 
 
 SEA. Aa OBSERVED BY JoHN CaLDEOOTT, ESQ., AsTRONOMER TO THE EAJAH 
 
 OF Tratanoore, ddrikg the tears 1843, 1844, 1845. 
 
 Montlis. 
 
 Meak Tempbeattjbe of 
 THE Eauth. 
 
 Mean 
 Temp, of 
 THE Am. 
 
 DiFFEEENOE. 
 
 Earth at 3 feet. 
 
 12 feet. 
 
 6 feet. 
 
 3 feet. 
 
 Earth 
 warmer 
 than air. 
 
 Earth 
 
 colder 
 
 than air. 
 
 January . 
 
 85-528 
 
 85-618 
 
 84-954 
 
 78-930 
 
 6-024 
 
 
 February . 
 
 85-784 
 
 86-625 
 
 86-838 
 
 80-386 
 
 6-452 
 
 
 Maroh . . 
 
 86-373 
 
 88-110 
 
 88-789 
 
 82-730 
 
 6-059 
 
 
 April . . . 
 
 86-916 
 
 88-527 
 
 89-614 
 
 83-370 
 
 6-244 
 
 
 May . . . 
 
 .... 
 
 88-224 
 
 88-413 
 
 81-603 
 
 6-810 
 
 
 June . , . 
 
 86-878 
 
 86-883 
 
 85-012 
 
 79-023 
 
 5-989 
 
 
 July. . . 
 
 86-537 
 
 85-114 
 
 83-250 
 
 78-450 
 
 4-800 
 
 
 August I . 
 
 • 85-894 
 
 •84-736 
 
 83-566 
 
 7«-990 
 
 4-576 
 
 
 September ' . 
 
 85-633 
 
 85-133 
 
 84-575 
 
 79-973 
 
 4-602 
 
 
 October . . 
 
 85-680 
 
 85-632 
 
 84-722 
 
 79-076 
 
 5-646 
 
 
 November . 
 
 85-651 
 
 85-271 
 
 84-622 
 
 79-750 
 
 4-872 
 
 
 December . 
 
 85-607 
 
 85-303 
 
 84-228 
 
 78-030 
 
 6-198 
 
 
 
 86-043 
 
 86-264 
 
 85-715 
 
 80-025 
 
 5-690 
 
 000 
 
 Here, as at Dodabetta, tbe mean temperature of tbe earth averages 
 higber tban tbat of the air in every month throughout the year, the 
 excess on the whole being upwards of 5| degrees. At Trevandrum, it 
 appears that the highest mean temperature of the earth at three feet 
 deep occurs in April, and is nearly 90° ; the lowest occurs in July, when 
 it is a little above 83°. Its mean range is between 6 and 7 degrees. 
 The mean temperature of the air is highest in April, 83-37°, and lowest 
 in December, 78° ; so that the difference between the hottest and coldest 
 months is only 5 or 6 degrees. 
 
 The preceding tables exhibit the relative temperature of the earth 
 and air at a number of places very differently situated both as regards 
 latitude and elevation ; from Dpsal in lat. 59° 52', to Trevandrum in 
 lat. 8° 30' ; and from Chiswick, Copenhagen, and the Plains of Bengal, 
 aU near the level of the sea, to Dodabetta and DorjUing, respectively 
 8640 and 7430 feet above that level. The general results deduced from 
 these tables are as follows : — 
 
 First. — That va. all cases the mean temperature of the earth exceeds 
 that of the air, on the average of the whole year. 
 
IN THE PENINSULA OF INDIA. 125 
 
 Second, — That in some localities, tte montUy mean temperature ot 
 the earth is in eyery month, more or less, higher than that of the air. 
 
 Third. — That in other localities the mean temperatvue of the air 
 exceeds that of the earth in the summer months only, or from April 
 till July or August ; but from September till March, the earth is 
 warmer than the air. 
 
 The excess of mean temperature of the earth above that of the air j 
 on the ayerage of observations taken at different places, is as follows : — 
 
 Chiswick 1-13 
 
 TJpsal 3-54 
 
 Copenhagen ..... 1-11 
 
 Dodabetta 4-77 
 
 Dorjiling 2-70 
 
 Plains of Bengal 3-23 
 
 BeUary 1-90 
 
 Trevandrum 5'69 
 
 Average 3 -01 
 
 From this it will be seen that at these places the average difference 
 between the temperature of the earth and the air is least at Copenhagen, 
 and greatest at Trevandrum. But it must not be thence inferred that 
 the difference is uniformly greater within the tropics than in high 
 latitudes, for we have, on the other hand, a greater difference at Upsal, 
 than at BeUary on the centre of the table-land of India. 
 
 There appears to be no series 'of direct observations upon the 
 superficial temperature of the earth, at the different periods of 
 vegetation, in other countries ; but some statements are to be 
 found, here and there, concerning the temperature occasionally 
 observed, from which it is to be inferred that the earth is 
 heated, at least for short periods of time, very much above the 
 atmosphere, and it is probable that this excessive elevation of 
 temperature is necessary to the healthy condition'of many plants. 
 From some interesting Qbservations communicated to me by Sir 
 John Herschel, it appears that the temperature of the earth at 
 the Cape of Good Hope is often excessive. On the fifth of 
 December, 1887, between one and two o'clock in the day, he 
 observed the heat under the soil of his bulb garden, to be 159°; 
 at three p.m. it was 150°, and even in shaded places 119°: the 
 temperature of the air in the shade, in the same garden, at the 
 same period, was 98° and 93° At 5 p.m. the soil of the garden, 
 . having been long shaded, was found to have, at four inches in 
 
126 
 
 EARTH TEMPERATDEE. 
 
 depth, a temperattire of 103°. " On the third of Decemher, a 
 thermometer huried a quarter of an inch deep, in contact with 
 a seedling fir of the year's planting, quite healthy, and having 
 its seed-leaves marked as follows.- — at ll"" SS"" a.m. 148-2°, at 
 Qi" 48™ p.m. 149-5°, at 1'" 34'" p.m. 149-8°, at 1^ 54™ p.m. 150-8°, 
 and at S^ 46™ p.m. 148°." Sir John Herschel observes that 
 such ohservations " go to show that at the Cape of Good Hope, 
 in the hot months, the roots of bulbous and other plants which 
 do not seek their nourishment very deep, must frequently, and, 
 indeed, habitually, attain temperatures which we can only imitate 
 in our hothouses by actually suspending over the soil plates of 
 red-hot iron. For it must be remarked, that heatiag the 
 ground /rom behw would not distribute the temperature in the 
 same way." 
 
 Memoranda conoermng the temperature immediately below the 
 surface of th.e earth, oeoasionaUy remarked in different countries : — 
 
 133°— 144° . ( ^'"'°r^™g ^ Edwards 
 
 * ( and Colin. 
 
 Often 126°— 134° .... Humboldt, Fragm. As. 
 Coarse white sand at 140°, s 
 
 the atmosphere being [ 
 
 84-5° 
 
 118°— 122°; once 127°, the 
 
 atmosphere being 91-5° 
 113° — 118° among dry ] 
 
 grass J 
 
 85° usual summer temp. 
 
 one foot below surface . 
 159° under the soil of 
 
 bulb garden 
 142° thermometer barely \ 
 
 covered ....,; 
 Water of rice fields 113° 
 adjacent sandy soil much 
 higher ; for towards midday 
 the black sides of the boat 
 were 142-50° 
 
 Egypt. . . 
 Tropics . . 
 
 Oronoco . . 
 
 France . . 
 Chile . . . 
 
 New Grenada 
 
 Cape of Grood 
 Hope . . 
 
 Bermuda . . 
 
 Lantao, Chinas: 
 
 of a ) 
 
 Humboldt. 
 
 Arago, as quoted by 
 Edwards and Colin. 
 
 Boussingault. 
 
 Hay, in Zoudon's Gard. 
 , vi. 437. 
 
 Herschel [MSS.). 
 
 Col. Emmet. 
 
 ^Meyen. 
 
 These observations seem to confirm the late Mr. Harvey's 
 suspicicJns, that the real force of the sun's rays in tropical 
 countries is still far from being ascertained. When, therefore. 
 
BAETH TEMPERATDKE. 127 
 
 we are informed by travellers that tlie temperature in the sun, 
 at Gondar, has been seen to be 113° (Bruce); at Benares 110°, 
 113° 118° (Harvey) ; or at Sierra Leone, 138° (Winterbottom) ; 
 it must be supposed that, in reality, the temperature would 
 have been found much higher in those places had more efdcient 
 means of observation been employed. Mr. Foggo, indeed, 
 succeeded, by means of a large thermometer, having the baU 
 covered with black wool, and fully exposed to the direct rays of 
 the sun, unsheltered from the wind, in obtaining, at Edinburgh, 
 on the 29th of July, at B^ 10" p.m., an indication of 150°, and at 
 3*^ p.m. of 140°, while another instrument, similaxly prepared, 
 and resting in contact with herbage, was found to indicate only 
 119° and 110°; so that, as Mr. Foggo remarks, a difference of 
 30° was produced in these cases solely from the manner in 
 which the instruments were exposed. {EdAnhwrgh Philosophical 
 Journal, No. xxvii.) 
 
 For horticultural purposes a far more extensive series of 
 observations than we at present possess requires to be made at 
 a great number of different places, with a view to determine the 
 connexion between the temperature of the soil and the seasons 
 of vegetation. In making these, the nature of the soil in which 
 the thermometers are plunged should, among other circum- 
 stances, be very precisely described ; for it is obvious that the 
 result will be essentially affected by the peculiar conducting 
 power of the earth. In the meanwhile the two following 
 diagrams, and the observations which follow, for which we are 
 indebted to Mr. Thompson, throw much light upon this obscure 
 subject. 
 
 " It will be seen from the diagram of the mean monthly tem- 
 perature of the earth and air at Chiswick, that the earth, at two 
 feet deep, is warmer than the air by two or three degrees at 
 the commencement of the year ; but the lines representing the 
 progress of the respective temperatures gradually approximate, 
 the ground one falKng and the air rising a little towards the 
 end of February. In March, both take a decided start, and 
 towards the end of that month the lines coincide, and then the 
 air temperature is higher than that of the earth till August, 
 when the contrary takes place. The mean temperature of the 
 
128 
 
 EAETH TEMPEEATUEE, LONDON. 
 
 
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EAETH TEMPERATURE, INDIA. 
 
 129 
 
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 PS 
 
130 RELATION BORNE BY THE TEMPERATURE 
 
 air begins to decline about the middle of July ; that of the earth 
 about the 1st of August; and as the latter does not rise so high 
 nor so quickly with a generally ascending temperature, so it 
 falls more slowly and not so low as the air when the general 
 temperature is declining. The diagram for the temperatures 
 at Trevandrum, exhibits two nearly parallel curved lines, the 
 earth averaging a little more than five and a half degrees higher 
 than the air. The greatest approximation is in August and 
 September, as is generally the case at other places in the tropics, 
 and likewise in colder latitudes ; but in the latter there is a 
 coincidence of the lines in March or April which is not followed 
 at Trevandrum. On the contrary, the powerful sun-heat 
 which there prevails in the months of February, March, and 
 April, appears to heat the earth more than the air, till the 
 setting in of the rainy season, in consequence of which the 
 earth is lowered from its maximum, 89"61 in AprU, to its 
 minimum 83'25 in July, or more than 6°; whilst the air is 
 lowered, during the same period, scarcely 5°. 
 
 "From the foregoing facts and diagrams we can form a 
 tolerably correct idea of the relation which the monthly mean 
 temperature of the soil bears to the monthly mean temperature 
 of the air throughout the year. The latter is known at a vast 
 number of places ; but that of the earth comparatively at very 
 few. It may, however, be estimated with sufficient accuracy 
 for all practical purposes connected with horticulture and agri- 
 culture. For example, we may take the tables and diagram for 
 Chiswick as our guide, for all places having nearly the same 
 monthly and annual temperature. Where the winters are 
 colder, as at Copenhagen, we must add 2° or 3° more than 
 for Chiswick to the temperature of the air in January, in order 
 to obtain, approximately, the temperature of the soil for that 
 month. In AprU, throughout the world, from lat. 60° to lat. 30°, 
 the mean temperature of the earth and air may be considered 
 to average alike, or to differ rarely more than 1°. From April 
 to July, subtract about 2° from the monthly mean of the air 
 for that of the earth. In August the temperatures again coin- 
 cide. The earth, after this, maintains a higher temperature 
 than the air throughout the remaining months ; so that in 
 
OF EARTH TO AIR. 131 
 
 September, 1° to 2°; October, 2° to 3°; and in November and 
 December, between 3° and 4° must be added to the mean 
 temperature of the air, in these months respectively, in order 
 to obtain the approximate mean temperature of the soil. This 
 will apply to aU places having a climate resembling that of 
 Chiswick. But where the temperature of the air falls very 
 low in the end of autumn, and beginning of winter, as at Upsal, 
 where the mean of the air in October is 12° below that in 
 September, 6 or 7° must be added to the mean of the air, for 
 the mean temperature of the earth ; and 8 or 9° in each of the 
 two following months. On the contrary, where the winters are 
 milder than at Chiswick, the difference between the earth and 
 air temperatures will be somewhat less than that which appears 
 in the table, and represented in the diagram for that place. 
 
 "Within and near the tropics the earth, it appears, is, on the 
 average, always warmer than the air by several degrees. In 
 some months, and at some places, both temperatures are nearly 
 alike ; and in other instances they differ as much as 6 or 7°, 
 much depending on the fall of rain, and the nature of the soil. 
 If we add 2° to the temperature of the air, in June, July, August, 
 and September, and 4° in the other months, we shall approach 
 the monthly mean temperature of the soil between 0° and 30° 
 latitude, sufficiently near for all practical purposes ; certainly 
 much nearer than the temperature to which plants from that 
 soil have been subjected by artificial treatment in this country." 
 
 It must, however, be understood that such calculations are 
 necessarily uncertain, and can only be taken as rough approxi- 
 mations to truth, near enough for practical purposes, but 
 nothing more. An infinite multitude of circumstances, 
 reducible within no general rules, modify all such estimates. 
 
 As regards the Indian seasons, the greater part of the west 
 and south coast of the peninsula is so damp that the growing 
 and flowering season lasts all the year round. Even of Eice 
 there are, according to Buchanan Hamilton, two crops in 
 Malabar : — one sown in May, transplanted in June, and reaped 
 in July ; another sown in August, transplanted in September 
 and October, and reaped in November. In Northern India the 
 growing season for tropical crops — Eice, Millet, &c. — generally 
 
 k2 
 
132 TROPICAL SEASONS. 
 
 speaking begins with the rains (May and June), and lasts all 
 the rains; August and September are fruiting months, and 
 these are followed by rest for such crops. Then, however, 
 Oats, Barley, Tobacco, Wheat, Sesamum, Poppy, and all 
 Pulses are put in to be reaped in spring. In Malabar on the 
 average the seasons are the same, but the dry season is so damp 
 that the most tropical crops can be raised all the year round. 
 
 Of course in the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are the 
 reverse of those in the Northern, midwinter in Sydney cor- 
 respondiug with midsummer in Europe. 
 
 In the tropical parts of America, where Humboldt found 
 the mean temperature of the coldest month not to be lower 
 than 79'16° at Cumana, we shall be justified in concluding that 
 the temperature of the earth's surface never falls permanently 
 below that amount ; and as the mean summer temperature of 
 the place was found to be 83'04°, so it is probable that the 
 earth wiU have somethiag above that degree of warmth, on an 
 average, in the summer. 
 
 For the warmest month, thia great observer gives 84-38° as the mean, 
 which corresponds remarkably with the temperature a foot below the 
 surface in New Grenada, where, according to a correspondent of Mr. 
 Hay, it is 85° during summer, " as a gentleman, a planter there, wrote 
 home for his information." (See LoudorHs Oard. Mag,, vi. 437.) 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 OP THE PHTSIOIiOGHOAL PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH THE OPEEATIONS 
 OP HORTICULTURE ESSENTIALLY DEPEND. 
 
 All operations in horticulture depend for success upon a 
 correct appreciation of the nature of the vital actions described 
 in the last Book; for although there have been many good 
 gardeners entirely unacquainted with, the science of vegetable 
 physiology, and although many points of practice have been 
 arrived at altogether accidentally, yet it must be obvious that 
 the power of regulating and modifying knowledge so obtained 
 cannot possibly be possessed, unless the external influences by 
 which plants are affected are clearly understood. Indeed, the 
 enormous difference that exists between the skiU of the present 
 race of gardeners and their predecessors can only be ascribed 
 to the general diffusion, that has taken place, of an acquain- 
 tance with some of the simpler facts in vegetable physiology. 
 
 In attempting to apply the explanations of science to the 
 routine of horticultural practice, it appears desirable, in order 
 to avoid frequent repetition, that mere details should be 
 omitted, and that those general operations should alone be 
 adverted to which, under many different modifications, and in 
 various forms, constitute the foimdation of every gardener's 
 education. 
 
CHAPTBK, I. 
 
 OP BOTTOM HEAT. 
 
 This term is, in common practice, made use of only in those 
 cases where the temperature of the soil in which plants grow is 
 artificially raised considerably ahove that which we are ac- 
 quainted with in England; and there seems to be a general 
 idea that such an artificial elevation of temperature is only 
 necessary in a few special instances. It has, however, been 
 shown (p. 135) that the mean temperature of that part of the 
 soil in which plants grow is universally something higher than 
 that of the air by which they are surrounded, and consequently 
 it appears that nature, in all cases, employs some degree of 
 bottom heat as a stimulus and protection to vegetation. At the 
 same time, it must be admitted that, in some cases, the amount 
 is extremely small ; for Von Baer found Ranunculus nivalis and 
 Oxyria reniformis flowering in Nova Zembla, where the soil 
 was not warmed above 34^" ; and, in Jakutzsk, Erdmann states 
 that Summer Wheat, Rye, Cabbages, Turnips, Radishes, and 
 Potatoes are cultivated, although the ground is not thawed 
 above three feet in depth. 
 
 How tie warmth of the soil may act as a protection to plants will be 
 easily understood. A plant is penetrated in aU directions by in- 
 numerable air passages and chambers, so that there is a free commxmi- 
 cation between its extremities however far they may be apart. It may 
 therefore be conceived that if, as necessarily happens, the air inside the 
 plant is in motion, the effect of -warming the air in the roots will be to 
 raise the internal temperature of the whole individual ; and the same 
 is true of its fluids. Now, when the temperature of the soil is raised to 
 150° at noonday by the force of the solar rays, it will retain a con- 
 siderable part of that warmth during the night : but the temperature 
 
NATURAL TEMPERATURE OF SOIL. 135 
 
 of the air may fall to such a degree that the excitability of a plant 
 woTild be too much and suddenly impaired, if it acquired the coldness of 
 the mediiun surrounding it ; this is prevented, we may suppose, by the 
 warmth communicated to the general system, from the soU, through the 
 roots ; so that the lowering of the temperature of the air, by radiation 
 during the night, is unable to affect plants injuriously, in consequence 
 of the antagonist" force exercised by the heated soil. It is not impro- 
 bable that this fact may be hereafter applied in gardening to the 
 acclimatising of half-hardy plants. "Were an open border heated 
 artificially in the winter, it is possible that plants might endure an 
 amount of cold upon their stems and leaves, which in the absence of 
 such heat would be fatal to them. An experiment upon this subject 
 was tried some years ago, and although it was conducted so negligently 
 and unskUfully, as not to justify any inference being drawn from it, 
 yet the result, such as it was, was full of promise. 
 
 That elevating the temperature of moist soil produces an 
 unusual degree of vigour in plants unaccustomed in nature to 
 such an elevation is a fact which requires no proof; it is 
 attested hy the condition of vegetation round hot springs, and 
 in places artificially heated by subterraneous fires ; and this 
 has probably been the cause of the employment of tan and 
 hot-beds, by which means bottom heat has been generally 
 obtained for rearing delicate species, and especially seeds. 
 But if this stimulus acts in the first instance beneficially 
 in all cases alike, it soon becomes a source of mischief in those 
 species vyhich are natives of climates where such terrestrial 
 heat is unknown, the latter " drawing up," as the saying is, 
 becoming weak and sickly, and speedily presenting a diseased 
 appearance. 
 
 On the other hand, it is equally well known that, unless the 
 temperature of the soil be raised permanently to at least 75°, the 
 seeds of tropical trees will not germinate ; or, if they do, they 
 push forth feebly, and from the first present the sickly appear- 
 ance of plants suffering from cold. Hence arises the impossi- 
 bility of making the seeds of tropical plants germinate when 
 sown in the open air in this country, where the mean tempera- 
 ture of the earth seldom rises to 65°, and that for only short 
 periods of time. It is, therefore, obvious that aU plants require 
 some bottom heat ; but the amount varies with their species, 
 and the only means of determining what the amount should be 
 
136 SOIL OF THE ORANGE AND VINE. 
 
 is afforded by the known degree of warmth of the climate of 
 which a plant may be a native. 
 
 When plants are cultivated in glass houses, there is little 
 difficulty in supplying them with the amount of bottom heat 
 which they may require ; but this can either not be effected at 
 all, or only to a limited degree, by a selection of soils and situ- 
 ations, when plants are cultivated in the open air ; and hence 
 one of the many difficulties of acclimatising in a cold country 
 the species of a warmer climate. It is true that plants will exist 
 within wide limits of temperature, and, consequently, a few 
 degrees of difference in the natural bottom heat to which they 
 are exposed may not affect them so far as to destroy them ; but 
 it cannot be doubted that the conditions most favourable to 
 their growth are those which embrace a temperature rather 
 above than below that to which they are accustomed in their 
 native haunts. 
 
 The Orange-tree is found in perfection where the tempera- 
 ture of the soil may be computed to rise to 80° or 85°, and 
 never to fall below 58°, as in the Bermudas, Malta, and Canton. 
 How injudicious, then, is our practice of exposing it during 
 summer to the open air, in tubs, where the soil scarcely rises 
 in temperature above 66°, and preserving it during winter in 
 cold conservatories, the soil of which often sinks to 36° ; under 
 such circumstances the Orange exists indeed, but where are 
 the perfume and juiciness of its fruit, and where the healthy 
 vigour of its noble foliage ? The Vine cannot be grown in the 
 open air of this country to any useful purpose, except when 
 trained to walls, in soils and situations unusually exposed to 
 the beams of the sun; it is only then that it can obtain for its 
 roots such a permanent warmth as 75° which it will have at 
 Bordea,ux, or 80° in Madeira. 
 
 It may hence be considered an axiom in horticulture, that 
 all plants require the soil, as well as the atmosphere, in which 
 they grow, to correspond in temperature with that of the 
 countries of which they are natives. It has also been already 
 shown, that the mean temperature of the soil should be above 
 that of the atmosphere. How much above depends upon 
 climate a,nd season. The meaii difference in favour of the. 
 
WARMTH CAUSED BY DRAINAGE. 137 
 
 ground at Chiswick is only 1°13 as is shown at p. 125, while 
 that of Trevandrum, an Indian station, is 5°69. But it must be 
 remembered that, disregarding means, the monthly temperature 
 exhibits very much greater differences. Thus at Chiswick 
 the earth is nearly 4° warmer than the air in December, and 
 that of Trevandrum is nearly 6^° warmer in the month of 
 February : these differences are themselves insignificant when 
 contrasted with what occurs at Upsal (p. 119), where the earth 
 is warmer than the air by 13°37 in the month of February. It 
 seems evident that in the examples of a high winter tempera- 
 ture of the earth in severe latitudes, we have an example of the 
 protection thus afforded to the vitality of plants iu the manner 
 suggested in the preceding page. 
 
 There can be no sort of doubt, that the advantage derived from 
 draining cold countries, is owing greatly, if not exclusively, to the 
 augmented temperature which attends the removal of stagnant water 
 from land. Undergeound Cximatb is not less important than that^ 
 which is experienced above ground. It is only by perfect and skilful 
 drainage that underground climate is improved. No other means of 
 effecting it on a large scale are known ; it is probable indeed that the 
 superiority of common littery stable manure over artificial composts, as 
 weU. as the increased efficacy of the latter when mixed with the former, 
 is a mere exempUflcation of the advantageous effects of perfect 
 drainage. 
 
 Some believe that the advantage of drainage consists in removing 
 water. But water is not of itself an evil ; on the contrary it is the 
 food of plants, and its absence is attended with fatal results. It is the 
 excess of water which injures plants, just as an excess of food injures 
 animals. Those who imagine that the advantage of drainage arises from 
 the removal of stagnant water, or any such cause alone, overlook the great 
 and important fact that drained land is, in summer, from 10° to 20° 
 warmer than water-logged land. Professor Schubler long ago came to 
 the conclusion that the loss of heat caused by evaporation in undrained 
 lands amounted to 11J° to 13|° Fahr. Mr. Parkes has shown, in his 
 " Essay on the Philosophy of Drainage," that in draining the Red Moss 
 near Bolton-le-Moors, the thermometer in the drained land rose in 
 June, 1837, to 66° at seven inches below the surface, while in the 
 neighbouring water-logged land it woiild never rise above 47°, an 
 enormous gain. In the garden of the Horticultural Society the mean 
 temperature of the thoroughly drained soil at one foot below the surface 
 is, in the month of July, 63°49 ; if we take that of water-logged land 
 to be the same as spring water, or 47°, there is a gain of 16^°. Thus it 
 
138 DRAINING SOIL WARMS IT. 
 
 is eyident that drainage produces tie very important effect upon land of 
 raising its temperature ; it communicates bottom heat, in the absence of 
 some amount of which, even the common Nettle and Groundsel would 
 perish ; and as scarcely any of our cultivated crops are natives of 
 countries so cold as our own, it is manifest that they aU req[uire to have 
 the earth warmed for them, or are much the better for it. 
 
 The reason why drained land gains heat, and water-logged land is 
 always cold, consists in the weU-known fact that heat cannot be 
 transmitted downwards through water. This may be readily seen by 
 the following experiments : — 
 
 ExPBBiMEiirT Wo. I. — A square box was made of the form represented 
 by the annexed diagram, eighteen inches deep, eleven inches wide at 
 top, and six inches wide at bottom. It was filled with peat saturated 
 
 — -U- 
 
 ::::0 r.:. 
 
 Fig. XXVII. 
 
 with water to c, formiag, to that depth (twelve and a half inches), a 
 sort of aitittoial bog. The box was then fiUed with water to d. A 
 thermometer (o) was plunged so that its bulb was within one and a 
 half inch of the bottom. The temperature of the whole mass of peat 
 and water was found to be 39i° Fahr. A gaUon of boiling water was 
 then added; it raised the surface of the water to c. In five minutes 
 the thermometer arose to 44°, owing to conduction of heat by the 
 thermometer tube, and its guard. At ten minutes from the introduction 
 of the hot water the thermometer a rose to 46°, and it subsequently 
 rose no higher. Another thermometer (6), dipping under the surface 
 of the water at e, was then introduced ; and the foUowing ore the indica- 
 tions of the two thermometers at the respective intervals, reckoning from 
 the time the hot water was supplied : 
 
DRAINING SOIL WAEMS IT. 139 
 
 20 m. 
 
 1 h. 30 m. 
 
 2 h. 30 m. 
 12 h. 40 m. 
 
 Thermometer b. 
 
 Thermometer a. 
 
 150° 
 
 ... 46° 
 
 101 
 
 ... 45 
 
 801 . 
 
 ... 42 
 
 45 
 
 ... 40 
 
 The mean temperature of the external air to ■which the box was 
 exposed during the above period was 42°; the maximum being 47° 
 and the minim.um 37°. 
 
 ExPEEiMENT No. II. — With the same arrangement as in the preceding 
 case, a gallon of boiling water was introduced above the peat and 
 water, when the thermometer a was at 36° ; in ten minutes it rose to 
 40°. The cock was then turned for the purpose of drainage, which was 
 but slowly effected, and at the end of twenty minutes the thermometer 
 a stUl indicated 40°; at twenty-five minutes 42°, whilst the ther- 
 mometer 6 was 142°. At thirty minutes the cock was withdrawn from 
 the box ; and more free egress of water being thus afforded, at thirty- 
 five minutes the flow was no longer continuous, and the thermometer 6 
 indicated 48° The mass was drained and permeable to a fresh supply 
 of water. 
 
 Accordingly another gallon of boiling water was poured over it 
 and in 
 
 3 minutes the thermometer a rose to 77° 
 5 „ „ feUto76i 
 
 15 j> J) J) 71 
 
 20 „ ,, remained at 70^ 
 
 Ih. 50 „ „ „ 70| 
 
 In these two experiments the thermometer at the bottom of the box 
 suddenly rose a few degrees immediately after the hot water was 
 added; and hence it might be inferred that heat was carried down- 
 wards by the water. But in reality the rise was owing to the action of 
 the hot water on the thermometer, and not to its action upon the cold 
 water. To prove this, the perpendicular thermometers were removed. 
 The box was flUed with peat and water to within three inches of the 
 top ; a horizontal thermometer (af) having been previously secured 
 through a hole made in the side of the box by means of a tight-fitting 
 cork, in which the naked stem of the thermometer was grooved. A 
 gallon of boiling water was then added. The thermometer, a very 
 delicate one, made by Newman, was not in the least affected by the 
 boUing water in the top of the box. 
 
 In this experiment, the wooden box is a field ; the peat and cold 
 water represent the water-logged portion; rain falls on the surface 
 and becomes warmed by contact with the soil and thus heated descends. 
 But it is stopped by the cold water, and the heat will go no further. 
 But if the soil is drained and not water-logged, the warm rain trickles 
 through the crevices in the earth, carrying to the drain-level the high 
 
140 COLD BORDERS CAUSE SHANKING. 
 
 temperature it had gained on the surface, parts with it to the soil as it 
 passes down, and thus produces that bottom heat which is so essential 
 to plants, although so few suspect its existence. 
 
 This necessity of warmth at the root undoubtedly explains in 
 part why it is that hardy trees, over whose roots earth has been 
 heaped or paving laid, are found to suffer so much, or even to 
 die ; in such cases, the earth in which the roots are growing is 
 constantly much colder than the atmosphere, instead of 
 warmer. 
 
 It is to the coldness of the earth that must be ascribed 
 the common circumstance of Vines that are forced early 
 not setting their fruit well, when their roots are in the 
 external border and unprotected by artificial means ; and to the 
 same cause is often to be ascribed the shanking or shrivelling 
 of grapes, which most commonly happens to Vines whose roots 
 are in a cold and unsunned border. 
 
 Mr. Knight long since mentioned an important fact connected with 
 this subject: — " It is well known," he said, "that the bark of Oak-trees 
 is usually stripped off in the spring, and that in the same season the 
 bark of other trees may be easily detached from their alburnum, or 
 sap-wood, from which it is, at that season, separated, by the interven- 
 tion of a mixed cellular and mucUagiuous substance ; this is apparently 
 employed in the organisation of a new layer of iibre, or inner bark, the 
 annual formation of which is essential to the growth of the tree. If, at 
 this period, a severe frosty night or very cold winds occur, the bark 
 of the trunk, or main stem, of the Oak-tree becomes agaiu firmly 
 attached to its alburnum, from which it cannot be separated tUl the 
 return of milder weather. Neither the health of the tree, nor its 
 foliage, nor its blossoms, appear to sustain any material injury by this 
 sudden suspension of its functions ; but the crop of acorns invariably 
 fails. The Apple and Pear-trees appear to be affected to the same 
 extent by similar degrees of cold. Their blossoms, like those of the 
 Oak, unfold perfectly weU, and present the most healthy and vigorous 
 character ; and their poUen sheds freely. Their fruit, also, appears to 
 set well ; but the whole, or nearly the whole, falls off just at the period 
 when its growth ought to commence. Some varieties of the Apple and 
 Pear are much more capable of bearing unfavourable weather than 
 others, and even the Oak-trees present, in this respect, some dissimi- 
 larity of constitution." [Hort. Trans., vi. 229.) 
 
 It is also the coldness of the soil which causes the production 
 of roots upon the stems of the Vme in a hot damp Vinery ; 
 
AEEIAL VINE ROOTS. 141 
 
 which diminishes or prevents colouring; which renders it 
 impossible to ripen wood ; and which deteriorates the quality 
 of the Grape. Hence all good Vine-growers now look more 
 to the temperature of their borders than to its mechanical 
 condition. 
 
 The FoHMATioN OF Aeeiai Roots by Yines is an. immistakeable sign 
 of tiie eoldness of the border. Viaeries may be seen ■with these roots 
 hanging down like beards from the branches ; and these are always 
 followed by bad giapes, unless means are taken to heat the border. 
 The explanation of the phsenomenon seems to be this : — 
 
 The Vine possesses a very strong vegetating power, which is mani- 
 fested whenever sttfflcient heat and moisture are present. It is also 
 well known that if one portion or shoot of a Vine-plant is introduced 
 to an atmosphere congenial to its growth, the buds will push into 
 foliage and shoots ; whilst the rest of the plant, exposed to cold, will 
 not be perceptibly affected, and will contribute nothing to the active 
 vegetation of the branch introduced to heat and moisture. According 
 to circumstances, therefore, vegetation may be active in one part, and 
 at the same time comparatively dormant in another part of the same 
 Vine-plant. If the natural roots are dormant owing to the low 
 temperature to which they are exposed, then unnatural roots wiU be 
 formed by branches if in a state of growth. Moisture favours the 
 formation of these roots ; they shrivel in hot dry weather, but push 
 again on the return of a dull or moist state of the atmosphere. They 
 arise from the shoots being in a highly favourable situation for growth, 
 and the roots in the reverse. The leaves elaborate a quantity of sap 
 proportionate to their size, and to the share which light has had in 
 perfecting their development. Part of this elaborated sap is appro- 
 priated by the above-groxuid portion of the plant. But in ordinary 
 cases, and more especially where a vigorous growth is promoted, there is 
 always a surplus beyond what the stem and its dependencies above 
 ground reqidre, and the proper destination of this is the roots, in order 
 that their increase may correspond with that of the plant above them. 
 But roots in a border five feet deep, and of a clayey nature, wLU be in a 
 temperature little above 40° early in spring. At about 40° water has 
 its greatest density. Under such circumstances any movement in the 
 fluids of the roots must be extremely sluggish ; and were these roots as 
 open to observation as the stem is, there is no doubt they would be 
 found as dormant as a shoot left outside in the cold, compared with 
 another introduced to the heat of a forcing-house. When the roots of 
 Vines are healthy, in proper soil sufficiently warm, their growth proceeds 
 in due proportion to that of the top, but if they are badly conditioned, 
 they can neither act their part nor appropriate their share of the 
 returning juices ; consequently an accumulation of the latter takes 
 
142 AJERIAL VINE ROOTS. 
 
 place in the stems, and, favoured by the moist warm atmosphere of the 
 Vinery, bursts through the bark in the form of fibres, continuing to 
 lengthen tiU they are checked by drought. An extraordinary pro- 
 duction of these aerial roots was observed to take place whilst an 
 experiment was being made with a Black Hamburgh Vine, in the garden 
 of the Horticultural Society. It had grown vigorously in an open 
 border, when, being in freedom, no rootlets broke from the shoots. 
 A 3-light frame was placed over this plant, and made as air-tight 
 as possible ; the sashes were never opened, except to supply water to the 
 roots ; a thermometer inside the frame was generally raised every day 
 above 140° by sun heat. An Orchid placed in a shaded part of the 
 frame was killed in two days, yet the Vine continued to grow. 
 It burst its wiater buds rapidly into shoots, and almost as soon 
 as the buds on these young shoots were formed, they also pushed, 
 weaker of course, and agaia stUl weaker growths proceeded from 
 these secondary shoots. Meanwhile a vast number of roots issued 
 from the shoots trained horizontally near the glass, and these 
 roots soon reached the surface of the ground, which became 
 matted by them, for it was moist, and for a little way sufficiently 
 warm, by reason of the sxm.-heated air in the frame. But with 
 regard to the old roots in the earth, the case was very different. The 
 heated air of the frame could but slightly affect the soil at the depth 
 where they were situated, whilst those extending beyond the limits of 
 the fram.e were of course entirely beyond its influence. 
 
 The consequences of a profusion of branch-roots on the Vine are 
 these ; they absorb moisture from the air in the house, and so tend to 
 increase the breadth of the foliage and swelling of the berries ; even 
 the thickness of the wood is considerably increased by them, for it is 
 not uncommon to see a Vine branch smaller at the base than higher 
 up ; in short they are sources for the supply of nourishment, 
 but they are sources which dry up when they are most wanted. 
 They assist in forming a widely expanded foliage during moist weather; 
 and when dry weather demands a greater supply, to compensate for 
 increased evaporation from broad foliage, the stem-borne rootlets 
 contribute nothing. To their precarious supply may be partly attributed 
 the shanking and shrivelling of fruit. They should be checked in time 
 by allowing the air in the house to become occasionally dry. But above 
 all things, their appearance should be prevented by maintaining a due 
 proportion between the temperature of the air and earth in which 
 the Vines are plunged. 
 
 The effect of aeiipiciallt warmiks a Vine bokdeb, in this country 
 has been seen in many instances; not the least instructive of which 
 occurred to Mr. Purday, the eminent and scientific gunsmith. In his 
 garden at Bayswater, a Vinery was filled with wood and produced an 
 abundance of excellent Grapes in little less than two years, by merely 
 
VINE BORDERS HEATED ARTIFICIALLY. 
 
 143 
 
 wanning the border. The first year the Vines made wood thirty-seven feet 
 long, strong, short-jointed ani well ripened. But the plan was carried out 
 still better at Castle Malgwyn, near Pembroke, the seat of A. L. Gower, 
 Esq., by Mr. Hutchinson, who has described it in the Journal of the 
 Horticultural Society. " The bottom of the border," he says, "is gently 
 sloped from the houses to the extreme edge, where is bmlt a box-drain 
 extending the whole length of the border, as shown in the accompanying 
 section marked 1 ; this drain is one foot square, the top of it being level 
 
 is) BOILER BOILER® 
 
 Fig. XXVIII, — Ground plan of houses, showing cross walls beneath the Vine borders. 
 
 with the bottom of the border, as also shown in section. When this was 
 completed dwarf walls, marked 3, were built across the border, three and a 
 half feet apart, one foot square, in the pigeon-hole manner : on the top 
 of these walls are laid rough flags ; these in reality form the bottom of 
 the border, and upon these is placed about six inches of broken stones 
 and bricks, marked 4, then covered with turf with the grassy side 
 down, to prevent the soil mixing with the stones. There are flues or 
 chimneys at each end of the border and centre communicating with the 
 drains in the bottom, as shown in section marked 2. The top of these 
 flues is nicely made of stone ten inches square, through which is cut a 
 hole of six inches square, into which is inserted a plug of a wedge-like 
 form, so as to fit tightly, but removeable at pleasure ; these flues are 
 about an inch above ground. At the back of the border are placed 
 cast-iron pipes (marked 5), perpendicularly, and also oommimicating 
 
Ui CONCRETma VINE BORDERS. 
 
 •with, the drains underneath; those being higher than the flues in front 
 cause a motion in the air beneath the border. After a long continuance 
 of rain the plugs in the flues in front are taken out, thereby creating a 
 great circulation of air, and thus to a vast extent accelerating the proper 
 dr3dng of the borders, -which is deemed of much importance. In the 
 winter season the borders are covered with leaves and stable manure to 
 the depth of twelve inches. It is obvious that the whole aim of the con- 
 structor of this border was to do that which experience shows to be so 
 important. He not only got rid of superfluous water, but he introduced 
 air in abundance, and at the same time the natural warmth which it 
 carries with it. The result was Black Hamburgh Grapes, weighing 
 from two pounds nine ounces up to Jive pounds a hunch — beautiful fruit 
 of admirable quality, on Vines just seven years old. 
 
 The experiments with coKCKBiiua Vine bobbee, were all made with 
 the same end in view, namely, the elevation of the temperature of the 
 soil in which Vine roots are formed. By keeping them near the 
 surface, they derive much more advantage from the sun than if they 
 penetrated deeply into the ground, which a concrete bottom renders 
 impossible. Mr. Fleming, the experienced gardener at Trentham Hall, 
 in Staffordshire, found it impossible to obtain good Grapes in that cold 
 soil until the plan of concreting was employed. As soon as the bottom 
 of his border was artificially rendered impenetrable by the Vine roots, 
 all difficulty disappeared. In illustration of the effect of the system 
 he mentions in the Gardener's Chronicle for 1850, p. 723, the following 
 circumstance. In one of the houses which had been planted eight 
 years, the black Grapes ceased to colour well ; and as the border was 
 well made, and rested upon well prepared concrete, having a declivity 
 to throw off the wet quickly, he was much disappointed. IJpon opening 
 the ground in front of the border, the cause of the Grapes not colouring 
 was immediately discovered ; the roots had got into the drain, and 
 across it into the subsoil beyond the concrete. 
 
 Mr. Spencer, of Bowood, one of the most experienced and perfectly well 
 informed of aU our great English gardeners, has carried out the plan of 
 concreting in a different manner, of which he has given an account,* 
 which contains so much practical wisdom that it is here republished 
 with little curtailment. 
 
 "On many descriptions of soils, the Viae grows with great vigour, 
 and wiU bear large crops of fruit, Mth but little or no assistance in the 
 way of manure — such appears to be the case with the one at Cumber- 
 land Lodge,t the Hampton Court Vine, and others in various places. 
 
 * See Oardmer's Chronicle for 1850, p. 772. 
 t Tte following is the history of the great Vine at Cumberland Lodge, in Windsor 
 Park, which is aUuded to by Mr. Spencer. It was planted about fifty years ago, in 
 common light garden soil resting upon a bed of hard gravel and clay. In 1860 it produced 
 
BEST SOIL FOR VINES. 145 
 
 The two Vines in question both grow on shallow rich soils, the one at 
 Cumberland Lodge being a light sandy loam resting on the gravel and 
 clay of the London basin, while at Hampton Court it is a finely divided 
 alluvial soil resting on gravel, the subsoil in both cases being dry and 
 compactr Such being the case, it matters little what the material con- 
 sists of, for a clay bottom may be equally good with a gravel one if 
 drained naturally by fissures, or other causes. In such situations the 
 Vine finds all the elements it requires for its growth. The fertilising 
 particles of matter are equally distributed through the soil. There is no 
 disposition in any portion of such soils to run together, or to become sour ; 
 every facility is afibrded the roota to permeate the earth, while the finely 
 divided state of the various ingredients composing them (and their 
 perfect admixture) favours the production of those minute fibrous roots 
 (never found on strong heavy soils) which are so essential an element of 
 success in Grape growing. Here, then, is all the Vine requires to 
 produce good and abundant crops, and to form for itself a constitution 
 enabling it to supply generations with its generous produce. I am not 
 aware of any pecxdiarity in the loams resting on the London clay (such 
 are, however, much the best for all descriptions of potting) except it be 
 in the finely divided state of the parts composing them; and the presence 
 of rich calcareous matter ; but I have seen the Vines growing on similar 
 soils in Hampshire with much freedom, and ripening out of doors fruit 
 in good perfection. Again, on the southern slopes of the hills near 
 Bath the Vine grows vigorously in the natural soU, though the oolite 
 rocks on which the surface soU rests is much colder than either a 
 gravelly or a well-drained clay one. Many of these soils are rich in 
 potash, from being more or less mixed with portions of the fiUler's-eaith 
 beds. The best natural soils for the Vine are those formed by the 
 decomposition of voleanid rooks, such being invariably of a dry, porous 
 quality, and are rich in inorganic matter. Such being the nature of 
 the soils on which the Vine thrives in the greatest perfection, it would 
 be supposed that in the formation of borders expressly for its growth, 
 some approximation would be made towards them by making the 
 borders for the most part, if not all, of the same constituents ; or in 
 other words, forming " a warm, light, dry, shallow soil." In place of 
 this, however, much labour and expense have been incurred in making 
 borders, in which the Vine refuses to thrive at all. .What I may term 
 artificial Vine borders are generally composed of various ingredients, of 
 which loam, dung, and some dry material, as brickbats, mortar, rubbish, 
 &c., may be considered as the principal. To these some add carrion, or 
 other similar substances. Now we will suppose these materials to be 
 
 two thcusand terge bimclies of magnificent Gfrapes, filled a house one Enndred and 
 thirty-eight feet long and sixteen feet wide, and had a stem two feet nine inches in 
 circumference. The border in which it grows is wctrm, light, dry, &ti& shaXUm. 
 
 L 
 
146 SPENCER'S OPINION AS TO 
 
 the best of their kind, that they have been properly mixed and pre- 
 pared, and that the border has been made, and the Vines planted, in 
 the usual way. There can be no question but that (if other things are 
 favourable), on a border of this description, the Vine wiU grow 
 vigorously, and mature fine crops of Grapes. But let us wait some 
 eight or ten years, when the fibre of the loam is rotted, and its elasticity 
 destroyed, by which time the dung has become a sour pasty mass ; 
 while the rain during that period wiU have washed down the more 
 soluble parts, and will have partially, if not totally, stopped the natural 
 drainage. If at the same time the loam has been somewhat of a heavy 
 texture, the evil wiU. be increased. In fact, it will be foimd, on exami- 
 nation, that what was, for the first few years, a rich porous border, has 
 become, through causes perfectly natural, unsuited for the growth of 
 the Vine. 
 
 " I consider that when healthy and permanent Vines are wished for, 
 more loam, and that of a sandy nature, should enter into the composi- 
 tion of Vine borders, and that a large portion of the following should 
 be intimately incorporated with it, viz., charcoal dust, charred matter, 
 wood ashes, and soot. What manure is used should be perfectly rotten, 
 and as dry as can be procured, and that road scrapings, or (what is 
 better) the sweepings of large towns, well rotted, and mixed with the 
 above, will be found one of the best materials for a sound healthy 
 border. 
 
 "In preference to concreting the bottom, I would recommend the 
 border to rest on any description of rough paving stones, raised 
 on rough walls, one foot or more, according to the situation, thus 
 forming a series of air drains under the border, the outlet to 
 which may either be in the house, or in some place enabling you 
 to connect them with the external air. With a bottom of this 
 description I would then certainly concrete the surface. I use gravel, 
 lime, and coal ashes made into mortar, and spread two inches thick ; in 
 addition, when the above is dry, it gets a coat of gas tar over the sur- 
 face ; this forms a compact substance, treading firm underfoot, and 
 efiectuaUy throwing ofi' rain ; common 3-inoh draining pipes are placed 
 upright in the border previously, which stand one inch above the surface 
 when the concrete is laid on. When it is necessary to water the border, 
 it can be done to any extent by pouring water down the pipes. In 
 winter, all agree the drier the border the better ; and plugs are then 
 placeci in them. It will, however, be found that less water will be 
 required than might be expected, arising from the obstruction to free 
 evaporation by the concrete. In a small Vinery, planted in August, 
 1848, the border of which was concreted after planting, I have only 
 watered the outside border once (the inside border being only two feet 
 wide), and yet the Vines have never shown the least indications of 
 having required more, irrespective of the advantage of having in our 
 
THE BEST SOIL FOK VINE BORDERS. 14? 
 
 climate the roots of the Vine under control as respects moisture. 
 Another point gained by concreting is the additional heat the border 
 gains by the absorption of solar heat. I have proved frequently that a 
 border, concreted as I have described, obtains an increase, at twelve 
 inches deep, of from twelve to fifteen degrees, and even more during 
 hot sunshine. This increase of heat on the surface of the border -will 
 have the efieet of causing that part of the border to be the dampest, as 
 it will be the warmest ; the roots accordingly will be more numerous 
 immediately under the concrete, and precisely in that position most 
 favourable for their healthy development. An additional advantage of 
 the concrete is its preventing the border becoming compact, from 
 , walking over it, and consequently its porosity is preserved. I say 
 nothing of the disadvantage ascribed to it, from its supposed prevention 
 of atmospheric air to the border, because I believe the thing impossible ; 
 and on the principles described above, air has access at all times under- 
 neath the border, if it is required, which I believe it is not. It certainly 
 looks somewhat unsightly during summer, but a few pots of flowering 
 plants set on it during summer, and a slight coat of Fern or thatch 
 during winter will do away with its formal appearance.'' 
 
 This plan of concreting the surface is, as wiU have been seen, intended 
 to increase the temperature of the Vine border. In order to secure all 
 the advantages of the method without any disadvantages, it seems 
 essential that the border should rest upon rough materials, so put 
 together that air can readily find its way upward through them into 
 the border. Mr. Spencer's border rests on rough paving-stones raised 
 on rough walls, and is then connected with the external air or with 
 that of the Vinery itself. Under such circumstances, air will find its 
 way to the roots more readily than by any other known method ; and 
 thus the conditions demanded in a perfect Vine border, viz., warmth, 
 dryness in winter, and damp in summer, vrith permeabUity at all 
 seasons, are perfectly fulfilled. That the raising the border on a 
 vaulted bottom is of very great value, concrete or no concrete, is 
 admitted by the best Gfrape growers. Mr. Hutchinson's borders at 
 Castle Malgwyn are so managed ; and the early houses at Trentham, 
 built under Mr. Fleming's direction, have borders of the same kind. 
 We would not, however, be understood to say that these contrivances 
 are at alL times necessary. On the contrary, when soil and situation 
 are naturally suitable to the Vine, very fine Grapes are obtained 
 without any such aids. The important point is, how to deal with this 
 valuable fruit-tree when, as so often happens in Great Britain, the soil 
 and situation are unfavourable ; and that can be only accomplished by 
 securing a sufficient amount of bottom heat, 
 
 Mr. Reid, of Balcarras, has shown that one of the causes of 
 canker and immature fruit, even in orchards, is the coldness of 
 
 L 2 
 
148 NECESSITY OF BOTTOM HEAT. 
 
 the soil. He found that, in a cantered orchard, the roots of 
 the trees had entered the earth to the depth of three feet; and 
 he also ascertained that, during the summer months, the 
 average heat of the soil, at six inches below the surface, 
 was 61°; at nine inches, 57°; at 18 inches, 50°; and at three 
 feet, 44°. He took measures to confine the roots to the 
 soil near the surface, and the consequence was, the disap- 
 pearance of canker, and ripeniag of the fruit. (Memoirs of 
 Caledonian Hort. Soc, vi., part 3 ; and Gardener's Magazine, 
 vii. 56.) The same fact has been observed in many other 
 instances. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we take cases of growth in the artificial 
 climate of hot-houses, we find that Bignonia venusta, and many- 
 other tropical plants, will not flower, unless in a high bottom 
 heat ; and that Palm-trees, planted in the soil of conservatories 
 which it is impracticable to heat sufficiently, soon become 
 unhealthy. 
 
 The reason why it is necessary to plants in a growing state, 
 that the mean temperature of the earth should be higher than 
 that of the air, is sufficiently obvious. Warmth acts as a 
 stimulus to the vital forces, and its operation is in proportion 
 to its amount, within certain limits. If, then, the branches and 
 leaves of a plant are stimulated by warmth to a greater degree 
 than the roots, they will consume the sap of the stem faster 
 than the roots can renew it ; and, therefore, nature takes care 
 to provide against this by giving to the roots a medium perma- 
 nently more stimulating, that is, warmer, than to the branches 
 and leaves. 
 
 We regard warmth not merely as a stimulus of vegetation; it is 
 extremely necessary for tlie solution of various substances witk wMcli 
 tlie water comes in contact. It also seta free certain gases which the 
 leaves take up, and through these sources of nourishment promotes the 
 growth of plants. — Oerman Hd. 
 
 Such being the fact, it is obvious that one of the first of a 
 gardener's cares should be, to secure the means of insuring a 
 proper -temperature to the soil in which he grows his plants, 
 and that this is Requisite for hardy as well as tender species. 
 
CHERRIES AND LETTUCES, HOW FORCED. 149 
 
 I entertain little doubt that the time is at hand when it will he 
 considered quite as necessary to furnish heat for the soil as- for 
 the air; not, however, heat without moisture, for that would 
 evidently produce much greater evils than it was intended to 
 cure, as has indeed been found by inconsiderate experimenters. 
 Mr. Writgen is probably right in believing that it is the 
 temperature and moisture of a soil quite as much as its 
 mineralogical quality, that determine its influence upon vegeta- 
 tion. (See Erster Jahresbericht, dc, am Mittel und Nieder- 
 Bhein,. p. 64.) It must not, however, be supposed that the 
 nature, whether chemical or physical, of soil is unimportant. A 
 crop of wheat cannot be had on peat, nor will salt plants thrive 
 when the soil contains no marine salt. 
 
 Mr. Fintelinann, the king of Prussia's gardener at Potsdam, 
 is celebrated for his success in the difficult art of forcing 
 Cherries, and he has given an account of his practice {Gard. 
 Mag., vol. iii., p. 64), in which it appears that the most pecuKar 
 feature is the strict attention he pays to the temperature of 
 the roots. He first soaks the roots in water heated by the 
 mixture of equal parts of boiling and cold water ; he afterwards 
 sprinkles the trees with luke-warm water, and he continues to 
 employ it of the same temperature as long as watering is 
 required. Thus his roots are constantly maintained at the 
 requisite temperature by the trickling of the warm water into 
 the soil. 
 
 It seems, indeed, clear, that the success of the Dutch in 
 obtaining an abundance of fresh vegeta]j)les, such as Lettuces, 
 during the whole winter, is in part owing to their being able to 
 maintain a gentle bottom heat. No doubt this is connected 
 with the abundant light which their forcing structures admit, 
 and with other causes of considerable importance, such as an 
 abundant, constant, and skilful introduction of fresh air; but 
 none of those causes can be supposed likely, in the absence 
 of the bottom heat, to produce such a result as the Dutch 
 gardeners obtain. 
 
 If it is necessary that the temperature of the soil in which 
 plants grow should be carefully regulated, and adjusted to their 
 natural habits, it is no less requisite that the water in which 
 
150 WATER FOR AQUATICS MUST BE WARMED. 
 
 aquatics are cultivated should be also brought to a fitting heat. 
 Mr. William Kent succeeded well in making many tropical species 
 flower, by growing them in lead cisterns plunged in a tan-bed 
 {Hort. Trans., iii. 34) in a close heat. In like manner, Mr. 
 Christie Duff procured flowers in abundance from Nymphsea 
 rubra, cserulea, and odorata, by placing them in a cistern in a pine 
 stove upon the end flues, where the fire enters and escapes ; or 
 by plunging them into tan-beds in pine-houses, varying in 
 temperature from 80° to 100°. {Hort. Trans., vii. 386.) Very 
 lately, Mr. Sylvester, of Chorley, in Lancashire, obtained fine 
 flowers from Nelumbium luteum, by paying attention to the 
 temperature of the water. When he kept the latter at 85°, the 
 plants grew vigorously, and were in perfect health, but flowerless ; 
 but by lowering it to 70° — 75°, which more nearly approaches 
 the heat to which the plant is naturally accustomed, the mag- 
 nificent blossoms were produced and succeeded by seeds ; the 
 red Nelumbium, however, which inhabits countries with a 
 greater summer heat than the yellow, at the same time suffered 
 by this lowering of temperature, none of its blossom buds 
 having been able to unfold. {Bot. Mag., xiii., n. s. t. 3753.) 
 The water of rice fields, in which the red Nelumbium flourishes, 
 was seen by Meyen at 113° at Lantao, in China. 
 
 The Victoria Lily affords another instance. It will grow while its 
 roots are in a temperature wholly insufficient to enable it to ilower. 
 And another water plant, the Aponogeton distachyum, iiowers abun- 
 dantly even in winter wherever the temperature of the pond in which it 
 grows rises sufficiently. 
 
 Well-regulated bottom heat being thus shown to be of such immense 
 importance in gardening, it is surprising that more attention should not 
 be paid to economising the waste water of steam engines where factories 
 are conveniently situated. "What may be done, without cost, by atten- 
 tion to this, is shown by the following experiment tried by Mr. DOlwyn 
 Llewellyn, of Penllergare. From a small eight-inch cylinder engine, 
 employed by him for agricultural purposes, this gentleman conducted a 
 jet of steam for twenty minutes daily, through an inch iron pipe, into a 
 bed of rough stones, covered by a glazed frame. A journal of the tem- 
 perature was kept for eleven days, with the following result : — 
 
APPLICATION OF WASTE STEAM. 
 
 151 
 
 glATBMEHT Ot EXPERIMENT WITH WaSTB StHAM, AS A MEDIUM OF BoiIOM HeAT, 
 MADE AT PbNLLEKOABE, 1850. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Time of 
 Observation. 
 
 Tliermo- 
 meter. 
 
 
 April. 
 9 . 
 
 12 Noon . 
 
 Degrees. 
 51 
 
 Steam introduced about 12 o'clock. 
 
 )) 
 
 5 P.M. . . 
 
 54 
 
 
 )> 
 
 7 V.M. , . 
 
 56 
 
 
 10 . 
 
 12 Noon . 
 
 68 
 
 Steam introduced. 
 
 u 
 
 3 P.M. . . 
 
 73 
 
 
 ■)> 
 
 5 P.M. . . 
 
 85 
 
 
 J) 
 
 7 P.M. . . 
 
 96 
 
 
 11 . 
 
 7 a.m.. . 
 
 108 
 
 Steam not introduced. 
 
 )) 
 
 12 Noon . 
 
 104 
 
 
 tt 
 
 5 P.M. . . 
 
 98 
 
 
 12 . 
 
 10 A.M. . . 
 
 83 
 
 Steam not introduced. 
 
 )> 
 
 7 P.M. . . 
 
 79 
 
 
 13 . 
 
 10 A.M. . . 
 
 69 
 
 Steam introduced. 
 
 )) 
 
 6 P.M. . . 
 
 75 
 
 
 14 . 
 
 10 A.M. . . 
 
 82 
 
 Steam not put on. 
 
 )) 
 
 7 P.M. . . 
 
 79 
 
 
 15 . 
 
 10 A.M. . . 
 
 70 
 
 Steam introduced. 
 
 J) 
 
 6 P.M. . . 
 
 73 
 
 
 16 . 
 
 10 A.M. . . 
 
 81 
 
 Steam introduced. 
 
 17 , 
 
 10 A.M. . . 
 
 76' 
 
 Steam introduced. 
 
 )» 
 
 4 P.M. . . 
 
 79 
 
 
 18 . 
 
 10 A.M. . . 
 
 94 
 
 Steam introduced. 
 
 i) 
 
 5 P.M. . . 
 
 110 
 
 
 19 . 
 
 10 A.M. . . 
 
 108 
 
 Steam not introduced. 
 
 » 
 
 6 P.M. . 
 
 96 
 
 
 From this it appears, 1st, that although steam was introduced among 
 the stones for only twenty minutes a day, the temperature was raised 
 from 51° to 68° in the first twenty-four hours ; 2nd, that the tempera- 
 ture continued to rise for many hours after the second application of 
 steam, until the thermometer reached 108° ; 3rd, that at the end of 
 nineteen hours the heat of the 'frame diminished; yet 4th, that at the 
 end of seventy hours the temperature still was 69°, This appears a 
 conclusive answer to those who think that masses of heated water, or 
 heated porous materials, like, rough stones, will become so reduced in 
 temperature by a few hours' withdrawal of the prime heating power as 
 to endanger the plants cultivated in houses thus warmed. The experi- 
 ment continued to be successful, and enabled Pine-apples of the most 
 perfect quality to ripen. 
 
152 DOUBTS ABOUT BOTTOM HEAT. 
 
 An opinion has, nevertheless, been entertained, that bottom 
 heat is useless; there is in the Horticultural Transactions, 
 (vol. iii. 288) a paper to show that it is injurious; and the 
 authority of Mr. Knight has been referred to in support of the 
 opinion, in consequence of that great horticulturist having 
 expressed a belief that the " bark-bed is worse than useless." 
 {Hort. Trans., iv. 73.) But Mr. Knight repeatedly disavowed 
 entertaining any such sentiments. In one place, he stated that 
 the temperature of the air of the stoves in which his Pine-apple 
 and other stove plants grew, without ba/rk or other hot-bed, usually 
 varied from 70° to 85° ; and that the mould in his pots, being 
 surrounded by such air, acquired and retained, as it necessarily 
 must, very near the same aggregate temperature, but subject 
 to less extensive variation {Gard. Mag. , v. S65):m another, he 
 says the temperature of the air was varied in his stove generally 
 from about 70° to 85° of Fahrenheit; and he ascertained, by 
 keeping a thermometer immersed in the mould of the pots, that 
 the temperature of the soil varied very considerably less than 
 that of the air of the stove ; the mould being in the morning 
 generally some degrees warmer than the air of the house, and in 
 the middle of the day, and early part of the evening, some 
 degrees cooler. ( Hort. Trans., vii. 255.) It is, therefore, clear 
 that he considered a high temperature necessary for the roots 
 of his Pine-apple plants ; and we find from one of his papers 
 {Hort. Trans., iv. 544), that he considered it better to obtain the 
 requisite temperature from the atmosphere than from a bark-bed, 
 the usual source of bottom heat, " because its temperature is 
 constantly subject to excess and defect;" and he even admitted 
 that if the bark-bed could be made to give a steady temperature 
 of about 10° below that of the day temperature of the air in the 
 stove. Pine plants would thrive better in a compost of that 
 temperature than in a colder. The dispute about bottom heat 
 was not as to the necessity of it, but as to the manner of 
 obtaining it, which, as it concerns the art of gardening, I need 
 not further notice. 
 
 We have, doubtless, much to learn as to the proper manner 
 of applying bottom heat to plants, and as to the amount they 
 will bear under particular circumstances. It is, in particular, 
 
EXTREME CLIMATES. 153 
 
 probable ihat in hot-houses plants will not bear the same 
 quantity of bottom heat as they receive in nature, because we 
 cannot give them the same amount of light and atmospheric 
 warmth ; and it is necessary that we should ascertain experi- 
 mentally whether it is not a certain proportion between the heat 
 of the air and earth that we must secure, rather than any absolute 
 amount of bottom heat. 
 
 It may also be, indeed it no doubt is, requisite to apply a very 
 high degree of heat to some kinds of plants at particular seasons, 
 although a very much lower amount is suitable afterwards ; a 
 remark that is chiefly applicable to the natives of what are 
 called extreme chmates, that is to say, where a very high 
 summer temperature is followed by a very low winter tempera- 
 ture. Such countries are Persia, and many parts of the United 
 States, where the summers are excessively hot, and the wiater's 
 cold intense. The seeming impossibility of imitating such 
 conditions artificially will probably account for many of the 
 difficulties we experience ia bringing certain fruits, the Newtown 
 Pippin, the Cherry, the Grape, the Peach, and the Almond, to the 
 perfection they acquire in other countries. 
 
 The great point to attend to in these considerations is the 
 extremes of temperature to which plants are subject when 
 growing; for this reason the calculations of M. Boussingault 
 have less value than might have been anticipated. This disr 
 tinguished French writer upon rural economy proposed, some 
 years ago, a method of determining what amount of heat a 
 plant requires, ia order to be enabled to perform the functions 
 allotted to it by Nature. This method consisted in determining 
 the length of time over which a function extends, and also the 
 mean temperature during that period. Thus, if a given plant 
 requires 20 days to ripen its seeds after flowering, and the mean 
 temperature during that time was 10°, it would be assumed that 
 the plant in question requires 200° of heat to complete the 
 ripening process. Or if the period occupied was 10 days, and 
 the mean heat 10°, then only 100° of heat would be required, 
 and so on. M. Boussiagault's method was a great improvement 
 upon the previous modes of computation. Observers had been 
 previously contented with annual or quarterly, or other long 
 
15i INUTILITY OF MEAN AIK TEMPERATURES. 
 
 means of temperature, as furnishing the elements required to 
 determine whether a given plant could be adTantageously 
 cultivated in a given country. But these means were aU more 
 or less fallacious, and might have led to serious mistakes. 
 Mean temperatures are useless to cultivators unless they repre- 
 sent what takes place during the period of vegetation. We do 
 not want to know what the temperature is of seasons when, or 
 of places where, plants do not grow, unless for the purpose of 
 determining the amount of winter protection which they may 
 require; and all indications of climate in which the dormant 
 season is mixed with the growing season only mislead. Suppose, 
 for example, it was to be said that the mean annual tempera- 
 tures of Longville and Bretville are the same (say 35°), this 
 would be no proof of similarity of climate, for Longville might 
 have the winter mean 30°, the summer mean 50°; while 
 Bretville might have the winter mean 30°, and the summer 
 mean 40° — cold winters and temperate summers characterisiag 
 one place, mild winters and bad summers characterising the 
 other. Nor are daily means much more useful. Let us suppose 
 that Longville has in June a daily mean of 45°, while that of 
 BretviUe is 50° ; it might be that these means represented hot 
 days and cold nights in the one case, and cool days and 
 mUd nights in the other — conditions which for the purposes of 
 cultivation are whoUy different. That M. Boussiugault's 
 method of explaining the relation between plants and climate 
 was an important improvement upon the usual indications is 
 not to be denied. But it was not wholly satisfactory. Pushed 
 to its limits the theory was manifestly untenable, for it amounted 
 to this — that if a plant requires 30 days with 10° of heat in each 
 day, or 300° to do a certain thing, and if it can do the same 
 thing in 10 days, with 80° of heat in each day, then it ought to 
 accomplish the same end in one day by the aid of 800° of heat, 
 which is absurd. 
 
 In all considerations relating to ground temperature, the 
 gardener should inform himself more especially upon three 
 points : — 1, the temperature of the soil when plants are at rest; 
 8, that when they are in vigorous growth ; and 3, that when 
 they are ripening their fruit. The first points out the bottom 
 
NATURAL GROUND TEMPERATURES. 
 
 155 
 
 heat to be maintained in winter, the second in summer, the 
 third in autumn. Information upon this question can be had 
 by consultiag the tables of temperature published in the 
 Journal of the Horticultwal Society, vol. iv., and comparing 
 them with the remarks at the pages following p. 1 13 of this work. 
 In what way such evidence is to be practically employed will be 
 seen m the succeeding table, calculated by Mr. E. Thompson, 
 with a view to explaining what the natural temperature is to 
 which certain plants commonly cultivated are exposed in the 
 climates best adapted to their healthy development. 
 
 I. — A Table of Ground Tempebatttrbs natceal to Certaiit Plants, as either 
 
 AOIUALLY OBSERVED, OR OALOULATED FROM KNOWN AlR TeMPEEATBRE. 
 
 Name. 
 
 = Most . 
 Suitable Climate. 
 
 Season of 
 Growth. 
 
 Season of 
 Eipening. 
 
 Season of 
 Best, 
 
 Apple, Pear, &c. 
 Peach and Nectarine 
 Apricot .... 
 
 Cherry 
 
 Gooseberry,' &c. . . 
 
 Q,mnce 
 
 Tine, Muscats . . 
 ,, Sweetwaters . 
 
 Fig 
 
 Melon 
 
 Plantain, or Banana 
 Pine-apple . . . 
 
 Mango 
 
 Vanilla . . . . 
 Orange . . . . 
 Mangosteen . . . 
 Loquat . . . . 
 Litchi 
 
 Oats 
 
 Barley 
 
 Wheat 
 
 Maize 
 
 nice 
 
 North of Prance 
 Persia 
 Armenia . 
 Asia Minor 
 Lancashire 
 Portugal 
 Sicily . . 
 Paris . . 
 Smyrna . 
 Smyrna . 
 Jamaica . 
 Suriilam . 
 Bengal . 
 Surinam . 
 Malta . . 
 Malacca; . 
 Japan . . 
 Canton . 
 
 Scotland . 
 England . 
 Castile 
 Virginia . 
 Bengal . 
 
 59 
 65 
 67 
 56 
 54- 
 62 
 66 
 58 
 60 
 60 
 82 
 82 
 85 
 82 
 60 
 84 
 70 
 74 
 
 51 
 54 
 61 
 70 
 89 
 
 64 
 78 
 72 
 68 
 61 
 70 
 80 
 66 
 80 
 80 
 88 
 88 
 89 
 88 
 77 
 86 
 80 
 86 
 
 67 
 62 
 78 
 79 
 92 
 
 41 
 55 
 27 
 43 
 44 
 55 
 65 
 41 
 46 
 
 80 
 81 
 83 
 81 
 66 
 81 
 49 
 59 
 
 41 
 42 
 46 
 
156 
 
 NATURAL GEOUND TEMPBRATUEES. 
 
 ir. — A TabIE of the ASOERTAIIfED, OK ESTIMATED AvEKASE ©KOtJSD TEMPERATnKESl 
 IK BIPFEKBHT PARTS OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 Country. 
 
 Season of 
 Growtli. 
 
 Ripening. 
 
 Best. 
 
 LoNDoir (CHswiok) 
 
 Africa, South (Cape of Good Hope) , 
 
 ,, ,, (Gfraf Reynet) , . . 
 Algiers 
 
 ,, (Constantiae) 
 
 AmBterdam. 
 
 Armenia (ErzeroTim) 
 
 Astraohan 
 
 Australia (Coburg Peninsula) . , 
 ,, (Port Jackson) . . . . 
 ,, "Western (Perth.) . . . 
 
 Ava 
 
 Azores (St. Michael's) 
 
 Batavia 
 
 Berlin 
 
 Berne 
 
 Beyrout .... 
 
 Bogota 
 
 Bombay .... 
 Brussels .... 
 Bucharest .... 
 
 Cairo 
 
 Calcutta .... 
 Canada (Toronto) . 
 Canton ..... 
 Caraocas (Maraoaybo) 
 Ceylon (BaduUa) . 
 „ (Candy) . . 
 Constantinople . . 
 Dantzic .... 
 
 Dublin 
 
 Edinburgh . . . 
 Falkland Islands 
 Morenoe .... 
 Fort Vancouver . . 
 
 55 
 62 
 65 
 66 
 66 
 57 
 57 
 56 
 83 
 67 
 67 
 79 
 
 65 
 
 82 
 
 84 
 
 59 
 
 49 
 
 65 
 
 64 
 
 84 
 
 59 
 
 58 
 
 70 
 
 82 
 
 58 
 
 74 
 
 87 
 
 73 
 
 75 
 
 64 
 
 54 
 
 56 
 
 61 
 
 49 
 
 64 
 
 54 
 
 62 
 67 
 74 
 76 
 82 
 64 
 72 
 74 
 85 
 75 
 81 
 88 
 
 68 
 
 83 
 
 91 
 
 64 
 
 59 
 
 '79 
 
 64 
 
 87 
 
 65 
 
 65 
 
 87 
 
 90 
 
 66 
 
 84 
 
 89 
 
 76 
 
 78 
 
 73 
 
 64 
 
 60 
 
 57 
 
 56 
 
 76 
 
 65 
 
 42 
 
 68 
 
 68 
 
 57 
 
 49 
 
 40 
 
 27 
 
 23 
 
 80 
 
 88 
 
 69 
 
 68 
 
 60 
 
 80 
 
 67 
 
 36 
 
 33 
 
 69 
 
 62 
 
 82 
 
 41 
 
 30 
 
 62 
 
 75 
 
 30 
 
 67 
 
 86 
 
 71 
 
 74 
 
 44 
 
 30 
 
 44 
 
 41 
 
 42 
 
 44 
 
 41 
 
NATUEAL GROUND TEMPERATURES. 
 
 157 
 
 Table of Avekahe Gkound Tbmperatukes — confirmed. 
 
 Country. 
 
 Season of 
 Growth. 
 
 Bipening. 
 
 Best, 
 
 Geneva 
 
 Genoa 
 
 Guatemala ..... 
 
 Guinea 
 
 Havamiab. 
 
 Himalayas (Khasia) . . 
 
 Hotart Town 
 
 Honolulu ...... 
 
 Hlinois (St. Louis) . . . 
 
 Jamaica (Kingston) , . . 
 
 Java (Bnitenzorg) . . . 
 
 Jerusalem 
 
 lima 
 
 Lisbon 
 
 Liverpool ■ 
 
 Macao 
 
 Madeira (Funehal) . . . 
 
 Madras 
 
 Madrid 
 
 Manilla 
 
 Melbourne 
 
 Mexico . 
 
 MontpeUier 
 
 Montreal 
 
 Moscow 
 
 Munich 
 
 Naples 
 
 New Orleans 
 
 Kew York , 
 
 Kew Zealand (AucHand) , 
 
 Nova Scotia (HaJifas) . , 
 
 Niger 
 
 Ootacamund . . . . , 
 
 Oran 
 
 Oregon (Columbia) . . . 
 
 Palermo 
 
 Paris .,,..., 
 
 Penzance 
 
 58 
 
 65 
 
 70 
 
 86 
 
 80 
 
 78 
 
 53 
 
 77 
 
 65 
 
 82 
 
 80 
 
 65 
 
 75, 
 
 64 
 
 .54 
 
 .72 
 
 .65 
 
 ,85 
 
 61 
 
 78. 
 
 60 
 
 64 
 
 65 
 
 65 
 
 57 
 
 59 
 
 64 
 
 76 
 
 64 
 
 59 
 
 50 
 
 88 
 
 63 
 
 66 
 
 65 
 
 66 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 70 
 76 
 72 
 87 
 83 
 85 
 6? 
 80 
 .77 
 , 88 
 81 
 76 
 , 82 
 71 
 62 
 85 
 74 
 88 
 78 
 90 
 65 
 67 
 74 
 72 
 65 
 64 
 76 
 84 
 72 
 66 
 69 
 91 
 66 
 75 
 75 
 80 
 66 
 63 
 
 33 
 
 51 
 
 70 
 
 84 
 
 77 
 
 64 
 
 44 
 
 74 
 
 34 
 
 80 
 
 79 
 
 52 
 
 70 
 
 56 
 
 44 
 
 60 
 
 67 
 
 83 
 
 46 
 
 74 
 
 51 
 
 58 
 
 46 
 
 25 
 
 24 
 
 33 
 
 50 
 
 56 
 
 36 
 
 53 
 
 26 
 
 84 
 
 56 
 
 53 
 
 41 
 
 55 
 
 41 
 
 47 
 
158 
 
 NATURAL GEOUND TEMPERATURES. 
 
 Tabie of Ayerage Gkocnd Temperatures — continued. 
 
 Country. 
 
 Persia (Bushire) . . 
 Persia (Mosul) . . , 
 Polynesia (Eaiatea) . . 
 
 Quebec 
 
 Quito 
 
 Rio Janeiro . . . . 
 
 Rome 
 
 St. Petersburg . . . 
 
 Sebastopol 
 
 Shanghae 
 
 Sincapore 
 
 Surinam (Paramaribo) , 
 
 Teflis 
 
 Trebizond 
 
 Trincomalee . . . . 
 Virginia (Norfolk) . . 
 
 Vera Cruz 
 
 Venice 
 
 Vienna 
 
 "Washington . . . . 
 
 
 Season of 
 Growtli. 
 
 Eipening. 
 
 Best. 
 
 
 79 
 
 90 
 
 64 
 
 
 65 
 
 93 
 
 48 
 
 
 81 
 
 84 
 
 79 
 
 
 58 
 64 
 
 77 
 
 71 
 66 
 
 84 
 
 20 
 63 
 
 74 
 
 
 
 
 64 
 45 
 
 76 
 60 
 
 49 
 25 
 
 
 
 60 
 73 
 84 
 82 
 
 70 
 80? 
 85 
 88 
 
 39 
 
 49 
 83 
 81 
 
 
 
 
 
 65 
 63 
 
 84 
 
 77 
 75 
 88 
 
 37 
 50 
 80 
 
 
 
 
 68 
 
 80 
 
 48 
 
 
 81 
 60 
 63 
 60 
 
 86 
 
 ■74 
 
 69 
 
 77 
 
 74 
 40 
 34 
 34 
 
 
 
 
 The temperature here estimated as that of the season of rest is to' be 
 understood as what roots are probably exposed to at a foot below the 
 surface. Of course, upon the surface, the temperature would be lower. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE MOISTURE OF THE SOIL.— WATERING. 
 
 It has already been shown that water is one of the most 
 important ingredients in the food of plants, partly from their 
 having the power of decomposing it, and partly because it is the 
 vehicle through which the soluble matters found in the earth 
 are conveyed into the general system of vegetation. Its 
 importance depends, however, essentially upon its quantity. 
 
 We know, on the one hand, that plants will not live in soil 
 which, without being chemically dry, contains so little moisture 
 as to appear dry ; and, on the other hand, an excessive quantity 
 of moisture is, in many cases, equally prejudicial. The great 
 points to determine are, the amount which is most congenial to 
 a given species under given circumstances, and the periods of 
 growth when water should be applied or withheld. 
 
 When a plant is at rest, that is to say, in the winter of 
 northern countries and the dry season of the tropics, but a small 
 supply of water is required by the soil, because at that time 
 the stems lose but little by perspiration, and consequently the 
 roots demand but little food; nevertheless, some terrestrial 
 moisture is required by plants with perennial stems, even in 
 their season of rest, because it is necessary that their system 
 should, at that time, be replenished with food against the 
 renewal of active vegetation. Hence, when trees are taken out 
 of the earth in autumn, and allowed to remain exposed to a dry 
 air all the winter, they either perish, or are greatly enfeebled. 
 If, on the other hand, the soil in which they stand is filled with 
 moisture, their system is distended with aqueous matter at a time 
 when it cannot be decomposed or thrown off, and the plant either 
 
160 EFFECTS OF EXCESSIVE WINTER-WET. 
 
 loses its roots by rotting, or becomes unnaturally susceptible of 
 the influence of cold in rigorous climates, or is driven prema- 
 turely iato growth, when its new parts perish from the 
 unfavourable state of the air in which they are then developed. 
 The most suitable condition of the soil, at the period of vegetable 
 rest, seems to be that ia which no more aqueous matter is 
 contained than results from the capillary attraction of the 
 earthy particles. 
 
 During the season of 1852 and 1853, in wMcli rain fell, witli little inter- 
 mission, from November till March., and inxmdated permanently gardens 
 in low situations, Ehododendrons, although fond of moisture, perished 
 to a great extent. During winter they seemed to be healthy, but when 
 spring arrived their leaves became dull, changed to brown, and withered, 
 and the buds refused to push ; or, when attempts were made by planta 
 to renew their vegetation, their growth was feeble, and most of them 
 died in the course of the following autumn or winter. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are exceptions to this, in the case of 
 aquatic and marsh plants, whose peculiar constitution enables 
 them to bear with impunity, during their winter, an immersion 
 in water ; and in that of many kinds of bulbs, which, during their 
 season of rest, are exposed to excessive heat and dryness. The 
 latter plants are, however, constructed in a peculiar manner; 
 their roots are annual, and perish at the same time as the leaves, 
 when all the absorbent organs being lost, the bulb cannot be 
 supposed to require any supply of moisture, inasmuch as it 
 possesses no means of taking it up, even if it existed in the soil. 
 
 The conditions under which true ac[uatics exist have been so well 
 explained by a philosophical writer, in the ~ Gardener's Chronicle, 
 1852, p. 19, that I quote his statement without curtailment, although 
 his remarks, in part, refer to other questions besides the moisture of ^e 
 medium in which roots are placed :^— 
 
 Plants growing entirely under water are to some extent protected 
 from those great and sudden changes of temperature to which ordinary 
 land plants are frequently exposed ; at the same time, however, water 
 plants are very often injured by cold, and it not unfreqiiently happens, 
 that on a cold winter's night plants in a pond will be greatly injured, or 
 even killed, whilst those in a neighbouring pond will remain quite 
 uninjured. In order to understand the precise cause, of this pheno- 
 menon, we must examine the conditions under which plants grow, and 
 the peculiar sources of injury to which they are "consequently exposed. 
 
EVAPORATION— CONDUCTION. 16t 
 
 ^er'e are ttree perfectly distinct modes in wLich. tlie surface Of tW 
 earth becomes cooled, and these are by evaporation, by conductionj and 
 by radiation. When water evaporates it becomes colder, because, in 
 the formation of vapour, heat is always absorbed. This simple fact is 
 of the greatest importance to the Hfe of both plants and animals* 
 When plants are exposed to a hot sunshine, the moisture which they 
 contain gradually evaporates, and in so doing absorbs the great heat of 
 the sun's rays, which would otherwise injure plants and bum them up. 
 Evaporation from the surface of the leaves is generally in proportion to 
 the direct heat of the sun, and it is necessary as a means of keeping the 
 plant cool, and preventing it from being scorched ; if soil is dry, so that 
 the plant cannot obtain, by means of its roots, a constant supply of 
 moisture to keep up this daily evaporation from its leaves, it has no 
 power of withstanding the heat of the sun, and it withers and fades the 
 first hot day. Whenever, and ia whatever manner, we check the 
 constant evaporation which always goes on in the leaves of a healthy 
 plant, we run a risk of killing it by exposure to hot sunshine. The 
 common experience of the gardener gives plenty of examples of the 
 truth of this; but there are other eases in which, though the same effect 
 is produced, and the same principle is involved, its influence is not so 
 self-evident. When, for example, a plant is placed in a close hothouse, 
 confined in a hot damp air, its perspiration is cheeked, because the air 
 being already saturated with moisture, it has little power of carrying 
 off the moisture evaporated by the leaves, and consequently the plant 
 has less power of withstanding the heating influence of the sun's rays 
 than it has in the open air, or in a state of nature. 
 
 As evaporation, on the oiie hand, is a natural means of counteracting 
 the excessive heat of the sun, so, on the other hand, it is the chief 
 cooling agent in nature, and every ciroumstance tending to increase 
 evaporation from the surface of the soil tends also to cool it. As a 
 moist air and a diminished circulation are most unfavourable to evapora- 
 tion, so a dry air and free circulation grea/tly facilitate it.. The cooling 
 effect of a cold dry wind is familiar to every one ; its iofluenee depends 
 on the fact, that dry air readily absorbs moisture from any surface 
 exposed to it, whilst the rapid motion of the wind, by carrying away 
 the moisture as fast as it is formed, insures a constant supply of fresh, 
 dry air, and thus, by aiding in the formation of moisture, rapidly cools 
 the surface on which it blows. 
 
 The second mode in which plants are cooled is by conduction, or by 
 the mere contact of cold air ; and this is quite independent of the cold 
 produced by evaporation. When a cold wind drives along the surface 
 of the ground it gradually cools it, and, of course, likewise the plants 
 growing on it, by the simple abstraction, or carrying away of heat. S» 
 long as the surrounding air is colder than the plants it wiU tend to 
 reduce their temperature ; and if the air is in motion, as fresh portions 
 
162 RADIATION. 
 
 of cold air will continually come in contact with, tie plants, they inust 
 gradually get colder and colder, even though no evaporation takes 
 place, till they are as cold as the air itself. 
 
 Radiation, the .third mode in which plants are influenced by cold, 
 depends upon the curious fact, that when two substances are placed 
 opposite to each other in the free and open air, if the one is warmer 
 than the other, it will immediately begin to give out its heat, which 
 will be received by the colder substance. The diflPerenee between this 
 mode of cooling and mere conduction is, that in the latter heat travels 
 from the hot to the colder surface by contact, and therefore only when 
 they absolutely touch each other, whilst in radiation, the two surfaces 
 are at a distance, and the heat passes at once through the air, and 
 without in any way warming it. The heat of the sun is radiant heat — 
 it passes through the clear air without communicating any warnith to 
 it, though it warms the earth below ; and then when the sun's rays 
 have warmed the earth, the latter in turn begins to warm the surround- 
 ing air — ^but this effect is no longer one of radiation, it is simply an 
 effect of conduction. On a clear night the surface of the ground may 
 be exposed to all three of these cooling influences at once ; it may be 
 cooled by evaporation, by contact with cold air, and by radiation. In 
 reality, however, it is very seldom that all these cooling influences are 
 in operation at the same time, because there are several counteracting 
 powers at work tending to keep the surface of the soil at a tolerably 
 uniform temperature ; and foremost of these is the formation of dew. 
 As the evaporation of water is a cooling process, heat being absorbed, 
 so the condensation of moisture is a warming process, an equal amount 
 of heat being given out ; consequently, just in proportion as the surface 
 of the earth after sunset is cooled by radiation, it will acquire the 
 power of condensing the moisture in the air, and by that very act will 
 gain. heat. It must also be remembered that radiation only takes place 
 in a still and clear night ; when there are clouds or mist, radiation does 
 not occur. • 
 
 "Water may be cooled either by evaporation, or by the contact of cold 
 air, but it differs from the soil in the fiacility with which it is moved, 
 and the readiness with which currents are formed m it. When the 
 . earth is exposed to cooling inftuences, the surface soon becomes cold, 
 .but as heat travels very slowly through the porous soU, it takes a very 
 long time before,the cold penetrates, or rather before the heat escapes 
 .from any depth below the surface; in the case of water it is quite 
 different, because when the surface is in any way cooled, the water 
 becomes heavier or denser, and a kind of circulation is immediately 
 established, the cold water descending, and the warmer water rising to 
 its surface. In this manner, then, so long as the cooling influences 
 1 continue, the water goes on sinking in temperature, the whole body of 
 it getting colder ; this, however, does not continue after it has arrived 
 
COOLING OP WATER. 163 
 
 at a temperature of 40°, or about 8° abote the freezing point ; wlien thia 
 is the case, all circulation in tbe water ceases, because if the surface 
 ■water is then cooled still lower, it no longer continues to contract and 
 become denser, but on the contrary expands, so that it then remains 
 floating on the surface. It follows from this very interesting fact, that 
 when on a cold winter's night the surface of a pond is cooled, the whole 
 body of water sinks in temperature to 40°, after that, the surface only 
 continues to get colder, and a film of ice is soon formed, while the 
 water below continues at a temperature of 40°. In consequence of this 
 kind of circulation, and the facility with which it is produced, a body 
 of water is easily cooled down to within 8° of freezing, but when once 
 it has arrived at that point its further cooluig proceeds very slowly, 
 even though the cold becomes much more intense ; for the water below 
 is in fact protected from contact with the cold air by the film of ice at 
 the surface, and ice is so bad a conductor of heat that the freezing of 
 the water under the ice goes on very slowly ; in temperate climates ice 
 is seldom more than a few inches in thickness, and the water in deep 
 ponds not only never freezes, but, indeed, never falls in temperature 
 much below 40°. 
 
 Water plants, therefore, axe, in. fact, preserved from cold by the 
 coating of ice which forms over the surface of the pond in which they 
 grow ; if the water is deep they are seldom injured ; but if the water is 
 shallow, and the cold long-continued, the whole depth of it will in time 
 freeze, and the plants will be more or less injured. Plants growing in 
 water thus walled over with ice are protected from all the three cooling 
 influences to which we have alluded ; but there are some circumstances 
 under which water plants suffer greatly, and from a very singular 
 cause, but one which, when looked into, is sufficiently simple and 
 intelligible. 
 
 The surface of clear water does not become cold from radiation, but 
 from contact with cold and dry air ; consequently in a fine but very still 
 night it is much less rapidly cooled than the earth, which, in addition, 
 is exposed to the cooling influence of radiation. Under such circum- 
 stances it sometimes happens that the usual order of things is reversed,, 
 the bottom of the pond oooUng more rapidly than the surface ; on a 
 clear still cold night radiation sometimes occurs from the bottom of a 
 pond, the plants and soil ia which they are growing radiating towards 
 the sky just as if the water were not above them, and the consequence 
 is that they become very cold, in fact, some degrees below the freezing 
 point, though the water above them is still at 40°. This effect can only 
 happen in clear water, and on a night when there are no clouds, for the 
 same circumstances which prevent radiation from the surface of the 
 ground wiU also prevent its taking place from the bottom of a pond. 
 When plants under water are cooled by radiation, they soon become 
 encased in ice, and though the ice thus formed generally melts the next 
 
 M 2 
 
Ui SEASON OF GROWTH DEMANDS WATER. 
 
 morning, yet at the time of its formation the plants are often exposed to 
 a very intense cold. 
 
 A singular effect, somewhat similar in nature, though caused in a 
 very different manner, is sometimes observed ; as clear still water offers 
 no obstruction to the passage of radiant heat, it occasionally happens 
 that water plants are injured by the great heat of the sun's rays ; like 
 land plants they receive abundance of radiant heat from the sun, but, 
 imlike land plants, they do not experience the compensating effect of 
 evaporation ; they only feel the less perfect cooUng influence of the sur- 
 rounding water. It therefore occasionally happens that plants growing 
 in water, and surrounded by it, are burnt and scorched by the heat of 
 the sun's rays, the radiant heat of which produces no effect on the water 
 through which it passes, any more than it does in passing through the 
 air ; its effects only become evident when its rays fall upon a solid 
 substance, such as the surface of the ground or the leaves of a plant. 
 
 It is wlien plants are in a state of growth that an abundant 
 supply of moisture is required in the earth. As soon as young 
 leaves sprout forth, perspiration commences and a powerful 
 absorption must take place by the roots ; the younger the leaves 
 are, the more rapid their perspiratory action; their whole 
 epidermis must, at that time, be highly sensible to the stimu- 
 lating power of Hght : but as they grow older their skin hardens, 
 the stomates become the only apertures through which vapour 
 can fly off, and by degrees even these are either choked up, or 
 have a diminished irritability. As a general rule, it is safe to 
 conclude that the ground should be abundantly supplied with 
 moisture when plants first begiajto grow, and that the quantity 
 should be diminished as the organization of a plant becomes 
 completed. There are, however, ' some especial cases which 
 appear to be exceptional, 'm consequence of the unnatural state 
 in which we require plants to be preserved for our own peculiar 
 purposes. 
 
 It has been remarked by one of the translators of this work that " care 
 should be taken that plants in pots have not too great a quantity of 
 moisture when they first begin to vegetate." Plants should not have too 
 much moisture at any time. The meaning of the caution seems to be 
 that, as plants in bud are less able to assinulate moisture than if in 
 fuU leaf, so the supply of moisture to the former should be in proportion 
 small. But this caution is needless if the cultivator recognises the 
 general axiom that " Plants should nevek hate moee moisiitbe 
 
CULTIVATION OF BULBS. 165 
 
 THAN THET CAN CONSUME," whether by assimilation; or rejection in the 
 form of perspiration (see p. 65). 
 
 In the case of bulbs, which may be kept perfectly dry, whUe 
 really at rest, when they are stimulated into growth, moisture must 
 be administered with the greatest caution. "When a bulb has lain 
 dormant in the earth during its natural period, it is ready to spring into 
 renewed life upon the application of warmth and moisture; and it may 
 seem to matter little whether it is suddenly transferred from dryness to 
 moisture, or whether the change takes place gradually; because its 
 powers of life are unimpaired, But in nature no such sudden changes 
 occur : on the contrary, when rain begins to fall, it soaks slowly into 
 the earth ; and when it reaches the bulb, it is still arrested in its action 
 by the numerous dry coats with which this body is invested, and through 
 which it must gradually filter. But when a bulb has been long out of 
 the earth, its yital energies are much diminished, and it cannot bear 
 even that slow supply of moisture which is furnished by wet soil, 
 whose humidity penetrates the bulb coats, and is absorbed by the living 
 tissue. If a weakened bulb is suddenly brought in contact with water, 
 it wUl absorb it, but may be unable to digest it. The water wiU then 
 become stagnant and putrid, and destroy the bulb ; although, could the 
 bulb have digested it, it woxdd have been converted into new elements 
 and have proved a proper aliment. The rule, therefore, to observe 
 with newly-imported bulbs is, to place them where they absorb moisture 
 very slowly. The driest earth is full of water, which can only be 
 driven off by the application of intense heat. A bulb, therefore, should 
 be planted in what is called dry soil, and placed in a shady part of a 
 green-house until it has become plump, and begun to shoot ; if it has 
 begun to shoot when received, still the same treatment should be 
 observed, and the driest soil used to plant it in. It is only when 
 decisive signs of natural growth can be detected that a very little 
 water should be given, while the temperature is at the same time 
 slightly increased ; and no considerable quantity of water should be 
 administered untH the leavfes are an inch or two above ground, and 
 evidently disposed to grow rapidly. If these precautions are taken, no 
 failures are ever likely to occur ; if neglected, no success can be antici- 
 pated. A chest full of bulbs of Calochortus macrocarpus, one of the 
 rarest and finest of all plants, was destroyed in the Garden of the 
 Horticultural Society by an imskUful gardener, who planted them in 
 the wet earth of an open border immediately after their arrival from a 
 fifteen months' voyage. Every bulb would have grown had he under- 
 stood the principles of horticulture. 
 
 Dutch gardeners perfectly comprehend this, as wiU. be seen from the 
 following practical remarks on the management of Hyacinths, by Mr. 
 Theodore Storm, one of the most experienced Dutch growers of this 
 plant. Moisture being the most destructive agent against which the 
 
166 CULTIVATION OF BULBS. 
 
 amateur has to' guard, great care should be taken to protect Hyacinths 
 from it, by selecting the most eleyated spot in his garden. If this is 
 surrounded by a shallow trench, a little distance off, it mil be useful ; 
 and the bed should also be raised seven or eight inches above the ground 
 level. It must not be imagined that this precaution is useless because 
 many parts of England are more elevated and lie drier than Holland, 
 an opinion too prevalent among foreign amateurs, which occasions them 
 the loss of many bulbs. In all the treatises that have appeared on the 
 culture of the Hyacinth, this important circumstance has been almost 
 wholly overlooked. The truth is, that the soil which suits the 
 Hyacinth is very light, and disposed to absorb the rain and snow which 
 falls between the months of November and March. The paths around 
 the beds being more close and compact, do not absorb this moisture 
 which lodges upon the beds, and renders them so wet that they 
 absolutely become like mud to the depth of sixteen or twenty inches. 
 The bulbs having by that time formed roots eight or twelve inches in 
 length, their extremities are continually immersed in water, which, 
 from want of a slope to carry it off, causes the roots to putrify, and to 
 communicate a disease to the bulbs, which either totally destroys them, 
 or renders the flowers poor and small. The bulb becomes weak, and 
 when taken up will be found shrivelled and separating into scales. To 
 prevent this there should always be a gentle descent or small trenches 
 around the beds to drain off the wet. The surface of the beds should 
 also be at least seven or eight inches above the path. 
 
 The vitality of a bulb being thoroughly aroused, and the leaves being 
 in full and healthy action, many of these plants may almost be regarded 
 as aquatics, their leaves being able to consume all the moisture that 
 the roots, even though immersed in water, can absorb. Of this the 
 Hyacinth is a familiar example; Crinums, Pancratiums, Hippeastrums 
 and all such soft-leaved genera are others, as is seen by the case of the 
 Amaryllis Belladonna, which acquires its greatest beauty by the side of 
 ditches in Madeira, where it is dried up at the period of rest, and deluged 
 while in leaf. 
 
 One of the effects of an excessive supply of moisture 
 is, to keep all the newly formed parts of a plant tender and 
 succulent, and therefore such a constant supply is desirable 
 when the leaves of plants are eaten as in the case of Spinach, 
 Lettuces, and other oleraceous annuals. Another effect is, to 
 render all parts naturally disposed to be succulent much more 
 so than they otherwise would be ; thus we find market-gardeners 
 deluging their Strawberry plants with water while the fruit is 
 swelling, in order to assist ia that, to them, important operation. 
 While, however, ui this case, the size of the fruit is increased 
 
RELAJ?ION OP WATER TO SUCCDLBNCB. 16? 
 
 by a copious supply of water to the earth, its flavour is, in 
 proportion, diminished ; for, in consequence of the rapidity with 
 which the Strawberry ripens, and, perhaps, the obstruction of 
 light by its leaves, the excess of aqueous matter taken into the 
 system cannot be all decomposed, and formed into those 
 products which give flavour to fruit ; but it must necessarily 
 remain in part in an unaltered condition. 
 
 It is for the reason just given that the quantity of water in 
 the son should be diminished when succulent fruit is ripening; 
 we see this happen in nature, all over the world, and there can 
 be no doubt of its being of great importance. Not only is the 
 quality of such fruit impaired by a wet soil, as has just been 
 shown, but, because of its low, perspiratory power, the fruit 
 win burst from excess of moisture, as occurs to the Plum and 
 Grape in wet seasons. 
 
 Some fruits are much more subject to this bursting or cracking than 
 others, as is seen in the Stanwiek Fectariiie, the Chasselas musquS 
 grape, &c. In such cases it is clear that the dryness of the soil is of 
 more than ordinary importance. 
 
 It is also to be observed that bursting may arise from mere skin 
 disease ; as happens with mildewed or rusty grapes, in which, by one 
 cause or other, the power of the skin to distend as the berries fill with 
 fluid is destroyed — ^in the one case by the action of a mUdew-plant, in 
 the other by greasy fingers or currents of cold air, or impurities of the 
 atmosphere caused by bad fumigation, sulphuring, &c. 
 
 The Melon, although an apparent exception to this rule, is 
 not reaUy so; that fruit acquires its highest excellence in 
 countries where its roots are always immersed in water, as in 
 the floating islands of Cashmere, the irrigated fields of Persia, 
 and the springy river-beds of India. But it is to be remem- 
 bered that the leaves of this plant have an enormous perspira- 
 tory power, arising partly from their large surface, and partly 
 from the thinness and consequent permeability of their tissue, 
 so that they require a greater supply of fluid than most others ; 
 and, in the next place, the heat and bright light of such 
 countries are capable of decomposing and altering the fluids of 
 the fruit with a degree of rapidity and force to which we here 
 have no parallel. In this country the Melon does not succeed 
 
168 EFFECTS OF WET SOIL. 
 
 if its roots are immersed in water, as I ascertained some year^ 
 ago, in the Garden of the Horticultural Society, by repeated 
 experiments. Melons were planted in earth placed on a tank 
 of water, into which their roots quickly made their way ; they 
 grew in a curvilinear iron hot-house, were trained close under 
 the glass, and were consequently exposed to aU the light and 
 heat that could be obtained. They grew vigorously and pro- 
 duced their fruit, but it was not of such good quality as it would 
 have been had the supply of water to the roots been less 
 copious. In the tropics, if the quantity of rain that falls in a 
 short time is enormous, and plants are forced by it into a rapid 
 and powerful vegetation, they are at the same time acted upon 
 by free currents of warm air and a light and temperature bright 
 and high in proportion, the result of which is the most perfect 
 organization of which the plants are susceptible ; but, if the 
 same quantity of water is given to the same plants at similar 
 periods in this country, a disorganization of their tissue is the 
 result, in consequence of the absence of air, light, and heat in 
 sufficient quantity. 
 
 The effect of contiuuing to make plants grow in a soil more 
 wet than suits them is well known to be not only a production 
 of leaves and Ul-formed shoots, instead of flowers and fruit, 
 but, if the water is in great excess, of a general yellowness of 
 appearance, owing, as some chemists think, to the destruction, 
 by the water, of a blue matter, which, by its mixture with 
 yellow, forms the ordinary verdure of vegetation. If this con- 
 dition is prolonged, the vegetable tissue enters into a state of 
 decomposition, and death ensues. In some cases the joints of 
 the stem separate, in others the plant rots off at the ground, 
 and all such results are increased iu proportion to the weakness 
 of light, and the lowness of temperature. De CandoHe con. 
 siders that the collection of stagnant water about the neck of 
 plants prevents the free access of the oxygen of the air to the 
 roots ; but the great mischief is undoubtedly produced by the 
 coldness of the soil in which water is allowed to accumU' 
 late. It is also possible that the extrication of earburetted 
 iiydrogen gas is one cause of the injury sustained by plants 
 whose roots are surrounded by stagnant water; .^ut upoa 
 
MADDEN ON DEAINAGE, 169 
 
 this point Ave want much more satisfactory evidence than we 
 yet possess. 
 
 Dr. Madden' s views of the effects of drainage may be quoted in con- 
 nection with, this subject (see his prize essay). 1. One great evil pro- 
 duced by an excess -oi water in soil, is the consequent diminution in the 
 quantity of air within it; which air we have proved to be of the 
 greatest consequence, not only in promoting the chemical changes 
 requisite for the preparation of the food of plants, but Kkewise to the 
 roots of the plants themselves ; for Saussure and Sir H. Davy have 
 proved that oxygen and carlaonic acid are absorbed by the roots ; which 
 gases, however, especially the former, can be conveyed to them only by 
 the air. 2. An excess of water injures soil by diminishing its tempe- 
 lature in summer and increasing it in winter — a transposition of nature 
 most hurtful to perennials, because the vigour of a plant in spring 
 depends greatly upon the lowness of temperature to which it has been 
 subjected during winter (within certain limits of course), as the difference 
 of temperature between winter and spring is the exciting cause of the 
 ascent of the sap. 3. The presence of a large quantity of water in soil 
 alters the result of putrefaction, by which some substances are formed 
 which are, in all probabilityj useless to plants, — such, for example, as 
 carburetted hydrogen, — and diminishes the proportion of more useful 
 ingredients, as ulmio acid. 4. An increase in the proportion of fluid in 
 soil has a most powerful effect upon its saline constituents, by which 
 many changes are produced diametrically opposite to those that take 
 place in soil where the vrater is in much less quantity; and in this 
 manner the good effects of many valuable constituents are greatly 
 diminished, as, for instance, the action of carbonate of ammonia upon 
 humus, and of gypSum upon carbonate of ammonia. 5. The directions 
 of the currents which occur in wet soil are entirely altered by drainage; 
 for whereas in undrained soil the currents are altogether from below 
 upwards, being produced by the force of evaporation at the surface, and 
 consequently the spongioles of the plants are supplied with exhausted 
 subsoil water, when land is drained the currents are from the surface 
 to the drains, and the roots are consequently in this manner supplied 
 •with fresh aerated water. Lastly, an excess of water in soil produces 
 a constant dampness of the atmosphere, which we have shown to be 
 injurious to plants in three distinct ways : — ^1. by diminishing evapora- 
 tion, and thus rendering the process of assimilation slower; 2. By 
 diminishing the absorption of the carbonic acid, and thus lessening the 
 atmospheric supply of food ; 3. By creating a tendency in the plant to 
 produce leaves possessing a different structure from those which the 
 same plant produces in dry situations. Thus we have sis distinct 
 methods in which an excess of water in soil has been proved to be 
 greatly injurious to plants. 
 
170 IMPOETANCB OF DBAINAQE. 
 
 The removal of superfluous water by drainage lias been 
 already shown to be attended by an elevation of earth-tempe- 
 rature (see p. 137). Its other efi'ects, of taking out of land 
 the water which plants cannot assimilate (and no more), and 
 at the same time of enabling rain water charged with salts 
 of ammonia, a direct food of plants, to reach the roots with 
 every shower, probably constitute the whole rationale of this 
 important operation. 
 
 In bibulous soils lying high this contrivance may be unne- 
 cessary ; but in those which are tenacious, or which, from their 
 low situation, do not permit superfluous water to filter away 
 freely, such a precaution is indispensable. No person has ever 
 seen good crops produced by trees growing in lands imperfectly 
 drained; and aU experienced gardeners must be acquainted 
 with cases where wet unproductive borders have been rendered 
 fruitful by contrivances which are chiefly valuable because of 
 their efficiency iu regulating the humidity of the soil. 
 
 Such preoautiona as are detailed in the foUowing good accotuit of 
 preparing a Vine border, stow how important it is to provide effectually 
 for the removal of superfluous water from roots, and how useless a waste 
 of money is that which is expended in forming deep rich beds of earth. 
 " In preparing a Vine border," says Mr. Griffin of "WoodhaU, a success- 
 ful grower of Grrapes, "one foot in depth of the mould from the surface 
 is cleared out from the whole space ; a main drain is then sunk parallel 
 to the house, at the extremity of the border, one foot lower than the 
 bottom of the border ; into this smaller drains are carried diago,naUy 
 from the house across the border. The drains are filled with stone. 
 The cross drains keep the whole bottom ciuite dry ; but if the subsoil be 
 gravel, chalk, or stone, they will not be necessary. The drainage being 
 complete, the whole bottom is covered with brick, stone, or lime rubbish, 
 about six inches thick, and on this is laid the compost for the Vines." 
 {Hort, Trans., iv. 100.) This is in accordance with a practice well 
 known in vineyard countries. "In France, in the Vine districts, where 
 water frequently collects in great quantities at a certain depth in the 
 earth, the trees are planted upon an under-layer of stones, which are 
 covered with earth, and in this manner the roots are kept from too much 
 moisture, and the water is drained away.'' {German Translator.) 
 
 The practice of placing large quantities of potsherds or 
 broken tiles at the bottom of tubs, or pots, or other vessels in 
 which plants are rooted, is only another exemplification of the 
 
WATERING THE SOIL. 171 
 
 great necessity of attending to the due humidity of the soil, and 
 to the prevention of stagnant water collecting about the roots. 
 In like manner the injury committed by worms upon the roots 
 of plants in pots chiefly consists in these creatures reducing 
 the earth to a plastic state, and dragging it among the pot;- 
 sherd.s so as to stop up the passages between them and destroy 
 the drainage. 
 
 One of tiie means of guarding the earth against an access on 
 the one hand, and a loss on the other, of too much water, is by 
 paying the surface of ground with tiles or stones, ind the 
 advantages of this method have been much insisted upon. But, 
 iu cold summers at least, such a pavement may prevent the 
 soU from acquiring the necessary amount of heat ; and it may 
 in some degree obstruct the free communication between the 
 atmosphere and the roots. It is therefore a. practice that 
 should be adopted cautiously. 
 
 It is in places fuUy exposed to the sun, and liable to "bum" 
 in summer, in consequence of loss of moisture, tbat paving 
 answers best. On heavy land where trenches have been formed to 
 hold peat for American and similar fibrous-rooted plants, it is sometimes 
 found impossible to keep them alive in summer until the surface ip 
 paved, after which they succeed perfectly. Here, however, it is found 
 that the best kind of paving consists of round pebbles of gravel spread 
 over the surface, with peat sifted between them. Flagstones, tiles, or 
 large nodules of flint are objectionable. 
 
 More commonly recourse is had to the operation of simple 
 watering, for the purpose of maintaining the earth at a due 
 state of humidity, and to render plants more vigorous than they 
 otherwise would be ; an indispensable operation in hot-houses, 
 but of less moment in the open air. It is, indeed, doubtful 
 whether, in the latter case, it is not often more productive of 
 disadvantage than of real service to plants. When plants are 
 watered naturally, the whole air is saturated with humidity at 
 the same time as the soU is penetrated by the rain ; and in this 
 case the aqueous particles mingled with the earth are very 
 gradually introduced into the circulating system, for the 
 moisture of the air prevents a rapid perspiration. Not so 
 when plants in the open air are artificially watered. This 
 
172 WATBEING IN THE OtBN AIE. 
 
 operation is usually performed in hot dry weather, and must 
 necessarily be hmited in its effects ; it can have httle if any 
 influence upon the atmosphere : then, the parched air robs the 
 leaves rapidly of their moisture, so long as the latter is 
 abundant ; the roots are suddenly and violently excited, and 
 after a short time the exciting cause is withdrawn, by the 
 momentary supply of water being cut off by evaporation, and 
 by filtration through the bibulous substances of which soil 
 usually consists. Then, again, the rapid evaporation from 
 the soU in dry weather has the effect of lowering the 
 temperature of the earth, and this has been before shown 
 to be injurious ; such a lowering, from such a cause, does not 
 take place when plants are refreshed by showers, because at 
 that time the dampness of the air prevents evaporation from 
 the soil, just as it prevents perspiration from the leaves. 
 Moreover, in stiff soils, the dashing of water upon the surface 
 has after a httle while the effect of "puddling" the ground and 
 rendering it impervious, so that the descent of water to the 
 roots is impeded, whether it is communicated artificially or by 
 the faU of rain. It is, therefore, doubtful whether artificial 
 watering of plants in the open air is advantageous, unless in 
 particular cases ; and most assuredly, if it is done at all, it 
 ought to be much more copious than is usual. It is chiefly in 
 the case of annual crops that watering artificially is really 
 important; and with them, if any means of occasionally 
 deluging ground can be devised by means of sluices or other- 
 wise, in the same way as water-meadows, it may be expected to 
 be the most advantageous. 
 
 The best gardeners employ overhead watering in the open air only 
 in cases of absolute necessity. A curious case is recorded of a garden 
 in a sandy soil at Tonbridge, in Surrey, which, through the hot and 
 dry summer of 1842, remained in the most luxuriant beauty without 
 receiving any assistance from watering. In this case the gardener 
 stated that the garden in question was some eight years previously 
 partly pond, and partly a sandy bank. The former was filled up witiL 
 earth ; the latter was removed to the depth of three feet. A compost 
 prepared of sandy loam, decayed vegetable mould, silver sand, and 
 lime, well mixed and seasoned, was substituted, to the depth of three 
 feet; and, under these circumstances, although not even a thunder 
 
WATERING IN THE OPEN AIK. 173 
 
 shower fell, some Lobelias and Fuchsias were the only plants that 
 needed water. 
 
 Watering is, however, sometimes- indispensable. When that is so, 
 various plans are adopted to increase its efficiency, and as a substitute 
 for overhead showers. Mr. S. Taylor, in the Gardener's Magazine 
 for 1840, recommends the use of bottles, with two small holes in the 
 sides, near the bottom. The bottles are buried to the neck near the 
 roots of the flower which requires watering; and after being filled and 
 corked, the water is allowed gradually to exude through the holes. This 
 is objectionable, because the roots of the plants are liable to be injured in 
 plunging the bottles, and it requires too many of them, where copious 
 watering is necessary. Mr. W. P. Ayres thinks — " A better plan is to 
 take moderate-sized flower-pots, and having placed an inch or two of 
 rough gravel in the bottom of each, to place them round the plant to be 
 watered, and fill them with water, which as it percolates gradually 
 through the gravel, will soak into the ground. For plants such as 
 Standard Koses, Rhododendrons, &e., closely turfed over on lawns, or 
 for anything in a sloping situation, this is a most excellent plan, as the 
 pots filled with water may be placed at night and removed the next 
 morning, so as not to become an eyesore. Watering plants in flower- 
 beds is at all times a difficult matter, because if the borders are sa&- 
 ciently full of soil to give them a convex form, which they always 
 ought to have, the water runs to the sides of the borders as fast as it is 
 poured on. In such cases it will be found advisable to perforate the 
 beds as thickly as possible, without injuring, the roots, to the depth of 
 six or eight inches, with a stick one inch in diameter, and by filling 
 these ten or a dozen times the groundwUl become thoroughly soaked. 
 With Annuals, Verbenas, and other grouping plants, I have found this 
 a most excellent method." 
 
 The TIME OE DAT at which watering should be practised in the open 
 air has given rise to much difference of opinion. Some gardeners 
 insist upon the morning, others upon the evening. The first rest their 
 opinions upon such considerations as the following : " Two acknow- 
 ledged agents in vigorous growth are heat and jnoisture ; plants out of 
 doors must take the heat as they find it, and as we cannot increase, our 
 •object should be not to diminish it : moisture is under our control, but 
 if we exercise that control, and water our plants in the evening during 
 dry weather, we do so at the expense of a great portion of the heat we 
 desire to preserve. Two influences are at that time brought into 
 operation in cooling down the plants, and retarding their growth, which 
 we thus vainly endeavo\ir to urge forward by moisture : these are 
 evaporation and radiation. Evaporation is the more rapid in proportion 
 "to the dryness of the air ; and hence it is most energetic, when the 
 necessity for watering is most urgent: but evaporation cannot take 
 ]place without producing cold, and .that cold is proportionate to the 
 
174 THE APRIL MOON. 
 
 rapidity of the process. dLemistry points out tte reason of this, vapour 
 having a greater capacity for heat than water, the heat sensible in the 
 water hecomes latent in its vapour, and the sensible temperature falls ; 
 additional heat to keep up the temperature not being quickly enough 
 supplied by the surrounding media. Let us look at the effect of this 
 evening's supply of water to plants : the air is irj, evaporation goes on 
 briskly ; the temperature sinks, the plants are chiUed, there are no 
 sun's rays to communicate fresh warmth, and their growth is sometimes 
 even more unsatisfactory than that of such plants as are growing in the 
 apparently arid soU, and which have been allowed to take their chance. 
 The other source of diminished temperature I noticed was radiation : 
 every warm body tends continually to throw off its heat to all others of 
 lower temperature, near or remote: but radiation in meteorology is 
 more particularly confined to ' the radiation of heat from the surface 
 of the earth and objects on it into a clear sky.' All objects do not 
 radiate heat with equal rapidity : rough surfaces doit more readily than 
 smooth, and dark surfaces than those of a lighter shade of colour. 
 Apply the latter remark to the process of evening watering : almost all 
 soils are darkened in their colour by moisture, and hence soil by this 
 practice is reduced to the best possible condition for getting cooled down 
 during the night." 
 
 This is, in fact, a commentary upon what the French call the Zune 
 JRousse or April moon, which they fancy rusts their crops. M. Ajago 
 has shown that this notion is erroneous, the effect aUuded to being clearly 
 owing to another cause, but one which must necessarily be in active 
 operation on bright moonlight nights. He observed that in the months 
 of April and May the temperature at night is often not more than four 
 or six degrees above the freezing point ; and under these circumstances, 
 when the sky is most unclouded and the moon shining brightest, heat 
 wiU be radiated from the earth sufficient to reduce the temperature at 
 the surface some degrees lower, or below freezing point; henoe the 
 tender leaves and roots of plants are nipped by cold, and that appear- 
 ance given to the former which is intended to be conveyed by the 
 French word rousse. But it maybe doubted whether, under such con- 
 ditions as are above assumed to exist, watering should be practised at aU. 
 The principle is not to water if it can be avoided ; it is in hot. dry 
 weather that the operation is most needed, and at that time the 
 lowering of temperature at night is more beneficial than disadvanta- 
 geous. It is evident indeed that the arguments just quoted are alto- 
 gether one-sided, the real questions to be determined are, 1st, "Whether 
 such a loss of heat is detrimental to plants ? and 2ndly, Whether there 
 may not be some compensating advantages? "We believe that all 
 plants are retained in a more healthy state by lowering their tempera- 
 ture at night, and that no «rror is greater than that of supposing warm 
 nights advantageous to them. In aU countries nature cools down the 
 
WATER SHOULD BE WARM. 175 
 
 soil very considerably at those seasons when plants are growing, and 
 she ceases to do so only when vegetation is exhausted — or, perhaps, 
 we ought rather to say, vegetation is exhausted when she ceases to do 
 so. It is doubtless true that this cooling process may be carried too 
 far. But that the amount of evaporation is not very considerable at 
 night, is shown by the damp state of the soil the next morning after a 
 watering. In watering at night the grojmd is soaked with moisture 
 at a time when plants are exhausted of their fluids in conseq^uence of 
 the perspiration that has been going on all day long ; the sooner that 
 loss is supplied the better ; and during the night, when perspiration 
 ceases, or very greatly diminishes, a plant is enabled to absorb by its 
 roots the water it wants, so that by the return of day it is filled with 
 fluid, and in the best possible state to resist the renewed action of the 
 sun. But when water is applied in the morning the result is very 
 different. The plant is called on to throw off moisture by its skin 
 before it has been refilled by the absorbing action of the roots; the 
 ground, too, which at night retains its water and conveys it to a plant, 
 is called on to give it up immediately to the dry, warm, and gradually 
 heating air. So that, in fact, a morning's watering cannot convey to 
 the interior of a plant anything like so much water as that of the 
 evening. 
 
 I entertain no doubt that the great object of the cultivator should be 
 to avoid the necessity of watering ; by shading the earth, or the plants 
 themselves, or by the common operations of mulching and top dressing. 
 When watering is inevitable the tempeeatukb oe the watee is a 
 matter of great moment. Theoretically water should always be a few 
 degrees warmer than the soil; practically this cannot be always ensured. 
 All that a gardener can do is to keep his attention fixed upon the 
 principle. In summer the earth may be taken to stand at 60° while 
 cold spring water is not more than 50° ; to be beneficial the water ought 
 to be 62° at least ; if warmer so much the better. For this reason water 
 from ponds or- other places heated by the sun, should always be 
 employed when circumstances permit it. In hot-houses rain water is 
 now generally preserved in raised tanks which acquire the tempera- 
 ture of the house. By such means warm water is secured. The practice 
 has been arrived at by the teaching of experience, which shows that 
 cold water applied to the roots of hothouse or greenhouse plants; is in 
 the highest degree injurious, if not fatal. 
 
 Among the evils of watering plants, is hardening the soil by the 
 mechanical action of water frequently dashed upon it. In this way a 
 hard crust is formed upon heavy soil, or the particles of sandy land are 
 forced together into a compact mass, which interferes with the perco- 
 lation of rain, and the free access of air to the roots. It is for this reason, 
 that the application of liquid manure by engines, or by any contrivance 
 that may cause it to fall from a height, is regarded as objectionable, and 
 
176 MILDEW PEEVENTED BY WATERING. 
 
 even likely to frustrate the object for which, it is used. To meet- this 
 difficulty subterranean irrigation, by means of pierced pipes filled -with 
 fluid under pressure, has been advocated by Mr. Chadwick, Mr. 
 Kennedy and others ; and there is no doubt that it is the most effectual 
 and xmobjectionable of all methods proposed for communicating fluids to 
 the soU. It is, however, to be feared that cost will always be a bar to 
 the adoption of this plan. 
 
 Mildew, wHch is so often produced by cold dry air acting 
 upon a delicate surface of vegetable tissue, is completely pre- 
 vented in annuals by Yerj a bundant watering . The ravages of 
 the Botrytis effusa, which attacks Spinach; of Acrosporium 
 monilioides, which is found on the Onion ; and the mildew of 
 the Pea, caused by the ravages of Erysiphe communis, may all 
 be stopped or prevented by abundant watering in dry weather. 
 
 Mr. Enight first applied this fact to the securing a late crop of peas for 
 the table, in the following manner ; — The ground is dug in the usual 
 way, and the spaces which will be occupied by the future rows are well 
 soaked with water. The mould upon each side is then eoUeoted, so as 
 to form ridges seven or eight inches above the previous level of the 
 ground, and these are weU watered; after which the seeds are sowed, 
 in single rows, along the tops of the ridges. The plants very soon 
 appear above the soil ; and grow with much vigour, owing to the great 
 depth of the soU, and abundant moisture. Water is given rather pro- 
 fusely once in every week or nine days, even if the weather proves 
 showery ; but, if the ground be thoroughly drenched with water by the 
 autumnal rains, no further trouble is necessary. Under this mode of 
 management, the plants wUl remain perfectly green and luxuriant till 
 their blossoms and young seed-vessels are destroyed by frost, and their 
 produce will retain its proper flavour, which is always taken away by 
 mUdew. [Hort. Trans., ii. 87.) 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 OF ATMOSPHERICAL MOISTURE AND TEMPERATURE.* 
 
 The constituents of the atmosphere that surrounds us are 
 either the same in different regions, or the differences, if any, 
 are not appreciable By chemical processes. It is far otherwise, 
 as regards temperature and humidity, which are so intimately 
 connected that they cannot be considered apart from each 
 other. 
 
 From what has been already stated (Book I. Chap. V.), it is 
 apparent that of the vital functions of plants none are more 
 important than perspiration and evaporation ; and that, while a 
 certain amount of loss of fluid particles is necessary to them, 
 a great excess or diminution of the loss must be injurious. 
 Although the solar rays appear to be the immediate cause of 
 perspiration, which proceeds in proportion to their intensity, 
 yet this action is necessarily modified by the state of the 
 medium, that is, of the atmosphere, which surrounds them ; in 
 proportion to its heat and dryness will their power be aug- 
 mented, and in proportion to its cold and moisture diminished. 
 The physiological effect of an excessive augmentation of 
 perspiration is to dry up the juices and to destroy the texture 
 pf the leaves ; on the other hand, an excessive obstruction of 
 that function prevents the decomposition and assimilation of 
 fluids, and the formation of new organised matter, as well as of 
 
 * TMs suljjeot Has already been folly treated by the late Professor Daniell, in his 
 excellent paper " On Climate with, regard to Horticulture," published in the Tramsac- 
 tions of the fforticvltwal Society, vol. vi. p. 1. It is impossible to discuss the same 
 topic •without profiting largely by this important treatise, which I have much foDowed 
 in the present chapter. 
 
178 THE HTGEOMETEK. 
 
 the Becretions peculiar to a species. A state of the atmosphere, 
 therefore, which is most favourable to the maintenance of the 
 perspiratory action in the most healthy state, is that which it 
 must be the business of a gardener to secure by all the means 
 in, his power. 
 
 The fitness of an atmosphere for maintaining a healthy 
 vegetation depends upon the amount of moisture suspended in 
 it, and upon its temperature. The hygrometer indicates the 
 former, as the thermometer does the latter. 
 
 Among the hygrometers intended for measuring the quantity of 
 elastic vapour in the atmosphere, the most convenient for use is that 
 invented by Daniell. In this instrument, the amount of moisture in a 
 given atmosphere is indicated by what is called the dew-point ; that is 
 to say, by the point of the thermometric scale at which the cold is 
 sufficient to cause a deposition of dew. 
 
 It is impossible for any one to know what degree of moisture 
 he really maiatains in a forcing-house without an instrument by 
 which to measure it ; that instrument is the hygrometer. Of Daniell's 
 hygrometer the annexed cut exhibits the general appearance. It 
 measures the moisture in the air quickly and precisely, and is 
 not subject to get out of order. The air we breathe is a per- 
 manently elastic fluid, containing watery vapour in mixture, its 
 power of retaining which is greater when temperature is high than 
 when low. It may be compared to a sponge ; if this substance, when 
 dry, is soaked in water, a portion of the fluid is absorbed ; but if the 
 sponge is again dipped without squeezing, and before it has had time to 
 dry, no additional quantity of water wiU be taken up by it, because the 
 first immersion saturated it; in like manner, when air has taken 
 up as much moisture as it can contain, it is said to be in a state of 
 saturation. If when thus saturated a reduction of temperature takes 
 place, the capacity of the air for moisture is diminished, and precipita- 
 tion ensues. "When air, on the contrary, is in an undersaturated, or 
 dry state, it takes up moisture from the substances with which it comes 
 in contact. If moist air is brought into contact with a substance 
 sufficiently colder, a part of the moisture is condensed, and is so con- 
 verted from a state of invisible vapour into water. If, for instance, a 
 cold wine-glass is brought into a warm room, the sides of the glass 
 become covered with dew, which is the water that existed in the air as 
 vapour, and which, condensed on the cold glass, is changed into water. 
 The effect, therefore, of bringing warm moist air into contact with a 
 cold surface is to rob the air of a part of its moisture. Thus, in a cold 
 night, the glass roof of a greenhouse may be seen streaming with 
 water, which runs down and forms "drip," and in this often unsus- 
 
THE HYGROMETER. 179 
 
 pected manner air is rendered dry, notwitlistanding the operations of 
 syringing, steaming, &o. Daniell's hygrometer is constructed with 
 reference to these considerations. The figure represents two hollow glass 
 balls, containing ether, and communicating by the glass tabe which 
 rests on the support. The ball which forms the termination of the 
 longer leg is of black glass, in order that the formation of dew on its 
 surface may be the more perceptible ; it includes the bulb of a delicate 
 thermometer, dipping in the ether, its scale being inclosed in the tube 
 above the ball ; and whatever change takes place in the temperature of 
 the ether is indicated by this thermometer. The other ball is covered 
 with muslin. In making an observation, it is first necessary to note 
 down the temperature of the air, next to turn the instrument so that when 
 the muslin-covered ball is held in the hand the ether may escape into 
 the blackened ball ; and it should also be held tiU the included ther- 
 mometer rises a few degrees above the temperature of the air, when it 
 should be replaced on the support. Then drop, or gentiy pour, a little 
 ether on the muslin ; the evaporation of this extremely volatile sub- 
 stance produces cold, and attention must be instantiy directed to the 
 black glass ball and included thermometer ; the latter will be seen 
 falling rapidly, and at length a ring of dew will appear at the line 
 which runs across the black ball, — quickly if the air is very moist, 
 slowly if the air is dry. If the air is in a very dry state no moisture 
 will be thus deposited tDl the thermometer falls to perhaps 10°, 20°, or 30° 
 below the temperature of the air ; but at whatever temperature the dew 
 forms that temperature should be noted as the dew-point and the differ- 
 ence between it and the temperature of the air at the time is the degree of 
 dryness according to the indications of this hygrometer; thus, in a 
 moderately dry day, let it be supposed that the temperature of the air 
 is 65° in the shade, and that the muslin requires to be kept moist, 
 before dew is formed, till the blackened ball containing the ether has 
 its temperature reduced to 60°, as indicated by the included ther- 
 mometer, there are then said to be 15° of dryness. Again, supposing 
 the temperature is 85°, and the dew-point found, as before, to be 70°, 
 the degree of dryness is still expressed by 15°; but the quantity of 
 moisture diffused in the air is, notwithstanding, somewhat greater 
 in the latter case than in the former. If 1000 represent complete 
 saturation, the quantity of moisture when the temperature is 65° and 
 the dew-point 50°, will be 609 ; but when the temperature is 85°, and 
 the dew-point 70°, the moisture wiU be represented by 623 ; these 
 numbers being ascertained by tables prepared for the purpose. The 
 difference, however, in such a case, is so small that it is not worth 
 taking into account in a horticultural point of view. But as these 
 numbers can only be ascertained by calculation it is more convenient 
 to reckon by the degrees of dryness, bearing in mind that the dryness 
 of the air is indicated by the difference between the temperature of the 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 DANIELIi'S HYGROMETER. 
 
 air and of the dew-point. Thus, if the ring of dew is formed as soon 
 as ether is applied, and only one degree of difference is observable, the 
 air is nearly saturated ; if the difference is 5° to 10°, the dryness is very 
 moderate, while 15° to 20° of difference indicate excessive dryness, and 
 beyond this the air is parching. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Fig. XXIX. 
 
 The objection to this instrmnent consists in its not being well suited to 
 the hands of a person unaccustomed to use philosophical apparatus. In 
 order to overcome this difficulty, Mr. Harris has proposed the following 
 contrivance. ' ' It consists of an old-fashioned instrument commonly sold 
 in the opticians' shops as Leslie's differential thermometer, (Pig. 
 XXX. in the opposite page). It is arranged so that when not in use the 
 fluid stands at zero in the stem, A ; over the bulb of the opposite stem, 
 I, place a piece of muslin, C, which has been well soaked in a strong 
 solution of common salt in water ; the muslin having been out into a 
 circular shape, is laid on the bulb whilst wet, and the moisture wiU 
 make it adhere sufficiently. A shelf, or bracket, with sides, top, and 
 back, is made for it to stand on, to seclude it from the sunshine, an 
 essential precaution, and .also to prevent the damp wall from having 
 effect upon the muslin, so that it may draw all its moisture from the 
 atmosphere alone. It will be found convenient to have a thermometer 
 hung on the same stand, as in all hygrometric observations the state of 
 the thermometer must be attended to. The rationale of its action is 
 simple. If the absorption of moisture exceeds the evaporation from the 
 muslin, heat wfll be generated which wiU expand the air in the bulb, 
 C, and drive the fluid up the opposite stem, indicating the degree by 
 
HARRIS'S HTGEOMETER. 
 
 181 
 
 its rise. On the contrary, if the evaporation exceeds the absorption, 
 cold will be produced, causing the fluid to fall. The general range of 
 the scales made are from zero to 40°. In Mr. Harris's stove, under 
 the general treatment of orchidaceous plants, temperature ranging from 
 78° to 95°, the hygrometer usually ranged from 15° to 30°." 
 
 R*p 
 
 ^ 
 
 Fig. XXX. 
 
 Of this instrument it has been complained that its divisions are in a 
 great measure arbitrary and different from those of the thermometer to 
 which gardeners are accustomed. But this is unimportant, inasmuch 
 as men soon become acquainted with the value of the indications of any 
 instrument, and it gives an absolute, if not a comparative result, which 
 latter may be dispensed with. Mr. WaUes has expressed his opinion 
 that " the wet-bulb thermometer, which has been long known, though 
 recently improved in form, under the name of Mason's Hygrometer, is 
 the one best fitted for the hothouse, being ' simple, self-acting, econo- 
 mical, and certain,' and requiring the least attention to keep it in 
 working order. Miason's instrument is, however,' not indispensable, 
 as every gardener may readily convert any common thermometer into 
 
182 
 
 TABLE OF DEW-POINT. 
 
 a hygrometer. All that is reqiiired is to cut away a portion of the 
 wood on which the tube is mounted, so as freely to expose the bulb, 
 and to cover the latter with a fold of cambric, to which water must be 
 supplied by means of a few threads from a phial placed near. Of course 
 another thermometer, to indicate the temperature of the air, req[mres to 
 be suspended near to that with the wet bulb, and care must be taken 
 that, when dry, both mark the same degree of heat. To be quite 
 accurate the dry-bulb thermometer should be covered with a similar 
 piece of cambric, though this is hardly necessary, and may be incon- 
 venient where the syringe is so often used. 
 
 The mode of using any wet bulb thermometer is explained by the 
 foUowing table and the remarks accompanjdng it, which were published 
 some years ago by Mr,' Wailes, of Newcastle. 
 
 Table op the Dew-Point when the Temperatitre of the Air, in the Shade, 
 is between 55° and 100° of fahrenheit. 
 
 Tempe- 
 rature. 
 
 Difference between the dry and Moistened Thermometers 
 in degrees of Fahrenheit. 
 
 1" 
 
 2" B" 
 
 4° 
 
 5° 
 
 6° 
 
 r° 
 
 8° 
 
 9= 
 
 10° 
 
 11° 
 
 12° 
 
 13° 
 
 w 
 
 15° 
 
 55° 
 
 53 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 39 
 
 36 
 
 34 
 
 32 
 
 29 
 
 27 
 
 26 
 
 22 
 
 20 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 51 
 
 49 
 
 47 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 40 
 
 37 
 
 35 
 
 33 
 
 30 
 
 28 
 
 26 
 
 23 
 
 21 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 52 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 45 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 38 
 
 36 
 
 34 
 
 31 
 
 29 
 
 27 
 
 24 
 
 22 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 53 
 
 51 
 
 49 
 
 46 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 39 
 
 37 
 
 35 
 
 32 
 
 30 
 
 28 
 
 25 
 
 23 
 
 59 
 
 57 
 
 54 
 
 52 
 
 50 
 
 47 
 
 45 
 
 43 
 
 40 
 
 38 
 
 36 
 
 33 
 
 31 
 
 29 
 
 26 
 
 24 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 55 
 
 63 
 
 51 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 44 
 
 41 
 
 39 
 
 37 
 
 34 
 
 32 
 
 30 
 
 27 
 
 25 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 62 
 
 49 
 
 47 
 
 45 
 
 42 
 
 40 
 
 38 
 
 35 
 
 33 
 
 31 
 
 28 
 
 26 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 63 
 
 60 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 39 
 
 36 
 
 34 
 
 32 
 
 29 
 
 27 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 64 
 
 51 
 
 49 
 
 47 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 40 
 
 37 
 
 35 
 
 33 
 
 30 
 
 28 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 59 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 52 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 45 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 38 
 
 36 
 
 34 
 
 31 
 
 29 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 53 
 
 51 
 
 49 
 
 46 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 39 
 
 37 
 
 36 
 
 32 
 
 30 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 57- 
 
 64 
 
 52 
 
 50 
 
 47 
 
 45 
 
 43 
 
 40 
 
 38 
 
 36 
 
 33 
 
 31 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 68 
 
 65 
 
 53 
 
 61 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 44 
 
 41 
 
 39 
 
 37 
 
 34 
 
 32 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 52 
 
 49 
 
 47 
 
 46 
 
 42 
 
 40 
 
 38 
 
 35 
 
 33 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 53 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 39 
 
 36 
 
 34 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 61 
 
 49 
 
 47 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 40 
 
 37 
 
 35 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 59 
 
 57 
 
 56 
 
 62 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 38 
 
 36 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 49 
 
 46 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 39 
 
 37 
 
 73 
 
 71 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 67 
 
 54 
 
 52 
 
 60 
 
 47 
 
 46 
 
 43 
 
 40 
 
 38 
 
 74 
 
 72 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 55 
 
 53 
 
 51 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 44 
 
 41 
 
 39 
 
 75 
 
 73 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 52 
 
 49 
 
 47 
 
 46 
 
 42 
 
 40 
 
 76 
 
 74 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 57 
 
 56 
 
 63 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
TABLE OF DEW-POINT. 
 
 183 
 
 
 
 Tabm op the Dew-Point, &o., eontmued. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tempe- 
 rature. 
 
 Difference between the pry and Moistened Thermometers 
 in degrees of Fahrenheit. {Continued.) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 2"- 
 
 3° 
 
 4° 
 
 5° 
 
 &•■ 
 
 7° 
 
 •8° 
 
 9° 
 
 10- 
 
 11° 
 
 12" 
 
 13° 
 
 14° 
 
 15° 
 
 77° 
 
 75 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 51 
 
 49 
 
 47 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 78 
 
 76 
 
 73 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 59 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 52 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 45 
 
 43 
 
 79 
 
 77 
 
 74 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 53 
 
 51 
 
 49 
 
 46 
 
 44 
 
 80 
 
 78 
 
 75 
 
 73 
 
 71 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 57 
 
 54 
 
 52 
 
 50 
 
 47 
 
 45 
 
 81 
 
 79 
 
 76 
 
 74 
 
 72 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 55 
 
 53 
 
 51 
 
 48 
 
 46 
 
 82 
 
 80 
 
 77 
 
 75 
 
 73 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 52 
 
 49 
 
 47 
 
 83 
 
 81 
 
 78 
 
 76 
 
 74 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 53 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 84 
 
 82 
 
 79 
 
 77 
 
 76 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 51 
 
 49 
 
 85 
 
 83 
 
 80 
 
 78 
 
 76 
 
 73 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 59 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 52 
 
 50 
 
 86 
 
 84 
 
 81 
 
 79 
 
 77 
 
 74 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 53 
 
 51 
 
 87 
 
 85 
 
 82 
 
 80 
 
 78 
 
 75 
 
 73 
 
 71 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 57 
 
 54 
 
 52 
 
 88 
 
 86 
 
 83 
 
 81 
 
 79 
 
 76 
 
 74 
 
 72 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 55 
 
 53 
 
 89 
 
 87 
 
 84 
 
 82 
 
 80 
 
 77 
 
 75 
 
 73 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 90 
 
 88 
 
 85 
 
 83 
 
 81 
 
 78 
 
 76 
 
 74 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 91 
 
 89 
 
 86 
 
 84 
 
 82 
 
 79 
 
 77 
 
 75 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 58 
 
 56 
 
 92 
 
 90 
 
 87 
 
 85 
 
 83 
 
 80 
 
 78 
 
 76 
 
 73 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 59 
 
 57 
 
 93 
 
 91 
 
 88 
 
 86 
 
 84 
 
 81 
 
 79 
 
 77 
 
 74 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 60 
 
 58 
 
 94 
 
 92 
 
 89 
 
 87 
 
 85 
 
 82 
 
 80 
 
 78 
 
 75 
 
 73 
 
 71 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 61 
 
 59 
 
 95 
 
 93 
 
 90 
 
 88 
 
 86 
 
 83 
 
 81 
 
 79. 
 
 76 
 
 74 
 
 72 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 62 
 
 60 
 
 96 
 
 94 
 
 91 
 
 89 
 
 87 
 
 84 
 
 82 
 
 m 
 
 77 
 
 75 
 
 73 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 66 
 
 63 
 
 61 
 
 97 
 
 95 
 
 92 
 
 90 
 
 88 
 
 85 
 
 83 
 
 81 
 
 78 
 
 76 
 
 74 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 67 
 
 64 
 
 62 
 
 98 
 
 96 
 
 93 
 
 91 
 
 89 
 
 86 
 
 84 
 
 82 
 
 79 
 
 77 
 
 75 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 68 
 
 65 
 
 63 
 
 99 
 
 97 
 
 94 
 
 92 
 
 90 
 
 87 
 
 85 
 
 83 
 
 80 
 
 78 
 
 76 
 
 73 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 100 
 
 98 
 
 95 
 
 93 
 
 91 
 
 88 
 
 86 
 
 84 
 
 81 
 
 79 
 
 77 
 
 74 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 67 
 
 65 
 
 Th.e bulbs of both, tbermometers should be covered with a fold of 
 white silk or muslin, and pure water supplied to one of them from a 
 phial or other vessel placed near it, by a thread of floss sUk acting as a 
 siphon. The cover of the moistened bulb and the thread must be 
 renewed occasionally. — The above table is sufficiently accurate for all 
 practical purposes, but the true decreasing ratio is 2*33 for each degree 
 of depression indicated by the moistened thermometer,* '^, 
 
 After having obtained by Mason's hygrometer, 1st, the temperature 
 of the air, as indicated by the dry thermometer, and, 2nd, the difference 
 
 * To find the corresponding degree of Leslie's hygrometer, multiply the numher of 
 degrees of difference between the dry and moistened thermometers by 6. 
 
184 OTHER HYGROMETERS. 
 
 between that and the indication of the wet-bulb thermometer, the 
 dew-point can be ascertained by the accompanying table thus : — 
 
 Supposing the temperature of the air, as indicated by the dry 
 
 thermometer, is 70° 
 
 Whilst the wet-bulb thermometer is 64° 
 
 Degrees of dryness by this instrument 6° 
 
 If we look in the left hand column, headed " temperature," we shall 
 find 70° ; opposite this, and under 6° in the top column, we find 56°, 
 the dew-point, or temperature at which the dew is deposited, according 
 to DanieU's hygrometer, and 70°— 56°= 14° the degree of dryness by 
 Daniell's instrument. By practice, or rather experience, a gardener 
 would form as true a notion of the condition of his plants, with regard 
 to moisture, by the indications of one instrument as he would by the 
 other. He would learn that by Mason's 3° was a moderate state of 
 dryness, but that 12° was excessive, just as easily as he would by 
 observing 7° of dryness was moderate, according to Daniell's, but 
 that 28° was parching (3 and 7, 12 and 28 are the corresponding 
 degrees on the two instruments). So far these instruments are 
 on an equality as regards their results ; whilst Mason's has the 
 advantage of not requiring any experiment to be made, nor an ex- 
 pensive substance like ether to be applied. 
 
 Other modifications may be adopted, such as Rutherford's thermo- 
 meter; or by using Six's, or one constructed after Dr. Traill's method, 
 the maximum and miTiimiim of moisture can be registered by one 
 bulb. Finally there is Simmons's Hygrometer, or more properly 
 hygroscope, which has been much used, and of which a full account by 
 Mr. BelviUe wiU be found in the Gardener's Chronicle for 1847, p. 815. 
 The fault of this is that like all wood hygroscopes it is apt to get out of 
 order, and to lose its hygrometrieal property with time. 
 
 By means of these and similar contrivances, we are at all 
 times able to ascertain exactly the quantity of water that exists 
 in an elastic state ia the air. When the hygrometer was first 
 brought into use, what was called a damp atmosphere was 
 frequently seen to indicate a degree of moisture faUing short of 
 •500, saturation being represented by 1000; and it was found 
 that "120 was not uncommon — a state of thiags suf&cient to 
 impair the vitality of the most vigorous vegetation. 
 
 In this country, the changes of moisture are said to extend 
 from I'OOO, or saturation, to '389, or even so low as '120, under 
 a south wall for a short space of time ; " a state of dryness 
 
MOISTURE OF THE AIR. 185 
 
 wHch is certainly not surpassed by an African harmattan," but 
 one which produces less disastrous consequences, because it is 
 accompanied by a far lower temperature and a weaker solar 
 radiation. The mean degree of moisture of the air near 
 Xondon has been found by Mr. Thompson to be "897, on an 
 average of ten years, while the mean temperature is 50'63 :* 
 in other parts of the world it is very different ; and the amount 
 of those differences, together' with the means of imitating them 
 artificially, constitutes one of the most delicate and difficult 
 parts of the gardener's art. All that relates to this subject, 
 however, to be treated usefully, must be considered in a very 
 special way, and in such detail as can only be expected in a 
 separate work upon the subject. An idea of the difference 
 between the atmospherical moisture of London and that of 
 other parts of the world may, however, be collected from the 
 following table showing the amount of rain that falls in a few 
 different countries. 
 
 Incites per annum. 
 
 London 24'01 Average of 10 years. 
 
 St. Petersburg ... IB- 
 Algiers 27* 
 
 Fattehpiir (East Indies) 35*94 Average of 4 years. 
 
 Madeira 31- 
 
 Sagar (East Indies) . . 31-15 to 64-76 
 SikHm, at 11,000 feet . 40- 
 
 Bahamas 54-99 
 
 Calcutta 59-83 to 81- 
 
 Ceylon 84-3 
 
 Macao 48-8 to 107-3 
 
 Equator 96- 
 
 Dorjiling 122-26 
 
 Coast of Malabar . . . 123-50 Average of 14 years. 
 
 Grenada. ..... 126- 
 
 Leogane, St. Domingo . 150- 
 
 Bengal 20 to 22 inches in a single month. 
 
 Bombay 32 inches in 12 i 
 
 ™, f 203-5 inches in six months ; as much as 8-5 
 
 ^^"^ I in a day (July 31, 1831). 
 
 • See the various meteorological journals putlisied by the Horticultural Society, 
 in their Transactions, from the year 1826 inolusi-^e. 
 
186 WIND CAUSES EVAPOEATION, 
 
 We possess, to a small extent, the power of modifymg the 
 moisture of the air, even in the open air, and have almost 
 complete control over that of glazed houses. 
 
 It is found by experience that the effect of wind is to increase 
 the dryness of the air, and, consequently, the perspiration of 
 vegetable surfaces. It is through wind that the moisture of plants 
 and the earth is constantly borne away, and thus the evaporation 
 of plants is increased. "Evaporation," says Daniell, "increases 
 in a prodigiously rapid ratio with the velocity of the wind ; and 
 anything which retards the motion of the latter is very ef&ca? 
 cious in diminishing the amount of the former. The same 
 surface which, in a calm state of the air, would exhale 100 parts 
 of moisture, would yield 125 in a moderate breeze, and 150 in 
 a high wind." Hence, the great importance, in gardens, of 
 walls and screens, which break the wind, and keep the air in 
 repose in their vicinity. The difference between the effect of a 
 given amount of cold upon the blossoms of exposed fruit trees, 
 and those of the same species trained upon walls, is well known; 
 and appears to be owing to this circumstance, much more than 
 to any difference of temperature in the two situations. 
 
 This has heen illustrated by Howard, in the results of some interest- 
 ing experiments made by him on the annual amount of evaporation. 
 During three years, in which the evaporating gauge was placed forty- 
 three feet from the ground, the annual average result was 37 -85 inches ; 
 during other three years, when the instrument was lower and less 
 exposed, the average was 33'37 inches ; and when the gauge was upon 
 or near the ground, the annual average was only 20-28 inches, or little 
 more than half the amount evaporated in a free and elevated exposure. 
 
 It is to be remarked that the easterly winds are, in this 
 country, both the coldest and the driest. Daniell tells us that 
 the " moisture of the air flowing from any point between N.E. 
 and S.B. inclusive, is, to that of the air from the other quarters 
 of the compass, in the proportion of "814 to '907, upon an 
 average of the whole year ; " and Mr. Thompson has found the 
 hygrometer to indicate not uncommonly from 20° to 30° of 
 dryness, during the long prevalence of the north-easterly winds 
 in spring. At the same time, the air is very cold, the effect of 
 which is to cause the sap-vessels of the stem to contract, and 
 
AND CONSEQUENTLY COLD. 187 
 
 refuse to convey their fluid, bo that the blossoms of fruit-trees 
 in a north-east wind, while they are robhed of their fluid con- 
 tents by evaporation, can get no assistance from the roots 
 through the stem, and necessarily perish; and this is no 
 doubt one reason why open standard trees cast their flowers 
 under a low temperature during the cold dry winds of our 
 springs. 
 
 I have now before me a standard "WasHngton Plum, bearing a crop 
 of fruit in a garden where nearly everything else lost its blossoms on the 
 24th of April, 1854, when the thermometer fell to 18° Fahr. In this 
 case a pile of firewood had been heaped round the stem to the height of 
 the branches, and thus effectually guarded it from cold, Probably 
 something was also owing to the warmth radiated from the pile of 
 wood. This, however, only belongs to a class of facts of which the 
 Magnolia grandiflora is an instance. Formerly there were trees of this 
 species in Paris, whose only protection in winter was a heap of dry 
 straw piled over their roots, so as entirely to cover them, and thatched 
 to the height of five or six feet, so that the head of the trees formed the 
 apex of a cone, the base of which was straw. By this precaution the 
 earth is unable to freeze, and the fluids in the interior of the tree are 
 maintained at a temperature approaching to that of the earth. "While, 
 on the other hand, if the earth is frozen hard, the fluids in the roots 
 are frozen also, and they thus tend to lower the temperature of the 
 fluids and the branches. But this is, perhaps, not the only reason why 
 tender trees are preserved by this sort of protection. It is to be 
 observed that the destructive effects of frost are in proportion to the 
 succulence of the parts on which it acts ; and it may be, that the con- 
 tracting influence of cold gradually forces the fluids out of the unpro- 
 tected branches into those lower parts which are guarded from the 
 action of cold. Then the branches being pro tanto emptied of fluid, or 
 dried, are thus deprived of a part of their susceptibility to cold. 
 
 It has been objected by a critic that there is no experimental proof of 
 contraction of tissue taking place under the influence of cold. But if the 
 reader wiU turn to Biot's curious and little known observations, briefly 
 reported in Senslow's Botany, p. 205, he wiU find that contraction imder 
 cold has received the most conclusive experimental proof at the hands of 
 one of the best of modern observers. There is also a fact on record which 
 has hitherto remained without explanation, but which was probably con- 
 nected with the contracting power of cold. In the winter of 1838, when 
 the thermometer feU to 2° Fahr., Mr. Rogers observed the following 
 phenomena : — During the extreme cold the branches of a Lime-tree, 
 which overhung a part of his garden, drooped so as completely to lie 
 upon the ground, and those above fell proportionately. The branches 
 
188 
 
 SOUTH WINDS ARE THB DRIEST 
 
 reo6vered ttemselve^ aa the day advanced and grew warmer, and 
 eventually they so completely regained their original position that 
 Mr. Eogers at first thought his gardener had Cut away all that drooped 
 and impeded the path the day before. In this case it is almost certain 
 that the drooping was caused by the expulsion of air and fiuid from the 
 tissue by the contraction caused by cold, and that the revival was 
 attributable to the reflux of air and fluid. 
 
 I find, however, from Mr. Thompson's observations, that the 
 greatest dryness we experience in this climate is, not when the 
 wind is in the east, but when it is in the south. For example : 
 - in nine years, between 1836 and 1834, the four driest days 
 were in the year 1834, in June, when it was 33° on the 1st, 35° 
 on the 2nd, and 31° on the 21st; on the 1st of June, 1833, it 
 was 30°, and always with a south wind ; and, during the whole 
 of those nine years, there was but one other day on which the 
 dryness was found as high as 30°, namely, on the 10th of April, 
 1834, with a north-east wind. The duration of dryness, with a 
 south wind, was, however, very short, not exceeding one or at 
 most two days, and was invariably accompanied with great heat 
 and foUowed.by heavy rain, while the north-easters last for weeks, 
 without rain, and with a comparatively low temperature. The 
 following statement puts this in a clear light. There occurred 
 between 1886 and 1834, inclusive, — 
 
 "Wind North . . . 
 
 ... 7 
 
 „ North-East . 
 
 . . .39 
 
 „ East . . . 
 
 . 114 48 
 
 „ South-East . 
 
 . . . ( 27 
 
 „ South . . . 
 
 ... 35 
 
 „ South-West . 
 
 ... 30 
 
 „ West . . . 
 
 ... 35 
 
 „ North- West . 
 
 ... 22 
 
 7 days, above 20° of dryness. 
 
 These facts sufficiently explain the fatal effects of certain 
 winds upon vegetation, the small comparative value in this 
 country of walls with north and east aspects, and the general 
 want of success that attends late spring planting. Here, also, 
 we in part discover an explanation of the utility of shades 
 interposed between the sun and plants newly committed to the 
 earth : they not only cut off the solar rays, but also intercept 
 
SCREENS AGAINST WIND. 
 
 189 
 
 Pig. XXXI. 
 
 currents of air, and thus diminish the amount of perspiration by 
 two opposite methods. 
 
 For screening plants from dry winds various means are employed, of 
 which the following is a good example. In Prance a basket is 
 employed, composed of two moveable semi-cylinders, 
 constructed in the way of straw hives. To these 
 semi-cylinders are fixed soUd feet of wood, for the 
 purpose of being driven into the ground. If it is 
 only necessary to shelter one plant from east or 
 north-east winds, one semi-cylinder is sufficient ; but 
 if it is a plant which you are forced to protect, is 
 delicate, and requires a more complete protection, you 
 inclose it between the, two semi-cylinders fixed one to 
 the other by means of hooks represented in the 
 drawing. A lid of the same construction, furnished 
 at its edge with a circle in woodwork, is fitted, when 
 necessary, upon the cylinder, and thus, perhaps, 
 offers a more effectual shelter against the severity of 
 cold winds and excessive heat than any other. These 
 sorts of shades are light to move, very solid, and 
 very warm; for, letting but little of the exterior 
 air penetrate, they preserve at night the heat which 
 accumulates in the interior. They also guard plants well from the 
 action of sun, and thus offer a means of checking the natural 
 perspiration of green parts. 
 
 The following table, for which I am again indebted to Mr. 
 Thompson, wiU be found to show that the average degree of 
 dryness, in the middle of the day, throughout the year, is, 
 with a — 
 
 Degrees Amount 
 of Dryness, of Moisture. 
 
 North, wind 6-55 = 816 
 
 North-east V-30 = "794 
 
 East 6-20 = 825 
 
 Average, with wind from the three ) 
 
 coldest points ..'...'...) ^'^^ " ^" 
 
 South wiad 4-23 = 877 
 
 South-west . ■ 4-70 = 859 
 
 "West 6-20 = 733 
 
 Average, with wind from the thfee ) _ 
 
 warmest points ." ) 
 
190 
 
 TABLE OP DRYNESS AND WINDS. 
 
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 pa 'o 
 
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 11 
 
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 JO 99139(1 1IB9H 
 
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 JO 09j3a(I Il'B9Jl 
 
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192 DRYNESS IMPORTANT TO RIPENING. 
 
 The dryness of the atmosphere, which proves so fatal to 
 plants when in a state of growth, is, when accompanied by 
 warmth, of the greatest importance to them while ripening their 
 fruit. Together with the high temperature of the soil, it is 
 this which causes so great a difference in the quality of the 
 same kinds of fruit ripened in the South and the North. The 
 excellence of Syrian Apricots is not approachable in England. 
 The Grapes of the Mediterranean shore are only equalled in 
 England in the best managed hothouses, when sun heat and 
 artificial heat are skilfully employed to dry as well as warm the 
 air, at the season of ripening. The richest and strongest wines 
 in the world are those of Hungary, which, according to 
 Wahlenberg, owe their excellence to the great dryness of the 
 autumnal climate of the vaUey of the Theiss. Dryness of the 
 air then, which is fatal to plants in a rapid state of growth, is 
 in the highest degree beneficial when their functions are limited 
 to the consolidation of tissues already formed and the elabora- 
 tion of their final secretions. In the open air in England, the 
 ripening process is usually incomplete, and hence the 
 inability of plants from the United States, and other countries 
 with hot autumns, to bear with us a winter far less severe than 
 that which is natural to them. 
 
 Nothing can iEustrate this truth in a more striking manner than the 
 follcwing statement by the late Sir Augustus Poster. Writing from 
 Genoa he says : — " Being under the impression that single Orange or 
 Lemon-trees, or rows and groups of Orange or Lemon-trees, might 
 with care be brought to grow out of the groimd in England 
 like other plants, I have thought it might be worth while to 
 mention the success which has now for several years attended a 
 plantation that I made of seven Orange-trees in a much colder climate, 
 in the garden of my country residence, on the lull of Turin, facing the 
 highest range of the Alps. I was led to make the experiment from 
 having by accident, in the jBrst year of my arrival at Turin, seen the 
 way in which the Orange-trees in boxes were treated in the cellars of a 
 Piedmontese nobleman's house during winter, where they were placed 
 for several months, without light, or heat, or water, and exposed to severe 
 cold which almost every winter reaches to — 12° or even — 16° of 
 Eeaxtmite's thermometer (+5° to 4° Pahr.). My group of Orange-trees 
 were taken out of boxes, and planted in earth prepared for the purpose, 
 in the year 1826. In the very severe winter of 1828-9, three of them 
 
HARDINESS OF THE ORANGE-TKEE. 193 
 
 perished, but not of the eold so much as the damp, for they were ex- 
 amined, and seen to be still safe in February, after the frost had reached 
 above 15° of Rbatjmite ( — 2° Fahk.), and perished a few days later 
 from a return of the cold, attended by the drippings of a preyious thaw. 
 I had the three which died replaced, and from that time to this they 
 have flourished and increased in size. I have them covered with a 
 round cabin of planks, roofed with straw on the outside, at the end of 
 October or beginning of November, and uncovered in April. They bear 
 abundance of Oranges and Lemons, the former occasionally becoming 
 eatable with sugar. At no other place in this country am I aware that 
 the experiment has been tried, unprotected by a wall. But with a wall 
 and a covering of wood and straw, to be taken off in the summer, I can 
 scarcely doubt that the plants might be made to grow, without the 
 clumsy accompaniment of large wooden boxes, in an English garden." 
 
 This case establishes the fact that in the north of Italy the Orange-tree 
 bears a degree of winter cold unknown in England. For this it is 
 prepared by the complete ripeness of its wood, a state to which it can 
 never arrive in this climate in the open air. But are we therefore to infer 
 that it will not live with less shelter than it now receives ? Such an 
 inference is scarcely justified, and it is worth the consideration of those 
 who have Orange-trees at command, whether they wiU. not pass the 
 winter in barns, or dry out-houses, or under wooden screens where no 
 artificial heating is applicable. Dryness in such an experiment is the 
 first condition to secure ; darkness is the second. The Orange-tree will 
 bear to be deprived of water during the whole of its season of rest, 
 provided its roots are kept in the earth they grew in ; how much 
 dryness, beyond this, they will bear, is shown by the long exposure to 
 the air which they undergo in the shops of the Italian warehousemen 
 in London ; and experience tells us that the effect of cold upon plants 
 is feeble in direct proportion to their dryness. All trees kept in the 
 dark, or at least kept where no sun can shine upon them, will bear 
 without injury a degree of cold which would be fatal to them if ex- 
 posed, when frozen, to the direct rays of the sun. Camellias, Chinese 
 Azaleas, ladian Ehododendrons, and many New Holland plants, take 
 no harm in cold pits in winter, provided those pits face the north. 
 Some of them live out of doors perfectly well during winter, if under 
 north walls ; and we have in our possession a small Orange-tree which 
 passed the winter of 1853-4, when the thermometer fell to 4 ° Fahr. un- 
 injured in a cold pit facing the north. 
 
 As to temperature in the open air, unconnected with 
 atmospherical humidity, there seems to be no means of regu- 
 lating or modifying it to any considerable extent. In some 
 respects, however, we have even this powerful agent under our 
 
194 SOLAE RADIATION. 
 
 control ; but in order to exercise such control, it is necessary 
 to understand correctly the theory of what is called eadiation. 
 
 This cannot be better explained than in the words of DanieU. " The 
 power of emitting heat in straight lines in every direction, indepen- 
 dently of contact, may be regarded as a property common to all matter ; 
 but differing in degree in different kinds of matter. Co-existing with 
 it, in the same degrees, may be regarded the power of absorbing heat 
 so emitted from other bodies. Polished metals and the fibres of vege- 
 tables may be considered as placed at the two extremities of the scale 
 upon which these properties in different substances may be measured. 
 If a body be so situated that it may receive just as much radiant heat 
 as itself projects, its temperature remains the same ; if the surrounding 
 bodies emit heat of greater intensity than the same body, its tempera- 
 ture rises, till the quantity which it receives exactly balances its 
 expenditure, at which point it again becomes stationary ; and if the 
 power of radiation be exerted under circumstances which prevent a 
 return, the temperature of the body declines. Thus, if a ther- 
 mometer be placed in the focus of a concave metallic mirror, and 
 turned towards any clear portion of ijie sky, at any period of the 
 day, it wilL faU many degrees below the temperature of another 
 thermometer placed near it, out of the mirror; the power of radi- 
 ation is exerted in both thermometers, but to the first all return of 
 radiant heat is cut off, while the other receives as much from the 
 surrounding bodies, as itself projects. This interchange amongst bodies 
 takes place in transparent media as well as in vaouo ; but in the former 
 case, the effect is modified by the equalising power of the medium. 
 Any portion of the surface of the globe which is fully turned towards 
 the sun receives more radiant heat than it projects, and becomes heated ; 
 but when, by the revolution of the axis, this portion is turned from the 
 source of heat, the radiation into space still continues, and, being un- 
 compensated, the temperature declines. In consequence of the different 
 degrees in which different bodies possess this power of radiation, two 
 contiguous portions of the system of the earth wiU. become of different 
 temperatures ; and, if on a clear night we place a thermometer upon a 
 grass-plat, and another upon a gravel walk or the bare soil, we shall 
 find the temperature of the former many degrees below that of the 
 latter. The fibrous texture of the grass is favourable to the emission of 
 the heat, but the dense surface of the gravel seems to retain and fix it. 
 But this unequal effect will only be perceived when the atmosphere is 
 unclouded, and a free passage is open into space ; for even a light mist 
 will arrest the radiant matter in its course, and return as much to the 
 radiating body as it emits. The intervention of more substantial 
 obstacles will of course equally prevent the result, and the balance of 
 temperature will not be disturbed in any substance which is not placed 
 
SOLAE RADIATION. 195 
 
 in the clear aspect of the sky. A portion of a grass-plat under the 
 protection of a tree or hedge, will generally be found, on a clear night, 
 to be eight or ten degrees warmer than surrounding unsheltered parts ; 
 and it is well known to gardeners that less dew and frost are to be found 
 in such situations, than in those which are wholly exposed." {Sort. 
 Trans., vi. 8). 
 
 This very important subject has received further explanation from 
 a writer, whose words we quote, with some omissions, from the 
 Gardener's Chronicle of 1853, pp. 679 and 627. The action of the 
 sun upon aU. things that receive his rays is a matter of common 
 notoriety. How important to the growth of plants, to the formation of 
 colour and taste, to the ripening of fruit, to the consolidation of all 
 vegetable tissues, is solar light it is needless to say. But few 
 persons are aware of the amount of that force, or of the views of modem 
 philosophers as to the manner in which it takes effect. We may view 
 the surface of a lake exposed to the sun's rays during a warm summer's 
 day, whilst the whole scene may seem to be one of the utmost tranquillity, 
 so that we might naturally conclude that no movement of any import- 
 ance was then going on. It will be found, however, that such in 
 reality is not the case ; for the rays of the sun exert a force of which 
 we can scarcely form any adequate idea. Supposing the lake is only 
 two miles square, it may be calculated that there wiU be raised from its 
 surface in one day more than sixty-four thousand tons weight of water 
 (64,821), by means of solar radiation. This is at least equal to the work 
 of 10 steam-engines of 200 horse-power each for the same space of time, 
 presuming that the above weight is only raised to an average height 
 of between 300 and 400 feet. To balance that weight, a hill of earth 
 would be required, 30 feet high, 100 feet wide, and 600 feet in length. 
 In making the calculations which have led to these statements, it has 
 been assumed that, in a hot day in summer, a quarter of an inch of water 
 would be evaporated from an exposed surface of a lake in twelve 
 hours, and this from an area of two miles square would amount to 
 2,323,200 cubic feet, which, at 62^ pounds per cubic foot, is equal to 
 64,821 tons. Now, a quarter of an inch is not a maximum amount 
 of evaporation. The Comte de Gasparin observed 0-59 inch ( Gardiner's 
 Chronicle, 1849, p. 757), and on five successive days the average 
 exceeded haK an inch. Howard, in his Climate of London, has 
 recorded as much as 0*39 inch in one day. It therefore appears that 
 0-25 inch, that which we have assumed, is not an exaggerated 
 quantity ; on the contrary, it is but one-half of that which, according 
 to good authorities, has been actually removed by evaporation, and 
 under a temperature of from 73° to 75° Fahr. Instead of 64,000 
 tons, facts would justify us in stating that 130,000 tons might be raised 
 in one day from a surface of water not exceeding two males square. 
 
 Some idea may be formed from these statements of the immense 
 
 2 
 
196 SOLAR RADIATION. 
 
 power of solar radiation in a comparatively limited space ; but the many 
 thousands of tons raised from that space do not represent the full power 
 of the sun's rays. They merely represent weight raised, without our 
 taking into account the force exerted in converting the water into 
 vapour, and in that form elevating it hundreds, or it may he thousands 
 of feet, notwithstanding the pressure of the atmosphere. In a commu- 
 nication on the Mechanical Action of JRadiant Seat or Light, by 
 Professor William Thomson, Philosophical Magazine, fourth series, 
 vol. iv., p. 256, it is stated that "mechanical effect of the statical 
 kind might be produced from the solar radiant heat, by using it as the 
 source of heat in a thermo-dynamic engine. It is estimated that 
 about 556 foot-pounds (that is, so many pounds raised one foot high) 
 per second of ordinary mechanical effect, or about the work of ' one- 
 horse power,' might possibly be produced by such an engine exposing 
 1800 square feet to receive solar heat during a warm summer 
 day in this country ; but the dimensions of the moveable parts of 
 the engine would necessarily be so great as to occasion practical 
 difficulties in the way of using it with economical advantage that might 
 be insurmountable.'' This is more than twenty times the power we 
 have assigned to the raising of water, |iiid even this appeared so vast 
 that until the data were thoroughly examined, the statement appeared 
 incredible. 
 
 The same author proceeds to state that " the deoxidation of carbon 
 and hydrogen from carbonic acid and water, effected by the solar light 
 on the green parts of plants, is a mechanical effect of radiant heat. In 
 virtue of this action, combustible substances are produced by plants, 
 and its mechanical value is to be estimated by burning them, and 
 multiplying by the mechanical value of the thermal unit. Taking from 
 Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry the estimate, 2,600 poimds of dry 
 Fir-wood, for the annual produce of one Hessian acre, or 26,910 square 
 feet of forest land, which is at the rate of 4208 pounds or nearly 2 tons 
 per English acre, and assuming, as a very rough estimate, 4000 thermal 
 units centigrade as the heat of combustion of dry Fir-wood, the author 
 finds 650,000 foot-pounds, or the work of a horse power, for 1000 seconds, 
 as the mechanical value of the mean annual produce of a square foot of 
 the land ; and taking 50° 34', that of Giessen, as the latitude of the 
 locality, he estimates the mechanical value of the solar heat, which, 
 were none of it absorbed by the atmosphere, would fall annually on each 
 square foot of the land, at 630,000,000 foot-pounds ; and infers that 
 probably t-oW of the solar heat which falls on growing plants is con- 
 verted into mechanical effect. 
 
 "When the vibrations pf light thus act during the growth of plants, 
 to separate, against forces of chemical affinity, combustible materials 
 from oxygen, they must lose vis viva to an extent equivalent to the 
 statical mechanical effect thus produced, and therefore quantities of 
 
SOLAR RADIATION. 197 
 
 solar heat are actually put out of existence by the growth of plants, but 
 an equivalent of statical mechanical elTect is stored up in the organic 
 products, and may be reproduced as heat by burning them. All the 
 heat of fires obtained by burning wood grown from year to year is in 
 fact solar heat reproduced." And so, we may accordingly add, must be 
 the heat derived from the combustion of at least the portions which 
 have had a vegetable existence, of wood-coal and other matters. 
 
 Professor Thomson has concluded, and with reference to an equivalent 
 conclusion by Sir John Herschel, that heat radiated from the sun 
 (sunlight being included in this term) is the principal source of 
 mechanical effect available to man. From it is derived the whole mecha- 
 nical efiect of animals working, water-wheels worked by rivers, steam- 
 engines, and galvanic engines, &c. Vegetation is the great support 
 of animal power, but vegetation could not be maintained without the 
 action of the sun's rays, received directly or indirectly. "Without such 
 powerful evaporation caused by the sun's rays, as we have endeavoured 
 to exemplify, the rivers would soon lose their general source. And it 
 has been already stated that combustible materials, without which 
 steam-power could not be generated, are stores of solar heat. 
 
 This gives some idea of the immense power of solar radiation ; and 
 within their respective spheres of action, both horticulturists and 
 agriculturists may advantageously direct their attention to the subject. 
 For instance, the former would avoid watering at a time, and in a 
 manner, that would render nearly all the water he supplied liable to be 
 carried oflf by evaporation before it could reach the principal roots of his 
 plants ; and the farmer, knowing the effects of radiation on a moist 
 surface, would hesitate before he flooded say four acres with manure 
 water, at the risk of losing a hundred tons of it, together with its 
 portion of ammonia, by evaporation. 
 
 The same subject is taken up by the Comte de Gasparin in a commu- 
 nication to the Institute, printed in the Comptes Mendus for June, 1853. 
 The effects, he observes, of solar radiation on vegetation are so apparent 
 and so well known that no one doubts their importance. When one 
 plants a Vine, he does not require scientific information to direct him in 
 choosing a southern aspect; nor to plant fruit-trees against a wall which 
 receives and reverberates the rays of the sun; nor to place exotic plants 
 under glass, which readily admits direct rays of heat and light, but 
 through which obscure heat, or that derived from a heating apparatus 
 in a hothouse, passes slowly, and thus an accumiilation of heat takes 
 place ; practical men do all these things as a matter of course. But 
 there are many other effects resulting from the same cause, which do 
 not come so directly under our senses. . The Olive is unproductive at 
 Agen, with a mean temperature 9f 57° Fahr., and fertile in Dahnatia 
 with 55^° ; the limit of the Viue is arrested by 54° mean temperature 
 on the banlcs of the Loire, but grapes ripen where the mean temperatuie 
 
198 SOLAR KADIATION. 
 
 is only 50° on the Ehine ; the harvest near London is matured with a 
 mean summer temperature of 62°, and in the same time at Upsal with 
 59°. When we take these phenomena into consideration, we must 
 conclude that they depend upon the presence or absence of that 
 important element of heat, solar radiation, by which the temperature 
 of opaque bodies is raised above that which they could receive from the 
 diffused heat of the atmosphere. When we also know that the absorp- 
 tion and assimilation of carbon, the substance of which about half the 
 mass of plants is composed, does not take place except under the 
 influence of light, and is proportionate to its intensity, we feel assured 
 that the determination of its effects must prove interesting to cultivators. 
 Under this impression, the Comte de Gasparin made various experiments. 
 In 1840 he communicated some observations on three Mulberry-trees, of 
 the same variety. One of these was fully exposed to the rays of the 
 sun, the second only till noon, and the third was whoUy in the shade. 
 The solid matter of the leaves of the first was 45 per cent, of their 
 weight ; that of the second, 36 per cent. ; whilst that of the third was 
 only 27 per cent. In 1852 he ctdtivated some Broad-beans on a plot 
 of ground divided into two equal parts by a partition which shaded one 
 half the ground from the rays of the sun. After being dried, the plants 
 grown on the south side weighed 21 ounces ; hut those grown on the 
 north side,, although much taller, weighed only twelve ounces. The 
 difference in their fructification was, however, still more remai'k- 
 ahle. The plants on the south side had 131 pods, those on the north 
 only 4*7. It is impossible to attribute these results to the simple 
 augmentation of heat. The plants in the above experiment had a mean, 
 atmospheric temperature of 59J° Fah. for 84 days, and 5|° was the 
 average d.aily amount of solar radiation. Certainly an additional 
 5J° of obscure heat would not produce such results. 
 
 The laws indicated by Daniell plainly direct us to the 
 means we are to employ to moderate atmospherical temperature. 
 A screen, of whatever kind, interposed between the sun and a 
 plant, intercepts the radiant heat of the sun, and returns it into 
 space ; and thus, in addition to the diminution of perspiration 
 by the removal of a part of the stimulus that causes it, actually 
 tends, to lower the temperature that surrounds the plant. In 
 like manner, the interposition of a screen, however slight, 
 between a plant and the sky, intercepts the radiant heat of 
 the earth; and, instead of allowing it to pass off into space, 
 returns it to the ground, the temperature of which is main- 
 tained at a higher point than it otherwise would be. Hence it 
 is that plants growing below the deep projecting eaves of 
 
NOCTURNAL RADIATION. 199 
 
 houses, or guarded by a mere coping of thatched hurdles, suffer 
 less in winter than if they were fully exposed to the sky. 
 
 It is also obvious from what has been stated that plants 
 growing upon grass will be exposed to a greater degree of cold 
 in winter than such as grow upon gravel: but it does not 
 therefore follow that hard gravel is, with respect to vegetation, 
 a better coating for the surface of the ground than turf ; it has 
 its disadvantages as well as its advantages, and the former 
 probably outweigh the latter. Its superior heating power is its 
 only advantage ; the objections to it are, its dryness in summer, 
 and its comparative impermeability to rain, so that it causes 
 the force of perspiration to be inversely as the absorbing 
 power of the roots. 
 
 In Grermany, where the winters are very severe, it is customary to 
 cover the roots of plants on grass with a mulching of leaf mould, six 
 inches deep and a foot in diameter ; but this can have, I think, no 
 sensible effect upon roots, because of the inconsiderable area that it 
 occupies. 
 
 It is well known that blackened surfaces absorb heat much 
 more than those of any other colour ; and it has been expected 
 that the effect of blackening garden walls, on which fruit-trees 
 are trained, would be to accelerate the maturation of the fruit ; 
 but, notwithstanding a few cases of apparent advantage, one of 
 which, of the Vine, is mentioned in the Horticultural Transac- 
 tions, vol. iii., p. 330, this has been, in general, found either 
 not to happen at all, or to so small an extent as not to be 
 deserving of notice in practice. It is true, that so long as the 
 wall is but little covered by the branches and leaves of a plant, 
 the absorbent power of the blackened surface is brought into 
 play; but this effect is lost as soon as the wall becomes covered 
 with foliage. In the early spring before the leaves appear, the 
 flowers are brought rather more forward than would otherwise 
 be the case, which is in England a disadvantage. It would 
 seem, however, that in autumn the wood becomes more com- 
 pletely ripened ; but the effect is very slight. 
 
 It is rather to a judicious choice of soil and situation that 
 the gardener must look for the means of softening the rigour 
 of climate. Wet tenacious soUs are found the most difficult to 
 
200 RELATION OP SITUATION TO COLD. 
 
 heat or to drain, and they will, therefore, he the most unfavour- 
 ahle to the operations of the gardener ; extremely light sandy 
 soils, on the other hand, part with their moisture so rapidly, 
 and absorb so much heat, that they are equally unfavourable. 
 It is the light loamy soils, which are intermediate between the 
 two extremes, that, as is weU known, form the best soil for a 
 garden. Situation is, however, of more consequence than soil, 
 for the latter may be changed or improved, but a bad (that is, 
 cold) situation is incurable. Cold air is heavier than warm air, 
 and, consequently, the stratum of the atmosphere next the soil 
 wiU. be in general colder than that above it. "When, therefore, 
 a garden is placed upon the level ground of the bottom of a 
 vaUey, whatever cold air is formed upon its surface remains 
 there, and surrounds the herbage : and moreover, the cold air 
 that is formed upon the sides of low hills rolls down into the 
 vaUey as quickly as it is formed. Hence the fact which to 
 many seems surprising, that what are called sheltered places 
 are in spring and autumn the coldest. We aU know that the 
 Dahlias, Potatoes, and Kidney-beans of the sheltered gardens 
 in the valley of the Thames, are killed in the autumn by frosts 
 whose effects are unfelt on the low hiUs of Surrey and 
 Middlesex. Daniell says he has seen a difference of 30°, on 
 the same night, between two thermometers, placed the one in a 
 valley, and the other on a gentle emiuence, in favour of the 
 latter. Hence, he justly observes, the advantages of placing a 
 garden upon a gentle slope must be apparent; "a running 
 stream at its foot would secure the further benefit of a contigu-. 
 ous surface not liable to refrigeration, and would prevent any 
 injurious stagnation of the air." 
 
 One of our German translators has expressed his opinion that no such 
 difference as 30° can have been observed, and alters the statement to 3° 
 Reaumur! But if he had consulted Darnell's Meteorological Essays, Ed. 
 2. p. 525, he would have found that the quotation is exact. No doubt it 
 was an extreme case ; but Mr. Thompson remarked last April that at 
 the time when fruit-buds near the ground had been universally kUled by 
 , 14° of frost, they were safe on trees twenty-five to thirty feet above the 
 level, and he beUeves there may have been a difference of 10° — 12° in 
 favour of even that slight height. 
 As a good example of the practical mode of dealing with low 
 
LOW SITUATIONS, HOW IMPEOVED. 201 
 
 situations, with a cold bottom, the following operation, described 
 by Mr, W. BiUington the elder, may be advantageously imitated : — 
 "About the middle of June 1800, I arrived at Brocklesby, Lincoln- 
 shire, as gardener to the late Lord Yarborough. At that advanced 
 season I found the Peach-trees in a deplorable state, with scarcely any 
 leaves upon them, few branches, and very little fruit ; the few leaves 
 that remained were all curled or diseased, and soon after shrivelled up 
 and feU off. The trees were not very old— about thirty years, but had 
 extended over a, fine wall without flues. The site of the garden was 
 very unfavourable, a worse could not have been found near the mansion ; 
 for it was both low and wet. Previously to its being made into a 
 garden, the water used to stagnate and cover a great part of it through 
 the winter ; but it had been drained at a great expense, and fresh soU 
 had been brought in for the fruit-tree borders, &c. But after aU. the 
 situation could not be essentially improved, nor the ill effects upon 
 vegetables and tender fruit-trees entirely averted in an atmosphere so 
 damp from the exhalations that arise in such places in the autumn and 
 spring months, when sunny days and frosty nights are so prevalent. 
 The fruit-tree borders had been weU made and well drained ; the trees 
 had grown luxuriantly and covered the walls : but no fruit was pro- 
 duced of any consequence, and that was not well-ilavoured, either on 
 the walls or elsewhere. The Peaches and Apricots on walls would make 
 efforts in the spring of each year to produce wood and leaves, hut when 
 the cold weather prevailed, in April, May, and June, with easterly 
 winds and frost, the leaves became diseased and curled, and were either 
 pulled off or fell of themselves in June or July. Thus the trees became 
 inactive for want of healthy leaves, at the time when they should have 
 been making and perfecting the wood for the next year's crop. But 
 towards the end of summer, when the earth had become dry and warm 
 to a great <iepth, the trees would make fresh efforts and throw out 
 plenty of strong luxuriant shoots. Then the early autumnal frosts 
 would set in before such late wood was half matured, so that during 
 the winter and spring the greater part of these strong shoots was killed, 
 and the remainder had no time to make strong flower-buds. And thus, 
 season after season, there was nothing but disappointment, notwith- 
 standing an immense expense : the walls were bare, the trees naked 
 and unsightly, without fruit or with luxuriant or cankered wood. 
 Instead of rooting out these sickly trees and planting young ones in 
 their places that I might have the pleasure of planting and training my 
 own trees under my own management, knowing it would be several 
 years before there could be fruit from young trees, I was induced to 
 consider what I could do to bring the existing trees to bear a little fruit 
 till young trees could arrive at a bearing state, between the old ones ; 
 for nearly aU the old Peaches and Nectarines were destitute of young 
 wood half the height of the wall. Early in the autumn of the year 
 
202 IMPROVEMENT OF. 
 
 1800 I began with what I termed baising the boots (not 'root- 
 pruning ') of some Peaehes and Apricots, for the latter were in as un- 
 fruitful a state as the others from the same cause. The method I 
 devised was as foUows :■ — First, by digging out a trench at from four to 
 five feet from the stem of the tree, and about two feet wide, tiU I found 
 the roots which were at the bottom of the good soil near three feet 
 below the surface. This had been caused by planting too deep at first, 
 and always digging the borders deep, which forced the roots still lower 
 beneath the surface ; but I must remark I found all the roots healthy, 
 which showed that the disease in the branches and leaves had not 
 afifected the roots, nor been derived from diseased or cankered roots, 
 even in that damp situation. After the earth was thrown out of the 
 trench, we began to fork out the soil with a three-pronged fork into the 
 open trench, throwing it out till we got all the roots bare to within 
 eighteen or twenty inches of the stem (of course this was root-pruning, 
 for I cut them all off to that distance), when we lifted them up and 
 bent them backwards, if not too strong, or held them up while the soil 
 thrown out in the operation of clearing the roots was returned into the 
 hole, to within nine inches or a foot of the surface, treading it well 
 down that it might not subside and admit the roots deeper than I 
 intended. I then carefully replaced the roots upon the soU, covering 
 them with the remainder, without adding either fresh soil or manure of 
 any kind. When finished, the roots lay from about nine to twelve 
 inches from the surface, instead of three feet, as before. But as the 
 trees had been planted very deep at first, or the soil had been raised in 
 the course of years, the extremities of the shortened raised roots were 
 much nearer the surface after the operation than where they issued from 
 the collar of the root ; for we could not raise that part so high. My 
 reason for doing them this way was to prevent too great a check by an 
 entire removal or lifting them up, and I left what may be termed a good 
 ball at the bottom of the stem undisturbed ; but I took good care to 
 hollow it well under, so as to get to every root that went perpendicular 
 from the stem, so as to raise them up, and lay them in a horizontal 
 position. If too strong to bend upwards, as some of them were, I cut 
 them entirely off, but I preferred raising them up, if possible, with 
 their extremities pointing to the surface, to prevent their making fresh 
 roots downwards ; my object was to encourage the formation of roots 
 as near the surface as I could, conceiving it more beneficial to the trees 
 and fruit. Afterwards I never suffered the borders to be dug above 
 half a spit deep, my main design being to have fruit as soon as possible, 
 and of good quality. I beg to remark I did only half a tree at once, in 
 order to prevent its subsiding in the operation. I pursued this plan 
 with all the Peaches and Apricots, but not in one season, because it was 
 only an experiment I was trying. Some of the trees done in this 
 manner were very large, particularly the Apricots, and some Pears. 
 
LOW SITUATIONS. 203 
 
 " The first year after the operation I had the secret pleasure of seeing 
 
 my trees make healthy shoots, from nine to fifteen inches long, withont 
 
 any thick, curled leaves. The first shoots and leaves that were made 
 
 were not injured as previously, but continued healthy all through the 
 
 spring and summer, ripening their wood early in the autumn, and 
 
 forming fine blossom-buds for the ensuing season; and what fruit 
 
 appeared was earlier than usual by three weeks, with an excellent 
 
 flavour, equal to any on a hot wall. The year after the operation we 
 
 had plenty of fine fruit, early and well-flavoured. I did not think so 
 
 much offimely-trained trees, pruned, and nailed according to the rules 
 
 of the art, as of seeing a wall well covered in the season, when the 
 
 proprietor expects to find something more substantial than a smart 
 
 appearance ; I trained the young shoots in any direction I could lay 
 
 them in, so as to cover the bare spaces. After the first years I had 
 
 more Peaches and Apricots large and weU-flavoured than could be well 
 
 consumed by the family. I tried the same experiment upon other kinds 
 
 of fruit-trees, especially Pears, with the same success; and I also 
 
 planted a great number of young fruit-trees of various kinds on 
 
 ' prepared bottoms,' to prevent the roots getting too deep in such an 
 
 unfavourable situation, where nearly all the first-planted trees had 
 
 failed, become cankered, and were rooted out, having never produced 
 
 fruit fit to send to table. Had I continued ia his lordship's service, I 
 
 intended, after the roots had extended over those prepared bottoms, and 
 
 struck down into the damp ungenial subsoil, to have shortened and 
 
 raised them again to the outsides of these prepared bottoms, which 
 
 were from four to five feet iu diameter for the dwarf trees in the borders 
 
 by the sides of the main walks, and about the same diameter for the 
 
 trees against the walls. I prepared my young trees for such planting 
 
 by haviag them for a year or two in the garden, so as to have long 
 
 roots to spread horizontally, when I finally planted them out on the 
 
 prepared bottoms, taking especial care afterwards not to dig deep over 
 
 the roots. The materials of which the prepared bottoms were formed 
 
 consisted chiefly of broken bricks, tUea, cinders, and slags from the 
 
 hothouse furnaces or fire-places, with lime crops or riddlings over all, 
 
 firmly rammed down hard, from eighteen to twenty-four inches thick, 
 
 with about a foot of good soil over them, and elevated a little in the 
 
 centre to plant them on." 
 
 This experiment seems to have laid the foundation of the modern 
 system of root-pruning, and root-raising, when fruit-trees are doomed 
 to grow iu places unsuited to them. 
 
 It has been said that, to obtain the most favourable con- 
 ditions of climate in this country, a garden should have a 
 south-eastern exposure. This, however, has been recom- 
 mended, I think, without full consideration. It is true that in 
 
20i FEOZEN PLANTS MUST THAW GKADUALLY. 
 
 such an exposure the early sunbeams will be received ; but, on 
 the other hand, vegetation there would be exposed to several 
 unfavourable actions. There would be little protection from 
 easterly winds, whichj whether south-east or north-east, are the 
 coldest and driest that blow : in the next place, an exposure to 
 the first sun of the morning is very prejudicial to garden pro- 
 ductions that have been frozen by the radiation of the night ; 
 it produces a sudden thaw, which, as gardeners well know, 
 (see Hort. Trans., iii. 43.) causes the death of plants which, if 
 slowly thawed, would sustain no inconvenience from the low 
 temperature to which they had been exposed. 
 
 The following well authenticated cases will exemplify this important 
 practical truth. 1 . In the early spring of 1 846, a quantity of Geraniums, 
 and other soft-wooded plants, were conveyed some twenty miles by 
 waggon on a frosty night, and not being properly protected were 
 completely frozen when they arrived at their destination, by daylight 
 in the morning. So much were they frozen^,' that the succulent tops for 
 several inches were apparently masses of ice, and the greater part of 
 the leaves had suffered more or less. The whole of these plants were 
 quickly removed to a dark cellar ; and a covering of mats, supported 
 by a temporary frame-work, was thrown over them. Water, just 
 above the freezing temperature, was freely applied to the foliage, and 
 no light admitted for twenty-four hours. On removing them, scarcely 
 a leaf had suffered, except such as had been bruised in the unpacking. 
 2. One night, in mid-winter, the person in charge of a conservatory 
 forgetting to apply the necessary artificial temperature, found on 
 entering the house at 4 o'clock in the morning, that the tender plants 
 were much frozen. He applied fire to the boiler, raised the temperature 
 a degree or two above freezing, and then liberally applied cold water 
 with a syringe. The result was that nothing beyond a few leaves or a 
 stray shoot sustaiaed any damage. 3. A house of Pelargoniums was 
 penetrated by frost, the plants much frozen, and the frost on the 
 increase when the circumstance became known in the morning. Cold 
 water was in this case applied, but without the precaution of raising 
 the temperature above freezing. The result was that the water, as 
 soon as it fell on the foliage, became ice. The more water the greater 
 evil. This detected, a fire was, lighted, and the necessary temperature 
 acquired, when the result was aU that could be wished. Sunlight was 
 prevented reaching the plants until their fluids were once more in 
 motion. — A sudden thaw is easily obviated, by syringing frozen 
 plants with cold water a few, degrees above 32°. Mr James Cuthill 
 mentions the following occurrence in illustration of this : " In the spring 
 
DAMPNESS OF GLASS-HOUSES. 205 
 
 of 1826, or 1827, when I resided at ' the Cedars' at Putney, the only 
 border which my next door neighbour and myself had for growing 
 early Peas, had an east aspect. A very severe frost (10°) came over 
 that district about the 15th of May. The Peas were in full bloom on 
 my neighbour's border, as well as mine. I syringed all mine with cold 
 water. My neighbour, on witnessing the operation, said that he would 
 not kill his in that way. I saved all mine, he lost aU his. This 
 taught me a lesson which I never forgot ; and by the same means I have 
 often saved the Peach, Pear, and other fruits, as well as Gooseberries, 
 after they were a good size." It is to be remembered, however, that 
 this plan is serviceable only in the case of morning frosts of short 
 dtiration. 
 
 In our glazed houses, we have full control over the state of 
 the atmosphere, as regards both its moisture and temperature, 
 by means familiar to every gardener; but the manner of 
 applying those means, and the causes that oppose their action, 
 deserve to be the subject of inquiry. 
 
 It will have been seen, from what has been already stated 
 upon that subject, that in general, in warm countries, the air is 
 occasionally at least, if not permanently, filled with vapour to a 
 much greater extent than in northern latitudes*, and, as in our 
 glazed houses we cultivate exclusively the natives of warm 
 countries, it is also obvious that, as a general rule, the air of 
 such houses requires, at certain .periods, to be damper than 
 that of the external air. Those periods are when vegetation 
 is most active. On the other hand, countries nearer the equator 
 are subject to seasons of dryness, the continuance of which is 
 often much greater than any thing we know of here in the open 
 air, and consequently artificial means must also be adopted 
 to bring about, in glazed houses, that state of things at particu- 
 lar periods ; namely, those of the repose of plants. These facts 
 afford abundant proof of the necessity of regulating the 
 moisture of the atmosphere with some certainty. 
 
 The dampness of glass-houses is easily maintained at any 
 required degree by various contrivances : such as inundating 
 
 , * " Captain Sabine, in Ms meteorological researches between the tropics, rarely found 
 at tie hottest period of the day so great a difference as 10° between the temperature 
 of the air and the dew-point ; making the degree of saturation about "730, but most 
 frequently 6° or '850 ; and the mean saturation of the air could not have exceeded 
 •910." {Dmidl.) 
 
206 SYEINGING AND BEDEWING-. 
 
 the floors and flues, which is one of the best means of supplying 
 the atmosphere with a steady supply of elastic vapour ; or by 
 discharging steam into a house, by open tanks of water resting 
 on pipes or flues; or by syringing, which not only throws mois- 
 ture into places not easily reached by other means, but disturbs 
 the numerous insects which infest such places, and removes 
 the dust and honey-dew which accumulate in the absence of 
 natural rain. The immense importance of the last of these 
 results has been fuUy explained at pages 58 and 59. 
 
 It will be evident that syringing is an imitation of raia or dew ; of 
 rain when water is dashed violently upon leaves ; of dew when it is 
 forced through fine roses and gently deposited upon leaves. Gardeners 
 confound the two operations under one common name ; but it would be 
 better, as I have suggested elsewhere, if the term Svsinging were 
 confined to the imitation of rain, and the more gentle method were 
 denominated bedewdtg. The French call the latter hassinage. In 
 this, as in all things else, the operations of Nature should be imitated 
 with all the exactness possible ; we may be certain that what we call 
 Nature is right, and that we, when we neglect her precepts, are wrong. 
 Dew is not deposited in the morning or at noon ; therefore bedewing at 
 noon or in the morning is to be carefully avoided. Dew falls in the 
 evening, cUngs to plants during the night, disappears as the sun gains 
 power. Bedewing, then, should be efected in the evening, and in such 
 abundance that it may remain for dispersion~T5y the returning sun. 
 This is opposed to the practice of the older gardeners, but its fitness is 
 shown by such considerations as the following : — 
 
 When plants are bedewed at night, no perspiration is going on ; all 
 the surface is engaged in absorption. In this way the loss of fluid by 
 day is virtually repaired. During the dark hours the tissues absorb 
 the moisture in contact with them ; drooping leaves straighten, bending 
 stems stand onoe more erect, and the very hairs that clothe the surface 
 of a leaf, on which they lay relaxed at sun-down, presently fill, 
 stifien and rise up, and drink till they can drink no more, the limpid 
 fluid at last hanging in drops from their gorged points. Were it 
 otherwise, vegetation would perish in the autumn, however vigorous it 
 might have been during the summer; for in autumn the earth is 
 exhausted of its moisture, and plants feed chiefly by their green 
 surfaces. Each returning sun expels from a plant more fluid than the 
 earth can possibly supply ; but the waste is amply made up by the dews 
 which act from sunset to sunrise. What occurs out of doors also 
 occurs in a hothouse, so far as waste of fluid is concerned ; but in a 
 glasshouse there is little or no restoration at night, because dew will 
 not form beneath a roof, and therefore the process of artificial bedewing 
 
SCORCHING IN DAMP HOUSES. 207 
 
 "becomes indispensably necessary. There is no doubt that bedewing 
 by day does more harm than good. Experience shows that when plants 
 are so treated they lose their verdure and become yellow, especially if 
 the sun shines on them immediately after the operation. It cannot be 
 useful, for it dries up before it can be absorbed. It must do harm ; 
 because the rapid evaporation from the surface of a wet leaf under a 
 bright sun is attended by a degree of cold which paralyses the vitality 
 of the leaf itself. When rain falls by day the sky is overcast ; or if we 
 have a rainstorm in sunshine the occurrence is casual and the effect is 
 transient, but in a hothouse so mismanaged a gardener has to encounter 
 the consequence of a continually recurring bad effect. 
 
 But there are some circumstances, easily overlooked, which 
 interfere very seriously with this power, and which, it will he 
 conceived, may reduce it very much helow the expectations of 
 the cultivator. The most imsuspected of these is the destruc- 
 tion of aqueous vapour hy the hot, dry, ahsorhent surface of 
 flues. The advantages of hot-water pipes over brick flues 
 arises in great measure from the former not drying the air. 
 Gardeners explain the difference in the action of the two, hy 
 saying that the dry heat produced by hot- water pipes is sweeter 
 than that given off by flues ; which is not a very infelHgible 
 expression. The fact is, that, in houses heated by flues, the 
 soft burnt clay of the brick flues robs the air of its moisture, 
 while the unabsorbent surface of iron pipes abstracts nothing. 
 
 Another source of dryness is the coldness of the glass roof, 
 especially in cold weather, when its temperature is lowered by 
 the external air, in consequence of which the moisture of the 
 artificial atmosphere is precipitated upon the inside of the 
 glass, whence it runs down in the form of " drip." Daniell 
 observes that the glass of a hot-house, at night, cannot exceed 
 the mean of the external and internal air ; and, taking them at 
 80° and 40°, 20° of dryness are kept up in the interior, or a 
 degree of saturation not exceeding "538. To this, in a clear 
 night, we may add at least 6° for the effects of radiation, to 
 which the glass is particularly exposed, which will reduce the 
 saturation to '424 ; and this is a degree of drought which must 
 be destructive. It wiU be allowed that this is by no means an 
 extreme case, but one that must frequently occur during the 
 winter season. Some idea, he adds, may be formed of the 
 
208 SCORCHING IN DAMP HOUSES. 
 
 prodigiously increased drain upon the functions of a plant, 
 arising from an increase of dryness in the air, from the 
 following consideration: — If we suppose the amount of its 
 perspiration, in a given time, to he 57 grains, the temperature 
 of the air being 75° and the dew-point 70°, or the saturation of 
 the air being '849, the amount would he increased to 130 
 grains in the same time, if the dew-point were to remain 
 stationary, and the temperature were to rise to 80° ; or, in other 
 words, if the saturation of the air were to fall to '736. {Hort. 
 Trans., vi. 20.) It is well known that the effect of maintaining 
 a very high temperiature in hot-houses at night, during the 
 winter, is frequently to cause the leaves to wither and turn 
 brown, as if scorched or burnt ; and this is certainly owing to 
 the dryness of the air, in consequence of the above causes. 
 
 Nothing perplexes mexperienced gardeners more than this unsuspected 
 source of mischief, which is of constant occurrence in Vineries supposed 
 to be managed with the utmost skill. When a gardener is told that it 
 is of little use to pour water into a tub with a hole in the bottom, for 
 that in a few minutes the tub will be as dry as if it had received no 
 water at aU, he admits the truth of the observation. But if he is assured, 
 that the more he heats and damps a Vinery the drier it will become, he 
 wUl lend a less ready acquiescence ; and yet, in cold weather, the one 
 assertion is as true as the other. 
 
 "When Vine leaves are young they are always thin, and imperfectly 
 formed ; they are in that state where any unfavourable circumstances 
 are more likely to take effect upon them, than if they were hard and 
 fully formed, especially if they come out of Vineries carefully managed, 
 with plenty of heat and moisture by day, and more, if there is any 
 difference, at night. All is right on some eventful day, let us say the 
 3rd of February ; the house is looked up ; there is a clear moon and a 
 bright sky, with every sign of a hard frost, and therefore the fires are 
 looked to ; and the Vinery is duly visited at midnight. It is impossible 
 that anything can go wrong, Next day, the 4th of Februaiy, the 
 leaves are not so green as they were before ; by night they are unmis- 
 takeably brown ; and on the 5th half are evidently dead. <' How is 
 this ? " " Oh ! " it is said, " the 4th was a bright sunny day, and the 
 leaves were sunburnt." This answer is considered satisfactory; blinds 
 are provided against another year. When February comes they are 
 drawn down every sunny day, and withdrawn at night. But the leaves 
 are tenderer than ever, and another disaster befalls them; they are 
 again burnt worse than before. The sun then cannot be in fault. A flue 
 
CAUSED BY EXTERNAL COLD. 209 
 
 must have leaked ; and gas must have escaped into the house ; yet the 
 house is warmed with water in pipes. In that case, it must have been 
 something from the pipes ; or a hole must exist between the inside of the 
 Vinery and the furnace, or the stoke-hole. Finally it is suspected that 
 the Vines must be poisoned by something in the soil, or in the water. 
 But in all such cases the injury proceeds from dryness and nothing else. 
 If a piece of cold glass is introduced into a warm damp room, moisture, 
 in the form of dew, is immediately formed upon the glass. This mois- 
 ture previously existed in the form of elastic vapour ; ■ and the dew that 
 forms on the glass is at the expense of the vapour surroimding it ; so 
 that if a cubic body of such vapour be represented by 1000, and 250 
 parts of it be abstracted by precipitation, or condensation, upon the cold 
 glass, it is clear that there wiU be only 750 parts left ; in other words, 
 the air wiU. be one-quarter drier after the introduction of the cold glass 
 than it was before. Now, if we suppose that this abstraction of vapour 
 were carried to its utmost limits, it is evident that the end would be the 
 total drying of the air, in consequence of the condensation of all its 
 vapour on the surface of cold glass. The Vine leaf, when young, wiU 
 not bear an atmosphere the degree of saturation of which is much below 
 800. If the saturation falls to 500, it will be dried up and perish. 
 This being so, the force of Daniell's remarks wiU be obvious. And when 
 it is considered that a temperature at night of 20° is no very unfrequent 
 occurrence in this country when the saturation of the air may fall to 
 IWP, that is to say, instead of the atmosphere surrounding Vine leaves 
 amounting to 7 or 8 parts in 10, which is what they require, it may not 
 amount to more than \\ in 10, which is fatal to them, the amount of 
 the danger becomes still more striking : — Thus, in an atmosphere of 
 heat and moisture, the Vine leaves may actually die of drought"; and 
 that this occasionally happens, and is a frequent though unsuspected 
 cause of injury to tender foliage, near a glass roof, is perfectly certain. 
 
 It is evident that the mode of preventing this drying of the 
 air by the cold surface of a glass roof will be, either by raising 
 the temperature of the glass, which can only be effected by 
 drawing a covering of some kind over our houses at night, so 
 as to intercept radiation, or by double glass sashes ; or else by 
 keeping the temperature of the air of the house as low as 
 possible, consistently with the safety of the plants, and so 
 diminishing the difference between the temperature of the 
 external and internal air. 
 
 The objections to external coverings are, 1st, their expense, and, 2nd, 
 the trouble attending them. If, however, the needless cost of fuel, and 
 the injury sustained by plants, be placed in one scale, and the expense 
 
210 IMPORTANCE OP 
 
 of an external covering in the other, it ■would be found that the balance 
 would turn in favour of the latter. The trouble of covering a house 
 with mats, every night, is no doubt the main obstacle to their employ- 
 ment. Long ago. Sir Joseph Paxton used moveable thatched roofs 
 running in a sort of groove or rail, capable of being pushed over a house 
 every night, and pushed off again at one end every morning ; and this 
 device left nothing to be desired in principle. But it demanded space. 
 For every fifty feet run of glass house fifty more feet were required at 
 the end of it to receive the moveable roof during the day, and it is only 
 here and there that so much space can be afforded. Ifor is the plan 
 applicable at aU to houses of any considerable dimensions. It therefore 
 still remains for some ingenious person to show how glass houses may 
 be covered every night cheaply, and mithout trouble, by a moveable 
 roof. 
 
 It is to the attention that, since the appearance of Daniell's 
 paper, in 1824, upon this subject, has been paid to the 
 atmospherical moisture of glazed houses, that the great 
 superiority of modern gardeners over those of the last genera- 
 tion is mainly to be ascribed : there are, however, traces of the 
 practice at a much earlier period, although, from . not under- 
 standing its theory, no general improvement took place. In 
 the year 1816, an account was laid before the Horticultural 
 Society of a successful mode of forcing Grapes and Nectarines, 
 as practised by Mr. French, an Essex farmer, with rude 
 materials, and under unfavourable circumstances. It is not a 
 little remarkable, that, although Mr. French himself correctly 
 referred his success to the skilful management of the atmo- 
 spherical moisture of his forcing-houses, the subject was so 
 little, understood at that time that the author of the account 
 not only shrank from adopting the opinion, but evidently, from 
 the manner in which he speaks of the explanation, had no idea 
 of its justness. 
 
 " About the beginning of March, Mr. French commences his forcing 
 by introducing a quantity of new long dung, taken fromimder the cow- 
 cribs in his straw yard ; being principally, if not entirely, cow dung ; 
 which is laid upon the floor of his house, extending entirely from end to 
 end, and in width about six or seven feet, leaving only a pathway 
 between it and the back waR of the house. The dung being aE new at 
 the beginning, a profuse steam arises with the first heat, which, in this 
 stage of the process, is found to be beneficial in destroying the ova of 
 
A DAMP ATMOSPHERE. 211 
 
 insects, as ■well as fransfusing a wholesome moisture' over tlie yet 
 leafless branohes; but ■wHeh wotild prove injurious, if permitted to rise 
 in so great a quantity when the leaves have pushed forth. In a few 
 days, the violence of the steam abates as the buds open, and in the 
 course of a fortnight the heat begins to dimiuish ; it then becomes 
 necessary to carry in a small addition of fresh dung, laying it in the 
 bottom, and covering it over with the old dung fresh forked up : this 
 produces a renovated heat, and a moderate exhstlation of moist vapour. 
 In this manner the heat is kept up throughout the season, the fresh 
 supply of dung being constantly laid at the bottom in order to smother 
 the steam, or rather to moderate the quantity of exhalation; for it must 
 always be remembered that Mr. French attaches great virtue to the 
 supply of a reasonable portion of the vapour. The quantity of new 
 dung to be introduced at each turning must be regulated by the greater 
 or smaller degree of heat that is found in the house, as the season or 
 other circumstances appear to require it. The temperature kept up is 
 pretty regular, being from 65 to 70 degrees." {Hort. Trans., i. 245.) 
 
 In this case, which attracted mtich attention at the time, it 
 is evident that the success of the practice arose principally out 
 of two circumstances : firstly, the moisture of the atmosphere- 
 was skUfuUy maiutained in due propiortion to the temperature ; 
 and, secondly, a suitable amount of bottom heat was secured. 
 This is, as will be elsewhere remarked, the principal cause of 
 the advantages found to attend the Dutch mode of forcing. 
 The reporter ujyon Mr. French's practice speaks with surprise 
 of the rudeness of the roof of ' his forcing^houses, and of the 
 numerous openiugs into the air through the laps of the glass* 
 and the joints of the sashes; but these were points of' no 
 importance under the mode of management adopted.- 
 
 The impossibility of preserving any plants, except succulents, 
 in a healthy state, for any long period, in a sitting-room, is 
 evidently owing to the impracticability of maintaining the 
 atmosphere of such a situation in a state of sufficient 
 dampness. 
 
 An excess of dampness is indispensable to plants in a state 
 of rapid growth, partly because it prevents the action of 
 perspiration becoming too violent, and partly because under 
 such circumstances a considerable quantity of aqueous food is 
 absorbed from the atmosphere, in addition to that obtained by 
 the roots. But it is essential to observe that, when not in a 
 
212 AXIOMS AS TO DAMP AIB. 
 
 state of rapid growth, a large amount of moisture in the aii- 
 will be prejudicial rather than advantageous to a plant ; if the 
 temperature is at the same time high, excitability will remain 
 in a state of continued action, and that rest which is necessary 
 wUl be withheld, the result of which will be an eventual 
 destruction of the vital energies. But, on the other hand, if 
 the temperature is kept low while the amount of atmospherical 
 moisture is considerable, the latter is absorbed, without its 
 being possible for the plant to decompose it; the system 
 then becomes, in the younger and more absorbent parts, 
 distended with water, and decomposition takes place, followed 
 by the appearance of a crop of microscopical fungi ; in short, 
 that appearance presents itself which is technically called 
 " damping off/' 
 
 A skilful balancing of temperature and moisture in the air, 
 and a just adaptation of them to the various seasons of growth, 
 constitute the most complicated and diflScult part of a 
 gardener's art. There is some danger in laying down general 
 rules with respect to this subject, so much depending upon 
 the peculiar habits of species, of which the modifications are 
 endless. It may, however, I think, be safely stated that the 
 following maxims deserve especial attention : — 
 
 1. Most moisture in the air is demanded by plants when they 
 first begin to grow, and least when their periodical growth is 
 completed. 
 
 2. The quantity of atmospheric moisture required by plants 
 is, cceteris paribus, in inverse proportion to the distance from 
 the equator of the countries which they naturally inhabit. 
 
 3. Plants with annual stems require more than those with 
 ligneous stems. 
 
 4. The amount of moisture in the air most suitable to plants 
 at rest is in inverse proportion to the quantity of aqueous 
 matter they at that time contain. (Hence the dryness of the 
 air required by succulent plants when at rest.) 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OP VENTILATION. 
 
 It is probable tbat no horticultural question has excited 
 more difference of opinion than that of ventilating glass-houses. 
 On the one hand it has been contended that plants in such 
 places require no more air than will necessarily be introduced 
 through crevices, sashes, and doors ; on the other it has been 
 insisted by gardeners of great experience that plants require 
 an incessant and abundant supply of fresh air in motion. 
 
 Those who support the latter view point to the facts that 
 meet the observer at every step in wild nature, where plants are 
 to be found in the most vigorous health. In the open air the 
 atmosphere that surrounds them is incessantly in motion, even 
 in the calmest day; and by evening or during the night, when 
 they most especially are feeding, in rapid motion. The atmo- 
 sphere is their pasture, and its ever-varying density is a natural 
 phenomenon most intimately connected with the maintenance 
 of vegetable health. It is a beautiful compensation for their 
 want of locomotion ; as plants cannot move to the atmosphere, 
 the atmosphere is ever moving towards them. It is therefore 
 certaiu, without inquiring into the exact philosophy of the matter, 
 that free access to abundant air must be secured, if the health 
 of plants in glass-houses is to equal that in the open air. 
 
 On the other hand the advocates of a confined atmosphere 
 believe that those who attach so much importance to ventilating 
 houses abundantly, scarcely consider the nature of plants, and 
 suppose that they require to be treated Hke man himself, thus 
 consulting their own feelings rather than the laws of vegetable 
 growth. It is true that animals require a continual renovation 
 
214 NECESSITY OF VENTILATION. 
 
 of the air that surrounds them, because they speedily render it 
 impure by the carbonic acid given off, and the oxygen abstracted 
 by animal respiration. . But the reverse is what happens to 
 plants; they exhale oxygen during the day, and inhale the 
 carbonic acid of the atmosphere ; and, considering the manner 
 in which glass-houses are constructed, the buoyancy of the air 
 in heated houses will enable it to escape in sufficient quantity 
 to renew itself as quickly as can be necessary for the main- 
 tenance of the healthy action of the organs of vegetable 
 respiration. It, therefore, is iriiprobable that the ventilation of 
 houses in which plants grow is so necessary to them as is 
 supposed. So it is said, '' ' 
 
 There can, hawever, be no doubt that the latter argument is 
 fallacious, and that gardeners who judge of the requirements of 
 plants by their own, are not so much in error as has been 
 supposed. It is true that ventilation is not required in order 
 te supply plants with food enough to maintain existence; they 
 get from tranquil air as much gaseous food as will support 
 life. But it is one thing to exist, and another to thrive. 
 Moreover, the admission of abundant air is not merely for the 
 purpose of feeding a plant ; it enables it to perspire copiously, 
 a function not less indispensable than feeding, for perspiration 
 with plants is only a part of the process of digestion. Let us only 
 watch the effect of allowing a continual change of air to take 
 place among plants in a greenhouse. The best managed house 
 within our knowledge, in which the plants are always dark 
 green, short jointed, and loaded with flowers, is one with a 
 span roof, the lower half of which is moveable and the upper 
 fixed; by raising. or lowering the lower sashes a strong current 
 of air can at all times be carried through the plants, among 
 which it incessantly plays. In this place there are no yellow 
 leaves,, no mildew,, no spot, no languor, no fog^g off. At 
 Sion the Clove has borne flowers, the Litchi and Nutmeg 
 ripened their fruit with all their natural aroma, and the 
 Mangosteen is growing as if at Batavia; this has been 
 effected in a stove so constructed as to secure the presence of 
 constant currents of air. The Mango has never flourished 
 more than it did at Walcot, in the days of the late Lord Powis ; 
 
IMPOETANCE OF AIE IN MOTION. 215 
 
 it grew there in a house in which air was necessarily in 
 constant and very rapid motion. The best flavoured Grapes 
 are ripened out of doors ; no one would compare our hot-house 
 Grapes for flavour with those of the climates where they ripen 
 naturally. The best coloured Grapes are ripened out of doors ; 
 no one ever saw ripe black Grapes deficient in colour in the 
 open air. The best Peaches, Strawberries, Apricots, are ripened 
 in the open air. The best flavoured Queen Pine I ever tasted 
 was one ripened at Bicton in the open air.* 
 
 It is not improbable that one of the advantages of ventilation 
 depends upon a cause but little adverted to, but which certainly 
 requires to be well considered. It was an opinion of 
 Mr. Kjiight, that the motion given to plants by wind is bene- 
 ficial to them by enabling their fluids to circulate more freely 
 than they otherwise would do; and in a paper printed in the 
 Philosophical Transactions for 1803, p. 377, he adduces, in 
 suppoil; of his opinion, many experiments and observations ; 
 of which the foUowiug is sufficiently striking : — 
 
 " The effect of motion on the oiroiilation of the sap, and the consequent 
 formation of wood, I was best able to ascertain by the following expedient. 
 Early in the spring of 1801, I selected a number of young seedling 
 Apple trees, whose stems were about an inch in diameter, and whose 
 height between the roots and first branches was between six and seven 
 feet. These trees stood about eight feet from each other ; and, of 
 course, a free passage for the wind to act on each tree was afforded. 
 By means of stakes and bandages of hay, not so tightly bound as to 
 impede the progress of any fluid within the trees, I nearly depriyed 
 the roots and lower parts of the stems of several trees of all motion, to 
 the height of three feet from the ground, leaving the upper part of the 
 stems and branches in their natural state. In the succeeding summer, 
 much new wood accumulated in the parts which were kept in motion 
 by the wind ; but the lower parts of the stems and roots increased very 
 little in size. Removing the bandages from one of these trees in the 
 following winter, I fixed a stake in the ground, about ten feet distant 
 from the tree, on the east side of it; and I attached the tree to the 
 stake at the height of six feet, by means of a slender pole, about twelve 
 feet long ; thus leaving the tree at Uberty to move towards the north 
 and south, or, more properly, in the segment of a circle, of which the 
 
 * See p. 101. The author regrets to see that the name of Lady RoUe is mis- 
 printed Bolfe, at that pUce. 
 
216 KNIGHT'S OBJECTION TO VENTILATION. 
 
 pole formed a radius ; but in no other direction. Thus ciroumstanoed, 
 the diameter of the tree from north to south in that part of its stem 
 which was most exercised by the wind, exceeded that in the opposite 
 direction, in the following autumn, in the proportion of thirteen to 
 eleven." 
 
 Now, if the efiFect of motion is to increase the quantity of wood in a 
 plant, it is eyident that ventilation, which causes motion, must tend to 
 produce a healthy action in the plants exposed to it ; and such a state 
 must also be favourable to the development of all those secretions upon 
 which the organisation of flowers, the setting of fruit, and the 
 elaboration of colour, odour, flavour, &o., so much depend. Some 
 suggestions by Mr. Knight, as to the manner in which this result can 
 be artificially produced, wiU be found in the Sort. Trans., vol. iv. 
 p. 2, and 3. (See also Hort. Trans,, new series, i. 34.) 
 
 It is not a little remarkable, however, that the same great 
 gardener as weU as physiologist should have expressed himself 
 unfavourable to abundant ventUation. It would seem as if he 
 scarcely perceived the whole b^g,ring of the interesting 
 experiment just recorded. It may be objected, he says, that 
 plants do not thrive, that the skins of Grapes are thick, and 
 other fruits without flavour, in crowded forciug-houses : but in 
 these it is probably Hght, rather than a more rapid change of 
 air, that is wanting ; for, in a forcing-house which I have long 
 devoted almost exclusively to experiments, I employ very little 
 fire heat, and never give air till my Grapes are nearly ripe, iu 
 the hottest and brightest weather, further than is just necessary 
 to prevent the leaves being destroyed by excess of heat. Yet 
 this mode of treatment does not at all lessen the flavour of the 
 fruit, nor render the skins of the Grapes thick ; on the contrary, 
 their skins are always most remarkably thin, and very similar to 
 those of Grapes which have ripened in the open air. {Hort. 
 Trans., ii. 235.) 
 
 Mr. Knight would not even admit that in forciug-houses 
 ventilation is useful at the period of ripening ; but the following 
 extract, in which this opinion is expressed, shows that he did 
 not use the word ventilation in its ordinary sense. " A less 
 humid atmosphere is more advantageous to fruits of all kinds, 
 when the period of their maturity approaches, than in the 
 earlier stages of their growth ; and such an increase of 
 
HOW EXPLAINED. 217 
 
 ventilation, at this period, as will give the requisite degree of 
 dryness to the air within the house, is highly beneficial, 
 provided it be not increased to such an extent as to reduce the 
 temperature of the house much below the degree in which the 
 fruit had previously grown, and thus retard its progress to 
 maturity. The good effect of opening a Peach-house, by 
 taMng off the lights of its roof during the period of the last 
 swelling of the fruit, appears to have led many gardeners to 
 overrate greatly the beneficial influence, of a free current of air 
 upon ripening fruits ; for I have never found ventUation to 
 give the proper flavour or colour to a Peach, unless that frmt 
 was, at the same time, exposed to the sv/n without the intervention 
 of glass ; and the most excellent Peaches I have ever been able 
 to raise were obtained under circumstances where change of 
 air was as much as possible prevented, consistently with the 
 acl/rmssion of Ught {without glass), to a single tree." (Hort. 
 Trans., ii. 327.) 
 
 This remark makes it evident that Mr. Knight used the 
 word ventilation in the sense of a draught or current of air ; 
 for it is dif&cult to conceive how plants can be more abundantly 
 supplied with fresh air than by removing the glass sashes 
 which obstructed its admission. 
 
 It is not merely in heated houses or during the summer 
 season that free ventilation is required. It is just as necessary 
 in winter, or when plants are torpid. "We cannot suppose that 
 the substances contained within the living bark are at rest 
 during half the year, because the leaves have fallen away. On 
 the contrary, the change of colour which gradually takes place 
 in branches during winter, is proof enough that chemical action 
 is still going on in obedience to vital force. It is inconceivable 
 that such actions should be unconnected with the atmosphere 
 that surrounds the branches, although chemists may be unable 
 to explain the connection ; and without waitiag for the rationale, 
 we may assiu'e ourselves that those motions of the air which 
 are so indispensable in summer are at least as much needed in 
 winter ; perhaps more so. 
 
 As to cold pits and cold greenhouses, they require that their 
 air should be kept in motion just as much as that of heated 
 
218 CULTURE OF ALPINE PLANTS. 
 
 structures. If we only look at the plants discovered when 
 mats are removed from pits which have long been closely 
 covered up during a tedious winter, dropping limb from 
 limb, covered with mouldiness, musty and rotten, instead of 
 the healthy specimens originally placed there, we shall require 
 no argument to show that ventilation in winter is as necessary 
 as in summer, and in cold pits as well as heated buildings. If 
 this is indispensable when plants are in a state of torpor, how 
 much more is it needed in such places as dung-pits or frames, 
 especially where salad, cucumbers, and similar plants are 
 grown. In those cases the object is in part to dry the air, in 
 order that the plants may not absorb more aqueous particles 
 than they can decompose and assimilate. Although plants of 
 this kind will bear a high degree of atmospherical moisture in 
 summer, when the days are long and the sun bright, and when, 
 consequently, all their digestive energies are in full activity, 
 yet they are by no means able to endure the same amount in 
 the short dark days of winter, when, from the want of Hght, 
 their powers of decomposition or digestion are comparatively 
 feeble. 
 
 One of the causes of success in tke Dutch method of winter forcing 
 is, undouhtedly, their avoiding the necessity of winter ventilation, by 
 intercepting the excessive vapour that rises from the soil, and which 
 would otherwise mix with the air. For this purpose they interpose 
 screens of oUed paper between the earth and the air of their houses, and 
 in their pits for vegetables they cover the surface of the ground with 
 the same oUed paper, by which means vapour is effectually intercepted, 
 and the air preserved from excessive moisture. 
 
 It is highly probable, if not yet proved, that the true cause 
 of the difficulty of cultivatiag alpine plants in the lowlands, 
 arises from the impossibiUty of maintaining around them a 
 damp atmosphere associated with low temperature, and the 
 copious evaporation caused by the rapid currents of air to which 
 they are exposed in their native stations. Some plants indeed 
 are able to dispense with these conditions, and live indifferently 
 in elevated regions and on plains ; of which the common 
 Shepherd's Purse {Capsella) and Ca/rdamine hirsuta are 
 Indian examples quoted by Dr. Hooker ; but the majority can 
 
WHY IMPEACTIOABLE. 219 
 
 only exist under those peculiar conditions in which they have 
 been placed by nature. 
 
 This explanation of a well known horticultural difficulty 
 seems better to agree with facts than the suggestion of Baron 
 Humboldt, to which I formerly assented, that diminished 
 atmospheric pressure was the cause. On this point 
 Dr. Hooker has remarked that "a comparison of Arctic 
 vegetation with that of elevations of 17,000 feet, where 
 literally fifteen inches of pressure are removed, shows no 
 difference in the characters or habits of such plants as are 
 common to both regions ; it certainly induces no peculiarity of 
 vegetation, or there would be a character common to the 
 Alpines of India and of America which the temperate and 
 Arctic regions should not share; but though the Alpine 
 floras of these tropical regions widely differ from each 
 other, they are both Arctic floras in the greatest degree, 
 generically." 
 
 In bis Himalayan Journah this distiaguislied traveller has some 
 additional observations, which deserve quotation. " It has long been 
 surmised that an Alpine vegetation may owe some of its peculiarities to 
 the diminished atmospheric pressure ; and that the latter, being a con- 
 dition which the gardener cannot supply, he can never successfully 
 cultivate such plants in general. I know of no foundation for this 
 hypothesis ; many plants, natives of the level of the sea in other parts 
 of the world, and some even of the hot plains of Bengal, ascend to 
 12,000 and even 15,000 feet on the Himalaya, unaffected by the 
 diminished pressure. Any number of species from low countries may 
 be cultivated, and some have been for ages, at 10,000 to 14,000 feet, 
 without change. It is the same with the lower animals ; innumerable 
 instances may with ease be adduced of pressure alone inducing no 
 appreciable change, whilst there is absence of proof to the contrary. 
 The phenomena that accompany diminished pressure are the real 
 obstacles to the cultivation of Alpiae plants, of which cold and the 
 excessive climate are perhaps the most formidable. Plants that grow 
 in localities marked by sudden extremes of heat and cold, are always 
 very variable in stature, habit, and foliage. In a state of nature we 
 say the plants ' accommodate themselves ' to these changes, and so they 
 do withia certain limits ; but for one that siirvives of aU the seeds that 
 germinate in these inhospitable localities, thousands die. In our gardens 
 we can neither imitate the conditions of an Alpine cUmate, nor offer 
 others suited to the plants of such climates." (Vol. ii., p. 415.) 
 
220 SIKKIM RHODODENDRONS. 
 
 The notorious difficulty o£ cultivating some of the Sikkim 
 Rhododendrons is probably to be explained by similar consi- 
 derations. In the Sikkim Himalaya there is little continued 
 sunshine, and the warm air is perpetually charged with 
 moisture brought by the southerly winds, which discharge it to 
 the extent of 120 to 140 inches annually {Hooker). There 
 appears to be no means of imitating such a state of things 
 artificially. We may secure the temperature, and we may load 
 warm air with vapour, but when we attempt to set the latter in 
 active motion, the humidity disappears. 
 
 To the reasons already offered for regarding free ventilation 
 as a necessary condition of high cultivation, may be added the 
 importance of removing deleterious matters, such as sulphu- 
 rous acid, or of diluting those which, like carbonate of 
 ammonia, sulphuretted hydrogen, hydrochloric acid, &c. are 
 only wholesome when administered in quantities almost if not 
 entirely inappreciable by the senses. 
 
 We know too little of the effects of volatilised corrosive sublimate, to 
 say whether free ventUation would not prevent the destructive action 
 of that agent upon plants kept in greenhouses built of Kyanised wood. 
 
 It has been thought that an irresistible argument against 
 the need of free ventilation is to be found in the moveable 
 structures called "Waedian Cases, in which it is alleged that 
 plants grow luxuriantly although cut off as far as possible 
 from aU access to air. But in reality such contrivances are 
 not at all suited for the cultivation of plants ; they are only 
 applicable to their preservation for limited periods of time. It 
 was the success that attended the latter which led gardeners to 
 suppose Ward's Cases equally well suited to the former, and 
 to fall into the error of disbelieving in the necessity of free 
 ventilation. 
 
 As the Wardian Case is largely employed in Horticulture, especially 
 in the decoration of sitting-rooms, it seems desirable to point out in 
 this place what are its real merits and defects. 
 
 When Mr. Ward first remarked a Grass and a Moss growing inside a 
 damp bottle, he merely saw what gardeners had witnessed for a couple 
 of centuries at least. He beheld the propagator's bell-glass with its 
 
WARD'S CASES UNFIT FOR CULTIVATION. 221 
 
 edges dipping into wet sand — a close cavity, with transparent sides, 
 and an interior possessing an Tiniform and unchangeable degree of 
 humidity. Thirty or forty years since, and probably long before, the 
 same principle was employed ia the drawing-rooms of the wealthy for 
 the preservation of the freshness of cut flowers : the flowers were placed 
 in a vase ; the vase stood in water, and a beU-glass, dipping its edges 
 into the water, covered the whole. There is not the smallest difference 
 in principle between these old contrivances and the modern Wardian 
 Case. But all such plans were merely preservative ; no one thought of 
 cultivating plants in close cases, though they found the latter invalu- 
 able for keeping plants alive. A cutting under a beU-glass was 
 surrounded with moist air until it had formed roots ; but the moment 
 the action of roots was secured it was transferred to the open air. 
 What Mr. "Ward did, when he proposed the case that bears his name, 
 was to contrive a large portable bell-glass and its supporter, made of 
 materials strong enough to bear the rough usage of a sea voyage. He 
 demonstrated the defects of the old travelling greenhouses, and sug- 
 gested a remedy, pointing out at the same time upon what principles 
 the remedy depended. That principle was— 1st, to expose plants to 
 light, and — 2nd, to ensure their being constantly surrounded by a 
 medium damp enough to keep their system in a state of activity. The 
 old travelling greenhouses, or plant cases, were open at the joints, and 
 the water originally contained in them quickly evaporated, leaving a 
 mass of parched earth in which no vegetation could long survive ; 
 they were also glazed with talc, or oyster shells, or other half-opaque 
 materials, through which no such amount of light could pass as plants 
 require for the preservation of their vitality. 
 
 When properly constructed, the Wardian Case answers perfectly as 
 a means of transporting plants to great distances. It also has its value 
 in places where the air is filled with floating soot or dust ; or where it 
 is naturally too dry for vegetation, as in sitting-rooms. There the 
 lives of certain kinds of plants may be maintained for a long period of 
 time, with the appearance of health ; shade-loving races, such as Ferns 
 and Mosses, will even thrive there ; and others, like dry Crocuses and 
 Hyacinths, which have been previously made ready by the usual pro- 
 cesses, out of doors, may be led to blossom in perfection for a season, or 
 in some instances for more. 
 
 It is asserted indeed that plants have been known to grow weU, and 
 flourish in Wardian Cases. To that statement I lend an incredulous 
 ear. It will be always found, upon inquiry, that such cases are opened 
 daily and ventilated freely, and thus, or otherwise, relieved from the 
 moisture with which the air is saturated. But those are not Wardian 
 Cases at aU ; they are merely greenhouses on a small scale, in which 
 plants grow well or ill, according to the care and skill with which they 
 are managed. A Wardian Case demands neither care nor skill ; its 
 
222 FAULT OF WAEDIAN CASES. 
 
 operation is essentially automatic ; it is its own gardener in every way. 
 Tlie moment its structure enables the possessor to give it daily atten- 
 tion — in short, to cultivate the plants within it, it ceases to he 
 Wardian, and may as well be called by any other name, as has been 
 already shown. Plants cannot be cultivated well in the absence of free 
 access to air in motion. The more rapid the motion, within certain 
 limits, the higher the health of plants, and vice versa. This is the 
 foundation of good gardening ; and it is precisely this which is unat- 
 tainable in a Wardian Case. The latter is the opposite of a natural 
 condition ; but plants demand all the resemblance to natural conditions 
 which is to be secured by art. Direct, constant, and unrestrained 
 communication with air, perpetually striking and then quitting them^ 
 is as necessary to a plant as to an animal ; and that the Wardian Case 
 is intended to render impossible. It is not indeed too much to add that 
 so far as gardening, properly so called, is concerned, the Wardian 
 Case has done nothing more than was effected years before it was sug- 
 gested. As a convenient means of enabling plants to support existence 
 under difficult circumstances it has value ; and that is alL In short, 
 it is to plants what tripe de roche, Bark-bread and Pem-reot are to 
 man — a means of prolonging life under" difficult circumstances. 
 
 Nature no more causes plants to grow in half air-tight rooms than 
 amidst rays of coloured light. In the natural world vegetation 
 subsists in its greatest activity in the presence of white light ; red 
 light, and yellow light, and blue light are unknown ; and if green 
 light occurs, it is only in. the recesses of deep forests, where little is to 
 be found except Fungi, or Mosses and Perns. So it is with unventi- 
 lated places ; they are the exception to the natural law, which declares 
 that living things shall have access to air. The lowest orders of 
 animals and the lowest of plants thrive indeed in such localities, for all 
 places seem to have their allotted inhabitants ; but the great World of 
 vegetation knows of no healthy existence except where the air moves 
 freely around it. In suffocated places we find lean and sickly races, 
 too weak to stand alone, and struggling to reach a better atmosphere ; 
 these places are the Ward's Cases of the wilderness ; natural accidents 
 from which all things endeavour to escape. 
 
 When the external, air is admitted into a glazed house 
 containing a moist atmosphere, it,, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, is much colder than that with which it mixes; the 
 heated damp air rushes out at the upper ventilators, and the 
 drier cold air takes its place ; the latter rapidly abstracts from 
 the plants and the earth, or the vessels in which they grow, a 
 part of their moisture, and thus gives a sudden shock to their 
 
WINTER VENTILATION. 223 
 
 constitution, which cannot fail to be injurious. This abstrac- 
 tion of moisture is in proportion to the rapidity of the motion 
 of the air. But it is not merely dryness that is thus produced, 
 or such a lowering of temperature as the thermometer 
 suspended in the interior of the house may indicate ; the rapid 
 evaporation that takes place upon the admission of dry air 
 produces a degree of cold upon the surface of leaves, and of the 
 porous earthen pots in which plants grow, of which our instru- 
 ments give no indication. To counteract these mischievous 
 effects many contrivances have been proposed, in order to 
 insure the introduction of fresh air warm and loaded with 
 moisture, such as compelling the fresh air to enter a house 
 after passing through pipes moderately heated, or over hot- 
 water pipes surroimded by a damp atmosphere, and so on, the 
 advantages of which, of course, depend upon the objects to be 
 attained. 
 
 If ventilation is merely employed for the purpose of puri- 
 fying the air, as is often the case in hothouses and in dung 
 pits, it should be effected by the introduction of fresh air damp 
 and heated. If it is only for the purpose of lowering the 
 temperature, as in greenhouses, or in the midst of summer, 
 the external air may be admitted without any precautions. 
 
 But it is very commonly required in the winter, for the 
 purpose of drying the air in houses kept at that season at a 
 low temperature; such, for instance, as those built for the 
 protection of Heaths, and many other Cape and New HoUand 
 plants : in these cases it should be brought into the house as 
 near the temperature of the house as possible, but on no 
 account loaded with moisture. One of the principal reasons 
 for drying the air of such houses is, to prevent the growth of 
 parasitical fungi, which, in the form of mouldiness, constitute 
 what gardeners technically call " damp." These productions 
 flourish in damp air at a low temperature, but wiU not exist 
 either ia dry cold air or in hot damp air. If the air of cool 
 greenhouses is allowed to become damp, the fungi immediately 
 spring up on the surface of any decayed leaves, or other matter 
 which may be present, when tibey spread rapidly to the young 
 and tender parts of hving plants ; and when this happens they 
 
224 PRACTICE OF VENTILATION. 
 
 consume the juices, choke the respiratory organs, and speedily 
 destroy the object they attack. 
 
 How to ventilate houses -without produomg results even more inju- 
 rious than the absence of free air, is a horticultural problem by no 
 means solved. It is necessary — 1, that the aii should be as warm aa 
 that of the house ; it is necessary — 2, that the gardener should have 
 the means of rendering the ventilation dry or damp at pleasure ; it is 
 necessary — 3, that the method should be simple and economical. It 
 was this which led to what is called Polmaise heating, which excited so 
 much discussion in the pages of the Gardeners' Chronicle some years 
 since ; and there is little doubt that when it was skUftdly applied Pol- 
 maise answered the three preceding conditions. But mechanical and 
 other difficulties having led to the abandoning that method, it seems 
 to be desirable to point out some of the other plans which have been 
 found to succeed more or less completely. 
 
 In the invaluable collection of scientific papers, by Mr. Andrew 
 Knight, coUeoted into a volume, after his death, we find, p. 224, an 
 account of a curvilinear Vinery, in which he attributes the inferior 
 quality of ftueen Pines grown in it to ',' the want of efficient ventila- 
 tion;" and he proceeds to state how he remedied the evil by an 
 improved mode of ventilation. In this house he had acquired the 
 power of almost wholly preventing any change of air whatever ; and he 
 exercised that power too extensively, after the fruit was shown, and 
 particularly after a part of it had nearly acquired maturity. This led 
 him to adopt a mode of ventilation, from which he expected to derive 
 aU the advantages of change of air, without materially lowering the 
 temperature of the house ; and the success of it greatly exceeded his 
 expectations. He first formed certain cylindrical passages of nearly 
 two inches diameter through the front waU.. Through these, which 
 were placed eighteen inches distant from each other, along the whole 
 front wall of the house, the air, whenever the weathe» was warm, was 
 sufiered to enter freely, and its entrance at other times was more or 
 less obstructed in proportion to its coldness ; but it was never wholly 
 excluded, except dxiring the nights in very severe weather. The 
 passages through the front waU were placed at just such a distance 
 from the ground as would occasion them to direct the air, which 
 entered, either into contact with, or to pass closely over, the heated 
 covers of the flue. It consequently became heated, and was impelled 
 amongst the Pine-apple plants, which stood in rows behind each other, 
 each row of plants being so far elevated above that before as to keep 
 every plant at nearly an equal distance from the glass roof. A ther- 
 mometer was so placed as to be equally distant from each end of the 
 house, and he observed that the temperature of that part of the house 
 in which the thermometer stood was raised between 2° and 3°, when 
 
KNIGHT'S VENTIIiATION-^WILLTAMS'. 225 
 
 the external air was at 40°. This effect was produced b^ the heated air 
 being impelled into the body of the house amongst the plants, instead 
 of being permitted to rise, as it had previously done, and to come 
 instantly into contact with the roof: by suspending light bodies 
 amongst the plants, he ascertained that the previously confined air was 
 thus constantly kept in a state of rapid motion. The air was suffered 
 to escape through passages of four inches wide and two inches and a 
 half high, just below the junction of the roof and back wall, which 
 passages were placed at the same eq^ual distances as those in the front 
 wall, and, Uke those, were opened or closed as circiimstances required. 
 The trouble of opening or closing such passages, after substances of 
 proper form were prepared and. suspended for the purpose, was much 
 less than that of moving the lights of any house of ordinary construc- 
 tion; and the effect of the kind of ventilation obtained upon the 
 growth of his plants and fruit, was everything he wished it to be. 
 (For the plan referred to, see Physiological Papers, t, 7.) 
 
 Another method, employed by Mk. Knight, was the following ; — By 
 passing pipes, open at each end, through the heating materials of a 
 hotbed, one end being in the interior of the frame, and the other 
 exposed to the open air, he succeeded in constantly renewing the 
 atmosphere of the frame, and in keeping the leaves in motion, with, as 
 he tells us, the happiest effect. 
 
 Mr. Williams, of Pitmaston, pursued another course. He kept the 
 south end of his Melon-frame open to the outward air night and day, 
 except that it was covered over with a screen of " fly-wire ' ' painted black, 
 and continued in the inclination of the roof. This screen received the 
 rays of the sun from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., all summer long; it became 
 heated to 80° or 100°, and consequently heated the air that passed 
 between its interstices. By raising the sashes at the back, a very 
 powerful current of air was established ; the thermometer ranged 
 from 80° to 90° below the leaves in a sunny day, and in short the 
 "atmosphere Was as hot as is experienced in the southern parts 
 of Italy, with almost as much ventilation as if 
 growing in the open air." — See Journal of Horti- sm 
 
 cultural Society, vol i., page 43. The plan of "JR-c 
 
 Mr. Williams might be modified by such a contrivance ^Q 
 
 as is shown in the annexed section. Let A B repre-. // H 
 
 sent a section of a front wall, or wooden frame ; C, a ^ M 
 hole ; D E F, a screen of zinc or iron, painted black, j,/_ ■ 
 nailed to it in front. It is obvious that when the ^H 
 
 sun shines on the black plate, D B, it will rapidly g 
 
 heat, and communicate its temperature to the air ^ 
 
 below it ; the latter would immediately pass through ^'^" ^^^^i- 
 C, and with a, force proportioned to the elevation of its temperature. 
 
 At DKATTOif Mange, the late Sir Robert Peel, with the advice, we 
 
 4 
 
226 VENTILATION BY DRAINS. 
 
 believe, of the celebrated George StephenBon, effected thus the ventila- 
 tioa of a vinery heated by hot-water. Underground drains were sunk, 
 3 feet deep, at right angles to the front wall, and extending from its 
 inside to a walk about 12 feet distant from the house, and parallel with 
 it. At each end of the drains was a perpendicular shaft ; that in the 
 inside opened immediately behind and below the hot-water pipes, and 
 was never closed ; that in the open air was closed by a moveable square 
 plug. So long as the plug remained in its place no ventilation took 
 place. As soon as the plug was removed, the denser external air 
 pressed down into the shaft, and, rushing through the drain, delivered 
 itself among the hot- water pipes, expanding rapidly in the house, and 
 dispersing itself among the plants. The drains being always damp, on 
 account of their depth in the moist heavy clay of Drayton Manor, the 
 air which passed through them was always charged with as much 
 moisture as was required. When the author saw this apparatus at 
 work, some yfears since, its action was all that could be desired ; and 
 it would appear, from the following communication, made to the 
 OardenerS Chronicle, of January 28, 1854, that the merit of the plan is 
 recognised in the neighbourhood : — " I beg to add my testimony to the 
 advantages of underground drains for admitting air constantly to plants, 
 especially in such weather as we have lately had, when other means of 
 aeration must have been but limited. The plan adopted here is 
 different from that at Drayton Manor ; one large pipe is laid 3 feet 
 deep, beginning at 90 feet from the front flues ; it is carried to within 
 15 feet of the intended openings in the house, where three small pipes 
 are cemented with their ends inside the larger one, one giving air in 
 the middle of the house, the two others at equal distances on either 
 side. It was inconvenient to bring the drain in front of the house, 
 consequently it begins at the back, and is carried under the floor of the 
 potting-shed and the house itself to the front flues. Besides the advan- 
 tage of furnishing air at all times, the drains materially assist in 
 keeping out frost; taking, for instance, the morning of January 3, 
 when the thermometer was at 4°, I firmly believe that the plants Would 
 have been frozen, had it not been for the air admitted at the tempera- 
 ture of the earth three feet deep. I should prefer the plan employed at 
 Drayton Manor, where the drains are in front, and each drain entire 
 throughout. The late Mr. Milne (once gardener at Drayton) told me 
 that the drains exceeded his most sanguine expectations, as indeed the 
 health of his plants abundantly testified. I should mention that the 
 heating apparatus in the house above alluded to is very small — quite 
 insufficient for such extreme cold as that on tiie night of January 2. 
 On stopping the drains on cold nights, the temperature of the house has 
 been lower than on similar nights when the drains have been open, 
 the external temperature in both cases being the same. — T, Dowell, 
 . Amington Hall." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF SEED-SOWING. 
 
 When a seed is eommitted to tlie earth, it undergoes certain 
 chemical changes before it can develope new parts and grow. 
 These changes are brought about by heat and water, assisted 
 by the absence of light. In many seeds the vital principle is 
 so strong, that to scatter them upon the soil, and to cover 
 them slightly with earth, is sufficient to insure their speedy 
 germination; but in others the power of growth will only 
 manifest itself under more favourable conditions : it is, there- 
 fore, necessary to consider well upon what the circumstances 
 most suitable to gerniination depend. 
 
 Moisture is necessary, but not an unlimited quantity. If a 
 seed is thrown into water and exposed to a proper tempera^ 
 ture, the act of germination will take place : bat, unless the 
 plant is an aquatic, it will speedily perish ; no doubt because 
 its powers of respiration are impeded, and it is unable to 
 decompose the water it absorbs, which collects in its cavities 
 and becomes putrid. There must, therefore, be some amount 
 of water, which to the dormant as well as the vegetating plant 
 is naturally more suitable than any other; and experience 
 shows that quantity to be just so much as the particles of 
 earth can retaia around and among them by the mere force of 
 attraction. To this is to be ascribed the advantage derived 
 from those mixtures of peat, loam, and sand, which gardeners 
 prefer for their seedlings; the peat and sand together keep 
 asunder the particles of loam which would otherwise adhere and 
 prevent the percolation of water; the loam retains moisture 
 
 q 2 
 
228 DEPTH AT WHICH TO SOW SEEDS. 
 
 with force enough to prevent its passing off too quickly through 
 the wide interstices of sand and peat. 
 
 If, during the delicate action of germination, the changes 
 that the seed undergoes take place without interruption, the 
 young plant makes its appearance in a healthy state; but, 
 if by irregular variations of heat, light, and moisture, the 
 progress of germination is sometimes accelerated and some- 
 times stopped, the unstable forces upon which vitality depends 
 may become so much deranged as to be no longer able to act, 
 and the seed will die. It is for the purpose of securing unifor- 
 mity in these respects, that we employ, in delicate cases, 
 the steady heat of a gentle hot-bed, shaded; and, in other 
 cases, the assistance of a coating of earth scattered over the 
 seed. 
 
 Under what depth of earth seed should be buried must 
 always be judged of by the experience of the gardener : but it 
 should be obvious that minute seeds, whose powers of growth 
 must be feeble in proportion to their size, will bear only a very 
 slight covering ; while others, of a larger size and more vigour, 
 will be capable, when their vital powers are once put in action, 
 of upheaving considerable weights of soil. As, however, the 
 extent of this power is usually uncertain, the judicious garde- 
 ner will take care to employ, for a covering, no more earth 
 than is really necessary to preserve around his seeds the 
 requisite degree of darkness and moisture. An erroneous 
 opinion is not uncommonly entertained, that seeds must be 
 "well" buried in order that the young plants, when produced, 
 may have " sufficient hold of the ground." But a seed, when 
 it begins to grow, plunges its roots downwards and throws its 
 stem upwards from a common point, which is tlie seed itself; 
 and, consequently, all the space that intervenes between the 
 surface of the soil and the seed is occupied by the base of the 
 stem, and not by roots. This is well illustrated by the germi- 
 nation of such seeds as those of the Araucaria, which always 
 grow best when merely laid on the surface of the soil with a 
 little earth raiised round their edges. 
 
 The finest Oaks spring from acorns dropped in the forest 
 and covered by a few leaves. The Sycamore, the Ash, thp 
 
EVILS OP DEEP SOWING. 
 
 229 
 
 Beech, the Horse Chesnut will all sow themselves wherever 
 their seeds can stick to the ground until a coverlet of leaves is. 
 moistened by an April shower and warme'd by an April sun. 
 Neither have such seeds any difficulty in steadying themselves 
 by their roots ; a fang is driven by vital impulse into the earth, 
 as in the Araiicaria, and it is to that, and not to the buried 
 
 Fig. XXXIII. — Qerminatiou of Axaucaria imbricata ; a, the seed after it has inserted its radicle 
 in the soil, the stem leaves just appearing ; b, the same seed at a later period 
 firmly fixed in the groxind by its root. 
 
 neck of the stem, that the seedling trusts for support and 
 nourishment. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable that not only do seeds' germinate 
 unwillingly if buried too deep, but that although they may 
 grow they cannot, even if forest trees, develope with vigour for 
 many years- It is for the purpose of placing seeds in the 
 most favourable condition as regards air, light, and moisture, that 
 when very small they are merely scattered upon the surface of 
 the soil, and covered with a coating of straw or moss, which 
 may be removed when the young seedlings are found to have 
 established themselves. Inverting a garden pot over seeds in 
 the open groimd is practised for the same purpose. In other 
 cases very minute seeds are mixed with sand before they are 
 sown. 
 
23a TEMPERATURE OF SOIL IMPORTANT. 
 
 The latter practice is not, however, merely for the sake of 
 covering the seed with the smallest possible quantity of soil, 
 but has for its object the separation of seeds to such a dis- 
 tance, that when they germinate they may not choke up each 
 other. If seedlings, like other plants, are placed so near 
 together that they either exhaust the soil of its organizable 
 matter, or overshadow each other so as to hinder the requisite 
 quantity of light, some will die in order that the remainder 
 may live ; and this, in the case of rare seeds, should, of course, 
 be guarded against very carefully. 
 
 " The injuriousness of covering seed with too much earth arises less 
 from the superinciunbeiit pressure of the soil, than from the exclusion 
 of atmospheric air, which is quite indispensable to germination. The 
 seed of the common Flax comes up at different periods, according 
 as it is planted in one, two, or three inches depth of soil ; if it be 
 sown four inches below the surface it will not come up at all. Not that 
 air does not penetrate to this depth in the soil, but the quantity of air 
 will very much depend on the looser or denser character of the soil. 
 Thouin, in his Cours d' Agriculture, remarks that small seeds should 
 be covered only a liue deep with earth, and this spread over very 
 loosely ; seeds of the size of Peas and Beans, about three-quarters of an 
 inch deep, and the bulky seeds of our fruit-trees, such as the Apricot, 
 Nuts, Peaches, Almonds, with from two to three inches of soil." — 
 German Translation. 
 
 With regard to the temperature to which a seed should be 
 subjected, in order to secure its germination, this, undoubtedly, 
 varies with different species, and depends upon their petjuliai' 
 habits, and the temperature of the climate of which they are 
 native. So far as general rules can be given upon such a 
 subject, it may be stated tiiat the temperature of the earth 
 most favourable for germination is 50° to 55° for the seeds of 
 cold countries, 60° to 65° for those of "greenhouse plantSj" 
 and 70° to 80° for those of the torri-d zone. We are assured 
 by Mr. Cowan, that although the Cocoa-nut is cultivated in 
 the mountainous parts of Jamaica; where the atmospheric 
 temperature varies from 60° to 90°, it only assumes the 
 characteristic grandeur of Palms, and can only be propagiated 
 with certainty, by the seaside, where the heat of the Soil exceeds 
 1 90°. And it may be laid down as a rule, in sowing tropical 
 
BXPEEIMENTS ON TEMPEEATUEB BY EDWAKDS AND COLIN, 231 
 
 seeds, that, how well soever a plant may grow at the minimum 
 temperature of its native locality, the maximum temperature of 
 that spot ought to be maintained while the seeds are vegetating. 
 We have no exact experiments upon this subject, except in a 
 few cases recorded by Messrs. Edwards and Colin, by whom 
 there is a very valuable set of observations upon the tempera- 
 tures borne by certain agricultural seeds (Annates des Sciences, 
 Snd series, vol. v. p. 5), the result of which may be thus 
 stated : — 
 
 At 44-6', Wheat, Barley, and Eye coiild germinate. 
 
 95°, in water, for three days, ^ of the Wheat and Rye, and all the 
 
 Barley, were killed. 
 104°, in sand and earth, the same seeds sustained the temperature 
 
 for a considerable time, without inconvenience. 
 113°, imder the same circumstances, most of them perished. 
 122°, ditto ditto all perished. 
 
 But it was found that, for short periods of time, a much 
 higher temperature could be borne. 
 
 A 
 
 At 143-6, in vapour, Wh^at, Barley, Kidneybeans, and Flax retained 
 their vitality for it q^uarter of an hoxu: ; but m 27-i^ minutes, 
 the three last died at a temperature of 129'6°, 
 
 167°, in vapour, they all perished. 
 
 167°, in dry air, they sustained no injury. 
 
 It will be presently seen that some seeds will bear a much 
 higher temperature. 
 
 " In order to render this important subject yet more .clear, we subjoin 
 a report on the labours of Edwards and Colin, derived from the pages 
 of Froriep's Zeitschrift. Messrs. Edwards and Colin read an article 
 upon this sjibject before the Academy pf Sciences on the l-8th of April, 
 1837, which ooMtitutes the third pact of their Mesearches upon Agri- 
 cultural Physiology. Their experiments led to the foUowing results : — 
 
 1. "Jn ifree moist air, yet considerably removed from the point of 
 saturatican, seeds did not germinate. 
 
 2. " Germination took place among Cereal plants, Summer Wheat, 
 Winter Wheat, Barley, Oats, Eye, when placed in an atmosphere fully 
 saturated with moisture. 
 
 S. " When placed under water they required eight times as long a 
 period before they germinated. 
 
232 EXPERIMENTS ON TEMPERATURE BY EDWARDS AND COLIN. 
 
 4. "If the numljer of seeds or grains be increased, and twenty-five be 
 employed instead of five, and brougbt into an atmospbere saturated with 
 moisture, without placing the e?;periment under a larger bell than in 
 the last instances, germination does not take place. 
 
 5. " The same is also the case if the original number, for instance, 
 five grains are employed, and covered with a heU much larger, in which 
 case germination is very much retarded, if not prevented. 
 
 6. " The circumstances which produce this retardation or hinderance 
 of germination, depend on the influence of temperature upon the 
 moisture of the air. 
 
 7. "If the temperature is low, and undergoes little or no change, 
 germination will take place as soon under a small bell as under a 
 large one. 
 
 8. "If the temperature is higher, moderate, and changeable, the 
 germination will be retarded under a large bell. 
 
 9. " This occurs when during the daily change the temperature 
 increases, and the air has a tendency to depart firom a state of perfect 
 saturation, and if the space is great, the diffused vapour is in part 
 absorbed by the seed, and the air never reaches the point of 
 saturation. , 
 
 10. " These effects probably do not .proceed from the fact that the 
 seed had not absorbed enough vapour ; in a low constant temperature 
 seeds absorb less water than in a higher, and in the first case germina- 
 tion takes place, and in the last it is retarded or entirely prevented. 
 
 11. "These remarkable facts are produced by the air not being 
 sufficiently -saturated with vapour to allow of the necessary application 
 of moisture to the external membrane of the seed. 
 
 12. "In germination, two principal conditions with regard to the 
 vapour are required to take place ; first, that the seed absorbs enough 
 vapour for the function of nutrition ; and second, that the external air 
 be saturated with sufficient vapour to soften sufficiently the test* of 
 the seed. 
 
 13. " Through the simultaneous action of water and vapour, germina- 
 tion constantly takes place, and earlier where the air is saturated with 
 moisture.' 
 
 14. " With regard to the application of these principles to seeds 
 sown in different kinds of soil, the authors found that germination took 
 place by the agency of vapour when seeds were placed in sand and clay, 
 but in both cases the process was longer, especially in the clay, which 
 absorbed the vapour slowly, and imparted it slowly to the seeds." — 
 German Translation. 
 
 THe foregoing observations apply to seeds in a perfect state 
 ,of health ; Tvhen they have become sickly or feeble, from age 
 or other causes, some precautions become necessary, to which. 
 
EVIL EFFECTS OF WATER IN EXCESS. 233 
 
 imder other circumstances, no attention requires to be paid. 
 AVhen the vital energies of a seed are diminished, it does not 
 lose its power of absorbing water, but it is less capable of 
 decomposing it. The consequence of this is that the free 
 water introduced into the system collects in the cavities of the 
 seed, and produces putrefaction ; the sign of which is the 
 rotting of seeds in the ground. The remedy for this is to 
 present water to the seed in such small quantities at a time, 
 and so gradually, that no more is absorbed than the languid 
 powers of the seed can assimilate; and to increase the quantity 
 only as the dormant powers of vegetation are aroused. One of 
 the best means of doing this is to sow seeds in warm soil toler- 
 ably dry; to trust for some time to the moisture that exists in 
 such earth and the atmosphere for the supply required for 
 germination ; and only to administer water when the signs of 
 germination have become visible ; even then the supply should 
 be extremely small. If this is attended to, carbonic acid is very 
 slowly formed and liberated ; the chemical quality of the con- 
 tents of the seed is thus insensibly altered^ each act of 
 respiration may be said to invigorate it, and by degrees it wiU 
 be brought to a condition favourable to the assimilation of food 
 in larger quantities. Mr. Knight used to say that these effects 
 were produced in no way so well as by enclosing seeds between 
 two pieces of loamy turf, cut smooth, and applied to each 
 other by the underground sides ; such a method is, however, 
 scarcely applicable to any except seeds of considerable size. 
 
 "It will happen at times that small seeds, such as Cabbage seed, 
 Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, &c., do not come away after they are sown, 
 during dry and waim weather. Last spring, some of my crops failed 
 in the first sowing. About a month after the regular time for sowing 
 these seeds, a few drills were made in moist peat, and in the drills was 
 put some guano, to cover which peat-mould was also used. The seeds 
 were afterwards sown, being chiefly Broccoli, Cabbages and Iceland 
 Greens. After they were sown and covered up, the heat stUl continued ; 
 the surface of the peat became as dry as tinder, and would have burned 
 if fire had been applied to it. However, the seed that was .sown 
 vegetated freely, the plants grew lapidly, and were as fit for planting 
 out at the proper time as the few that jemained of those that had been 
 sown a month before,. Another great advantage attended those that 
 
23* PBCULIAK MODES OF SOWING. 
 
 ■ were sown in the peat: when they reqiiired to be lifted, _the roots 
 brought a ball of peat along with them, which I think was very bene- 
 ficial to the plants, in keeping the roots moist after they were planted 
 in the ground where they were to remain. It may not be necessary to 
 sow at aU times in such a soil ; but I believe that a garden would be 
 none the worse in having a few square yards of well-broken peat for 
 sowing some kinds of seeds upon, as occasion might require," — Peter 
 Mackenzie, in the Gardener^ Chronicle, 
 
 In all oases it is useful to sow seeds on fibrous matter of some kind 
 when they have to be transplanted. Mr. Knight used chopped hay ; 
 others use broken horse-droppings, the object in every case being to 
 give tiie seedlings something in which their roots may be entangled 
 at the time of transplantation, so as to remove without injury. 
 
 OtTier expedients have occasionally been had recourse to 
 successfully. Where seeds are enclosed in a very hard dry 
 shell, it is usually necessary to file it thin, so as to permit the 
 emhryo to hurst through its integuments when it has begun to 
 swell. Under natural circumstances, indeed, no such operation 
 is practised : but it is to be remembered that such seeds will 
 have fallen to the ground as soon as ripe, and before their 
 shell acquired the bony hardness that we find after they have 
 become dry. 
 
 Sometimes it has been found useful to immerse seeds in 
 tepid water until signs of germination manifest themselves, and 
 then to transfer them to earth; but this process cannot be 
 applied with advantage to seeds in an unhealthy state ; and it 
 Is only of use to healthy seeds, by accelerating the time of 
 growth, a practice which may, in out- door crops, be desirable 
 when applied to seeds which, like the Beet, the Carrot, or the 
 Parsnip, will, in dry seasons, lie so long in the ground without 
 germinating that they become a prey to birds or other animals. 
 
 During the spring months, seed sowing is very apt to get into arrear. 
 When such is the case, a fortnight maybe recovered by having recourse 
 to the steeping process, and it is always a safe plan during the pre- 
 valence of drought. There is sometimes moisture in the ground suffi- 
 cient to induce the first stage of 'germination, yet by the time that is 
 accomplished, and before the tender Tadiole has extended beyond the 
 j?eaoh of accident, drought has Overtaken it. But in aU cases if a seed 
 is on iki& eve of germination, previous to its insertion in the bqU, and if 
 the soil is fresh dug, the yonng plant will in general establish itself in 
 
EFEECT OF BOILING SEED. 235 
 
 safety. A method employed by practical men is to steep seed in water 
 of about 80° for about six bours or more, according to the character of 
 the seed, and to place the vessel where it will maintain that temperature ; 
 then to strain the water away, and to remove the vessel to a more 
 moderate temperature, say 65°, until the first signs of sprouting, when 
 the seed-bed should be instantly prepared ; the vessel, after pouring the 
 water off, should be covered with a cloth to prevent the surface seeds 
 from drying up ; it is also necessary to turn the seeds once or twice, in 
 doing which care iaust be taken that the young radicle, if it has 
 chipped the shell, be not broken off. 
 
 Of late years the singular practice lias been introduced of 
 boiling seeds to promote germination. Tliis was, I believe, 
 first recommended by Mr. Bowie, who stated, in the Gardener'4 
 Magazine, vol. viii. p. 5. (1832), that " he found the seeds of 
 nearly all leguminous plants germinate more readily by having 
 water heated to 200°, or even to the boiling point of 
 Fahrenheit's scale, poured over them, leaving them to steep 
 and the water to cool for twenty-four hours." Subsequently, 
 the practice has been adopted by other persons with perfect 
 success; and, some years ago, seedlings of Acacia lophantha 
 were exhibited before the Horticultural Society by the late 
 Mr. Thomas Gary Palmer, which had sprung from seeds boiled 
 for as much as five minutes. I am also acquainted with other 
 cases, one of the more remarkable of which was the germina- 
 tion of the seeds of the Raspberry, picked from a jar of jam, 
 and which must therefore have been exposed to the temperature 
 of 230°, the boiling point of syrup. It is difficult to understand 
 in what way so violent an action can be beneficial to anything 
 possessing vitality ;' the fact, however, is certain. As such 
 instances of success are confined to seeds with hard shells, it is 
 possible that th« heated fluid may act in pai«t mechanically by 
 cracking the shell, in part as a solvent of the Matters enclosed 
 in the seed, and in part'as a stianulant. 
 
 Some years since Mr. Lymburn, nurseryman at Kilmarnock, 
 called attention to the effect produced upon germinating seeds 
 by alkaline substances. He stated that experiments narrated, 
 in Brewster's t/ojirwaJ of Science, having shown that the negative 
 €>r alkaline pole of a galvanic battery caused seeds to germinate 
 in much less time than the positive or acid pole, he was induced 
 
236 EFFECT OF DEOXYDISINGt SEED. 
 
 to observe the effects on seeds of acetic, nitric, arid sulphuric 
 acids, and also of water rendered alkaUne by potash and 
 ammonia. " In the alkaline the seeds vegetated in thirty 
 hours, and were well developed in forty ; while in the acetic 
 and sulphuric they took seven days ; and, even after a month, 
 they had not begun to grow in the acetic." This experiment 
 led to others upon limie ; " a very easily procured alkaH, and 
 which he inferred to be more efficient than any other from the 
 well known affinity of quick or newly slacked lime for carbonic 
 acid. Lime, as taken from the quarry, consists of carbonate of 
 lime, or lirae united to carbonic acid; but, in the act of burning, 
 the carbonic acid is driven off; and hence the great affinity 
 of newly slacked lime for carbonic acid. He depended, there- 
 fore, upon this affinity to extract tlie carbon froUi the starch, 
 assisted by moisture ; " (Gard. Mag., xiv. 74) and he reported 
 that the results were exceedingly striking. Old Spruce Fir 
 seed, which would scarcely germinate at two years old, 
 produced a fine healthy crop when three years old, having been 
 first damped and. then mixed with newly slacked lime ; and, 
 under the same treatment, ari average crop of healthy plants 
 was obtained when the seed was four years old. The manner 
 in which the original experiments upon acids and alkalies were 
 conducted is not explained ; it is to be presumed that the water 
 employed was only acidulated with the acids spoken of. It is, 
 however, certain that whatever effect may be practically experi- 
 enced when particular solutions are employed it has no relation 
 to electrical action. Mr. Edward SoUy proved experimentally 
 in the garden of the Horticultural Society that electricity has 
 no discoverable influence upon vegetation either in its active 
 growth or during the period of germiuation. (See Journal of 
 Hort, Soc. vol. i., p. 81, and ii., p, 45.) 
 
 The last method of promoting germination, to which it is 
 necessary to advert, is the mixing seeds with agents that have 
 the power of Hberating oxygen. It has been shown that a seed 
 cannot germinate until the carbon with which it is loaded is to 
 a considerable extent removed ; the removal of this principle is 
 effected by converting it into carbonic acid, for which purpose 
 a large supply of oxygen is required. Under ordinary circum- 
 
INUTILITY OF SEED-STEEPING. 237 
 
 stances, the oxygen is furnished by the decomposition of water 
 by the vital forces of the seed; but when those forces are 
 languid, it has been proposed to supply oxygen by some other 
 means. Humboldt employed a dilute solution of chlorine, 
 which has a powerful tendency to decompose water, and set 
 oxygen at liberty, and, it is said, with great success. Oxalic 
 acid has also been used for the same purpose. Mr. Otto, of 
 Berlin, states that he employs oxaKc acid to make old seeds 
 germinate. The seeds are put into a bottle filled with oxalic 
 acid, and remain there tUl the germiuation is observable, 
 which generally takes place in from twenty -four to forty- eight 
 hours, when the seeds are taken out, and sown in the usual 
 manner. Another way is to wet a woollen cloth with oxalic 
 acid, on which the seeds are put, and it is then folded up and 
 kept in a stove; by this method small and hard seeds will 
 germinate equally as well as in the bottle. Also very small seeds 
 are sown in pots and placed in a hotbed; and oxalic acid, 
 much diluted, is applied t,wice or thrice a day till they begin to 
 grow. Particular care must be taken to remove the seeds out 
 of the acid as soon as the least vegetation is observable. 
 Mr. Otto found that by this means seeds which were from 
 twenty to forty years old grew, while the same sort, sown in the 
 usual manner, did not grow at all {Gard. Mag., viii. 196); 
 and it is asserted by Dr. Hamilton (16., x. 368, 453,) and others, 
 that they have found decided advantages from the employment 
 of this substance. Theoretically it would seem that the effects 
 described ought to be produced, but general experience does 
 Hot confirm them; and it may be conceived that the rapid 
 abstraction of carbon, by the presence of an unnaturally large 
 quantity of oxygen, may produce effects as injurious to the 
 health of the seed, as its too slow destruction in consequence 
 of the languor of the vital principle. 
 
 It is an old assertion, revived within <iie last few years, that certain 
 agents have a powerful action not only upon the germinating seed, but 
 upon plants in their after growth, and that marvellous crops have been 
 obtained by mere SEED-STEEPnfGr, in certain solutions, without other 
 aid. A German, of the name of Bickes, has more especially made 
 himself conspicuous for the enthusiasm with which he has propagated 
 this opinion. That he laboured under some delusion, is, however, 
 
238 DURABILITY OF SEED-LIFE— COLOURED LIGHT. 
 
 certain ; for no such results as those he speaks of can be obtained. [See 
 Journal of the Sort Soc, vol. ii. p. 35.) Tbe subject has been treated 
 ■with great care by Professor Edward Solly, whose experim-ents are 
 recorded in the TVansaetions of the Sort. Soc, 2nd series, vol. iii, 
 p. 197. Not only did he fail to discover any practical advantage in 
 steeping seeds in chemical solutions, but upon the whole his results 
 showed it to be injurious ; and in no one instance did it appear that the 
 effect of the steeping went beyond the period of germination. The 
 trial of Bickes' method equally failed in the Jardin des Plantes, as we 
 learn from the Revue Horticole. 
 
 The length of time that some seeds will lie in the ground, 
 under circumstances favourable to germination, without growing, 
 is very remarkable, and inexplicable upon any known principle. 
 If the Hawthorn be sown immediately after the seeds are ripe, 
 a part will appear as plants the next spring ; a larger number 
 the second year; and stragglers, sometimes in considerable 
 numbers, even in the third and fourth seasons. Seeds of the 
 genera Eibes, Berberis, and Pseonia have a similar habit. 
 M. Savi is related by De Candolle to have had, for more than 
 ten years, a crop of Tobacco from one original sowing ; the 
 young plants having been destroyed yearly, without being 
 allowed to form their seed. This matter does not, perhaps, 
 concern the theory of horticulture, for theory is incapable of 
 ■explaining it ; but it is a fact that it is useful to know, because 
 it may prevent still living seeds from being thrown away, under 
 the idea that, as they did not grow the first year, they vdll 
 never grow at aU. 
 
 Mr. Hunt believes that coloured light exercises a peculiar 
 influence upon germination ; that yellow light prevents it, and 
 red light impedes it, while blue light accelerates it in a 
 remarkable degree. But when seeds have been made to 
 germinate beneath red, yellow, and blue plates of glass, no 
 other result has been practically obtained than what may be 
 referred to the action of bright light on the one hand, and 
 shade on the other. If under blue glass seeds germinate more 
 quickly than under red or yellow, it seems to be because they 
 are much more shaded. At all events Mr. Hunt's ingenious 
 inquiries into the effect of coloured Hght on plants seem to 
 have no practical bearing. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF SEED-SATTrNG. 
 
 The maturation of the seed, being a vital action indispen- 
 sable to the perpetuation of a species, is, in wild plants, 
 guarded from interruption by so many wise precautions, that 
 no artificial assistance is required in the process; but in 
 gardens, where plants are often enfeebled by domestication, 
 or exposed to conditions very different from those to which 
 they are subject in their natural state, the seed often 
 refuses to ripen, or even to commence the formation of an 
 lembryo. In such cases, the skill of gardeners must aid the 
 workings of nature, and art has to effect that which the 
 failing powers of a plant are unable to bring about of them- 
 selves. 
 
 Sterility is a common malady of cultivated plants ; the finer 
 varieties of fruit, and all double and highly cultivated flowers, 
 being more frequently barren than fertile. This arises from 
 several different causes. 
 
 The most common cause of sterility is an unnatural develop- 
 ment of some organ in the vicinity of the seed, which attracts 
 to itself the orgainizable matter that would otherwise be 
 applicable to the support of the seed. Of this the Pear, the 
 Pine-apple, and the Plantain are illustrative instances. The 
 nutrition which is intended for the seed is applied to the 
 enlargement of the fleshy part of such fruits, and the seeds 
 are starved. The more delicate varieties of Pear, such as the 
 Gansel's Bergamot and the Chaumontelle, have rarely any 
 seeds ; of Pine-apple, none, except the Enville now and then, 
 have seeds, and that variety, though a large one, is of little 
 
240 CAUSE OF STERILITY. 
 
 value for its delicacy, and probably approaches nearly to the 
 wild state of the plant; of Plantains few, except the wild and 
 crabbed sorts, are seedful. The remedy for this appears to be, 
 the withholding from such plants aU. the sources from which 
 their succulence can be encouraged. If, in consequence of 
 any predisposition to form succulent tissue (on which the excel- 
 lence of fruit much depends), the organizable matter of the 
 plant be once diverted from feeding the seed to those parts in 
 which the succulence exists, it will continue, by the action of 
 endosmose, to be attracted thither more powerfully than to 
 any other part, and the effect of this will be the abortion of 
 the seed : but a scanty supply of food, an unhealthy condition 
 of the plant itself, or withholding the usual quantity of water, 
 will all check the tendency to luxuriance, and therefore will 
 favour the developement of the seed, whose feeble attracting 
 force is, in that case, not so liliely to be overcome by the 
 accumulation of attracting power in the neighbouring parts. 
 Thus we see that Pine-apples are more frequently seedful 
 under bad cultivation, than in highly kept and skilfully 
 managed pineries. Abstraction of branches, m the neigh<- 
 bourhood of fruit, has also been occasionally found favourable 
 to the formation of seed; evidently because the food that 
 would have been conveyed iato the branches, having no outlet, 
 is forced into the fruit, and thus reaches the seed. ' 
 
 Another cause of sterility is the deficiency of pollen in the 
 anthers of a given plant, as in vegetable mules, which usually 
 partake of the spermatic debility so well known in similar 
 cases in the animal kingdom. It has often been found 
 that sterility of this kind is cured by the application, to the 
 seedless plant, of the vigorous pollen of another less debilitated 
 variety. 
 
 In some plants, such as Pelargoniums, when cultivated, the 
 anthers shed their pollen before the stigma is ready to receive 
 its iafluence, and thus sterility results. All such cases are 
 provided for, by employing the pollen of another flower. (See 
 Sweet in the Gardener's Magazine, vii. 206.) 
 
 An unfavourable state of the atmosphere obstructs the 
 action of pollen, and thus produces sterility. PoUen will not 
 
CAUSES OF STERILITY. 241 
 
 produce its impregnating tubes in too low a temperature, or 
 when the air is charged with moisture ; neither, in the absence 
 of wind or insects, have some plants the power of conveying 
 the pollen to the stigma, their anthers having no special 
 irritability, and only opening for the discharge of the pollen, 
 not ejecting it with force, unless the filaments are irritable 
 enough to knock the anther violently against the pistil ; or, 
 unless the stigmatic apparatus possesses special irritability, as 
 is the case with certain Orchids. If we watch the Hazel, or 
 any of the Coniferous order, in which the enormous quantity 
 of pollen employed to secure the impregnation of the seed 
 renders it easy to see what happens, it will be found that am 
 pollen is scattered in damp cold weather ; but, in a sunny, 
 warm, dry morniug, the atmosphere surrounding such plants 
 is, in the impregnating season, filled with grains of pollen 
 discharged by the anthers. In wet springs the crops of fruit 
 fail, because the anthers are not sufficiently dried to shrivel 
 and discharge their contents, which remain locked up in the 
 anther ceUs tiU the power of impregnation is lost ; or perhaps 
 because, as a critic has suggested, the wet operates injuriously 
 upon the very constitution of the pollen, and of the stigmatic 
 surface. In vineries and forcing-houses generally, into which 
 no air is admitted to disturb the foliage, nor any artificial 
 means employed for the same end, and when the season is too 
 early for the presence of bees, flies, and other insects, the 
 grapes will not set: and in the frames of Melons and 
 Cucumbers, from which insects are excluded, no seed is formed 
 unless the poUen is conveyed by hand, from those flowers in 
 which it is formed, to others in which the young fruit alone is 
 generated. In all cases of this kind, the remedy for sterility, 
 where plants exist in an artificial condition, is evidently to set, 
 or fertilise them by hand; but, when they occur in the 
 orchard or the flower-garden, science suggests no assistance. 
 It is by hand-setting alone that in hot-houses, and in tropical 
 Asia, the VaniUa, a native of tropical America, can be 
 made to bear fruit ; because, as is believed, the insects which 
 haunt the Vanilla flowers in America, and set them, are 
 unknown in Europe and Asia. 
 
242 MONSTERS ARE STERILE. 
 
 It sometimes happens that particular parts of plants, distant 
 from the fruit, are so constructed as to attract to themselves the 
 food intended for the fruit, and thus to prevent the formation 
 of seed. For example: — The early varieties of Potato do 
 not readily produce seed, owing to the abstraction by their 
 tubers of the nutritive matter required for the support of the 
 seed. Mr. Knight found that by destroying the tubers in 
 part, as they formed, seeds were readily procured from such 
 varieties. 
 
 But perhaps the most frequent cause of sterility is the 
 monstrous condition of the flowers of many cultivated plants. 
 It was explained in Book 1. that the floral organs of plants are 
 nothing more than leaves, so modified as to be capable of 
 performing special acts, for particular purposes ; but they are 
 not capable of performing those acts any longer than they 
 retain their modified condition: and therefore the stamens 
 cannot secrete pollen, when, by accidental circumstances, they 
 are changed into leaves, as happens in double flowers ; in such 
 cases, there is nothing to fertilise the stigma, and, of course, no 
 seed is produced. Or the carpels themselves may be converted 
 into leaves, and have lost their seed-bearing property. Double 
 flowers in the latter case cannot possibly bear seed ; but in the 
 condition first mentioned they may, and often do. To bring this 
 about, the cultivator plants in the vicinity of his sterile flowers 
 others of the same species, in which a part at least of the 
 stamens are perfect, and they furnish a sufficiency of pollen for 
 the impregnation of the other flowers in which there are no 
 stamens. 
 
 In some cases, principally in those of Composite flowers, the 
 seed is formed and advanced towards perfection, and then 
 decays ; this is owing to the flower heads of such plants being 
 composed, in a great measure, of soft scales, absorbent and 
 retentive of moisture, to which, in their own country, they are 
 not exposed in the fruiting season, but by which they are 
 affected under the hands of the cultivator. When the heads of 
 such flowers are soaked with moisture, which they cannot get 
 rid of, the scales rot, decay spreads to aU the other parts, and 
 thus the production of seed is prevented. The Chinese 
 
SEEDS MUST BE EIPE. 243 
 
 Chrysanthemum is a familiar instance of this. Such plants 
 seed readily if the flower heads are kept warm and dry; and it 
 is thus that the sterile Chrysanthemum has been made seedful; 
 that is to say, by growing it in a dry warm winter border, pro- 
 tected from showers by a roof of glass; or by using some 
 similar means of guarding it ; or by rearing it in a warm dry 
 climate. 
 
 When seeds are freely produced, it is not altogether a subject 
 of indifference in what way they are saved, if it is desired that 
 their progeny should be the most perfect that can be obtained. 
 Weak seeds produce weak plants, and therefore recourse should 
 be had, in all delicate cases, to artificial means for gaining 
 seminal vigour. In general, the cultivator trusts to his eye for 
 separating the plumpest and most completely formed seeds; or 
 to floating them in water, selecting only the heavy grains that 
 sink, and rejecting all those which are buoyant enough to float. 
 But the energy of the vital principle in a seed may be, 
 undoubtedly, increased by abstracting neighbouring fruits, by 
 improving the general health of the parent plant, by a full 
 exposure of it to light, and by prolonging the period of 
 maturation as much as is consistent with the health of the 
 fruit. 
 
 It is a general rule that seedlings take after their parents, 
 an unhealthy mother producing a diseased offspring, and a 
 vigorous parent yielding a healthy progeny in all their minute 
 gradations and modifications; and this is so true, that, as 
 florists very well know, semi-double Eanunculuses, Anemones, 
 and similar flowers, will rarely yield double varieties, while 
 the seed of the latter as unfrequently give birth to semi-double 
 degenerations. 
 
 Independently of these things, it is indispensable that the 
 seed of a plant, when saved, should be perfectly ripe, if it is 
 intended to be laid by for future sowing. The effect of ripening 
 is to load the seed with carbon in the form of starch, or some 
 other substance of a similar kind, and to deprive it of water, 
 conditions necessary for its preservation: but, if a seed is 
 gathered before being ripe, these conditions are not secured ; 
 and, in proportion to the deficiency of the requisite elements 
 
 n 2 
 
2U SEEDS MUST BE KEPT DRY. 
 
 which maintain vitality, and superabundance of water, is the 
 seed liable to perish. 
 
 The complete maturation of the seed is, however, a disad- 
 vantage, when it has to be sown immediately after being 
 gathered ; for the embryo is formed, and capable of germinating, 
 long before the period of greatest maturity. There are two 
 periods in the latter part of the organization of a seed which, 
 although separated by no limits, require to be distinguished. The 
 first is that when the embryo is completed; and the second is 
 when nature has, in addition, furnished it with the means of 
 maintaining its vitality for a long period. It is just as capable 
 of growing at the expiration of the first period as of the second; 
 it will do so immediately if committed to the ground; and we 
 see it actually happening to Peas, Beans, Com, and other field 
 crops, in wet summers; but at the end of the second period, it 
 cannot germinate tUl it has relieved itself of matters not 
 required for vegetation, which, during that period, were deposited 
 in its tissue. 
 
 If seeds are to be preserved for a length of time, a state of 
 complete dryness is so necessary to them that it has been re- 
 commended to increase it by artificial means ; not, however, 
 by the application of heat, or by any process like that of kiln- 
 drying, which would destroy their vitality ; but by some of 
 those chemical processes that dry the atmosphere without rais- 
 ing its temperature. It occurred to Mr. Livingstone, that air 
 made dry by means of sulphuric acid might be advantageously 
 employed for this purpose, and he says that the success of his 
 experiments was complete. He placed the seeds to be dried 
 in the pans of Leslie's ice machine, and carefuUy replaced the 
 receiver without exhausting the air; small seeds were sufii- 
 ciently dried in one or two days, and the largest seeds in less 
 than a week. {Hort. Trans., iii. 184.) Other contrivances might 
 easily be adopted. Muriate of lime, for instance, which has 
 the property of absorbing the moisture of the atmosphere, 
 might, perhaps, be employed with advantage in drying the air 
 in which seeds are placed after being gathered. But such 
 devices have little practical value, the sun being the great power 
 to which the gardener very properly trusts. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF SEED-PACKING, AND PLANT-PACKING. 
 
 It seldom happens that seeds are sown as soon as they are 
 ripe ; it is sometimes desirable that they should be preserved 
 for long periods of time ; the power of conveying them for great 
 distances, through various climates, is one of those upon which 
 man most depends for the improvement of the horticultural 
 resources of all countries ; and for this purpose large sums are 
 annually expended, both by governments and individuals. It 
 is, therefore, an object of the first importance to ascertain what 
 is not well understood, as it would seem, namely, the causes 
 by which the destruction of the germinating power of seeds is 
 effected ; for it is only by doing this, that their preservation can 
 be secured. 
 
 Seeds are probably possessed of different powers of Hfe, some 
 preserving their vital principle through centuries of time, while 
 others have but an ephemeral existence under any circum- 
 stances. The reasons for this difference are unknown to us, 
 and apparently depend upon specific vitality, over which we 
 have no control ; but the fact of great longevity in some seeds 
 is certain, and it is highly desirable that the conditions which 
 enable them to preserve their germinating power for long 
 periods of time should be discovered. 
 
 It is, however, extremely difficult to reconcile with all known 
 facts any theory which physiology may suggest. What applies 
 to one class of cases fails to explain others. The instances 
 already mentioned at p. 103, are sufficiently conflicting ; for 
 they include examples both of dryness and wetness, and of ex- 
 clusion of air and its admission ; dryness and exclusion of air 
 
246 HIGH VITALITY OF SEEDS. 
 
 being generally regarded as the immediate causes of long pro- 
 tracted seminal vitality. The following instance mentioned 
 by a correspondent of the " Gardeners' Chronicle, (1843, p. 863) 
 is still more difficult of explanation. " In the progress of some 
 improvements about my premises, we had occasion to remove 
 an old privy, with its cesspool. After the removal of the soil 
 from the cistern of the latter, a ladling or dipping-hole was 
 discovered at one corner, completely filled with Gooseberry, 
 Currant, and Grape seeds, and a few Cherry-stones; in all, 
 about half a bushel. It was evident that these seeds had been 
 the contributions of many summers, and that after resisting the 
 decomposing powers of human digestion, and then of the 
 putrid mass in which they had lain so long, they had made 
 their way, by their superior gravity, into the hole in question, 
 to the exclusion of all the more soluble materials. The cess- 
 pool and its superstructure were known to be at least fifty 
 years old ; and although it was occisionally cleared out, it had 
 never been thought worth while to make the clearance so com- 
 plete as to empty the hole in which this curious ' depot ' had 
 been made. The brickwork being grubbed up, and the soil 
 and seed thrown into a compost, little more was thought of the 
 matter till the next year, when, and for three or four years 
 after, seedling Gooseberries, Cherries, and Currants were found 
 springing in great numbers all about my garden, in various 
 parts of which the manure of this compost had been distributed." 
 The ingenious observer from whom this fact was derived, sug- 
 gested in explanation, that " although we are not warranted in 
 supposing that any animal ovum can exist for years, much less 
 centuries, unchanged, under the most favourable circumstances 
 we can have any conception of, resistive of external agencies, 
 yet, such instances as the above, and that of Elder-seed," men- 
 tioned in the Magazine of Natural History, for 1843, which 
 when strewed on the ground for manure came up in abundance, 
 although twice boiled in the process of making wine and even 
 afterwards present during fermentation, " would incline one to 
 believe, that in a lower order of created beings certain mole- 
 cular attractions may subsist for an indefinite period, conserva- 
 tive of the predisposition to vegetative action. This can hardly 
 
MOISTUBE FATAL. 247 
 
 be called life ; it must be merely chemical combination, with 
 aptitude for life." 
 
 The prevailing opinion on this subject among physiologists 
 is, that germination can only take place when moisture, 
 warmth, and a free communication with atmospheric air are 
 simultaneously present. If so, then such cases as the preceding 
 may be explained by the absence of one or other of the three 
 conditions assumed to be indispensable, moisture, heat, and 
 communication with the air. 
 
 The power of moisture exposed to the air, and in contact 
 with inert vegetable matter, such as a torpid seed, is by degrees 
 to produce decay, which rapidly spreads to the neighbouring 
 parts. But, if the vitality of a seed is excited by a fitting 
 temperature, the moisture with which it is in contact is then 
 decomposed, the oxygen so obtained combines with the carbon 
 of the seed, and forms carbonic acid which flies off, other 
 changes take place, and by degrees the matters lodged in the 
 tissue of the seed are brought into that condition which is best 
 suited for the growth of the embryo ; then, if the embryo is so 
 situated that it cannot obtain from the surrounding medium 
 food upon which to subsist, its germination stops, and its stable 
 constituents having been exchanged for unstable ones, the 
 safeguard of its vitality is removed, and it perishes. If, how- 
 ever, the amount of moisture in contact with a seed is. very 
 small, as in the dry earth at the bottom of a tumulus for in- 
 stance, the temperature at the same time low, and the access 
 of atmospheric air cut off, neither putrefaction nor germination 
 is likely to occur. 
 
 When seeds are exposed to a high temperature in dryness, 
 they wUl not perish, unless the temperature rises beyond 
 any thing likely to occur under natural circumstances. 
 Edwards and Colin found that even wheat, barley, and rye, 
 inhabitants of temperate countries, would bear when dry 104° 
 for a long time without injury, although they died in three 
 days in water at 95°; and a much higher prolonged tempera- 
 ture may be expected to produce no ill effect upon seeds in- 
 habiting hotter countries. There is no apparent reason why 
 the exposure of dry seeds to the air should destroy vitality, 
 
248 HERMETICAL ENCLOSURES BAD. 
 
 unless the exposure is very much prolonged ; nor have we any 
 evidence to show that it does, so long as they remain dry. The 
 way in which the atmosphere would act injuriously upon dor- 
 mant seeds is, by its oxygen abstracting their carbon ; and it 
 was formerly supposed that the carbonic acid extricated by 
 germinating seeds was formed in this way. But the very valu- 
 able observations and experiments of Messrs. Edwards and 
 Colin (See Comptes rendms de I'Academie des Sciences, vii. 933) 
 show that carbonic acid is formed by the assistance of the 
 oxygen obtained by the decomposition of water. 
 
 Chemists may question tlie sufficiency of this explanation ; but, at all 
 events, it wiU not be denied that the preservation of vitality in seeds 
 depends upon preserving the stability of the chemical compounds of 
 which they consist. This we believe to be the hinge upon which every- 
 thing turns. Before a seed is quite ripe its elements are highly unstable 
 or liable to change, and the least alteration in the conditions to which 
 they may be exposed will cause it either to germinate or perish, as is 
 seen in Oranges and Cucumbers, whose seeds will often germinate while 
 hidden within the fruit that bears them. But when a seed is perfectly 
 ripe its elements become comparatively stable or indisposed to change, 
 and to induce germination is in proportion difficult, while those altera- 
 tions which are succeeded by death are slow in taking effect. 
 
 If we apply these considerations to the plans .usually em- 
 ployed for preserving artificially the vitality of seeds, we shall 
 find them offer an explanation of the success that attends some 
 methods of packing, and the failure of others. 
 
 The great object of those who have devised means of packing 
 seeds for distant journeys has, in general, been to exclude the 
 air, and all other considerations have been subordinate to this. 
 Enclosure in bottles hermetically sealed, in papers thickly 
 coated with wax, in tin boxes, and similar contrivances, have, 
 therefore, been resorted to : but no advantage can be derived 
 from excluding the air, and the disadvantage is very great ; 
 for the effect of excluding the air is to include whatever free 
 moisture seeds may contain or he surrounded by ; this mois- 
 ture is sufficient, in high temperatures, to excite germination, 
 which, when it cannot be continued, inevitably ends in a decay 
 of the tissue, especially of the seed coats, which have no vitality 
 themselves, and the embryo perishes. 
 
ALL CLOSE PACKAGES INJURIOUS. 249 
 
 What has, perhaps, tended to confirm this erroneous opinion have 
 been the stories current about seeds enclosed in mummy-cases for thou- 
 sands of years, having germinated. The newspapers abound in such 
 tales, which are all apocryphal, if not absolutely false. Even Mr. 
 Tupper's mummy wheat, said to be the produce of grains taken out of 
 a mummy-case by Sir Gardner "Wilkinson, (See Qard. Chron., 1846, 
 p. 757.) has been declared, by very high authority, to be a mystifica- 
 tion of the Arab guides. It is, however, to such instances that we may 
 ascribe the origin of wrapping seeds in wax-cloths, like the cerements 
 of the dead, or soldering them up in metal boxes, or hermetically Sealing 
 them in glass. 
 
 Packing in cliarcoal lias been recommended, it is difficult 
 to say why ; and experience shows what might have been anti- 
 cipated, that it produces no other effect than packing in earth 
 or other dry non-condtictiag material. 
 
 Clayed sugar has been employed, and, as it is said, occa- 
 sionally with advantage; but I have seen no instance of success, 
 and, on the contrary, its tendency to absorb moisture from the 
 air tm it becomes capable of fermenting, is in itself an objec- 
 tion to the employment of this substance. 
 
 It is obvious that any contrivance which keeps out of a 
 packet of seeds the air of our atmosphere, will keep in the air 
 of theirs. Now the air of our atmosphere is dry, or if occasion- 
 ally damp, soon becomes dried, if seeds are exposed to it in a 
 room in which we live. On the other hand, aU seeds are neces- 
 sarily damp, and they communicate their moisture to the air 
 that surrounds them ; the papers too m which they are packed 
 are damp, as may be seen by holding such papers before a fire, 
 when the damp will dry off in the form of vapour ; and if this 
 air which surrounds the seeds is enclosed in an air-tight vessel 
 of any kind, it must always remain damp, because it cannot 
 be dried by ventilation. We may therefore assume, that 
 seeds in air-tight vessels are damp, but in situations freely 
 communicating with the atmosphere are comparatively dry. 
 So long as seed-packages are kept at a low temperature, this 
 difference is of no moment ; because seeds cannot germinate, 
 or, in other words, cannot revive from their torpor, in a low 
 temperature: but let the temperature rise and the case is 
 altered. What seeds require in order to grow are moisture 
 
250 CONDITIONS OF SECURITY. 
 
 and warmth ; they cannot grow in damp without heat, nor in 
 warmth without moisture. It is the comhination of these two 
 conditions that is absolutely requisite. When they arrive in 
 warm latitudes, or are placed in warm situations, such as the 
 hold of a ship, the seeds in air-tight cases, being surrounded 
 with moisture, attempt to grow ; those, on the contrary, which 
 are in ventilated packages, not being surroimded with moisture, 
 remain unchanged. The commencement of growth made by 
 the seeds in air-tight cases is presently arrested, inconsequence 
 of the unfavourable circumstances under which it takes place, 
 and the seeds not being able to return to the state in which 
 they were before they began to germinate, speedily perish ; 
 but the seeds in ventilated packages, not having begun to 
 grow, stUl remain unaltered. The irresistible conclusion from 
 this is, that the true mode of packing seeds for long voyages 
 is, to put them in well-ventUated packages, and not in closed- 
 up cases. Such drjmess as seeds can acquire from exposure 
 to the air cannot hurt them, but wUl, on the contrary, tend to 
 preserve their germinating powers. 
 
 Upon the whole, the only mode which is calculated to meet 
 all the circumstances to which seeds are exposed during a 
 voyage is, to dry them as thoroughly as possible, enclose them 
 in coarse paper, and to pack the papers themselves very loosely 
 in coarse canvass bags, not enclosed in boxes, but- freely ex- 
 posed to the air ; and to insure their transmission in some dry 
 weU-ventilated place. Thus, if the seeds are originally dried 
 incompletely, they wiU become further dried on their passage ; 
 if the seed paper is damp, as it almost always is, the moisture 
 in it wiU fly off through the sides of the bags, and not collect 
 around the seeds. It is true that, under such circumstances, 
 the seeds will be exposed to great fluctuations of temperature, 
 and to the influence of the atmosphere ; but neither the one 
 nor the other of these is hltely to be productive of injury to 
 the germinating principle. The excellence of this method I 
 can attest from my own observation. Large quantities of seeds 
 have been, annually transmitted from India for many years, 
 doubtless gathered with care, it is to be presumed prepared 
 with attention to the preservation of the vital principle, and 
 
EXCEPTIONAL CASES. 251 
 
 certainly packed with all those precautions which have heen 
 erroneously supposed to be advantageous ; the hopelessness of 
 raising plants from such seeds at length became so apparent, 
 that persons would not take the trouble to sow them when 
 they arrived. On the other hand seeds sent from India, 
 packed in the manner last described, exposed to all the 
 accidents which those first mentioned can have encountered, 
 germinate so well, that we can scarcely say that the failure 
 has been greater than if they had been collected in the south 
 of Europe. 
 
 It is not to be doubted that the general badness of the seeds 
 from Brazil, from the Indian Archipelago, and from other 
 intertropical countries, is almost always to be ascribed to the 
 seeds having been originally insufficiently dried, and then en- 
 closed in tightly packed boxes, whence the superfluous moisture 
 had no means of escape. 
 
 But although experience shows that as a general rule in 
 SEED-PACKING, the great points to observe are the drying 
 seeds thoroughly before packing, and the preserving them in 
 that state afterwards by means of ventilation, there are a few 
 exceptions to this general and important rule. 
 
 If Acorns or sweet Chestnuts are preserved dry, they soon 
 lose their vitality; the same is apparently true of the Mango, 
 of Magnolias, the Chilian Araucaria, and some other plants. 
 The reason of this has never been satisfactorily explained, and 
 is the less obvious when it is considered that some of these 
 seeds are oily, others resinous, and others astringent. On this 
 account the treatment of them in a long voyage is merely 
 empirical. It is, however, known that the most certain mode 
 of conveying them is to place them in a situation where they 
 are unable either to absorb moisture or to lose it. The best 
 manner of effecting this is to pack them solidly in dry sand or 
 nearly dry loam. 
 
 The manner of using sand or loam as a packing material is this : — 
 Take a box, of wood sufficiently stout to resist pressure from within ; 
 strew three inches of sand or earth on the bottom ; upon this place a 
 thin layer of seed, taking care that the outside seeds are not nearer 
 than three inches to the side of the box ; then cover this layer with an 
 
252 PACKIN& SEEDS IN EAETH, WAX, ETC. 
 
 inoli and a half or two inclies of sand, according to the size of the seeds, 
 and go on placing the seed and sand in alternate layers, tiU the hox is 
 full ; place three inches more sand on the upper layer of seed, and 
 fasten down the lid. With these precautions, such seeds as those ahove 
 mentioned, and others of a similar kinji, wilL travel for some months 
 without injury. It is, however, necessary to ohserve, that the sand, or 
 earth, must he pressed down very firmly, so that it may not be able to 
 settle away from the sides of the box after the lid is fastened down. 
 
 For short periods perishable seeds may be packed in the manner 
 described by Sir William Hooker, in a communication to the Gardeners^ 
 Chronicle (1844, p. 558). " Seeds of the Nutmeg-tree, by Mr. Lockhart, 
 of Trinidad, were removed from the pulp and mace, packed in moist 
 moss, and closed in a tin box almost hermetically. They germinated 
 during the voyage, and threw out a radicle and a plumule to the length 
 of an inch or more each, and apparently could not have come in a fitter 
 state for planting with a prospect of their success." It may be sup- 
 posed that in this instance either the decaying moss furnished the 
 young nutmegs with food, or that there was not time for germination 
 to be arrested. Probably they would have come still better in a bottle 
 of moss kept damp, but supplied with air; as is done with aquatic 
 
 Dr. Eoyle states that in consequence of the difficulty- 
 experienced in sending to the Himalayas such seeds as the 
 Filbert and Spanish Chestnut, he tried the effect of immersing 
 such seeds in wax just melted, and met with complete success 
 in repeated attempts. The Chestnuts and Filberts are de- 
 scribed as arriving at Bombay, Calcutta, and Saharunpore, in a 
 perfectly sweet and fresh state. 
 
 It seems worth inquiring whether aU seeds would not preserve 
 their vitality most perfectly if kept in an atmosphere of car- 
 bonic acid, which seems likely to oppose an effectual barrier to 
 those changes which destroy seminal life. It would not be 
 difficult to have bottles so contrived that after being fiUed with 
 seeds their air might be exhausted and replaced by carbonic 
 acid, which might be retained by hermetically seaUng the 
 aperture in the bottle. An attempt to verify tHs conjecture 
 was made, in 1847, by the Horticultural Society, who sent seeds 
 thus packed to New Zealand; but the result was never reported 
 by the agents of the New Zealand Company. The experiment 
 deserves a new trial. If it fails, the loss wiU be trifling; if it 
 succeeds, the gain would be great, for the cost of bottles and 
 
SINKING IN SHIPS WATER TANKS. 253 
 
 their proper preparation would bear no proportion to the value 
 of the seeds preserved. 
 
 There is also on record (see Gardeners' Chronicle, 1844, 
 p. 83) an interesting experiment by Mr. James M'GaU, at the 
 time gardener to Colonel now Sir William Reid, the governor of 
 the Bermudas. In those islands there are sudden and violent 
 changes of climate, caused by the dry winds of the north 
 shifting to hot southerly winds, bringing an atmosphere loaded 
 with moisture. In consequence of this there is a great difficulty 
 in preserving seeds, which, although they spring luxuriantly 
 before the middle of summer, immediately afterwards lose their 
 germinating power. Bottles, carefuUy sealed, and thick brown- 
 paper packages are generally employed for their preservation, 
 and kept in a cool and well-aired room. But although this 
 preserves them from insects, yet the advantage does not appear 
 to extend further. In the beginning of May last, Mr. M'GaU 
 was induced, from the evenness of the temperature there, to 
 put a bottle of Onion-seed, carefuUy sealed, which had arrived 
 at Bermuda from Madeira in the beginning of February, into 
 the bottom of a cistern of rain-water five feet below the surface 
 of the earth. The cistern was cased with Roman cement, and 
 had a free circulation of air above the cement, about seven feet 
 from the bottom. On the 1st of November, about the usual 
 time of sowing, this bottle was taken out and its contents sown, 
 together with those of four other bottles of the same package, 
 which had been kept in a cool warehouse during the summer, 
 and of three others. In aU cases the seed came up more or 
 less; that in some of the bottles to the extent of about a fifth 
 part, others of about a tenth, but in some scarcely at aU. The 
 seed, however, which had been kept under water came up 
 regularly, and four or five days sooner than the others; the 
 plants were strong, and not more than a fifth part of the seed 
 failed. The seed in three of the bottles looked pale when 
 opened, and several seeds were chipped or broken ; the fourth 
 bottle, in comparison with that taken out of the water, seemed 
 equally fresh, though very few seeds sprung. It is no doubt 
 possible that some of the seed was not good when first imported ; 
 but be that as it may, the seed kept under water came up as 
 
264 PACKING BULBS. 
 
 quickly as new seed. This is a new fact, and if further 
 experiments confirm Mr. M'Gall's experience, it may possibly 
 be found that the best place for seeds on board ships bound to 
 distant countries, is, as Sir William Eeid suggested at the time, 
 in bottles plunged in ship's tanks, where they may be exposed 
 to a more uniform temperature than can be otherwise secured. 
 
 It must not be supposed from anything now said, that the 
 conditions on which the preservation of seminal vitality 
 appears to depend, are also such as in all cases govern the 
 preservation of the life of perfect plants or their parts while 
 torpid. The reverse is the fact ; for as a general rule that 
 dryness and exposure to air, which is favourable to seed, is 
 prejudicial to the vitality of perfect plants, if too much 
 prolonged. 
 
 No perfect state of a plant approaches the seed so nearly as 
 the Bulb, for like a seed, it consists of a vital point, sur- 
 rounded by a soft mass of tissue, which parts with its 
 moisture slowly, in part in consequence of the obstacles 
 offered to evaporation by the membranes that invest it, and 
 in part by reason of the thickness of the sides of the cells 
 of which its tissue consists. The precautions demanded in 
 packing bulbs for long voyages are therefore much like those 
 of seeds ; except that bulbs will not bear dryness for a very 
 considerable length of time. Two years form probably the 
 longest period during which we have certain information that 
 bulbs have been preserved in a torpid state. 
 
 We find, the following report on this subject in the Journal of the 
 Horticultural Society, vol. I. p. 79. Bulbs, experimentally prepared for 
 a voyage to England, were received from India by the Court of Directors 
 of the East India Company, and sent to the Garden for examination. 
 One half of the bulbs were simply wrapped in cotton and packed in 
 brown paper, while the other portion (of the same kinds of bulbs) was 
 encrusted in a kind of white wax, and covered with cotton like the 
 others. When received at the Garden, in. June, 1844, those bulbs 
 which were simply packed in cotton and brown paper had emitted 
 roots on the journey, and the tops in most cases had grown consider- 
 ably, while those coated with wax remained quite firm and as fresh as 
 when first packed ; although, according to the statement on the out- 
 
PACKING CUTTINGS. 255 
 
 side of the parcel containing them, they must have been confined in 
 the wax three months. The bulbs transmitted in cotton began to grow 
 first, but soon showed symptoms of debility ; while those sent ia wax 
 did not move much before a month after they were potted, but then 
 they grew strong and healthy. In one or two oases the bulbs perished 
 in the cotton, while the same kind packed or coated in wax survived 
 the journey. 
 
 In Cuttings nature has provided no special means of 
 resisting exposure to unusual conditions and consisting, as 
 they do, of but small masses of lax, thin-sided vegetable 
 tissue, they much more readily part with their vitality than 
 seeds or bulbs. Dryness is fatal to them ; at the same time 
 moisture in excess ioduces them, if in only a moderate 
 temperature, to shoot and exhaust their vitality while packed 
 up. The amount of moisture which they can best bear without 
 risk of excitement in warm weather, is that which is natural 
 to them, and no more. The attention of the gardener should 
 therefore be directed to this point. It has been supposed that 
 this might be accomplished by sealing the ends of cuttings with 
 wax, or by dipping them in a solution of gum-arabic, or by 
 enveloping them in sheet India-rubber; but although such 
 precautions have enabled cuttings to travel from London to 
 Simla without having lost their vitality, or, ia some cases, 
 having suffered much exhaustion during a journey of so many 
 thousand miles, yet the success of such methods is too 
 imperfect to satisfy the wants of colonists. It may be worth 
 consideration whether a cutting would not retain its vitality 
 longest if dipped in collodion, and then dried before being 
 packed up. Of course the operator would take care that the 
 cuttings selected are packed iu some non-conducting material, 
 such as cork, charcoal, or dry saw-dust. 
 
 Dr. Royle states that cuttings of Apples, Pears, and Plums, have 
 been sent successfully from England to India, after having had their 
 ends dipped in bees-wax. The following details were communicated 
 by him to the Gardener^ Chronicle in 1843. Jargonelle Pear 
 cuttings having been sent successfully from Fahnouth to Bombay, a 
 distance of 6000 miles, so as to arrive at their destination in January, 
 and others, wrapped in cotton enveloped in India-rubber, after their 
 ends were dipped in bees-wax, having reached Saharunpore 900 miles 
 
256 PACKING CUTTINGS. 
 
 up the country, it was determined to repeat the experiment in November ; 
 when cuttings are in a fit state to travel, and the temperature is lower 
 than at any other time of the year, if we consider the time of their 
 departure from this country, and that of their arrival in India. Some 
 modification was made in the mode of packing. Instead of the ends 
 being dipped in seaMng-wax, the whole cutting was coated with bees- 
 wax, then wrapped in cotton, and afterwards enveloped in India-rubber 
 cloth. The packets were made up at the India House on the 30th of 
 October, and must have left Palmouth on the 1st of November. From 
 Bombay, which the mail usually reaches in about forty days, the 
 cuttings had to be carried a land journey of about 1320 miles, to the 
 Botanic Grarden at Calcutta, which they reached on the 30th of 
 December. A letter from Mr. Gfriffith states that three out of five 
 Apple-cuttings seemed quite fresh. This experiment was made rather 
 for the purpose of ascertaining how the mode of packing would answer, 
 than with the hope of the cuttings succeeding completely. ■ By the 
 same mail cuttings were sent to the Botanic Garden at Sahaninpore ; 
 where they arrived on the 28th of December. Dr. Jameson, on the 
 20th of January, made the following report of the state they arrived 
 in: 1. Duohesse d'Angoul^me, one specimen alive, the other dead, 
 probably owing to the lateral twigs having been cut off and not sealed 
 up. 2. Golden Pippin, with faint vitality, the pith discoloured, and the 
 liber faintly green. 3. Glout Moroeau, one dead, owing to the lateral 
 branches having been cut off and not sealed ; two alive, being devoid 
 of them. 4. Male di Carlo, in fine condition. 5. Gansel's Bergamot, 
 upper end faint vitality ; two specimens dead, the lateral twigs having 
 been cut off and not sealed ; three specimens in good condition. 6. 
 Colmar, faint vitality upper end. 7. Jargonelle, eight specimens, all 
 in good condition. From the above statement it will be seen that this 
 transmission may be considered successful, and if cuttings void of 
 lateral branches are sent, every one would probably have arrived in 
 good condition. 
 
 Much of the success of these operations evidently depends 
 upon the condition of the cuttings when ihey are packed up. 
 If they are soft or unripe, no precaution will secure their 
 safe arrival ; if perfectly ripe, with their tissues consolidated, 
 they will probably endure the journey. Mr. Beaton, a 
 skilful practical gardener, has proposed the following method 
 of preparing fruit-tree cuttings for long voyages. In the 
 month of August, cut off the tips of a branch half-way 
 between two buds or joints, and the force of the ascending 
 sap wUl nearly heal over the wound in two months. Now, if 
 you ring the shoot where you intend it to be cut off, you will 
 
PACKING GROWING PLANTS FOE LONG VOYAGES. 267 
 
 have all the strength and accumulation of this autumn's 
 growth concentrated in the graft, as far as art can do it ; and 
 this, ho douht, will help, so far, their, safe transmission. 
 Besides, the store of vegetiable matter, which will accumulate 
 in the callosity over the ring, will be ready to break forth into 
 roots as soon as the shoots are put into their natural element* 
 Moreover, the partially healing over of the wounds in this 
 way, wiU be almost ' suf&cieht to supersede the use of wax 
 altogether. 
 
 In long voyages, the best way of sending live plants is no 
 doubt in Ward's cases (see p. 221), which, if well constructed, 
 answer perfectly, provided the plants are firmly secured in 
 their places (a precaution often neglected), and not over- 
 watered upon being finally closed; but the apparatus is 
 expensive, and very liable to accidents at sea. 
 
 To pack otherwise live plants, not dry bulbs or mere 
 cuttings, so as to endure the consequences of suspended 
 growth, during long voyages, is an operation of considerable 
 difficulty, unless they have hard skins, and a great store of 
 moisture, like the pseudobulbs of Orchids, and the race of 
 succulents. The latter are best preserved by being packed 
 dry, and so separated that they cannot press together, and 
 ferment, which is fatal to them. 
 
 The difficulty in question consists iu the apparent impossi- 
 bility of causing live plants to maintain their vitality for four 
 or five months, except in a growing state, because of the 
 power which the heats of the tropics possess of exciting 
 vegetation, which can only be maintaiued when plants are fully 
 exposed to light. If it were possible to retain plants in a 
 torpid or dormant state, they might then be transported to 
 any distance, enclosed in packing cases, like dead goods. 
 Now, the conditions required to preserve a plant in a torpid 
 state are these : the temperature must be low and equal, and 
 the plant must be kept in the dark. If these conditions can 
 be fulfilled, a plant may be preserved, probably, for a twelve- 
 month without growing, and certainly for six months. The 
 great difficulty lies with its natural excitability, which leads 
 it, whenever possible, to renew its growth at an appointed 
 
258 PACKING GEOWING PLANTS FOE LONG VOYAGES. 
 
 time, after which very extraordinary measures are required to 
 repress its desire to grow. It is, however, possible to do 
 this. If a plant — a Vine — after having been rested in the 
 natural way for four months, is introduced into a forciag- 
 house, it shoots freely ; if the rest has extended to six months, 
 it pushes with still greater force ; but if it has only rested for 
 two months, its excitability is less easy to arouse; and 
 supposing the period of repose to have been only a week or 
 two, the renewal of its growth takes place with difficulty, and 
 feebly. It is therefore evident, that in a case where it is 
 important to repress excitability, the plant should be operated 
 upon as soon as possible after it has naturally gone to rest. 
 Accordingly, it has been found, that if plants in this country 
 are packed up in the month of November, they may be made 
 to travel for considerable spaces of time if kept damp, 
 tolerably cool, and closed up from light, which is the great 
 stimulating power. In this way Camellias have been sent, by 
 Cape Horn, to Lima, and other plants to the Australian 
 continent, by Messrs. Loddiges. 
 
 Tie mode of proceeding is this : plants, three or four years old, with 
 ripe, well-formed wood, are, in November or October, placed in layers, 
 in a stout chest, and well packed with an abundance of sphagnum, 
 trodden down as tight as possible, so that no open spaces are left in the 
 interior, but that the whole mass is firm and compact. By these means 
 the plants are surrounded by a substance which conducts heat very 
 badly, and will scarcely part with its moisture at all under such cir- 
 cumstances. The chest is then securely fastened down, and no further 
 care is demanded, except insuring its being placed between decJcs, in a 
 ventilated situation, during the voyage. It woidd, however, we con- 
 ceive, be an improvement if the chesb of plants were guarded by 
 another case, the space between the two being filled with charcoal, and 
 the whole enclosed in a polished tin cover ; for by these means the 
 variations of temperature would be most securely guarded against. 
 
 The success of operations of this kind will, after all, depend 
 greatly upon the specific vitality of plants. In this respect 
 they vary remarkably, as the following well-attested facts may 
 serve to show. We are indebted for them to M. P6pin, Super- 
 intendent of the Jardin des Plantes. 
 
 " The Orange, as is well known, is capable of resisting bad treatment 
 
LONG VITALITY OP THB ORANGE-TKEE. 259 
 
 for a long period ; but there are no known examples which offer so 
 convincing a proof of its strength as the following : — In 1833 I saw an. 
 Orange-tree in a garden in Normandy, whose trunk was 65 inches in 
 diameter at two feet from the surface of the boU, and nearly two yards 
 high before it branched. This plant had been neglected for a long 
 time ; water was frequently withheld during the summer, and there 
 being no convenient shelter for it in the winter, it died back every 
 year. The tub in which it had been planted at last fell to pieces with 
 age, and then the plant was removed. Reduced to almost nothing by 
 the successive loss of its branches, the trunk was preserved for two 
 years in the comer of a cellar ; after which the principal branches and 
 roots were cut off near their origin. The stem of this Orange remained 
 in the same place for four years more, laid horizontally on the ground, 
 to serve as a stage to set casks on ; and during these six years it 
 showed no indication of vegetating. At the end of this period the 
 bark was observed to be BtUl green, and in 1831 the trunk was planted 
 with care in a tub filled with rich Kght vegetable mould. In this state 
 it remained for some months, no more water being given to it than was 
 strictly necessary ; soon afterwards swellings were seen on several parts 
 of the bark, and a number of rootlets appeared about the sections of the 
 old roots, from which new ones were developed. The trunk also 
 showed some little productions of cellular tissue, from which new buds 
 proceeded the following year. AU those which were imperfect or 
 crowded were rubbed off, and in 1837 this tree had a vigorous weU- 
 formed head and fine foliage ; and since that time it has continued to 
 flower every year. 
 
 " In 1762, or 1764, the Count de Charolais had a fine estate in what 
 is now called the quartier Montmartre, the garden attached to which was 
 magmfleent, and kept with a great deal of care ; and the Orangery, 
 which was one of the finest of that age, contained 300 large Orange- 
 trees. M. de Charolais was a great amateur, and -believed that these 
 trees were as beautiful as those at Versailles, or in the other royal 
 gardens. Being exiled from Paris by the Parliament* he, at his 
 departure, had aU the doors and passages to his hotel closed, and the 
 Oranges remained immured in the Orangery without air and water for 
 the six years during which his exile lasted. M. Audebert, the gardener 
 attached to the house, was ordered not to go into the plant-houses, nor 
 even into the garden. When M. de Charolais returned, the windows 
 and doors of the Oraagery were opened, and what was the despair of 
 the gaidener at finding the trees, which previously had been the 
 admiration of everybody, changed to dry sticks, dried up, and com- 
 pletely deprived of leaves ; in fact, to aU appearance dead ! Notwith- 
 standing this, M. de Charolais wished his Oranges to be placed in the 
 same order that they were before his exile. On examination, the roots 
 were found to be in the same state as the branches ; they were cut back 
 
 s 2 
 
260 LONG VITALITY OF THE ORANGE-TEEE, 
 
 close, cleaned, and those -which were quite dead removed. A mixture 
 of good well-sifted earth was prepared, after which the trees were 
 replanted in the same tuhs ; a thick stratum of potsherds heing put in 
 first. Water was applied to the trees with the greatest caution ; the 
 branches which formed the head were either drawn together or cut off 
 to within a yard of the stem, and the two or three years-old wood was 
 cut hack to the young branches. This operation being performed, they 
 remained for a year without exhibiting any sign of vegetation ; but the 
 following year, one hundred out of three hundred developed buds. M. 
 Richg, who saw them, assured me that they were very vigorous, and 
 bid fair to become fine trees. 
 
 " When woody plants are placed in analogous conditions, they can, 
 notwithstanding they are deprived of a large portion of their organs 
 of nutrition, live for a long time. It wiU be observed, that the trunk 
 of the Orange which remained for several years in the cellar, was in a 
 more favoTirable position for absorbing moisture by its bark, than those 
 Oranges which were for six years in a conservatory hermetically sealed, 
 each planted in a separate tub, the earth in which, without doubt, was 
 much drier than the soil and atmosphere of the cellar. I have also 
 made experiments in a somewhat" similar situation as the cellar of 
 which I have spoken. I have placed stems there with or without roots, 
 after having cut the branches to three or four inches in length, and the 
 roots in the same manner ; for without this precaution all that I have 
 tried have not lived more than a year. The situation was moist rather 
 than dry, and almost dark. Diflferent stems of trees so treated have 
 developed adventitious buds for several years,, and being afterwards 
 replanted, they have grown well without showing any remarkable 
 alteration. Two stems of Moras alba from 2 to 3 yards long, one being 
 6J, the other 4 inches in diameter, produced, during four years, in this 
 situation, adventitious buds, from which young branches 4 to 6J inches 
 long sprung, furnished with small leaves ; but these young shoots were 
 partly destroyed during the winter by the moisture. Two pieces of 
 TJlmus campestris, of nearly the same thickness, have grown during 
 five years. Two pieces of Robinia pseudo-acacia, one 7 inches in 
 diameter, and the other 5J, have both vegetated for three years, as 
 well as a common Pear-tree 4 inches in diameter ; so also the stem of 
 a Whitethorn 3^ inches in diameter. Populus virginiana and P. nigra, 
 6^ inches in diameter, have produced buds during five years. 
 
 " I have made the same experiments on some pieces of Willow from 
 1 to 2 inches in diameter; they also produced new buds. Moreover, 
 there formed, every year, on these stems, at intervals, productions 
 which then dried down to the wood, and were soon afterwards covered 
 with fungi and mouldiness; but notwithstanding this, buds were 
 developed on the green parts, and these continued to grow, like the 
 preceding. 
 
OF PLANTS DBPRIVBD OP WATEB, AND OF OTHERS. 261 
 
 "M, Bov^, in his relation of a botanical journey in Egypt in 1829, 
 Bays, ' in visiting the estate of Ibrahim Paeha, one of his directors 
 pointed out, near the village of Kouba, a stock of a Looust-tree (Cera- 
 tonia siliqua), which he said had been planted about 300 years. The 
 tree was cut down by the French, during their invasion ; its roots 
 remained in the earth, and gave no indications of vegetation till the 
 Facha caused the earth to be broken up about it in 1826, and a well to 
 be sunk, the moisture from which induced it to throw up three branches, 
 which in three years were three or four yards high, and almost 12 
 inches in circumference at the base. Even flower-buds seemed dis- 
 posed to show themselves on the branches. Thus this stock remained 
 buried for 30 years without perishing, and probably without ceasing to 
 increase in size. This surprising fact may be placed by the side of that 
 mentioned, by M. Dutrochet of a kind of Pine, whose root year after 
 year produced new layers of wood for 90 years, without any existence 
 of a stem, M, Gaudichaud has also made known a remarkable instance 
 of the duration of life in a shoot of Cissus hydrophora, which after 
 being dried three years in a herbarium, and even after being placed in 
 an oven, furnished cuttings, by which it has been propagated in the 
 hothouses of the Museum of Natural History, 
 
 "I have noticed that fleshy roots, like those of Pseonies, do not 
 produce tops when they are cut, except those of Chinese Pseonies. The 
 same thing occurs with bulbous and fusiform roots, deprived of their 
 buds or eyes, although others produce tops, although they have been cut 
 into several pieces. There are perennial grasses whose roots are 
 preserved for more than a year in the earth without emitting roots. 
 The same takes place with the rhizomes of many Asters, Solidagos, 
 Cinerarias, and Helianthuses, and a great number of other genera. 
 Analogous facts are remarked among succulent plants, and such 
 monocotyledons as Dracaena, Aiads, &c. I have had for eight years 
 shoots of a Cereus peruvianus, which, in the free air of a room, left 
 without water or earth, produced every year new roots about an eighth 
 of an inch long, and were thus preserved for a year or two before they 
 dried up. During the first three years these shoots grew an inch or 
 more every year; for two years afterwards they lived, but did not 
 grow. Many Cactus cuttings remain three or four years without any 
 appearance of vegetation, although the pots in which they are planted 
 are filled with roots. Shoots of Cactus phyUanthoides, under similar 
 circumstances, every year formed a portion of a stem, at the extremity of 
 the old one, and on these stems two flowers have been seen to blossom, after 
 which the old shoot became yellow, then dried, became tough, and 
 what had grown upon it gradually perished, I have also preserved 
 without water shoots of StapeUa asterias, variegata, csespitosa, and 
 Mrsuta, and they have all produced flowers ; and the same has happened 
 with Aloes, which have lived for three or four years, producing new roots, 
 and forming buds along their whole length," 
 
262 PROLONGED VITALITY OF PLANTS. 
 
 la conclusion, M. Pepin gives a list of plants, fragments of wliose 
 roots have remained 'buried and torpid for several years. The more 
 remarkable are the following : — Bignonia radicans, 10 years ; Gymno- 
 cladus canadensis, 10 ; Locust trees, 10 ; Ulmus campestris, 6 ; Dodartia 
 orientalis, 8 : Euphorbia dulcis, 6 ; Hofiinannseggia falcata, 10 ; Sola- 
 num oarolinianum, 10 ; Pulmonaria virginica, 5 ; Urtica cannabina, 4, 
 
 It is almost needless to add, that with plants like those mentioned by 
 M. Pepin, very slender precautions suffice to insTire their living through 
 the longest voyages, if prepared in the manner adopted by Messrs. 
 Loddiges, as already described, and that his statements sufficiently 
 establish the fact that plants possess different powers of vitality, those of 
 some being infinitely greater than what belongs to others. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OP PROPAGATION BY EYES AND KNAURS. 
 
 The power of propagating plants by any other means than 
 that of seeds depends entirely upon the presence of leaf-buds 
 (Fig. XXXIV.), or, as they are technically called, " eyes," which 
 are in reality rudimentary branches ia organic connection with 
 the stem. All stems are furnished with such buds, which, 
 although held together by a common system, have a power of 
 
 Fig. XXXIV. 
 
 independent existence under fitting circumstances ; and, when 
 called into growth, uniformly produce new parts, of exactly the 
 same nature, with respect to each other, as that from which 
 they originally sprang. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances, an eye remains fixed upon 
 the stem that generates it. There it grows, sending woody 
 
264 PROPAGATION BY EYES. 
 
 matter downwards over the alburnum, and a new branch 
 upwards, clothed with leaves, and perhaps flowers; but it 
 occasionally happens that eyes separate spontaneously from 
 their mother stem, and when they fall upon the ground they 
 emit roots and become new plants (p. 44, Fig. X.). This 
 happens in several kinds of LUy, and in other genera. 
 
 Man has taken advantage of this property, and discovered 
 that the eyes of many plants, if separated artificially from the 
 stem and placed in earth, will, under favourable circumstances, 
 produce new plants, just as such eyes would have done if they 
 had spontaneously disarticulated ; hence the system of propa- 
 gation by eyes, an operation employed only to a limited extent 
 in actual practice, but which in theory seems applicable to all 
 plants whatever. The species most generally so increased are 
 the Potato and the Vine. Of the latter, the eye, with a small 
 portion of the stem adhering to it, is commonly used as 
 the means of obtaining young plants ; being placed in earth, 
 with a bottom heat of 75° or 80°, and kept in a damp atmo- 
 sphere, it speedily shoots upwards into a branch, and at the 
 same time establishes itself in the soil by the development of 
 the requisite quantity of roots. In order to insure success in 
 this operation upon the Vine, it is only necessary that the eye 
 should be dormant, and that a small piece of well-ripened wood 
 should, as has been already stated, be separated with it ; it will 
 then grow ia much the same way, and under the same circum- 
 stances as a seed. There is no doubt that many plants could 
 be thus multiplied as easily as the Vine, but it is equally certain 
 that a far larger number cannot be so increased. The reason 
 is, probably, that such eyes are not sufi&ciently excitable, and 
 that consequently they decay before their vital energies are 
 roused ; and, in addition, that they do not contain withia them- 
 selves a sufficient quantity of organisable matter upon which to 
 exist until new roots are formed, and capable of feeding the 
 nascent branch. 
 
 Mr. Knight's explanation of this, although in part applicable 
 to cuttings only, yet seems to deserve being introduced in this 
 place. " Every leaf-bud is weU known to be capable of extend- 
 ing itself into a branch, and of becoming the stem of a future 
 
EYES ARE ASSISTED BY OLD WOOD. 265 
 
 tree ; but it does not contain, nor is it at all able to prepare and 
 assimilate, the organisable matter required for its extension 
 and development. This must be derived from a different 
 source, tbe alburnous substance of the tree, which appears the 
 reservoir, in aU this tribe of plants, in which such matter is 
 deposited, I found a very few grains of alburnum to be 
 sufficient to support a bud of the Vine, and to occasion the 
 formation of minute leaves and roots ; but the early growth 
 of such plants was extremely slender and feeble, as if they 
 had sprung from small seeds ; and the buds of the same 
 plant, wholly detached from the alburnum, were incapable 
 of retaining life. The quantity of alburnum being increased, 
 the growth of the buds increased in the same propor- 
 tion ; and when cuttings of a foot long, and composed 
 chiefly of two-years-old wood, were employed, the first growth 
 of the buds was nearly as strong as it would have been, if 
 the cuttings had not been detached from the tree. The 
 quantity of alburnum in every young and thriving tree, 
 exclusive of the Palm tribe, is proportionate to the number of 
 its buds ; and if the number of these were, in any instance, 
 ascertained and compared with the quantity of alburnous 
 matter in the branches and stem and roots, it would be found 
 that nature has always formed a reservoir sufficiently extensive 
 to supply every bud. But those of a cutting, under the most 
 favourable circumstances, must derive their nutriment from a 
 more limited and precarious source; and it is therefore 
 expedient that the gardener should, in the first instance, make 
 the most ample provision conveniently within his power for 
 their maintenance, and that he should subsequently attend very 
 closely to the economical expenditure of such provision." 
 {Horticultural Transactions, ii. 115.) 
 
 A practical mode of carrying out these views consists in 
 detaching a mature leaf along with the bud which is to 
 propagate. 
 
 The mode of doing this has been thus described by Mr. E.. Markham, 
 the very experienced gaidener at Hewell Grange:— "The Camellia 
 pseoniflora being the strongest growing sort with which I am acquainted, 
 is the one I select for the purpose. In Maich, with a sharp knife, I cut 
 
266 EYES ARE ASSISTED BY LEAVES. 
 
 off as many leaves close to the braneli as I want, taking, of course, the 
 buds off with them. The leaves are potted immediately in 48-sized 
 pots, in peat and sand, and are placed about one-third their depth into 
 the soU, and the pots are then plunged into a tan-bed where no flre- 
 heat is employed; they are covered with a hand-glass, kept moderately 
 moist, and shaded when necessary. These leaves strike root, grow 
 vigorously, and in two seasons make good stocks for grafting on. 
 This mode of raising Camellia stocks is very convenient, for it is often 
 easier to procure leaves than grafts, and the plan answers weU when 
 leaves are sent from a distance. In April, 1843, a blossom of a new 
 double Camellia was sent to me ; it had travelled upwards of 300 miles, 
 and was so dry that I could not discover its colour ; there were, 
 however, two or three leaves attached to it, one of which was treated as 
 above, and I have now from it a very strong plant, five feet six inches 
 in height, producing nine flower-buds ready to expand. The plant has 
 been stopped twice in order to cause it to throw out branches, which 
 are now eleven in number ; the circumference of the stem is an inch and 
 a half at the bottom, I likewise raise Orange stocks in a s imil ar 
 manner; the leaves are cut off in. August, and are potted but not 
 covered with hand-glasses. The stocks which I use for Orange-graft- 
 ing are Citrons, which being strong growers, make excellent plants by 
 the following summer. The Citrons, I imagine, may, however, be 
 grown much quicker by putting in the leaves in February instead of 
 August, I have no doubt that the plants wiU be sufficiently strong to 
 be grafted by the end of July or early in August." 
 
 This is a very different process from propagation by mere leaves, the 
 subject of the next chapter. 
 
 In tlie Potato the requisite provision of organisable matter 
 is always secured, in consequence of tlie great dif&culty of 
 separating an eye of that plant, without fragments of the fleshy 
 tuber adhering to it. 
 
 The provision of alimentary matter may, however, be, iij 
 some cases, disadvantageous, by promoting too great a develop- 
 ment of stems and leaves, of which the Potato itself is an 
 instance. Theoretically, the more nutritive matter there is for 
 the eyes, the greater crop there wiU be, ceteris paribus, and so 
 there probably is of leaves and stems ; and it would, seem that 
 whole potatoes should be more advantageous to plants than sets. 
 But I have proved by a series of numerous experiments, that the 
 weight of potatoes is per acre greater, under equal circum- 
 stances, from sets than from whole tubers, by upwards of from 
 
EXCESSIVE FOOD FOR EYES INJURIOUS. 26T 
 
 seven cwt. to three tons per acre; and considerably more, on com- 
 parison of the clear produce, after deducting the weight of sets 
 employed in hoth cases. {Hort. Trans., n. s., i. 445, and ii. 
 156.) In these instances, I supposed the rankness of the vege- 
 tation from the whole tubers to be the cause of the dumnished 
 crop, for the stems not only expended their strength ia self- 
 augmentation, but were unable to support themselves, and were 
 blown about, laid, and broken by the wind. 
 
 "While, however, in such plants as the Potato, all the eyes 
 are equally capable of forming new tubers, it is found by 
 experience that they do so with different degrees of rapidity, 
 according to the age of that part of the stem or tuber which 
 furnishes them. It is stated by a writer in the Ga/rdener's 
 Magazine (vol. i. p. 406.), that it is well known in Lancashire 
 to some cultivators of the Potato, " that different eyes germinate 
 and give their produce, or become ripe, at times varying very 
 materially, say several weeks, from each other ; some being 
 ripe or fit for use as early as the middle of May, and others 
 not till June or July. This wiU be understood by reference to 
 the accompanying sketch. The sets nearest the 
 extremity of the Potato (Fig. XXXV. a) are soonest 
 ripe, and, in Lancashire, are planted in warm 
 places in March or the beginaiag of April, and 
 are ready for the market about the 12th or 15th of 
 May. The produce of the next sets (6) is ready 
 in about a fortnight after, and that from the root ^m- xxxv. 
 end (c and d) stUl later. These root end sets (from b to d) are 
 usually put together, and the extremity of the root end is 
 thrown aside for the pigs." This fact, if correctly stated, 
 shows, not that the youngest eyes, or those nearest the point of 
 the Potato, are the ripest, which is impossible, but that they 
 are more excitable, and consequently grow more rapidly than 
 those at the middle or base. 
 
 Besides the cases of propagation by eyes now mentioned, 
 there is another of which a notice is given by Signer Manetti 
 (Gardener's Magazine, vii. 663.), as practised ia Italy upon the 
 Glive. It appears that, from old Olive-trees, certain knots or 
 excrescences, called uovoU, are cut out of the bark, of which a 
 
268 
 
 PEOPAGATION BY KNAUES. 
 
 portion is left adhering to them, and, being planted, grow into 
 young Olive-trees. Of these we have no further account ; but 
 it is evident that the uovoli are no other than our knaurs 
 (Fig. XXXVI.), already spoken of under the name of embryo 
 huds; concretions found in the bark of many, and probably of aU, 
 trees, and supposed to have been adventitious buds developed 
 in the bark, and, by the pressure of the surrounding partSj 
 forced into those spheroidal woody masses in the shape of which 
 we find them. They often present an oblong or conical form. 
 
 Fig. XXXVI.— Knaurs. 
 
 are sometimes collected into clusters (Pig. XXXVI. a), and may 
 exhibit little or no appearance of a tendency to further growth. 
 It is, however, not. imcommon to find them lengthening into 
 branches, as is shown in the Poplar (Fig. XXXVI. c), for which I 
 am indebted to Sir Oswald Mosley ; and although they have never 
 yet been used for the purposes of propagation, except in the 
 case of the Olive, there seems to be no reason why they should 
 not be so employed, if any necessity were to arise for them. 
 The real amount of their powers of growth is unknown, and 
 Would be a good subject of investigation. 
 
 It will have been seen that the mode of propagation here 
 explained is analogous to that by seed, both having for their 
 
PEOPAOATION BY DIVISION NOT A CAUSE OF DEBILITY. 269 
 
 object the increase of a given race. There is, however, this 
 very important difference, that while eyes multiply the 
 individual, seeds only multiply the species. 
 
 For example the Grreen Gage Plum, ig a variety of the species Prunug 
 domestica. The seed of a Green Gage will undoubtedly produce Prunus 
 domestioa, tut not a Green Gage. On the other hand an eye (cutting or 
 graft) of the Green Gage Plum will increase that particular variety. 
 
 " Although it occasionally happens that some one branch of a plant 
 disagrees from the rest of the branches in certain small peculiarities of 
 growth, such as the colour of the leaves, the doubleness of the flowers, 
 the character of the fruit, &c., thus acquiring the properties of a special 
 variety, yet this is an exception to rule. Every part detached from 
 a plant continues to correspond with its parent after its separation, and 
 for this reason propagation by division affords the means of mvdtiplying 
 varieties which either could not be propagated at all by seed, or only 
 with uncertainty.'' MoM. 
 
 It has, however, been generally asserted that varieties 
 multiplied for many generations by eyes (cuttings or grafts) 
 gradually degenerate, become diseased, and disappear ; whence 
 it is said that propagation by eyes can only be employed with 
 safety for a few generations. For this idea there seems to be 
 no sufficient foundation ; but as it will be further examined in 
 Chapter XVII., I content myself for the present with quoting 
 the opinion upon the subject of Prof Mohl, the greatest of 
 modem German physiologists. " Thousands of experiments," 
 he observes, " have shown that the young shoots of old trees, 
 when used as grafts, slips, &c., furnish as strong plants as the 
 shoots of young trees. Even in the Palms (Phoenix dactylifera) 
 experiment has proved that the apex of the stem, when its 
 vegetation begins to slacken in an old tree, grows again into a 
 strong tree when cut off and planted in the earth. Not one 
 single experiment speaks in favour of the opinion promulgated 
 by Knight, that all parts of a tree have a common end to their 
 life, and that the different trees which have been raised from 
 one and the same tree by grafts, decay about the same time as 
 the parent plant. A whole series of cultivated plants (I will 
 only mention the Vine, the Hop, the Italian Poplar, and the 
 Weeping Willow) are propagated by division, without any 
 
2/0 DISEASE NOT CAUSED BY PROPAGATION BY DIVISION. 
 
 decreased power of vegetation ever being seen. Nothing was 
 in greater contradiction to the laws of vegetable life, than the 
 frequently expressed opinion, that the Potato disease of recent 
 years was to be ascribed to a degeneration of the Potato plant, 
 arising from the unceasing propagation by tubers." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF PEOPAaATION BY MERE LEAVES. 
 
 In the beginning of the last century, Richard Bradley, a 
 Fellow of the Royal Society, published a translation from the 
 Dutch of Agricola, of a book upon the propagation of plants by 
 leaves, in which it was asserted that, by the aid of a mastic 
 invented by the author, the leaves of any plant, dipped at the 
 stalk end into this preparation, would immediately strike root ; 
 and the book was adorned with copperplates exhibiting both 
 the process and its result, in the form of fields stuck full of 
 Orange leaves growing into trees. 
 
 One of ttese plates illustrates, "How by means of ftre and mummyj 
 leaves, twigs, buds, and branches may be turned into shrubs and trees 
 by planting them in the ground." 
 
 " Having observed," he adds, "that the leaves of some plants may 
 very well be used instead of joints or shoots, I shall now undertake to 
 show how the leaves take root. The curiosity for cultivating vegeta- 
 bles, it is well known, has long since been carried so far as to occasion 
 an attempt to raise a tree from a leaf, just as F. Mandirola made the 
 experiment with a Lemon- tree-leaf. His words upon this subject, 
 taken out of his writings, are as follows : — ' I tryed a masterpiece, to 
 wit, to plant Citron, Lemon, and such like, leaves after the following 
 manner. I took for that purpose a sort of little flower-pot full of the best- 
 sifted earth ; I planted in it some leaves of those kinds of trees, with 
 their stalks so deep that the third part of the leaf was covered with 
 earth ; over that pot I fastened a smaU pitcher full of water, so as 
 that it might drop directly down into the middle of the pot, and the 
 hoUow which was made by the falling of the drops I continually filled 
 up with fresh earth : thus they cost me but a little trouble, and they all 
 shot up and grew very well. I pursued it with the greatest patience in 
 the world, and found that through a too often dropping of the water, 
 the leaves began to rot, and so wasted away of themselves by little and 
 
272 MEUE LEAVES PEOPAGATE. 
 
 little, so that at last nothing was left but the stems; but it having 
 been observed since, that from the callous matter that came forth at 
 the bottom, both roots and branches shot out, it appears that all exotic 
 leaves may at any time be converted into trees. For this operation I 
 make choice of the months of July, August, and November ; but those 
 who have stoves and greentiouses may perform it even in winter, and 
 in that case they shoot the better in the spring. Those who have a 
 mind to do it in the spring will have some success ; but it is not so 
 very sure, which ought to be chiefly ascribed to the inconstancy of 
 that season.' " 
 
 Although this work was absurd, yet it originated in the 
 discovery that the mere leaves of some plants will grow under 
 special circumstances ; a fact often supposed to be much more 
 rare than it really is. In Professor Morren's French translation 
 of my Outlines of the First Principles of Horticulture, Eochea 
 falcata* is named as producing adventitious buds from the 
 upper side of its leaves ; and the Orange, the Aucuba, and the 
 Fig, as other instances of leaves \yhich will midtiply their 
 species : the power of Bryophyllum to do the same thing is 
 familiar to every one. Echeverias have been remarked to grow 
 immediately from the leaves that naturally fall off even its 
 flower-stalks. Hedwig found the leaves of the Crown Imperial, 
 put into a plant press, produce bulbs from their surface. 
 There is a well-known case of the same effect having been 
 observed in Omithogalum thyrsoideum. Mr. Auguste de 
 St. Hilaire mentions an instance of leaf-buds generated by 
 fragments of the leaves of " Theophrasta," which had been 
 buried by M. Neumann, chief gardener at the Garden of Plants 
 at Paris, and of young Drosera intermedia. Mr. Henry Cassini 
 is said to have seen young plants produced by the leaves of 
 Cardamine pratensis; English botanists know that offsets 
 spring from the margins of the leaves of Malaxis paludosa ; in 
 our stoves we see Ferns of many kinds, especially Woodwardia 
 radicans, propagating themselves by offsets from the leaves ; 
 Mr. Turpin tells us that floating fragments of "Watercress 
 leaves, cut up by a species of Phryganea for its nest, " produce 
 presently from their base, and below the common petiole, at 
 first two or three colourless roots, then in their centre a small 
 
 * See, also, De Candolle's Physiologie Vfig^tale, ii. 672. 
 
SCALES PEOPAGATE. 
 
 273; 
 
 conical bud, green, in which are found, or rather frora whichr 
 successively arise, all the aerial parts of a new Watercress 
 plant, while the roots multiply and lengthen." {Comptes 
 rendus, 1839, sem. 2., 438.) Mr. Flourens also mentions a 
 case of Purslane, whose leaves, divided into three, produced as 
 
 Fig. XXXVII.->BcaIe of Zamia sprouting. 
 
 many new plants, each having a root, stem, and leaves. In 
 the Transactions of the Horticultwral Society, is an account of a 
 Zamia, each of whose scales (Fig. XXXVII.) produced a new 
 
27i INSTANCES OF LEAVES ROOTING. 
 
 plant, when the'centralpart of the stem was decayed. Finailly,:. 
 the following case is named in the same work (vol. v. p. 242) by 
 Mr. Knight :— " In an early part of the summer, some leaves 
 of Mint (Mentha piperita), without any portion of the substance 
 of the stems upon which they had grown, were planted in small) 
 pots, and subjected to artificial heat, under glass. They 
 emitted roots, and lived more than twelve months, having 
 assumed nearly the character of the leaves of evergreen 
 trees ; and upon the mould being turned out of the pots, it was 
 found to be everywhere surrounded by just such an interwoven 
 mass of roots, as would,have been emitted by perfect plants of 
 the same species. These roots presented the usual character 
 of those organs, and consisted of medulla, alburnum, bark, and 
 epidermis ; and as the leaf itself, during the growth of these, 
 increased greatly in weight, the evidence that it generated th"e 
 true sap which was expended in their formation appears 
 perfectly conclusive." 
 
 In gardens, we have many other cases of the same kind. 
 Hoya is a common instance, and three others are here figured 
 (Fig. XXXVIII.); viz., Gesnera (a), Clianthus puniceus (b), 
 Gloxinia speciosa (c). In these, and all such cases, the first 
 thing that happens is an excessive development of cellular 
 tissue, which forms a large convex " callus" at the base ; from 
 which, after a time, roots proceed ; and by which eventually a 
 leaf -bud, the commencement of a new stem, is generated. 
 
 It is not surprising that leaves should possess this quality 
 when we remember that every leaf does the same thing 
 naturally, while attached to the plant that bears it ; that is to 
 say, forms at its base a bud which is constantly axillary to 
 itself. Leaves, however, have not been often employed as the 
 means of propagating a species ; and it is probable that most 
 leaves, when separated from their parent, are incapable of 
 doing so, for reasons which we are not as yet able to explain. 
 The most common case of their employment is in the form of 
 \ the scales of a_bulbj_which will, with some_cejiainty, produce 
 new ^aEtr-imder favourable circumstances. ThQSfi—circum- 
 stances are, a strong bottom heat, moderate moisture, and a 
 rich stimulating soil. 
 
INSTANCES OF LEAVES ROOTING. 
 
 275 
 
 When plants' are produced by leaves under ordinary circum- 
 stances, the conditions most favourable to their doing so are of 
 
 Pig. XXXVIII.— Booting leaves of a, Gesnera; 6, CUantliuspiimceus; c, Gloxinia speoiosa. 
 
 the same nature. A moderate amount of moisture prevents 
 their dying from perspiration or perishing from decay ; a good 
 bottom heat stimulates their vital forces, and causes them to 
 exercise whatever power they possess ; and, in addition, they 
 are covered by a slightly shaded bell-glass, which maintains 
 around them an atmosphere of uniform humidity, and, at the 
 same time, cuts off the approach of those direct solar rays, 
 which, acting as a stimulus to perspiration, would have a 
 tendency to exhaust the leaves of their fluid before they could 
 organise, at their base, the new matter from which the leaf-bud 
 is eventually produced. 
 
 The rationale of this operation seems to be as follows. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 HOW TO STRIKE LEAVES. 
 
 No plant can form a new individual without first organising 
 a bud. That must he in all cases the first step in the process 
 of propagation. Now buds are known to spring exclusively 
 from the soft pulpy or cellular matter that constitutes the flesh 
 of plants, and not from their solid woody parts. This cellular 
 matter is formed by Nature out of organisable fluids produced 
 by the leaves, and by the leaves only, or their equivalent, as in 
 the instance of the green bark of the leafless Cacti. Hence it 
 follows that leaves are really the great agents of propagation in 
 any case, whether layers, cuttings, or other forms of multipli- 
 cation are had recourse to; for the power possessed by the 
 parts of plants so named is derived immediately and exclu- 
 sively from the leaves. But leaves in their natural state are 
 connected with the stem by a peculiar and admirable mecha- 
 nism, which insures their being continually and abundantly 
 supplied with food out of which they may prepare the 
 organisable matter that is in the first instance to engender 
 cellular substance and afterwards a bud. If this mechanism is 
 disarranged the leaf dies, or becomes unhealthy, and loses its 
 bud-creating power. No disturbance of the mechanism in 
 question can weU. be greater than that which separates the leaf 
 from its stem, and therefore the chances of the leaf dying are 
 great in proportion. But if, notwithstanding the separation of 
 a leaf from its supply of food, means can be found to nourish it 
 in some other manner, it may be kept alive ; and if its vitality 
 can only be preserved long enough, it must necessarily go on 
 forming cellular matter, which again will obey that irresistible 
 impulse which compels a bud to be engendered ; and the bud 
 being formed, a new plant will follow as a matter of course. 
 The problem to solve is how to nourish a leaf as well- as it was 
 nourished by its parent. To that question propagators have 
 exclusively to direct their attention, for there is no fact more 
 certain in nature than that if the supply of proper food to a 
 leaf is but kept up, form a new plant it inevitably must. 
 
 The difficulties connected with the question will perhaps be 
 diminished, if we first ascertain what the means are by which 
 certain leaves have been made to grow already. Mandirola 
 tells us that he struck his Lemon and Orange leaves by 
 
HOW TO STEIKB LEAVES. 277 
 
 keeping the soil in which they were inserted continually wet ; 
 that those of July, August, and November struck best, and the 
 spring leaves worst. Mr. Knight, who made the leaves of the 
 common Peppermint grow, planted them in the early part of 
 summer, in small pots, in heat, under glass. Bits of Water- 
 cress leaves wiU strike root freely ; but it is only such as float 
 on the water. -The common way of converting succulent leaves 
 into plants is to place them on damp sand, under a bell-glass, 
 or without one, according to the nature of the leaf. These 
 practical details show that water is employed to replace the 
 sap on which leaves usually subsist. But other points are of 
 equal importance. 
 
 Of thes'e, the first. is to select leaves at the right season: if 
 they are too young, they are not capable of feeding themselves 
 when sundered from -their parent ; if too old, their vigour is 
 impaired, and their vitality on the wane. . Skilful propagators 
 therefore take care to employ leaves .fully grown, but not 
 beginning to change colour; such as those found about the 
 middle of a branch in full vigour. 
 
 A second precaution is the application of more warmth than 
 the leaves had been previously subject to. All the vital 
 energies of plants are increased under the influence of heat, 
 and in a case of this Bort nothing must be neglected that will 
 Stimulate the flagging powers of life. Aided by warmth the 
 leaves form their secretions faster^ generate their cellular matter 
 faster, and so form their callus sooner. Quickness of actioii 
 is of great importance in such an operation as leaf-strikihg. 
 
 A third condition will be perfect equability of moisture ; the 
 leaf must not be expected to feed by the end of its stalk 
 exclusively, but food must be presented to its whole surface ; 
 not, however, too much nor too little. If too much, the ,leaf 
 will be unable to digest it, and will perish of repletion;, if too 
 little, the cells wiU collapse, their excitability will be impaired, 
 and there is an end of the experiment. Herein consists^the 
 main difficulty of the operation, for leaves have very different 
 powers of taking in food and 'digesting it ; and nothing but 
 experience can adjust exterior conditions to the peculiar 
 organization of species. 
 
878 LEAVES UNWILLING TO FORM BUDS. 
 
 The last point to which attention need be directed is the 
 necessity of exposing leaves to the free influence of light. In 
 natural conditions, a leaf does something more than feed — ^it 
 breathes. The one act is as needful as the other. In the light 
 respiration goes on freely ; in the dark, it is suspended, or at 
 least is much impeded. But in sunlight a leaf not only 
 breathes, but loses water — a circumstance of no. importance 
 to it whilst upon its parent plant, because all loss is then made 
 good from instant to instant, through the veins which pass out 
 of the stem. Separated from its natural source of supply, the 
 condition of the leaf is entirely altered; and it cannot be 
 expected that the loss occasioned by evaporation should be as 
 equally and instantaneously compensated. The only way of 
 meeting this difficulty is by covering leaves with bell-glasses, 
 whose edges are. sunk in the damp sand or earth, in which the 
 leaf is to be struck. In this way, the leaf will always be in 
 contact with moist air. Under a bell-glass the perspiration of 
 a leaf in sunlight is then so much diminished as to be of no 
 importance, because, if the leaf is losiag water, it is also 
 absorbing it, and this as copiously as its nepessities demand. 
 It may therefore be exposed to the conditions favourable to its 
 breathing, without danger of injury. 
 
 The great objection to employing leaves as a means of pro- 
 pagation consists in their unwillingness, in many instances, to 
 form a bud as well as roots. A leaf of Hoya carnosa has been 
 known to remain without change for nine or ten years, although 
 it produced roots. The leaves of roses - strike freely, but will 
 not bud. These peculiarities belong to the nature of species, 
 and are not susceptible of explanation. 
 
 The following is Mr. Neumann's practical account of the manner in 
 which his experience aa a propagator teaches him to proceed with 
 leaves : — 
 
 "A single leaf out near the stem and planted, is sufficient, in. 
 some plants, to produce new individuals. The leaves intended for this 
 operation ought not to be pulled off the stem ; there is no need of 
 taking away the eye which showa itself at their axil ; in this method of 
 striking hy cuttings it is not the eye which developes itself, as many 
 people imagine ; the effect which takes place is similar to that produced 
 when cuttings are struck from the branch of Abies. It is upon the 
 
NEUMANN'S STATEMENTS. 
 
 279 
 
 cluster of small btilblets which form on certain parts of the leaf, that 
 the shoot shows itself. Fig. XXXIX. a, indicates at what place we 
 may cut the leaf without hurting the plant ; the leaf being placed in 
 the earth forms a callus at its base, Fig. XXXIX. 6, whence the roots, 
 and consequently more shoots spring up. 
 
 " Leaves intended for cuttings should be taken about the middle of a 
 branch ; the result is more certain than if we choose the lower leaves. 
 Gloxinia, BryophyUum, Lilies, &c., multiply well by such cuttings. 
 If we wish to get on very quickly, the midrib on the lower face of the 
 leaf may be broken in several places, without injuring the limb, and so 
 
 Fig. XXXIX.— Cuttings ofleaves. 
 
 lightly that the broken places can scarcely 1)6 distinguished ; the lower 
 face of the leaf is then placed on the earth of a pot. Soon at each 
 fracture a little callus developes itself, which gives rise to roots, as is 
 seen in Fig. XXXIX. c. Some leaves, when employed as cuttings, 
 send out roots and buds at each incision, as, for example, in Hemionitis 
 palmata, Bryophyllum, &e. Fig. XXXIX. d shows how this effect is 
 produced. 
 
 " Cuttings of leaves are often a long time before they show any sign 
 of succeeding ; the care which they require is in consequence of their 
 delicate nature ; most especially must attention be paid to burying the 
 end of the petiole, or the base of the leaf. When their buds are strong 
 enough they may be accustomed, by degrees, to the free air of the 
 greenhouse, in which they are to remain, then treating them like 
 cuttings from branches. 
 
 " Having succeeded with the leaves, of which I have just spoken, I 
 
280 NEUMANN'S EXPEEIMENTS. 
 
 tried, in 1839, to multiply Theophrasta latifolia with its leaves cut in two, 
 with which I made two cuttings ; these portions took root and developed 
 buds, as is seen in Fig. XXXIX. e. This experiment evidently proves 
 that some plants may be reproduced by cuttings of the midrib of their 
 leaves. The primitive bud, as I have remarked, rises from the callus 
 above the root which first shows itself, and about .l-16th of an inch 
 from the base of the midrib. The dotted part, shown in the upper half 
 of the annexed leaf, e, was removed in order to put the leaf into a little 
 pot, but this did not prevent the success of the cutting." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 
 
 Tms, which is the most common of all modes of artificial 
 propagation except grafting, depends upon essentially the 
 same principle as propagation by eyes; that is to say, the 
 pieces of a plant called cuttings possess a power of growth in 
 obnsequence of their bearing leaf-buds or eyes upon their 
 surface. In striking by eyes, we have the great difficulty to 
 encounter of keeping the eye active till it has organized roots 
 with which to feed itself; the earth furnishes such a supply 
 unwillingly or unsuitably, nature intending that the bud 
 should, in the first instance, be supported by the soluble nutri- 
 ment ready prepared and lodged in its immediate vicinity, in 
 the pith or some othet part of the stem. For this reason, 
 cuttings, which consist of eyes and the part containing their 
 proper aliment, usually strike root more freely than eyes by 
 themselves. 
 
 This being so, it is plain that a cutting is only capable of 
 multiplying a plant when it bears buds upon its surface ; and 
 as the stem is the only part upon which buds certainly exist, 
 so the stem is the only part from which cuttings should be 
 prepared. And again, as the internode, or that space of the 
 stem which intervenes between leaf and leaf, has no buds, 
 their station being confined to the axil of the leaves, a cutting 
 prepared from an internode only is as improper as one, from 
 the root. It is no doubt true, that we constantly propagate 
 plants from pieces of what are called roots, as in the Potato, or 
 the Scirpus tuberosus ; but such roots are, in reality, the kind 
 of stem called a tuber, and, in like manner, other cases of 
 
282 
 
 CUTTINGS FEOM KOOTS. 
 
 similar propagation are also successful, because the part called 
 a root is, in reality, an underground stem covered with the 
 rudiments of leaves, to each of which an eye belongs. The 
 Eose, the Lilac, and many other plants have subterranean 
 stems, cuttings of which will therefore answer the purpose of 
 propagation. It also occasionally happens, that, owing to 
 unknown causes, morsels of the true root will generate what 
 are called adventitious buds ; and hence we do occasionally see 
 the root employed for, propagation, as in Cydonia japonica. 
 Anemone japonica, &c., but these are exceptional cases, and do 
 not affect the general rule. 
 
 Since, however, there are many such eases, the propagator will do 
 ■well to try roots whenever a plant refuses to strike hy ordinary 
 methods. Where unexpected difficulty is found to exist, the best way 
 of proceeding is to place the cuttings of roots on damp sand, pressed 
 half way into it, covered close with a beU-glass, exposed to moderate 
 light, and kept at a temperature of from 60° to 65°. There is every 
 reason to believe that moderate light contributes greatly to the excite- 
 ment of vital action, and consequently to the formation of buds. 
 
 Monsieur Neumann in his very useful treatise on propagation gives 
 several examples of root-striking, from among which the following may 
 be selected. Dais cotinifoUa propagates readily by its roots cut into 
 
 Fig. Xli, — Root-cuttings of Paulownia imperialia, 
 
 pieces and laid on earth in a hothouse, although its branches stiike 
 most unwillingly. In like manlier, in. the case of Panlowniaimperialis, 
 portions of the roots from J to j of an inch in diameter, and from 1 to 
 21 inch long, root weU. The month of March is the most favourable 
 time for striking these cuttings ; for in February they often rot. The 
 
CUTTINGS FKOM ROOTS. 283 
 
 shoots of this plant, struck from root cuttings, come out romid the root 
 as is seen in Fig. XL. , n. ; this gives the means of splitting the roots into 
 several pieces, which, separately, strike as well as an entire root, Fig. XL. , 
 0. In Maclura aurantiaca. Fig. XLL, roots are formed between the wood 
 
 Pig. XLI.— Boot-cutting of Maclura aurantiaca. 
 
 and the bark by an innumerable number of exceedingly minute bulbs, 
 which turn green and produce buds. Cuttings of this plant strike 
 easily in the open air. 'In Cydonia japonioa, if we out the roots the 
 size of a pen into pieces 2 or 2^ inches long, and plant them 
 upright, we shall have the same year as many plants as there were 
 pieces planted. These cuttings should be made in the open air, along a 
 border or strip of peat, without any other covering than the soil where 
 they are to grow. If we plant them vertically, we should cover them 
 very slightly with earth; and at the first watering the cut will be 
 uncovered. If we place them horizontally, they should be covered 
 with earth about i of an inch deep. This last method succeeds 
 equally well, but it is less certain than the first. Mons. Neumann's 
 experience has also showed that even Conifers may be struck from 
 pieces of the root, concerning which he makes the following statement. 
 During six years he had many times tried to strike an Aiaucaria 
 from cuttings of the roots, but without success ; at last, on the 10th May, 
 1844, he perceived that the cuttings of the roots of Aiaucaria 
 Cunninghami, | inch in diameter, and about 2| to 3 inches long, 
 planted in October, 1843, were sending forth shoots, He attributes his 
 failure, up to this time, to the presence of the glasses with which he 
 covered the cuttings : the constant presence of air charged with an excess 
 of moisture making them perish. In the first place, the pots which 
 contained the roots were, in October, plunged into tan still gently 
 warm ; perceiving in March that the earth in the pots was decomposed, 
 he changed it, without being able to distinguish the least sign of 
 vegetation on the euttinga. The pots were then placed upon a bench 
 
284 STEMS ROOT IN AIR. 
 
 and exposed to a moderate temperature ; in April these pots were placed 
 upon a warm bed of tan ; and it was this, doubtless, which, a month 
 afterwards, excited vegetation. He expresses his opinion that all 
 Conifers may be multiplied in a similar manner if root cuttings are 
 employed in Spring. This opinion is not, howcTer, generally entertained 
 by others. 
 
 When the Vine grows in a very warm damp stove, its stem 
 emits roots into the air ; the same thing happens to the Maize 
 on the lower part of its stem ; and in these and all sUch cases, 
 the roots are found to be emitted from buds. Hence it has 
 been inferred that the roots of a plant are as much productions 
 of buds as branches are, and that the stem is nothing more 
 than a collection of such roots held together under the form of 
 wood and bark. The present is not the place for a renewal of 
 this discussion, for the arguments in favour of and opposed to 
 which, the reader is referred to my Introduction to Botany, 3d 
 edit. -p. 309, &c. It is sufficient here to remark, that the question 
 turns upon whether the buds and leaves actually themselves 
 produce roots, or merely furnish the organizable matter out of 
 which roots are formed; and that, therefore, for the purpose 
 of horticulture, either one or the other is equally capable of 
 jexplaining the facts connected with cuttings.* 
 
 As far as physiology can explain the operation of propa- 
 
 * The following curious fact, recorded by Mr. Livingstone, wHoh seems to have 
 escaped observation, deserves to be mentioned bere ; — " The Pterooarpus Marsupium, 
 one of tbe most beautiful of tbe large trees of the East Indies, and -which grows in the 
 greatest perfection about Malacca, affording, by its elegant wide-expanding boughs, 
 ^nd thick-spreading pinnated leaves, a shade equally delightful with the far-famed 
 Tamarind tree, is readily propagated by cuttings of all sizes, if planted even after 
 the pieces have been cut for many months, notwithstanding they appear quite dry, 
 and fit only for the fire.- I have witnessed some of three, four, five, six, and seven 
 inches in diameter, and ten or twelve feet long, come to be fine trees in a few years. 
 While watching the transformation of the log into the tree, I have been able to trace 
 the progress of the radicles ffom the buds, which began to shoot from the upper part 
 of the stump a few days after it had been placed in the ground, and marked their 
 progress till they reached the earth. By elevating the bark, minute fibres are seen to 
 descend contemporaneously as the bud shoots into a branch. ' In a few weeks these 
 are seen to interlace each other. In less than two years the living fibrous system is 
 complete ; in five years no vestige of its log origin can be perceived ; its diameter and 
 height are doubled, and the tree is in all respects as elegant and beautiful as if it had 
 been produced from seed." {Hort. Trails., iv. 226.) 
 
CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO A -CUTTING. 285 
 
 gation by cuttings, it appears tha t roots are form ed by the 
 action_ofleaves; that branches are developed from the bnds; I 
 and that the buds are maintained b y the suita ble aliment store d ; 
 upjnthejtfiji. Everything beyond this seems to be connected 
 with specific constitutional powers, of which science can give 
 no explanation. 
 
 In considering what conditions are most favourable to . the 
 maintenance of a cutting in the state required, in order to 
 enable it to become a young plant, it wiU be most convenient, 
 in the first place, to examine the rationale of some one method 
 which is known to be successfiil. For this purpose, the follow- 
 ing detail, by Mr. Knight, of his mode of striking the Mulberry, 
 is selected : — 
 
 "A considerable number of cuttings were taken from the 
 most vigorous bearing branches of a Mulberry-tree, in the 
 middle of November, 1813, and were immediately reduced to 
 the length adapted to small pots, in which I proposed them 
 ultimately to be planted, and which were between four and five 
 inches deep. Each cutting was composed of about two parts 
 of two-years-old wood, that is, wood of the preceding year, and 
 about one third of yearling wood, the produce of the preceding 
 summer ; and the. bottom of each was cut so much aslope, 
 that its surface might be nearly parallel with that of the bottom 
 of the pot in which it was to be placed. 
 
 " The cuttings were then inserted in the common ground 
 nnder a south wall, and so deeply immersed in it that one bud 
 only remained visible above its surface, and in this situation 
 they remained till April. At this period the buds were much 
 swollen, and the upper ends of the cuttings appeared similar to 
 those of branches which had been shortened in the preceding 
 autumn, and become incapable of transmitting any portion of 
 the ascending fluid. The bark at the lower ends had also 
 begun to emit those processes which usuaHy precede the pro- 
 duction of roots. The cuttings were now removed to the pots 
 to which they had been previously fitted, and placed in a 
 moderate hot-beff ; a single bud only of each cutting remained 
 visible above the mould, and that being partially covered ; and 
 in this situation they vegetated with so much vigour, and 
 
288 RATIONALE OF STEIEIN9 CtTTTINGS. 
 
 emitted foots so abundantly, that I do not think one cutting in 
 a hundred would fail with proper attention. Some of the pots 
 were placed round the edges of a Melon bed, which affords a 
 very eligible situation where a few plants only are wanted." 
 (Horticultural Transactions, ii. 117.) In this case success 
 appears to have depended upon the following circumstances : — 
 
 1. The cuttings were prepared in November, at the end of 
 the season of growth, when all the orgahizable matter required 
 for the cutting was formed, and locked up in the proper places 
 in its interior. It was not necessary, therefore, to take any 
 means of insuring a further supply of aliment. But had it been 
 otherwise, that is to say, if the cuttings had been prepared in 
 the summer, in the midst of their growth, it would have been 
 indispensable to allow a leaf or two to remain attached to the 
 upper end of the cutting, to assist in the forination of alimentary 
 matter. 
 
 3. Although but one , eye was allowed to grow, yet the 
 cuttings themselves were four or five inches long, and they 
 consisted, to the extent of two-thirds, of two-years-old wood. 
 By this means the quantity of food for the nascent branch was 
 intended to be so great as to insure it against suffering from an 
 inadequate supply, until it had formed roots. The importance 
 of this has already been shown by Mr. Knight in a previous 
 part of this book. 
 
 3. The cuttings were taken off in November, and not in the 
 spring. This gave them time to form granulations of cellular 
 substance at the lower or wounded end before the powers of 
 absorption by the alburnum were aroused, and so to protect 
 themselves against a too copious supply of aqueous matter 
 before the growing bud could dispose of it by its leaves. This 
 protection is afforded by the thinnest stratum of new cellular 
 tissue, which covers the ends of the wounded vessels, and acts 
 as a vital filter through which all the crude food must pass 
 from the soil. 
 
 4. The lower end of the cuttings was so divided as to b6 
 parallel with the bottom of the pot, and it appears from the 
 context, although it is not expressly so stated, that this end was 
 to touch the bottom of the pot. The importance of this pre- 
 
NEUMANN ON THE SOIL FOE OITTTINGS. 287 
 
 caution is well known; cuttings of the Lemon and Orange, 
 wHcli are by no means willing to strike if it is neglected, 
 become young plants readily if it is attended to ; and in aU 
 difficult cases it is had recourse too. The object of it seems to 
 be to place the absorbent or root end of the cutting in a situ- 
 ation where, while it is completely, drained of water, it may, 
 nevertheless, be in the vicinity of a never-failing supply of 
 aqueous vapour. If it were surrounded by earth, water would 
 readily collect about it in a condensed state, and the vessels 
 being all open in consequence of being cut through, would rise 
 at once into the interior ; but the application of the root end 
 immediately to the earthen bottom of the pot, with which it is 
 so cut as to be nearly parallel, necessarily prevents any such 
 accumulation and introduction of water, unless over-watering is 
 allowed, and this aU good gardeners will take care to avoid. 
 
 M. Neumann gives the following practical advice as to tie earth in 
 which cuttings strike most readily: — "Different sorts of trees do not 
 root ec[iially well in all soils. There are some cuttings which can 
 scarcely be made to succeed in saline earth, while others succeed in it 
 very weU. The soUs-considered the best for striking cuttings in the 
 open air are those which are free, sandy, and soft to the touch. Tamarix 
 elegans and T. germanica prosper in a soil rich in saltpetre ; but the 
 Gingko and Poplars cannot strike in it. Cuttings made in glass-houses 
 generally require to be planted in earth mixed with peat in preference 
 to any other, but varied according to the nature of the plant. What- 
 ever composition we use, we must take care not to employ it too dry or 
 too moist ; in the first case, the earth h.ot being able to sustain itself in 
 a convenient manner around the cutting, the latter falls or is displaced 
 when we wish to water it ; in the second case, the earth being too com- 
 pact, it hinders the formation of roots ; Nature makes vain efforts,, and 
 the cutting suffers, decays, and dies, in spite of its disposition to 
 vegetate." 
 
 Other substances are occasionally employed with some advantage as 
 a substitute for earth, such as chopped damp moss, brick dust, charcoal 
 dust, burnt clay, &e. The three last substances probably act in conse- 
 quence of their being bad conductors of heat, powerful absorbents 
 of- gaseous matter, and in the best mechanical state for preserving the 
 cuttings from contact with excess of moisture. 
 
 An ingenious plan of Mr. Forsyth's is intended to answer 
 this purpose rather more perfectly. He puts a small sixty pot 
 
288 POTS SUITED FOR CUTTINGS. 
 
 (Fig. XLII. a d) into one of larger size, having first closed 
 up the bottom of the former with clay (a) ; then having filled 
 the bottom of the outer pot with crocks, he fills up the sides 
 (c c) with propagating soU, in which his cuttings are so placed 
 that their root ends rest against the sides of the inner pot ; the 
 latter is then filled with water, which passes very slowly 
 
 Fig. XLII. 
 
 through the sides until it reaches the cuttings. . (See Gardeners' 
 Magazine, vol. xi., p. 564.) In many cases,, especially in 
 striking such plants as Heaths, gardeners employ a stratum of 
 silver sand, placed immediately over the earth in which such 
 plants love to grow. The cuttings are inserted into the sand, 
 but so near the earth that the roots, presently after their 
 emission, find themselves in it, and consequently in contact 
 with a source of food. This sand answers the same purpose as 
 placing the root end of the cutting in contact with the pot, and 
 is an ingenious device for doing that with small cuttiogs, 
 which cannot be conveniently done otherwise except with large 
 ones. 
 
 5. The cuttiags are eventually placed in a hot-bed. This is 
 for the purpose of giving them a stimulus at exactly that time 
 when they are most ready to receive it. Had they been forced 
 at first in bottom heat, the stimulus would have been appKed 
 to cuttings whose excitability had not been renovated, and the 
 consequence would have been a development of the powers of 
 growth so languid that they probably would not have survived 
 the coming winter : but, the stimulus being withheld till the 
 
ADJUSTMENT OF FOECES. 289 
 
 cuttings were quite ready for growth, it told with the utmost 
 possible effect. \ 
 
 What is demanded when cuttings of plants are to be struck, 
 is a due adjustment of heat, light, and moisture. The first 
 stimulates the vital processes, the second causes the formation 
 of matter out of which roots and leaves are to be organized, the 
 third is at once a vehicle for the food required by the cutting, 
 and a part of it. The great difficulty is to know how to adjust 
 these agents. 
 
 If the heat is too high, organs are formed faster than they 
 can be solidified; if too low, decay comes on before the 
 reproductive forces can be put in action. "When light is too 
 powerful, the fluid contents of the cutting are lost faster than 
 they can be supplied ; when too feeble, there is not a sufficiently 
 quick formation of organizable matter to construct the new 
 roots and leaves with. If water is deficient, the cutting is 
 starved ; if over- abundant, it rots. 
 
 It is, then, the adjustment of these forces to the peculiar 
 nature of the cutting to be acted upon that constitutes the art 
 of propagation. It is this which theory cannot supply, but 
 which depends upon skill and experience. If any part of the 
 operations of cultivation can be called empirical, it is this. 
 And yet the operator is not without rules to guide him ia this 
 adjustment ; the misfortune is, that they are too general. The 
 __3o|iei:_A .xuttiag»_jJie_j]Qncker ^mjist^b^ excitement and, 
 
 application of the formative process. The more hard and 
 "woody a cutting, the slowei; wiU be the operation. 
 
 The great enemies of the propagator, says Mr. Neumann, 
 are rotting and drying ; for this reason cuttings are preserved 
 in the midst of a temperature and humidity always equal, the 
 evaporation of the soil is hindered, and the perspiration of the 
 cuttings is prevented. Heat, light, and moisture being the 
 agents to whose assistance we must look for success, and by 
 whose mismanagement the hopes of the gardener are ruined, it 
 is of the first importance to determine how each can be best 
 and most efficiently controlled. And first of heat. 
 
 We know that plants are distributed over all parts of the 
 habitable globe ; that in neighbouring countries the species are 
 
290 AMOUNT OP HEAT NECESSARY. 
 
 nearly alike, that distant countries are clothed with vegeta,tion 
 of entirely different kinds, and that the distinction in the 
 vegetation is in proportion to the distance of the countries 
 from each other. There are not, perhaps, a dozen species in 
 Normandy that do not grow wild on this side the Channel ; 
 there are not a dozen species common to England and Bengal. 
 Species, in fact, are in general limited by similarity of tempe- 
 rature, and cannot exist beyond such limits. One of the first 
 considerations for the propagator, therefore, is what amount of 
 heat is natural to a species during its season of growth. With 
 less than that it is hopeless to make cuttings grow. It is only 
 when plants strike freely that the natural amount of heat is 
 sufficient ; in general they require more. The amount of heat 
 found in their natural climate may be enough for them to grow 
 in ; but a greater degree of excitement, by means of a higher 
 temperature, will be demanded by them to strike root in, when 
 cut up into the fragments called cuttings. A Willow-cutting 
 stuck into the open ground will strike root, but it does so 
 faster and more vigorously if placed in a hotbed. A WhitethOTn_ 
 cutting in the open ground wiU not root at all; in a warm 
 propagating house, it wiU d o so readi ly ; and, to reverse the 
 illustration, cuttings of tropical plants, which naturally enjoy a 
 very high temperature, wiU perish if it is reduced, and will only 
 put forth roots when it is raised considerably above their 
 natural standard. Thus Mr. Neumann mentions that Nutmegs, 
 Gruaiacum, Mangoes, &c., will not succeed unless in a tempe- 
 rature of about 100° Fahr. That degree of heat would be fatal 
 to greenhouse plants. 
 
 But it is not the temperature of the atmosphere that requires 
 to be maintained above that to which plants are naturally 
 subject : it is the soil that must be warmed. The ^ratobjectj^, 
 to obtain roots; those organs once formed, leaves will follow. 
 The vital action which causes the production of roots is, in the 
 first instance, local ; roots are produced by the development of 
 the cellular matter of the underground part; that cellular 
 matter requires to be stimulated by unusual warmth ; but the 
 necessary stimulus cannot be coiniiiunicated by a heated 
 atmosphere : it is the warmth of the soil in which the cellular 
 
BOTTOM HEAT. 291 
 
 matter lies buried that must be secured. Unusual warmth of 
 the air would have the effect of stimulating the buds, and would 
 cause a premature appearance of leaves, which would be any- 
 thing rather than conducive to the success of a cutting. If soil 
 were to be kept at 33° and the air at 84°, leaves would form, 
 but no roots would be emitted under ground, however skilful 
 the operator ; and then, unless roots were thrown out above 
 ground, the cuttings would speedily exhaust themselves. On 
 the other hand, if the soil were kept at 84°, and the air at 33°, 
 leaves would certainly be formed as soon as the roots had 
 struck out, although in a pinched and shivering condition. 
 
 A proper degree of bottom-heat, then, is the first point for 
 consideration, for all other processes are subservient to that 
 fundamental requisite ; and the rule is, that it should always be 
 higher by several degrees than that to which plants are 
 naturally subject. Suppose, for example, that it is required to 
 strike a cutting of some plant from Algiers, and that the mean 
 temperature of the summer there were 70°, the safe course for 
 the gardener to take would be, to plunge his cutting in soil 
 warmed up to 75°. 
 
 The action of light and moisture upon cuttings is hardly 
 inferior to that of heat. The moment li^t strikes a green 
 plant it excites perspiration. Let us imagine that a cutting 
 weighed 20 at daybreak ; the uninterrupted action of light upon 
 it during the day would perhaps reduce its weight to 5, unless 
 it were supplied with water to replace that which the sunlight 
 drives off: the effect of this would, of course, be to kill it. 
 But such a result does not often happen to rooted plants, 
 because they are able to suck fluid out of the earth as fast as 
 the sun drives it off from tteir leaves, and the circulation of 
 the plant is active enough to prevent ajiy part from being 
 exhausted of fluid. If it is not sufficiently active, then we have 
 leaves withered at the end, or branches struck with dryness 
 But a cuttmg, having no roots, is unable to contend against the 
 suns influence, and therefore it must be shaded; for, as we 
 cannot make it feed,, we must prevent its wanting food. Thus 
 m tropical countries we learn from Mr. Neumann that cuttings 
 are struck m sheds shaded by straw and watered occasionally; 
 
 n2 
 
292 ACTION OF LIGHT, ETC. 
 
 with us the same point is also gained by cutting off the leaves, 
 or a part of them. 
 
 But there is this disadvantage in cutting off the access of 
 light, that roots are formed more rapidly when cuttings are 
 exposed to light than when they are shaded, provided they can 
 be kept alive. It is therefore a great problem to determine 
 how much light a cutting will endure with impunity. The 
 power of bearing light varies from species to . species, and is 
 only to be determined by experience. One plant fades 
 presently, because its powers of perspiration are very great, as 
 is the case with the young shoots of most species of herbaceous 
 and shrubby plants ; but as they grow older the loss by 
 perspiration diminishes, because their thickened skin opposes 
 a mechanical obstacle, and they can bear more light. It would 
 therefore seem, at first sight, that ripened cuttings must in all 
 cases be preferable to those which are young and tender. 
 Certainly, they are less liable to_die_g[uickly ; but they are also 
 much more unwilling to root quickly. In fact, notwithstanding 
 the difficulty of keeping very young cuttings alive, they present 
 the only means of striking very difficult species, such, according 
 to Mr. Neumann, as the Cashew, the Mahogany, and the Litchi. 
 We may lay it down as a certain rule that the power of rooting 
 is always greatest in all cuttings when they are first pushing, 
 provided they have light. The misfortune is, that they are so 
 extremely perishable at that time. 
 
 Water is our aid in this case. It is true that the sun's 
 influence can have no injurious tendency so long as the roots 
 can drink and the system digest as fast as the surface perspires ; 
 and that the reverse is fatal. But the whole surface of a plant 
 absorbs as well as evaporates, and the younger it is the more it 
 absorbs. It is therefore possible to give plants water by their 
 leaves ; and if this is done with skill, the bad influence of the 
 sun is prevented. In that case the cutting has time enough 
 to make roots, by which its grosser food may be conveyed to it. 
 Hence has arisen the practice of striking plants under bell- 
 glasses, fitting tight to the soU on which they rest. Ignorant • 
 people believe that the use of a bell-glass is to keep out air, 
 which is impracticable and useless. Bell-glasses act by keeping 
 
OTHER INDISPENSABLE CONDITIONS. 293 
 
 in moisture. From the surface of warm damp soil water is 
 perpetually escaping in the form of invisible vapour; if the 
 soil is freely exposed, that vapour is dispersed as fast as it is 
 formed ; but when it is confined beneath a beU-glass the air is 
 unchanged, and the vapour remains in a state of suspension, 
 bathing and invigorating the whole surface of the cuttings. 
 When this is well managed, the whole of the injurious effects of 
 sun-light are prevented, and all the advantages of it secured. 
 
 But it is not sufficient to place cuttings under a beU-glass 
 with a moist soil and a due supply of bottom-heat. Two other 
 things must be considered : the one is, to preserve the external 
 air in a uniform state ; the other is, to take care that the soil 
 is not too wet. 
 
 If the air on the outside of bell-glasses is not as warm as 
 that beneath them, or warmer, the moisture floating in their 
 interior will condense on the sides of the glass and run down, 
 by which means the air that surrounds the cuttings will 
 fluctuate as to the quantity of water it holds suspended ; and if 
 the external air is much colder than the internal, will, in fact, 
 be dry, instead of damp. In their delicate state tender cuttings 
 will not bear this ; it is of the utmost consequence to them that 
 all the conditions to which they are exposed, except light, 
 should be perfectly steady. 
 
 The condition of the soil as to water is also of infinite! 
 importance. If it is wet, cuttings are apt to rot ; if dry, they I 
 are sure to fade. "When a cutting is placed in a wet medium, it 
 may attract more water than it can digest; in that case its 
 fluids will become putrid, and its solid fabric must decay. It 
 is therefore indispensable, in all delicate operations, that the 
 soil should be of such a nature as to be incapable of holding 
 much water between its particles; and hence the value of silver 
 sand, the most favourable of aU the materials within a gardener's 
 reach. Nevertheless, there are some hard-wooded plants which 
 will not only bear an excess of water, but are the better for it. 
 We have seen the common Ghent Azaleas struck by placing a 
 cutting of the young wood, with a heel to it, in a bottle of water, 
 inclosed within a large Ward's Case, none of the leaves having 
 been removed. In such plants as the Azalea, however, it is to 
 
294 EMPLOYMENT OF COLLODION. 
 
 be observed that the dense texture of the wood prevents the 
 introduction of much water at a time, that the cuttings are very- 
 slender, and the leaves very large. Plants that are differently 
 constituted can bear no such treatment. Let it be tried with a 
 succulent plant, and the cutting would be rotten in a week. 
 Succulent plants, indeed, will generally do best where there is 
 no more moisture in contact with them than what the air holds , 
 suspended. When they are gummy, or milky, or resiuous, it 
 is necessary to let the end which is to be plunged in the ground 
 become dry, so that the mouths of the veins may contract, and , 
 thus hinder the too rapid introduction of water. Mr. Neumann's 
 mode of doing this is ingenious. When he takes off cuttings of 
 Araucarias, Euphorbias, Vahea gummifera, and such plants, he 
 plunges them in a pot, in damp earth, not pressed down, with 
 their lower end upwards, so that the latter only is exposed to 
 the air, the whole head being buried. By this means he dries 
 the wound, without allowing any of the water of such cuttings 
 to escape. After leaving them for 34 or 86 hours, or even 
 more, he wipes the end, so as to remove the gummy matter that 
 has exuded, and then puts them in again in the usual way, 
 when they take, and the more freely according as the wound is 
 neatly made. 
 
 In order to meet the difficulty of maintaining quttings in an 
 equable state with respect to both external and internal mois- 
 ture, Mr. Lowe has proposed to dip their ends in collodion, 
 a substance possessing great adhesive power, impenetrable by 
 water, and impervious to air. Believing that the great difficulty 
 attendant upon the multiplication of plants by cuttings arises 
 from the tissues rotting by the excessive introduction of water, 
 which the cuttings cannot decompose, or throw off as vapour, it 
 occurred to him that if the fresh end of a cutting were smeared 
 with collodion the injurious access of water would be cut off, and 
 the risk much diminished. The result of his experiments con- 
 firmed his anticipations. Out of 26 coUodionised cuttings of 
 stove plants 23 grew, while only 12 out of 26 grew when the 
 collodion was omitted. In like manner, of 33 coUodionised 
 cuttings of greenhouse plants 28 grew, but only 11 out of the 
 same number took in the absence of the collodion. Similar 
 
EXCITABILITY NECESSAKY TO SUCCESS. 295 
 
 results attended other trials. It is probable that the failures 
 in the process were ascribable to what seems to be an imper- 
 fection in his process. If, instead of merely coTering the cut 
 end of the cutting with collodion, he had in some cases covered 
 the cutting itself, as far as it was plunged in the soil, he would 
 perhaps have had stiU greater success. There are two kinds of 
 cuttings which are likely to demand this treatment — the one of 
 succulent or very soft plants, which absorb abundantly through 
 their skin; and the other of hard-wooded plants, of little 
 substance, which become exhausted by the drying-up of their 
 organizable matter before roots can be formed. 
 
 It is known that plants possess some quality analogous to 
 animal irritability, to which, for want of a better, the name of 
 excitability has been given. In proportion to the amount of 
 excitability in a given plant is the power which its cuttings 
 possess of striking. The great promoter of vegetable excita- 
 bility is heat. Therefore the more heat a given plant has been 
 exposed to, within certain limits, the more readily its cuttings 
 wiU strike root. This explains what seems to have puzzled 
 Mr, Neumann. " The young wood," he says, " of trees grow- 
 ing iu the open air will not do for cuttings ; and yet, if those 
 same trees are forced in a hothouse, their cuttings are almost 
 sure to succeed. Physiologists have not discovered the cause 
 of this singular phenomenon. Many attempts have been made 
 to strike cuttings from trees growing in the open air, but with- 
 out success. If, for instance, we take an old branch of 
 Pawlovnia imperialis, in the inonth of March, and put it into 
 earth, or tan, or even water, in a stove with a good tempera- 
 ture, its buds wiU soon appear, and as soon as they are long 
 enough to make herbaceous cuttiags, will strike freely. But if 
 you take them as they form upon a tree exposed to the open 
 air, they wiU not grow at all." Vegetable excitability, a most 
 important attribute, but little thought of, is the obvious expla- 
 nation of this fact. 
 
 In addition it seems desirable to add some observations upon 
 the object of additional precautions often taken by gardeners. 
 
 Cuttings are covered by bell-glasses, whose edge is pressed 
 into the earth. This is for the purpose of preserving a 
 
296 BELL-GLASSES EMPLOYED. 
 
 uniform degree of humidity in the atmosphere breathed by the 
 cuttings. It is generally necessary to leave one or more leaves 
 upon a cutting, in order to generate organizable matter, and to 
 assist in the formation of roots ; but this is a delicate 
 operation, for, if the leaf is allowed to suffer by excessive 
 perspiration, the cuttings must necessarily perish. To main- 
 tain "a steady saturated atmosphere around a cutting stops this 
 danger, and hence the use of a bell-glass. A double glass has 
 even been recommended ; but, if this precaution is of any value, 
 it must be, not because it preserves an even temperature, which 
 is injurious rather than useful, but because it prevents con- 
 densation upon the inner bell-glass, and the consequent 
 abstraction of atmospheric moisture, and probably acts at the 
 same time as a kind of shade. 
 
 Notwithstanding the precaution of covering cuttings with a 
 bell-glass, shade is also necessary, as a further security 
 against perspiration; for light acts as a specific stimulus, 
 whose effects are very difficult to counteract. It must, 
 however, be employed with great caution ; for, if there is 
 not light enough, the leaves attached to the cuttings cannot 
 form that organizable matter out of which roots are produced. 
 
 All gardeners know that the root end of a cutting should be 
 close helow a leaf-bud ; this is to facilitate the emission, of 
 roots by the buds, which emission must necessarily take place 
 with greater or less difBiculty in proportion as their exit is 
 facilitated or impeded by the pressure of bark on them. 
 
 A mode of overcoming some of tlie practical difficulties attending the 
 propagation of plants by cuttings has been described by Prof. Delacroix, 
 of Besangon. TMs gentleman states that he, some years since, con- 
 ceived the idea of insuring the success of cuttings, by putting the lower 
 end in water, and the middle in earth, a circular incision being made 
 between the earth and water. This was not attended with all the 
 advantages he expected, but it led to the discovery of the following 
 plan, which he designates a simple, economical, and certain mode of 
 propagation. His process is described in the following words : — 
 
 "My cutting is placed entirely under-ground, so as to form a 
 subterranean curve, of which the convexity is uppermost, the very 
 middle of the curve being on a level with the surface of the soil. At 
 this middle point there must be a good eye, or a small shoot. In this 
 way the whole length of the cutting is protected by earth, and the 
 
DELACEOIX'S METHOD. 297 
 
 Bmaller end, instead of becoming the seat of dryness, which is always 
 more or less injurious, becomes a passage for absorption. The bud, 
 which, under these circumstances, is the only part exposed to the air, 
 bears, without injury, or rather with advantage, all the causes of 
 excitement. Although I did not commence my experiments before the 
 end of June, I have seen quite enough to satisfy me that the method 
 may be of serious advantage. Two drills about three inches apart were 
 drawn parallel with each other, in a kitchen garden of indifferent 
 quality, situated on a calcareous plain near Besangon. A hundred 
 cuttings of Apples, Pears, Plums, Apricots, Tulip-trees, Eoses, &c., 
 almost aU. of this year's wood, were bent and buried in the manner 
 described, with their ends in the two drills. They were watered a few 
 times, and at this moment every cutting, in the open air, and exposed 
 to the fuU sunshine, is just as fresh as it was when planted. In most 
 of them, the part exposed to the air (the bud) is the seat of active 
 vegetation, especially in the Pears and Tulip-trees, the buds of which 
 have already made some progress." 
 
 Another ready mode of dealing with cuttings, when the means of the 
 propagator are circumscribed, is that of striking in vials of water. A 
 correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle thus describes his practice. 
 " I tie vial-bottles together by the necks, and hang them in the windows 
 of our small greenhouse, having filled them with clean soft water. I 
 then put in slips of Salvia, Calceolaria, Mimulus, Myrtle, or anything I 
 wish to propagate of the same description of plants ; in about two or 
 three weeks, or a month, the little silver-like roots appear, and in a 
 week or ten days I plant them in small pots well watered ; they never 
 seem to flag or mind the change, and I rarely lose a slip. Myrtles are 
 longer in forming roots — cuttings from the same plant have varied from 
 six weeks to twelve months : they were put in in November. A string of 
 bottles I also hang against the back of the greenhouse, where they have 
 plenty of Ught, and they do equally well, though not quite so qviickly." 
 The practice is old, and well suited to soft-wooded plants. Even some 
 hard- wooded kinds, such as Azaleas, strike freely in this manner. 
 
 Conifers may be increased by cuttings. About the month of 
 September, or any time when the wood is three parts ripe, procure 
 cuttings of the current year's growth with a small portion of the old 
 wood attached, or what is termed a heel, selecting the small terminal 
 short-jointed shoots, which are those most likely to form leaders; for 
 although you may strike some of the more weakly side-shoots much 
 easier and quicker, they are afterwards of little value, as they frequently 
 are years before they form a good leader. Having procured the cuttings 
 fresh from the tree, which is of great consequence,— for if they are 
 allowed to remain any considerable time before they are put in after 
 separation from the mother plant, there is Uttle hope of success,— 
 prepare them by taking the bottom leaves partly off, which should 
 
i CUTTINGS OF CONIFERS. 
 
 either be done with a sharp knife or scissors. When the cuttings are 
 thus made, procure some wide-mouthed or shallow pots, and well drain 
 them, placing over the drainage a small portion of tufty peat or moss, 
 and over that a layer of loam about one inch thick, filling up the 
 remainder of the pot with white sand (the loam prevents the cuttings 
 from cankering after they are rooted, which they are apt to do when 
 placed in sand only) ; then plant the cuttings from j to | of an inch 
 deep, according to their size ; but the shallower they are placed the 
 better, provided they are made secure and not allowed afterwards to 
 get dry, and particularly if covered with a bell-glass at first ; this is 
 not absolutely necessary if the cutting-pots are put into a frame kept 
 quite close, as an equal temperature, both for heat and moisture, is 
 requisite at this time. Having placed the cuttings properly in the 
 sand, give them a copious watering, and finally remove them to some 
 cold frame, kept close and well shaded when necessary. They may 
 remain in this situation tUl the end of October, when they should be 
 removed to some cold pit for the winter, care being taken that they do 
 not suffer from frost or damp ; but they must on no account have much 
 artifloial heat. About the end of rebruary remove the cutting-pots to 
 a moderate hot-bed frame, and place bell-glasses over them (if not done 
 before) ; the cuttings will then root readily, and many of them will be 
 fit to pot off by the end of June, at which time those cuttings which are 
 not rooted should be again placed in sand, and treated as before. 
 When first potted off, the young plants should be treated Mke seedlings, 
 and afterwards hardened to the open air. 
 
 Cape Heaths, which are among the more difficult plants to strike from 
 cuttings, are treated thus : — BTo particular time can be specified for the 
 operation, because the plants are in a fit state for taking off cuttings 
 at different times ; but the earlier in the season the better, although 
 many cultivators succeed perfectly so late as the months of August and 
 September. The plants from which the cuttings are taken must be 
 perfectly healthy. The wood should be firm and nearly ripe ; if taken 
 when very young it is almost certain to damp off. The short lateral 
 shoots, about an inch or an inch and a half long, should always be 
 chosen, the leaves stripped off them to about half their length, and the 
 ends cut across with a sharp knife ; in this state they are ready for the 
 cutting -pot. The cutting-pots should be prepared in the following 
 manner: — Fill them about two-thirds with broken pots, and cover these 
 with a thin stratum of turfy peat or some other substance, to prevent 
 the sand with which the pots are filled up from choking the drainage. 
 The silver-sand common about London is very well adapted for striking 
 Heaths, but almost any white sand wiU answer the purpose. The cut- 
 tings must be inserted in the sand, not deeply, but merely deep enough 
 to support themselves ; from a quarter to half an inch is quite sufficient. 
 They must then be well watered, which will carry down the particles of 
 
CUTTINGS OF HEATHS. 299 
 
 sand roimd eaoh cutting, and render them firm enough wthout further 
 trouble. Bell-glasses are of great service in striking them, but not 
 indispensable. When they are used, they must be frequently taken off 
 and wiped dry, otherwise the moisture will probably rot the cuttings. 
 When they are dispensed with, the cuttings shoidd be placed in a situ- 
 ation which is moist and shaded, and then they will be surrounded in a 
 great measure with the same circumstances asunder a bell-glass. Yery 
 little artificial heat is necessary in striking Heaths ; much is certainly 
 injurious. A Cucumber or Melon frame nearly exhausted, or the shaded 
 part of a cool stove, will answer the purpose early in spring ; and later 
 in the season when the sun-heat is greater a close frame slightly shaded 
 is all that is required. The care afterwards is to shade during bright 
 sunshine, taking means to remove the shade early in the afternoon, so as 
 to allow the rays, which are not then strong enough to injure the cuttings, 
 to heat the frame, and also to see that the watering is not neglected. 
 More, perhaps, depends upon the kind of water which is used, and the 
 regularity with which it is given, than upon anything else in the opera- 
 tion, if we except the selection of proper cuttings. Eain or river 
 water is by far the best kind to use ; spring- water is usually injurious. 
 After the cuttings have struck root, they should be gradually hardened 
 by exposure to the air before they are potted off. Small thumb-pots 
 are the best for the first potting, and the soil used should be very sandy 
 peat. The greatest care should be taken to preserve the young rootlets 
 from injury, because if this is not attended to the plants will receive a 
 sudden cheek at first, which is very prejudicial. These examples will 
 teach any inteUigent person how to deal with other kinds of plants. 
 
 No further precautions are taken with cuttings, nor does it 
 at first sight appear possible to suggest any: nevertheless 
 the enormous constitutional difference among plants is such, 
 that, while numerous species will strike without any difficulty 
 under almost any circumstances, with the wood ripe or half- 
 ripe, just formed or aged, there are many others which no art 
 has yet succeeded in converting into plants ; and it is by no 
 means uncommon to find that, out of a potful of cuttings of the 
 same species, apparently all ahke and subjected to exactly the 
 same treatment, one will grow and the remainder fail. 
 
 It has been thought worthy of inquiry whether bell-glasses 
 of different colours will not produce different effects upon 
 cuttings, in consequence of their different power of transmitting 
 light. It has been shown by Dr. Daubeny, in a very interest- 
 ing paper in the Philosophical Transactions for 1836, page 
 
Bed. 
 
 Blue. 
 
 Purple. 
 
 Green. 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 SOO EFFECTS OP COLOURED LIGHT. 
 
 149, that glass of different colours exercise very different 
 effects upon the plants exposed to the rays of solar light 
 passing through it; that both the exhalation and absorption 
 of moisture by plants, so far as they depend upon the influence 
 of light, are affected in the greatest degree by the most 
 luminous rays, and that all the functions of the vegetable 
 economy, which are owing to the presence of this agent, foUow 
 in that respect the same law. In these experiments it was 
 ascertained that the glass employed admitted the passage of 
 the rays of light in the following proportions : — 
 
 Transparent. Orange. 
 Luminous rays 7 6 
 
 Calorific rays 7 6 
 
 Chemical rays 7 4 
 
 M. Decaisne found, during some experiments to ascertain 
 the effect of light in causing the production of colouring matter 
 in the Madder plant, that when the lower parts of a plant 
 were enclosed in cases glazed at the side with transparent 
 green, red, or yellow glass, the leaves and stem of the part 
 surrounded by red glass, became pallid, and exhibited signs of 
 suffering in a greater degree than under the other colours, but 
 all were affected more or less.* {Recherches sur la Garance, p. 23.) 
 
 Many ingenious experiments of a similar nature have been 
 made by Mr. Hunt as has been already stated (p. 338). But we 
 have not ground at present to believe that they possess practical 
 value. No advantage seems to have resulted from glazing the 
 great Palm House at Kew with green glass of a tint selected by 
 Mr. Hunt himself; and, in short, we have every reason to 
 conclude that the white light which is natural to plants is that 
 which is best adapted to their constitution ; nothing more being 
 required of the gardener than to moderate or increase its 
 intensity. 
 
 Full details respecting the experiments of Mr. Hunt will be found in 
 the Gardeners' Chronicle for 1847, p. 524, and for 1848, pp. 138, 155. 
 In the same work for 1845, p. 55, are also recorded Zantedeschi's 
 ohservations upon the influence of coloured light. 
 
 * The nature of these experiments has been misapprehended in the translation, by 
 Mr. Francis, of Meyen's Report on Vegetable Physiology for 1837, p. 51. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OP PROPAGATION BY LAYERS AND SUCKERS. 
 
 With regard to layers, there is little which it is necessary to 
 say regarding them, if what has been stated respecting eyes, 
 leaves, and cuttings, has been rightly understood and well 
 considered. A layer is a branch bent into the earth, and half 
 cut through at the bend, the free portion of the wound being 
 called " a tongue." It is, in fact, a cutting only partially 
 separated from its parent. 
 
 The object of the gardener is to induce the layer to emit 
 roots into the earth at the tongue. With this view he twists 
 the shoot half round, so as to injure the wood- vessels ; he 
 heads it back so that only a bud or two appears above ground ; 
 and, when much nicety is requisite, he places a handful of 
 silver sand round the tongiied part ; then pressing the earth 
 down, so as to secure the layer, he leaves it without further 
 care. The intention of both tongueing and twisting is to pre- 
 vent the return of sap from the layer into the main stem, while 
 a small quantity is allowed to rise out of the latter into the 
 former ; the effect of this being to compel the returning sap to 
 organize itself externally as roots, instead of passing downwards 
 below the bark as wood. The bending back is to assist in 
 this object, by preventing the expenditure of sap in the 
 formation or rather completion of leaves ; and the silver sand 
 is to secure the drainage so necessary to cuttings. 
 
 In most cases, this is sufficient; but it must be obvious that 
 the exact manner in which the layering is effected is unimpor- 
 tant, and that it may be varied according to circumstances. 
 Thus, Mr. James Munro describes a successful method of 
 
302 PROPAGATION BY LAYERS. 
 
 layering brittle-branched plants by simply slitting the shoot at 
 the bend, and inserting a stone at that place (Gardeners' 
 Magazine, ix. 303) : and Mr Knight found that, in cases of 
 difficult rooting, the process is facilitated by ringing the shoot 
 just below the tongue, about midsummer, when the leaves 
 upon the layers had acquired their full growth (Hort. Trans., 
 i. 256); by which means he prevented the return of sap 
 further downwards than the point intended to root. 
 
 It will sometimes happen that the branch of a plant cannot 
 be conveniently bent downwards into the earth ; in such cases, 
 the earth may be elevated to the branch by various contri- 
 vances, as is commonly practised by the Chinese. In this 
 no other care is necessary than that required for layers, except 
 to keep the earth surrounding the branch steadily moist. 
 
 Suckers are branches naturally thrown up by a plant from 
 its base, when the onward current of growth of the stem is 
 stopped. Where this occurs the onward growth of a plant is 
 arrested, the sap is driven to find new outlets, and adventitious 
 buds (see p. 44) are very likely to be developed ; the well-known 
 effect of cutting down a tree is an exemplification of this. 
 Such branches, if they proceed from under ground, sometimes 
 form roots at their base, in which case they are employed as a 
 means of propagation ; in the instance of the Pine-apple, they 
 are made use of for the same purpose, although they do not 
 emit roots till they are separated from the parent. Gardeners 
 usually satisfy themselves with taking from their Pine-apple 
 plants such suckers as are produced in consequence of the 
 stoppage of onward growth by the formation of the fruit : but 
 these 'are few in number, and not at all what the plant is capable 
 of yielding. Instead of throwing away the " stump " of the Pine- 
 apple, it should be placed in a damp pit, and exposed to a 
 bottom heat of 90° or thereabouts, when every one of the latent 
 eyes will spring forth, and a crop of young plants be the result. 
 Mr. Alexander Forsyth, an experienced writer upon these sub- 
 jects, pointed this out some years since in the Gardeners' Maga- 
 zine (xii. 594) ; and there can be no doubt that his observations 
 upon the folly of throwing away "stumps" are perfectly correct 
 both in theory and practice. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF PROPAGATION BY BUDDIN& AND GEAFTING. 
 
 These operations consist in causing an eye or a cutting of 
 one plant to grow upon some other plant, so that the two, by 
 forming an organic union, become a new and compound 
 individual. The eye, in these cases, takes the name of bud, 
 the cutting is called a scion, and the plant upon which they are 
 made to grow is named the stock. 
 
 Propagation by eyes and cuttings is, therefore, the same as 
 budding and graftiag, with this important difference, that in 
 the one case the fragments of a plant are made to strike root 
 into the inorganic soil, and to grow " on their own bottom," as 
 the saying is, while in the other they adhere permanently to 
 living organic matter. In like manner, the operation of 
 inarching, or causing the branch of one plant to remain 
 attached to its parent, and at the same time to grow upon the 
 branch of another tree, is analogous to layering. 
 
 The objects of these operations are manifold. Many plants, 
 such as the Pear and the Apple, will bud or graft freely, but 
 are difficult to strilte from cuttings. Species which are 
 naturally delicate become robust when " worked " on robust 
 stocks ; and the consequence is a more abundant production of 
 flowers and fruit: thus the more delicate kinds of Vines 
 produce larger and finer grapes when worked upon such 
 vigorous sorts as the Syrian and Nice. The Double Yellow 
 Eose, which so seldom opens its flowers, and which will not 
 grow at all in many situations, is said to blossom abundantly, 
 and grow freely, when worked upon the common China Eose. 
 {Hort. Trans., v. 370.) One plant may be made to bear a 
 
304 USE OF GRAFTING. 
 
 different variety upon every branch, as has been seen with 
 Pelargoniums, Fuchsias, and Cacti. {Gard. Chron., 1844, 119, 
 313.) The pecuKar qualities of some plants can only be pre- 
 served by working : this is especially the case with certain 
 kinds of variegated Eoses, which retain their gay markings when 
 budded, but become plain if on their own bottom. {lb. 492.) 
 Fruit may be obtained from seedling plants by these processes 
 much earlier than by any others, the quality of seedling fruit- 
 trees may be ascertained in two or three years instead of twenty 
 or thirty, and thus long and objectless expectation may be 
 avoided : indeed, Mr. Knight ascertained that it is possible to 
 transfer the blossom-buds of one plant to another, so as to 
 obtain flowers or fruit from them immediately. He thus fixed 
 on the Wild Eose the flower-buds of Garden Eoses, "and these 
 buds, being abundantly supplied with nutriment, afibrded much 
 finer roses than they would have done had they retained their 
 natural situation." He repeated many similar experiments 
 upon the Pear and Peach-tree with similar success ; but in the 
 case of the Pear, he found that if the buds were inserted earlier 
 than the end of August or beginning of September, they became 
 branches and not flowers. 
 
 The modes in which these operations may be practised are 
 exceedingly various, and an abundance of methods (often 
 fanciful) have been devised, for a complete account of which the 
 reader is referred to Thouin's Monographie des Greffes; to the 
 article " Greffe " by the same author, in the Nouveau Cours 
 complet d' Agriculture, &c., edition of 1833; to Loudon's 
 Encyclopcecka of Gardening, part ii. ; to the Gardeners' 
 Magazine, vol. x. p. 805, and to future pages of the 
 present work. 
 
 Budding consists in introducing a bud of one tree, with a 
 portion of bark adhering to it, below the bark of another tree. 
 In order to effect this, a longitudinal incision is made through 
 the bark of the stock down to the wood, and is then crossed at 
 the upper end by a similar cut (Fig. XLIII., a), so that the 
 whole wound resembles the letter T. Then from the scion is 
 pared off a bud with a portion of the bark (Fig. XLIII., b), and 
 
OPEEATION OF BUDDING. 
 
 305 
 
 the latter Is pushed below the bark of the stock until the bud 
 is actually upon the naked wood of the stock ; the upper lips 
 of the wound in the stock and that of the 
 bud are made to coincide, the whole are 
 fastened down by a ligature, and the 
 operation is complete. 
 
 The ligature has usually been of bast, 
 applied wet ; but it is apt to become loose. 
 A better material is narrow tape, or narrow 
 adhesive straps, made as directed in a suc- 
 ceeding page (340) . White and green worsted 
 are also employed in preference to bast. 
 It is also said that for delicate operations, 
 with green parts, collodion painted over the 
 juncture of the scion and stock, forms an 
 effectual ligature. 
 
 Fig. XLIII. 
 Shield-budding. 
 
 By these means we gain the important 
 end of bringing in close contact a 
 considerable surface of young organizing matter. The 
 organization of wood takes place on its exterior, and that 
 of bark on its interior, surface, and these are the parts 
 which are applied to each other in the operation of budding ; 
 in addition to which the stranger bud finds itself, in its new 
 position, as freely in communication wiii. alimentary matter, or 
 more so, than on its parent branch. Union takes place of the 
 cellular faces, or horizontal system, of the stock and bark of 
 the bud, while the latter, as soon as it begins to grow, sends 
 down organizable matter, out of which wood, or tlffe vertical 
 system, is constructed. In consequence of the horizontal 
 incision, the returning sap of the scion is arrested in its course, 
 and accumulates a little just above the new bud, to which it is 
 gradually supplied as it is required. Sometimes the whole of 
 the wood of the bud below the bark is allowed to remain ; and, 
 in that case, contact between the organizing surfaces of the 
 stock and scion does not take place, and the union of the two 
 is much less certain : as it is, however, usually practised with 
 tender shoots before" the wood is consolidated, the contact 
 spoken of is of less moment. 
 
306 BUDS MUST BE EIPE. 
 
 It is generally thought that, in all cases, a portion of the 
 wood of the bud must be left adhering to it, or the bud will 
 perish; because its most essential part is the young woody 
 matter in its centre, and not the external surface, which is a 
 mere coating of bark. But this is not the case. Buds take 
 perfectly well without the assistance of any portion of their 
 own wood ; nor does the removal of the wood injure the eye, 
 which is a vital portion of cellular matter firmly encased in 
 the scales of the bud. Lymburn and other experienced 
 practical men even advocate the total removal of the wood; and 
 they are doubtless right, because it is only so much inactive 
 matter interposed between the surface of the branch and the 
 nascent tissue there, to which the vital point of the bud has to 
 adhere. What is really essential is that the bud shall be 
 "ripe," or fully formed; and also that it shall be sound. 
 Immaturity or unsoundness are the usual causes of "blinti 
 buds." 
 
 Mr Lymbuin even recommends, as the result of long experience, that 
 for the usual mode of shaving a bud off a branch with some of its own 
 wood, the operator should cut the bark all round the bud, to the exact 
 shape and size wanted, without disturbing the wood at all. After this, 
 if the thumb is applied to the side of the bud and gently squeezed 
 upwards, the bud will come out as smooth as glass, in the cut, if the 
 bark is free ; and unless it is so, the budding ia not likely to do well, 
 For Cherries, Plums, Peaches, and fruit-trees ia general, he considers 
 this the best of all methods. 
 
 A practical writer in the Gardeners' Chronicle (1842, 604) makes the 
 following statement as to the necessity for the bud to be ripe : — " Many 
 buds have I inserted in early days in which the eyes have not been 
 sufficiently swollen, and no produce has come forth ; and many a bud 
 have I inserted in the hope that the cambiiun would fill the vacant hole 
 which fear told me was too large, yet which a scanty supply of buds 
 induced me to retain, but all in vain ; for though the bark adhered, the 
 eye was lost, and many a woody bud inserted thus has become dry 
 before it could adhere. I believe the great secret to be — ^taking the 
 bud in its proper state, i. e., fuU-formed (not too near the base of the 
 stock, from which it will part with difficulty, nor too near the top, 
 because insufficiently ripe), and to insert it when the receiving plant 
 and the weather are in a favourable state to continue the elaboration of 
 those juices necessary to form a junction. The period of year is, 
 comparatively speaking, immateiial ; I have inserted buds at all times. 
 
REVERSE BUDDING. 307 
 
 and have now in my possession a plant that was worked on 21st October, 
 ten years ago." 
 
 In the Agricultv/ral Journal of the Pays Bas for October, 
 1824, it is recommended to reverse the usual mode of raising 
 the bark for inserting the buds, and to make the cross cut at 
 the bottom of the slit, instead of at the top, as is generally- 
 done in Britain. The bud is said rarely to fail of success, 
 because it receives abundance of the descending sap, which it 
 cannot receive when it is under the cross cut. This method is 
 said to be practised by the orange-growers of the South of 
 France. 
 
 Since the young bud is to be nourished at first by the 
 leaves above it on the stock, the best place to insert it is close 
 beneath some leaf in full activity ; it is not, therefore, the most 
 open and smooth part of the stock which is to be selected. 
 For the same reason, it might appear injudicious to shorten 
 the branch into which a bud is inserted ; but if the shoot is not 
 stopped, the rising sap will be attracted into the youngest 
 leaves, and expended in their increase, while on the other 
 hand, if the shoot is stopped, the sap will be forced laterally 
 into the buds already forming on its sides, and the new bud 
 will participate in this advantage. It is therefore, upon the 
 whole, advantageous to cut off a part of each shoot into which 
 a bud is introduced ; the removal of a quarter of it is enough 
 to answer the intended purpose. 
 
 As it is important that the vigour of the budded branch 
 should be preserved for the buds which it is forming, all 
 flowers or fruit should be removed both from it and from the 
 twigs in its vicinity, otherwise those parts will consume the 
 organizable matter which would be applied to the service of the 
 new buds. Prickles, however, do no harm, and may possibly 
 be useful, although we do not know what their use is. 
 
 Another point is the propriety of leaving a leaf upon the bud 
 to be inserted. This question is one which practice can answer 
 better than theory. Theory says the leaf will injure the bud 
 by carrying off its fluid particles, and assist it by the secretions 
 it will send down to it, and to the nascent tissue forming 
 beneath it. Now, since the abstraction of fluid is rapid and 
 
 X 2 
 
306 BUDS MUST BE RIPE. 
 
 It is generally thought that, in all cases, a portion of the 
 wood of the bud must be left adhering to it, or the bud will 
 perish; because its most essential part is the young woody 
 matter in its centre, and not the external surface, which is a 
 mere coating of bark. But this is not the case. Buds taie 
 perfectly well without the assistance of any portion of their 
 own wood ; nor does the removal of the wood injure the eye, 
 which is a vital portion of cellular matter firmly encased in 
 the scales of the bud. Lymburn and other experienced 
 practical men even advocate the total removal of the wood ; and 
 they are doubtless right, because it is only so much inactive 
 matter interposed between the surface of the branch and the 
 nascent tissue there, to which the vital point of the bud has to 
 adhere. What is really essential is that the bud shall be 
 "ripe," or fully formed; and also that it shall be sound. 
 Immaturity or unsoundness are the usual causes of "blintj 
 buds." ., 
 
 Mr Lymburn even recommends, as the result of long experience, that 
 for the usual mode of shaving a hud off a branch with some of its own 
 wood, the operator should cut ih^ bark all round the bud, to the exact 
 shape and size wanted, without disturbing the wood at all. After this, 
 if the thumb is applied to the side of the bud and gently squeezed 
 upwards, the bud will come out as smooth as glass, in the cut, if the 
 bark is free ; and unless it is so, the budding is not likely to do well, 
 For Cherries, Plums, Peaches, and fruit-trees in general, he considers 
 this the best of all methods. 
 
 A practical writer in the Gardeners' Chronicle (1842, 604) makes the 
 following statement as to the necessity for the hud to be ripe : — " Many 
 buds have I inserted in early days in which the eyes have not been 
 sufficiently swollen, and no produce has come forth ; and many a bud 
 have I inserted in the hope that the cambium would fill the vacant hole 
 which fear told me was too large, yet which a scanty supply of buds 
 induced me to retain, but all in vain ; for though the bark adhered, the 
 eye was lost, and many a woody bud inserted thus has become dry 
 before it could adhere. I believe the great secret to be — taking the 
 bud in its proper state, i. v., full-formed (not too near the base of the 
 stock, from which it wiU part with difficulty, nor too near the top, 
 because insufficiently ripe), and to insert it when the receiving plant 
 and the weather are in a favourable state to continue the elaboration of 
 those juices necessary to form a junction. The period of year is, 
 comparatively speaking, immaterial ; I have inserted buds at all times, 
 
REVEESE BUDDING. 307 
 
 and have now in my possession a plant that was worked on 21st October, 
 ten years ago." 
 
 In the Agricultural Journal of the Pays Bas for October, 
 1834, it is recommended to reverse the usual mode of raising 
 the bark for inserting the buds, and to make the cross cut at 
 the bottom of the slit, instead of at the top, as is generally- 
 done in Britain. The bud is said rarely to fail of success, 
 because it receives abundance of the descending sap, which it 
 cannot receive when it is under the cross cut. This method is 
 said to be practised by the orange-growers of the South of 
 France. 
 
 Since the young bud is to be nourished at first by the 
 leaves above it on the stock, the best place to insert it is close 
 beneath some leaf in full activity ; it is not, therefore, the most 
 open and smooth part of the stock which is to be selected. 
 For the same reason, it might appear injudicious to shorten 
 the branch into which a bud is inserted ; but if the shoot is not 
 stopped, the rising sap will be attracted into the youngest 
 leaves, and expended in their increase, while on the other 
 hand, if the shoot is stopped, the sap will be forced laterally 
 into the buds already forming on its sides, and the new bud 
 wUl participate ia this advantage. It is therefore, upon the 
 whole, advantageous to cut off a part of each shoot into which 
 a bud is introduced ; the removal of a quarter of it is enough 
 to answer the intended purpose. 
 
 As it is important that the vigour of the budded branch 
 should be preserved for the buds which it is forming, all 
 flowers or fruit should be removed both from it and from the 
 twigs in its vicinity, otherwise those parts will consume the 
 organizable matter which would be applied to the service of the 
 new buds. Prickles, however, do no harm, and may possibly 
 be useful, although we do not know what their use is. 
 
 Another point is the propriety of leaving a leaf upon the bud 
 to be inserted. This question is one which practice can answer 
 better than theory. Theory says the leaf will injure the bud 
 by carrying off its fluid particles, and assist it by the secretions 
 it will send down to it, and to the nascent tissue forming 
 beneath it. Now, since the abstraction of fluid is rapid and 
 
 X 2 
 
310 
 
 D'ALBUKT'S PEAOTICE— PUSHING EYES. 
 
 they only cut ttem back when the inserted buds are in a good state of 
 vegetation. 
 
 There are fruit-trees which cannot be budded thus until the leaves 
 make their appearance, such as the Mulberry, "Walnut, Chestnut, &c. ; 
 and in order to succeed well with these it is necessary to take buds 
 from two-year-old wood, in which case the 
 " _ " branches had better be cut off in March 
 
 and preserved carefully in earth. When 
 the vegetation of the stocks for the reception 
 of these buds shall have become decidedly 
 active, the branches should be washed 
 without much rubbing, wrapped in a damp 
 cloth, and placed from thirty to forty hours 
 in a moist atmosphere of between 60° and 
 70° F., in order to expand their latent sap, 
 so as to cause their bark to run. The buds 
 are removed as follows: — With the blade 
 of the grafting knife we cut the shoot 
 obliquely (see Fig. XLV., c) ; then we 
 place the knife about three-quarters of an 
 inch above the eye for the purpose of raising 
 it with a large sUoe of bark ; to do this the 
 more readily we make the slope towards the 
 eye, cutting through the bark and a small 
 portion of alburnum. The knife should 
 preserve the same slope while passing under 
 the eye, and continue its course tUl it meets 
 the first cut. This eye should be examined 
 by taking it lightly between the fingers of the left hand and with one 
 of these gently bending down the portion of bark placed above the 
 growing point ; then, by means of the thumb of the right hand and the 
 blade of the grafting knife, placed in the same hand, we can lay hold 
 of the alburnum and remove it ; but the removal should not extend 
 beyond the growing point, which ought to be preserved entire. If from 
 want of practice the patch of alburnum is too thick (and this we shall 
 always know to be the case when it brings the eye along with it), we 
 must thin the whole in order that it may separate without tearing out 
 that essential part. Then proceed as foUows : With the grafting knife 
 make a horizontal incision, which shall embrace almost one-third of the 
 stock, cutting through the bark as far as the alburnum; another incision 
 to the same depth should be made downwards and perpendicular to the 
 first, the two representing the letter T ; then slightly raise, the bark 
 at the circular cut, taking care that in doing so the handle of the 
 budding knife does not bruise the cambium. 
 Thus prepared, as seen at Fig. XLV. d, the bud should be pushed 
 
 rig. XLV. 
 
 -Buds with piislling 
 eyes. 
 
D'ALBEET'S PRACTICE— DORMANT EYES. 311 
 
 under the two lips of the out, only partially opened previously, for it is 
 by gently pushing in the bud with the thin part of the handle of the 
 budding knife that the opening is sufficiently effected. When the bud 
 is perfectly fitted at the base and placed as is represented, the portion 
 of its bark which extends above the transverse line is out off. This 
 operation is represented by Fig. XLV. 6. The two lips are then brought 
 together and fixed over the bark of the bud by means of woollen or 
 thick cotton thread, the length of this thread being proportioned to the 
 thickness of the stock ; two-thirds of the length should be kept in 
 reserve in the right hand, the rest in the left. Thus divided, we place 
 it opposite the bud and draw the two ends with a moderate force, 
 crossing them above the bud and as close to it as possible without 
 crushing it. Two or three other turns should be made ia the same 
 manner, winding the thread continually in the same direction, and 
 finally securing it by a half-knot. When the stocks are strong it is as 
 weU to inspect the ligatures soon and to loosen them occasionally, in 
 order to preserve the buds from strangulation. When the bud shall 
 have completely taken the ligature may be removed, and we then cut 
 off all shoots springing from the stock below the bud in order that the 
 latter may appropriate the whole of the sap. 
 
 Dormant Eyes {d, eeil dormant).— Sotae time before performing this 
 operation select the place on each stock which the bud is to occupy, and 
 remove all shoots likely to deprive it of the free contact of air. If this 
 precaution has been neglected, then the removal of the shoots should 
 only take place at the moment when the bud is inserted, and even then 
 there is a chance of failure. It has long been known that this mode of 
 budding has great advantages over others, seeing that if the buds do 
 not succeed the stocks are but little deteriorated by the proceeding ; 
 there is frequently an opportunity of repeating the operation ten or 
 twelve days after the first, and, as a last resource, these stocks may be 
 grafted over again in the following season. Experienced budders judge 
 that it is time to perform the operation when three-fourths at least of the 
 shoots of each stock have ceased to push ; ia this state the bark is mature, 
 and yet can be easUy detached from the woody substance which it 
 covers, and the sap being more stationary, we no longer dread impetu- 
 ous superabundance, which is always detrimental to the buds, frequently 
 causing them to perish from plethora, or as we say to be drowned in 
 sap. If, however, circumstances render it necessary to bud before this 
 excessive fiow of sap is over, which is indicated by the great number of 
 shoots still forming, it is proper to cut back all the soft tops as soon as 
 the bud is inserted. The ligature should be removed at the fall of the 
 leaf, in order to avoid the stagnation of moisture about the bud. The 
 heads of the stocks thus budded shojxld be cut hack in the following 
 spring, for we must not be in too m^ich haste, especially with delicate 
 species having viscid sap. Cut backjthe stock to within an eighth of an 
 
312 
 
 D'ALBRET'S PRACTICB— SHIELD-BUDDING. 
 
 inch above the bud and sloping. In extensive operations the cutting 
 back is done roughly at three or four inches above the bud, in order 
 that the stump may serve as a support to the shoot produced by the 
 bud, which for a time is fastened to it. 
 
 Shield-budding without alburnum (Fig. XLVI. b. — Oreffe en icusson 
 dinui de bois), — This is employed for propagating delicate trees and 
 shrubs with slender wood and thin tender bark. The form of the 
 shield is usually traced with the blade of the grafting knife, cutting 
 completely through the bark ; then having removed a portion of that 
 which is above it, we press the shield between the fingers, and with a 
 jerk detach it from its position along with the small fleshy growing 
 point ; if by mischance the latter is bruised or remains attached to the 
 alburnum, the shield must be destroyed and another substituted. To 
 avoid this inconvenience we employ a fine wire, as indicated at b, which, 
 by pulling the two ends, is made to glide along the alburnum, easily 
 detaching the shield with the growing point adhering to it. 
 
 Inverted j_ budding (Fig. XLVI. a). — ^Prepare a shield the point of 
 which shall be above the eye — see a. Eaise this shield by means of a 
 
 wire, as above explained; make in 
 the ^ock an opening by the cut 
 indicated in the figure, and there 
 insert the shield by introducing its 
 point at the base of the opening ; 
 unite the parts, and secure the 
 whole by a ligature, which should 
 commence below the eye. This 
 mode of budding is preferable to all 
 others for propagating the finest 
 varieties of Oranges and Olives, and 
 all tender trees with viscid sap. 
 
 Square Shield- budding — (Fig. 
 XLVII. c. Greffe en ecusson, dite 
 emporte piice). — From a strong tree, 
 remove a square patch ; raise from a 
 strong branch another piece of the 
 same shape, but larger, and fur- 
 nished with an eye ; fit this piece into 
 the place of the first ; and. cover it 
 with a piece of paper, pierced with 
 a hole for the eye, securing the 
 whole by a ligature. This is to be 
 employed for trees with very thick 
 bark and large eyes; such as Walnut 
 and Mulberry-trees. It may be performed in spring, for budding with 
 the pushing eye ; or even with the dormant eye, in August, or later. 
 
 Kg. XLVI. 
 
D'ALBEET'S PRACTICE— FLUTB-BUDDINa 
 
 313 
 
 Flute-budding {Greffe en tuyau dite en f4te).—Oi this, wlaieli is 
 an ancient practice, two modifications only deserve mention — the first, 
 with the pushing eye ; the second, with the dormanteye. 
 
 a. Flute-budding with Shooting Eyes (Fig. XLVII. «).— In spring, 
 
 Fig. XLVII. 
 
 when the bark of hoth stock and scions runs freely, the latter are cut off, 
 and immediately wrapped in a moist cloth, in which they may be kept 
 four days ; but it is better not to cut them till a short time before the buds 
 are to be taken off, after which the operation must be as expeditious as 
 possible. Before attempting to remove the bark of either the scion or 
 stock, cut off all angular parts ; then at the summit of the latter make 
 three or four longitudinal incisions in the bark, in order to separate it 
 easily, as is represented at letter a. Then, from the scions select one a 
 little stronger than the stock, and trace on it two circles which mark 
 the length of the tube of bark, on which there should be at least one 
 good eye, or two when they are not wide apart ; see letter 6. The 
 scion should then be held in the hand for a minute or two, in order to 
 warm and expand the bark, which" wiU then he more easily detached 
 from the alburnum by. a smart twist. The flute or tube thus separated, 
 should be immediately transferred to the naked part of the stock ; 
 but this being smaller, the bark is stripped down tUL the flute in 
 descending fits tight, all its interior surface being in contact with the 
 alburnum of the stock. This being effected, we sometimes bring up 
 the strips of hark over the flute to protect it from the contact of air. 
 More generally, the loose bark is cut off; but in this case it is necessary 
 to cut the naked part of the stock above the flute into thin strips, so as 
 to form a fringe for protecting the parts operated upon from air and 
 water. 
 
814 
 
 D'ALBEET'S PRACTICE— FLUTE-BUDDING. 
 
 b. Flute-budding with Dormant Eyes (Fig. XL VII. d). — TMs is 
 practised exclusively, during the montli of August, with wood produced 
 by the spring sap. The part from which the buds are taken ought to be 
 as thick as possible ; and as soon as it is separated from the parent tree, 
 the leaves are removed, a small part of their stalks being alone 
 preserved ; immediately after which the buds are raised. The operation 
 differs from the preceding in nothing except slitting the bark longi- 
 tudinally, laying the tube open through its whole length, and thus 
 rendering it easy to extract all adherent parts. This done, it is applied 
 to the stock, of which we preserve the top ; the lower part of the stock 
 should be as thick as the tube itself. From the stock we remove a tube 
 of the same dimensions as the other, by which it is immediately 
 replaced, care being taken that the edges everywhere coincide ; it is 
 kept in its place by a ligature, which had better be removed before 
 winter. The stock is not headed down tiU spring, in order that the 
 bud may partake of the general growth. This mode is difficult to 
 perform, and is only used for propagating delicate trees, whose bark 
 wiU not readily run in spring, and when a supply of descending sap is 
 absolutely necessary for success. 
 
 In Geapting no attempt is made to apply the inner surface 
 of the bark of a scion to the outer surface of the 
 wood of the stock ; but the contact is effected by 
 the wood of the two, and their bark only joins at the 
 edges. "Whip-grafting (Fig. XL VIII.) is the com- 
 monest kind ; it is performed by heading down a 
 stock, then paring one side of it bare for the space 
 of an inch or so, and cutting down obliquely at 
 the upper end of the pared part, towards the 
 pith; the scion is bevelled obliquely to a length 
 corresponding with the pared surface of the stock, 
 and an incision is made into it near the upper end 
 of the wound obliquely upwards, so as to form a 
 "tongue," which is forced into the corresponding 
 wound in the stock ; care is then taken that the 
 bark of the scion is exactly adjusted to that of the 
 stock, and the two are bound firmly together. 
 
 Here the mere contact of the two enables the 
 sap flowing upwards through the stock to sustain 
 Fig. xLviii. tjjg life of the scion until the latter can develop its 
 buds J at the same time the cellular system of the parts in 
 
GRAFTING. 315 
 
 contact unites by granulations ; and, when the wood forms, 
 it passes through the cellular deposit, and holds the whole 
 together. The use of " tongueing " is merely to steady the 
 scion, and to prevent its slipping. The advantage of this 
 mode of grafting is, the quickness with which it may be per- 
 formed; the disadvantage is, that the surfaces applied to 
 each other are much smaller than can be secured by other 
 means. It is, however, a great improvement upon the old 
 crown-grafting, still employed in the practice of some Conti- 
 nental gardeners, but expelled from Great Britain; which 
 consists of nothing more than heading down a stock with an 
 exactly horizontal cut, and splitting it through the middle, into 
 which is forced the end of a scion cut into the form of a wedge ; 
 when the whole are boimd together. In this method the split 
 in the stock, can hardly be made to heal without great care, if at 
 all ; the union between the edges of the scion and those of the 
 stock is often imperfect, because the bark of the former 
 necessarily lies upon the wood of the latter, except just at the 
 sides; and, from the dif&culty of bringing the two barks 
 suf&ciently in contact, neither the ascending nor descending 
 currents of sap are able freely to intermingle. This plan, 
 much improved by cutting out the stock into the form of a 
 wedge, instead of splitting it, may, however, be advantageously 
 employed for such plants as Cactacese, the paxts of which, 
 owing to their succulence, and consisting chiefly of cellular 
 matter, readily form a union with each other. 
 
 The mettod employed in grafting Cacti is thus described, in, the 
 Gardener^ Chronicle, by Mr. John Green, one of the most sldlful 
 growers of ornamental plants that this country has known : — " I grow 
 for stocks, Pereskia acuLeata, Cereus hexagonus, and Cereus speciosissi- 
 mus ; I prefer the latter, on account of its hardy, lasting, and robust 
 habit. I grow the stocks freely till they attain the height that I 
 want them. Some I grow with five or six stems, from one to five feet 
 high ; others I grow with one stem, from one to four feet ; the short 
 stems I engraft at the top with the Epiphyllum speoiosum and Acker- 
 manni, the tall single sterna with E. truncatum, and some from the 
 surface of the pot to the top, all of which is of course according to indi- 
 vidual fancy ; E. truncatum should always be engrafted high, without 
 which, from its drooping habit, the greater part of the beauty of the 
 
316 PRACTICAL MANNER OF 
 
 bloom is lost. The grafts that I find to succeed tlie best, are yotmg- 
 growing shoots, about one aud a half or two inches long. I pare off 
 the outer skin or bark for about half-an-inoh at the base of the graft, 
 and cut what is intended to be inserted into the stock in the shape of a 
 wedge ; I then make an incision in the angles or top of the stock, with 
 a pointed stick made the same shape as the scion. When the grafts 
 are first put in, to prevent their slipping out, I pass through each a 
 small wooden peg or the spine of a thorn ; I then cover each with a 
 small piece of moss, and place them in a shady damp house, and syringe 
 them over the tops occasionally in. the evening ; they will all adhere to 
 the stocks in ten days or a fortnight, and make good plants by winter. 
 By engrafting the finest kinds of Cacti on the stocks that I recommend 
 above, noble specimens can be grown in a few years from one to ten feet 
 high if required; and the size and colour of the blooms are much 
 superior to what they ever produce when grown on their own roots. 
 E. trunoatum by the above treatment becomes quite a hardy greenhouse 
 plant, and will bloom three months later than it does when grown in 
 the stove on its own roots in the usual way." 
 
 Mr. Henry Ford, another successful grower, gives the following 
 detailed account of his practice : — " Last year, having several plants of 
 Pereskia aculeata, from eight to ten feet high, which had previously 
 been grafted at the top with Cereus flagelliformis, I inserted at various 
 heights upon the latter grafts of difierent kinds of Epiphyllum, such as 
 Ackermanni and truncatum, with Cerexis speciosus and C. triumphans. 
 The beauty in June last of a plant of this kind which had been grafted 
 in the previous autumn I cannot describe. In grafting them, I malte, 
 with the point of the knife, an incision upwards, into which I insert 
 small grafts, pared a little on both sides, of the kinds required. A 
 small piece of matting is bound round the wounded stem, to keep 
 the grafts tight untU they have taken hold, which generally is the 
 case in three weeks' time ; the bast is then untied. Where room 
 is no object, I think it preferable to graft E. truncatum upon spe- 
 cimens by itself, as it flowers in the autumn, whereas the other 
 kinds bloom in the spring and summer. The pendulous habit of 
 Cereus flagelliformis allows of its being trained in any form, accord- 
 ing to the fancy of the owner. I have grafted Cacti at all seasons 
 of the year, but I find that the best time is from the end of Sep- 
 tember until November; probably owing to the plants being in a 
 more dormant state. I apply no fire to the house during this period, 
 unless to dry .up damp or exclude frost. One specimen of Pereskia 
 aculeata, nine feet high, which was grafted two years ago with 
 B. truncatum, the grafts being inserted three inches apart, along the 
 whole height of the stem, and alternately on each side, has now the 
 appearance of a pillar, and in about six weeks' time will be covered 
 with many hundred flowers. It is advisable in grafting these plants 
 
GEAFTING CACTI. 
 
 317 
 
 to insert the scion upside down, especially if worked upon the main 
 stem ; in which case I remove a small piece of the bark from the stock, 
 and fit a thin piece of the desired kind upon it. If this is bound up so 
 
 Fig. XLIX. 
 
 as to prevent air from entering between the parts, it wiU take quite as 
 well as if grafted in the usual way. Where this operation is performed 
 upon spurs, the latter should be trained downwards previously to 
 
S18 SADDLE-GRAFTING. 
 
 being grafted, otherwise tlie grafts, especially those with fleshy leaves, 
 are apt to hreak off when they attain to any size. I have also grafted 
 E. trunoatum upon a stock of Cactus brazUiensis, which makes an 
 excellent standard, as from its robust habit it does not require any 
 support. E. trunoatum succeeds better if suspended, with a ball of 
 earth about its roots, in a wire basket filled with moss, than when 
 grown in a pot." 
 
 The brillLant effect produced by plants treated in this manner may be 
 judged of from the accompanying sketch (Pig. XLIX.) of a specimen 
 growing in the year 1847, in the garden of Mrs. Huskisson of Eartham, 
 where it had been made by Mr. Webster, her Gardener. 
 
 A far better method than whip -grafting, but more tedious, 
 is saddle-grafting, in which the stock is pared obliquely 
 on both sides, till it becomes an inverted wedge, ahd the 
 scion is sHt up the centre, after which its sides are pared 
 down till they fit the sides of the stock. In this method the 
 greatest possible quantity of cellular surface is brought into 
 contact, and the parts are mutually so adjusted, that the 
 ascending sap is freely received from the stock by the scion, 
 while, at the same time, the descending sap can flow freely 
 from the scion into the stock. Mr. Knight, in describing this 
 mode of operating, has the following observations : — 
 
 " The graft first begins its efforts to unite itself to the stock 
 just at the period when the formation of a new internal layer 
 of bark commences in the spring ; and the fluid which generates 
 this layer of bark, and which also feeds the inserted graft, 
 radiates in every direction from the vicinity of the medulla to 
 the external surface of the alburnum. The graft is, of course, 
 most advantageously placed when it presents the largest 
 surface to receive such fluid, and when the fluid itself is made 
 to deviate least from its ;iatural course. This takes place most 
 efficiently when (as in this saddle-grafting) a graft of nearly 
 equal size with the stock is divided at its base and made to stand 
 astride the stock, and when the two divisions of the graft are 
 pared extremely thin, at and near their lower extremities, so 
 that they may be brought into close contact with the stock 
 (from which but little bark or wood should be pared off) by the 
 ligature." {Hort. Trans., v. 147.) To execute saddle-grafting 
 properly, the scion and stock should be of equal size ; and 
 
SADDLE-GEAFTING. 
 
 319 
 
 where that cannot be, a second method, in which the scion 
 may be much smaller than the stock, has been described by 
 the same great gardener. This (Fig. L.) is practised upon 
 small stocks almost exclusively in Herefordshire; but it is 
 
 Fig. L. 
 
 never attempted till the usual season of grafting is past, and 
 tiU the bark is readily detached from the alburnum. The 
 head of the stock is then taken off, by a single stroke of the 
 knife, obliquely, so that the iucision commences about the 
 width of the diameter of the stock below the point where the 
 medulla appears in the section, and ends as much above it, 
 upon the opposite side. The scion, or^graSt, which should not 
 exceed in diameter half that of the stock, is then to be divided 
 longitudinally, about two inches upwards from its lower end, 
 into two unequal divisions, by passing the knife upwards, just 
 in contact with one side of the medulla. The stronger 
 division of the graft is then to be pared thin at its lower 
 extremity, and introduced, as in crown-grafting, between the 
 bark and wood of the stock ; and the more slender division is 
 fitted to the stock upon the opposite side. The graft, con- 
 
320 NATURAL GRAFTS. 
 
 sequently, stands astride the stock, to which it attaches itself 
 firmly upon each side, and which it covers completely in a single 
 season. Grafts of the Apple and Pear rarely ever fail in this 
 method of grafting, which may be practised with equal success 
 with young wood in July, as soon as it has become moderately 
 firm and mature. 
 
 What is called herbaceous grafting, depends entirely upon 
 the same principles as common grafting. When two vigorous 
 branches cross each other, and press together so as not to 
 move, they will often form an organic union; if two apples 
 press together, or if two cucumbers are forced to grow side by 
 side in a space so small as to compel them to touch each other 
 firmly, they also wiU grow together; herbaceous grafting is 
 merely an application to practice of this power of soft and 
 cellular parts to unite. 
 
 The theory of grafting is explained by those natural 
 operations in which the process is pecformed by plants them- 
 selves, silently and unobserved ; in which a leaf is grafted to 
 lea'f to form a flower, or leaf-edges to form a fruit. This 
 process, which never misses, which is perfect in its result, and 
 which effects-such a surprising change in the whole appearance 
 of-the parts operated on, takes place when the tissues are in 
 
 » their earliest and most tender condition ; when the substance 
 of the plant is more pulpy than firm, and when the growing 
 
 ' parts are compelled to press against each other in consequence 
 of the narrow space in which they lie. It is clearly therefore 
 the business of the grafter to execute his task also when the 
 tissues are as young as he can work upon ; and at all events 
 before they become hardened by the process of Hgnification. 
 This is really at the -very moment when buds are bursting in 
 the spring. If at that time the naked surface of two young 
 shoots, just lengthening, were brought in contact with sufficient 
 skill, we doubt not that the most perfect possible joiat would 
 be the immediate result. But this practice is opposed in the 
 spring by difficulties which we do not as yet know how to 
 surmount, and therefore recourse is had to parts much older, 
 and yet young enough to form an adhesion ; and as young 
 tissue is continually growing in the inner bark of all branches 
 
HEEBACBOtrS GEAPTINGf. 321 
 
 while young, the routine of grafting is reduced to cutting a 
 slice off the two barks to be united, bringing their naked 
 surfaces in contact, and binding them together till the adhesion 
 is complete.. No doubt ripe-wood grafting answers very well 
 for many purposes, and we do not in any way question its 
 advantages under certain circumstances. But most certainly 
 herbaceous grafting is the more natural, is more conformable 
 to true theory ; and when it can be practised should be in- 
 variably employed. All "propagators" of plants are aware of 
 this, and their results are not uncommonly a marvel to the 
 uninitiated. 
 
 In order to secure success in herbaceous grafting, the scion 
 and stock, being pared so as to fit together accurately, are 
 firmly bound to each other, without being crushed; parts in 
 full vegetation, and abounding in sap, are always chosen for 
 the operation, such as the upper parts of annual shoots, near 
 the terminal bud ; perspiration is diminished by the removal of 
 some of the leaves of both stock and scion, and by shading; 
 and by degrees, as the union becomes secured, buds and leaves 
 are removed from the stock, in order that all the sap possible 
 may be impelled into the scion. This method, if well 
 managed, succeeds completely in about thirty days, and is 
 useful as a method of multiplying lactescent, resinous, and hard- 
 wooded trees, which refuse to obey more common methods. 
 Baron de Tschudy succeeded in this way in working th& 
 Melon on the Bryony (both Cucurbitaceous plants), the 
 Artichoke on the Cardoon (both Cynaras), Tomatoes on Potatoes 
 (both Solanums), and so on. The following account of 
 managing Coniferse, where herbaceous grafting is used, is taken 
 from the Gardeners' Magazine, vol. ii. p. 64., and sufficiently 
 explains the practice. 
 
 " The proper time for grafting Pines is when the young 
 shoots have made about three quarters of their length, and are 
 stm so herbaceous as to break like a shoot of Asparagus. 
 The shoot of the stock is then broken off about two inches 
 under its terminating bud; the leaves are stripped off from 
 twenty to twenty-four lines down from the extremity, leaving 
 however, two pairs of leaves opposite, and close to the section 
 
922 
 
 HERBACEOUS GRAFTING. 
 
 of fracture, which leaves are of great importance. The shoot 
 is then split with a very thin knife between the two pairs of 
 leaves (Fig. LI. a), and to the depth of two inches. The 
 
 scion is then prepared (fe): 
 the lower part, being stripped 
 of its leaves to the length of 
 two inches, is cut, and in- 
 serted in the usual manner 
 of cleft-graiiing. They may 
 also be grafted in the lateral 
 manner (c). The graft is tied 
 with a slip of woollen, and a 
 cap of paper is put over the 
 whole, to protect it from the 
 sun and rain. At the end of 
 fifteen days this cap is re- 
 moved, and the ligature at 
 the end of a month; at that 
 time also the two pairs of leaves {a), which have served as nurses, 
 are removed. The scions of those sorts of Pines which make 
 two growths in a season, or, as the technical phrase is, have a 
 second sap, produce a shoot of five or six inches in the first 
 year : but those of only one sap, as the Corsican Pine, 
 Weymouth Pine, &c., merely ripen the wood grown before 
 grafting, and form a strong terminating bud, which in the 
 following year produces a shoot of fifteen inches, or two feet." 
 
 Fig. LI. — Herbaceous grafting. 
 
 With regard to inarching, which was probably the most 
 ancient kind of grafting, because it is that which must take 
 place accidentally in thickets and forests, it differs from 
 grafting in this, that the scion is not severed from its parent, 
 but remains attached to it until it has united to the stock, to 
 which it is tied and fitted in various ways ; the scion and stock 
 are therefore mutually independent of each other, and the 
 former lives upon its own resources, until the union is com- 
 pleted. 
 
 In practice, a portion of the branch of a scion is pared away, 
 well down into the alburnum ; a corresponding wound is made 
 
INAEOHING. 823 
 
 ih the branch of a stock ; " tongues " are made in each wound 
 so that they will fit into each other ; and the liber and alburnum 
 of the two being very accurately adjusted, the whole are firmly 
 bound up ; grafting clay is applied to the wound, and the 
 plants operated upon are carefully shaded ; in course of time 
 the wounds unite, and then the scion is severed from its 
 parent. Gardeners consider this the most certain of all the 
 modes of grafting, but it is troublesome, and only practised in 
 difficult cases. The circumstances most conducive to its 
 success are, to stop the branch of both stock and scion under 
 operation, so as to obtain an accumulation of sap, and arrest 
 the flow of sap upwards ; to moderate the motion of the fluids 
 by shading ; to head back the stock as far as the origin of the 
 scion, as soon as the union is found to be complete ; and at the 
 same time to remove from the scion a part of its buds and 
 leaves, so that there may not be a too rapid demand upon the 
 stock, at a time when the line of union is stUl imperfectly 
 Consolidated. 
 
 One of the most happy applications of the art of inarching is that by 
 means of which old naked branches are clothed with new Wood. It is well 
 known that if herbaceous grafting or inarching (Fig. LII.) is employed 
 with the Pear-tree, in the month of July, the scion will have "taken " in 
 three weeks, and will reach the length of perhaps fifteen inches before 
 autumn. Of this the French gardeners take advantage in a very 
 ingenious way, in order to restore to fruit-trees their lost Umbs, or t» 
 complete the symmetry of form on which they so justly pride them- 
 selves. Mr. Thompson, in an account of a visit to the gardens near 
 Paris {Journ. Sort. Soc. ii. 239), says that he viewed with astonish- 
 ment some trees thus treated at Corbeil, near Fontaineblean. " They 
 were fine trees, covering a waU, and trained horizontally. But they 
 were not planted when young, and trained progressively in order to 
 produce this regularity. On the contrary, they were planted when 
 large and irregularly grown, having in some places a redundancy, in 
 others a deficiency, of branches. Various means are frequently resorted 
 to with the view of supplying branches where wanted; such as notching 
 budding, or side-grafting the stem; but here the desiderata were 
 obtamed by marching the ffrowing extremities of adjoining shoots to 
 the parts of the stem whence the horizontals should proceed. Suppos- 
 ing the branches of a tree are trained horizontaUy a foot apart, with 
 the exception of some where the buds intended to produce branches did 
 not break, as is often the case ; then a shoot, a, is trained up, and, 
 
 T 2 
 
324 SELF-INARCHING OLD PEAE-TKEES. 
 
 when growing in summer, a small slice is taken off near its extremity, 
 and a corresponding extent of surface immediately below the inner 
 bark of the stem is exposed ; the two are joined together, and the 
 point of the shoot a is inclined in the direction to form the branch c. 
 
 Fig. LII. — Old Pear-branches inarclied witll youug wood, 
 
 " The most remarkable feature in the trees at Corbeil was the 
 uniformity of vigour in the respective branches. It appeajed as if the 
 supplied branches ec, had been allowed to grow in connection both 
 with the stem at h b, and the branch from which they originated at a a, 
 till their length and thickness corresponded sufficiently with that of the 
 branches above and below them. This is a great advantage which the 
 mode possesses over budding or aide-grafting. At the distance of a 
 foot apart for the hoxizontal branches, it takes as many years to cover 
 ■Hie "wall as the latter is feet in height; for although the leading 
 shoot may grow three or four feet in length in a season, yet by short- 
 ening it to two feet, although the branches d d would be produced, the 
 buds at J 6, to furnish the intermediate stage, most probably woxdd 
 not. In fact, the attempt to form two tiers of horizontals in one season 
 is generally followed by more or less disappointment. The interme- 
 diate stage might, however, be readily supplied by the method above 
 detailed ; and a wall twelve feet high might be covered as well in six 
 years as it otherwise would in twelve." 
 
 The advantage of this plan is obvious. The method is much more 
 expeditious than common grafting, and is especially suited for the 
 purposes of the amateur, who is usually in a hurry to obtain results. 
 It must not, however, be understood that the Corbeil method is 
 unknown in England. On the contrary, Mr. James Abraham, of 
 Charlton Park Garden, near Cheltenham, has been in the habit of prac- 
 tising this method for years. He says that he has operated upon Vines, 
 Apples, Pears, and Plums, with complete success ; he has had a Vine 
 
SELP-INAECHING. 325 
 
 make upwards of thirty feet of wood in the same season as that of the 
 operation. Mr. Abraham has produced examples of his manner of 
 proceeding ; hut his method of grafting is not so good as that of the 
 French. He employs tongue-grafting; they merely apply the two 
 surfaces, and keep them in contact with a bandage. The disadvantage 
 of summer tongue-graftiag is that it wounds each of the branches 
 operated upon, is tedious, and needless. The only object of a tongue is 
 to keep a scion firmly in its place, and this is necessary where ripe- 
 wood grafting is employed with loose scions, because the union is in 
 that case slow, and the scions are apt to be displaced by accident ; but 
 no such risk is run in summer-grafting, and a sounder joint is made 
 without the tongue, 
 
 A method of propagating Camellias, by putting the end or 
 heel of a scion into a vessel of water, mentioned in the 
 Gardeners' Magazine, ii. 33. is essentially the same as 
 inarching. The water communicated to the scion through the 
 wounded -end supplies it with that food which, under natural 
 circumstances, would he derived from the roots of the plant to 
 which it belongs. 
 
 In the succeeding pages is given the substance of D'Albret's practical 
 directions for the principal kinds of grafting employed in France : — 
 
 Inarching {Oreffe par approehe) is distinguished by the circumstance 
 
 that both the individuals intended to be united live on their own roots, 
 
 and mutually co-operate in forming a union. It is thus that we 
 
 increase trees and shrubs which cannot be propagated by other modes, 
 
 or at least not by any that are so well adapted for bringing plants 
 
 rapidly to maturity. By some modes we can make large trees assume, 
 
 in parks and forests, picturesque forms, or curved and angular timber 
 
 useful for the navy and the arts. M. Thouin has described thirty-nine 
 
 modes of inai-ehing: a few only possess general interest. Inaiching is 
 
 best performed when the sap is in fuU flow in spring. All the modes 
 
 require ligatures, and some little apparatus for bringing the two 
 
 portions into shape. "When high stocks are destined to form curved 
 
 timber, &c., take care to allow some weak shoots and branches to grow 
 
 along the st«ms, in order to increase their thickness ; without, however 
 
 robbing the parts operated upon. ' ' 
 
 Inarching Stems, for the purpose of supporting and invigorating 
 
 them (see Fig. LIH.), is a modification of the Qreffe Michaux. 
 
 Select a strong tree, near which there is a slender one of the same kind 
 
 or if not, plant one, and when well estabUshed, bend it against the 
 
 stem of the stock, in order to determine the most convenient place, for 
 
326 
 
 D'ALBEET'S VARIETIES 
 
 n, 
 
 the union ; thea cut off the head of the weaker, and thin the end, as at 
 a ; make in the bark of the stock, 6, two incisions, which, together, 
 form an inverted T (J.), from the bottom of which remove a small semi- 
 circular piece of bark (as at c) ; 
 that above wiU be easily raised 
 for introducing the extremity, a, 
 the cut surface of which wiU rest 
 on the alburnum, upon which it 
 should be immediately fixed by 
 stays and ligatures; and if the 
 inarched tree, S, is large, and 
 exposed to wind, the work is 
 completed by driving a nail or 
 two through the part joined. 
 This sort of inarching may be 
 repeatedly performed at the same 
 time on the same individual, 
 when there are subjects adjoin- 
 ing that can be adapted to it. 
 We may also apply it to bending 
 flexible branches to their own 
 stems, and inserting the ex- 
 tremities as above described. 
 
 Inarching Branches ( Qreffe 
 Monceau), Pig. LIV. — This may 
 be employed for the same purpose as the last, and answers better for ever- 
 greens ; but whenever it is adopted, it is best to use wood one or two 
 years old, and to take care that the portions joined are of the same age 
 and thickness. Prepare a stock of the same size as the plant which is 
 to join it. Make in the scion a cleft through the substance of the young 
 wood opened from below upwards, and reaching the medullary sheath ; 
 two nearly equal parts are thus obtained, a ; the other, 6, is cut into a 
 long wedge, and inserted into the cleft, so that the whole may coincide. 
 When this mode is employed for rare plants, difficult to unite by other 
 means, we rear the stock in a pot to the height which the plant to be 
 inarched may require. When well taken, the inarched portion (o) is 
 detached from the parent and depends entirely on the stock (6). 
 
 Hymen Inarching {Greffe Hymen), Fig. LIV. — This may be 
 employed for the same purposes as the preceding ; in forming arbours 
 we may thus unite three or four trees. I have inarched trees in this 
 way, under which a coach could pass in every direction. It is best 
 practised with two subjects rather than more, and may thus be made to 
 form an arch and posts for gateways. Prepare two trees of the same 
 height and thickness ; bring their tops together where they most 
 readily touch ; shave from each at this place an equal-sized longitudinal 
 
 Fig. LIII. 
 
OF GRAFTING. 
 
 327 
 
 slice deepest in the ndddle, where it should pass through a smaU 
 portion of the medxdlary sheath; thus prepared, the two cuts are 
 
 Fig. LIY.— Forma of inarching. 
 
 united, so as to mutually cover each other, and they are firmly secured 
 by ligatures, &e. "When the parts are as thick as the little finger, and 
 they should not he thicker, a wire nail may he driven through the 
 junction. In performing this operation care must be taken that the 
 head of one tree exactiy balances the other. In employing this for 
 propagating rare plants, as soon as the union is well formed, the stock 
 is headed back to a Uttie above the union ; and the sort inarched is 
 separated from the parent as before directed. 
 
 Sylvan Inarching {Crreffe Sylvain), Kg. LV., is best adapted for 
 forming lozenge-shaped openings in Pear and Apple-trees trained 
 in the form of vases, where much wood has to be supported by the 
 branches below. If performed at their points of contact, it puts their 
 sap in. communication and unites the different parts in a remarkable 
 manner. It may also be performed on trees with strong stems. In 
 such cases, bend their heads towards each other so as to cross ; make at 
 this point a notch in each (as at a), and unite the parts, as at 6 ; if 
 they are thick, secure the joint by a strong nail, which should always 
 be preferred to ligatures when there is much strain. The trees inarched 
 in this way make capital hedgerows. 
 
 Inarching small Plants on large Stocks, Fig. LVI, — When one has 
 
328 
 
 D'ALBKBT'S VARIETIES 
 
 plants with slender shoots to inarch on strong stocks, proceed as 
 follows :— Cut the head of the stock in a slanting direction opposite to 
 an eye or small branch ; make at the lower side of this wound a trian- 
 
 Fig. LV. 
 
 gular perpendicular cut through the bark and alburnum, as at a ; its 
 dimensions should always be in proportion to the size of the part to be 
 inarched ; cut the latter of an opposite form, and unite the parts. This 
 union is sometimes difficult, on account of the difference which may 
 exist between the thickness of the barks. When perfectly taken, the 
 inarched portion is separated from its parent stem as usual. After 
 this we cut off the heel, which has hitherto served as a point of 
 attachment for the Ugatuie, and a magazine for the sap which has 
 aided in uniting the parts inarched. If this mode of iaarching is to he 
 performed on a large tree, of which the top has been broken by wind, 
 we plant near it a young one, which can be inarched on the broken 
 trunk as above explained, excepting that, instead of being sloped, the 
 stock is out horizontally. M. Thouin says that this mode is employed 
 in the good climate of Caux ; but in other places they prefer crown 
 grafting, while others prefer grubbing up the trees. 
 
 Cleft Grafting. — Of this there are two principal kinds. The first 
 comprehends those of which the stocks are thicker than the grafts, and 
 for which ligatures may be generally dispensed with. In the second, 
 the parts intended to be joined ought to be of an equal size, and must be 
 
OF GRAFTING. 
 
 329 
 
 maintained in that position by a casing of paper ; all should be secured 
 witb cotton thread, india rubber, or other elastic substance. Those 
 grafts on which the leaves are preserved, should be kept in a moist 
 
 Fig. LVI. 
 
 temperature of between 60° and 75°, without air, and not exposed to 
 bright light for a few days, according to the tenderness of their foliage. 
 The height at which this kind of grafting ought to be performed is 
 quite uncertain. Sometimes it is below the level of the ground on roots 
 left undisturbed ; or upon roots separated from their parent tree, which 
 are planted in the ground after being worked. Most generally, we 
 graft at from four to six inches above the ground, or even higher, up to 
 as much as thirty feet. All scions intended for this sort of grafting 
 ought to be roughly out back in winter, before they exhibit signs of 
 vegetation, to eight or twelve inches above the point intended to be 
 grafted. The object of this is to retain in the stock all the sap for the 
 benefit of the grafts when they come to be put on. The shoots wliich 
 
330 
 
 D'ALBRET'S VARIETIES 
 
 spring from the steins of grafted trees should be checked as soon as they 
 make their appearance, if the stock is small ; but with large subjects it 
 is different. In these some shoots must be left near the graft, in order 
 to draw up the sap, which, in large trees, is sluggish, and difficult to 
 move without them; but as soon as the sap moves freely they also 
 should be headed back, the effect of which wUl immediately become 
 visible in the rapid growth of the scions. 
 
 Cleft Grafting with one Scion, the Stock cut Sloping (Fig. LTII.). — 
 This is one of the most usual modes of propagating many woody plants. 
 The stock is prepared as indicated by the figure. The lower part of the 
 scion, a, should be made thin by slicing 
 off a portion from each side, and forming 
 a small shoulder at the top of the slope, 
 as near as possible to which there should 
 be an eye ; the side of the scion on which 
 the bark is left should be broader and 
 longer than the opposite side, by one- 
 fourth, one-third, or more, according as 
 the stocks are large or small. For the 
 latter, the inside of the scion should be 
 cut very thin, with a short slope ; and 
 when intended for large stocks, the same 
 side should be left fuller, so that the scions 
 may better resist the pressure to which 
 they may be subjected when they are in- 
 troduced into the cleft. We usually leave 
 two eyes to the scion, but the second 
 is often superfluous ; for the one nearest 
 the small shoulder has an immense advan- 
 tage in this respect, that when the scion 
 is introduced, as is represented at J, it 
 is close to the top of the stock, and as 
 soon as it begins to grow, it rapidly co- 
 operates in healing over the wound of the 
 stock. The cleft to receive the scion should 
 be prepared as follows, by means of a strong knife, or preferably by a 
 sort of cleaver and small mallet. The instrument should be placed 
 across the section of the stock, and driven in so as to split the bark 
 before the wood ; always taking care that the cleft extend but little, if 
 at all, to the bark at the lower part of the slope, on the opposite side ; 
 and on the side where the scion is to be inserted it ought to be, at first, 
 shorter than the wedge-shaped portion of the graft. This being done, 
 the instrument is easily knocked out by a stroke or two of the mallet, 
 thus avoiding any kind of twisting. The wedge-shaped handle of the 
 cleaver is next introduced slightly into the cleft, so as to keep it suffi- 
 
OF GEAFTING. 
 
 331 
 
 eiently open for the introduction of all the wedge-part of the scion ; 
 this should be done in such a manner that the inner bark of the stock 
 may correspond with that of the scion. But as we cannot always judge 
 when this is the case, it is better that the liber of the scion should be 
 slightly outside that of the stock rather than in contact with the young 
 wood. The graft being properly placed, we cover the wound with a 
 mixture of equal parts of fresh loam and cow-dung ; but it is better to 
 do over the parts with the resinous composition used for covering large 
 wounds of trees. This composition consists of 500 grains of Burgfundy 
 pitch, mixed with 125 grains each of common black pitch, rosin, and 
 wax, the whole well melted together, and should be applied most espe- 
 cially to the eye of the scion next the top of the stock, in order to 
 secure it against insects and bad weather^ When the sap is put in 
 motion, the resin liquifies sufB.oiently to permit the growing shoot to 
 
 pass freely through it. 
 
 Cleft drafting with one Scion, the Stock cut Horizontally (Fig. LVIII.). 
 
 This mode is much used for large tuberous roots, herbaceous stems, &c., 
 
 on which we graft, successfully, 
 
 herbaceous stems and others ; but 
 
 it is bad for woody plants in all 
 
 cases where the stocks are as thick, 
 
 or thicker, than the little finger, 
 
 because their tranverse horizontal 
 
 section is difficult to heal. For 
 
 small shoots it is well adapted. 
 
 When we employ this mode of 
 
 grafting on herbaceous stems or 
 
 branches, they ought to be cut 
 
 above a, leaf, or young branch, 
 
 opposite to which the cleft should 
 
 be made ; and these small produc- 
 tions from the stock immediately 
 
 below its section ought to be pre- 
 served almost entire until such 
 
 time as the graft shall have com- 
 pletely taken. The young shoot is 
 
 split on one side (see Fig. LVIII. a) ; 
 
 and the scion is introduced. If it 
 
 should happen that the latter is 
 
 too large for the stock, and its 
 
 fibres are not sufficiently elastic to 
 
 permit the scion to be inserted, we shave one or two small parings off 
 
 the cleft, so as to give it a triangular form (see Fig. LVIII. 6) ; in this 
 
 case we also modify the form of the scion, so that it may fill exactly 
 
 the opening prepared for it. 
 
 Fig. LVIII. 
 
332 
 
 D'ALBEET'S VARIETIES 
 
 By this method we may propagate many hard-wooded evergreens 
 and herbaceous stems, sueh as the young shoots of Pelargoniums, 
 Melons on Gourds and Cucumbers, Tomatoes on the stems of Potatoes, 
 Sunflowers on the Jerusalem Artichoke, &c. For the latter, shading is 
 indispensably necessary. 
 
 Cleft Grafting with, two Scions (Fig. LIX.). — The stock is out 
 horizontally, then split across the middle into two equal parts, or 
 nearly so, without regarding the medullary sheath. The operations 
 are similar to those required for Fig. LVIL, excepting that the stock 
 is cut across horizontally, and two scions are inserted. This mode is 
 
 Fig. LIX. 
 
 M 
 
 Fig. LX. 
 
 only used for stocks that are too large for one scion, and too smaU. to be 
 cleft for four. In many cases we out back one of the grafts when both 
 take, if their growth^ are likely to prove injurious to each other. 
 This, however, is not the case when the grafts are intended to form 
 either fan-trained, or vase-shaped trees. "We also use the method for 
 grafting the strong stem of a bad Vine with a better variety ; but the 
 wood of the Vine being flexible, it is necessary to bind, securely, the 
 parts operated upon ; when the graft is above ground, and exposed to 
 the sun, we cover the wound with resinous composition, (p. 331,) held 
 together by a piece of cloth, in order to prevent the composition from 
 being loosened, or thrown oflf by the flow of sap. Vines should be 
 
OF GEAFTING. 333 
 
 grafted when tlieir sap &awB abundantly from small trial cuts made on 
 their stems. [To prevent bleeding they shotild be in leaf.] 
 
 Cieft Grafting with Stock and Scion of equal size (Fig. LX.). — 
 This is applicable either to herbaceous or 'woody parts. The scion 
 should be cut wedge-shaped at the base ; the stock should be split 
 down the middle, and the two parts thinned, as in the figure, so that 
 the wedge-shaped part of the scion may coincide in every point. 
 
 English Cleft Grafting, or Whip Grafting (Kg .LXL). — ^This we 
 do not generally employ, except for hard- wooded plants, with little sap 
 and small pith. Take a straight weU-grown shoot, and cut it to the 
 length of two or three eyes ; cut the base with a long slope opposite the 
 lower eye ; make a longitudinal slit in the face of the slope, so as to 
 form a tongue. Let a counterpart be made in a stock of the same size 
 as the scion ; introduce the tongues of each into the slits prepared for 
 them, and thus unite the whole. (See page 314, Fig. XL VIII.). 
 
 Fig. LXI. 
 
 Pig. LXII. 
 
 Cleft Grafting in the Side of Shoots of the same size as the Scion 
 (Fig. LXII). — Whatever may be the nature of the scion, its base 
 should be cut in as lengthened a wedge-shape as circumstances will 
 permit. The place intended for it should be previously fixed upon, and 
 always in the fork of a small ramification of the young stem, or in the 
 
334 
 
 D'ALBKET'S VARIETIES 
 
 axil of one of its leayes, or of an eye, Tlie stem should be cut back a 
 little aboTe the place intended for the insertion of the scion, always 
 taking care that the stump has one or two eyes left, or some small 
 branchlets, leaves, &e. Make in the stock a cut somewhat slanting 
 downwards, tUl it reach the pith, dividing it into two nearly equal 
 parts. The cleft should be made by a single cut, and as quickly as 
 possible, so that the blade of the knife may not have time to deposit 
 iron-rust, which is always injurious to vegetation. The place being 
 thus prepared, the scion is inserted, and must be maintained in its 
 position, and otherwise attended to according to the practice in other 
 eases. This mode possesses many advantages ; for it is appReable to 
 plants whose branches are of the smallest possible dimensions. I have 
 grafted in this way Heaths and Junipers which were scarcely one- 
 twenty-fifth of an inch in diameter. Oaks, Beeches, Walnuts, and 
 Chestnuts, &c., either in the solid, or herbaceous state, generally take 
 well by this mode. "We can easily com- 
 prehend the advantages which arise from 
 the small stump being' reserved for the 
 purpose of drawing the sap, which, forced 
 to coUect in it, descends along" the bark, 
 and powerfully contributes to the union 
 of the adjoining parts. During the time 
 that the graft is taking, the sprouts that 
 appear on the small stump should be 
 pinched, or otherwise kept in check; 
 after the graft has fairly taken the stump 
 should be gradually reduced, till it en- 
 tirely disappears. 
 
 Crown Grafting. — The name of this 
 sufficiently indicates the manner in which 
 it is performed (see Fig. LXIII.). It is 
 adapted for regrafting large old Pear and 
 Apple-trees, but not stone fruits. The stocks 
 should he treated in February like trees 
 intended to be cleft-grafted. It does not 
 make old trees young, as has been stated 
 by many authors ; but it gives them a 
 somewhat youthful appearance by the 
 renewal of their branches. It is an advan- 
 tageous substitute for lopping in good 
 sorts, because shoots from grafts are 
 more proper for training than those are 
 which spring naturally through the old bark. "We know the proper 
 time by the 'motion of sap in some shoots set apart, as in cleft- 
 grafting ; or we may ascertain whether the bark of the stock is able to 
 
 Pig. Lxm, 
 
OP GEAFTING. 
 
 335 
 
 run, in which ease we proceed as follows. Before amputating the 
 branch or trunk, fls upon the most suitable place for grafting, and 
 with a saw shorten back to that point, regulating and smoothing the 
 wound with a knife ; then mark out the place for each scion, about an 
 inch and -a quarter apart, always choosing those places where the bark 
 is the most regular ; but as the latter is always coarse and tough on , 
 such trees, cut it lengthwise for about an inch in length, taking care 
 that the blade of the grafting-knife does not penetrate the alburnum. 
 As this instrument is frequently insufB-cient for raising the bark so as 
 to make way for the scion, make use of a small piece of hard wood, cut 
 in the form of the scion, such as the latter is represented (Fig. LXIII. a) ; 
 and in introducing the point between the bark and alburnum, we must 
 always be careful to bruise the latter as little as possible. In order to 
 avoid this, the instrument should not go down farther than the end of 
 the cut made in the bark, thus effect- 
 ing merely a slight entry for the 
 scion, which, it will be observed, is 
 cut with a long slant, and a small 
 shoulder at the upper part of the slope, 
 opposite to an eye. The scion thus 
 prepared is inserted in the opening 
 commenced for it, and gently pushed 
 down till its shoulder rests on the top 
 of the stock. The operation is the 
 same with all the other scions. The 
 whole being placed, they are secured 
 by a split Osier firmly fixed to the 
 stock, and brought two or three times 
 round, and as near to the amputated 
 part as is possible. 
 
 We employ this mode of grafting, 
 in some extraordinary cases, without 
 cutting off the top of the stock, when 
 we wish to place one or more scions 
 along a stem destitute of lateral 
 branches. By means of a sharp chisel, 
 three-quarters of an inch broad, make 
 
 in the stock a transverse cut the whole breadth of the ohisel(rig. LXIV.) 
 and about as deep as the thickness of a finger ; above this; cut out with 
 the same t»ol a somewhat triangular notch, one and a-half to two 
 inches in length, with its depth reduced to nothing at the top, but 
 increasing as the chisel penetrates towards the bottom of the first 
 cut, as is represented at o. The object of this notch is to stop a smaU 
 portion of the ascending sap, in order that it may be absorbed by the 
 scion. In putting on the latter, place it as directed in the preceding case. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
336 CELLULAR SURFACES 
 
 To all these may be added what has been termed Plug'-r Grafting. 
 According to Thouin this was used by the Komans in grafting their 
 Olives and Vines, and is mentioned by geoponical writers. The opera- 
 tion, which is performed in the spring, is as follows : a shoot of the 
 previous year, having one or two eyes, is taken and shaved into a 
 longish cylindrical form, immediately below the lower eye ; a hole two 
 or three inches deep, and as large as the graft, is then bored in the 
 side of the stock ; the graft is placed in this hole, and driven in until 
 it fits it exactly, leaving no space between itself and the Stock. If this 
 is done, the libers will be in close contact, and the joining of the graft 
 secure. Some years since this method was revived by a M. Yard, and 
 submitted to the examination of a French committee, who endeavoured 
 to ascertain whether the plan was likely to be of any importance. 
 M. Yard said it might be used with advantage ; 1st, in filling up with 
 branches the spaces left in pyramids.; 2nd, in introducing on lateral 
 branches fruit-spurs, if they, and where they, are absent. As to the 
 first of these uses, the committee remarked that the grafts of last spring 
 resemble fruiting branches more than common branches, which they 
 thought was owing to the almost horizontal position of the graft upon 
 the stock, the ascent of the sap of which is consequently obstructed, 
 and they decidedly preferred side-grafting, heel-grafting, or spur- 
 grafting, whenever possible, if the object aimed at is the filling up the 
 spaces left in pyramids. The second advantage attributed to this 
 method the commission thought real and important. The plug-graft is 
 easy of application, requires no ligature, is quickly inserted, and is 
 by no means unsightly. Such advantages the committee thought likely 
 to recommend the plan when the object is to obtain fruit -spurs from 
 branches which have them not. 
 
 In all these methods, and in every other that could be 
 named, it is indispensable that the cellular surfaces should be 
 brought as much as possible into contact ; for the more 
 completely this is accomplished, the more certain is the 
 operation to succeed. It is undoubtedly true, that, as the 
 cellular system of a tree is diffused through its whole diameter, 
 it is impossible to apply a scion to a stock without their 
 cellular systems coming in contact; and, therefore, it may 
 appear indifferent whether bark is applied to bark, and 
 alburnum to alburnum, or whether the bark is adapted to the 
 wood and the latter to the liber. But it is always to be 
 remembered that each of these parts has special modifications 
 of its own, which modifications require contact with parts 
 
MUST COME INTO CONTACT, 337 
 
 similarly modified, in order to unite readily and firmly j and 
 also, that, although the cellular horizontal system, through 
 which union hy the first intention takes place, may be alive on 
 all parts of the section of a branch, yet that it is in the bark, on 
 the surface of wood, and in the space between the bark and 
 wood, that its development is most rapid, and its tendency to 
 growth most easily excited and maintained. 
 
 Nor are these the only circumstances to which it is neces- 
 sary to attend, in order to ensure the success of these 
 operations. It has abeady been seen (p. 267), that the 
 youngest buds of the Potato are more excitable than those 
 more completely matured ; and the same appears to be true of 
 the buds in other fruits. 
 
 "The mature bud," says Mr. Knight, "takes immediately 
 with more certainty, under the same external circumstances : it 
 is much less liable to perish during winter ; and it possesses the 
 valuable property of rarely or never vegetating prematurely in the 
 summer, though it be inserted before the usual period, and in 
 the season when the sap of the stock is most abundant. I have, 
 in different years, removed some hundred buds of the Peach- 
 tree from the forcing-house to luxuriant shoots upon the open 
 waU ; and I have never seen an instance in which any of such 
 buds have broken and vegetated during the summer and 
 autumn ; but when I have had occasion to reverse this process 
 and to insert immature buds from the open wall into the 
 branches of trees growing in a Peach-house, many of these, 
 and in some seasons all, have broken soon after being inserted, 
 though at the period of their insertion the trees in the Peach- 
 house had nearly ceased to grow." Hort. Trans., iii. 136, 
 
 This property was turned to practical account by Mr. Knight 
 in budding the Walnut. Owing to the excitability of its buds, 
 this tree is diflScult to work, because its buds exhaust aU their 
 organizable and alimentary matter before any adhesion can be 
 formed between themselves and the stock ; but by taking the 
 small, fully matured, and little developed buds, found at the 
 base of the annual shoots of this plant, time is given for an 
 adhesion between them and the alburnum before they push 
 forth, and then they take freely enough. 
 
338 . IV^ALNUT GEAFTING. 
 
 Mr. Knight described his method in the following manner; — "The 
 fluid which the seeds of the Walnut-tree contain, when that is fully 
 prepared to germinate in the spring, and which was deposited within it 
 for the purpose of affording nutriment to the seminal buds, or plumule, 
 in the preceding autumn, is sweet, as in a great many other kinds of 
 seeds : but during germination this becomes, in the seed of the Walaut 
 tree, bitter and acrid. Similar changes take place in the sap which is 
 deposited, for analogous purposes, in the bark and wood of the Walnut- 
 tree, 'during the germination of its buds ; and I was led by the 
 discoveries of M. Dutrochet to infer the probability, that the sap 
 during, and subsequent to, its chemical changes, might acquire new 
 and more extensive vital powers. I therefore resolved to suffer the 
 buds of my grafts, and those of the stocks, to which I proposed to 
 apply them, to unfold, and to grow during a week or ten days ; then 
 to destroy all the young shoots and foliage, and to graft at a subsequent 
 period. A very severe frost in the morning of the 7th of Ma,y saved 
 me the trouble of destroying the young shoots ; but it deranged my 
 experiment, by killing much of the slender annual wood, which I pro- 
 posed to use for grafts ; so that I found some difficulty in choosing 
 proper grafts. The swelling of the small, and previously almost 
 invisible, buds, within a few days enabled me to distinguish the 
 living wood from that which had been killed by the frost, and the 
 stocks were grafted upon the 18th of May. My grafter had more than 
 once been previously employed by me to graft Walnut-trees in various 
 ways, and never having in any degree succeeded, he did not seem at all 
 pleased with the task assigned him, and very confidently foretold that 
 every graft would die : and I subsequently found that he had insureds 
 to some extent, the truth of his prophecy, by having applied grafts 
 which were actually dead. The whole number employed was twenty- 
 eight, and out of these twenty-two grew well; generally very 
 vigorously, many producing shoots of nearly a yard long, and of very 
 great strength ; and the length of the longest shoot exceeding a yard 
 and five inches. The grafts were attached to the young (annual) wood 
 of stocks, which were between five and eight feet high ; and ia all cases 
 they were placed to stand astride the stocks, one division being in some 
 instances introduced between the bark and the wood; and both 
 divisions being, in others, fitted to the wood or bark in the ordinary 
 way. Both modes of operating were equally successful. In each of 
 these methods of grafting it is advantageous to pare away almost all 
 the wood of both the divisions of the grafts ; and therefore the wide 
 dimensions of the medulla in the young shoots of the Walnut-tree do not 
 present any inconvenience to the grafter. No difficulties wiU hence- 
 forth, I conclude, occur in propagating varieties of Walnuts by grafting ; 
 and I am much inclined to believe, that different species and varieties of 
 Oaks may be successfully grafted by the same mode of management." 
 
OTHER CONDITIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN GRAFTING. 339 
 
 The French work the Wahrat in a variety of vrays, especially 
 preferring flute-budding (p. 308), They find it necessary, however, 
 that the sap should be in full flow, whatever the method they employ. 
 When the ring is properly fitted, the lips of the wound and the edges 
 of the ring being accurately adjusted, the whole is secured with graft- 
 ing wax, prepared by melting together | of pitch, A resin, f yellow 
 wax, f tallow, with the addition of as much fine brick-dust as will 
 give it consistence ; it is used as hot as the finger can readily bear it. 
 This sort of graft is never tied. In this way the French succeed in 
 grafting old trees which have been headed back ; but they, in such 
 cases, operate upon the shoots which such trees throw up from the 
 pollarded head. 
 
 Buds should either he inserted when the vegetation of a 
 plant is languid, or growth ahove the place of insertion should 
 be arrested by pinching the terminal bud ; otherwise the sap, 
 which should be directed into the bud, in order to assist in its 
 adhesion, is conveyed to other places, and the bud perishes 
 from starvation. For similar reasons, when a bud begins to 
 grow, having firmly fixed itself upon the stock, the latter 
 should be headed back nearly as far as the bud, so as to 
 compel all the ascending current of sap to flow towards it; 
 otherwise the buds of the stock itself will obtain that food 
 which the stranger bud should be supplied with. 
 
 In grafting also it is always found that a union between the 
 scion and the stock takes place most readily when the latter is 
 headed down; but this is not the only point to attend to. 
 The scion should always he so prepared that a bud is near the 
 point of union between itself and the stock; because such a 
 bud, as soon as it begins to grow, assists in the formation of 
 wood and also in binding the two together. The scion 
 should be more backward in its' vegetation than the stock, 
 because it will then be less excitable ; otherwise its buds may 
 begin to grow before a fitting commiinication is established 
 between the stock and scion, and the latter will be exhausted 
 by its own vigour : if, on the contrary, the stock is in a state of 
 incipient growth, and the scion torpid, cellular granulations 
 will have time to form, and unite the wound, and the scion will 
 become distended with sap forced into it from the stock, and 
 thus be able to keep its buds aHve when they begin to shoot 
 
 7. 2 
 
340 LIGAT0EES. 
 
 into branches. In order to assist in this part of the operation, 
 a "heel" is sometimes in difficult cases left on a scion, and 
 inserted into a vessel of water, until the union has taken 
 place ; or, for the same purpose, the scion is hound round with 
 loose string or linen with one end steeped in water, so as to 
 secure a supply of water to the scion by the capillary attraction 
 of such a bandage. Indeed, the ordinary practice of surround- 
 ing the scion and stock at the point of contact with a mass of 
 grafting clay is intended for the same purpose ; that is to say, 
 to prevent evaporation from the surface of the scion, and to 
 afford a small supply of moisture; and hence, among other 
 things, the superiority of clay over the plasters, mastics, and 
 cements occasionally employed, which simply arrest perspira- 
 tion, and can never assist in communicating aqueous food to 
 the scion. 
 
 For the infonnatiwi of those who nevertheless prefer wax to clay, it 
 may be useful to add the two foMowlng receipts for making grafting 
 wax. 1, Bees' wax and taUow, equal parts, laid on warm with a 
 painter's brush. 2, Four proportions, by weight, of pitch, four of 
 resin, two of bees' was, one of hogs' lard, and one of turpentine, melted 
 and well mixed. When this, or some similar oompoBition, is spread on 
 brown paper, it forms grafting paper, as it is sometimes termed, which, 
 being cut into slips, can be easily applied. 
 
 Another substitute for grafting clay is sheet India-rubber, out into 
 narrow strips or bandages, from one-half to three-quarters of an inch 
 broad. The India-rubber is said to present all the requisites sought for 
 in clay ; it is air-tight and water-tight, and wiU not fall away ; also it 
 is elastic, which admits of the sweUing of the scion in its growth, and 
 it is applied with perfect ease and quickness. After wrapping the 
 bandage round the graft and stock, as a linen bandage is applied to a 
 cut finger, the last turn only requires securing by tying with a bit of 
 thread or thin bast. 
 
 In some plants the scion is so slow in formiag an adhesion to 
 the stock that neither claying nor impermeable Hgatures are able 
 to keep it alive for a sufficient length of time. In that case the 
 graft is "put on " as close as possible to the ground level and is 
 then buried or banked up with earth till only one bud of the 
 scion is exposed. This is called " earthing up " and is of great 
 practical utility. 
 
EARTHING UP. 
 
 311 
 
 The following list includes the names of the plants to which earthing 
 up is usually applied : — 
 
 Willows, 
 ligustrums. 
 Euonymus. 
 Finuses. 
 Daphnes. 
 Oaks. 
 Loniceras. 
 Jasminums. 
 Pears on Q,uinces. 
 Pears on Thorns. 
 Laurel on Cherries. 
 Cotoneaster on 
 Thorns, &c. 
 
 Mistletoe on Apples. 
 Beeches, 
 
 Ashes, 
 Vines, 
 
 Elms, 
 
 Poplars. 
 
 Chesnuts. 
 
 Limes. 
 
 Almonds. 
 
 Cytisus. 
 
 Sorbus. 
 
 Currants. 
 
 Hollies. 
 
 Laburnums. 
 
 Rhododendrons. 
 
 Andromedas. 
 
 Ealmias, 
 
 Lilacs. 
 
 Deutzias. 
 
 Arbutus. 
 
 Phillyreas. 
 
 Caraganas. 
 
 Eibes, and 
 
 Amelanohiers. 
 
 Here also must be noticed certain practices, wHcli experience 
 shows to be important, of which theory offers no satisfactory 
 explanation. Mr. Knight, for example, asserts that cuttings 
 taken from the trunks of seedling old trees grow much more 
 vigorously than those taken from the extremities of bearing 
 branches; and it is an undoubted fact that the Beech, and 
 other trees of a similar kind, cannot be grafted with any 
 success, unless the scions are made of two-years-old wood ; 
 one-year old wood generally fails. Some recommend taking 
 scions from the shoots produced at the extremities of healthy 
 vigorous trees. And this is much insisted upon by M. De 
 Jonghe, a very experienced practical as well as theoretical 
 cultivator. D'Albret, however, entertains a different opinion, 
 and considers the following experiment conclusive. 
 
 " Some years," he says, " before the first transfer of the Ecole 
 des Arhres Fndtiers du Ja/rdin des Plcmtes, effected in 1824, I 
 was obliged to take grafts from more than four hundred trees, 
 of different sorts, in a state of complete decrepitude, often 
 covered with canker, &c. Such grafts put on healthy young 
 stocks all grew with remarkable vigour, and the trees raised 
 from them when from twenty to twenty-six years old, many 
 being more than thirty-six feet high, all bore fruit in prodigious 
 quantity, and were free from disease, when they fell under the 
 axe in 1841." 
 , Shoots for grafting and budding, says D'Albret, are not easily 
 
342 HOW TO- KEEP SCIONS FRESH. 
 
 ' known by the inexperienced. In general scions ought to be of 
 medium thickness, excepting those having slender wood, in 
 which case the thickest ought to be preferred ; all should have 
 made the greater part of -their growth, so that the buds on the 
 lower part of the shoots may be completely formed. If the 
 parts are too tender and soft when adapted to the stock, they 
 are apt to be rotted by the abundance of sap in the latter 
 which ought always to be in greater flow than that of the scions. 
 When prepared for working, scions should not be exposed to 
 the air, but be kept in a cool moist place till they can be 
 budded ; but under all circumstances they must be so packed 
 as to run no risk of heating. French gardeners often place 
 them in the hollow of an old Cucumber, and, according to 
 D'Albret, even pack them in honey, without injury, if they have 
 far and long to travel. 
 
 "It has been long known that in order to preserve grafts, especially 
 for transportation, they ought to he separated from the parent tree 
 before they have begun to grow. In the cUmate of Paris, the month 
 of Pebruary appears to be the best time for taking them off; they ought 
 then to be placed in a northern exposure, in a horizontal position, on 
 the ground, and covered with earth to the depth of about two inches 
 and a half. They should remain in that position till their buds are weU 
 swelled, by which time the stock intended for their reception will be 
 much more advanced, a necessary condition of success. If scions have 
 to be conveyed to a distance, it is best to send them off as soon as they 
 are taken from the tree. If the journey require only three weeks or a 
 month, it is sufficient to tie them up in packets, putting some dry moss 
 between them, in order to prevent their being bruised, aiad to insert 
 their biises in a ball of moist clay covered with fresh moss, the whole 
 tightly enveloped in a thin coating of straw. But if the cuttings have 
 to be sent to a great distance, so as to be several months on the way, 
 they should be enclosed in a box, in small parcels, all laid with their 
 tops in the same direction, their thick ends covered with clay and fresh 
 moss, the whole compactly fastened with laths likewise coated with 
 moss. If for a long sea-voyage care should be taken to close the box 
 hermetically, some holes being made in the top to prevent the shoots 
 from becoming mouldy. I have sent grafts packed in this way to 
 3t. Petersburg, New York, &c., and they have always arrived in good 
 oondition." — D'Albret. 
 
 So long as it was believed that absolute wood was formed 
 corporeally from above downwards, it was inferred that the 
 
HOW STOCK AND SCION UNITE. 
 
 34? 
 
 l\ 
 
 lower parts of a plant must b^ gradually encased in solid matter 
 derived from branches, and that consequently, of necessity, the 
 stock of a plant must be enveloped iu layer above layer of the 
 wood of the scion. It is needless to repeat the arguments 
 employed in support of this view ; they were cogent, and for a 
 long time held to be irrefragable. The application of the theory 
 to graftrag led, among other things, to the conclusion that if a 
 scion would take it would speedily form a sheath of wood over 
 the stock, and thus secure itself for ever. Once, to form a good 
 union was, therefore, looked upon as sufficient security for the 
 permanent life of the grafted plant. It is true that cases, 
 apparently at variance with the theory, occurred 
 every now and then, but plausible explanations 
 of such instances were readily found. 
 
 It is, however, now certain that although 
 wood is formed by a descending process, yet 
 that its descent is not in an organized state. 
 Fluid matter, out of which it is produced, 
 passes, indeed, from above downwards, but the 
 formation itself is wholly local and superficial, 
 and consequently there is no such thing as an 
 encasement of the lower part of a tree by . 
 wood descending from above. That important 
 fact having been once established, the union 
 of a scion and its stock evidently becomes a 
 case of mere adhesion, extremely powerful in 
 some cases, feeble and readily destroyed in 
 others. There are, therefore, two essentially 
 different results obtained by grafting — the one 
 permanent, the other transitory. The follow- 
 ing example affords a new demonstration that 
 the union between a scion and its stock is no 
 other than that now described. (Fig. LXV.) 
 
 About the beginning of September, 1853, 
 Dr. Allan Maclean, of Colchester, an ingenious 
 experimentahst and good physiologist, grafted a young plant 
 of the White SHesian Beet upon a root of Eed Beet, and 
 vice versa. At the time of the experiment the plants were 
 
 l^ 
 
 7 
 
 ; 
 
 
 0J. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Pig. LXV. 
 
344 BED ANB WHITE BEET GRAFTED. 
 
 each about as thick as a straw. A complete junction was 
 effected, and when, in 1854, the plant of White Beet grafted 
 on red was taken out of the ground, its longitudinal section 
 exhibited the appearance represented in the annexed figure. 
 There was a shght contraction at the Hne of junction, much 
 like that formed by "choking" a rocket-case; above the line 
 of contraction the plant was absolutely white, below it it 
 was absolutely red. Not a trace of blending the two colours 
 could be discovered. By similar experiments on other vegeta- 
 bles and plants, Dr. Maclean had so far assured himself of 
 the perfect independence of scion and stock as to acquire the 
 belief that neither the colouring nor any of the specific characters 
 of the one or the other would or could be altered by their union. 
 The result of the trial wholly confirmed that view, and demon- 
 strated that the White Beet adhered to the Red Beet by mere 
 junction of cellular matter, that of the scion and stock holding 
 together in the first instance, and each afterwards producing its 
 own colouring matter in its own new cells as they formed super- 
 ficially, the red cells adhering to the white cells while in the 
 nascent state, but retaining each the peculiarity belonging to it, 
 without any interchange of contents through the sides of the 
 cells in contact. 
 
 This is entirely consistent with all that has been discovered 
 by the modern physiologists who have applied themselves to a 
 study of the nature of the individual ceUs of which plants 
 consist. They have clearly shown that each cell has its own 
 special inherent power of secretion, as indeed may be seen by 
 any one who examines thin sections of variegated leaves or 
 other parts. It will then be found that some cells are filled 
 with a red colouring matter, some with yellow, some with green. 
 In other words one cell has the power of secreting red matter, 
 another yellow, and so on. The colours do not run together, 
 but are contained each within the cell that produces it. Why 
 this is so no one knows ; all that we are acquainted with is the 
 fact. In the cells of the Red Beet resides a power of forming 
 red matter, and in those of the White Silesian Beet that of 
 forming yellow, and this peculiarity is not affected by the one 
 growing to the other. Red-forming cells produce their hke. 
 
STOCK AND SCION MUST HAVE THE SAME CONSTITUTION. 845 
 
 and yellow-forming theirs. Thus the limit between the scion 
 and its stock is unmistakeably traceable, and, notwithstanding 
 the combination of the two sorts in one, each perseveringly 
 retains that which is natural to it. 
 
 It hence becomes evident that no junction can be permanent 
 unless the stock and scion have a great similarity, not only in 
 every part of their structure, but also in constitution, and that 
 the strictest consanguinity alone offers security that a grafted 
 plant shall be as durable as each of the two individuals thus 
 artificially joined is when left on its own roots. A temporary 
 union may indeed be effected, but it is soon dissolved, as we 
 everywhere see ra collections where grafted varieties are 
 brought together instead of plants " on their own bottom." 
 
 " A detached portion of a plant is not merely capable of 
 producing the organs necessary to the formation of a. perfect 
 plant, but it has also the property of being able to blend with 
 another plant, and lead a common life with it. On this 
 capability depend the numerous garden operations which are 
 known under the not very apt name of ennobling {veredehi, 
 grafting). The contact of young succulent parts, which are in 
 the course of development, is a necessary condition of this 
 blending. Such a condition is very easily brought about in 
 dicotyledonous plants, because in them there exists between 
 the bark and wood. that layer of young tissue in course of 
 development called cambivm ; and there is little difficulty in so 
 bringing together two plants, that this layer in each shall meet 
 at some one point. But in the monocotyledons, in which the 
 vascular bundles lie scattered through the whole stem, and no 
 definite cambium layer exists, the conditions are far more 
 unfavourable. It is true, according to De CandoUe's account 
 that Baumann, of BoUwiUer, succeeded in grafting Draccena 
 ferrea on D. termmalis; but the scion died after the first year 
 The experiments, indeed, of Caldrini on grafting Grasses had 
 a more favourable result, for he succeeded in grafting even 
 species of different genera, such as Eice upon Panicvm cms 
 galh This result may be explained by the fact that in Grasses 
 the lower paxt of the internodes enclosed in the leaf-sheath 
 remains for a long time soft and succulent. A second and 
 
346 IMPOSSIBLE GRAFTS. 
 
 indispensable condition in grafting is a great similarity of the 
 stock and scion ; they must not only be nearly allied botanically, 
 but be much alike in the composition of their sap." 
 
 To this effect writes Mohl in that admirable treatise of his 
 on the cells of plants,* the best work on Vegetable Physiology 
 ia any language. And this shows philosophically why it is 
 that the operations of grafting and budding cannot be performed 
 indifferently between any two species, although such was 
 formerly a general belief, it being even asserted that Eoses 
 became black when grafted on Black Currants, and Oranges 
 crimson if worked on the Pomegranate.^ In reality such 
 operations are successful in those cases only where the stock 
 and scion are very nearly allied ; and the degree of success is 
 in proportion to the degree of affinity or constitutional resem- 
 blance. Thus, varieties of the same species unite the most 
 freely, then species of the same genus, then genera of the same 
 natural order; beyond which the power does not extend, 
 unless, in the case of parasites like the Mistletoe, which grow 
 indifferently upon totally different plants. 1 . For instance. Pears 
 work freely upon Pears, very well on Quinces, less willingly on 
 Apples or Thorns, and not at aU upon Plums or Cherries ; 
 the Cherry will take on the Laurel, or mc© versa ; the Lilac on 
 the Ash, the Olive on the Phillyrea, the two last cases occurring 
 among plants of the same natural order. De CandoUe even 
 says that he has succeeded, notwithstanding the great difference 
 in their vegetation, in working the Lilac on the Phillyrea, the 
 Olive on the Ash, and Bignonia radicans on the Catalpa ; but 
 plants so obtained are very short-lived. For some curious 
 particulars upon this subject, see Physiologie VigetaUy 
 p. 788., &c.' 
 
 * Prinoiples of the Anatomy and Physiology of the Vegetable Cell ; translated by 
 Henfrey. 8vo. Van Voorst. 1852. 
 
 + Et steriles platani maJos gessSre, yalentes 
 Castanese fagos, omusque incanuit albo 
 Flore pyri, glandemque sues fregdre sub ulmis. 
 
 Georg. lib. ii. 
 X Grafting the Mistletoe should be performed about the middle of May. The Apple 
 or the Crab ia the best stoek, but it has succeeded on Balsam-Poplar, WiUow, and 
 many other trees. Mr. Beaton has succeeded in even working it on the Oak. 
 
IMPOSSIBLE GKAFTS. 347 
 
 Tlie Hon. Algernon Herbert succeeded in grafting the common Laurel 
 on the WHd Cherry-tree ; the scions, he tells us, shot Tigorously, and 
 formed a small head ; but they died oflf in the second and third years. 
 Deodar Cedars grafted on the Larch take freely, but soon die ; and in 
 general worked Coniferous plants are perishable and -worthless, in con- 
 sequence of the impossibility of finding suitable stocks for them. 
 "When, however, varieties of the Yew are inserted upon the common 
 Yew, and Deodars on Cedars of Lebanon, the plants so obtained are 
 permanent. When China Roses are worked upon briars they stand 
 indifferently, and the same appears to be the case with Rhododendrons 
 when varieties of ponticum are worked on catawbiense, or vice versd, 
 although grafted Rhododendrons are sound and permanent when 
 catawhiense is inserted on catawhiense, ponticum aa. ponticwm, &o. 
 
 There are two supposed cases apparently at variance with 
 this law ; both of which require explanation. 
 
 1. Columella asserts that, by a particular manner of grafting, 
 the Olive may be made to take upon the Fig-tree, and his 
 words have been repeated by many writers ; but Thouin 
 proved, experimentally, that no such union will take place, and 
 that where success appears to attend Columella's operation, it 
 is owing to the scion rooting into the soU, independently of the 
 Fig stock (see M^moire sur la pretendue Greffe Cohmelle), and 
 becoming a layer. 
 
 a. Mention is made by Pliny of a tree in the garden of 
 Lucullus, at Tivoli, which is described in his Natv/ral History. 
 On the trunk of one tree he saw branches which produced 
 Pears, others Figs, Apples, Plums, Olives, Almonds, Grapes, 
 &c. ; but he adds, a little farther on, that this wonderful tree 
 which he considered as produced by the art of grafting, did not 
 live long, and that it died some years after he first examined 
 it. " It is probable that this tree had been formed merely 
 by planting different species within some other. Even at the 
 present day the gardeners of Italy, especiaUy of Genoa, 
 Florence, and Eome, sell plants of Jasmines, Eoses, Honey- 
 suckles, &c., all growing together from a stock of Orange, or 
 Myrtle, or Pomegranate, on which they say they are grafted 
 But this is a deception, the fact being that the stock has its 
 centre bored out, so as to be made into a ioUow cylinder, 
 through which the stems of Jasmines and other flexible plants 
 
848 
 
 IMPOSTOKS' GRAFTS. 
 
 are easily made to pass, their roots intermingling with those of 
 the stock ; after growing for a time, the ■ horizontal distension 
 of the stems forces them together, and they assume all the 
 appearances of being united. M. Thouin, who calls this " The 
 Impostors' Graft" {Greffe des charlatans), tells us that he 
 
 Impostors' graft, — Pig. LXVI. 
 
 himself tried the operation with perfect success upon both a 
 Linden and an Ash-tree a foot in diameter. He contrived to 
 give both of them heads consisting of Plums, Hazels, wUd and 
 cultivated Services, Walnuts, Peaches, and Vines, the branches 
 of which were thoroughly interlaced. Of one of these he gives 
 fl figure, which is here reproduced, and which perfectly illus- 
 trates the system. 
 
HOW TO CHOOSE STOCKS. 349 
 
 In the park of the Duke of Devonshire, at Chiswiok, there is a very- 
 old Cherry-tree, which has been decayed in the centre for many years. 
 Its hollow trunk has been occupied by a common Birch-tree, so that the 
 same stem appears to support a top composed of Birch and Cherry 
 branches. The Cherry trunk is 7| feet in circumference, and 6 feet in 
 height to the place where the branches diverge from it. To this 
 height the Cherry-tree once completely enveloped the Birch ; but of 
 late years the diameter of the Birch has increased so much that it has 
 burst the decaying case of Cherry wood on the north-east side, where it 
 is partially exposed to within 18 inches of the ground. Below this the 
 cylinder of Cherry wood is stiU complete. It is not surprising that the 
 Birch should have burst the Cherry on the north-east side ; for that 
 side has usually the thinnest layers of wood, and would consequently 
 give way the soonest to the expanding force of the Birch. The latter 
 is now above 50 feet high, and measures 5 feet 4 inches in circumference 
 at 6 feet from the ground, where it issues from the hollow Cherry, The 
 portion of Cherry-tree still alive is 20 to 25 feet high. Some such case 
 in ancient days may be well supposed to have given rise, in the first 
 instance, to VirgOian fables, and afterwards to ingenious imitations. 
 
 From what has been now stated, it may be easily conceived 
 that the choice of the stock on which a given plant is to be 
 worked is by no means a matter of indifference, but that the 
 operation may be seriously affected by the sMll with which the 
 most suitable stock is selected. If, indeed, we had no other 
 object in view in grafting than to unite one plant to another, 
 that object would doubtless be best attained by using the same 
 species, and even a simUar variety of the same species, for both 
 stock and scion ; the end of grafting and budding is, however, 
 beyond this, and it may happen that the species to which a 
 scion belongs, or the nearest Tariety, is ihe worst on which it 
 can be worked. 
 
 One of the first objects of budding and grafting is, to 
 multiply a given species or variety more readily than is possible 
 by any other method. If this is the only purpose of the 
 cultivator, that stock will obviously be the best which can be 
 most readily procured; and hence we see, in the ordinary 
 practice of the nurseries, the common Plum taken as a stock 
 for Peaches and Apricots, the Wild Pear and Crab for Pears 
 and Apples, and so on. When there is a difficulty in procuring 
 a suitable stock, pieces of the roots of the plant to be multiplied 
 
350 EOOTS AS STOCKS. 
 
 are often taken as a substitute, and they answer the purpose 
 perfectly well ; for the circumstance which hinders the growth 
 of pieces of a root into young branches is merely their want of 
 buds : if a scion is grafted upon a root, that deficiency is 
 supplied, and the difference between the internal organization 
 of a root and a branch is so trifling as to oppose no obstacle to 
 the solid union of the two. 
 
 Pear-trees are soiaetimes grafted on roots, and it was reported by the 
 late Mr. "Wedgewood that root-grafting Vines is an inrariable practice 
 in Greece. 
 
 Knight was the first physiologist who showed the possi- 
 bility of grafting scions upon roots. An account of his 
 method of doing this was given at a very early period of the 
 existence of the Horticultural Society (June, 1811), and he at 
 the same time suggested the possibiHty of the practice being 
 applied to grafting scarce herbaceous plants upon the roots of 
 their commoner cogeners; an operation now commonly 
 practised with the Dahlia, Pseony, and other plants of a similar 
 kind; and lately a method of multiplying Combretum pur- 
 pureum by similar means has been pointed out in the 
 Proceedings of the Horticultural Society, i. 40. 
 
 Mr. George Gordon, a good practical gardener, gives the following 
 advice upon this subject :■ — ^This operation is performed in two ways, 
 either by grafting on the already established roots of young plants, or 
 on pieces taken from the roots of older ones. The former is the easiest 
 method for obtaining strong plants, and is best suited for plants in 
 which a trunk is the object. In grafting upon already established 
 roots of a young plant, rfirst clear the soil away from the neck of the 
 stock, and cut the head off as much below the soil as possible, at the 
 same time observing that a sufflcient length of the neck is left to receive 
 the graft. The graft should be cut wedge-shaped, and inserted in the 
 slit or crown-graft way (p. 330), tied tightly with a soft worsted thread, 
 and afterwards covered with the soil, only a portion being left exposed 
 to light and air. It greatly increases the chances of success if the 
 worked plants are kept close, in a rather moist atmosphere for a few 
 days, until they commence growing, but much depends upon the 
 operation being performed at the proper time, which in most cases is 
 just before new growth commences. In grafting on pieces of roots 
 taken from an older plant, such pieces should be selected as are of 
 sufficient size to receive the scion, and have some small fibres attached 
 
STOCK AND SCION MUST GROW AT THE SAME BATE. 351 
 
 to them. The roots may either be at once worked and afterwards potted 
 or planted, or the roots may be potted a short time previous to being 
 worked, being afterwards treated according to the nature of the plants 
 to which they belong, whether stove, greenhouse, or hardy; hut even 
 plants belonging to the latter class are the better for a gentle moist heat 
 for a few days to start them. In this way many plants may be 
 increased, such as Clematis, Berberis, Roses, Combretums, Moutan 
 Pseonies, &c., where the roots of the more common kinds are easily 
 procured, and where suitable accommodation can be afforded; but 
 under ordinary circumstances the chances are against the success of 
 the system, which should only be resorted to in the case of very rare 
 plants. 
 
 Mere propagation is, however, hj no means tlie only object 
 of the grafter ; another and still more important one is, to 
 secure a permanent union between the scion and stock, so that 
 the new j)lant may grow as freely and as long as if it were on 
 its own bottom under the most favourable circumstances. If 
 this is not attended to, the hopes of the cultivator will be 
 frustrated by the early death of his plant. 
 
 Whenever the stock and graft or bud are not perfectly well 
 suited to each other, an enlargement always, as is well known, 
 takes place at the line of their junction, and generally to 
 Some extent either above or below it. This is particularly 
 observable in Peach-trees which have been budded, at any 
 considerable height from the ground, upon Plum stocks ; and 
 it would seem to arise from the obstruction which the descend- 
 ing sap of the Peach-tree meets with in the bark of the Plum 
 stock; for the effects produced, both upon the growth and 
 produce of the tree, are similar to those which occur when the 
 descent of sap is impeded by a ligature, or by the destruction 
 of a circle of bark. In course of time this difference between 
 the scion and stock puts an end to the possibility of the 
 ascending and descending fluids passing into. each other, and 
 the death of the scion is the result. This arises ia part at 
 least from the power of horizontal growth in the stock and 
 ■scion being different ; and in part no doubt from irreconcileable 
 constitutional difference between the two. For example : the 
 Hawthorn and the Pear are so nearly allied that the latter may 
 be easily worked upon the former; the Hawthorn is, however. 
 
352 EFFECTS OF STOCKS 
 
 a slow-growing bush or small tree, the Pear is a large forest- 
 tree of rapid growth; and the Pear will grow an inch in 
 diameter while the Hawthorn is growing half an inch. 
 Moreover all the qualities of the Pear are different from those 
 of the Hawthorn. 
 
 The difference in the rate of growth or in other respects, if 
 not excessive, may be taken advantage of for particular 
 purposes. When trees grow too large for a small garden, it is 
 desirable to dwarf them ; and when they are naturally unfruit- 
 ^ ful, to render them productive ; both which effects result, at 
 the same time, from grafting them upon stocks that grow 
 slower than themselves. Thus the Apple is dwarfed by 
 grafting on the Paradise stock, and the Pear by the Quince, 
 The physiological explanation of trees dwarfed by being 
 compelled to grow upon a stock which compels their descend- 
 ing sap to accumulate in the branches has been already given. 
 Instead of repeating it here, I take the following paragraph 
 from the paper by Mr. Knight, "On the Effects of different 
 Kinds of Stocks in Graftiag," published in the Horticultwal 
 Transactions, ii. 199. 
 
 "The disposition in young trees to produce and nourish 
 blossom-buds and fruit is increased by this apparent obstruc' 
 tion of the descending sap ; and the fruit of such young trees 
 ripens, I think, somewhat earlier that upon other young trees 
 of the same age, which grow upon stocks of their own species ; 
 but the growth and vigour of the tree, and its power to nourish 
 a succession of heavy crops, are dimiaished, apparently, by the 
 stagnation, in the branches and stock, of a portion of that sap 
 which, in a tree growing upon its own stem, or upon a stock of 
 its own species, would descend to nourish and promote the 
 extension of the roots. The practice, therefore, of grafting the 
 Pear-tree on the Quince stock, and the Peach. and Apricot on 
 the Plum, where extensive growth and durability are wanted, is 
 wrong ; but it is eligible whereyer it is wished to diminish the 
 vigour and growth of the tree, and where its durability is not 
 thought important. 
 
 "When," adds this great gardener, "much difficulty is found 
 in making a tree, whether fructiferous or ornamental, of any 
 
ON THE SCIONS. 353 
 
 Species or variety, produce blossoma, or in maldng its blossoms 
 set when produced, success -will probably be obtained in almost 
 all cases by budding or grafting on a stock wbich is nearly 
 engugh allied to the graft to preserve it alive for a few years, 
 but not permanently. The Pear-tree affords a stock of this 
 kind to the Ajpple ; and I have obtained a heavy crop of Apples 
 from a graft which had been inserted in a taU Pear stock only 
 twenty months previously, in a season when every blossom of 
 the same variety of fruit in the orchard was destroyed by frost. 
 The fruit thus obtained was externally perfect, and possessed 
 all its ordinary qualities ; but the cores were black and without 
 a single seed; and every blossom would certainly have fallen 
 abortively, if it had been growing upon its 'native stock. The 
 experienced gardener will readily anticipate the fate of the 
 graft ; it perished in the following winter. The stock, in such 
 cases as the preceding, promotes, in proportion to its length, 
 the early bearing and early death of the graft.'' 
 
 It is sometimes desirable to increase the hardiness of a 
 variety, and grafting or budding appears to produce this effect 
 to a certain extent, not, indeed, by the stock communicating to 
 the scion any of its own power of resisting cold, but by the 
 stock being better suited to the soil of latitudes colder than 
 that from which the scion comes, and consequently re quiring a 
 lower bottom-heatto .arouse jts excitability. Mr. Knight, 
 indeed, denies this fact, because " the root which nature gives 
 to each seedling plant must be well, if not best, calculated to 
 support it ; " and it is so, under the circumstances in which the 
 species was first created ; but, in gardens it is placed otherwise. 
 Probably, in Persia, the native country of the Peach, that 
 species, or its wild type the Almond, is the best stock for the 
 former fruit ; because the temperature of the earth is that in 
 which it was created to grow. But in a climate like that of 
 England, the summer temperature of whose soil is so much 
 lower than that of Persia, the Plum, on which the Peach takes 
 freely, is a hardy native, and suited to such soil, and its roots 
 are aroused from their winter sleep by an amount of warmth 
 imsufficient for the Peach. Experience, in this case, com- 
 pletely confirnas what theory teaches : for, although there may 
 
SSi 
 
 ADAPTATION OF STOCKS TO SOIL. 
 
 be a few healthy trees in this country growing upon Almond 
 stocks, it is certain that the greater part of those which have 
 been planted have failed ; while, in the warm soil of France 
 and Italy, it is the stock upon which the old trees have, . in 
 almost all cases, been budded. 
 
 In determining upon what kind of stock a given fruit-tree 
 should be grafted, it is important to be aware that certain 
 species prefer particular soils and dislike others, for reasons 
 which are not susceptible of explanation. In the case of the 
 common stocks employed for the propagation of the Apple, 
 Pear, Peach, and Cherry, it was found by Mr. Dubreuil, an 
 intelhgent gardener at Rouen, that in the chalky gardens about 
 that city neither the Plum nor the wild Cherry would succeed 
 for stone fruit, nor the Douein or Quince stock for Pears and 
 Apples : but that the Crab suited the Apple, the vtdld Pear the 
 cultivated Pear, the Almond the Peach, and the Mahaleb the 
 Cherry. I formerly witnessed the result of those experiments 
 while in progress, and I well remember the sickly state of his 
 Peaches and Cherries grafted on Pluni and Cherry stocks in 
 the calcareous borders of the rampart gardens of Eouen, and 
 the healthiness of the same fruit-trees in the same garden 
 when worked upon the Almond and the Mahaleb, while the 
 latter were unhealthy in their turn in the borders composed 
 artificially of loam. The result of this experiment has been 
 mentioned in the Hort. Trans., iv. 566, and is as follows : — 
 
 
 Loamy Soil. 
 
 Chalky. 
 
 Light.* 
 
 Apple .... 
 Pear .... 
 Plum .... 
 Cherry .... 
 
 Douein 
 ftuinoe 
 Plum 
 Wild Cherry 
 
 Crah 
 
 Wild Pear 
 Almond 
 Mahaleb 
 
 Douoin. 
 ftuinoe. 
 Almond. 
 Wild Cherry. 
 
 Mr. Brown, of Merevale, relates the case of a Grosse Mignonne Peach 
 which for ten years bore fruit, though rarely in abundance ; at last a 
 crop of ten dozen fruit having set and nearly ripened, it suddenly died, 
 the stock being one mass of gum and canker. It was either a Peach or 
 Nectarine stock, as was ascertained by a sucker which sprang up from 
 a surface root. 
 
 That IB, with an admixture of sand and decayed vegetable matter. 
 
THE STOCK AFFECTS THE FRUIT. 355 
 
 As this work treats exclusively of those operations in gar- 
 dening which can he explained upon known principles of vege- 
 table physiology, all further reference to the question of stocks 
 ought, in strictness, to he dismissed at this stage. It may he 
 as well, however, to add that there are some well attested facts 
 relating to the preference of particular varieties for one kind of 
 stock rather than another, which we cannot explain, hut which 
 are so important in practice as to deserve to he studied care- 
 fcQly. There appears to he no doubt that, as is asserted by 
 Mr. Knight and others {Hort. Trans., ii. 215 ; Gard. Mag., vii. 
 195), the Apricot succeeds better on its own species than on 
 the Plum. Nurserymen know very well that what they call 
 French Peaches, such as the Bourdine, Belle Chevreuse, 
 and Double Montagne will only take on the Pear Plum, while 
 other varieties prefer the Muscle Plum ; and a variety called 
 the Brompton suits them all equally well, making handsome 
 trees, which are, however, uniformly short-lived.* The Lemon 
 is also found to be a better stock for the Orange than its own 
 varieties. 
 
 It is asserted that the tendency of the Stanwick Neotaiine to crack is 
 cured by first budding the White Magnum Bonum Plum on a Brussels 
 stock as soon as it is strong enough for the purpose and as near the 
 ground as possible, and afterwards by budding the Nectarine on the 
 Magnum Bonum Plum about three feet from the ground. The same 
 method is stated to be highly advantageous for all Peaches and 
 Nectarines, upon the authority of a gardener at 'Warminster. (See 
 Gard. Chron., 1853, p. 694.) 
 
 It is not merely upon the productiveness or vigour of the 
 scion that the stock exercises an influence ; its effects have 
 been found to extend to the quality of the fruit. This may be 
 conceived to happen in two ways — either by the ascending sap 
 carrying up with it into the scion a part of the secretions of the 
 stock, or by the difference induced in the general health of a 
 scion by the manner in which the flow of ascending and 
 descending sap is promoted or retarded by the stock. In the 
 Pear, the Fruit becomes higher coloured, and smaller on the 
 Quince stock than on the wild Pear, still more so on the 
 
 * See (J. Lindley's Omde to the Orchard and Kitchen Omden,, p. 299, 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 THE STOCK AFFECTS THE FRUIT. 
 
 Medlar; on the Mountain Ash stock the Pefer hears earlifer ; 
 and in these instances the ascent and descent of sap is 
 obstructed by the Quince more than by the wild Pear, and by 
 the Medlar more than by the Quince. Similar effects are 
 produced in the Apple by the Paradise and Siberian Bittersweet 
 stocks. Mr. Knight mentions such differences in the quality 
 of his Peaches. His garden contained two trees of the Acton 
 Scott variety, " one growing upon its native stock, the other 
 upon a Plum stock, the soil being similar, and the aspect the 
 same. That growing upon the Plum stock afforded fruit of a 
 larger size, and its colour, where it was exposed to the sun, was 
 much more red ; but its pulp was more coarse, and its taste and 
 flavour so inferior that he would have denied the identity of the 
 variety had he jiot with his own hand inserted the buds from 
 which both sprang." (Hort. Trans., v. 289.) 
 
 Since the quality of fruit is thus affected by the stock, it 
 seems allowable to infer that the goodness of cultivated fruits 
 is deteriorated by their being uniformly worked upon stocks 
 whose fruit is worthless ; for example, the Almond or the 
 austere Plum can only injure the Peaches they are made to 
 bear, the Crab the Apple, and so on. On the other hand, if 
 trees of excellent quality were used for stocks they ought to 
 improve the fruit of the scion that is worked upon them. 
 Some Grerman writers, proceeding upon such reasoning as this, 
 recommend gardeners to practise the art of " ennobUng " fruit- 
 trees by taking the best varieties for stocks instead of the 
 worst ; and they assert that, by such means, the excellence of 
 fruit is greatly increased. Treffz is represented by Meyer, as 
 translated in Taylor's Magazine, to have made known as long 
 ago as 1803 several instances of ennobling, from which it 
 appears that Apple-trees twice ennobled bore fruit of distin- 
 guished excellence ; Currants and Gooseberries improved after 
 one ennobling, and much more so after the operation had been 
 repeated three and four limes. An Apricot is said to have 
 been worked on a Greengage Plum, and a Quince upon the 
 autumn Bergamot Pear ; the Apricot became as juicy as the 
 Greengage, and far more delicate : the Quince was much more 
 tender, an4 less gritty. 
 
The stock affects the fbuit. zs7 
 
 This is confirmed by Mr. William: BiUington, an experienced gar- 
 dener, who mentions the following cases : — "I budded aBergamotand a 
 Swan's-egg Pear upon a Jargonelle on a south waU. I was surprised 
 to find them produce fruit nearly as large again as I had ever seen the 
 kinds bear before on any tree or aspect, and the flavour was much 
 improved ; I have seen Apples grafted upon the old English Codlin, 
 Gennet Moil, and other Apple stocks, which are increased by bun- 
 knots, accjuiring a tendency to emit roots at the joints above the ground. 
 The effect on Apples worked upon these stocks was similar to that on 
 the Pears just mentioned ; the King of the Pippins was one, and the 
 best judge of Apples would not have conceived it to be the same when 
 grafted on a Burr knot as when on a Crab stock, the former being so 
 much larger and better in every respect. I have seen the Orange Peajmain 
 worked on the English Codlin, and besides improving in flavour and 
 size it also became more prolific. I have budded .fargoneUe and other 
 Pears on the common Hawthorn and Mountain Ash, on which they 
 took freely ; the Pears on the Hawthorn have borne fruit three years, 
 but the fruit is not half the common size and scarcely eatable, being 
 harsh and gritty, and having a hard core. I have come to this conclusion 
 . — ^that independent of the improved size and flavour upon such stocks 
 as the above mentioned^ I think a harsh tart Apple wUl be much 
 improved in flavour if grafted upon a stock of a milder sort, and a soft 
 vapid one on a Crab, while a late austere Apple double-worked upon a 
 luscious early Apple would be improved both in flavour and earHness. 
 The same wiU apply to Pears, as the late or gritty Pears might be much 
 improved in flavour and time of ripening by double-working on the 
 Jargonelle and other early buttery or melting Pears. I have budded 
 Peaches and Nectarines on the Moorpark Apricot, which greatly 
 improved them in size and flavour. Would not, then, some of the late 
 Peaches be much improved and come earlier into season, by being 
 worked upon Apricots ? " It may be added that D'Albret regards the 
 productiveness, fragrance, and succulence of fruits to be greatly 
 influenced by the stock on which they are worked. 
 
 It is moreover certain that the quality of a stock is affected, 
 in some cases at least, by the scion. Old writers on gardening 
 assert that if you bud a yellow variegated Jasmine on a green 
 one, the whole stock wiU become variegated ; this is denied by 
 Duhamel, who misunderstood the nature of the experiment, 
 imagining it to relate to the colour of the flowers, and not of 
 the leaves. That the colour of the leaves of a stock is affected 
 by the scion has been demonstrated. The late Wm. Anderson, 
 of the Physic Garden, Chelsea, budded the variegated white 
 Jasmine upon one branch of a fine plant of the revolute 
 
868 THE SCION AFFECTS THE STOCK. 
 
 Jasmine, the leaves of wliich were green. The bud adhered to 
 the bark of its stock, but never pushed. The succeeding year 
 a slight appearance of variegation came out upon the leaves of 
 the revolute Jasmiae. The next year a workman cut out the 
 branch which had been budded ; so that the revolute Jasmine 
 was thus apparently deprived of all influence from the 
 variegated bud. Nevertheless, the variegation in the remain- 
 der of the plant continued to increase, and some years since 
 the leaves and branches are all variegated, even more than the 
 white Jasmine whose bud was originally inserted. This proves 
 that, under some circumstances, the scion will affect the 
 quality, although not the organization, of the stock ; and if a 
 taint producing variegation can be thus communicated, why 
 not some other quality ? It is highly probable, if not certain, 
 that the curious Cytisus Adami, or purple Laburnum, which is 
 sometimes Cytisus Laburnum, sometimes C. purpureus, some- 
 times a mixture of the two, is a common Laburnum tainted by 
 a purple Cytisus in the same way as Anderson's Jasmine. 
 
 A correspondent has pointed out a passage in Scripture ■whieh bears 
 upon this subject. It occurs in the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Romans, and more particularly in the 24th verse : — " Por if thou wert 
 cut out of the OUye-tree, which is wild by nature, and were graffed 
 contrary to nature into a good Olive-tree, how much more shall these, 
 which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own Olive-tree ! " 
 Bloomfleld says, in alluding to this chapter, " Commentators have 
 assigned many reasons for the departure from the usual mode of 
 grafting trees, but these are rendered nugatory by the researches of 
 Bredenkamp, who has ascertained that ia ancient times it was usual to 
 engraft the wild into the garden tree, to promote fruitfnlness." It 
 would thus appear that decaying trees might be revived by an insertion 
 of branches from a vigorous wild tree, and that the custom was practised 
 when St. Paul made use of it to illustrate the relative positions of the 
 Jewish and Gentile churches. The practice in question was known to 
 PMny, and is thus spoken of by his editor, Holland (xvii., c. 18) : " In 
 Barbarie, the people have this practice peculiar to themselves ; for to 
 graft in a wild Olive stooke, whereby they continue a certain perpetuity ; 
 for even as the boughs that were graffed and (as I may say) adopted 
 first, wax old and grow to decay, a second quickly putteth forth afresh, 
 taken new from another tree, and in the same old stocke sheweth' 
 young and lively ; and after it a third successively, and as many as 
 need ; so as by this means they take order to eternize their Olives ; 
 
ANCIENT PEACTICE WITH THE OHVE. 35S 
 
 insomucli as one Olive-plot hath been knowne to have prospered in 
 good estate a world of yeares. This wild Olive aforesaid may be graffed 
 either with scions set in a clift, or els, by way of inooiilation, with the 
 scutcheon aforesaid." Pliny himself describes the whole much more 
 briefly, e. g. : "Africse peonliare qnidem in Oleastro est inserere. 
 ftuadam eeternitate consenescunt, proxima adoptioni virga emissa, 
 atque itaalia arbore ex eademjuvenesoente: iterumcLue et quoties opus, 
 sit, ut sevis eadem oliveta constent. Inseritur autem Oleaster calamo, 
 et inoculatione." 
 
 Before concluding this part of the subject it is desirable to 
 advert to the trifacial orange, a most singular production 
 known in some places by the name of Granger hermaphrodite. 
 Mr. St. John, in his Travels in the Valley of the Nile, gives the 
 following account of this very curious tree in Boghos Bey'S 
 garden at Alexandria. " Here I was shown an extraordinary 
 fruit-tree, produced by an extremely ingenious process. They 
 take three seeds, the Citron, the Orange, and the Lemon, and 
 carefully removing the external coating from both sides of one 
 of them, and from one side of the two others, place the former 
 between the latter, and binding the three together with fine 
 grass, plant them in the earth. From this mixed seed springs 
 a tree, the fruit of which exhibits three distinct species 
 included in one rind, the division being perfectly visible 
 externally, and the flavour of each compartment as different 
 as if it had grown on a separate tree. This curious method of 
 producing a tripartite fruit has been introduced by Boghos 
 Joussouff from Smyrna, his native city, where it is said to have 
 been practised from time immemorial." This statement is 
 illustrated by the following note to the Gardeners' Chronicle 
 of 1841, from the Eev. G. G. Kenouard, at that time Foreign 
 Secretary to the Eoyal Geographical Society. 
 
 "When resident at Smyrna as chaplain to the factory there, 
 in 1813, a fruit produced, as I was told, by an Orange-tree on 
 which a Lemon had been grafted, was sent to me from the 
 garden of a friend at Hajilar, a village in the neighbourhood, 
 so singular in its appearance that I should have preserved it in 
 spirits had I been aware of the circumstance I shall presently 
 mention. Boghos Yusuf (i. e. Paul Joseph) is a most estimable 
 Armenian, universally esteemed, and was employed in his 
 
360 
 
 TRIFACIAL OEANGE. 
 
 yoiith under tlie British Consul at Smyrna. He might, 
 therefore, have had his tree from the same garden as that in 
 Which the one I speak of grew. The fruit sent to me had the 
 size and appearance of a large Orange with two or three large 
 patches of Lemon neatly stuck on it; the colour, almost to 
 the very edges of the different pieces, being distinctly that of 
 the respective fruits ; and on removing the rind, which, as in a 
 common Orange, was all of one piece, the portions beneath the 
 Lemon- coloured parts had not only a considerable degree of 
 acidity, while the Orange had its proper degree of sweetness, 
 but they were separated from their sweet neighbours by a 
 distinct membrane, which in some degree accounted for their 
 difference in taste. The pulp was also, I believe, of a lighter 
 hue. The patches of Lemon were merely superficial, and of 
 no great thickness. They made bumps, or irregular elevations, 
 on the rind of the fruit." 
 
 Up to the present time we have no evidence to show whether 
 or not it is practicable to graft three embryos in the manner 
 jstated by Mr. St. John's informant ? Is it physically impos- 
 sible that the result should be such as is described ; namely, 
 that each fruit should consist of three parts, the one of the 
 nature of a Lemon, the other of a Citron, and the third of an 
 Orange ? I think not. If the stems of two or three plants, 
 when brought in contact, .will adhere and become one, so may 
 the sides of two or three embryos : and, in fact, this occurs occa- 
 sionally in the Mistletoe, the Cress, the Sun-spurge, and others, 
 without the assistance of art. Now if three embryos of different 
 varieties could be made to unite, would their several natures be 
 go blended as to form but one whole, consisting of a mixture of 
 each ; or would they grow in union, each retaining its own 
 peculiar qualities ? This is a question that vegetable physiology 
 does not at present enable us to answer. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 — 4— 
 ON PRUNING. 
 
 " La taille est une ides operations les plus importantes et les 
 plus delicates du jardinage. Coniiee communement a des 
 ouvriers peu instruits, observ6e dans les r6sultats d'une 
 pratique trop souvent irrefl^chie, elle a du necessairement trou- 
 ver des d^tracteurs meme parmi les physiologistes. II en eut 
 sans doute et^ autrement, si on I'avait ^tudi^e dans les jardins 
 du petit nombre de praticiens qui ont su de nos jours la bien 
 comprendre. Sagement basee sur les lois de la v6g6tation, elle 
 contribue, entre leurs mains, non seulement a regulariser la 
 production des fruits, a en obtenir de plus beaux, mais encore 
 a prolonger 1' existence et la f6condit6 des arbres." 
 
 Nothing can be more just than these words, addressed to the 
 Horticultural Society of Paris, by their President, M. Hericarl 
 de Thury ; and, if they do not apply with as much force to our 
 gardeners as to those of France, they do most fdly to our 
 foresters. 
 
 The quantity of timber that a tree forms, the amount and 
 quality of its secretions, the brilliancy of its colours, the size of 
 its flowers, and, ia short, its whole beauty, depend upon the 
 action of its branches and leaves, and their healthiness. The 
 object of the pruner is to diminish the number of leaves and } 
 branches ; whence it may be at once understood how delicate 
 are the operations he has to practice, and how thorough a 
 inowledge he ought to possess of all the laws which regulate 
 the action of the organs of vegetation. If well directed, 
 pruning is one of the most useful, and, if ill-directed, it is 
 
 
362 PRINCIPLES OF PBUNING. 
 
 among the most miscliievousj operations that can take place 
 upon a plant. 
 
 The object of pruning is either to influence the production 
 of flowers and fruit, or to augment the quantity of timber, 
 These two purposes demand separate consideration. 
 
 A. Pruning for Flowers or Fruit. 
 
 When a portion of a healthy plant is cut off, all that sap 
 which would have been expended in supporting the part 
 removed is directed into the parts which remain, and more 
 especially into those in the immediate vicinity of it. Thus, 
 if the leading bud of a growing branch is stopped, the lateral 
 buds, which would otherwise have been dormant, are made to 
 sprout forth ; and, if a growing, branch is shortened, then the 
 very lowest buds, which seldom push, are brought into action ; 
 hence the necessit y, in pruning, of cutting a useless branch 
 clean out; otherwise the removal of one branch is only the 
 cause of the production of a great many others. 
 
 This effect of stopping does not always take place immer 
 diately ; sometimes its &st effect is to cause an accumulation 
 of sap in a branch, which directs itself to the remaining buds, 
 and organizes them against a future year. In ordinary cases, 
 it is thus that spurs or short bearing-branches are obtained in 
 great abundance. The growers of the Filbert, in Kent, 
 procure in this way greater quantities of bearing wood than 
 nature unassisted would produce ; for, as the Filbert is always 
 borne by the wood of a previous year, it is desirable that every 
 bush should have as much of that wood as can be obtained, for 
 which every thing else may be sacrificed; and such wood is 
 readily secured by observing a continual system of shortening 
 a young branch by two-thirds, the effect of which is to call all 
 its lower buds into growth the succeeding year ; and thus each 
 shoot of bearing wood is compelled to produce many others. 
 The Peach, by a somewhat similar system, has been made to 
 bear fruit in unfavourable climates (Hort. Trans., ii. 366) ; and 
 every gardener knows how universally it is applied to the Pear, 
 Apple, Plum, and similar trees, and even to the Fig-tree. 
 
BLEEDING MUST BE PEEVENTBD. 360 
 
 The influence produced upon one part by the abstraction of 
 some other part, thus shown in the development of buds 
 which would otherwise be dormant, is seen in many other ways. 
 If all the fruit of a plant is abstracted one year when just 
 forming, the fruit will be finer and more abundant the succeed- 
 ing year, as happens when late frosts destroy our crops. 
 If of many flowers one only is left, that one, fed by the sap 
 intended for the others, becomes so much larger.. If the 
 late Figs, which never ripen, are abstracted, the early Figs the 
 next year are more numerous and larger. If of two unequal 
 branches, the stronger is shortened "and stopped in its growth, 
 the other becomes stronger ; and this is one of the most useful 
 facts connected with pruning, because it enables a skilful 
 cultivator to equalise the rate of growth of aU parts of a tree ; 
 and, as has been already stated, this is of the greatest 
 consequence in the operation of budding. In fact, the utility 
 of the practice, so common in the management of fruit-trees 
 when very young, turns entirely upon this. A seedling tree 
 has a hundred buds to support, and consequently the stem 
 grows slowly, and the plant becomes bushy-headed : but, being 
 cut down so as to leave only two or three buds, they spring 
 upwards with great vigour, and, being reduced eventually to 
 one, as happens practically, that one receives all the sap, which 
 would otherwise be diverted into a hundred buds, and thrives 
 accordingly, the bushy head being no longer found, but a clean 
 straight stem instead. In the Oak and the Spanish Chestnut 
 this is particularly conspicuous. 
 
 Nothing is more strictly to be guarded against than the 
 disposition to bleed, which occurs in some plants when pruned, 
 and to such an extent as to threaten them with death. In the 
 Vine, in milky plants, and in most climbers or twiners, this is 
 particularly conspicuous ; and it is not unfrequently observed 
 in fruit-trees with gummy or mucilaginous secretions, such as 
 the Plum, the Peach, and other stone fruits. This property 
 usually arises from the large size of the vessels through which 
 sap is propelled at the periods of early growth, which vessels 
 aie unable, when cut through, to coUapse sufficiently to close 
 their own apertures, when they necessarily pour forth their 
 
364 IBLEEDING MUST BE PREVENTED. 
 
 fluid contents as long as the roots continue to absorb them 
 from the soil. If this is allowed to continue, the system 
 ■becomes so exhausted as to be unable to recover from the shock, 
 and the plant will either become very unhealthy, or will die. 
 The only mode of avoiding it is to take care never to wound 
 •such trees at the time when their sap first begins to flow; 
 after a time, the demand upon the system by the leaves 
 becomes so great that there is no surplus, and therefore 
 bleeding does not take place when a wound is inflicted. 
 
 The Vine often bleeds excessively wten primed in an improper 
 season, or when accidentally wounded; and, I believe, no mode of 
 stopping the flow of the sap is at present known to gardeners. I there- 
 fore mention the following, which I discovered many years ago, and 
 have always practised with success : — If to four parts of scraped cheese 
 be added one part of calcined oyster shells, or other pure calcareous 
 earth, and this composition be pressed strongly into the pores of the 
 wood, the sap will instantly cease to flow; so that the largest branch 
 may, of course, be taken off at any season with safety." {Knight, in 
 Hort. Trans., i. 102.) Mr. Lowe proposes collodion as a remedy for 
 bleeding, which he found to be readily prevented by smearing wounds, 
 immediately, with the substance. To this operation, the substance 
 seems admirably adapted, by reason of its adhesiveness, its impenetra- 
 bility, and its excessive toughness. Whether it will stop the bleeding 
 of Vines, "Walnuts, and similar trees requires to be ascertained. 
 
 All these things show how necessary it is to perform the 
 operations of pruning with care and discretion. But, in 
 addition to the general facts already mentioned, there are 
 others of a more special kind that require attention. The first 
 thing to be thought of is the peculiar nature of the plant under 
 operation, and the manner in which its special habits may 
 render a special mode of pruning necessary. For example, the 
 fruit of the Fig and Walnut is borne by the wood of the same 
 season; that of the Vine and Filbert by that of the second 
 season; and Pears, Apples, &c., by wood of some years' 
 growth ; it is clear that plants of these three kinds will each 
 Require a distinct plan of pruning for fruit. 
 
 The pruner has frequently no other object in view than that 
 of thinning the branches so as to allow the free access of light 
 and air to the fruit ; and if this purpose is wisely followed, by 
 
SEASON FOR PEUNINa 365 
 
 merely removing superfluous foliage, the end attained is highly 
 useful : it is clear, however, that in order to arrive at this endi 
 without committing injury to the tree which is operated on, it 
 is indispensable that its exact mode of bearing fruit should be 
 in the first instance clearly ascertained. 
 
 The period of ripeniaig fruit is sometimes changed by skilful 
 pruning, as in the case of the Easpberry, which may be made 
 to bear a second crop of fruit in the autumn, after the first crop 
 has been gathered. , In order to effect this, the strongest canes, 
 which ia the ordinary course of things would bear a quantity 
 of fruiting twigs, are cut down to within two or three eyes of 
 the base ; the laterals thus produced, being impelled into rapid 
 growth by an exuberance of sap, are unable to' form their fruit* 
 buds so early as those twigs in which excessive growth is not 
 thus produced, and consequently, while the latter fruit at one 
 season, the others cannot reach a bearing state tUl some weeks 
 later. Autumnal crops of summer Eoses, and of Strawberries, 
 have been sometimes procured by the destruction of the usual 
 crop at a very early period of the season ; the sap iutended tcf 
 nourish the flower-buds destroyed is, after their removal, 
 expended in forming new flower-buds, which make theii» 
 appearance at a later part of the year. 
 
 The season for pruniag is usually midwinter, or at mid* 
 summer ; the latter for the purpose of removing new superfluous 
 branches, the former for thinning and arranging the several 
 parts of a tree. It is, however, the practice, occasionally, t6 
 perform what is called the winter pruning early in the autumn' 
 as in the case of the Gooseberry, and of the Vine when weak ' 
 and the efiect is found to be, that the shoots of such plants, in 
 the succeeding season, are stronger than they would have beeij 
 had the pruning been performed at a much later season. This 
 is necessarily so, as a little reflection will show. During the 
 season of rest (winter) a plant continues to absorb food solely 
 from the earth by its roots j and, if its branches are 
 unpruned, the sap thus and then introduced into, the system 
 will be distributed equally all through it; let us say from b to 
 c d&ni e in the accompanying diagram. If late pruning in 
 had recourse to, and the branches from a, to cd and e *r§ 
 
EFFECT OF PEUNIN(J. 
 
 \ 
 
 Fig. liXVII. 
 
 removed, of course a large proportion of the sap that has heeir 
 accumulating during the wiater will be thrown away, and b to 
 c will retain no more of it than the exact pro- 
 portion which that part bears to the part 
 abstracted. When, however, early or autumnal 
 pruniag is employed, a to c d and e are 
 removed before the sap has accumulated ia 
 them, and then all which the roots are capable 
 of collecting during the period of repose 
 will be deposited in the space from 6 to a ; 
 consequently branches from that part wiU 
 necessarily push with excessive vigour. As, 
 however, pruning is by no means intended 
 at all times to increase the vigour of a 
 plant, late or spring pruning, if not deferred 
 tni the sap is in rapid motion, may be more 
 judicious. 
 
 With regard to pruning plants when transplanted, there can 
 be no doubt that it is more frequently injurious than beneficial. 
 It is supposed, or seems to be, that when the branches of a 
 tfljansplanted tree are headed back, the remaining buds will 
 break with more force than if the pruning had not been 
 performed; but it is to be remembered that a transplanted 
 tree is not in the state supposed in the case put above, 
 Mg. LXVII. Its roots are not fully in action, . and from the 
 mjuries sustained in removing, they are capable of exercising 
 but little influence on the branches. The great point to attain, 
 in the first instance, is the renovation of the roots, and that 
 wiU happen only in proportion to the healthy action of the 
 leaves and buds: if, therefore, the branches of a plant are 
 removed by the pruning-knife, a great obstacle is opposed to 
 this renovation ; but, if they remain, new roots wUl be formed 
 in proportion to the healthy action of the leaves. The danger 
 to be feared is, that the perspiration of the leaves may be so 
 great as to exhaust the system of its fluid contents faster than 
 the roots can restore them, and in careless transplanting this 
 may doubtless happen : in such cases it is certainly requisite 
 that some part of the branches should be pruned away ; but no 
 
EOOT-PEUNING. 867 
 
 more should be taken off than the exigency of the case olmously 
 requires ; and, if the operation of transplantmg has been well 
 performed, there will be no necessity whatever. In the case of 
 the transplantation of large trees, it is alleged that branches 
 must be removed, in order to reduce the head, so that it may 
 not be acted upon by the wind ; but in general it is easy to 
 prevent this action by artificial means. 
 
 • In the nurseries it is a universal practice to prune the roots 
 of transplanted trees ; in gardens this is as seldom performed. 
 Which is right ? If a woundeior bruised root is allowed to 
 remain upon a transplanted tree, it is apt to decay, and this 
 disease may spread to neighbouring parts, which would other- 
 wise be healthy; to remove the wounded parts of roots is 
 therefore desirable. But the case is different with healthy 
 roots. We must remember that every healthy and unmutilated 
 root which is removed is a loss of nutriment to the plant, and 
 that too at a time when it is least able to spare it ; and there 
 caimot be any advantage iu the removal. The nursery practice 
 is probably intended to render the operation of transplanting 
 large numbers of plants less troublesome ; and, as it is chiefly 
 applied to seedlings and young plants with a superabundancie 
 of roots, the loss in their case is not so much felt. If 
 performed at all, it should take place in the autumn, for at that 
 time the roots, like the other parts of a plant, are comparatively 
 empty of fluid ; but, if deferred till the spring, then the roots 
 are all distended with fluid, which has been collecting in them 
 during winter, and every part taken away carries with it a 
 portion of that nurture which the plant had been laying up as 
 the store upon which to commence its renewed growth. 
 
 It must now be obvious that, althoagh root-pruning may be 
 prejudicial in transplanting trees, it may be of the greatest 
 service to such established trees as are too prone to produce 
 branches and leaves, instead of flowers and fruit. In these 
 cases the excessive vigour is at once stopped by removal of 
 some of the stronger roots, and consequently of a part of the 
 superfluous food to which their " rankness " is owing. The 
 operati6n has been successfully performed on the wall-trees at 
 Oulton, by Mr. Errington, one of our best English gardeners, 
 
S68 CHINESE PIGMY TREES. 
 
 and by many others, and has never proved an objectionable 
 practice under judicious management. Its effect is, 'pro tanto, 
 to cut off the supply of food, and thus to arrest the rapid 
 growth of the branches ; and the connexion between this and 
 the production of fruit has akeady been explained. It is 
 in some measure by pushing the root-pruning to excess that 
 the Chinese obtain the curious dwarf trees which excite sot 
 much curiosity in Europe. Mr. Livingston's account of their 
 practice is so instructive, and contains so much that an 
 intelligent gardener may turn to account, that it is worth 
 repeating here. 
 
 " When the dwarfing process is intended, the branch which 
 had pushed radicles into the surrounding composition in suffi' 
 cient abundance, and for a sufficient length of time, is separated 
 from the tree, and planted in a shallow earthenware flower-pot, 
 of an oblong square shape ; it is sometinies made to rest upon 
 a flat stone. The pot is then filled with small pieces of 
 alluvial clay, which, in the neighbourhood of Canton, is broken 
 into bits, of about the size of common beans, hieing just 
 sufficient to supply the scanty nourishment which the par- 
 ticular nature of the tree and the process require. In addition, 
 to a careful regulation of the quantity and quality of the earth, 
 the quantity of water, and the management of the plants with 
 respect to sun and shade, recourse is had to a great variety of 
 mechanical contrivances, to produce the desired shape. The 
 containing flower-pot is so narrow, that the roots pushing out 
 towards the sides are pretty effectually cramped. No radicle 
 can descend ; consequently it is only those which run towards 
 the sides or upwards that can serve to convey nourishment 
 properly, and it is easy to regulate those by cutting, burning, 
 &c., so as to cramp the growth at pleasure. Every succeeding 
 formation of leaves becomes more and more stunted, the buds 
 and radicles become diminished in the same proportion, tUl at 
 length that balance between the roots and leaves is obtained 
 which suits the character of the dwarf required. In some trees 
 this is accomplished in two or three years, but in others it 
 requires at least twenty years." {Hort, Trans., iv. 229.) 
 
 •'The practice of root-pnining waa long ago recognised by Switzer, 
 
ROOT PEUNING AN OLD PEACTICE. 369 
 
 who in his Practical Fruit-Oardener has these words : — " Barrenness 
 proceeds from too great an affluence of sap through those large roots, 
 and therefore those roots ought to be taken off; yet because I have 
 found by experience that there is some danger in the practising this 
 upon old trees, I thought it might not be an unuseful tryal to begin 
 first on young ones, even by taking them clear up once in two or three 
 years, and cutting away all the great roots. This would effectually do 
 what I desired, and it has answered accordingly." The late Mr. Beattie, 
 gardener at Scone Palace, Perthshire, in 1811, out the roots of Peach and 
 Apricot-trees, on a south wall, four hundred feet long, to within two and 
 three feet of the stems ; the result was satisfactory, — over-luxuriance 
 was checked, and fruitfnlness produced. Beattie acted on the principle 
 of depriving the tree of the means of obtaining such a great quantity of 
 sap, thereby preventing it from growing so freely, and of course 
 inclining it to become fruitful. Niool suggests the same expedient, in 
 his Forcing and Fruit- Gardener, fourth edition, p. 240. Indeed no 
 gardener with ordinary powers of observation can have failed to 
 observe the effect produced upon fruit-trees by transplantation, which 
 is a rude kind of root-pruning. It needs but a small amount of 
 physiological knowledge to be aware that if the roots of a plant are 
 large and numerous, the head must be so too, for this plain reason, that 
 the amount of fluid food received hy a plant is in proportion to the size 
 and extent of its roots, and that food must be expended in the formation 
 of branches. There can be no interference with such a law as this. 
 Suppose one tree absorbs twenty pounds of fluid food (or sap), and the 
 other forty pounds, by the roots, aU other circumstances being 
 equal, it is evident that the one will have twice as much organizable 
 matter as the other ; and, as such matter cannot be returned back into 
 the soU, but is irresistibly driven upwards by the force of vegetation, it 
 can only be expended in the organization of leaves and branches ; and 
 consequently the leaves and branches will be twice as large or twice as 
 numerous in the one case as in the other. Of course the reverse of this 
 is equally true. 
 
 It is, however, to Mr. Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth, that we are indebted 
 for pointing out the whole advantage and application of root-pruning, 
 of which he has given a very full account in a paper published in the 
 Proceedings of the Horticultural Society, page 136, and in his own 
 Miniature Fruit Garden, to which the reader is referred. 
 
 We have still to consider that peculiar kind of pruning which 
 is technically called ringmg (Fig. LXVIII.). This consists in 
 removing from a branch one or more rings of bark, by which 
 the return of sap from the extremities is obstructed, and it is 
 compelled to accumulate above the ring. Mr. Knight explains 
 
370 
 
 RINGING. 
 
 iri 
 
 the physiological nature of the operation so well that I cannot 
 do better than quote his words. 
 
 " The true sap of trees is wholly generated ia their leaves, 
 from which it descends through their bark to the extremities 
 
 of their roots, depositiug in its 
 course the matter which is suc- 
 cessively added to the tree, whilst 
 whatever portion of such sap is 
 not thus expended sinks into the 
 alburnum, and joins the ascend- 
 ing current, to which it commu- 
 nicates powers not possessed by 
 the recently absorbed fluid. When 
 the course of the descending cur- 
 rent is intercepted, that naturally 
 stagnates and accumulates above 
 the decorticated space ; whence it 
 is repulsed and carried upwards, 
 to be expended in an increased 
 production of blossoms and of 
 fruit: and consistenily with these 
 conclusions I have found that 
 part of the alburnum which is 
 situated above the decorticated 
 space to exceed in specific gravity 
 very considerably that which lies 
 below it. The repulsion of the 
 descending fluid, therefore, ac- 
 counts, I conceive, satisfactorily 
 Kg. Lxviii. fo^ ^^ increased production of 
 
 blossoms, and more rapid growth 
 of the fruit upon the decorticated branch ; but there are 
 causes which operate in promoting its more early maturity. 
 The part of the branch which is below the decorticated space 
 is ill supplied with nutriment, and ceases almost to grow ; it in 
 eonsequence operates less actively in impelUng the ascending 
 current of sap, which must also be impeded in its progress 
 thi'ough the decorticated space. The parts which are above it 
 
RINGING. »71 
 
 must, therefore, be less abundantly supplied with moisture, and 
 drought in such cases always operates very powerfully in 
 accelerating maturity. When the branch is small, or the space 
 from which the bark has been taken off is considerable, it 
 almost always operates ia excess; a morbid state of early 
 maturity is induced and the fruit is worthless. 
 
 "If this -view of the effects of partial decortication, or 
 ringing, be a just one, it follows that much of the success of the 
 operation must be dependent, upon the selection of proper 
 seasons, and upon the mode of performing it being well adapted 
 to the object of the operator. If that be the production of 
 blossoms, or the means of making the blossoms set more 
 freely, the ring of bark should be taken off early in the 
 summer preceding the period at which blossoms are required ; 
 but if the enlargement and more early maturity of the fruit be 
 the objects, the operation should be delayed tiU the bark will 
 readily part from the alburnum in the spring. The breadth 
 of the decorticated space must be adapted to the size of the 
 branch; but I have iiever witnessed any except injurious 
 effects, whenever the experiment has been made upon very 
 small or very young branches, for such become debilitated and 
 sickly, long before the fruit can acquire a proper state of 
 maturity." 
 
 It appears from, the following case, among others, that permanent 
 ringing is not always speedily injurious. It is recorded in the Gardeners^ 
 Chronicle (1842, p. 70*7) that a Mr. Dawson of Tottenham had a Jargo- 
 nelle Pear-tree, which he planted against the gable end of a coach- 
 house, and consequently trained higher than it could be on an ordinary 
 garden-wall. One of the principal limbs, at a little more than a foot 
 from its junction with the main stem, was cankered, three inches of 
 its length on one side, and for more than six inches on the other. The 
 part affected was about an inch and a half thick one way, by three- 
 fourths of an inch the other. Above and below the wound, the circum- 
 ference was about six inches. There was not the least bark or young wood 
 connecting the upper and lower parts of the branch, the diseased part 
 being black and the wood extremely hard. Nevertheless this branch 
 produced every year an abundant crop, invariably about a fortnight 
 earlier than the rest of the tree. The fruit was not equal to that grown 
 on the other branches, but it ripened earlier. Excepting fruit-spurs, 
 this branch had not made an inch of wood during the last four years, 
 
 n B 2 
 
372 RINGING AFFECTS THE FRUIT. 
 
 although the rest of the tree was very vigorous. There was neither 
 bark, liber, alburnum, nor any other living substance externally on the 
 diseased part. It was under observation for four years ; and there was 
 reason to believe that the wound was much older. 
 
 The effects of ringing, in altering tlie appearance of the 
 fruit, is very striking. In the Horticultural Transactions, 
 iii. 367, the following cases are reported: — In a French Crab, 
 the fruit, by ringing, was increased to more than double the 
 size, and the colour of it was much brightened. In a MinshuU 
 Crab the size was not increased, but the appearance of the apple 
 was so improved as to make it truly beautiful; its colours, 
 both red and yellow, were very bright. In the Court-pendu 
 Apple the improvement was still more conspicuous, the colours 
 being changed from green and dull red to brilliant yellow and 
 scarlet. Many others of a similar kind are to be found 
 recorded in books on horticulture. It is, however, by no 
 means alone to the maturation or production of fruit that 
 this operation is applicable ; it will, of course, induce also the 
 production of flowers, and it has occasionally been used for 
 that purpose, as in the Camellia. It is best performed in 
 the early spring, when the bark first separates freely from the 
 wood. 
 
 This operation has, however, the disadvantage of wounding 
 a branch severely : and, if performed extensively upon a tree, 
 it is apt, if not to kill it, at least to render it incurably un- 
 healthy ; for if the rings are not sufficiently wide to cut off all 
 communication between the upper and lower lips of the wound 
 they produce little effect, and if they are, they are difi&cult to 
 heal. For these reasons, the operation is little employed, 
 other methods being used instead. By some persons ligatures 
 are employed, and they would be preferable if they answered 
 the purpose of obstructing the sap to the same extent as the 
 abstraction of a ring of bark. In Malta, one of the objects 
 of ringing, that of advancing the maturation of the fruit, is 
 practised upon the Zinzibey, or Jujube-tree, by merely fixing 
 in the fork of a branch a very heavy stone, made fast with 
 bandages; its weight forces the branches a little into a hori- 
 zontal direction, and thus, independently of the pressure it 
 
THE PRACTICE OF PBITNING. 
 
 373 
 
 exercises upon the parts it touches, obstructs the free circu' 
 lation of the sap. 
 
 The details of the practice of pruning are so extremely long and minute, 
 that the reader is necessarily referred to special works oa the subject, 
 among the hest of which are George Lindley's Guide to the Orchard and 
 Kitchen Garden, D'Albret's Cours th4orique et pratique de la taille des 
 arbres Jruitiera, and Lep&e On the Peach-tree, tr9,nslated in the 8th 
 Tolume of the Journal of the Horticultural Society. All these works will, 
 however, he the more intelligihle if the reader keeps in view the following 
 leading explanations, chiefly taken from notes by the author, Mr. Thompson, 
 and others, published in the Gardeners^ Chronicle for 1847 and 1848. The 
 woodcuts there employed, and now reproduced, are unsurpassed, if not 
 unequalled, for accuracy and the exact information they convey. 
 
 The Manipulation op Peiwing. 
 
 By pruning is not meant hack- a, b n 
 
 ing or mutilating trees merely to 
 reduce their bulk, nor that sort of 
 random cutting out which is often 
 supposed to be expressed by the 
 name. Those operations belong 
 to plashing and slashing, not to 
 pruning. Pruning is the art of 
 removing scientiftcaUy certain 
 branches, orparts of them. Skilful 
 gardeners have but one way of 
 performing this operation. Their 
 method maybe called "the clean 
 out ;" and consists in removing a 
 shoot by means of a sloping 
 wound, forming an angle of about 
 45°, just at the back of a bud, 
 as at c. The reason is, that as 
 soon as the bud pushes, this 
 wound is readily and rapidly co- 
 vered with new wood. In some 
 trees it will, in fact, heal over 
 in a few weeks. An awkward 
 way of performing this, repre- 
 sented at h, is "the cut to the 
 quick." Here the wound is made ^e 
 
 'Z^'ZZ'IZZ is."""-;'.?- ""*• — «°» 
 
 Dua and the interior of the stem ; the consequence 
 
 Kg. LXIX.— Good and Bad Pruning. 
 
S74 THE PRACTICE OF PEUNING. 
 
 of which is that the bud dies, and the new shoot not only does not come 
 where it was expected, but is surmounted by a dead joint, which will after- 
 wards have to be removed. In order to avoid the risk of "the cut to the 
 quick," some gardeners make use of "the snag cut" (d,e,f,) in which 
 the wound is made on the same side of the branch as that occupied by the bud, 
 slanting downwards towards it. That plan is objectionable ; for it involves 
 the necessity of leaving behind a dead portion of the branch, to be removed 
 at a later pruning, so that work must be done twice over ; moreover, it is 
 an admission of a want of the skill required to make "the clean cut" 
 skilfully. Lastly, there is "the slivering cut" (a), in which a long 
 ragged unequal shave is taken off the branch, much too low in the begin- 
 ning, and much too high at the end. It is the cut made by garden labourers. 
 It is clumsy, ugly, awkward, and dangerous, for it is apt to injure the 
 branch on which it is made. In all cases the amputation should be made 
 by one firm-drawn cut. The clean out can be performed by a dexterous 
 operator to within a shaving of the right line : and the mastery of this art 
 is no mean acquisition. Expert pruners will grasp a branch in their left 
 hand, and with one sharp quick draw remove a shoot as thick as the thumb. 
 But for this purpose a knife must be keen, and not blunt and notched, 
 as what are miscalled pruning knives frequently are. 
 
 The Apple-teee. 
 
 The Apple-tree, left to its natural growth, forms generally a low stem, 
 branching out into a top, which ultimately becomes hemispherical, towards 
 the outside of which fruit-spurs, leaves, and fruit are most abundant; to 
 support these, the branches interiorly may be considered as a sort of frame- 
 work, for they are often destitute of spurs or foliage. The Apple never bears, 
 except accidentally, on young wood. It is on wood two or more years old, 
 and on the stunted branches, called " spurs," that its fruit appears. 
 
 This fruit being chiefly grown as a standard, it will be siiflficient to 
 mention that form. 
 
 A Standard should have a clean, straight, substantial stem. Every leaf 
 which appears along it while young, should be encouraged. If any strong 
 shoot break out let it be checked ; but all other laterals should be allowed 
 to go on at least till the end of July, when they may be stopped by pinching 
 oflf their points. In the following autumn cut them off closely from the 
 lower portion of the stem, and shorten the rest back to one eye. In the 
 following season these eyes will push fresh shoots ; treat them like their 
 predecessors in summer, and clear an additional portion of the stem below, 
 in autumn, by closely cutting the laterals which may have pushed there- 
 from. By this mode of procedure self-supporting stems can be generally 
 insured. 
 
 The formation of the top must now be considered. The height of clear 
 stem being determined, the upright leader exceeding that height in summer 
 
THE PEACjriCE OF PRUNING. 
 
 375 
 
 by several inches, must be shortened back at the 
 ensuing winter pruning, so that the lowest of 
 three buds immediately below the section shall 
 correspond with the intended height of stem. 
 These three buds will give rise to three shoots, 
 which should be encouraged for the oommenee- 
 ment of the branches of the tree. Each of them, 
 as they proceed in growth, should be made to 
 diverge at an angle of about 45°, or half way 
 between the horizontal and perpendicular direc- 
 tions ; and, at the same time, the shoots should 
 be kept equidistant from each other. At the 
 winter pruning, they should be shortened to 
 within nine inches or a foot of their bases, par- 
 ticularly observing to out above two buds point- 
 ing outwards in the direction which it would be 
 desirable the shoots proceeding from them should 
 take. Six Umbs will be thus originated. Again 
 a little attention in summer will ensure an equal 
 divergence of the shoots from the perpendicular, 
 and equal distances from each other. Mean- 
 while, a gradual removal of the 
 temporary shoots on the stem is 
 presumed to have annually taken 
 place, as above recommended. 
 The scars resulting from the 
 suppression of those on the lower 
 part of the stem will have nearly 
 or quite healed over. 
 
 After the principal branches 
 have been started, it is well to 
 regulate the growth of the top for a few years 
 longer, by checking, about midsummer, any 
 shoots that are over-luxuriant, or that are taking 
 a wrong direction. Afterwards, little pruning 
 win be required. The branches should be kept 
 thin enough to admit sufficient sun and air; 
 and after bearing heavy crops, portions of the 
 extremities should be a little shortened. More- 
 over all that cross each other so as to "whip" 
 in windy weather, and all that are broken or 
 cankered, should be cut out. 
 
 Fig. LXX.— Shoot of the Apple- 
 a, a, a, a, a, a, blossom-buds ; 6, 6, 5, h, h, '"^■ 
 
 wood-buds; c, c, soars or spurs where fruit was attached last season. 
 
376 THE PRACTICE 0FJ>EUN1NG. 
 
 The Peae-tebe. 
 
 This, like the Apple-tree, bears its fruit on wood more than one year old, 
 but chiefly on spurs, and very rarely on two-year branches. The object of 
 the pruner is to secure spurs by stopping branches and arresting luxuriance, 
 at the same time maintaining the plant in perfect health. 
 
 There is no difficulty in obtaining the requisite number of branches, at 
 proper distances, by observing the following directions : — Plant a maiden 
 tree in autumn ; allow it to establish itseK for one year, and then head it 
 back to a good eye, a few buds from its base. Let one shoot grow as strong 
 and upright as possible during the summer, and head it back to within 
 thirteen inches of the ground in autumn, cutting very close to a bud, in 
 order that the shoot springing from it may form little or no bending ; train 
 it upright, whilst three or four shoots, from buds immediately below it, 
 should be more or less inclined to a horizontal direction, according to their 
 strength ; the strongest should be most depressed. These three or four con- 
 stitute the commencement of the first or lower tier. For the next tier, head 
 back the upright leader to within eighteen inches of its base, if the soil is 
 rich ; if not, to fifteen inches ; and from the shoots produced in the following 
 season from buds, just under the cut, train a shoot for a leader, and three or 
 four somewhat horizontally, as before, for a second tier. Precisely in this 
 manner tier after tier must be started, till the tree attain its assigned height. 
 All this can be effected in accordance with the natural disposition of the tree 
 to form an upright stem, and with the tendency of the sap to develope the 
 uppermost buds of a shortened shoot. But it is not to be done without 
 serious difficulties. 
 
 The shoots started for horizontal branches will rarely take that direction ; 
 on the contrary, they will generally diverge at an angle of 45°. This may, 
 and should be overcome by tying down. The disparity of vigour in the 
 upper, as compared with the lower branches, is a more serious affair. If 
 allowed, the former will soon overgrow the latter, and the pyramid will 
 ultimately become inverted. It is, therefore, evident that, in order to have 
 well- conditioned pyramid Pear-trees, means must be adopted to maintain 
 ^-igour in the lower tiers of brandies, and repress over-luxuriance in 
 the upper. 
 
 With the view of invigorating the lower, permit the shoots to grow 
 without restraint till September, and then bend them towards a horizontal 
 position. They will thus be much stronger than if they had been made to 
 foUow a horizontal direction from the beginning. Shorten them a little at 
 the winter pruning, in order to obtsiin a stronger leading shoot than would 
 otherwise be produced. Cut to a side bud ; one on the upper side would 
 produce a stronger shoot, but the latter could not be brought down without 
 occasioning an unsightiy bend. Besides a leader, some other shoots wiU 
 probably be produced ; let them grow, for their foliage will assist in forming 
 channels, or layers of wood containing channels, for the transmission of sap 
 
THE PBACTICE OF PBUNING. 377 
 
 along these branches in the following season. The growing shoot should 
 haye its point elevated tiU September, as before. No reduction of foliage 
 connected with the lower branches should be made by summer pruning. 
 Their leading shoots must not be overshaded. 
 
 In order to prevent excessive luxuriance in the upper branches, recourse 
 must be had to summer pruning as the most efficient means. The shoots 
 should be trained horizontally from their origin, their points depressed 
 instead of elevated. In short, they must be subjected to a treatment 
 generally the reverse of that recommended for the lower branches. 
 
 Against walls, the horizontal mode of training answers well for the Pear. 
 When the young tree is planted, head down the shoot to a foot, or four 
 courses of bricks, above the level of the ground. Train a shoot upright, 
 and one right, another left, at an angle of 45° ; if these prove unequal in 
 point of vigour, depress the strong and elevate the weak. Lower them 
 both about the middle of September to the horizontal line represented by the 
 joint between the fourth and fifth course of bricks. Their origin on the 
 stem was somewhat below this line, and therefore they must ascend a little 
 to reach it. This, as regards the lower branches, is an advantage, for the 
 sap flows more freely into limbs thus diverging, than it does when con- 
 strained to proceed from the stem directly at right angles. The lower 
 branches being apt to become the weakest, may be afforded this advantage, 
 whilst towards the top of the waU the branches may be made to proceed 
 horizontally immediately from the stem. 
 
 The tree having now a central upright shoot, and two horizontal side 
 shoots, shorten the latter at the winter pruning according to their strength; 
 if weak, nearly to their bases ; the upright one to the fourth course of 
 bricks above that to which the first shoot was cut. Train the shoot from 
 the uppermost bud in a perpendicular direction, and one on each side as 
 before. Proceed thus to obtain an upright and two horizontal branches 
 every year till the tree reach the top of the wall. When the horizontal 
 branches are sufficiently strong, they may be trained along the courses of 
 bricks without shortening. 
 
 If properly managed in summer, fruit-spurs will begin to form along these 
 branches. The accompanying cut (Fig. LXXI.) represents a spur in which 
 a is progressing to form a blossom-bud, whilst b, b, are already blossom-buds, 
 known by their plumpness ; and from this period of the season such buds 
 exhibit signs of active vegetation, but in a the surrounding scales remain 
 undisturbed tiU late in spring. The scar at c is where a portion of spur 
 that has borne fruit has been cut back, and at the winter pruning after b b 
 have produced fruit, they must likewise be cut back to others likely to fom 
 at their bases, as they did at the base of c. 
 
 The pruning of the Pear-tree trained against an espalier differs in nothing 
 from that which it requires when trained against a wall, except that the 
 spurs of espaUer trees need not be so much shortened. 
 In the Garden of Plants at Paris there exist certain pyramidal Pear-trees 
 
378 
 
 THE PEACTICE OP PEUNINGf. 
 
 whicli may "be regarded as models of that form of the tree for which the 
 French are celebrated. Mr. Thompson describes them as being from 10 to 
 15 feet high, or more, having a regularly tapering outline from the base to 
 the top, where they terminate in a single shoot. The young plant is stopped 
 according to its strength, and so as to furnish side branches. These are not 
 in stages at uniform distances along the stem ; on the contrary, almost every 
 shoot which breaks out from the stem is allowed to grow ; but the laterals 
 produced on these are pinched in summer, and even such of the leading 
 
 shoots as appear likely to he- 
 come too strong for the others 
 are stopped. M. Cappe, who 
 , manages them, pinches all the 
 young shoots, not required to 
 form hranehes, when in a very 
 young state ; when they have 
 scarcely pushed a finger's 
 length, they are shortened to 
 about one inch, or from that 
 to one and a half inch. The 
 portion left forms the basis of 
 one or more fruit-buds, bear- 
 ing fruit in the following 
 season, or a spur on which 
 blossom-buds are formed for 
 bearing in the second season. 
 The plan succeeds admirably 
 in the oUmate of Paris. The 
 fruit is abundant, large, and 
 fine. The trees are healthy 
 and vigorous, and well fur- 
 nished with blossom-buds. 
 
 Supposing the branches of 
 a tree are properly thinned and 
 regulated at the winter prun- 
 ing, and that so far as they 
 extend, their number is quite 
 sufficient for the space they occupy ; presuming, also, that the tree is in 
 good health, a number of laterals are sure to spring. They are, of course, 
 superfluous ; and every one of them should be pinched as already mentioned. 
 If the last year's shoot has been shortened at the winter pruning, then, 
 besides the terminal one on the part left, one, two, or three next to it are 
 almost sure to push ; and these M. Cappe commences to check by pinching 
 when about three inches in length ; but those nearer the base of the shoot 
 he allows to grow till they attain the length of six or eight inches before he 
 shortens them. The terminal bud is of course allowed to go on for the 
 
 Figr. LXXI. — Spur of the Pear-tree. 
 
THE PBACTICE OF PRUNING. 
 
 379 
 
 prolongation of the branch. It frequently happens in France, and the 
 
 liability will be still more in the oUmate of England, that after a shoot is 
 
 pinched back, the newly-formed buds on the part left 
 
 will push a secondary shoot in the same season. 
 
 When this is the case with those under the care of _ 
 
 M. Cappe, he also pinches these secondary shoots to ' 
 
 an inch or an inch and a half from where they origi- / / /^ 
 
 nate. They rarely push again ; but if they do, their 
 
 growths are again reduced as before. " 1 
 
 The diJiircE-TEEB. 
 
 The accompanying out shows that in the preceding 
 year a blossom-bud, similar to those maiked a, a, and 
 sessile like them, was situated at 1. In the course of 
 last season that bud pushed a sort of shoot, furnished 
 with leaves, and bearing at its extremity a single 
 blossom, producing one fruit, which at its maturity 
 had either been pulled or had dropped off, leaving a 
 scar at e. The portion be- 
 tween 1 and c may be termed 
 a branch, as it was furnished 
 with leaves, and buds appear 
 that were formed in the axils 
 of those leaves ; but still it is 
 an imperfect branch, inas- 
 much as it has no temiinal 
 bud for its prolongation, the 
 place of such bud having been 
 occupied by the fruit. As 
 this portion is only furnished 
 with weak buds, it is not 
 necessary to be retained, and should be cut off at 1 . 
 
 If the tree is planted in rich, rather moist soU, 
 it wiU send up a long but flexible shoot; and if 
 from this all laterals are pruned closely off, with 
 the view of making a clean stem, the latter will 
 be rendered much Weaker than it would be if left 
 to Nature. The plant, therefore, must be cut 
 back to within eighteen inches' of the ground, 
 more or less according to its strength. Generally 
 three buds next the section will push in the fol- 
 lowing season ; select the shoot best adapted for 
 continuing the stem, and train it as upright as 
 possible. Shorten this at the winter pruning, and spur in the laterals, 
 
 Pig. LXXII.-Slioot of the 
 Quinc&-tree. 
 
 a, a, Woasom-buds ; h, b, wood- 
 puds; c, the place where fruit 
 was attached last season. 
 
 In 
 
380 
 
 THE PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 
 
 every successive year, a -well-managed young tree of any kind ought to have 
 an increased quantity of foliage ; certainly not by any avoidable means 
 should it be reduced to a condition under which it could only produce a 
 
 decreased quantity. A por- 
 tion should be removed at 
 every winter pruning, but 
 the quantity should be more 
 than compensated by that 
 of the young shoots pro- 
 duced above in the preced- 
 ing aiunmer. By attend- 
 ing to this, and annually 
 shortening the leading 
 shoot, a stout stem, requir- 
 ing no stake for support, 
 will be the result. When 
 the stem has attained the 
 desired height, the forma- 
 tion of the head should be 
 commenced. Three shoots, 
 cut back at least to half 
 their length, wiU afford 
 two shoots each in the fol- 
 lowing season ; and thus 
 six principal branches wiU 
 be originated. Afterwards 
 very little pruning will be 
 required. It will ohieiiy 
 consist in early checking 
 over -luxuriant upstarts, 
 and thinning out cross- 
 branches. 
 
 Fig. LXXIII.— Branch of the 
 Mulberry-tree. 
 
 a, a, a, a, wood-buds ; &, &, 
 blosaom-buds ; c, a bud likely 
 to elongate into a short shoot 
 orsortof spur, beariugusually 
 two fruit; d, ti, buds apt to 
 remain dormant, but may bo 
 stimulated to form a shoot, 
 if necessary, by cutting 
 the parts of the branches on 
 which they are situated immediately above them. 
 
 strong winds. As a standard, it requires 
 removal of cross or ill-placed branches; 
 autumn. 
 
 The MtrLBEKRT-IEEE. 
 
 The tree wiU thrive in 
 any rich deep soil, not too 
 stiff. It should be planted 
 in a situation open to the 
 sun, yet sheltered from 
 but little pruning, merely the 
 and this should be done in 
 
THE PEACTICE OF PRUNING. 
 
 381 
 
 The Fig-teee. 
 
 The accompanying figure represents a shoot of fhe 
 last summer's growth; on which a, a, a, a, a, are fniit- 
 huds ; I, b, wood-huds ; c, c, c, c, e, c, scars where the leaf- 
 stalks had detached themselves at the fall of the leaf. 
 It thus appears that the fmit-buds of the Fig-tree are 
 formed on the young shoots, in the axils of the leaves. 
 Sometimes it happens that leaves are not accompanied 
 with fruit-buds ; but they are frequently formed in the 
 axU of every leaf, from the base of the shoot to its apex. 
 In a congenial climate, fruit-buds thus progressively 
 formed, result in a succession of ripe fruit. But in oui 
 climate, although young Figs are produced in great 
 abundance, they rarely acquire maturity in the same 
 season in which they originate, unless assisted by 
 artificial heat. Shoots may be seen plentifully fur- 
 nished with green Fig's, some of the latter attaining a 
 considerable size before autumn, but seldom ripening 
 even at that period ; and then the temperature begins 
 to decline below that which is necessary for carrying 
 on the active vegetation of the plant ; the leaves drop ; 
 the fruits still hold on ; but they wither even if pro- 
 tected firom frost. Such being the case, those fruit- 
 buds which may be expected to yield mature fruit in 
 the open air, are not to be looked for on the lower part 
 of the shoots where the fruit-buds have become de- 
 veloped. It is towards the extremity of the shoots, 
 where fruit-buds are yet in embryo, compact and sessile, 
 like those represented by a, a, a, a, a, that we have to 
 look for a crop. Such buds retain their vitality till 
 the following spring, if they are not killed by frost, or 
 cut oflf by a badly-directed pruning-knife. The mode 
 of bearing wHL thus be readily understood, and the 
 necessity of protecting the extremities of the shoots of 
 Figs from frost. 
 
 ""Whenever," says Mr. Knight, "a branch of this 
 tree appears to be extending with too much luxuriance, 
 its point, at the tenth or twelfth leaf, is pressed 
 between the finger and thumb, without letting the 
 nails come in contact with the bark, till the soft succu- 
 lent substance is felt to yield to the pressure. Such 
 branch, in consequence, ceases subsequently to elon- 
 gate ; and the sap is repulsed, to be expended where it 
 is more wanted. A fruit ripens at the base of each leaf. 
 
 ^\l 
 
 Pig. LXXIV.— Shoot of 
 a Fig-tree. 
 
382 
 
 THE PRACTICE OF PEUNINGf". 
 
 and during the period in wliioh the fruit is ripening, one or more of the 
 lateral buds shoots, and is subsequently subjected to the same treatment, 
 with the same result. When I have suffered such shoots to extend freely 
 to their natural length, I have 
 found that a small part of them 
 only became productive, either in 
 the same or the ensuing season, 
 though I have seen that their 
 buds obviously contained blossoms. I made 
 several experiments to obtain fruit in the 
 following spring from other parts of such 
 branches, which were not successful : but 
 I ultimately found that bending these 
 branches, as far as could be done without 
 danger of breaking them, rendered them 
 extremely fruitful; and, in the present 
 spring, thirteen Figs ripened perfectly 
 upon a branch of this kind within the space 
 of ten inches. In training, the ends of all 
 the shoots have been made, as far as prac- 
 ticable, to point downwards." — Sort. 
 Trans., iv. 201. 
 
 The Pilbeet-ieee. 
 
 The Filbert-tree is one of those which 
 does not contain all the parts necessary for 
 the production of fruit in the same bud. 
 Some buds develope only the male parts, 
 and others only the female ; the former are 
 comprised in those pendant yellow catkins, 
 easily recognised in the end of winter and 
 early spring. The female portions are less 
 conspicuous, all that appears of them are 
 some slender, deep crimson stigmas, pro- 
 truding beyond the apex of the buds, as 
 represented at 6, 6. On these, fertilising 
 particles from the catkins either fall natu - 
 rally, or are otherwise brought in contact 
 with them whilst being blown about by 
 the winds ; and fruitftjlness is the result. 
 If, on the contrary, there are no catkins, or if they are prematurely cut away 
 in pruning, there can be no fruit. Pruning should not be commenced tiU 
 after the appearance of the crimson stigmas at the apex of such buds as 1 1, 
 
 Fig. LXXV.— Branch of the FUbert. 
 a, a, a, wood-buds ; h, b, blossom-buds. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 383 
 
 and after the full expansion of the catkins. When the latter have fulfilled 
 their purpose, they faE off. After fertilisation, the buds b, h, lengthen into a 
 twig much the same as other buds ; but towards midsummer the formation 
 of the cluster can be seen. The cluster is always terminal. 
 
 The ooimty of Xent has been long celebrated for the production of large 
 crops of Filberts. The method pursued by the Maidstone cultivators is 
 minutely detailed by the Rev. William Williamson in the fourth volume 
 of the first series of the Transactions of the Sorticultural Society. 
 
 " Plant the bushes unpruned, and after being suffered to grow without 
 restraint for three or four years, cut them down within a. few inches of 
 the ground. From the remaining part, if the trees are well rooted in the 
 soil, five or six strong shoots wUl be produced. In the second year after 
 cutting down, these shoots are shortened ; generally one-third is taken 
 off. If very weak, I would advise that the trees be quite cut down a second 
 time, as in the previous spring ; but it would be much better not to cut them 
 down till the trees give evident tokens of their being able to produce shoots 
 of sufficient strength. When they are thus shortened, that they may appear 
 regular, let a small hoop be placed within the branches, to which the shoots 
 are to be fastened at equal distances. By this practice two considerable 
 advantages will be gained — the trees wiU grow more regular, and the middle 
 will be kept hollow, so as to admit the influence of the sun and air. In the 
 third year a shoot wUl spring from each bud; these must be suffered to 
 grow till the following autumn, or fourth year, when they are to be cut off 
 nearly close to the original stem, and the leading shoot of the last year 
 shortened two-thirds. In the fifth year several small shoots wiU arise from 
 the bases of the side branches which were cut off the preceding year ; these 
 are produced from small buds, and would not have been emitted had not the 
 branch on which they are situated been shortened, the whole nourishment 
 being carried to the upper part of the branch. It is from these shoots that 
 fruit is to be expected. These productive shoots wiU in a few years become 
 very numerous, and many of them must be taken off, particularly the 
 strongest, in order to encourage the production of the smaller ones ; for those 
 of the former year become so exhausted that they generally decay ; but 
 whether decayed or not they are always cut out by the pruner, and a fresh 
 supply must therefore be provided to produce the fruit in the succeeding 
 year. The leading shoot is every year to be shortened two-thirds, or more 
 should the tree be weak, and the whole height of the branches must not 
 exceed six feet. The method of pruning above detailed might, in a few- 
 words, be oaUed a method of spurring, by which bearing shoots are pro- 
 duced, which otherwise would have had no existence. Old trees are easily 
 induced to bear in this manner, by selecting a sufficient number of the main 
 branches, and then cutting the side-shoots off nearly close, excepting any 
 should he so situated as not to interfere with the others, and there should 
 be no main branch directed to that particular part. It wiU, however, be 
 two or three years before the fuU effect will be produced." 
 
38^ THE PRACTICE OP PRUNING. 
 
 The management of the laterals must be varied according to the nature of 
 the soil, and the greater or less humidity of the climate. If the soil is rich 
 and moist, strong shoots, too strong for any but wood-buds being formed 
 on them, will be produced. Instead of the fruitful laterals produced on the 
 Kentish soil, rod-like walking canes wiU be produced when the plants are 
 grown in many other parts of the kingdom. They must be out back, other- 
 wise they would form strong cross branches; but then we must consider 
 that each of these rods, with their ample foliage, has contributed to the for- 
 mation of roots during the summer ; that these roots wUl be adequate to 
 supply nourishment in the following season to aU the shoots made in the 
 present season ; but when the shoots are necessarily reduced, say more than 
 one half, either by shortening or cutting out entirely, then the remaining 
 portion has more than double the quantity of roots necessary for its nourish- 
 ment ; and it wUl, in consequence, be stimulated to grow with excessive 
 luxuriance. 
 
 The Peace and NECTAnnsrE-TEEB. 
 
 The mode of bearing is as follows :— A, represents the branch of a Peach- 
 tree. The figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, denote the respective ages of the portions of 
 branch opposite. The asterisks at the sides of the shoots, indicate the place 
 to which these may be shortened at the wmter pruning. B, is a portion of 
 a bearing shoot furnished with both wood and blossom-buds ; a, a, a, «;, are 
 blossom-buds; J, J, h, b, wood-buds. 
 
 Peach and Nectarine-trees bear their fruit exclusively on wood of the 
 preceding summer's growth. For example, if one pull a Peach in the summer 
 of 1847, it must be from wood formed in the summer of 1846, and which 
 had no existence, as a shoot, in 1845, although then its origin might have 
 been traced to a vital point within a bud. Such an almost invisible point 
 was the shoot B, in 1845. In summer 1846, this point, developed from a 
 bud, grew a shoot, furnished with leaves disposed singly, in twos or in 
 threes, along the growing shoot. In the axil of each of these leaves, the 
 rudiments of a bud were formed. The leaves, having accomplished their 
 office, dropped in autumn, whilst the energy of the young buds continued 
 to increase. Their winter appearance is represented in Fig. B. The blossom- 
 buds are distinguished by their plumpness: they have an ovate form, 
 which gradually becomes- globose: they have a hoary appearance, owing 
 to the scales opening and exposing their downy integuments. The wood- 
 buds are slender and conical. Their scaly covering is less deranged by 
 expansion of their interior parts in early spring, and consequently they 
 exhibit less of that hoary pubescence by which the others are distin- 
 guished. In the case of triple buds the middle one is generally a wood-bud. 
 
 The Peach differs materially from the Pear and Apple-trees. In these a 
 shoot may be shortened to any bud, and the one immediately below the cut 
 will almost invariably produce a shoot ; but the Peach shoot must be out to 
 where there is a wood-bud ; for if cut to a blossom-bud only, no shoot can 
 
THE PKACTICE OF PEtJNING. 
 
 385 
 
 result. Sometimes all the 
 buds on a shoot are blos- 
 som-buds, except the ter- 
 minal one and one or two 
 at the base. Such shoot 
 must either be left its 
 entire length, or out back 
 to the wood-bud at its 
 base. The shoots of the 
 Peach naturally terminate 
 with a wood-bud. If this 
 be cut off, the blossoms 
 on the part left wiU ex- 
 pand and the fruit may- 
 set, but all will prema- 
 turely drop ; thus, if aU 
 the buds marked 6 were 
 blossom-buds, they would 
 expand ; but the eight 
 blossoms would either 
 drop without setting, or 
 the fruit would drop at 
 the time of stoning; at 
 all events, a leafless, bud- 
 less shoot would result, 
 incapable of further ve- 
 getation. It dies down- 
 wards to the first wood- 
 bud. The blossom-buds, 
 a of B, will produce four 
 Peaches, but one is enough 
 to leave to come to per- 
 fection. From the wood- 
 bud, 6, shoots wiU pro- 
 ceed ; these, in the course 
 of the summer, will form 
 buds for future bearing ; 
 and a twelvemonth hence 
 they will appear similar 
 to those on B, which 
 having once borne fruit can do so no more, 
 and therefore its place must be supplied by the 
 most appropriate shoot it produces at or near 
 its base, or by a shoot from an adjoining 
 branch. 
 
 Fig. LXXVI.— Shoot of 
 Peach-tree. 
 
386 THE PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 
 
 These facts are the foundation of all the long intricate plans for pruning 
 and training this tree. The following are, I think, the best concise directions 
 which have yet been given on this subject : — 
 
 " Commencing with the winter pruning, the first rule to be laid down as a 
 basis for all the rest, is to shorten every shoot in proportion to its strength, 
 and to prune to where the wood is firm and well ripened : this wiU cause all 
 the pithy and unripened wood to be removed, thence ensuring a supply of that 
 which is better ripened for the ensuing year. But in order to give every 
 faeUity to the ripening of this wood, it must he trained thin, not in pro- 
 fusion according to the general custom, but such shoots only as may be 
 req^uired for the following year. 
 
 " Trees which have arrived at a bearing state should have their strongest 
 bearing shoots shortened to twelve or fourteen inches, those next in strength 
 to eight or ten, and the weaker ones to four or six inches, pruning each to 
 what is termed a treble eye, or that where there is a blossom-bud on each 
 side of wood-bud : where branches are not in a bearing state, these treble 
 eyes will not be found ; they must therefore be pruned to a wood-bud alone, 
 which is always known by its sharp point. 
 
 " In May, the season for disbudding the tree, all foreright shoots, as well 
 as those from the back, must be carefully removed with a sharp small 
 bladed knife, taking care to out close to the branch, but not into the bark : 
 a few, however, of these foreright shoots had better be cut within a quarter 
 of an inch only, which wHL leave two or three leaves to each, to shade the 
 young fruit, and such slight wounds in the branch as have been occasioned 
 by cutting the shoots ofi^ close. 
 
 " As soon as the young shoots have grown long enough, the leading one 
 from each branch should be nailed neatly to the wall, selecting one or two 
 of the side shoots produced lower down the branch, and training them 
 parallel also. This applies to those of the stronger branches, at and near 
 the extremity of the tree. Those in the middle and near the bottom, wiU 
 allow of but one shoot probably in addition to the leaders ; this wiU depend 
 upon the space left in the winter pruning ; if sufficient, it is always better 
 to have a young shoot on each side as well as the leader, than to have only 
 one, for it is by this arrangement that a succession of young wood can be 
 kept up throughout every part of the tree. 
 
 " Should young shoots, indicating extraordinary vigour, any where make 
 their , appearance, they should immediately be cut out, unless where a 
 vacant part of the waU can be filled up, because an excess of vigour in one 
 part of the tree cannot be supported without detriment to the other. Peach- 
 trees, when in a state of health and vigour, generally throw out laterals 
 from their stronger shoots ; when this is the case, they should not be cut off 
 close, but shortened to the last eye nearest the branch ; and if there is 
 room, one or two of those first produced may be nailed to the wall ; or the 
 middle shoot, may be out out, leaving the two lowest laterals, and allowing 
 them to take its place ; thus frequently obtaining two fruit-bearing 
 
THE PKACTICE OP PRUNING. 
 
 387 
 
 branches, when the. former one would in all probability have been wholly- 
 unproductive of fruit the following year." 
 
 The Apeicot-ieeb. 
 
 The accompanying out represents a portion of an Apricot branch, con- 
 sisting of one and two-year old wood ; the former marked 1, the latter 2. 
 a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, are 
 blossom-buds ; b, b, b, b, b, b, 
 are wood-buds. 
 
 It win be observed that 
 blossom-buds are produced 
 on the young wood and on 
 short spurs on the two-year 
 old wood ; they are also pro- 
 duced on such spurs on wood 
 three, four, or more years 
 old. The principal branches 
 must therefore be trained 
 wider apart than those of 
 Peach and Ifeotarine-trees, 
 but in other respects they 
 should be regulated by the 
 same principles, which need 
 not be repeated. The main 
 branches of the Apiioot may 
 be fifteen inches apart. 
 
 The spaces between the 
 main branches should be oc- 
 cupied by younger wood, 
 which may be allowed to 
 bear for several years, and 
 before it is removed, a young 
 shoot should be encouraged 
 for succession. Shorten the 
 shoots more or less according 
 to their strength, the weak- 
 est requiring to be most 
 shortened, but seldom to less 
 than six. inches, whilst the 
 stronger may be left as long 
 as eighteen inches. A shoot 
 not wanted to be laid in may 
 be shortened at the winter 
 pruning, to form a spur; and when the spurs extend too far they should be 
 cut back to buds near their bases. 
 
 Fig. LXXVII,— Branch of Aprioot-tree. 
 
 C 2 
 
THE PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 
 
 The Pxttm-teee. 
 
 samining the buds of the Plum-tree, it will be found that the wood- 
 te so sharp-pointed that there is little danger of mistating them for 
 
 blossom-buds, the latter 
 being obtuse. In the wood- 
 buds the rudiments of the 
 leaves are convolute, rolled 
 nearly round each other, 
 and so as to form a sharp 
 cone, having the growing 
 point in the centre at the 
 base. As they increase in 
 size the blossom-buds show 
 more disposition to expand 
 outwards than to become 
 elongated. Although the 
 Plum and Cherry aie in 
 many respects closely al- 
 lied, yet they differ essen- 
 tially as regards their leaf- 
 buds. In those of the 
 Plum the rudiments of the 
 leaves are rolled up as 
 above explained; in those 
 of the Cherry they are 
 simply folded. 
 
 When the stem of a 
 standard Plum-tree has 
 attained sufficient height 
 let it be headed back to 
 three buds above the place 
 from whence the lowest 
 limb is required to pro- 
 ceed. Encourage three 
 shoots from these upper 
 buds to grow at full length 
 during the summer ; and at 
 the winter pruning shorten 
 each of them to about a 
 foot in length. Two shoots 
 from each of these three so 
 cut back win originate six 
 principal limbs to form the 
 head. Most cultivated varieties of the Plum have naturally spreading tops, 
 so that the principal care requisite in pruning, after the head has been 
 
 Fig. LXXVIII.— Shoots of the Plum-tree. 
 
 1, portion of Bhoot one year old. 
 
 2, two-years old wood. 
 
 3, three-years old do. 
 a, a, a, a, blossom-btida. 
 
 6, &, b, b, b, 6, 6, wood-buda. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 
 
 889 
 
 formed, is to prevent in time any shoots from crossing others, and thinning 
 suoh as appear likely to cause too much obstruction to light. 
 
 In forming a trained tree, let the maiden plant be headed back, when 
 planted in autumn, to within a foot of the ground. In the ensuing summer 
 train a shoot on each side, and the one from the uppermost bud upright. 
 Now this upright one will naturally grow much stronger than the others, 
 and the consequence will be that when all three are headed back at next 
 winter pruning the buds on the base of the strongest shoot, that is the 
 central one, will produce much stronger shoots 
 than those on the lower side shoots, which are 
 destined to furnish ultimately the lower part of 
 the wall. It is therefore desirable that the 
 vigour of the central shoot should not, in any 
 degree, exceed that of the side ones ; and in 
 order that it may not do so, recourse must be 
 had to the means of checking its luxuriance in 
 summer. These are, pinching oflf its top before 
 midsummer, inclining it from the perpendicu- 
 lar ; and if these are not fuUy effectual, the 
 leaves on its upper part may be clipped across 
 to the extent of half their length. 
 
 At the winter pruning, shorten the three 
 shoots to within nine inches of their bases. 
 Train two from each of the side ones, and three 
 from the central one. Proceed thus till a suffi- 
 fcient number of branches are originated, always 
 taking care to check in time any that are likely 
 to become over-luxuriant as compared with 
 others. If the wood is well matured, the ter- 
 minal shoots need not be shortened where addi- 
 tional branches are not required. When the 
 trees come first into bearing, the spurs require 
 only a little thinning; but as they elongate 
 and extend too far from the wall, they must be 
 shortened back to buds near their bases. 
 
 The Chbekt-teei;. 
 
 The Cherry-tree bears its fruit chiefly on 
 spurs formed on wood of two, three, or more 
 years old; and frequently fruit-buds cluster 
 
 round the base of the last year's shoot. In j-„„„. 
 
 the Morello the fruit is chiefly borne on i. part of a shoot ono year old. 
 
 t>ip vnllTlD- wnnrl ?' ^°°^ ^^° y^^rs old. 
 
 tne young WOOQ. S, wood tliree yeara old. 
 
 Grown as a standard, the terminal shoots h',b'b'i'b'wSid-hnda°^^°'^'^^'^' 
 
 Fig. LXXIX.— Shoot of 
 Cherry-tree. 
 
890 THE PRACTICE OF PKUNING. 
 
 seldom require to be at all shortened after a sufficient mimber has been 
 obtained; Care should be taken that the branches are not too numerous in 
 the first instance ; for Cherry-ti'ees are apt to gum when large branches are 
 cut out ; and therefore the necessity for so doing should be prevented whilst 
 the tree is young. Espalier trees should have the branches trained horizon- 
 tally, but with an inclination upwards from the stem in the first instance. 
 The branches may be a foot apart in the May Duke varieties, but rather 
 wider in the case of those with large leaves, like the Bigaireaa, Elton, &c. 
 The terminal shoots need not be shortened. 
 
 "Wall-trees are best trained fan-shape. After a sufficient number of 
 branches has been obtained, the shoots may be laid in at full length. AU 
 fore-right shoots should be pinched back to one or two inches in the begianing 
 of June. The MoreUo, however, requires that a sufficient number of young 
 shoots be annually preserved for bearing, and in order to afford them room, 
 a portion of those that have borne must be cut out. 
 
 In the Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden, the brief but excellent 
 practical directions are these : — 
 
 " Standard Cherries for the orchard require the same management, 
 generally, as standard Apples, and the same method may be pursued as 
 directed under that head ; but as the former of these are more generally 
 raised from buds than from grafts, they wiU at first require a different 
 treatment, namely, that of heading them down the first year. Oa this 
 account they ought never to he planted later than the end of October, or 
 the middle of November : this early planting will enable the trees to make 
 fresh roots previously to the spring, when, in April, as soon as the buds 
 begin to break out, they should be headed down to within three or four 
 inches of the place where they had been budded. If the trees be good, 
 there will be a sufficient number of eyes to produce as many shoots as will 
 be required to furnish the head : should more than four be produced, they 
 should be reduced to this number, of such as are the best placed. These 
 must be allowed to extend at length without beiug shortened, nothing 
 further being required than to cut out superfluous shoots, so as to keep the 
 head uniform and handsome. If the heads of young trees be carefully 
 attended to the first three or four years, they wiU rarely get into confusion 
 afterwards. 
 
 ' ' Espalier Cherries, and those trained against the wall, require precisely 
 the same management, both as to pruning and training. For this purpose, 
 trees which have been grafted are always to be preferred to those which 
 have been raised from buds : they must be cut back at the commencement, 
 as directed for Apricots ; but the branches, except in MoreUos, must he 
 trained horizontally instead of obliquely, and always continued at their 
 fuU length. In Dukes and Hearts the branches should be eight or nine 
 inches apart, beginning at the bottom of the tree, and contiauing each 
 additional shoot in a parallel direction, till the number of series the wall 
 will permit be completed." 
 
THE PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 
 
 391 
 
 The Goosebeeey-btjsh. 
 
 Left to its natural growth, the Gooseberry 
 beoomes an almost impenetrable thicket, not 
 at all adapted for producing such fine fruit as 
 is produced by plants properly cultivated and 
 pruned. 
 
 In the aeoompanjTiig out it will be seen 
 that the ■wood-buds, a, a, a, a, are on the last 
 summer's shoot, whilst the fruit-buds, 6, 6, 6, h, 
 are on two-years old wood, and produce the 
 largest and finest fruit, but they may be seen 
 on wood much older. The buds marked a, 
 are called wood-buds, because from them young 
 shoots are produced, but usually not from all 
 of them ; for it appears, that of the buds on 
 the two-years old wood, which, a twelvemonth 
 back, were similar to those now marked a, 
 three had produced shoots, c, e, o, and the 
 others formed the fruit-buds, b, b, b, b. 
 
 After the plants have formed shoots, these 
 must be shortened according to their strength ; 
 if moderately strong, to about six inches. In 
 shortening, care must be taken to cut to a bud 
 pointing the most towards the direction which 
 the branch should follow, in order to complete 
 the form in which the plants are intended to 
 be kept. The general mode is to keep the 
 bush hoUow in the middle, and six, eight, or 
 ten branches, at ec^ual distances, or as nearly 
 so as possible. If two branches are likely 
 to approach too near each other, one or both 
 must be cut to buds pointing in the opposite 
 direction ; thus, in the accompanying figure, 
 supposing the branch were intended to be 
 prolonged more towards the left, then the 
 young shoot is properly cut, as represented, 
 for the uppermost bud a to proceed in that 
 direction. On the contrary, if the uppermost 
 bud a had been on the inside of a shoot, of 
 which it would have been desirable that the 
 dii-ection should be outwards, towards the 
 right, then it would have been entirely wrong 
 to out at that bud. 
 
 Observing thus to out at proper buds, each 
 leading branch may be made to diverge out- 
 
 Fig. LXXX.— Shoot of Goose- 
 berry-bush. 
 
 o,, «, a, a, wood-buds. 
 i,t,b, i, fruit-buds. 
 c, c, c, young shoots out back. 
 
392 THE PBACTICE OF PRUNING. 
 
 wards, or to eitHer side, to an extent sufficient for ordinary cultivation. 
 The pruning of one of tlie leading branches may now be detailed from 
 its commencement. In autumn, or early part of winter, the shoot ought 
 to be shortened to some extent, bearing in mind that generally the 
 three buds immediately below the section will break into shoots : therefore, 
 it will be advisable to cut where another leader is required to originate. 
 This is the first winter pruning. The second will consist in shorteiiing the 
 leading shoot about one-third ; and also the other shoot intended for an 
 adjoining leader. If there should be another young shoot growing strongly 
 where not wanted, it may be cut off close ; and others, weaker, may be out 
 like that marked c on the right of the engraving. The next season the 
 leader should be shortened, and laterals cut to one eye, if weak, but other- 
 wise three or four eyes may be left on these, some of which wiU probably 
 break into shoots, and others wUl form fruit-spurs. The other branches wiU 
 require a similar treatment. Young shoots should be trained up to supply 
 the place of any branch exhibiting symptoms of decay. 
 
 In the midland and northern counties an open cup form of bush is 
 generally aimed at in pruning ; on the contrary, in some cases in the south, 
 although the branches are pruned and thinned, yet some are left in the 
 centre for the purpose of shade, otherwise the fruit would be scorched. 
 
 The Ctjeeani-btjsh. 
 
 Under every mode of training, the red Currant, and also the white, require 
 to be regularly pruned every year. In rearing the young plants, the first 
 thing to be aimed at is a clear stem, about five inches in length, free from 
 suckers. In preparing the cutting, care should be taken to remove all the 
 buds on the portion intended to be inserted in the ground, otherwise many 
 of them would form suckers, injurious to the plants, and troublesome to dis- 
 place effectually. In some cases cuttings can be obtained long enough to 
 afford at once the proper length of stem ; but when such cannot be had, 
 when the cutting is altogether too short, or proves so after the necessary 
 removal of the imperfectly formed wood at top, then three buds above the 
 surface of the ground wUl be sufficient. These will generally produce three 
 shoots, all of which may be allowed to grow during the first summer after 
 the cutting has been planted, in order to assist in forming roots. Supposing 
 the plant is intended for the open ground, and that it is to be trained in the 
 usual way, open in the centre ; then in autumn, after the leaves have fallen, 
 two out of the three shoots which the plant has made should be cut off, and 
 the third, selected as the most eligible for a stem, should be shortened, so 
 that the third bud below the cut may be five inches above the ground. Three 
 shoots will generally be produced the following summer. In autumn the 
 plants wUl require to be planted out where they are to remain, and at the 
 same time the shoots should be out back to about four inches, taking care to 
 cut above buds pointing ontwards. We have now a stem five inches high, 
 
THE PEACTIOE OF PEUNING. 
 
 393 
 
 and three branches diverging from it, each of them shortened to about four 
 inches. Two shoots should be encouraged from each of these three, so that 
 in autumn the plant will have six shoots, 
 corresponding with the ultimate number of 
 branches necessary. All other shoots must be 
 spurred to within an inch of their bases. The 
 six shoots selected for leaders should be out 
 back so as to leave them from four to six inches 
 long ; and, like those of the former season, they 
 should be cut to buds pointing outwards. At 
 every future winter pruning the terminal shoots 
 of the six branches should be shortened to be- 
 tween four and six inches long, according to 
 their strength. When the branches nearly 
 attain the intended height, the terminals may 
 be shortened to two or three buds. With 
 regard to the lateral shoots, they must all be 
 cut to within an inch of the old wood at every 
 winter pruning. 
 
 When Currants are intended to be trained 
 against a wall, they should be planted three 
 feet apart, and a strong shoot trained upright 
 for a stem. This should be shortened to six 
 inches, and the two uppermost shoots trained 
 horizontally right and left. From these, four 
 upright shoots sho\ild be trained, so that the 
 distance between them may be nine inches. 
 In order that these may not run up without ' 
 being sufB.eieniLy furnished with fruit-spurs, 
 they should be shortened to six inches, and 
 every year, at the winter pruning, the upright 
 terminal shoots of the branches should be 
 shortened according to their strength, shorter 
 if weak, and if strong they should not be left 
 longer than is consistent with their breaking 
 into spurs not more than six inches apart. The 
 laterals may have their points cut off annually 
 in June, and cut nearly close to the old wood 
 at every winter pruning. 
 
 No fruit is more improved than the Currant, 
 by good pruning. When left to itself both 
 bunches and berries are small and worthless ; 
 it is only when carefully thinned, skilfully 
 
 Kg. LXXXT.— Shoot of Currant. 
 
 a, a, a, a, wood-buds. !>, b, fruit- 
 buds. Cy c, c, clusters termed fruit- 
 spurs ; they consist chiefly of fruit- 
 buds, but amongst them there are 
 
 pruned, and annuaUy divested of old spurs, f^oSrarshTto'"""'^ "'''* 
 that the fruit acquires its proper excellence. 
 
g94 
 
 THE PRACTICE OP PRUNING. 
 
 The EASPBBB.BT-BTJSH. 
 
 The acoompaaying figures represent wood of the preceding summer's 
 growth. 
 
 The portion with buds marked a, a, is from the upper part of the shoot ; 
 
 that with buds marked 6, is 
 taken from the lower part of the 
 shoot or cane. The buds a, a, 
 can scarcely be termed blossom- 
 buds, inasmuch as they do not 
 contain the rudiments of flowers 
 like the blossom-buds of the 
 kinds of fruits prcYiously no- 
 ticed; but each of them pos- 
 sesses the power of producing a 
 branchlet, and on this blossom- 
 buds are formed. The buds h, b, 
 on the lower part of the cane, 
 do not generally push unless 
 the upper have been cut away, 
 and then the lower are sti- 
 mulated, producing, however, 
 shoots and fruit later in the 
 season than those obtained from 
 the buds a, a. Advantage is 
 sometimes taken of this to pro- 
 cure a succession of fruit in 
 autumn. 
 
 Raspberry shoots or canes, it 
 is well known, grow up in one 
 summer, produce fruit in the 
 next, and tiien die to the ground, 
 a succession having, in the mean- 
 while, sprung up. The pruning 
 usually consists in the obvious 
 operation of cutting away all the dead wood, that which has borne fruit ; 
 and in shortening that which is alive, thinning the canes so as to leave 
 three, four, five, or six, from a plant according to its strength. 
 
 An improvement may, however, be effected on this general mode ; and 
 this improvement cannot be better explained than it is in the Guide to the 
 Orchard and Kitchen Garden, p. 481 : — " As the finest and best of these 
 fruits are, in all cases, the produce of strong and weU-ripened canes, it 
 becomes necessary that the stools should have every advantage afibrded 
 them. This may be readily effected by causing all the former years' canes 
 to be cut down to the ground as soon as they have produced their crop, 
 
 Fig. LXXXII.— Wood of the Raspberry. 
 
THE PKAOTICE OF PEUNINGf. - 395 
 
 instead of allowing them to stand till the winter or spring ; this removes 
 an unnecessary incumbrance, and at a season when sun and air are of 
 infinite importance to the young canes, consequently to the succeeding crop 
 of fruit." 
 
 In autumn, or the early part of winter, the young canes should be 
 shortened to about four-fifths of their original height, or to the place where 
 the growth of the upper part of the shoot forms a sort of bending or twisting. 
 They may then be either tied to stakes or arched, by tying their tips to 
 those of the adjoining plant. When a late succession of fruit is desired, 
 some plants may hare all their shoots cut back to within a few inches of the 
 ground. 
 
 B. Pruning for Timber. 
 
 To procure flowers or fruit forming no part of the object of 
 those who grow trees for the sake of their timber, the 
 principles which ought to guide the forester are of quite 
 another class from those just explained. The forester desires, 
 1. to obtain the greatest possible quantity of timber in the 
 shortest possible time ; and, 3. to secure trees with tall straight 
 stems, except in those cases where crooked timber is required 
 for ship-buildiug. Of the latter there is generally no deficiency 
 in consequence of the accidents to which trees are liable ; or it 
 may be readily provided by artificial methods that must 
 suggest themselves to every one practically, if not theoretically, 
 acquainted with the laws which regulate the growth of trees. 
 The two first objects are all that need be considered on the 
 present occasion. 
 
 Timber is the woody texture of a tree. The woody texture 
 does not form itself; it does not grow independently of aU other 
 parts ; it is only a portion of a living system, arising from 
 the action of other organs ; it is to a plant what flesh and bones 
 are to an animal. The bones and flesh of cattle are not 
 increased in quantity of themselves, but by means of food 
 swallowed by the mouth, and digested by the stomach. To 
 swallow food without digesting it is an entix-ely useless opera- 
 tion both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The 
 digesting organs of trees are their leaves ; it is the foliage 
 which constitutes the stomach of a plant; therefore, to deprive 
 a plant of its leaves is like depriving an animal of its stomach. 
 
396 PRUNING FOR TIMBER. 
 
 Emaciation is the consequence in both cases ; it is indicated in 
 animals by leanness and debility; in plants, by the loss of 
 woody texture, or timber. But a plant has not a single 
 stomach, as an animal has ; it is covered with stomachs in the 
 form of leaves, every one of which performs its part in the 
 action of digestion, and so contributes something to the 
 formation of wood. (See page 72.) Although out of the 
 millions of leaves that clothe a tree many may be destroyed, 
 and no appreciable diminution of the wood be remarked, yet it 
 is certain that some diminution takes place ; when the destruc- 
 tion of leaves is excessive, the diminution will be excessive 
 also. We should be a long time emptying a fish-pond with a 
 tea-spoon ; but in time we should succeed ; and the only efiect 
 of using a pump for the purpose would be to accelerate the 
 operation. 
 
 Pruning is nothing less than the removal of leaves. To cut 
 off a branch ia summer is evidently so ; and if the branch is 
 naked still its removal is the destruction of the part from 
 which leaves would have been produced had it been permitted 
 to remain. The effect of violent pruning, as illustrated by 
 Pontey's barbarous method of trimming trees into poles is now 
 notorious ; it shows the consequences attendant upon pruning 
 trees excessively. Upon less pruning less evil results; but 
 the difference is only one of degree. 
 
 Prune not at all — should therefore be the maxim of a 
 forester. Plant thickly, thin constantly, stop carefully, and 
 leave the rest to nature. But unfortunately it does not happen 
 that he who plants well always thins constantly; it is still 
 more rare that stopping is thought of, and so a maxim, one of 
 the soundest in the whole system of foresting, cannot be 
 observed. Hence pruning may be regarded as a necessary 
 evil, to which the wise must submit because of the ignorant ; 
 the careful to cure the evils inflicted by the careless. 
 
 Stopping consists in destroying the point or last buds of a 
 branch while young and in process of formation ; the finger and 
 thumb can perform the operation without aid. Pruning is the 
 removal of a branch already formed, and must be executed 
 with a cutting instrument. Stopping prevents the formation of 
 
PaUKING FOB TIMBER. 
 
 397 
 
 useless parts, compelling a free to expend its force in the 
 production of what is valuable ; pruning is the abstraction of 
 useless parts upon forming which a tree has expended some 
 part of its power. Stopping is prevention ; pruning is cure — or 
 is intended to be. 
 
 The respective ^ 
 
 effects of , doing 
 nothing, stopping, 
 and pruning may 
 be illustrated by 
 diagrams. Let A 
 represent a young 
 tree disposed to be 
 bushy-headed, all 
 its branches being 
 equal. If nothing rig. lxxxiii. 
 
 is done to such a plant, each branch will grow larger at an equal 
 rate, and produce a few laterals ; by the end of a second season 
 the tree will be somewhat larger, but in other respects much 
 what it was before, as is shown at B. 
 
 But suppose that A, instead of having been D 
 
 left untouched, had had three of its branches 
 stopped by breaking off their points, as is shown 
 at C. In such a case the current of sap being 
 arrested in the laterals, would flow strongly 
 into the leader, which 
 would lengthen rapidly, 
 while the laterals would 
 only produce some small 
 spray ; and the result, at 
 the end of a second year, 
 would be what is repre- 
 sented at D. In this 
 case the tree would have 
 been very little deprived 
 of its foliage, and yet 
 the production of a permanent leader would have been effected 
 as well as if the pruning-knife had been employed, or indeed 
 
 Fig.'LXXXIV. 
 
398 
 
 PRUNINO FOR TIMBER. 
 
 much better. For observe the contrast. E represents the 
 same plant A pruned up to a leader by the total removal of 
 its lateral shoots in the usual way. F will 
 show what such a plant may be expected to 
 become at the end of the season, instead of 
 D, which it would have been under the 
 influence of stopping only. 
 
 The same observations will apply to 
 
 cases where a pair of leaders contend with 
 
 each other, as at G. If one of the leaders 
 
 only is broken off and stopped, as at a, 
 
 scarcely any of the energy of the tree will 
 
 Fig. Lxxxv. be destroyed, but the sap will be thrown 
 
 into one of the leaders much more than the other; and 
 
 at the end of the season the plant may be expected to 
 
 resemble H. If, however, instead 
 of being treated thus, G be de- 
 prived of all its laterals, and left 
 by the pruner as at I, the digest- 
 ing powers of 
 the plant will 
 be so com- 
 pletely re- 
 moved that we 
 can hardly 
 expect it to 
 become a;t the 
 end of the first 
 year better 
 than at K — the 
 difference be- 
 tween which 
 and H is ma- 
 nifest. 
 
 These dia- 
 
 Fiu. Lxxxvi. grams explain 
 
 the true principles of managing young forest-trees, so far as 
 
 controlling their form is concerned. They are now recognised 
 
IMPORTANCE OP STOPPING. 399 
 
 by all intelligent foresters. Mr. BUlington pointed out their 
 importance in 1835, thus showing how low the art of arbori- 
 culture had at that time fallen, for they were well known in 
 the days of Miller and Duhamel, and were carefully observed 
 by the great Norfollc planters when the author was a boy. 
 
 When trees are young, most, except Conifers, have a tendency 
 to form bushy heads, or many branches of equal strength ; and, 
 when neglected, such plants are long in forming timber, if they 
 ever do form it; and they seldom produce a clean straight 
 trunk. In order to meet this evil pruning is had recourse to. 
 A. cuts off the upper limbs, B. prefers the lower, while C. is 
 satisfied with nothing less than tlie whole. "What they would 
 do if they considered well the nature of plants would be — 
 nothing at aU, except stopping or breaking back a few laterals 
 while in a growing state. When branches are removed much 
 of the vigour of a tree is removed too, its power of growth is 
 more or less impaired, and the operation defeats the object it 
 is intended to serve. But when branches are merely stopped 
 no loss is incurred ; all that happens is that growth ceases in 
 the direction of the stoppage, and the sap which would have 
 been expended in forming the shoots whose growth is arrested 
 is impelled into other shoots, or, more correctly, into that one 
 which is intended for a leader. But as this is impossible 
 in large plantations, and not very practicable anywhere, rival 
 leaders will be found after many weeks' growth ; in such cases 
 the removal of a terminal bud will not result in the conveyance 
 of food enough into the selected leader. It then becomes 
 necessary to break the young shoots which are superfluous — to 
 break, not to cut, not to break off ; the shoot should be 
 simply snapped across, and allowed to hang downwards from 
 the limb, retaining its vitality 'as long as it can. If the 
 operation is performed skilfully the broken end will remain 
 alive for several weeks. The reason of the practice is this ; 
 if a portion of a growing branch is suddenly removed the buds 
 below it are almost certain to break into secondary laterals, 
 and to consume the sap intended for the leader; but if the 
 branch is broken it slowly consumes the sap that reaches it, 
 prevents the buds below from pushing into laterals, and thus 
 
400 PRUNING PEOPEK 
 
 compels all the superfluous sap to travel into the leader where 
 it is wanted. 
 
 Nature of herself performs this operation in countries where 
 forests spring up naturally. Multitudes of trees start, self- 
 sown, from the earth ; a thicket appears ; all lateral shoots 
 perish — they are stopped by the consequences attendant upon 
 want of light and air, and a vast array of poles is the result. 
 By degrees the weakest poles die ; spaces are thus cleared in 
 the forests, room is made for the trees which remain, and 
 enables them to develope their heads ; long straight timber is 
 the result. But this is a costly process that can scarcely be 
 imitated with advantage. 
 
 Pruning then becomes inevitable, and the forester is required 
 to determine how it can be best performed. 
 
 No one will deny that the sooner it is performed the better, 
 wounds in young wood heaKng quickly ; and that the longer it 
 is deferred the worse the consequences, the wounds in old wood 
 being large and incurable. The operation may be considered 
 under four different heads — -pruning, properly so called ; fore- 
 shortening ; snagging, or lopping ; and amputating: 
 
 1. Pruning. — This is performed upon branches which can 
 be removed by a " draw " or two from the knife of a strong 
 man. It should always be made perpendicularly and close up 
 to the stem whence the branch is removed. The wound thus 
 formed soon disappears, and although the surface of the wound 
 remains as a permanent fault in the timber, yet it is so small 
 as to be of no practical importance. Where stopping is 
 neglected, such pruning is the most unobjectionable substitute, 
 and it must be admitted that on large woodland property it is 
 imavoidable. 
 
 Considering the great difffirences that exist among trees it 
 seems impossible to reduce the art of pruning for timber to 
 anything more than general principles. The Oak grows 
 differently from the Ash, the Beech from the Sycamore, the 
 Scotch Pine from the Larch Fir, and so on. In plants like 
 the Spruce and Larch Mr. Andrew Knight used to remove the 
 lower alternate tiers annually, and eventually all the lowest ; 
 but this could not be done with an Elm, whose branches 
 
PRUNING PROPER. 401 
 
 do not grow in layers. Nevertheless writers on foresting 
 confidently recommend particular methods for everything, an 
 example of which will be found in the following directions given 
 by Gavin Cree, a weU-known Scotch forester. 
 
 " Were tUnning properly attended to, it wotJd do miieli to accelerate 
 the growth of trees; but in most oases it is neglected. I am of 
 opinion, however, ttat in addition to thinning, pruning is advantageous 
 in promoting the size and value of timber. Stopping, or breaking off 
 the points of the branches, fulfils, to a certain extent, the purpose of 
 pruning, although I do not think it can so fully accomplish the benefit 
 which pruning will effect. The great object of the forester ought to be 
 to increase the digesting powers of the plant, and thereby administer to 
 its health and vigour. Now I maintain that shortening the branches 
 multiplies the quantity of leaves, and, at the same time, gives greater 
 activity to the sap. A large branch surely puts forth more leaves than 
 a small one, for by shortening, the number of twigs or branches is 
 multiplied almost indefinitely, so that the quantity of foliage, in the 
 aggregate, is far greater on the pruned than on the unpruned plant ; 
 while the foliage is more healthful and efficient; presenting leaves 
 as broad as two or three of those on the branches which are of an 
 extravagant length. The principle of stopping and shortening seems 
 to imply a similar design in those who practise the different methods ; 
 namely, to keep the branches within due bounds. The difference is, 
 the person who stops them takes no more from the large than from the 
 small branch ; whereas the pruner curtails each tier of branches to a 
 uniform length ; the tiers extending in breadth as they descend, in the 
 form of a cone. This, at least, is my method. I consider it to be 
 beyond the bounds of human ingenuity to act successfully in this case 
 without some regular system. I shorten the shoot next the top to one 
 half the length of the leader, and allow the lower tier to extend farther 
 than the one above it, till I reach the undermost, which is, of course, 
 the broadest. When the tree is about eighteen feet high, and fifteen 
 inches in circumference, I cut off the lowest tier close to the stem, and 
 continue yearly to cut off a tier (regularly) upwards. I have by this 
 means raised hard wood to as great a height, within the same time, as 
 Larch ; and have not discovered, either by observation or otherwise, 
 that trees were ever raised so rapidly to the same altitude, as those 
 trained on the above plan. They sometimes grew ten feet in the course 
 of three years." Mr. Cree says nothing about the unsoundness of 
 timber thus pruned when eighteen feet high. 
 
 Better directions are given by an old forester in ihe Gardeners' 
 Chronicle, writing under the name of PhUo-Sylva. His words are 
 these : — "The only rule to attend to is to keep the top taper, preserving 
 the leading shoot clear and free from clefts, and the bole from ail the 
 
402 FORESHORTENING. 
 
 largest branches, leaving those only of the smaller kind that are requ: 
 site for the health and support of the tree, and clearing the tree, froi 
 the bottom, of all its branches as it advances in age. But the bo! 
 should be cleared very slowly at first when the trees are young. Onl 
 keep the branches that are left thereon small hy often pruning, so i 
 not to injure the tree when it becomes timber. By the heads pf tref 
 being kept tapering when young, the rapidity of the growth is greatl 
 increased, on account of the sap being confined to the most usefi 
 points, and not allowed to spread in support of large unnecessar 
 branches. By attending to these rules, and the operation of prunin 
 being executed every year, the bole will be extended to a great height 
 and at the end the grand object attained, viz., the production of soun 
 unblemished timber. The proportion which will be found to be mos 
 consistent with full-sized trees is fifty feet trunk to thirty-five feet c 
 head. It is of the utmost importance that trees should have circmn 
 ference of stem in suitable proportion to their height. If the circum 
 ference is one inch for every fifteen inches in height, so much th 
 better. Trees should be examined every year till they are fiftee 
 inches in circumference ; the highest will then he fully eighteen feet." 
 
 2. Foreshortening. — This differs from pruning inasmuch a 
 it does not cut back a shoot to its origin, but merely remove 
 one third or half of it, the lower part remaining furnished witl 
 twigs which contribute to the formation of timber. This, whicl 
 is advocated by Billington, undoubtedly deserves to form i 
 part of the process of good timber-growing, provided it is s^ 
 managed that the branch does not die back. Its real objec 
 is to enable leaves to be formed and nevertheless to produci 
 the advantageous effects of pruning. It preserves a latera 
 branch alive for some years, but diminishes its rate of growth 
 So that it may be eventually taken off, having done iti 
 work, without inflicting any extensive wound; or it ma; 
 preserve a branch alive as long as the tree of which it forms i 
 part continues to exist, and thus enables the forester t( 
 remove a limb without injuring the main trunk. 
 
 When it is possible to ensure the life of these foreshortene( 
 limbs, the method is open to no serious objection ; but ii 
 practice it is found thp,t such limbs are apt to lose their smal 
 wood and to die, in which case they produce all the mischie 
 that follows snagging or lopping. Sir Joseph Paxton, Proi 
 Henslow, and others have long since shown how likely this ii 
 
SNAGGmff OR LOPPING. 
 
 403 
 
 to occur, and the practice is now employed by first-class 
 foresters only under very special circumstances. 
 
 3. Snagging or Lopping. — Ignorant woodmen, when called 
 upon to remove a branch, lop it off nearly down to the trunk 
 which produced it. More skilful men cut it off at some distance 
 from the trunk, leaving a spray on it to keep it alive ; but the 
 spray is apt to die, and then the more skilful practice becomes 
 undistinguishable from the woodman's lopping. The first is 
 merely a foreshortening, which cannot be 
 made to preserve a permanent effect and 
 fails in its iatention. "When this happens 
 it is the worst of all known methods of 
 pruning, the effect of which is represented 
 in the accompanying cuts. The knots in 
 deal are well known ; when a squared piecQ 
 of deal is converted into planking, it is 
 sometimes full of knots which drop out as at 
 Fig. LXXXVII. These are sections of dead 
 or dying branches which became imbedded 
 in sound wood in consequence of their 
 having been left by nature in the un- 
 pruned, closely-packed natural forest. Had 
 such branches been removed, no faults like these would have 
 been discoverable. They sometimes render deals almost 
 worthless. 
 
 The consequence of leaving snags is exhibited at Fig. 
 LXXXVIII., which fully illustrates the meaning of the follow- 
 ing opinions. 
 
 " There is a method of pruniBg," said Mr. Sandys, the 
 skilful and experienced forester at Holkham, " still practised 
 by some persons, of leaving a foot or more of the branch on 
 the tree to die and rot off, which if only an inch in diameter 
 may take several years to accompKsh, during which time the 
 stem increases, and when the sirnnp falls down, a hole is left as 
 deep as the tree has grown since the snagging, which hole must 
 have t^me tofiU up after the rotten branch is gone. The healing 
 of the wound IS consequently deUyed, and the defect in the timber 
 greater. Instead of taking off a large branch by the stem, a great 
 
 Pig. LXXXVII. 
 
 D D 2 
 
Mi 
 
 SNAGGING OE LOPPING. 
 
 part of it may be cut oif at a distance from it, leaving a small 
 side branch to draw the sap and keep it alive, which is better 
 
 Fig. LXXXVIII. — Consequences of Snagging. 
 
 than leaving a snag ; but this method should seldom be practised, 
 being only the result of former bad management." 
 
AMPUTATING. 405 
 
 *' All scientific planters," wrote Mr. (now Sir Joseph) Paxton, 
 several years since, " are of the same opinion as to the propriety 
 of removing dead or decayed branches. Whenever dead branches 
 are found on any tree, they cannot be too soon removed ; and 
 even Fir plantations, which when thickly planted are generally 
 self-pruned, will he improved by having all the dead wood 
 pruned off quite close to the stem." 
 
 Some years ago, Lord Braybrooke submitted to the examina- 
 tion of Prof. Henslow, than whom no man possesses a sounder 
 judgment, a number of specimens of timber in which the 
 branches had been allowed to die back. The result of that exa- 
 mination, now before me, was as follows : — " In the specimens 
 sent for my inspection, the foreshortened branches were all in a 
 state of decay, and where the experiment was pronounced com- 
 plete, the stumps had become imbedded in new wood which 
 had closed over them, exactly asdt does over the surface of the 
 cut produced by close-pruning. Now the only difference between 
 the two results appears to me to be this : that in the dose-prwriing 
 we have two clean surfaces, the one of the old and the other of the 
 new wood, brought into close contact ; whilst in the case of the 
 foreshortened branch, we have the decayed remains of a rotten 
 stump surrounded by an irregular surface of the new wood." 
 
 4. Amputating. — When a branch is broken and dead and 
 requires removal, it should be cut off close to the trunk ; but 
 this should never be done if it is possible to avoid it, and it 
 never is necessary except in consequence of previous mis- 
 management ; it is even doubtful whether it can ever be 
 justified. Assuming, however, that it is inevitable, then it is 
 certain that the amputation should be effected by as perpen- 
 dicular a cut as it is possible tcJ effect. It is an axiom in 
 physiology, that live tissue cannot form an organic union with 
 that which is dead. If in amputations shoots are not removed 
 close to the stem, the remaining part, or snag, dies ; and the 
 lips of the wound wiU not heal ; or if the wound is healed 
 externally, either a cavity or a piece of dead wood remains 
 ■ behind. On the other hand, if the branch is cut off close to 
 the trunk, the permanent injury sustained by the tree is a 
 disunion of the tissue for a space equal to the diameter of the 
 
406 AMPUTATING. 
 
 originai wound. We must, however, remember that the large 
 wounds produced by the amputation of the limbs of a tree can 
 never be healed, although they may be concealed ; so that if 
 the sear left by the process is a foot in diameter, an interruption 
 of the tissue to that extent must always remain, to the 
 destruction of the strength of the timber. By amputation a 
 blemish is necessarily introduced always proportionable to. 
 the size of the wound inflicted, that is to say, to the size of the 
 branch removed. In some cases the old wood becomes par- 
 tially rotten before the new wood closes over the wound; but 
 this more frequently happens when the cut slopes a little out- 
 wards from the trunk, and is not quite perpendicular. In the 
 former case, the new wood and bark, which for a time form a sort 
 of collar round the wound, allow the wet to lodge, which thus 
 facilitates decay. But where the wound has been vertical and the 
 cut clean, little or no decay takes place, as is proved by a speci- 
 men of Beech which the author has seen, from which a very large 
 limb had been removed, and in which the blemish was of course 
 proportionably great, though the old wood was perfectly sound. 
 
 The reason why sloping amputations are followed by rotten- 
 ness, while perpendicular amputations remain sound, is that 
 rottenness commonly takes place in presence of water, which a 
 sloping wound allows to accumulate, while a perpendicular 
 wound allows no water whatever to lodge. Amputated wood, 
 which is shaved to a smooth surface, will not rot when perpen- 
 dicular. That is certain. One of the many proofs of this 
 important fact will be seen by referring to the curious example 
 of imbedded letters represented at p. 39, and also by Figures 
 LXXXIX. and XC, which show the consequence of oblique 
 and perpendicular amputation! 
 
 Allusion has already (p. 400) been made to leaving young 
 trees very near each other, with a view to imitate nature and to 
 dispense with the necessity for any pruning whatever. Some 
 one says that " thick planting and annual pruning come the 
 nearest possible to the unassisted operation of natural causes," 
 and that all pruning may be resolvied into a question of 
 thinning. And this, we believe, is practically followed in some 
 celebrated German forests. There is no doubt that the natural 
 
AMPUTATING- 
 
 407 
 
 TUipruned forests of Hungary produce trees of the utmost 
 excellence, and that in the north of Germany successful 
 attempts are made to bring about the same result. But much 
 skill, constant supervision, and great practical knowledge of 
 
 Kg. LXXXIX. 
 
 Fig. XC. 
 
 vegetable physiology are employed in producing it, such as at 
 the present time certainly does not exist, with a few exceptions, 
 in this country. 
 
 Among concise directions for managing close plantations advan- 
 tageously, I have seen none wMch more deserve attention than the 
 following, given by an experienced correspondent of the Gardeners' 
 Chronicle, writing under the name of Philo-Sylva : — 
 
 " The value of a timber-tree is much deteriorated by numerous rami- 
 fications attracting and retaining a large proportion of the elaborated 
 sap, which, if properly directed by judicious pruning, would go to fohn 
 valuable timber in the main trunk of the tree. Thinning timeously 
 prevents the necessity of excessive pruning. Thick planting and 
 annual pruning come the nearest possible to the unassisted operations 
 of natural causes towards the formation of straight and well-grown 
 timber. Now, when we find this, which may be considered naitural 
 pruning, to produce the straightest and cleanest timber (when this is 
 the object we have in view), ought we not in. artificial pruning to attend 
 
408 GENERAL DIRECTIONS. 
 
 to these processes of nature, and endeaTOur to imitate them as closely 
 as we are able ? 
 
 "In order to produce the most beneficial effects, the process of 
 pruning should be begun early, and not carried to any great extent at 
 once, but renewed every year as the tree advances, until it is brought 
 to the most perfect form its nature wiU admit of. At this early period 
 the knife is the most suitable implement, and the top is the principal 
 part which requires attention. In order that only one shoot may be 
 allowed to remain as a leader, the others next in size, if not very 
 inferior, should be headed down generally to about one half the length, 
 and all the stout branches on the tree headed in the same manner. 
 If the tree be stunted, care must be taken to select a leader that is 
 healthy. 
 
 "We cannot too strongly reprobate the common error of clearing 
 young trees entirely of the side branches up to a certain height at the 
 first pruning, and afterwards to operate only on the imder branches of 
 the tree. This tends to produce a small trunk, an irregular top, and 
 side branches more vigorous than the leader. When this is practised 
 in exposed places (hedge-rows), not one in a hundred ever becomes a 
 large or valuable tree. It is one great and common error to cut off in 
 one year branches to the height perhaps of fourteen feet from a tree not 
 above twenty feet high. When this is done the trees remain nearly 
 stationary, and are often stunted to such a degree as to assume the 
 appearance of old age. Such an excess of amputation destroys the 
 health of the tree, by depriving it of the organs by which a sufficiency 
 of sap is secured, to be afterwards converted into wood. 
 
 "It is well known that when the leading shoot is destroyed, the 
 growth of the tree is greatly impaired. It is the danger of losing it 
 which makes wise planters so careful in fenciag their plantations. By 
 increasing the number of leading shoots the strength of the nutritious 
 principle is rendered in a great measure ineffectual. To counteract the 
 deviation of a strong vertical tendency from nature's own more perfect 
 forms, and to confine to the production of one valuable stem the vegeta- 
 tive power which in a forked tree luxuriates in a multiplicity of 
 branches with comparatively trifling effect, is the main object of the 
 system here advocated. Pruning is only of much advantage when 
 performed early in those branches which are apt to bear too great a 
 proportion to the leading branch, thereby modifying the tree, and 
 directing its energies gradually to the top, preserving at the same time 
 a sufficient quantity of foliage. 
 
 " By proper pruning trees can stand closer together without requiring 
 to be thinned, and the whole of the branches are enabled to retain their 
 vegetative power and live for any length of time in luxuriant beauty. 
 By a different management we often see trees thus reduced to the 
 appearance of so many tufted poles, presenting no obstruction to the 
 
GENERAL DIRECTIONS. 
 
 409 
 
 winds which sweep through the plantation, and render the ground so 
 hard that the trees ia consequence become unhealthy. But by this 
 method the green branches preserve moisture in the earth to make 
 them healthy, and to arrive at great magnitude. Provided we use 
 proper caution in pruning, and do not cut very large branches, it is not 
 of very material consequence what season we choose for the operation ; 
 and the smaller wounds caused by the prudent and gradual pruning 
 above recommended will heal in a reasonable time and without any 
 great damage at any season of the year. 
 
 " Where hedge-row trees and trees in open situations are intended 
 for profitable timber, pruning should commence at an early period of 
 their growth, encouraging the leading or main stem by displacing or 
 foreshortening all over-luxuriant or aspiring side-shoots, by ripping off 
 buds likely to contend with the leader, gradually clearing the lower 
 part of the stem or side-shoots, and forming the top into the shape of a 
 very open cone ; that cone, while the trees are under ten years of age, 
 occupying nearly half the length of the tree, and generally diminishing 
 from that proportion as the tree advances, till eventually, when about 
 thirty years of age the tree wiU have acquired sufficient length of stem, 
 the cone or top may occupy from a third to a fourth part of the whole 
 length. All lower branches should be removed before they exceed an 
 inch in diameter. Trees thus managed will form close and healthy 
 stems without any interior blemish, and be trained to any reasonable 
 altitude, according to the soU, subsoil, and situation on which they 
 grow ; but if neglected, such is the propensity of most sorts of what 
 are called ' round-headed trees,' in open spaces, to run into branches, 
 that without due attention the foliage will become too voluminous for 
 the roots, and a check to loftiness and the formation of useful timber 
 will ensue." 
 
 To trust to close planting and to disregard thinning under 
 the idea that nature-pruning is all that trees require is one of 
 the great errors into which inex- 
 perienced persons fall. The evil 
 consequences attendant upon 
 such a course are shown by such 
 examples as the following sent to 
 me some years ago by Mr. Hamer- 
 ton, of Hellifield Peel. " The two 
 following transverse sections as nearly as possible resemble the 
 originals, one of which is taken from a tree of my own growth, 
 and the other from a crowded plantation of about 1000 acres, 
 which it gave me very great pain to view. The one is pro- 
 
 Fig, xcl. 
 
410 EFFECT OF CLOSE PLANTING. 
 
 gressively advancing to maturity ; the other retrograding, dying 
 year by year — the diminution of its concentric rings proving to 
 demonstration that it has not room to grow." 
 
 Upon this subject the reader may consult a paper by Mr. G-osse, in the 
 Transactions of the Society of Arts, vol. xlviii. p. 214. 
 
 In this case it is sufficiently evident, that in the right-hand 
 specimen the grov?th was at first, when the trees did not choke 
 each other, fully as rapid as in that on the left, when they 
 continued to be properly thinned ; but after the third year, the 
 formation of timber in the former case began to be arrested, 
 and was immediately after reduced to a minimum quantity; 
 while in the latter it continued to form, with little variation, 
 year by year. 
 
 The same friendly hand also furnished a specimen of Spruee- 
 fir from an estate in his neighbourhood, in which reliance had 
 been placed upon crowding as a substitute for careful tending. 
 The rates of growth were as follows. 
 
 In the first five years the tree grew 26-lOths of an inch in diameter. 
 
 Second ,, 
 
 
 24 
 
 Third „ 
 
 
 20 „ 
 
 Fourth „ 
 
 
 12 „ 
 
 Fifth „ 
 
 
 8 
 
 Sixth „ 
 
 
 6 
 
 Seventh „ 
 
 
 10 „ 
 
 Here, in thirty-five years, the tree only acquired a diameter 
 of ten inches and a half, the annual formation of timber 
 beginning to diminish after the fifth year, more rapidly after 
 the fifteenth, as the trees became more and more crowded 
 together; and it was only after the thirtieth year, at which 
 time the increase in diameter had been reduced from more 
 than five-tenths to little more than one-tenth of an inch 
 annually, that the formation of timber began to be restored, 
 and this, which was apparently owing to some accidental 
 clearing, only in a slight and very unequal degree ; for, from 
 the section it appeared that, although on one side an inch of 
 increase in diameter took place in five years, yet over the 
 principal part of the circumference not more than two-tenths of 
 
IMPORTANCE OP THINNINS. 411 
 
 an inch of timber were formed in five years. Had this tree 
 been properly treated, it ought, by the end of thirty-five years, 
 to have been eighteen inches in diameter, instead of ten inches 
 and a half. 
 
 But, bad as are the consequences of a crowded growth to the 
 formation of timber, and also to its quality, it is not the only 
 evil. Plantations which have been crowded for many years 
 cannot afterwards be thinned successfully. The trees become 
 bark-bound and rootless, and are blown over by the first storm. 
 Eoots, like timber, are formed in proportion to the quantity 
 of foliage, and to the space a tree has to grow in. A tree 
 whose trunk is divided into limbs, loaded with healthy leaves, 
 fixes itself to the soil by gigantic roots, which hold it immove- 
 ably, and help it to defy the storm. But a tree drawn up to a 
 pole, with a few limbs at the summit, has neither the means of 
 forming roots, nor the space in which to develope them. A 
 few fibres are all that it produces, bearing no due proportion to 
 the head ; and the moment the protection of the trees around 
 it is withdrawn, it necessarily falls over. 
 
 As to the manner of thinning plantations, it does not 
 appear possible to give particular rules for such an operation. 
 Instead, therefore, of saying that when a tree is of such a 
 height it ought to be at such a distance from those around it, 
 it seems better to state as a general rule, that no one tree 
 should be permitted to touch another, but that they should be 
 allowed to remain as close as circumstances will permit, pro- 
 vided thei* branches do not touch. Practically, it is impossible 
 to adjust the thinning of a plantation with much exactness ; 
 and in the annual removal of such trees as are touching others, 
 spaces larger than are actually requisite, according to this rule, 
 will be formed. This is, however, an advantage, because it 
 allows the wind to find its way freely among the trees, and 
 give them sufficient room to spread their roots about. 
 
 The planter should be careful to mark during summer the 
 trees that are to be removed in winter ; because it is only at 
 the former season, when trees are covered with leaves, that it 
 is possible to ascertain ia what degree deciduous trees really 
 interfere with each other. 
 
412 FAST -GROWN TIMBEE 
 
 One of the most important objects to be kept in view in 
 timber management, whatever mode of pruning is adopted, is 
 to cause timber to be formed rapidly. This is little known, 
 and indeed is contrary to the opinion of many woodmen; 
 nevertheless it is susceptible of rigorous demonstration. 
 
 Most people believe that the slowest-grown timber is the 
 best ; we continually hear it said that wood cannot be good 
 because it has been grown fast, and we find writers on foresting 
 following in the same line of assertion. In one place we observe 
 the following passage : — " It is well known that the common Oak 
 in Italy, where it grows faster than in this country, is compara- 
 tively of short duration ; aiid that the Oak which grows on the 
 mountains of the Highlands of Scotland is much harder and closer 
 than any produced in England, though on these mountains it 
 seldom attains one-tenth part of the size of English trees." It 
 would be diflficult to collect in the same space more fallacies 
 than are contained in this short paragraph. In the first place 
 Oaks do not grow faster in Italy than in England ; the reverse 
 appears to be the truth, as will be seen by reference to a 
 succeeding table, where the greatest rate of growth in Italian 
 Oak is shown to be only 3'72 lOths per annum, some of it not 
 more than 0"76 of a tenth, while in English Oak the growth is 
 in one case as much as an inch a year. Secondly, if it were 
 true that Italian Oak grows faster than English Oak, it would 
 not prove that fast-grown Oak is bad ; because some Italian, 
 or at least Sardinian, Oak is of excellent quality, and because, 
 moreover, we neither know what is meant by the wojds " com- 
 mon Oak," nor are we informed under what circumstances of 
 soil, &c., that which is said to be bad may have been produced. 
 A great deal of Italian Oak is Q. pubescens, and of this, 
 whether fast-grown or slow-grown, the quality is always bad. 
 As to Highland Oak ; in the absence of positive evidence it is 
 permitted to doubt the statement made respecting it, especially 
 when we call to mind the Oak forests formerly covering at least 
 a part of Inverness-shire — the size of which, as reported by 
 Dr. Walker and Sir T. D. Lauder, indicated anything rather 
 than slow growth. 
 
 The author from whom the foregoing paragraph is quoted, 
 
IS THE STEONGEST. 413 
 
 undertakes to prove, upon physiological principles, that fast- 
 grown timber must necessarily be bad. He says that the effect 
 of an improved soil, climate, and situation, is to expand the 
 parts of the whole vegetable ; that cutting off part of the 
 vegetable above the ground will expand those parts that 
 remain; and he illustrates this his notion about timber by 
 reference to Lettuces, Cabbages, Spinage, and other esculents, 
 which he says are softer the faster they grow, and also to 
 Willows, Poplars, Easpberries, &c., which he says are the 
 fastest-growing of aU woody plants, and the softest-wooded. 
 Therefore, he continues, " whatever tends to increase the 
 growth of a tree tends likewise to expand the vegetable fibre ; 
 and whenever the vegetable fibre is expanded, the timber must 
 be less hard, and more permeable by air, &c., and of course 
 inferior for all purposes of timber." These speculations are 
 described by another writer as " interesting, ingenious, and 
 philosophical." I must therefore suppose them to have carried 
 conviction to some minds. In truth, howevef, they are a 
 tissue of absurdity, evincing a total ignorance of the nature of 
 vegetable organization. 
 
 All plants consist of one or other of two substances — ^the one 
 cellular, the other fibro -vascular. The former is composed of 
 roundish cells, the latter of long tubes ; both are termed tissue 
 by physiologists. The cellular tissue, or substance, is brittle, 
 has little force of adhesion, and gives to the parts in which it 
 occurs the texture of a mushroom, or of the pith in an Elder 
 bush. On the other hand, fibro-vascular tissue is tough and 
 strong in various degrees, but in all cases much more tough 
 and strong than the cellular ; its nature, in a separate state, 
 may be compared to that of hemp, flax, or other vegetable 
 fibres, which are always composed of fibro-vascular substance. 
 
 Timber consists of these two tissues intermixed ; when it 
 grows fast, it produces a large quantity of fibro-vascular tissue, 
 and but little ceUular ; when it grows slowly, it is more cellular 
 than fibro-vascular. There is never any expansion of the fibro- 
 vascular parts ; all that happens is that the aggregate number 
 of the latter is increased. Thus, suppose a stick an iuch in 
 diameter contains 500 tubes ; if you make it grow twice as fast, 
 
414 FAST-GROWN TIMBER 
 
 it will not expand those tubes, but it will add 500 more to its 
 original number in the same period of time. As regards the 
 cells, they may possibly be somewhat larger in plants of a 
 very soft texture when highly cultivated, than when wild, but 
 this is doubtful, and the difference between wild and cultivated 
 esculents principally depends upon the greater quantity of the 
 cells, and especially of the fluid matter contained in them. 
 Expansion, in the sense in which the writer above-mentioned 
 uses the word, has no existence. 
 
 Now, the difference between esculent herbs and woody plants 
 consists mainly in this, that the former are composed principally 
 of cellular substance, and the latter of fibro-vascular. Any 
 addition to, not expansion of, the cellular tissue, renders plants 
 more brittle and more succulent, and therefore more fit to eat. 
 But it is most absurd to say that, therefore, any augmentation 
 of the quantity of fibro-vascular tissue will also render plants 
 more brittle ; on the contrary, it is an addition of toughness and 
 flexibility, and the only conceivable efi'ect its augmentation can 
 have wUl be to render timber yet stronger than before. 
 
 With regard to Willows, Poplars, and other plants of that cha- 
 racter, they are not soft, because they grow fast ; for they are just 
 as weak when they grow slowly — and weaker. Their want of 
 strength and durability arises from their being unable to consoli- 
 date their tissue by depositing within it matter of Hghification. 
 The sap-wood of the Oak is as soft and perishable as Lime-wood, 
 and for the same reason ; namely, because that peculiar matter 
 which the Oak deposits ia its tissue, and which gives its heart- 
 wood strength, is not separated and deposited in the sapwood. 
 
 The fact is, that so far as vegetable physiology is able to 
 throw, of itself, any Hght upon this curious subject, it would 
 lead to the conclusion that fast-grown timber is tougher than 
 slow-grown, and superior for all purposes of utility. 
 
 The reader will be careful to observe, that in making these 
 remarks I intend them to apply only to the same kind of wood 
 wnder the same circumstances. Wood grown fast in one place 
 may be worse or better than wood grown slowly in some others ; 
 but that is a different question. 
 . As to the accuracy of these statements, evidence enough is to 
 
IS THE STRONGEST. 
 
 415 
 
 be found by those who look to facts instead of books, and the 
 following is conclusive proof that Oak, at least, is best when 
 fastest grown and worst when slowest grown. 
 
 In the highly interesting coUection of naval woods which 
 was formed by the late Sir WUHam Symonds, at the Admiralty 
 Offices in Somerset House, there exists an abundance of speci- 
 mens of Oak-timber whose quality had been ascertained by 
 actual experiment. To this distinguished officer the author 
 was indebted for the opportunity of examining them, and the 
 result of that examination is given in the following table, which 
 shows the annual rate of growth of twenty-three samples of Oak- 
 timber, given in tenths of an inch for the sake of comparison, 
 together with their respective qualities, as ascertained in her 
 Ma,jesty's dockyards : — 
 
 
 Annual rate of 
 
 
 Ifame or Locality. 
 
 Growth, 
 
 computed in 
 
 tenths of an inch. 
 
 Asoeitained Quality. 
 
 Duke of "Wellington's estate 
 
 10. 
 
 Very good for Planlj. 
 
 English 
 
 6.66 
 
 Good for Plank. 
 
 Oat of Ship "Gibraltar" . 
 
 6.44 
 
 Good. 
 
 Do. do. . . 
 
 4.61 
 
 Very good. 
 
 Sardinian 
 
 4.28 
 
 Good, 
 
 French .... 
 
 
 4. 
 
 Bad. 
 
 Slyrian, 1st class . 
 
 
 3.33 
 
 Indifferent and light. 
 
 Dantzie, 1st class . 
 
 
 2.85 
 
 Tolerable for Plank. 
 
 Tuscan, Q,. isohia . 
 
 
 2.72 
 
 Good for Plank. 
 
 Tstrian, 1st class . 
 
 
 2.57 
 
 Bad. 
 
 Polish .... 
 
 
 2.50 
 
 Indifferent. 
 
 American Live Oak 
 
 
 2.39 
 
 Good. 
 
 English, seasoned 
 
 
 2.37 
 
 Good. 
 
 American White Oat 
 
 
 2.15 
 
 Bad. 
 
 Russian .... 
 
 
 2.07 
 
 Bad. 
 
 Hainault . 
 
 
 
 2. 
 
 Bad. 
 
 Circassian . 
 
 
 
 1.79 
 
 Indifferent. 
 
 Tuscan . . 
 
 
 
 1.33 
 
 Good. 
 
 East Prussian 
 
 
 
 1.17 
 
 Indifferent. 
 
 Podolian 
 
 
 
 1.17 
 
 Bad. 
 
 Canadian 
 
 
 
 1.07 
 
 Bad. 
 
 Crimea . . 
 
 
 
 0.96 
 
 Tolerable. 
 
 Tuscan, Q,. Earnia . 
 
 
 0.76 
 
 Bad. 
 
416 
 
 FAST-GROWN TIMBER 
 
 I also find, upon looking to evidence of another kind, that 
 the following are the rates of growth of various other specimens 
 of Oak. 
 
 Name or Locality. 
 
 Annual rate of 
 
 Growth, 
 
 computed in 
 
 tenths of an inch. 
 
 Apparent Quality. 
 
 Ruins of York Minster , . 
 
 Arundel 
 
 Penrhyn, N.W., White Oak 
 Do. do. Red Oak . 
 
 Wainscot 
 
 Northumberland .... 
 
 Arundel 
 
 Yorkshire 
 
 Wainscot 
 
 Moss Oak, Ayrshire . . . 
 Wainscot 
 
 7-78 
 
 3.33 
 
 2.50 
 
 2.35 
 
 2.0 
 
 1.81 
 
 1.48 
 
 1.43 
 
 1.25 
 
 0.99 
 0.80 
 
 Excellent, hard, and 
 
 heavy. 
 Best quality on the 
 
 Duke of Norfolk's 
 
 Estate. 
 Inferior. 
 Very good. 
 Good. 
 Good. 
 Inferior. 
 Tolerably good. 
 Average of several 
 
 specimens, including 
 
 good and bad. 
 Light and bad. 
 Brittle and bad. 
 
 It is to be hoped that the evidence now produced will satisfy 
 the most sceptical person that fast-grown Oak is, both in 
 theory and in fact, greatly superior to that grown slowly. In 
 the first of the foregoing tables the best in quality was from 
 Strathfieldsaye, and grew as much on an average as an inch in 
 diameter annually, and all those others which grew above four- 
 tenths in diameter were of good quality. On the other hand, 
 all the slowest-grown timber in both tables was bad or 
 indifferent. It is true that some of the Navy Oak of bad 
 quality was fast-grown-, as the French, Styrian, and Istrian; 
 but this may have been caused by soil or have been owing to 
 the species. There is reason to believe that some kinds of soil 
 will grow Oak fast without furnishing the matter required for 
 hardening the timber, and that some species common in the 
 South and East of Europe, particularly Q. pubescens, the 
 Downy Oak, are never of value as timber. The specimen of 
 
IS THE STRONGEST. 417 
 
 wood marked French, from the dockyards, was very like that of 
 the Downy species. 
 
 There is other evidence of incontestable value which ought 
 to satisfy any reasonable man upon this subject. 
 
 If the reader will turn to a pamphlet published in the year 
 1839 by Mr. Withers, of Holt, in Norfolk, a planter of great 
 experience, he will find a considerable body of evidence in 
 support of the statement that fast-grown Oak is the best. The 
 pamphlet was called a A Letter to Sir Henry Steuart, and was 
 written for the purpose of doing away with any impression 
 which might have been made by that gentleman when he 
 stated that slow-grown timber is the best. By the evidence of 
 timber-merchants and other persons familiar with the sub- 
 ject, Mr. Withers proved that the very reverse was the case. 
 Mr. John Stenning, of East Grinstead, expresses himself thus : — 
 
 " Another very desirable quality which quick-growing timber 
 possesses is, that it is much stronger and tougher than that 
 which grows slow. The one would bend where the other 
 would break. I am convinced that a ship built exclusively of 
 quick-growing timber, and striking against a rock, would be in 
 safety, when one exclusively built of slow-growing timber would 
 fall to pieces : the former, from strength and toughness of the 
 wood, would yield and clear off ; and the latter, from the short- 
 ness of the grain of the wood, and its consequent tenderness, 
 would break without reaction. I contend, in contradiction to 
 Sir Henry Steuart, that the heart of such timber is very 
 superior, that it is considerably heavier, and must consequently 
 contain more virtue and condition than that which he 
 recommends to the public as the best. 
 
 " Independent of the advantage which the quickness in growth 
 gives to the quality of Oak timber, the bark from the same 
 cause possesses an equal if not greater superiority ; as the very 
 highest price is given by the London tanners for bark from 
 this county, where the growth, as I have before mentioned, is 
 very rapid compared with its progress in many parts. The 
 bark from such timber is very thick and fleshy, whereas from 
 that which grows slowly it is thin and drossy. 
 
 " The only inducement I have to fall in with Sir Henry 
 
418 FAST-GROWN TIMBER IS STRONGEST. 
 
 Steuart's notions on tke quality of timber is, the consideration 
 ' that the strength of work is the decay of trade.' 
 
 " Before concluding my remarks, I beg to state that my 
 observations are the result of thirty years' experience ; during 
 that period I have superintended the management and growth 
 of Oak timber, have purchased no inconsiderable quantity, and 
 have been a good deal engaged in the conversion and application 
 of it for different purposes ; and I can assert, without fear of 
 contradiction from any experienced individual, that the quicker 
 Oak timber is produced, the better the quaUty will be." 
 - The opinion of Thomas Andrew Knight was to the same 
 effect: — That gentleman's answer to the query put by Lord 
 Glenbervie — "Whether Oaks which grow in poor soils, and 
 slowly, are of a firmer nature and more durable timber than 
 when grown in richer land ? " — was as foUows : — " No ; their 
 timber is more porous, lighter, and less dwrahle. The heaviest 
 and best Oaks for all purposes grow in strong, deep, red loams, 
 where the Oak frequently increases annually more than an inch 
 in diameter. A layer of very porous wood marks the commence- 
 ment of each year's growth; and when the growth is small, 
 these porous layers touch each other. The superior value of 
 the English Oali depends on its vigorous and rapid growth, 
 which frequently exceeds that of the Oak imported from the 
 North of Europe in the ratio often to one." 
 
 And finally^ the experiments of Professor Barlow, at 
 Woolwich, quoted by Mr, Withers, all prove exactly the same 
 fact. In one instance, two specimens of Oak were selected; 
 one (No. 1) from a fagt-grown tree, and the other (No. 2) from 
 a slow-growing tree. " The former was grown upon a very 
 strong good soil. Its age was, he supposed, about sixty years, 
 and it contained from thirty-eight to forty cubic feet of timber. 
 The other (No. 3) was about one hundred and twenty years 
 old, and was grown upon a light soil with gravel about two 
 feet below the surface. This tree contained about eighty cubic 
 feet; but my informant considers that if No. 1 had stood 
 to attain the same age as No. 8, it would have made at least 
 forty feet more than that tree." Professor Barlow gave the 
 following as the result of his examination. 
 
PRUNING SHRUBBEBIES. 419 
 
 "The two pieces were squared down each to two inches. 
 They were hroken on props fifty inches asunder. Their 
 specific gravity, elasticity, and ultimate and comparative 
 strength, were as below : — 
 
 „ „ „ Deflected 1.50tli of its Broken with Comparative 
 
 Spec. grav. length with BroKenwitn strength. 
 
 No. 1. 903 660 lbs. 999 lbs. 1561 
 
 No. 2. 856 414 lbs, 677 lbs. 1058 
 
 "No. 1, it appears, is therefore ahout of medium strength, 
 my mean number being for English Oak 1470. No. 3 is very 
 weak, my weakest specimen being 1205 (see Essay on Strength 
 of Timber). We tried, besides, two very choice specimens of 
 English Oak which had been very long in store, and the 
 numbers were. 
 
 Spec. grav. Deflected l-50th with Broken with Comp. Btr. 
 
 748 896 lbs. 1447 lbs. 2261 
 
 756 680 lbs. 1304 lbs. 2037 
 
 " These again, compared with your weakest piece, show that 
 your No. 1 is about the common run of English Oak." 
 
 Another experiment upon strength gave exactly the same 
 result. These are incontrovertible proofs that, cceteris paribusi 
 the fastest-grown Oak is the best ; and it may be added that all 
 evidence goes to show that what is true of the Oak is true of 
 other trees. 
 
 Few remarks are called for as regards the pruning of shrub- 
 beries. The knife is only wanted there to thin the branches 
 so as to prevent them from dying from want of light and air, or 
 to shorten them so as to prevent the shrubbery becoming naked 
 at the bottom. Winter is the season in which the operation is 
 best performed ; September and October are the worst months, 
 because the buds of pruned shrubs are apt to br§ak after the 
 last of those months, and the young shoots have not time to 
 ripen. Even midsummer pruning will in damp autumns 
 produce the same disadvantageous result. Nevertheless there 
 are those who advocate autumn pruning for all Evergreens. It 
 is alleged that when Evergreens are cut back in the autumn, 
 the roots, which are not affected by the pruning, continue to 
 absorb during the whole winter, and to render all the mutilated 
 branches turgid with sap against the return of spring; the 
 
 £ E 2 
 
420 PRUNING EVERGREENS. 
 
 consequence of which is, that every bud pushes with great 
 vigour. It is also said that if pruning Evergreens is delayed 
 tiU the spring, the removal of branches filled with the sap, 
 which would otherwise have been concentrated in the trunk or 
 stock, produces the effect of weakening the tree, and rendering 
 its sprouting thickly less certain. Possibly in mild situations, 
 where there is no danger from severe frost, this mode of reason- 
 ing is correct; But it is to be recollected that the greater part 
 of our Evergreens are natives of countries much warmer in 
 summer than our own. The common Laurel is from the 
 Black Sea, the Portugal Laurel from Portugal and Madeira, 
 the Phillyrea from the coast of the Mediterranean, and the 
 Alaternus, Arbutus, Evergreen Oak, and many more, from 
 similar climates. It is true that such trees are sometimes 
 exposed to severe frost; but their winters succeed extremely 
 hot summers, which have the effect of ripening the wood so 
 thoroughly as to render it far more capable of resisting cold 
 than with us under even, the most favourable circumstances. 
 It is found in practice in this country that if Evergreens are 
 cut down in the autumn, a hard winter is certain to injure 
 them severely, partly, perhaps, because the natural protection 
 afforded by the leaves to the soil they grow in is removed, and 
 partly, no doubt, because the turgid state to which, the naked 
 branches are brought by the influence of the roots, above 
 adverted to, renders the wood more susceptible of cold. It is 
 notorious that a given plant suffers from cold in proportion to 
 the quantity of fluid it contains. 
 
 Autumn-pruning Evergreens, then, is disadvantageous in 
 cold climates,; for the adverse action by frost is much greater 
 than the favourable effect of the accumulation of sap. 
 
 Upon the whole, spring is to be recommended in England 
 for pruning Evergreens. Nowhere are the Laurel hedges more 
 beautiful, or in better order, than at Dropmore; and the 
 practice of Mr. Frost, who has the management of them, 
 entirely supports this opinion. He has had great experience in 
 the matter, and has invariably found the months of March 
 and April most advantageous ; indeed, if the weather at the end 
 of March remains severe, he defers the operation till April. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OF TRAINING. 
 
 Teaining Is one of the most artificial operations that 
 gardeners are acquainted with, its object being to place a plant 
 in a condition to which it could n6ver arrive under ordinary 
 circumstances. It is so nearly connected with the art of 
 pruning, that the French speak of both under the common 
 name of la taille. The practice of it forms one of the most 
 compHcated parts of horticulture, each species of tree demand- 
 ing a method peculiar to itself; but the principles on which 
 training depends are few and simple. 
 
 Those who desire to understand the routine of training must 
 refer to their garden library. In all works devoted to the art 
 of gardening, full instructions are given ftr the management of 
 every kind of tree in common cultivation. From Miller's 
 Dictiona/ry up to Mackiatosh's very useful Book of the Garden 
 we find the most minute instructions hc% to train a tree ; there 
 is wall-traiaing and espalier-training," pyramidal-training and 
 balloon-training, dwarf-training and standard-training, pillar- 
 training, horizontal-training, zigzag-training, and a host of other 
 devices which ingenious persons have invented. , Some are 
 necessary, some useful, some fanciful. In matters horticultu- 
 ral there are martinets as well as in matters military; and 
 many a gardener practically falls into the error of supposing 
 that the goose step, a tight jacket, leather stock, and pipe clay,, 
 make the soldier. He measures the angles of a tree, pinions 
 its limbs, drills its branches by inexorable rules, "cuts hard in," 
 "lays in close," and then believes he has exhausted skill. The 
 tree looks well perhaps, but a small matter makes it ill, limh 
 
422 THE OBJECTS OF TEAINING 
 
 after limb dies away, fruit does not set, and all its spruceness 
 ends in rags and tatters. This comes of neglect of first 
 principles. Not that a gardener should undervalue in the 
 smallest degree the rules which long experience has estab- 
 lished ; quite the contrary. It is because it is observed without 
 intelligence, and without a thought to first principles, that 
 mere routine, however excellent, is apt to lead to failure. And 
 it may be asserted with perfect truth that in training fruit- 
 trees, it is better to understand principles and to be ignorant 
 of rules of practice, than to be familiar with the latter and 
 unacquainted with the former. In this place principles only 
 have to be adverted to. 
 
 It is probable that the intention of the first gardener who 
 trained a tree was to gain some advantage of climate, by 
 availing himself of a waU or other screen ; and this is still one 
 of our greatest objects ; partly with a view to guard the flowers 
 in spring from cold, and especially cold winds, partly to expose 
 the leaves and fruit to a hotter temperature than would other- 
 wise be gained, and in some measure to ripen wood with more 
 certainty. 
 
 That training a tree over the face of a waU will protect the 
 blossoms from cold must be apparent, when we consider the 
 severe effect of excessive evaporation upon the tender parts ; a 
 merely low temperature wiU produce but little comparative 
 injury in a still air, because the more essential parts of the 
 flower are very much guarded by the bracts, calyx, and petals, 
 which overlie them, and, moreover, because radiation will be 
 intercepted by the branches themselves placed one above the 
 other, so that none but the uppermost branches which radiate 
 into space wiU feel its full effects ; but, when a cold wind is 
 constantly passing through the branches and among the flowers, 
 the perspiration, against which no sufficient guard is provided 
 by nature, becomes so rapid as to increase the amount of cold 
 considerably, besides abstracting more aqueous matter than a 
 plant can safely pai't with. To prevent this being one of the 
 great objects of trainiag trees, it is inconceivable how any one 
 should have recommended such devices as those mentioned 
 in the liorticuUwral Transactions^ ii. Appendix, p. 8., of 
 
TO GAIN A HIGHER TBMPERATUEE. 423 
 
 training trees upon a horizontal plane ; the only effect of which 
 would be to expose a tree as much as possible to the effect of 
 that radiation which it is the very purpose of training to guard 
 against. 
 
 The actual temperature to which a tree trained upon a wall 
 facing the sun is exposed is much higher than that of the 
 surrounding air, not only because it receives a larger amount 
 of the direct solar fays, but because of the heat received by the 
 surrounding earth, reflected from it and absorbed by the wall 
 itself. Under such circumstances the secretions of the plant 
 are more fully elaborated than in a more shady and colder 
 situation ; and, by aid of the greater heat and dryness in front 
 of a south wall, the period of maturity is much advanced. In 
 this way we succeed in procuring a Mediterranean or Persian 
 summer in these northern latitudes. When the excellence of 
 fruit depends upon its sweetness, the quality is exceedingly 
 improved by such an exposure to the sun ; for it is found that 
 the quantity of sugar elaborated in a fruit is obtained by an 
 alteration of the gummy, mucilaginous, and gelatinous matters 
 previously formed in it, and the quantity of those matters will 
 be in proportion to the amount of light to which the tree, if 
 healthy, has been exposed. Hence the greater sweetness of 
 Plums, Pears, &c., raised on walls from those grown on 
 standards. It has been already stated that an increase of heat 
 has been sought for on walls by blackening them ; and we are 
 assured in the Hortieultwal Transactions (iii. 330) that,, in the 
 cultivation of the Grape, this has been attended with the best 
 effects. But, unless when trees are young, the wall ought to 
 be covered with foliage during summer, and the blackened 
 surface would scarcely act ; and in the spring the expansion of 
 the flowers would be hastened by it, which is no advantage in 
 cold late springs, because of the greater liabihty of early 
 flowers to perish from cold. That a blackened surface does 
 produce a beneficial effect upon trees trained over it is, how- 
 ever, probable, although not by hastening the maturation of 
 fruit; it is by raising the temperature of the wall in autumn 
 when the leaves are falhng, and the darkened surface becomes 
 uncovered, that the advantages are perceived by a better com- 
 
424 TO DIMINISH THE BATE OF GROWTH 
 
 pletion of the process of growth, the result of which is the 
 ripening the wood. This is, indeed, the view taken of it by 
 Mr. Harrison, who found the practice necessary, in order to 
 obtain crops of Pears in late seasons at Wortley, in Yorkshire 
 (see Hort. Trans., iii. 330, and vi. 453). It hardly need be 
 added that the effect of blackening wUl be in proportion to the 
 thinness of the training, and vice versa. 
 
 Another object of training is, to place a tree in such a state 
 of constraint that its juices are unable to circulate freely, the 
 result of which is exactly that already assigned to the process 
 of ringing (see p. 370). If a stem is trained erect it is more 
 vigorous than if placed in any other position, and its tendency 
 to bear leaves rather than flowers is increased ; in proportion 
 as it deviates from the perpendicular is its vigour diminished. 
 For instance, if a stem is headed back, and only two opposite 
 buds are allowed to grow, they continue to push equally, so 
 long as their relation to the perpendicular is the same ; but, if 
 one is bent towards a horizontal direction, and the other 
 allowed to remain, the growth of the former is immediately 
 checked ; let the depression be increased, the weakness of the 
 branch increases proportionally ; and this may be carried on 
 till the branch perishes by a process of abstracting food 
 analogous to starvation in animals. In training, this fact is 
 of the utmost value in enabling the gardener to regulate the 
 symmetry of a tree, and to cause one part to balance another 
 exactly, which is one of the first objects the trainer has to 
 attain. "Whenever one branch or one side of a trained tree 
 becomes stronger than another, the difference increases tUl the 
 larger succeeds in starving the former. It however by no 
 means follows that, because out of two contiguous branches, 
 one growing erect and the other forced into a downward direc- 
 tion, the latter may die, that if all branches are trained down- 
 wards any will die. On the contrary, a general inversion of their 
 natural position is of so little consequence to their healthiness, 
 that no effect seems in general to be produced beyond that of 
 causing a slow circulation, and the formation of flowers. Hence 
 the directing of branches downwards is one of the commonest 
 and most successful contrivances employed by gardeners to 
 
BY TRAINING DOWNWARDS. 425 
 
 render plants fruitful. Mr. Knight was the first to recommend 
 the practice, in the following account of his recovery of an oM 
 and worthless Pear-tree. 
 
 " An old St. Germain Pear-tree, of the spurious kind, had 
 been trained in the fan form, against a north-west wall in my 
 garden, and the central branches, as usually happens in old 
 trees thus trained, had long reached the top of the wall, and 
 had become wholly unproductive. The other branches afforded 
 but very little fruit, and that never acquiring maturity was 
 consequently of no value ; so that it was necessary to change 
 the variety, as well as to render the tree productive. To attain 
 these purposes, every branch which did not want at least 
 twenty degrees of being perpendicular was taken out at its 
 base ; and the spurs upon every other branch, which I intended 
 to retain, were taken off closely with the saw and chisel. Into 
 these branches, at their subdivisions, grafts were inserted at 
 different distances from the root, and some so near the extre- 
 mities of the branches, that the tree extended as widely in the 
 autumn after it was grafted, as it did in the preceding year. 
 The grafts were also so disposed, that every part of the space 
 the tree previously covered was equally well supplied with 
 young wood. 
 
 "As soon, in the succeeding summer, as the young shoots 
 had attained suf&cient length, they were trained almost perpen- 
 dicularly downwards, between the larger branches and the wall, 
 to which they were nailed. The most perpendicular remaining 
 branch upon each side was grafted about four feet below the 
 top of the wall, which is twelve feet high; and the young 
 shoots, which the grafts upon these afforded, were trained 
 inwards, and bent down to occupy the space from which the 
 old central branches had been taken away; and therefore very 
 little vacant space remained any where in the end of the first 
 autumn. A few blossoms, but not any fruit, were produced by 
 several of the grafts in the succeeding spring; but in the 
 following year, and subsequently, I have had abundant crops, 
 equally dispersed over every part of the tree; and I have 
 scarcely ever seen such an exuberance of blossom as this tree- 
 presents in the present spring." {Hort. Trans., ii. 78.) 
 
426 
 
 EOSE-TEAINING ON HOOPS. 
 
 The practice was then followed by Sir Joseph Banks, whose 
 fruit-trees trained downwards over the walls of his garden at 
 Spring Grove, and facing the high road, long excited the 
 astonishment of passers by; and it has now been generally 
 applied to other cases. What are called BaUoon Apples and 
 Pears, formed by forcing downwards all the branches of 
 
 standard trees till the points touch the earth, are an instance 
 of this ; and they have the merit of producing large crops of 
 fruit in a very small compass : their upper parts are, however, 
 too much exposed to radiation at night, and the crop from that 
 part of the branches is apt to be cut off. One of the prettiest 
 applications of this principle is that of Mr. Charles Lawrence, 
 described in the Oofrdeners' Magazine, viii. 680, by means of 
 which standard Eose-trees are converted into masses of 
 flowers. The figure given in that work, and here reproduced 
 (Fig. XCII.), represents the variety called the Bizarre de la 
 
TRAINING IMPROVES QUALITY. 427 
 
 Chine, "which flowered most abundantly to the ends of its 
 branches, and was truly a splendid object." 
 
 All roses will not however submit to this process ; it is oiily 
 the free-growing kinds, such as those having a little alpine or 
 Chinese blood in them or bred from the Damask and Provence 
 Roses that really look well. The Gallicas and short-branched 
 sorts in general are unfit for the operation ; which, when well 
 performed upon such sorts as the Coupe d'H6be for example, 
 produces plants unsurpassed for beauty by any ornament of 
 the flower garden. This training should always be performed 
 in mid-winter, when there is little sap in the branches. If 
 delayed till the sap flows in the spring, the branches become 
 brittle, and break instead of bending. 
 
 The last object of training to which it is necessary to advert 
 is that of improving the quality of fruit, by compelling the sap 
 to travel to a very considerable distance. The earliest notice 
 of this, with which I am acquainted, is the following by Mr. 
 Williams of Pitmaston. 
 
 "Within a few years past," he says in 1818, "I have 
 gradually trained bearing branches of a small Black Cluster 
 Grape, to the distance of near fifty feet from the root, and I 
 find the branches every year grow larger, and ripen earlier as 
 the shoots continue to advance. According to Mr. Knight's 
 theory of the circulation of the sap, the ascending sap must 
 necessarily become enriched by the nutritious particles it 
 meets with in its progress through the vessels of the alburnum; 
 the wood at the top of tall trees, therefore, becomes short- 
 jointed and full of blossom-buds, and the fruit there situated 
 attains its greatest perfection. Hence we find Pine and Fir- 
 trees loaded with the finest cones on the top boughs; the 
 largest acorns grow on the terminal branches of the Oak, and 
 the finest mast on the high boughs of the Beech and Chestnut; 
 so likewise Apples, Pears, Cherries, &c., are always best 
 flavoured from the top of the tree." (Hort. Trans., iii. 250 
 251.) The merit of the Fontainebleau mode of training the 
 Vine (Fig. XCIII.), in which many of the stems are carried to 
 very considerable distances, seems to depend in some measure 
 upon this principle ; and there is a well-known Black Hamburgh 
 
428 
 
 VINES AT FONTAINEBLEAU. 
 
 Grape at Bath, growing in a garden formerly belonging to 
 Mr. Farrant, the stem of which, owing to local circumstances, 
 is necessarily conveyed to a very considerable distance before 
 it is allowed to produce its beaiing branches, the quality 
 of whose fruit is of very unusual excellence. These facts seem 
 Capable of being applied to many important improvements, 
 in fruit management. 
 
 Fig, ZCIII. — ^Vine-training at Fontainebleau. 
 
 The foregoing are the principal advantages which arise from 
 training plants ; let us next consider what disadvantages there 
 may be. The only trees which at all approach in nature the 
 state of trained plants are climbers and creepers, whose stems, 
 unable to support themselves, cling for a prop upon whatever 
 they are near ; , some of them enclose the stem of another plant 
 in their convolutions; others simply attach themselves by 
 means of tendrils as the Vine, by hooks as the Combretum, or 
 by other contrivances; and some, like the Ivy, lay hold of 
 walls, rocks, or the trunks of trees, by their rootlets. To none 
 
EVILS CAUSED BY TRAINING. 429 
 
 of these can that motion be necessary to which some plants 
 are naturally exposed, and which, as has been already seen, 
 is of so much importance to the healthy maintenance of their 
 functions. Hence it is, that among fruit-trees the Vine never 
 suffers from being trained : indeed its anatomical structure is 
 specially suited to such a mode of existence ; while all erect 
 trees, of whatever kind, whose branches nature intended to be 
 rocked by the storm, and perpetually waved by the currents of 
 air to which they are exposed, in all cases suffer more 
 or less. 
 
 One of the commonest and worst diseases induced by training 
 is a gradual impermeability of tissue to the free passage of sap, 
 which appears to stagnate, so that in time the branches become 
 debilitated and juiceless : the obstruction to the flow of the sap 
 tends to produce coarse shoots from various parts of the 
 branches, and especially from the roots. The cause of this 
 seems to be the too rapid deposit of the matter of lignification, 
 and to be induced by want of motion and excessive exposure of 
 the leaves and branches to the sun. The effect of the latter is 
 to inspissate all the juices, and to promote their formation; 
 while the former iacreases the evil by not keeping the fluids in 
 rapid circulation ; just as we know that a slow stream from a 
 muddy source deposits its impurities much more copiously 
 than a rapid stream. As this evil arises out of the operation of 
 training, and seems to be inseparable from it, there can be no 
 expectation of a remedy being discovered. 
 
 The increase of the saccharine quality of fruit is by no 
 means an advantage in all cases ; it improves the Peach, the 
 Nectarine, the Pear, and the Plum, in which sweetness is the 
 great object : hut it deteriorates the Apple and the Apricot, 
 which are chiefly valued for their peculiar mixture of acidity 
 and sweetness. 
 
 The protection received in the spring by trees trained upon 
 walls exposed to the sun, while it advances the period of 
 flowering, at the same time causes it to take place at a season 
 when they are not sufficiently secure from spring frosts ; and 
 hence the necessity of protecting such plants artificially by 
 coping, screens, bushes, curtains, and other contrivances. It 
 
430 PROTECTION IN SPEING NECESSARY. 
 
 is on this account that the utility of flued walls is so much 
 diminished, and that they are found, in practice, more yaluable 
 for ripening wood in autumn, than for guarding blossoms in 
 the spring. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OP POTTIN&. 
 
 When a plant is forced to grow in a small earthen vessel like 
 a garden pot, its condition is exceedingly different from that to 
 ■which it -would he naturally exposed. The roots, instead of 
 having the power of spreading constantly outwards, and away 
 from their original starting point, are constrained to grow hack 
 upon themselves ; the supply of food is comparatively uncertain; 
 and they are usually exposed to fluctuations of temperature 
 and moisture unknown in a natural condition. For these 
 reasons, potted plants are often in worse health than those 
 growing freely m. the ground ; hut, as the operation of potting 
 is one of indispensahle necessity, it is for the scientific gardener, 
 firstly, to guard against the injuries sustainahle hy plants to 
 which the operation must he applied ; and, secondly, to avoid, 
 as far as may he possible, exposing them to such an artificial 
 state of existence. That the latter may he done more frequently 
 than is supposed wUl he sufficiently ohvious, when we have 
 considered what the purposes really are that the gardener needs 
 to gain hy potting. 
 
 The first and greatest end attained by pottiag is, the power 
 of moving plants about from place to place without injury; 
 greenhouse plants from the open air to the house, and vice 
 versa; hardy species, difficult to transplant, to their final 
 stations in the open ground without disturbing their roots; 
 annuals raised in heat to the open borders ; and so on : and, 
 when this power of moving plants is wanted, pots afford the 
 only means of doing so. It also cramps the roots, diminishes 
 the tendency to form leaves, and increases the disposition to 
 
432 CONSTRUCTION OF GARDEN-POTS. 
 
 flower. Another object is, to effect a secure and constant 
 drainage from roots of water; a third is, to expose the roots to 
 the most favourable amount of bottom-heat, which cannot be 
 readily accomplished when plants of large size are made to grow 
 in the ground even of a hothouse ; and, finally, it is a convenient 
 process for the nourishment of delicate seedlings. Unless some 
 one of these ends is to be answered, and cannot be effected in 
 a more natural manner, potting is better dispensed with. 
 
 Many suggestions have been made with a view to improve the 
 construction of the common garden-pot. The following deserve to be 
 recorded. One is a contrivance by Mr. Fry, of Blackheath, for 
 examining the roots of plants in very large pots. It is not possible to 
 take the "baU" out of such pots by the usual process of inverting 
 them, and allowing the ball to drop, because they are too heavy. Mr, 
 Fry meets the difficulty by the following contrivance. A pot is made 
 ■with a moveable bottom, concave on the upper side like a saucer. 
 When the ball of such a pot is to be examined, the latter is placed 
 upon a heavy wooden block out into a cylindrical form, which forces 
 upwards the moveable bottom, and carries the ball with it without the 
 slightest disturbance. After the roots have been examined, the pot is 
 lifted upwards till the ball is replaced, and the wooden cyUnder is 
 removed. Mr. Beaton proposes to do away with the hole at the bottom 
 altogether ; and, instead of the flat bottom, the maker elevates the 
 centre of it, like the bottom of a common black bottle ; drainage-holes 
 being round the sides at the bottom. From two to six holes, according 
 to the size of the pot, are sufficient. " The roots cannot get through 
 the bottom, neither can the worms get in, and water cannot hang under 
 the pot in winter." Another proposal is, that when plants are intended 
 for bedding out, they should first be put into pots having both ends 
 open, and that the seeds should be sown on the broad end, which is kept 
 uppermost. 
 
 That potting may be dispensed with in many cases, is 
 evident from several facts more or less well known. The 
 nurserymen prefer "pricking out " their delicate seedlings into 
 pans, or moveable borders, instead of pots ; and they always 
 thrive the better. In conservatories, the necessity of shifting 
 plants from place to place may be often avoided ; while, under 
 judicious management, those which are planted in the open 
 soil have greatly the advantage of others, both in healthiness 
 and easiness of management ; and it is found that Pine-apples 
 
SOIL IN POTS SOON EXHAUSTED. 433 
 
 succeed better unpotted, if planted freely in soil exposed to 
 a 'proper amount of hottom-heat. This was first asserted by 
 Mr. Martin Call, one of the Emperor's gardeners at St. Peters- 
 burg {Hort. Trans., iv. 471), and has been since practised very 
 successfully by others. In the year 1830, a Pine-apple, 
 obtained by this treatment, weighing 9 lb. 4oz., was sent to the 
 King of England by Mr. Edwards, of Eheola ; and in modern 
 practice all great Pine growers adopt this plan when circum- 
 stances permit them to do so. (See A Treatise on the Hamiltonian 
 System of Cultivating the Pine Apple. By Joseph Hamilton. 
 Ed. a, London, 1845.) 
 
 The exhaustion of soil by a plant is one of the most obvious 
 inconveniences of potting. The nutrient matter in a soluble 
 state, contained in a garden pot, must necessarily be soon 
 consumed by the numerous roots crowded into a narrow 
 compass and continually feeding upon it. The effects of this 
 are seen in the smallness of leaves, the weakness of branches, 
 the fewness and imperfect condition of flowers, &c. j and the 
 gardener remedies them by applying liquid manure, by frequent 
 shifting, or by placing his plants in panfeeders, shallow earthen 
 vessels containing manure, to which the roots have access 
 through the holes in the bottom of a pot. It is, however, to shift- 
 ing more particularly, that recourse is had for renovating the 
 soil; and this, if skUfuUy performed, without giving a sudden and 
 violent shock to the plant, iS probably the best means ; because 
 the roots are thus allowed more liberty of distribution, and the 
 earth is kept more permeable than when consolidated by 
 repeated applications of liquid manure. There is, however, a 
 difficulty in shifting plants without injury to their roots, in the 
 midst of fuU vegetation ; and at such times the application of 
 liquid manure is preferable when the soil requires renovation. 
 
 Every one knows that the soil of a farm will not bear, year 
 after year, the same kind of crop, but that one kind of produce 
 is cultivated on a piece of ground one year, and is succeeded 
 by some other kind ; which practice, in part, constitutes the 
 important system of rotation of crops. Not, however, to refer 
 to matters extra-horticultural, it is notorious that an Apple 
 orchard will not immediately succeed upon the site of an old 
 
434 SHIFTING. 
 
 orchard of the same kind of fruit; a wall-border, in whicl 
 fruit-trees have been long grown, becomes at last insensible tc 
 manure, and requires to be renewed ; and, not to dwell upon ar 
 undisputed fact, Dahlias do not " like " the soil in whicl 
 Dahlias were grown the previous year. What is the real caus( 
 of this? Not exhaustion of ordinary fertilising ingredients 
 because that exhaustion is made good and yet to no purpose 
 Are we to assume, what seems to be the fact, that land contains 
 something mineral which each species prefers to feed on, anc 
 which is not contained in ordinary manure ? This wiU b( 
 further considered in the final chapter on soil and manure. 
 
 It is not, however, merely for the purpose of removing 
 deteriorated earth or adding manure, that shifting is important 
 in all potted plants the ball of earth, by the continual passag* 
 of water through it, is in time reduced to a state of hardness 
 and solidity unfavourable to the retention of moisture or th< 
 growth of roots, and this is of course cured if the operation o: 
 shifting is judiciously performed. I must, however, confess ] 
 have seen gardeners contented with lifting a plant with a hare 
 old matted ball, out of one pot into another of a little largei 
 size, shaking some particles of fresh earth in between the bal 
 and the side of the pot, and pressing the whole down with as 
 much force as the thumbs can give. Do such men deserve th( 
 name of Gardeners ? 
 
 It is found that the roots of potted plants invariably direc 
 themselves towards the sides of the pot, as must indeed neces 
 sarily happen in consequence of their disposition to grov 
 horizontally. Having reached the sides, they do not turi 
 back, but follow the earthenware surface, till at last they forn 
 an entangled stratum enclosing a ball of earth ; then, if no 
 relieved by repotting, they rise upwards towards the surface, oi 
 they attempt to force themselves back to the centre. Th( 
 greater number of roots are, however, always found in contac 
 with the porous earthen sides of the vessel ; and especially al 
 the most powerfully absorbent, that is to say the youngest 
 parts. They are, therefore, in contact with a body subject t( 
 great variations of temperature and moisture, in consequenci 
 of exposure to the sun, or to a dry air in motion, unless i) 
 
PLUNGflNG.- 435 
 
 those cases where the air is kept, by artificial means, shaded 
 and uniformly damp. The extent of these changes gardeners 
 are hardly aware of; a few years ago I found in a conservatory, 
 in the months of May and June, that the temperature of the 
 soil in a small flower-pot was as low as 40° at one period of the day 
 and as high as 90° at another period. In a dry summer day, 
 when the leaves are perspiring freely and requiring an abund- 
 ance of water from the roots, the latter are placed in contact 
 with a substance whose moisture is continually diminishing; 
 or in a greenhouse, where the pots are syringed, the heat of 
 the earth in contact with the roots is lowered by a copious 
 evaporation from the sides of the pot, jiist when, in nature, the 
 bottom-heat should be the greatest. The evil consequences of 
 this are well known to gardeners, who however often neglect 
 taking sufficient precautions to prevent it. Greenhouse plants 
 exposed to the open air in summer always suffer severely from 
 the irregular condition of the sides of the pots, whence the 
 common practice of plunging them in the earth, for the purpose 
 of bringing them into the condition of plants growing in the 
 open ground. 
 
 This is, however, attended with some disadvantage, for the 
 plants root, through the bottom of the pots or over the edges, 
 among the earth in which they are plunged, and when taken up 
 in the autumn for removal they must have all such roots cut off 
 again, for there are no means of bringiug them withia the limits 
 of a pot. For these and similar reasons, no good gardener will 
 expose his greenhouse plants to the open air in summer, {/ he 
 can help it, unless they are duplicates, or unless there is some 
 object to be attained very different from the strange notion 
 that they are rendered more hardy by the process. The effect 
 that is really produced upon them is to give them a sort of 
 artificial winter in summer, that is to say to expose them to a 
 period of comparative rest from growth, which in many cases is 
 useful, or to expose them more fuUy to the sun at a time when 
 they are ripening fruit. Mr. Knight assures us that by having 
 the sides of their pots exposed fuUy to the air, the taste and flavour 
 of the Peach and Nectarine, and still more of the Strawberry, 
 are greatly improved, and the Fig-tree in the stove is made to 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 DOUBLE POTS. 
 
 afford a longer succession of produce, owing to the succession 
 of young shoots which are caused to spring from its larger 
 branches and steins ; and, in all cases when trees can be made to 
 retain their health in exposed pots, the 
 period of the maturity of their fruit is 
 very considerably accelerated." (Hort 
 Trans., vii. 358.) This seems to have 
 led Mr. Eivers to his happy idea of 
 orchard-houses and miniature fruit-gar- 
 dens, now so much in request. 
 
 The best method of counteracting the 
 Fig. xciv. injurious effects of exposure to the air 
 
 is by employing double pots (Fig. XCIV.), as recommended in 
 the Gardeners' Magazine, ix. 576, and by Captain Mangles in 
 his Floral Calendar, p. 44 ; the space (6) between the two pots 
 being fiUed up with moss or any other substance retentive of 
 moisture. 
 
 Tliere are two ingenious contrivances of tMs nature: one ty Mr. 
 Robert Brown, potter, at Ewell, and the' other by Mr. William 
 Eendle, the nurseryman at Plymouth. In both cases the object is 
 the same, namely, to have a double-sided pot in one piece. It is 
 obvious that by such contrivances, if the sides of a pot are left 
 empty, the stratum of air contained between them will prevent the 
 earth from becoming heated ; and if they are filled with water, the 
 inconvenience of over-watering, on the one hand, or over-drying, on 
 the other, will be prevented in summer, because water will be continu- 
 ally filtering slowly through the inside lining as the roots require it. 
 The latter reason renders them valuable for striking cuttings, and for 
 window gardens, where it is almost impossible to keep plants duly 
 supplied with moisture. Doubtless, in winter, if water be introduced 
 between the sides of this kind of pot, its inner surface will be always 
 wet ; the young roots will receive too much fluid, and the plant will 
 die : but if the empty space be permitted to remain empty, the inner 
 portion of the pot receiving moisture only from the watering required 
 for the weU-being of the plant, the outer side having water occasion- 
 ally poured on it, or the pot being immersed for a few minutes in it, 
 the sides of the pot will be kept so fuUy saturated, that they wiU. be 
 constantly giving out into the empty space a vapour, by which the 
 inner portion of the innermost pot (towards which the young roots 
 always inoUne, and with which they are in contact) wiU. be kept suffi- 
 ciently cool and moist, and the roots will be preserved from injury." 
 
DRAINING. 
 
 437 
 
 Of Eendle's pots (Fig. XCV., a and h), a differs in no material 
 degree from Brown's, except that, its lower angles are made stronger, 
 and it is better contrived for drainage ; the other (S, which was pro- 
 posed for striking cuttings) has a central hollow space which enables 
 
 Fig. XCV. 
 
 the bottom-heat to be better maintained. Neither of the plans seem, 
 however, to have found favour among gardeners, probably on account 
 of the expense ; indeed, it is manifest that three common pots of unequal 
 size can be readily so arranged as to produce all the effect of even 
 Eendle's second sort. 
 
 Of course the inconveniences thus described are principally 
 sustained by plants ia small pots. "When the quantity of earth 
 is considerable, as in tubs or the largest kind of pots, the loss 
 of water through the sides is of little moment, and the variation 
 of temperature is more than counteracted by the large surface 
 exposed to the direct influence of the solar rays. In these, as 
 in all other cases, perfect drainage is of the greatest service, and 
 should be carefully secured by placing an abundance of broken 
 tiles, potsherds, &c., in the bottom of a pot, so as to prevent the 
 stagnation of water about the roots. 
 
 Mr. Macnab, in his excellent practical .treatise upon the 
 cultivation of Cape Heaths, points out very forcibly the value of 
 good draining to that class of plants. There is scarcely any 
 danger, he says, of giving too much draining ; and, in order to 
 effect this essential object still more perfectly, he, in shifting 
 his Heaths, constantly keeps the centre elevated above the 
 general level of the earth in the pot or tub, so that at last 
 each plant stands on the summit of a small hillock. 
 
438 DRAINING POTS. 
 
 In order to counteract the risk of excessive drainage, 
 without in reality diminishing it, great advantage is derived 
 from the introduction into the earth of fragments of some 
 absorbent stone. Mr. Macnab uses "coarse soft free-stone 
 broken into pieces from one inch to four or five inches in 
 diameter;" because in summer these stones retain moisture 
 longer than the earth, and in winter allow a free circulation of 
 any superabundant moisture. 
 
 The mode of effecting drainage practically is thus described by Mr. 
 W. Moody, an experienced correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle : — 
 
 "The materials for this purpose should be perfectly dry and free from 
 dust, whether they be crooks, charcoal, or sandstone ; they should be 
 broken into different sizes, each size being placed separately ; thus, if 
 I were using 3-inoh pots, I first clean the pot well inside if required, 
 then place a piece of crock at the bottom, nearly as large as will cover 
 it, but convex, so as to allow the water free egress ; on this I place a 
 layer of broken crocks, or other material, about the size of Beans, and 
 on this again a slight layer about the size of Peas. When I use pots of 
 a larger size, I use larger pieces, always keeping the coarsest at the 
 bottom and the smallest at the top. "With very few exceptions, the 
 plants will be benefited by placing a thin layer of turfy loam or peat 
 over the drainage, as this keeps the smaller particles of earth from 
 being carried downwards. Although there is no fear of drainage being 
 impaired, if properly constructed, yet, to make doubly sure, let each 
 pot be crocked as regularly as possible, one having no more drainage 
 than another, so that in the next shift each may get the same propor- 
 tion of soil as well as drainage. Pieces of sandstone mixed with the 
 soil are very useful in drainage for hard-wooded plants, as are also 
 pieces of charcoal and bone-dust for soft-wooded ones ; in either case 
 the roots wUl be found closely adhering to these lumps. There are 
 many gardeners who say, ' I have no time to attend to such a routine 
 of breaking and layering ; ' but crocks do not spoil by being broken and 
 sorted in the coldest day in winter, nor yet if done in wet weather, 
 when nothing can be done out of doors. The different sizes may be 
 placed in large pots, and put somewhere out of the way, where they 
 wiU. be dry until the crocks are wanted for use, which is generally in 
 spring and summer seasons, when work is pressing ; thus time is saved 
 by having crocks previously prepared, and plants are benefited by 
 judiciously arranged drainage, which is sure to be effectual." This 
 advice is selected from among many others, because it seems to describe 
 the best kind of practice in the fewest words. Another, and very good 
 method, is the following : — 
 
 "The ordinary way of putting at the bottom of the pot a large 
 
DKAINING POTS. 439 
 
 qnantity of crocks is but a clumsy proceeding, and one which, if it 
 affords an opportunity for roots to spread themselyes freely, affords 
 also a harbour for ■worms, slugs, woodlice, and other vermin.^ To 
 remedy this, I put at the bottom a piece of perforated zinc, an inch and 
 a quarter, or more, square, according to the size of the pot, so as com- 
 pletely to cover the hole ; this perforated zinc may be had for a trifle of 
 any brazier or tin-plate worker, and may, by the help of a strong pair 
 of scissors or small shears, be readily cut to the requisite size ; upon 
 this I place a small potsherd, with its convex side upwards, taking care 
 that by resting partly upon the zinc it renders it immovable. I then 
 put in a quantity of good moss so as to form a layer of a third of 
 an inch, or more, thick, when pressed together by the mould, and 
 proceed to finish as usual the operation of potting the plant. I have 
 found this method to succeed perfectly : constant drainage is effected ; 
 the moss, particularly with the addition of the potsherd, prevents the 
 earth from choking the holes of the zinc, and by partial decomposition, 
 where it is in contact with the soil, affords an agreeable receptacle for 
 the roots of the plant, in which they appear to delight. All sorts of 
 vermin are excluded ; the operation of shifting is facilitated, as the 
 earth comes out of the pot unbroken ; and it is, moreover, a much more 
 cleanly process than the one commonly used. I must, however, add, 
 that if the pots thus treated are placed out of doors, it will stiU be 
 desirable that they should be put upon tiles or slates, or something of 
 the sort ; because, as the compost is generally rich, the worms will be 
 attracted by the water which drains from it, and although they cannot 
 get into the pot, if the bottom, inside, be level so as to keep the zinc 
 close all round, they wiH fill the hole below it with their casts, and 
 thus impede the drainage." 
 
 Materials for drainage abound among the refuse of aU gardens. 
 Broken pots, called crocks, are usually employed, and, if not burnt too 
 hard, are amongst the more useful. It is, however, of considerable 
 importance that the material, be it what it may, should be soft and 
 porous. Burnt clay, pounded bricks, fragments of charcoal, all which, 
 by virtue of their porosity, retain gaseous matters, are among the best, 
 inasmuch as they not only drain soil, but feed plants. For the same 
 reason bones, crushed with a hammer into pieces varying in size from 
 that of a hazel nut to a walnut, may perhaps be regarded as the best 
 of all. 
 
 If woody plants are allowed to remain growing in the same 
 pot for many years, as is sometimes the case, one of two things 
 must happen: either the roots, matted into a hard ball, 
 become so tortuous and hard as to be unfit for the free passage 
 of sap through them; or they acquire a spiral direction. In 
 
440 
 
 CORK-SOREWED ROOTS. 
 
 either case, if such plants are turned out of their pots in a 
 conservatory, or in the open ground, with a view to their future 
 growth in a state of liberty, new roots will be made with 
 difficulty, and it will be a long time before the effects of growth 
 in the free soil wiU be apparent. Where the spiral or cork- 
 screw direction has been once taken by the roots, they are very 
 apt to retain it during the remainder of their lives; and if, 
 when they have become large trees, they are exposed to a gale 
 of wind, they readily blow out of the ground, as was continually 
 happening with the Pinasters some years ago, when the 
 nurserymen kept that kind of Fir for sale in pots. In all such 
 cases as these, the roots should be carefuUy disentangled and 
 straightened at the time when transplantation takes place. To 
 prevent the possibility of this occurrence it is not unusual to 
 
 place trees intended for 
 transplantation in old 
 baskets. Through their 
 wicker sides the roots 
 readily penetrate, and 
 when this has happened, 
 the half decayed baskets 
 are lifted and "potted" 
 in other baskets of a 
 larger size. 
 
 The annexed sketch of 
 the root of a Laricio, taken 
 up at Hatfield, by Mr. 
 William Ingram, the gar- 
 dener there, after having 
 been planted ten years, 
 illustrates the effects of 
 corkscrewing better than 
 any description. 
 
 Under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances a potted plant 
 when young, is placed in 
 as small a pot as it will grow in, and is transferred from time 
 to time to larger pots as it advances in size. If this is done. 
 
 Fig. XOVI.— Boot of Piuus Laricio. 
 
SUCCESSIVE SHIFTING. 441 
 
 the warmth to which the pot is exposed is immediately felt by 
 the roots; and the latter, as they grow, .ramify regularly 
 through the mass of earth. The practical effect of this is well 
 shown by the Kev. William Williamson, who thus describes 
 his mode of treating the Balsam. 
 
 " As soon as they have got four leaves, I transplant them 
 singly into the smallest pots I can procure, and in such a 
 manner that the stem of the plant may be covered somewhat 
 more than it was at first, and then aU are to be again placed in 
 the frame. In a short time, if there be a sufficiency of heat, 
 that part of the stem which is covered with the mould puts 
 forth fibres, by which nourishment is conveyed more immedi- 
 ately to the principal stem of the plant. As soon as the plants 
 are a little advanced in growth, they are again removed (if 
 possible without disturbing the earth) into somewhat larger 
 pots, still planting them rather deeper than before. The same 
 process is repeated five or six times, till, at last, they are 
 removed into their final pots. I have found it best to give them 
 their last removal after they have opened their first blossoms, 
 as it gives additional brilliancy and size to the flowers. By 
 following this method the plant acquires extraordinary vigour, 
 throwing out its branches from the surface of the mould, 
 exhibiting flowers nearly as large as a fuU-blown rose, and a 
 stem measuring two, and sometimes three, inches in circum- 
 ference." {Hort. Trans., iii. 128.) It must here be borne in 
 mind that the plan of continually sinking the stem with every 
 succeeding potting, although useful to the Balsam, because it 
 puts forth roots in abundance from its stem, and to all plants 
 having the same property, ought never to be practised with 
 those having a different nature ; for, if stems do not root as 
 fast as they are buried, nothing but injury will foUow from the 
 sinking. 
 
 It is by paying constant attention to the shifting of the 
 growing plant, by the employment of a very rich stimulating 
 soil, and by a thorough knowledge of the kind of atmosphere 
 which suits them best, that have been obtained many of those 
 magnificent " specimen plants" which so justly excite the admi- 
 ration of every body at the Metropolitan exhibitions of flowers. 
 
442 ONB-SHIPT SYSTEM. 
 
 In order that plants which have arrived at any considerable 
 magnitude may suffer as little as possible from shifting, experi- 
 ence tells us that the operation is most advisable at the end of 
 autumn when growth for the year is over, so that they may be 
 ready to root with vigour when the growing season of spring 
 returns. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that all the noble 
 specimens of potted plants that decorate English gardens are 
 obtaiaed by repeated shifts. On the contrary, in some cases a 
 plant is placed at once in the pot which is ultimately to contain 
 it, and is thus enabled to grow as if in the open soil. This is 
 called technically the " one-shift system," and was first brought 
 under public notice by Mr. W. P. Ayres, the substance of whose 
 statement was as follows : — The peculiarity of this system is, 
 that, instead of taking a plant through all the different sized 
 pots, from a thumb to a 34 or 16, or any other size that it may 
 remain in permanently, it is removed to the permanent pot at 
 once, or at any rate to one very considerably larger than is the 
 general custom ; thus, in purchasing small specimens of new 
 plants, they may be placed at once in a 24, 16, or 13 sized pot, 
 in which they will remain for four or five years. A cutting of 
 Clianthus puniceus was given to Mr. Caie, gardener to the 
 Duchess of Bedford ; who at the end of twelve months had 
 grown it into a plant 7 feet in height, beautifully branched, 
 and covered with bloom ; while the original plant under my 
 care, although attended with regularity, would not bear a 
 comparison with it. I learnt from Mr. C, that his cutting, 
 directly it was established in a small cutting-pot, was removed 
 to a No. 4 sized pot, well drained, and filled with rough turfy 
 loam fresh from the field, and a little leaf-mould. About the 
 same time Mr. C. offered me some small plants of Erica physodes 
 and pinifolia, but they were in such a deplorable condition that 
 I did not consider them worthy of carriage. To show me, 
 however, how much I was mistaken, Mr. C. removed them 
 from the small pots in which they were then growing into 16s, 
 in rough turfy peat and silver sand, and in two years they were 
 handsome specimens, 18 inches high, from four to five feet in 
 circumference, and beautifully furnished with branches. Since 
 
ONE-SHIFT SYSTEM. 443 
 
 that time, I have practised this mode on various plants with 
 success ; hut to Mr. Groode, gardener at EaKng Park, helongs 
 the credit of applying this system more extensively and with 
 greater success. Amongst the plants at that place, he has a 
 great number in 24, 16, 13, and 8 sized pots, forming magni- 
 ficent specimens, which are on an average from three to five 
 feet in circumference, and which a year since were either in 
 small 60 or thumb-pots. They have, in reality, made from 
 three to four years' growth in one season, and are flowering in 
 the greatest profusion. Among other genera, may be mentioned 
 Boronias, Eriostemons, Leschenaultias, Pimeleas, Gnidias, 
 Helichrysums, Ericas, Epacrises, Chorozemas, Polygalas, 
 Eoellas, MirbeUas, DOlwynias, Croweas, and Gompholobiums. 
 The principal thing to attend to is to have the pots thoroughly 
 drained ; for if water stagnates in such a mass of soil, all hope 
 of success wiU be at an end. In growing specimen plants, it 
 is a good plan to drain the soil with an inverted pot, taking great 
 care to prevent the soil from falling among the drainage, by 
 covering it securely with Moss. Porous stones of various-sizes, 
 in considerable quantities, sticks in a half-decomposed state, and 
 even charcoal for some plants, have been used, with satisfactory 
 results. The roots of Leschenaultia formosa and of Chorozemas, 
 thus treated, wrap round the porous stones and charcoal in the 
 most beautiful manner. The principal things to attend to in 
 this system of potting are, to use the soil as rough as possible. 
 Plants potted in this way wUl not require so much attention as 
 those potted in the usual manner ; because one watering wiU 
 serve them for several days — whereas in small pots, they require 
 constant attention. 
 
 Innumerable criticisms of this method of cultivation were 
 published when it was first brought into notice ; but they are all 
 forgotten, and no other valid reason can now be given for object- 
 ing to it than that it is too favourable- for growth, and renders 
 plants inconveniently large for most people's space and means. 
 There can be no doubt that, under good management, if the 
 gardener's object is to make a plant as vigorous as possible, it is 
 better to avoid the troublesome details of shifting from one sized 
 pot into another. No better evidence of this is needed than what 
 
m QUALITY OF POTS. 
 
 we see in nature. A plant in the open ground, or in the border 
 of a well-managed conservatory, grows fast, acquires a rich 
 deep green healthy colour, and produces its flowers and fruit as 
 soon as it has arrived at the proper age ; on .the other hand, 
 the same kind of plant, under the same circumstances, managed 
 by the same gardener, but kept in a pot and subjected to a 
 course of shifting, although it may be healthy at first, soon 
 ceases growing, and becomes yellow, lean, and starved. It is 
 not, indeed,^ the wish of every cultivator to grow plants for 
 horticultural exhibitions. Beautiful as large well-grown 
 specimens may be, it is not in every garden that they can be 
 properly accommodated; and where that is the case, it is 
 useless to attempt it. 
 
 Gardeners till lately entertained the opinion that in pot 
 cultivation it is of great importance that the pot itself should 
 be manufactured from some soft porous material. The latter 
 was thought to have the merit of keeping roots in free com- 
 munication with the air. But no well-grown plants are ever 
 so placed as to have their roota cut off from communication 
 with the atmosphere ; the loose crocks used for drainage, and 
 the interstices in the soil itseK, enable the air to reach the 
 roots without any assistance from the sides of the pots. Others 
 were of opinion that the porous sides of soft-burnt pots act as a 
 continual drain, carrying off the superfluous water of the soil. 
 That is no doubt true ; but there is as much inconvenience as 
 advantage attending it, because, in dry weather, the earth in 
 pots is disadvantageously dried by the escape of vapour through 
 their sides, and cooled down by the rapid evaporation going on 
 there. Besides, such a mode of drainage cannot be necessary 
 if the bottom of the pots is preserved in a proper state. The 
 absorbent power of soft-burnt garden pots, a quality due to 
 their porosity, was also regarded as rendering them better than 
 "hard ones for cultivation. Experiment has, however, settled 
 the question by showing that plants will grow in glass, in slate, 
 in glazed earthenware just as well as in soft-burnt pots ; and it 
 is now admitted on all hands that if plants are ill-grown it is 
 the fault of the gardener, not of the pot, whether it be hard 
 or softr 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OF TRANSPLANTING. 
 
 As soon as man attempted to beautify his residence with 
 trees planted round it, he would naturally obtain them from the 
 forest, and he then would find that, of many that he removed, 
 all or some at least would die ; if, however, he persevered he 
 would at last discover that while constant failure attended his 
 efforts at one time, comparative success would crown them at 
 another; and he would thus be led to investigate, according to 
 his skill, the causes of success and failure. Out of this would 
 grow in time the art of transplanting, among the most important 
 business of the gardener. 
 
 I fear, however, it is too generally practised as an empirical 
 art, without sufficient attention being paid to the principles on 
 which its success or failure depend ; at least, one hardly knows 
 how to draw any other conclusion from the opposite opinions 
 held by planters, the dogmatical manner in which they are too 
 •often expressed, and the obscure and unintelligible phraseology 
 of what are called explanations of the practice by amateurs, to 
 whom it is not necessary to allude more particularly. If there 
 is any one par^ of the art of Horticulture in which post hoc has 
 been mistaken for propter hoc more coromonly than another, 
 it is surely in what concerns transplantation.* And yet the 
 rationale is simple enough, if we do not labour to render it 
 confused by imaginary refinements. 
 
 * It is scarcely necessary to say that these remarks do not, in any way, apply to 
 Mr. Macnat's Sints on the Plamtmg cmd general Treatment of Hardy Evergreens in 
 the Climate of Scotlamd, an excellent treatise, wUch it is impossible to recommend 
 too strongly to the attention of the planter. 
 
**6 SEASON FOR TRANSPLANTING. 
 
 When a plant is taken out of the ground for transplanting, 
 its roots are necessarily more or less injured in the process, 
 and consequently it is less able to support the stem than it was 
 before the mutilation took place ; its loss of this power wiU 
 also be in proportion to the extent of the mutilation, which may 
 be carried so far as to amount to destruction. 
 
 But the importance of their roots to plants is not alike at all 
 seasons ; in the summer, when there is the greatest demand 
 upon them in consequence of the perspiration of the foliage, 
 they are most essential ; in wiater, when the leaves have fallen, 
 they are comparatively unimportant, as is evident from a very 
 common case. Let a limb of a tree be felled in fuU leaf in 
 June; its foliage will presently wither, the bark will shrivel 
 and dry up, and the whole will speedily perish ; but, if a similar 
 limb is lopped in November, when its foliage has naturally 
 fallen off, it will exhibit no sign of death during winter, nor 
 till the return of spring, when it may make a dying effort to 
 recover, but the means it takes to do so, namely the emission 
 of leaves, only accelerates its end. 
 
 These two propositions really include all the most essential 
 parts of the theory of transplantation, as will presently be seen; 
 it is necessary, however, that they should be applied in some 
 detail, for which purpose it will be convenient to consider, 
 first the season, and secondly the manner in which transplant- 
 ing can be best effected. 
 
 It is the powerful perspiratory action of the leaves of 
 deciduous trees which renders transplanting them in a growing 
 state so difficult, that for practical purposes it may be called 
 impossible; for the operation is necessarily* attended by a 
 mutilation of the roots which feed the leaves. At no period, 
 then, can the operation be performed if such plants are growing. 
 Even if the buds are only pushing, the process should be 
 avoided, because immediately after that period the demand 
 upon the roots is greatest ; for although in consequence of the 
 smallness of the surface of the young leaves the action of 
 
 • Transplanting from garden pots, in wHoh the roots are preserved artificially 
 from injury, may be performed equally well at any time, and is, of course, not included 
 in this statement. 
 
SEASON FOK TRANSPLANTING. 447 
 
 perspiration may seem to be feeble, yet the thinness of the 
 newly formed tissue will not enable it to resist the drying 
 action of the atmosphere unless there is a most abundant 
 afflux of sap from the roots. In England, too, the months 
 when buds begin to burst forth are objectionable, not only on 
 account of their dryness, but of their coldness, which prevents 
 the free circulation of sap; and the evil effects are felt not 
 only by the roots through the foliage, but directly, as will be 
 shown hereafter. 
 
 The season, then, which ought to be chosen is the period 
 that intervenes between the fall of the leaf in autumn and the 
 earliest part of spring, before the sap begins to move and the 
 dry cold winds of that season to prevail. I entirely agree with 
 Macnab, that the earliest time at which planting can be effected 
 is, upon the whole, the best; a conclusion to which he has come 
 from his extensive practice, in which my own observation of a 
 great deal of planting for the last twenty -five years coincides, 
 and which is, in all respects, conformable to theory. As soon 
 as a plant has shed its leaves it is as much at rest for the 
 season as it wiU be at any subsequent period,' unless it is 
 frozen ; its torpor, indeed, is greater at that time, because its 
 excitability is completely exhausted by the season of growth, 
 and it has had no time to recover it. If, at that time, a root is 
 wounded, a process of granulation or cicatrisation will com- 
 mence, just as it does in cuttings ; and from that granulation, 
 which is a mere development of the cellular system, roots will 
 eventually proceed. Now, it is obvious that since roots must 
 be wounded in the process of transplantation, the sooner the 
 wound is made the better, because it has the longer time in 
 which to heal : and therefore the earlier in the autumn trans- 
 planting is effected, the less injury wiU be sustained by the 
 plant submitted to the process ; in the technical language of the 
 gardener, "it has the more time to establish itself." Deci- 
 duous trees usually begin to assume their autumnal hue in 
 September, and as soon as that has happened they may be 
 transplanted with safety. 
 
 Autumn and early winter are, moreover, the best seasons, 
 because of their great dampness. It will be seen by reference 
 
*^8 ROOTS ARE FORMED DURING WINTER. 
 
 to Mr. Thoinpson's tables (page 954), that the air is very 
 generally in a state of saturation in the months of October, 
 November, December, January, and February, and that it is 
 seldom in that condition at any other season. Now, although 
 the perspiration of plants is greatly diminished by the removal 
 of the leaves, it is not destroyed, for they also absorb arid 
 perspire through their young bark; and therefore a saturated 
 atmosphere, which prevents much of the perspiratory action 
 which remains from being exercised, is a condition, even when 
 plants are leafless, riiuch too beneficial to be overlooked. Nor 
 is the action upon the perspiratory power of the stem the only 
 mode in which a saturated atmosphere is important at the time 
 of transplantation ; it exercises a directly favourable influence 
 on the formation of roots themselves. 
 
 It is aometimes necessary to assist a tree, when it begins to grow, by 
 syringing it with a water-engine, or by binding the main branches and 
 stem with moss. The object of this is partly to stop evaporation through 
 the bark, and partly to encourage absorption by the bark. 
 
 It is doubted, indeed, whether in the cold months of the 
 year trees make roots. Some physiologists peremptorily deny 
 the possibility of roots appearing in the absence of leaves, and 
 therefore, although they do not altogether object to the assertion 
 that roots are formed in winter or late autumn, they only admit 
 that possibility in the case of evergreens. Their theory is that 
 roots are formed by the action of leaves ; and that therefore 
 when leaves are off roots will not grow. Their theory is wrong; 
 they should use their eyes. In 1845 I examined, on the 26th 
 February, the roots of various trees, and found young ones 
 formed abundantly on Sambucus racemosa, Bibes sanguineum 
 and divaricatum, the Sycamore, Plum, Peach and Apple. Such 
 evergreens as HoUies, Garrya, Common Broom, and Portugal 
 Laurel, had also produced them in large quantity. The state- 
 ment, therefore, that roots can only be formed in the presence 
 of leaves is erroneous. 
 
 Roots at their spongioles, or most absorbent points, are 
 extremely delicate parts, unprotected by a fully organized 
 epidermis, destined to exist in a moist medium, and capable of 
 being easily killed by exposure to dryness as well as by actual 
 
SEASON FOR DECIDUOUS TKEES. 4^9 
 
 violence. The accidents to which the roots of transplanted 
 trees are liable, from the very nature of the operation, are of 
 such a Mnd that it is impossible to prevent their being exposed 
 to the air, sometimes for considerable periods of time; it is 
 therefore obviously a point of the first importance, that the air 
 should be as nearly of the humidity of the soU from v?hich the 
 roots have been extracted as can be secured. How unfavour- 
 able, in this point of view, the months of March, April, and 
 May are for planting, is apparent from Mr. Thompson's tables 
 above referred to; how little the matter is attended to by 
 nurserymen, gardeners, and labourers, all great planters know 
 to their cost. Macnab, who thoroughly understood all this, 
 preferred a moist rainy day ; although, as he says, he has " at 
 times been as wet in planting evergreens, as when exposed for 
 hours on the windy side of Ben Nevis in a wet day, without 
 great coat and with a broken umbrella." It may be very true 
 that good plantations have been made in March and April ; it 
 may be equally true that no such care as I have described is 
 necessary for all plants ; but no wise man would, on that account, 
 neglect the precautions which the nature of plants shows to be 
 necessary to insure success with all things. Very wet and 
 warm springs may prevent the loss of any considerable pro- 
 portion of the trees planted in March and April, especially if 
 succeeded by a dull, warm, wet summer ; and a "Willow may be 
 planted with success at midsummer : but we cannot tell before- 
 hand what sort of spring is coming, and all plants have not the 
 tenacity of life possessed by a WiUow. 
 
 If the months from September to December are the most 
 favourable for transplanting deciduous trees, and March and 
 April the worst, how much more important must be those 
 periods to evergreens. An evergreen differs from a deciduous 
 plant in this material circumstance, that it has no season of 
 rest ; its leaves remain alive and active during the winter, and 
 consequently it is in a state of perpetual growth. I do not 
 mean that it is always lengthening itself in the form of new 
 branches, for this happens periodically only in evergreens, and 
 is usually confined to the spring; but that its circulation, 
 perspiration, assimilation, and production of roots are incessant. 
 
iSO TRA-NSPLANTINQ EVERQEEENS. 
 
 Such being the case, an evergreen, when transplanted, is liable 
 to the same risks as deciduous plants in full leaf, with one 
 essential difference. The leaves of evergreens are provided 
 with a thick hard skin, which is tender and readily permeable 
 to aqueous exhalations only when quite young, and which 
 becomes very firm and tough by the arrival of winter, whence 
 the rigidity always observable in the foliage of evergreen trees 
 and shrubs. Such a coating as this is capable, in a much less 
 degree than one of a thinner texture, such /is we find upon 
 deciduous plants, of parting with aqueous vapour ; and, more- 
 over, its stomates are few, small, comparatively inactive, and 
 chiefly confined to the under side, where they are less exposed 
 to dryness than if they were on the upper side also. But 
 although evergreens from their structure are not liable to be 
 affected by the same external circumstances as deciduous plants 
 in the same degree, and although, therefore, transplanting an ever- 
 green in leaf is not the same thing as transplanting a deciduous 
 tree in the same condition, yet it must be obvious that the great 
 extent of perspiring surface upon the one, however low its 
 action, constitutes much difficulty, superadded to whatever 
 difficulty there may be in the other case. Hence we are 
 irresistibly driven to the conclusion that whatever care is 
 required in the selection of a suitable season, damp, and not 
 too cold, for a deciduous tree, is stUl more essential for an 
 evergreen. It is, therefore, most extraordinary that it should 
 have ever been the practice to defer the planting evergreens 
 till late in the spring upon the supposition that it is the very 
 best season for them, as if cold winds, accompanied by from 
 20° to 30° of dryness in the air, which is not more than "500 or 
 "357 of moisture, with a bright sun beating on the roots which 
 are exposed, and exciting the action of the perspiring surface 
 to the utmost extent of its power, were external conditions 
 with which the gardener has no concern ; and yet, as Macnab 
 justly observes, half a day's sun in spring and autumn will do 
 more h^wni immediately after planting than a whole week's sun 
 from morning to night in the middle of winter. 
 
 The Holly, says a writer in the Horticultural Transactions, 
 does not succeed well, if transplanted at any other season of the 
 
TEANSPLANTINQ EVEEGEEENS. 451 
 
 year than the end of April or beginning of May ; at this time 
 the buds are just breaking open into leaf, and I have rarely 
 failed of success in transplanting small, or even very large old, 
 trees, (ii. 357.) Although such statements cannot be too 
 strongly contradicted as guides to practice, yet it is not difficult 
 to explain their origin. Since evergreens are never deprived of 
 their leaves, so they are never incapable of forming roots ; on 
 the contrary, they produce them abundantly all winter long, 
 and rapidly at any other period of the year which is favourable 
 to their growth ; so that they are capable of making good an 
 injury to their roots much more speedily than deciduous 
 plants : especially as in the majority of cases the roots are 
 numerous and fibrous, and not so liable to extensive muti- 
 lation when transplanted. Now, if an evergreen is planted in 
 the month of May and the weather happens to be cloudy, warm, 
 and damp, as the plant is just then commencing the renewal of 
 its growth, and is forming fresh roots abundantly, if such a 
 state of weather lasts for a week or two, there is no doubt that 
 the plant wiH succeed very weU. 
 
 " I differ with the doctors about planting evergreens in spring; if it 
 happens to he wet weather, it may be better than exposing them to a 
 first winter ; but the cold dry winds that generally prevail in spring 
 are ten times more pernicious. In my own opinion the end of September 
 is the best season, for then they shoot before the hard weather comes." 
 — Horace Wal^ole, page 176, vol. 3. 
 
 It is said that if a tree is just budding when planted it is in the most 
 favourable state, because it wiU. immediately make fresh roots, the act 
 of vegetation upwards being simultaneous with growth in a downward 
 direction ; and that is true. There is here, however, a fallacy ; it is 
 assumed that the upward and downward vegetation will go on when a 
 plant is transplanted as well as if it is left in its former place ; that 
 however, depends upon the external conditions to which it is exposed. 
 If the surrounding air is damp, and remains so, evaporation being thus 
 prevented for a sufficiently long time, roots will be quioldy formed, and 
 the plant will go on growing ; on the other hand, if the air is dry and 
 exhausts the branches of their moisture, new roots cannot be formed 
 and the plant will die. Life, in such a ease, is staked upon the chance 
 of the atmosphere being in a very favourable state, and the chances are 
 ten to one against its being so. The cause of death when trees are 
 removed is almost entirely, as abeady stated, that they lose the fluid 
 contained within them faster than it can be renewed, the end being the 
 
 s 2 
 
452 TRANSPLANTING EVERGEEENS. 
 
 drying up of their vessels, which is immediately followed hy a loss of 
 vital force. If we inquire whether the circumstances to which spring- 
 planted trees are exposed are favourable or unfavourable to this fatal 
 loss of fluid, we find them to he the former in an enormous degree. The 
 air is peculiarly dry in the spring, and frequently in rapid motion at 
 the same time ; all objects exposed to a current of dry air must part 
 with their moisture rapidly, and consequently such a state of things is 
 most unfavourable to plants which reqtiire to retain their moisture. At 
 first their yoimg bark is the channel through which the moisture flies off, 
 but as soon as young leaves appear, should the trees live long enough, 
 and the perspiring surface is thus extended, this loss goes on with far 
 greater rapidity, and life is soon extinguished. Evergreens, which have 
 always a very large perspiring surface, are on. that account exposed to 
 much more danger, and consequently the losses among them are much 
 greater. That the excessive loss of fluid from the interior is the true cause 
 of death in newly-planted trees was proved by, we think, Mr. Knight, 
 who surrounded their stems with damp moss and thus preserved them. 
 
 In the year 1822, in the month of August, there were 
 planted in the garden of the Horticultural Society of London 
 above six thousand Hollies, from two to three feet high, for the 
 purpose of forming fences ; few plants in all that number 
 ever exhibited any traces of having been removed, and I do not 
 believe that a hundred died. The weather was dry, but the 
 plants were deluged with water when placed in their holes, and 
 they had been obtained from the Eegent's Park, where they 
 grew in the stiff clay of that side of London, the consequence of 
 which was that, when taken out of the ground, so much earth 
 adhered to them that they were almost in the state of plants 
 removed from pots. Transplanting evergreens even at mid- 
 summer has many able advocates, and there is no questioning 
 the fact that this season has been found eminently propitious. 
 But at midsummer the air and soil are in a very different state 
 from any part of the spring. Both are warm and moist, 
 and furnish the operator with highly favourable conditions. 
 
 The proper time at which to transplant evergreens has now 
 been finally and conclusively determined, so far as the south 
 of England is concerned. Mr. Glendinning, a nurseryman of 
 great experience, agreeing in opinion with Horace Walpole, has 
 recorded it as the result of his practice that August is a good 
 month to begin in, September being the safest month. Many 
 
TRANSPLANTING EVERGEEENS. 
 
 453 
 
 experiments have been made year after year to test the sound- 
 ness of that conclusion, and they have uniformly confirmed it. 
 
 in September, 1849, the following work was done within my 
 own observation. 1. Some hundred feet of a Holly hedge, 
 about twenty-five years old, were transplanted, and although 
 from the dryness of the soil, badness of roots, and other 
 causes, there was great reason to fear the result, these plants 
 were in June, 1850, with a very small number of exceptions, 
 safe and growing. 3. A Holly-tree about twelve feet high, 
 forming part of the same hedge, which had been left for some 
 days with its roots covered by a mat, and was much dried, was 
 carried a quarter of a mile and replanted. It cast its old 
 leaves, and pushed weU. 3. The following plants were also 
 transplanted at the same time. Several common Laurels and 
 Portugal Laurels, from four to six feet high, dug out of a 
 shrubbery; seventy-five Ehododendrons, fourteen Arbor-Vitse, 
 four to five feet high ; sixteen Laurustinus ; nine Yews, four to 
 five feet high; four green Hollies of the same size, twd 
 Cupressus torulosa, and some .other plants. They were all 
 taken from the open quarters of a nursery, not having been 
 potted; the weather was hot and dry. The only casualty 
 among them consisted in one Arbor- Vitse having died. The 
 Cypresses were half killed by the winter; and a few of the 
 Yews made buds slowly, but lived. 
 
 Mr. Glendinning urges the great importance of consider- 
 ing the temperature, of the soil in the autumnal months, and 
 prefers the earhest available period because of the higher 
 temperature of the soil at an early than at a late period. He 
 very justly says that early in the autumn the'roots of transplanted 
 evergreens find themselves in a " gentle bottom-heat." Mr. 
 Thompson's invaluable tables of ground temperature near 
 London show what is the real gain in this, respect. He found 
 the mean temperature of the soil, on an average of six 
 years, to be — 
 
 
 , One foot deep. 
 
 Two feet deep 
 
 August . . . 
 
 . . . 62-37 . 
 
 . 61-95 
 
 September . . 
 
 . . . 58-35 . 
 
 . 59-04 
 
 October . . . 
 
 . . . 52-38 . 
 
 . 53-74 
 
 November . . 
 
 . . . 46-79 . 
 
 . 48-09 
 
 December . . 
 
 . . . 40-75 . 
 
 . 42-89 
 
454 REASONS WHY AUTUMN IS THE BEST SEASON 
 
 - Thus, in August, the earth is from 8° to 10° warmer than in 
 October, and in September about 6° higher than in October, 
 •10° to 12° higher than in November, and 16° or 17° higher 
 than in December. 
 
 Here we have a great element of advantage in favour of 
 ■August; for although evergreens will make new roots all the 
 y ear round, if the earth is not too cold, yet it is certain that they 
 will do so much more quickly and abundantly in warmth than 
 in cold ; and 10° form what may be called, without exaggeration, 
 an immense difference in their favour. But, on the other 
 hand, they wiU he seriously obstructed in the operation of 
 forming new roots, even in " bottom-heat," if their leaves are 
 shrivelled up and destroyed: as is always to be dreaded at 
 too early a period of the year. If we examine the facts from 
 which we are to judge of the dryness of our autumnal months 
 we find them to be as follows : — 
 
 Mean degree of dryness according to Daniell's hygrometer, 
 on an average of nineteen years. 
 
 August , 4-45 
 
 September 2-11 
 
 October 1-62 
 
 November 0-93 
 
 December 0*72 
 
 Dryness of the above period according to the hygrometric 
 scale, saturation being represented by 1000. 
 
 August 851- 
 
 September SOS- 
 October 947- 
 
 November 963' 
 
 December 969- 
 
 Mean temperature, average twenty-three years. 
 
 August 62°-17 
 
 September 66°"72 
 
 October 50°'46 
 
 November 43°. 00 
 
 December 39°-76 
 
 These facts show that August is fully twice as dry as Septem- 
 ber, and nearly four times as dry as October ; also that the mean 
 
FOE TEANSPLANTING ETEEGEEENS. 455 
 
 temperature of August is more than 6° higher than that of 
 September, and of September than of October. Now as the 
 loss of water by trees is to a great degree dependent upon the 
 dryness of the air, it is obvious that in that point of view 
 August is almost four times as dangerous as October. 
 
 It must also be borne in mind that perspiration in plants is 
 caused by the direct action of light, and that loss by perspira- 
 tion is in proportion to the length of time during which the 
 surface of plants is exposed to sunlight; heat and dryness 
 only increasing the amount. Now, in August the days are not 
 only longer but brighter than in September, and in September 
 than in October ; and here, again, the state of the atmosphere 
 is against the first month and in favour of the latter. 
 
 If from these data alone we had to decide theoretically which 
 of the autumn months is the best, the choice would fall on 
 September; and this coincides with experience. August has 
 the advantage in the temperature of the soil, but is too dry and 
 light. In September dryness and Hght have become more 
 moderate ; the temperature of the soil has not fallen more than 
 4°, and evergreens then planted have two clear months in 
 which to form new roots. October has the advantage in a 
 lower temperature and more diminished light ; but the soil is 
 6° colder than in September and it leaves the worst of two 
 months for new roots to develope in. For such reasons it 
 would seem that September is better than either August or 
 October, October than August or November, and August better 
 than November. 
 
 Macnab rightly adverts to the importance of choosing a 
 Suitable day, as weU as season, for the operation ; and it must 
 be evident from what has now been stated, that this is very 
 necessary : " In winter, you may plant with perfect safety in a 
 duU calm day, whereas in spring or autumn a moist rainy day 
 is preferable to any other; but where a person has not the 
 choice of such weather, then the work should be performed in 
 the evening, when the sun gets low, especially in spring or 
 autumn planting." 
 
 Next in importance to the selection of a fitting season, is the 
 preservation of the roots of transplanted trees ; the former is 
 
*^^ MECHANICAL MEANS 
 
 of little consequence, if the latter is not attended to. We 
 know, indeed, that some plants will live with the rudest treat- 
 ment, and bear the most severe mutilation without much 
 suffering ; but those are special instances of extreme tenacity 
 of life, and do not affect general principles. The value of 
 great attention to the roots, in the operation of shifting, has 
 already been pointed out (p. 448), and transplanting is only 
 shifting under another name. It would be the duty of the 
 gardener to save every minute fibre of the roots, if it were 
 practicable; but, as that is not the case, his care must be 
 confined to lifting his trees with the least possible destruction 
 of those important organs ; remembering always that it is not 
 by the coarse old woody roots that the absorption of food is 
 most energetically carried on, but by the youngest parts, and 
 especially the spongioles. The mechanical means by which 
 this is best effected do not belong to the present subject; I 
 may however remark, without quitting the limits of theory, 
 that, as the greater part of the young fibres is produced at the 
 circumference of the circle formed by the root, the earth should 
 be first removed at some distance from the stem, so as to insure, 
 as far as possible, their being taken up entire ; if this is not 
 done, but the spade is struck into the earth near the stem, or 
 if the rude nursery practice, justly enough called drawing, is 
 employed, a large part of the most valuable roots must neces- 
 sarily be cut off or destroyed by tearing.* The greatest 
 difficulty, beyond that of mechanical removal, in transplanting 
 trees of considerable size, is this preservation of roots ; and, if 
 it were possible to carry without injury such heavy masses as 
 old forest trees, there would be no physical obstacle to trans- 
 planting them, if the extrication of the fibrous part of the 
 roots could be secured. As, however, the latter is a trouble- 
 some and very difficult operation, even when trees are only ten 
 or twelve feet high, it has been, from time out of mind, the 
 custom of sldlful planters to prepare such trees for removal by 
 
 * The violent maimer of transplanting trees by MoGlashan's machinery, in which 
 large roots are torn up with much laceration, is, however, very favourably reported on. 
 But so far as very large trees are concerned it stills stands at the bar of public opinion, 
 and will have to be judged hereafter. 
 
USED IN TBANSPLANTING. 457 
 
 cutting back their main roots one year before they are to be 
 transplanted; if this very simple operation is properly per- 
 formed, all the principal Umbs, so amputated, wiU emit young 
 fibres in abundance from their extremities, and the gardener, 
 from knowing where to find those roots, can easily take them 
 up without material injury. 
 
 A better method is to describe in August a circle round a 
 tree at three or four feet from its trunk; outside that circle to 
 cut a very narrow trench, with a draining spade, or some 
 similar instrument, two to three feet deep ; and to fill in the 
 trench with leaf-mould or some rich loose material, among which 
 fibres will readily form. If this is done at the time when trees 
 are making their second growth so large a quantity of fibrous 
 roots will have been formed by October as to render it possible 
 to transplant trees thus prepared without risk of losing them. 
 
 In order to effect the same end, but in another way, the 
 following expedient has been occasionally employed for large 
 trees. A deep trench has been opened, in mid-winter, round 
 a stem, at such a distance as to be clear of the principal fibres; 
 the tree has then been carefully undermined, tiU, at last, the 
 earth belonging to it has formed a huge ball ; upon the approach 
 of frost, water has been freely poured over the ball so that its 
 whole surface may be converted into an icy mass ; in that state 
 it has been raised by powerful tackle, and conveyed without 
 disturbance to its intended site. This operation is unobjection- 
 able for hardy trees of great size, but is expensive, and only 
 capable of application in a limited degree ; its success is entirely 
 owing to the young and tender fibres being placed in such a 
 position that they cannot be injured by the act of transport. 
 
 Althougt it is a principle with vegetable physiologists that a tree 
 of any age, or dimensions, maybe safely transplanted, provided its roots 
 can be preserved, and mechanical means be found for lifting a mass so 
 ponderous as a forest-tree with the earth in which its roots are embedded, 
 yet the difficulties- attendant upon carrying out the principle are such as 
 to deter most persons from trying the experiment. That there really is 
 no difficulty in the matter, except such as skiU and adequate means can 
 wholly overcome, is sufficiently proved by the extent to which the trans- 
 plantation of large trees has been carried at Elvaston Castle. But people 
 evidently thiak that Lord Harrington's success is an exceptional case ; 
 
458 
 
 VERT LARGE TREES" 
 
 they do not put entire confidence in Sir Henry Steuarf^a restdts, and 
 they feel alarmed at what that writer says of the issue of a great 
 experiment tried at Edinburgh some^ years since, when the site of 
 the Botanic Garden was changed. In the first place, as to the expense 
 of the experiment, this writer says it would be needless, as well as 
 invidious, to investigate that, as it could be no object in a royal 
 institution ; and, secondly, he speaks rather coldly of the result, when 
 he merely says that " the removals were executed with a safety which 
 could scarcely have been anticipated." The meaning which this was 
 intended to convey is now explained in the notes to the third edition of 
 the Planter's Ouide, page 386, where we are distinctly informed that 
 although some things had succeeded well, yet that "the ordinary 
 forest-trees on the other hand, such as the Lime, the Birch, and the 
 "Walnut, appeared by no means so successful, although powerfully sup- 
 ported with cordage." Faint praise like this was not calculated to hold 
 out great expectations of success in transplanting large trees, con- 
 sidering that Macnab was the operator ; and it must have greatly 
 contributed to damp the ardour of those who would have been other- 
 wise encouraged by the success said by Sir Henry to have attended his 
 own proceedings. 
 
 The practicability of removing large trees by ordinary means has, 
 however, been finally set at rest, in a manner open to no question, by a 
 large experiment in transplanting trees from ten to forty-nine feet in 
 height, at Amport House, near Andover, the seat of the Marq^uess of 
 ■Winchester. Mr, Joseph Holmes, the gardener there, has published an 
 account of the operation in a paper in the Journal of the Horticultural 
 Society (vol. vi. p. 14). In this communication he describes with minute- 
 ness the method he pursued, the difficulties that occurred, and the final 
 result of transplanting about a couple of hundred trees of large size 
 from a sheltered valley to much higher ground. The trees consisted of 
 
 Tews . . . 
 
 . 7 . . . 
 
 from 10 to 24 feet m height 
 
 Oaks . . 
 
 . 18 . . 
 
 ,, 16 „ 27 „ 
 
 Beech . . 
 
 . 60 . . 
 
 „ 16 „ 49 „ 
 
 Birch . . 
 
 . 3 . . 
 
 II 19 II 42 „ ,, 
 
 Elms . . 
 
 . 22 . . 
 
 • I, 16 „ 36 „ 
 
 Limes . • 
 
 . 5 . . 
 
 „ 13 „ 36 „ 
 
 Hornbeam . 
 
 . . 36 . . 
 
 ,, 30 (on an average) 
 
 Horse-chestau 
 
 ts . 25 . . 
 
 ,, 14 ,, 33 ,, ,, 
 
 Sycamores . 
 
 , 28 . . 
 
 ., 15 II 37 „ 
 
 In all 204 such- trees were planted, of which 199 remain. The only 
 one which failed is thus spoken of by Mr. Holmes. " In transplanting 
 upwards of 200 trees, not one of the number failed, and it was found 
 necessary to sacrifice only one tree. The instance I allude to was that 
 of a fine Beech, fprty-two feet high, removed on»Sir H. Steuart's 
 
MAY BB TRANSPLANTED. 469 
 
 principle. The tree was rooted equally well with any of its contem- 
 poraries, hut it had no ball ; hence it was difficult to rear upright, and 
 notwithstanding every care in propping, the first high wind laid it 
 prostrate, when it was not considered worthy of further trouble." 
 
 His mode of proceeding, after the trees were deposited in the places 
 intended for them, is described thus : — "In placing the tree on its new site, 
 nothing more is necessary than to have a good hole made a foot or more 
 wider every way than the roots extend. A roadway for the truck is cut 
 from the natural surface to the bottom of the hole, and on the opposite 
 side means are afforded for the horses to get out of the hole. The truck 
 being in the middle of the latter, loosen the chain, take out the pole, 
 bring down the head of the tree, so as to allow the edge of the ball to 
 touch the bottom of the hole, then draw out the truck ; and should the tree 
 not have got quite an upright position, puU the ropes to render it so, at 
 the same time packing the ball with fine soU, until it stands upright of 
 itseK. Every root that has been injured in taking up, should now be 
 cut smooth, and every one laid out as straight and natural as possible, 
 resembling the rays of a circle, great care being taken to pack fine soil 
 firmly round the ball, and. to surround ' every fibre with the best and 
 finest soil, imtU every root is covered. Immediately after transplanting, 
 every tree was mulched with old thatch, as far as the roots extended ; 
 and they also had a covering of about half an inch of straw around 
 their stems; from eight to twelve feet from the ground. This was done 
 principally with the view of lessening the demand made upon the tree 
 by evaporation. The straw was found to keep damp a considerable 
 time after every rain. A ridge of soil was also placed around each 
 tree, at the extremity of the roots, forming a sort of cup ; and I have 
 -frequently seen water standing in these cups half an hour after heavy 
 rain, during the second summer after planting, as by this time, from 
 various causes, the mulch had disappeared, and the surface was firm, 
 owing to the constant treading of sheep, which were allowed to feed 
 among the trees duriag the second summer after planting, and which 
 was, no doubt, favourable to them. No further care was bestowed or 
 considered necessary; and no tree was ever watered, except during 
 the first three weeks after transplanting, when the water-cart was used 
 to most of the two groups of Hornbeam at the time they were in green 
 leaf; and it was thought that thereby an early root action would be 
 induced." 
 
 The precise fate of each tree is described in a set of tables, from 
 which we gather two or three striking facts. A Beech-tree, forty-two 
 feet high, made wood twelve inches long the first year, and seven 
 inches in the two succeeding years; another, forty-eight feet high, 
 made eight inches in the first year, and eight and six inches afterwards; 
 another, forty-nine feet high, which did not make more than four 
 inches of shoot the first year, made sLs the second, and eight the third 
 
460 TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 
 
 year (1850). The annual extensions in the three years after removal 
 were thus in the following instances : — 
 
 Elm . , 
 
 . .21 feet high 
 
 4 —12—13 inches. 
 
 
 )t ' ' 
 
 . . 36 
 
 J? 
 
 3 — 2—6 
 
 )J 
 
 
 » ' • 
 
 . 29 
 
 it 
 
 3 _ 5— 6 
 
 ii 
 
 
 Birch . . 
 
 . 42 
 
 tt 
 
 4 — 4r- 6 
 
 >) 
 
 
 Oak . . 
 
 . 25 
 
 a 
 
 5 — 3—5 
 
 » 
 
 
 )j 
 
 . 25 
 
 a 
 
 4 — 4—4 
 
 tf 
 
 
 it • ' 
 
 . 26 
 
 }} 
 
 5 — 2—3 
 
 it 
 
 
 Hornbeam , 
 
 . 30 
 
 )) 
 
 31— 6— 7 
 
 jj 
 
 on chalk 
 
 jj 
 
 . 30 
 
 )) 
 
 Si— 4— 4 
 
 )) 
 
 in loam. 
 
 Sycamore 
 
 . 36 
 
 a 
 
 7 _ 6— 6 
 
 t> 
 
 
 
 . 34 
 . 37 
 
 }i 
 
 3 _ 2— 2 
 2 — 2—3 
 
 \i 
 
 
 "What was very important, with reference to the fiaal issue of this 
 experiment, was the state of the roots, after three years' removal, and 
 an excessively dry autumn. I can state that their condition was in 
 every respect satisfactory. I myself saw fine fibrous roots, three feet 
 long, taken from the Sycamore No. 16, thirty-seven feet high, when 
 transplanted, whose shoots lengthened two inches the first year, two 
 inches the second, and three inches the third. This tree was trans- 
 planted December 29th, 1847 ; it was taken from a very low, damp, 
 dense shrubbery, surrounded by tall trees, and was transplanted to the 
 most high and exposed part of the new park ; apparently for fourteen 
 years the tree had had two leaders ; one of these rival leaders was out 
 off in March, 1849. This tree was also affected by the wind more than 
 any other, by reason of its heavy head, as compared with the stem. It 
 was, therefore, a good one to be subjected to a root examination, as no 
 tree had to contend with such a number of unfavourable circumstances, 
 or appeared to be doing worse. The roots, however, were found, on 
 examination, to be an entire mass, similar to what I have described, in 
 a hole of eleven feet diameter. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances, the roots must necessarily be 
 injured more or less by removal ; in that case, all the larger 
 wounds should be cut to a clean smooth face; not in long 
 ragged slivers, which is only substituting one kind of mutilation 
 for another, but at an angle of about 45°, or less. If the ends 
 of small roots are bruised, they generally die back a little way, 
 and then emit fresh spongioles ; but the larger roots, when 
 bruised, lose the vitality of their broken extremity, their ragged 
 tissue remains open to the uncontrolled introduction of water, 
 decays in consequence of being in contact with an excess of 
 
PRUNE ROOTS BEFORE PLANTING. 461 
 
 this fluid, and often becomes the seat of disease which spreads 
 to parts that would otherwise be healthy. To this it may be 
 added that decaying roots become the seat of dry-rot fungi, 
 which, once established, rapidly introduce their spawn among 
 the living tissues, and produce diseases which only end in 
 death. 
 
 When, however, the wound is made clean by a skilful pruner 
 the vessels contract, and prevent the introduction of an excess 
 of water into the interior; the wound heals by granulations 
 formed by the living tissue, and the readiness with which this 
 takes place is in proportion to the smallness of the wound. It 
 may be sometimes advantageous to remove large parts of the 
 coarser roots of a tree, even if they are not accidentally wounded 
 when taken up, the object being to compel the plant to throw out, 
 in room of those comparatively inactive subterranean limbs, 
 a supply of young active fibres. TMs is a common practice 
 in the nurseries when transplanting young Oaks and other 
 tap-rooted trees, and is one of the means employed by the 
 Lancashire growers of Gooseberries, in order to increase the 
 vigour of their bushes ; in th.e last case, however, the operation 
 is not confined to tbe time when transplantation takes place, 
 but is practised annually upon digging tbe Gooseberry borders. 
 The reason why cutting off portions of tbe principal roots 
 causes a production of fibres appears to be this : the roots are 
 produced by organizable matter sent downwards from the stem ; 
 that matter, if uninterrupted, will flow along the main branches 
 of the root, until it reaches the extremities, adding largely to 
 the wood and horizontal growth of the root, but increasing, in 
 a very slight degree, the absorbent powers ; but if a large limb 
 of the roots is amputated, the powers of the stem remaining 
 the same, all that descending organizable matter which would 
 have been expended in adding to the thickness of the ampu- 
 tated part is arrested at the hne of amputation ; and, unable to 
 pass further on, rapidly produces granulations to heal the 
 wound, immediately after which young spongioles appear, soon 
 establish themselves in the surrounding soil, and become the 
 points of new and active fibres. 
 
 By many excellent planters, the advantage of deluging the 
 
462 SUBSTITUTE FOR EOOT-WATEEING. 
 
 roots with water, when newly planted, is much insisted on; 
 and in the case of large plants, particularly evergreens, it is, 
 undoubtedly, an essential process, partly because it causes the 
 flagging and injured roots to be immediately surrounded by an 
 abundant supply of liquid food, which, if the operation be 
 skilfully performed (see Macnab's Treatise, pp. 24 and 35), will 
 not subsequently fail them ; and partly because it is the only 
 means we possess of embedding with certainty all the fibres in 
 soU. "When the earth is reduced to the state of puddle, it wUl 
 settle round the finest roots, and place them as nearly as 
 possible in the same condition, with regard to the soil, that 
 they were in before the plants were removed. But the opera- 
 tion of puddling is unnecessary to small plants, if removed at a 
 proper season of the year, especially to deciduous trees of all 
 kinds ; and it may be injurious. This was long ago stated by 
 Mr. Knight {Hort. Trans, iii. 159), who found by experience 
 that when trees are very much out of health, in consequence of 
 having become dry, excess of moisture to the roots is often 
 fatal. This appears to arise from the languid powers of the 
 plant being insufficient to enable it to decompose and assimi- 
 late the water rapidly introduced into its system through 
 wounds in its root, or by the hygrometrical force of that part ; 
 under such circumstances, water will dissolve the mucilaginous 
 and other matters intended for the support of the nascent buds, 
 which matters then putrefy, lose their nutritive quality, and 
 destroy the tissue. The substitute for root-watering contrived 
 by Mr. Knight in such cases was, to keep the plants in a situa- 
 tion shaded from the morning sun, and to moisten their bark 
 frequently ; by these means water is presented to them slowly 
 through the young cortical integument, which, partaking of the 
 nature of a leaf, slowly absorbs it, probably decomposes it, and 
 transmits it laterally through the liber into the alburnum, 
 where it finds itself in the ordinary channel of the ascending 
 sap, and thus enters the system of circulation. In this way 
 Mr. Knight succeeded in preserving American Apple-trees, 
 which reached him in the middle of AprU, in so bad a state 
 that they seemed " perfectly lifeless and dry," and "much better 
 fitted for fire-wood than for planting." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 , — ♦ — 
 
 OF THE PRESERVATION OF RACES BY SEED. 
 
 The manner of preserving the domesticated races of plants 
 by the ordinary means of propagation, such as cuttings, layers, 
 grafts, and so on, has already been explained; there are, 
 however, other topics connected with this important subject 
 which require to be touched upon. 
 
 Propagation by division is inapplicable to annuals or 
 biennials, or at least can be practised upon only a very limited 
 scale, and for such plants the gardener has to trust to seeds 
 alone. But it is an axiom in vegetable physiology that seeds 
 reproduce the species only, while buds (that is, propagation by 
 division) will multiply the variety ; and this is undoubtedly 
 true as a general rule. But the skill and care of the gardener 
 often enable him to perpetuate by seed the many races of 
 cultivated annuals, varieties of the same species, improved and 
 altered by centuries of domestication, with as much certainty 
 as if he were operating with cuttings. In a well managed farm 
 we see the various breeds of Turnips and Corn preserving each 
 its own peculiar character unchanged year after year, and yet 
 they must all be propagated by seed alone ; and in gardens the 
 varieties are innumerable of Peas, Lettuces, Cabbages, 
 Kadishes, &c., whose purity is maintained by the same means. 
 The manner in which this is effected is of the first importance 
 to be understood. 
 
 Although it is the general nature of a seed to perpetuate the 
 species only to which it belongs, and it cannot therefore be 
 relied upon, in ordinary cases, to renew a particular variety of 
 
464 SIMILITUDE RETAINED BY SEEDLINGS. 
 
 the species, yet there is always a visible tendency in it to 
 produce a seedling more like its parent than any other form of 
 the species. Suppose, for example, the seed of a Eibston 
 Pippin Apple were sown ; if untainted by intermixture with 
 other varieties, it would produce an Apple-tree whose fruit 
 would be large, sweet, and agreeable to eat, and not small, sour, 
 and uneatable like the Wilding Apple or Crab. The object of 
 the gardener is to fix this tendency, and he does it by means 
 not unlike those employed in the preservation of the races of 
 domesticated animals, namely, by " breeding in and in," as the 
 phrase is. An example of this will be more instructive than a 
 dissertation. The Radish has, when wild, a long pallid root ; 
 among many seedlings one was remarked with roots shorter 
 and rounder, and more succulent than the remainder ; this was 
 a " sport," to which all plants are subject. Had that Radish 
 been left among its companions, and the seed saved from them 
 all indifferently, the tendency would have disappeared for that 
 time ; but its companions were all eradicated, and the better 
 one produced its seed in solitude. The crop of young plants 
 obtained from this Radish was, for the most part, composed of 
 individuals of the wild form, but several preserved the same 
 qualities as the parent, and some, perhaps one only, in a higher 
 degree: in this one, then, the tendency was beginning to fix. 
 Again were all eradicated, except the last-mentioned individual, 
 whose seeds were carefully preserved for the succeeding crop ; 
 and, by a constant repetition of this practice for many years, at 
 last the habit to produce a round and succulent root became so 
 fixed, that all the Radishes assumed the same appearance and 
 quality, and there were none left to draft or " rogue." Every 
 variety of annual crop, not still in its wild state, must have 
 gone through this process of fixing ; and thus the varieties of 
 earliness, lateness, and productiveness, colour, form, and 
 flavour observable in garden plants, have been secured for our 
 enjoyment. 
 
 The following experiment tas teen recorded by an intelligent 
 observer writing under tlie name of Lusor: — "If we breed live stock, 
 of whatever kind, we invariably select the parents from the best of our 
 flock or stud. So, with regard to flowers, no one would sow seed from 
 
OEIGIN OF DOMESTICATED CARROTS. 465 
 
 inferior flowers, but would select from the best specimens ; and it is by 
 following up this system (even without more crossing than is performed 
 by Nature, and the bees), that great improvements have been made. 
 Thinking the same effects would accrue from a more careful selection of 
 culinary seeds, and that a much greater degree of piioductiveness might 
 be attained, about three years ago I began an experiment with long-pod 
 Beans ; I carefully selected the finest and fullest pods for seed, taking 
 none with fewer than five Beans in each. Next year I had a good 
 sprinkling of pods with six seeds in each ; these were saved for seed. 
 The following year there were many six-seeded pods and some with 
 seven. Following up the same plan, I find this season many more six 
 and seven-seeded pods, than of a less number, and some with eight 
 seeds ; there are still a few plants which produce five-seeded pods, and 
 it is wortTiy of remark, that the five-seeded plants have seldom a six- 
 seeded pod upon them, but all fives ; on the contrary, a six-seeded 
 plant generally has nearly all the pods bearing six Beans or more." 
 
 By a similar process M. Vilmorin obtained domesticated Carrots from, 
 wild ones in a few generations {Hort. Trans., 2nd ser., vol. ii., p. 348), 
 and the curious experiments of M. Esprit Fabre upon fixing the cha-, 
 raeter of Wheat in plants derived from an -SJgilops, were conducted upon 
 the same principles {Journ. Agr. Soc, vol. xv., p. 167). In fact it is 
 thus, and thus only, that in aimual plants any improvement in g[uality 
 can be rendered permanent. 
 
 There is a class of facts apparently opposed to these views. It is said 
 that the fruit of Apple- and Pear-trees, raised from the seeds of varieties 
 of the highest exeeUenoe, wiU. often be little better than that of 
 wildings. This obscure subject wiU. be considered in the next chapter, 
 in connection with hybridity. 
 
 But to fix a new habit in annual plants is not tlie only care 
 of the cultivator, whose patience and skill would be iU employed 
 if it could not be preserved. If a plant has some tendency to 
 vary from its original condition, it has much more to revert to 
 its wild state ; and there can be no doubt that, if the arts of 
 cultivation were abandoned for only a very few years, all the 
 annual varieties of our gardens would disappear, and be replaced 
 by a few original wild forms. 
 
 For. the means of preserving the races of plants pure, the 
 means vary according to the nature of the variety. As far as 
 concerns early and late varieties, it often happens that, as in 
 Peas, the tendency in such plants to advance or retard their 
 season of ripening was originally connected with the soil or 
 climate in which they grew. A plant which for years is 
 
466 SOIL AFFECTS PEEMANENCE. 
 
 cultivated in a warm dry soil, where it ripens in forty days, will 
 acquire habits of great excitability ; and, when sown in another 
 soil, will, for a season or so, retain its habit of rapid maturity : 
 and the reverse will happen to an annual from a cold wet soU. 
 But, as the latter will gradually become excitable and pre- 
 cocious, if sown for a succession of seasons in a dry warm soil, 
 so will the former lose those habits, and become late and less 
 excitable. Hence, the best seedsmen always take care that 
 their early varieties of annuals are procured from warmer and 
 drier lands than those on which they are to be sown ; our 
 earliest Peas, for example, are obtained from France, and the 
 next in time of ripening from the hot dry fields of Kent, the 
 Suffolk coast, and similar situations. Thus, also, the Barley 
 grown on sandy soils, in the warmest parts of England, is 
 always found by the Scotch farmer, when introduced into his 
 country, to ripen on his cold hUls earlier than his crops of the 
 same kind do, when he uses the seeds of plants which have 
 passed through several successive generations in his colder 
 climate ; and Knight found that the crops of Wheat on some' 
 very high and cold ground, which he cultivated, ripened much 
 earlier when he obtained his seed-corn from a very warm 
 district and gravelly soil, which lies a few miles distant, than 
 when he employed the seed of his vicinity. It would seem as 
 if this were in some way connected with the mere size of a seed, 
 the smallest seeds of a given variety producing plants capable of 
 fructifying quicker than those of a much larger size. We have, 
 at present, but little information upon this subject ; but there 
 are some most curious experiments relative to it by Edwards 
 and Colin, who found that, although Winter Wheat cannot, in 
 France, be made to shoot into ear, if sown in the spring, 
 provided the largest grains of the variety are employed, yet 
 that, if the smallest grains are picked out, some will ear like 
 Spring Wheat (see Annates des Sciences Naturales, v. 1). Out 
 of 530 grains of Winter Wheat, sown on the 33rd of AprU, and 
 weighing 7 ounces 53 grains, not one pushed into ear, they 
 tillered abundantly, but the tillers were excessively stunted, 
 and concealed among the tufts of leaves ; in short, they formed 
 nothing but turf: on the other hand, of 530 other grains, 
 
DEBILITY SKCUEES PERMANENCE IN SOME CASES. 467 
 
 weighing 3 ounces 56 grains, and sown on the same day, 60 
 pushed into ear. 
 
 Some facts tend to show that many of our most esteemed 
 garden plants are the result of debility, and that the succulence, 
 the sweetness, or the excessive size, which render them so well 
 suited for food, are only marks of unhealthiness. At least, it 
 is almost necessary to assume this to be the case, in order to 
 account for the efficacy of one of the modes of maintaining races 
 genuiue. It is perfectly well known, that, if such an annual as 
 a Turnip is transplanted shortly before it runs to seed, the 
 characters of its variety will remain more strongly marked, and 
 have far less tendency to vary, than if, all other circumstances 
 remaining the same, the seed is saved without the process of 
 transplantation having been observed. Now, the only effect 
 of transplanting, at the season immediately preceding the 
 formation of a flower-stalk, would seem to be that of checking 
 the luxuriance of the individual operated on; or, upon the 
 above assumption, of increasiug its debility of constitution. 
 And the same explanation appears applicable to a strange 
 custom mentioned by Mr. Ingledew as being pra;ctised in the 
 Dekkan, to prevent the rapid deterioration, in that climate, of 
 the Carrot, the Radish, and the Parsnep, the favourite table 
 vegetables of the inhabitants. He states that the Indian 
 gardeners, in the first place, prepare a compost of buffalo's 
 dung, swine's dung, and red maiden eart^, mixed with, water 
 tiU they have the consistence of paste, and scented with a small 
 quantity of asafoetida, the use of which seems to be 
 imaginary. "The vegetables for this t)peratior( are drawn, 
 when wanted, from the beds, when th^y have attained about 
 one-third of their natural growth, and those plants are chosen 
 which are the most succulent and luxuriant; the tops are 
 removed, leaving a few inches from their origin in the crown 
 upwards ; and a little of the inferior extremity, or tap-root, is 
 cut straight off likewise, allowing nearly the whole of the edible 
 part to remain, from the bottom of which to within about an 
 inch of the crown, are made two incisions across each other 
 entirely through the body of the vegetable, dividing it into 
 quarters nearly to the upper end. They are then dipped into the 
 
 n u 2 
 
468 DANGER OP HYBRIDISIN&. 
 
 compost Until they are well covered by it, both externally and 
 internally, and are immediately placed in beds, previously 
 prepared for their reception, at the distance of fifteen or 
 sixteen inches from each other, and so deep in the ground that 
 the upper extremities only appear in sight. They are after- 
 wards regularly watered ; and when they take root, and fresh 
 tops have made some advance in growth, they require but Httle 
 attention. The tops speedily become large, and grow into 
 Strong and luxuriant stalks, the blossoms acquire a size larger 
 than ordinary, and the seed they produce is likewise large and 
 vigorous, and superabundant in quantity. Innumerable roots 
 are thrown out from the incised edges of these plants ; they 
 consequently receive a greater abundance of nourishment, 
 which occasions their luxuriant growth, causes them to yield 
 not only a more than ordinary crop of seed, but also of a 
 superior quality." (Hort. Trans., v. 617.) The operation is 
 performed at the beginning of the dry season. 
 
 Besides "roguing out" (i. e. eradicating) all individuals 
 having the slightest appearance of degeneracy from among the 
 plants iatended for seed, care must be taken that the crop 
 is so far from any other of a similar kind as to incur no risk of 
 being spoiled by the intermixture of its pollen. This 
 substance is conveyed to considerable distances by wind and 
 insects ; and it is scarcely possible to be secure from its influence, 
 if similar crops are cultivated within some miles of each other ; 
 whence we find certain villages, in different parts of Europe, 
 celebrated for the purity of the seed of particular varieties ; 
 this usually happens in consequence of the villagers cultivating 
 that variety and no other, as happens at Castelnaudary with 
 Beet, at Altringham with the Carrot, and in Norfolk with 
 different kinds of Turnip. 
 
 It is, however, to be observed, that the deterioration of seed 
 by bastardisiQg happens to a greater extent to single plants 
 than to large masses of them; and it seldom happens that 
 good seed can be saved in a garden, or near gardens, from a 
 single individual. Solitary specimens of the Turnip, the 
 Cauliflower, and such plants, have been frequently selected on 
 account of their perfect characters, and been carefully planted 
 
IMPORTANCE OF SETTING FLOWERS. 469 
 
 in gardens for a stock of seed, but their produce has as 
 frequently been of the worst description, bearing no resem- 
 blance to the parent. In such cases as these, it would seem aa 
 if bees and other insects were attracted from all quarters by 
 the gay colours, or odour, of such isolated individuals, and, 
 arriving from a hundred flowers which they had previously 
 visited, bring with them so many sources of contamination. 
 
 When, however, the action of other flowers can be prevented, 
 as in the Melon and, other unisexual plants, by " setting," the 
 largest, healthiest, and most cultivated varieties will yield seed 
 of the purest and finest quality. The tendency of Persian 
 Melons to degenerate in this country was remarked soon after 
 their introduction : and for a long time it was thought impos- 
 sible to preserve them for many generations. Knight, in his 
 numberless experiments upon this fruit, found that to be the 
 case, for his fruit at one time became less in bulk and weight, 
 and deteriorated in taste and flavour. But when he came to 
 consider that " every large and excellent variety of the Melon 
 must necessarily have been the production of high culture and 
 abundant food, and that a continuance of the same measures which 
 raised it to its highly improved state must be necessary to pre- 
 ventits receding, in successive generations, from that excellence;" 
 the cause of his Persian Melons deteriorating became apparent, 
 and he found that by bringing the cultivation of the plants to a 
 state of great perfection, he succeeded completely in rendering 
 the original quality hereditary, as long as those precautions 
 were observed. No man was more successful in the cultivation 
 of the Melon than Knight, and it is in the memory of many 
 persons that the quality of his Sweet Melons of Ispahan has 
 very rarely been equalled. The peculiar methods that lie 
 adopted appear to have been the complete and most careful 
 preservation of the leaves from injury of whatever kind, the 
 full exposure of their surface to light, and the augmenta,tipn oif 
 the ordinary warmth of a Melon bed by availing himself of the 
 heat reflected from brick tiles with which his bed was paved. 
 To such an extent was his care of the leaves carried that he 
 would not allow even the watering to be performed " over- 
 head," but he caused his gardener to pour water from a vessel 
 
ilO CASE OP BRUSSELS SPROUTS. 
 
 of proper construction upon the brick tiles between the leaves 
 without touching them. . (See various papers upon the Melon 
 in the Horticultural Transactions, and especially that in 
 vol. vii., p. 584.) 
 
 While, however, such are the general principles upon which 
 the preservation of the peculiar qualities of the many races of 
 cultivated annuals necessarily depends, it must be confessed 
 that, according to report, there are circumstances upon which 
 science can throw no light, and which, if correctly stated, 
 depend upon conditions as yet unsuspected to exist. Of this 
 class is the following, respecting the Brussels Sprouts Cabbage, 
 given upon the authority of M. Van Mons. 
 
 " Much has been said of the disposition of this plant to 
 degenerate. In the soil of Brussels it remains true, and I have 
 lately observed it to do the same in Louvain ; but at MaKnes, 
 which is the same distance from Brussels as Louvain, and 
 where the greatest attention is paid to the growth of vegetables, 
 it deviates from its proper character after the first sowing ; yet 
 it does not seem that any particular soil or aspect is essential 
 to the plant, for it grows equally well and true at Brussels, in 
 the gardens of the town, where the soil is sandy and mixed 
 with a black moist loam, as in the fields, where a compact 
 white clay predominates. The progress of deterioration at 
 Malines was most rapid; the plants_raised from seed of the 
 true sort, which I had sent there, produced the sprouts in little 
 bunches or rosettes, in their true form ; seeds of those being 
 saved, they gave plants in which the sprouts did not form into 
 little cabbages, but were expanded ; nor did they shoot again 
 at the axils of the stem. The plants raised from the seeds of 
 these last mentioned only produced lateral shoots with weak 
 pendant leaves, and tops similar to the shoots, so that in three 
 generations the entire character of the original was lost. From 
 a plant in this State last described, seed was saved at my 
 request, and sent back to me. I had it sown by itself, and 
 carefully watched the plants in their growth ; I was not long 
 in discovering that they retained the same character of 
 degeneration they had assumed at MaHnes, and preserved it 
 throughout the whole course of their growth, yielding pendu- 
 
RACES AKJE SAID TO WEAE OUT. 471 
 
 lous leaves with long petioles, and having no disposition to 
 cabbage. I suffered these plants to run to seed at a great 
 distance from my true sprouts, which the extent of my garden 
 allowed me easily to do. The second sowing brought them 
 back a good deal to their true character ; the plants yielded 
 small cabbages regularly at each axil, but not generally fuU or 
 compact, and they did not shoot a second time, as the true sort 
 does. I again suffered these to run to seed, using the same 
 precaution of keeping them by themselves. I sowed the seed, 
 and this time the plants were found to have entirely recovered 
 their original habits, their head, and rich produce." {Hort. 
 Trans., iii. 197.) 
 
 I continue to quote this passage for the sake of exciting 
 attention to the subject, but it stands so entirely alone that it 
 has probably arisen in some mistake. At all events it is now 
 ascertained that the quality of English-saved Brussels Sprouts 
 seed is fully equal to that from Brussels itself, as has been 
 conclusively shown by Mr. Judd, a skilful gardener in Southill 
 Gardens, near Biggleswade. 
 
 It has 'been often asserted that propagation by seed is the 
 only natural process of multiplication, and that by propagation 
 by division the races of plants wear out ; that when a tree or 
 otherperennialplantbecom.es unhealthy from old age, all the 
 offspring previously obtaiued from it by cuttings in aU parts of 
 the world becomes unhealthy too. Is such a doctrine a reason- 
 able inference from known facts ? or is it forced upon us by 
 evidence although not deducible from mere reason ? This 
 is an important question, to a laboured advocacy of which 
 pamphlets and newspapers have been abundantly brought 
 into requisition. The subject has been already adverted to 
 iu these pages; it is now necessary to examine it more 
 carefully. 
 
 The species of plants, like those of animals, appear to be 
 eternal, so far as anything mundane can deserve that name. 
 There is not the smallest reason to suppose that the Olive of 
 our days is different from that of Noah ; the Asa dulcis stamped 
 upon the coins of Gyrene still flourishes around the site of that 
 ancient city ; and the Acorns figured among the sculptures of 
 
472 EACES AEE SAID TO WEAR OUT. 
 
 Nimroud seem to show that the same Oak now grows on the 
 mountains of Kurdistan as was known there in the days oi 
 Sardanapalus. There is not the slightest evidence to show 
 that any species of plant has become extinct during the present 
 order of things. All species have continued to propagate 
 themselves by seeds, without losing their specific pecuHaxities ; 
 some appointed law has rendered them and their several 
 natures eternal. 
 
 It would seem moreover that, with the exception of annuals 
 and others of limited existence, the lives of the individual 
 plants born from such seed would be eternal also, if it were 
 not for the many accidents to which they are exposed, and 
 which eventually destroy them. Trees and other plants of a 
 perennial nature are renovated annually — annually receding 
 from the point which was originally formed, and which in the 
 nature of things must perish in time. The condition of theii 
 existence is a perpetual renewal of youth. In the proper sense 
 of the word decrepitude cannot overtake them. The Acorus 
 creeps along the mud, ever advancing from the starting point, 
 renews itself as it advances, and leaves its original stem to die 
 as its new shoots gain vigour; in the course of centuries a 
 single Acorus might creep around the world itself, if it could 
 only find mud in which to root. The Oak annually forms new 
 living matter over that which was previously formed, the seat 
 of Hfe incessantly retreating from the seat of death. When 
 such a tree decays no injury is felt, because the centre which 
 perishes is made good at the circumference, over which new 
 life is perennially distributed. But inevitable accidents inter- 
 fere, and trees are prevented from being immortal. 
 
 Species, then, are eternal; and so would be the indivi- 
 duals sprung from their seeds, if it were not for accidental 
 circumstances. 
 
 No reasonable person now pretends that the species of plants 
 disappear. It is alleged, on the contrary, that seeds renew the 
 languid vigour of a species as often as they are sown ; and thai 
 if an unhealthy plant is multiplied from seeds the immediate 
 offspring becomes healthy. It is also said that multiplicatior 
 by seed is the only natural mode of propagation kiaown among 
 
RACES ARE SAID TO WEAR OUT. 473 
 
 plants, arid that all other kinds of increase are artificial, and 
 lead to debility. 
 
 It would, we think, be difficult to find an hypothesis more 
 entirely at variance with notorious facts. That propagation by 
 seed is a natural method of multiplication is doubtless true ; 
 but to say that no other natural means exist is absurd. The 
 Sugar-cane is rarely propagated by seeds ; its natural mode of 
 propagation is by the stem, which when blown down by the 
 Storm emits roots at every joint. Of this natural property 
 man has availed himself as a means of artificially extending 
 the plant. The Tiger Lily naturally propagates itself by 
 bulbs, formed in the bosom of its leaves ; we never saw it form 
 a seed. The Strawberry has been more propagated by its 
 runners than by its seeds; and where do we find any signs 
 of debility there ? The Jerusalem Artichoke was introduced 
 before the year 1617; for nearly two centuries and a half it 
 has increased itself entirely by tubers, and never by seed. 
 Couch Grass increases chiefly by its creeping roots ; we wish 
 we could adduce this, at least, as one instance of failing vigour 
 in a plant whose seeds are but little yielded. It therefore is 
 not true that plants, multiplied much or wholly by other means 
 than seeds, become on that account unhealthy. Every gardener 
 knows that his Achimenes are principally multiplied by little 
 scaly bodies resembling tubers, and that these are formed in 
 such abundance as to render seed unnecessary. In short, the 
 denial of this could only arise from an entire unacquaintance 
 with common facts. Such examples sufficiently show that 
 Nature does provide other means of propagating plants than 
 seeds, and that tubers are one of those means. The Hyacinth 
 and the Garlic propagate naturally, not only by seeds, but also 
 -by the perpetual separation of their own hmbs, known under 
 the name of bulbs, their bulbs undergoing a similar natural 
 process of dismemberment ; and so on for ever. The Potato 
 plant belongs to a similar class. Another plant bends its 
 branches to the ground; the branches put forth roots, and, as 
 soon as these roots are established, the connection between 
 parent and offspring is broken, and a new plant springs into 
 independent existence. Man turns this property ±o account 
 
474 KACES DO NOT WEAE OUT. 
 
 by artificial processes of multiplication ; one tree he propa- 
 gates by layers, another by cuttings planted in the ground. 
 Going a step further he inserts a cutting of one individual 
 upon the stem of some other individual of the same species, 
 under the name of a bud or a scion, and thus obtains a 
 vegetable twin. 
 
 It is not contended, for there is nothing to show, that these 
 artificial productions are more short-lived than either parent, 
 provided the constitution of the two individuals is in perfect 
 accordance. There is not the smallest evidence — ^it has not 
 been even conjectured — that if a seedling Apple-tree is cut into 
 two parts, and these parts are reunited by grafting, the dura- 
 tion of the tree will be shorter than it would have been, in the 
 absence of the operation. No one indeed alleges that the 
 Garlic of Ascalon has only a short life, although it has been 
 propagated by sub-division from the time when it bore the 
 name of Shummin, and fed the labourers at the Pyramids; 
 nor do we know that the bulb-bearing LUy is supposed to have 
 less inherent vigour than if it were multiplied by seeds instead 
 of bulbSi 
 
 Seeds, however, are said in all instances to produce healthy 
 plants. But this, like the previous assertions, will not bear 
 exact investigation. The health of a seedling depends upon 
 that of the seed. Under no circumstances wiU unhealthy 
 seed yield vigorous offspring in the first generation; this is 
 proved every day by what comes from grain debilitated by age. 
 And there cannot be found a gardener, of any large experience, 
 who does not know that seedUngs will exhibit every diversity 
 of constitution from health to decrepitude. This has been 
 strikingly shown in the case of the PotatOj which, when 
 attacked by disease, in 1845, was said to be the victim of dege- 
 neracy, and to require renewal byfresh seed-sowing. Attempts 
 were made in all directions to carry out this idea, and large 
 quantities of seedling potatoes were raised. Among them great 
 diversity of vigour and other qualities was, as usual, observed ; 
 some were much more healthy than others, as was always the 
 case ; but the evidence thus obtained failed to support the 
 hypothesis that renewal by seed would prevent disease. On 
 
SEEDS WILL NOT ALWAYS PRODUCE HEALTHY PLANTS. 475 
 
 the contrary, the seedlings were often more prone to disease 
 than their parents. 
 
 But although it cannot be said that species wear out or 
 degenerate, whatever their mode of propagation, it is confidently 
 asserted that varieties, themselves artificial productions, obey 
 another law, and that they do in fact perish from gradual loss 
 of vitality. Passing by the objection that nobody has yet been 
 able to show how what is called a species among plants really 
 differs from what is called a variety, a very little examruation 
 appears to negative the idea of a degeneracy of race being any 
 part of the System of the Universe. 
 
 Some maintain that vegetable, like animal life, has its fixed 
 periods of duration, and that there is a time beyond which the 
 debility incident to old age cannot be warded off; and this is true, 
 so far as radividuals are concerned. But it is to confound indi- 
 viduals with races to infer from this that all the cultivated races 
 of plants require to be incessantly renewed by seed, in the 
 absence of which precaution they gradually become unhealthy, 
 and unfit for cultivation. It is thought that although the wild 
 Potato possesses indefinite vitality, yet that the varieties of it 
 which are brought into cultivation pass their lives circximscribed 
 within very narrow limits; and the same doctrine has been 
 held concerniag fruit-trees. 
 
 The first person who proposed this theory was the late 
 Thomas Andrew Knight, who, in the latter part of the last 
 century, finding that the orchards of Herefordshire no longer 
 contained healthy trees of certain varieties of Apple, which 
 were said to have flourished fifty years before, and failing in 
 his attempt to restore health to such varieties by grafting, 
 assumed that old age had overtaken them, and that they were 
 incurable. Thence he extended the theory to aU other plants ; 
 aad here and there writers on vegetable physiology, rather out 
 of respect to Mr. Knight's great name than from any correct 
 examination of the facts for themselves, have blindly adopted 
 his views. But reason and evidence are alike Opposed to the 
 conclusion, which seems to have sprung out of a mistaken 
 application of the laws of animal life to that of vegetables, and 
 a desire to push analogy beyond its proper limits. 
 
476 SOME PLANTS ARE NATURALLY SHORT LIVED. 
 
 All who understand the nature of plants, and the manner in 
 which they grow, and have witnessed that incessant renewal 
 of their vitality with which Providence has so wonderfully 
 endowed them, would hesitate to adopt Knight's views except 
 in the presence of facts capable of no other possible inter- 
 pretation. No physiologist can separate the nature of what 
 gardeners call varieties (of course mules are not here included), 
 from that of a wild race. In their intrinsic quahties they are 
 the same. It can make no difference in the nature of a plant 
 whether it is sown by a gardener or by winds, birds, animals, 
 or other agents. The Oak which springs up in a forest is not 
 in the smallest physiological particular different from that 
 which rises from the bed of a nurseryman. The Cabbages 
 which load the waggons of a market gardener are in their 
 essence the same as those which sprout forth from the sea- 
 beaten cliffs of the ocean. They may be greener or redder, 
 more succulent and larger; but they are physiologically the 
 same. We therefore must dismiss from our argument the 
 word variety, which only leads to a confusion of ideas. 
 
 Among plants, as among animals, there are ephemeral and 
 perennial species. The butterfly perishes in a few hours; 
 nothing can defer the arrival of that early death which is the 
 portion of such beings. Man, on the contrary, is endowed with a 
 longevity the limit of which is hardly definable. In plants we 
 have annuals, biennials, and perennials, to the last, of which 
 belong all trees and bushes. Now, wild perennial plants, 
 whether woody or herbaceous, whether forming a trunk or a 
 mere permanent root, have never yet been shown by any trust- 
 worthy evidence to be subject to decrepitude, arising from old 
 age. On the contrary, every new annual growth is, as has just 
 been stated, an absolute renewal of their vitality, in the absence 
 of disturbing causes. Hence the enormous age at which trees 
 arrive. A thousand years is still youth to a forest-tree which 
 no accident has injured; and there is no intelligible reason 
 why it should not, if guarded from violence, continue to grow 
 to eternity. Travellers believe that they have found, in the 
 forests of Brazil, trees that were seedlings in the age of Homer. 
 There seems to be no doubt that the WeUingtonias, now 
 
ASCERTAINED LONGEVITY OP BACES. 477 
 
 Rowing in California, "were born in the days when Mahomet 
 was in full career. 
 
 It is true that plants do in reality perish commonly without 
 attaining any such longevity; and that constitutional feeble- 
 ness is notoriously one of the accompaniments of advancing 
 age. But this arises from external, not intriusic, causes. The 
 soil which surrounds them is exhausted, their roots wander 
 iato uncongenial land, water in unnatural excess is introduced, 
 the food they require is withheld, violence rends them, men 
 mutilate them, severe cold disorganizes them, and these and 
 other causes produce disease, which may end in death. But 
 this is very different from dying of mere old age; and for 
 practical purposes it is material to draw the distinction. 
 
 If no evidence exist to show that wild plants suffer from 
 mere old age, we cannot admit such a property to be incident 
 to those which are cultivated. 
 
 Nevertheless, what are called facts, have been adduced to 
 prove that if plants do not die of old age in a wild state, yet 
 that they incontestably do wear out when artificially multiplied 
 by division. In opposition to this it would seem to be suffici- 
 ent to quote the White Beurr6 Pears of France, which French 
 writers assure us have been thus propagated from time imme- 
 morial, and which exhibit no trace of debility; or the 
 Jerusalem Artichoke already named ; or the cultivated Vines 
 of which the very va,rieties known to the Eomans have been 
 transmitted by perpetual division, and without deterioration or 
 decrepitude, to our own day. The Vitis pracox oi Columella is 
 admitted by Dr. Henderson, on the authority of the most 
 trustworthy writers, to have been the Maurillon or JEarly 
 Black July Grape of the present day ; the nomentana to have 
 been the German trammer ; the grcecula the modern Cprinth 
 or Currant ; and the dactyli our Cornichons or Finger Grapes. 
 The oldest known variety of Pear is the autumn Bergamot— 
 believed by Pomologists to be identically the same fruit culti- 
 vated by the Eomans in the time of Julius Cffisar,— that is to 
 say, the variety is nearly two thousand years old. 
 
 Still it is afBrmed that some cultivated plants have really 
 worn out. The Eedstreak, the Golden Pippin, and the Golden 
 
478 THE THEORY OF WEARING OUT 
 
 Harvey Apples are among the number quoted. The first of 
 these is little known to us, and we have no evidence about it ; 
 but the Golden Pippin and Golden Harvey are certainly not 
 capable of being employed in support of Knight's theory. 
 Both are to be found in various places at this moment in as 
 perfect health as they ever enjoyed. In the United States we 
 are assured by American writers that all our diseased European 
 Apples and Pears exist in the highest vigour. The Golden 
 Pippin is among the most healthy Apples of Madeira : the 
 Golden Harvey is in many good gardens. Of the former, 
 healthy trees were many years since shown to exist ia Norfolk ; 
 in warm dry places it had no particular appearance of suffer- 
 ing. Eecruited by the fine climate of France, the Golden 
 Pippin has been received back to this country in as healthy 
 a state as ever, and is now growing in the garden of the 
 Horticultural Society. The old Nonpareil was well known iu 
 the time of Queen Elizabeth ; in cold places it cankers, and no 
 doubt always has cankered; but what can be more healthy 
 than that variety in favourable places? One writer infers 
 because the Gooseberry growers of Lancashire find the weight 
 of their fruit diminishes " after the varieties have been cultiva- 
 ted some time," that therefore these varieties are dying of old 
 age, and he has expended no inconsiderable quantity of learn- 
 ing in attempting to fit this speculation to the Potato. So 
 impressed, indeed, is he with a conviction jjf its truth, that he, 
 as well as others, recommends people to be sent to Peru, or 
 wherever else the Potato grows wild, in order to get seeds and 
 tubers of vigorous wild plants. But what is called evidence 
 breaks down wherever it is examined ; and this part of the 
 argument about the wearing out of races, proves to be baseless. 
 
 ' ' Certain French writers, about this time, gla,dly seized Knight' 3 theory 
 as an explanation of the miserable state into which the fine old sorts of 
 Pears had fallen about Paris, owing to bad culture and propagation. 
 They sealed the death-warrant, in like manner, of the Brown Beurr§, 
 Doyennfe, Chaumontel, and many others. ITotwithstanding this, and 
 that ten or fifteen years have since elapsed, it is worthy of notice that 
 the repudiated Apples and Pears still hold their place among all the 
 best cultivators in both England and France. Nearly half the Pear- 
 trees annually introduced into this country (the United States) from 
 
IS CERTAINLY ERRONEOUS. 479 
 
 France are the Doyeime and Beurre. And the ' extinct varieties' seem 
 yet to bid defiance to theorists and bad cultivation." — Downing. 
 
 "We may easily conceive," says De CandoUe, "that every cultivated 
 variety owed its origin to some special circumstance, which once 
 occurred, and hut once. In such a case the variety has been multi- 
 plied by division, and every plant so obtained from it has been a 
 portion of the same individual ; which acoovuits for their aU being 
 exactly like each other. An identity of origin in aU the plants of the 
 same variety has led some physiologists to imagine that these varieties or 
 fractions of an individual might die of old age. ' But it is difficult to 
 admit, upon such a single fact, an h3^othesis opposed to all other facts. 
 That varieties will last, so long as man takes care of them, appears to 
 be proved by many of them having been preserved from the most 
 remote periods. But it is also certain that negligence will cause some 
 to disappear, just as accident or industry brings others into existence." 
 — [Phys. Vdgetale, p. 731, somewhat abridged.) 
 
 Although an examination of evidence leads to the conclusion, 
 that the wearing out of the races of plants by old age does not 
 occur, yet it is not intended to deny the accuracy of the state- 
 ments made by some recent writers on the subject. We may 
 admit their facts, but reject their reasoning, and the inferences 
 they would have us draw. 
 
 In The Florist's Directory by James Maddock, 1792, are 
 the following observations : — " The constitution of Anemones 
 Undergoes considerable changes with age, which is, perhaps, in 
 a greater or smaller degree, the case with all other vegetables. 
 The Anemone wiU not last more than twelve or fifteen years 
 without degenerating, unless it be frequently removed to a 
 different soil and situation ; nor will any removals protract or 
 prolong its existence more than thirty or forty years. It 
 generally blows in its greatest degree of perfection from the 
 fifth to the tenth or twelfth year, after which it becomes 
 gradually smaller and weaker, and if the flower was originally 
 very full and double, with age it loses that property; the 
 petals diminish in number, become small and irregular, and 
 finally the sort perishes. It has more than once occurred that 
 the same sort, although in possession of many persons, 
 residing at remote distances from each other, has been entirely 
 lost in one season, without the possibility of accounting for the 
 fact iti any other manner than the above." In a foot-note the 
 
480 DISEASED GEAPTS WILL CONTINUE DISEASE. 
 
 author observes — " The Eanunculus will last about twenty or 
 twenty-five years in perfection, after which it degenerates and 
 perishes." It does not appear that this period of duration is 
 confined only to seminal varieties of vegetables, for although 
 the original wild parent still continues to flourish, as it has 
 done since its creation, yet there is no evidence to show that 
 the wild individuals are each more long-lived than those which 
 are domesticated. The fact appears to be that Anemones and 
 Ranunculuses are very short-lived species. In a wild state 
 they are annually renewed by self-sowing; in gardens they 
 enjoy a forced extension of vitality secured by artificial means, 
 which are, however, temporary in their effect, just as annuals 
 may be made to live for two or three years by similar means. 
 
 In like manner when we are told that grafts taken from an 
 old ■ diseased fruit-tree produce young diseased plants, as is 
 undoubtedly the case, it is not to be inferred that its race is 
 wearing out. The only inference which the fact justifies is 
 that when an individual becomes diseased, a limb from that 
 individual, if transferred to another plant, carries its disease 
 with it. To prove the theory of degeneracy it is necessary to 
 show, what has never yet been done, that no care can preserve 
 a perennial variety from decrepitude. 
 
 In the case of the Apple-trees and Gooseberry-bushes lately 
 adverted to this seems to be the true explanation of the facts 
 relating to them. A tree, from some cause or other, becomes 
 unhealthy; a piece cut from it and put upon another tree 
 carries its disease with it ; again divided, the disease is again 
 propagated, and this will go on as long as the unhealthy plants 
 remain exposed to the influences which originally caused 
 their bad health. But change the circumstances, place the 
 plants under more favourable circumstances, keep off the cause 
 of the evil, and the evil will gradually disappear, as has actually 
 happened to our diseased fruit-trees when carried to better 
 climates than our own. 
 
 The best recent statement, witli which I am acquainted, of facts in 
 favour of wearing out will he found in a paper communicated to the 
 Gardeners' Chronicle (1853, p. 372) by Mr, Masters of Canterbmy. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ON THE IMPROVEMKNT OF EACES. 
 
 What has been stated in the preceding chapter, concerning 
 the preservation of the races of domesticated plants, is in some 
 measure applicable to their improvement; because the very 
 means employed to preserve those peculiairities of habit, which 
 render them valuable, will, from time to time, be the cause of 
 still more valuable qualities making their appearance. There 
 are, however, other points of great importance on which the 
 gardener has dependence. 
 
 Sudden alterations in the quality of seedling plants often occur 
 from no apparent cause, just as those accidental changes, called 
 " sports," in the colour or form of the leaves, flowers, or fruit, 
 of one single branch of a tree, occasionally break out, we know 
 not why. Of these things, .physiology can give no account ; 
 but it is certain that, when such sports appear, they indicate a 
 violent constitutional change in the action of the limb thus 
 affected, which change may be sometimes perpetuated by.seed, 
 and always by propagation of the limb itself where propagation 
 is practicable. It is possible that even new forms of shrubs 
 might be procured by keeping these facts in view, and that 
 climbers might be deprived of their climbing habits, for it is 
 known that the handsome evergreen bush called the Tree Ivy, 
 which grows erect, with scarcely the least , tendency to climb, 
 has been procured by propagating the fruit-bearing branches of 
 trees of considerable age. 
 
 A sport is a mutatio per saltwm, or, a sudden change of one 
 thing into another, different in some very striking respect, as 
 
482 SPOETS ARE OR MAT BECOME PERMANENT. 
 
 when a Peach-tree produces a smooth fruit (a Nectarine) amon 
 its own downy brood. These sudden changes seem to I 
 essentially different in their nature from the gradual alteratior 
 which cultivation brings about in all plants ; they are violer 
 transformations .produced by unknown causes, and in whic! 
 there is a natural tendency to preserve the altered condition 
 Some examples and their known results wUl make thi 
 plainer. 
 
 The annual Clarkia pulchella bears naturally a purple flowei 
 Unexpectedly, among other seedlings, a plant appeared in whicl 
 the flowers were pure white— a vegetable Albiao. That was i 
 sport. The seed was saved and sown ; the produce consiste( 
 of many purple and many white-flowering iadividtials. Th 
 purples which had lost the new tendency were removed, an( 
 seed again saved from the pure whites; the next batch o 
 seedlings was much more white than purple ; the next batcl 
 was all white, and thus the o^ginal sport was fixed. 
 
 "When, the Provins Eose produced a branch on which thi 
 flowers were buried ajnong those glandular expansions of th( 
 calyx and its footstalk which we call mossiness, the first Mosi 
 Eose was born :■ — ^that again was a sport.. 
 
 "When some Celosia suddenly formed its flowers upon i 
 thickened, flattened (fasciated) stalk, and they became mori 
 crowded than usual, we had a Cockscomb, and that again was i 
 sport. The plant thus changed, by whatever cause, had gainei 
 a constitutional tendency to grow in the cockscomb or fasciatei 
 manner; by repeatedly saving seed from the most fasciate( 
 and the dwarfest seedlings, that which was at first a meri 
 tendency or predisposition became as fixed a constitutiona 
 character as was acquired by the greyhound when he firs 
 became a new variety of some other kind of dog. Thii 
 fasciated character was at first a mere monstrosity, such as wi 
 see around us here and there in a great variety of plants ij 
 which no one has yet thought of fixing the habit. If it ha; 
 a tendency to disappear under neglect, as those who buy chea] 
 seeds know that it has, so, on the other hand^ it has also i 
 tendency to increase under skilful management, as was showi 
 by Mr. Aiidrew Knight when he, by one single effort, brough 
 
SPORTS ARE OB MAY BECOME PERMANENT. 483 
 
 a Cockscomb plant to measure eighteen inches across and only 
 seven inches high.* 
 
 An analogous change is that represented at Fig. XCVII., 
 which is not at all uncommon in the Canterbury Bell, whose 
 flowering stem becomes fasciated, and the flowers run together 
 
 Pig: XOVII.— Monstrous Canterbury Bell. 
 
 into a magnificent crescent-shaped head. Gardeners have 
 never attempted to fix this striking character, and yet it might 
 perhaps be secured as the Cockscomb. 
 
 Mr. Salter, of Hammersmith, observed among his seedling 
 Dahlias one which produced a number of green scaly flower- 
 heads, but no perfect flowers. This was propagated and every 
 plant was covered with similar heads of scales. All the plants 
 were vigorous, but there was not a single perfect flower-head 
 upon any one of them, so that the sport became immediately 
 fixed. (See Fig. XCVIII.) 
 
 M. Esprit Fabre observed that a kind of wild Grass (JEgilops 
 ovata) was subject to a sport (^. triticoides). Of that sport he 
 sowed the seeds, and he found that while on the one hand there 
 
 H„I.,v!i,r ^^ -^f^^- J ^^^ "^ ^ '^''^'^ ''^"g^ - *^^ library of the 
 Horticultural So^ety. The manner in which the experiment was conducted" is 
 described in the Sort. Trans., toI iT.,-p. 321. 
 
 T T 2 
 
484 
 
 ^GILOPIAN WHEAT 
 
 was no disposition to return to its original form, there was on 
 the other a decided tendency to sport still more. Of that 
 tendency he availed himself with admirable patience. Year by 
 year the change went on— but slowly. Little by little one part 
 
 altered or another.. 
 The hungry grain 
 grew plumper; the 
 flour in it increased ; 
 its size augmented. 
 The starved ears 
 formed other spike - 
 lets; the spikelets 
 at first containing 
 but two flowers at 
 last became capable 
 of yielding four or 
 five. The straw 
 stifiened, the leaves 
 widened, the ears 
 lengthened, the corn 
 softened and aug- 
 mented, tUl at last 
 "Wheat itself stood 
 revealed, and of 
 such quality that it 
 was not excelled on 
 the neighbouriug 
 farms. 
 
 It is, in fact, 
 through attention 
 to sports that many 
 of the most striking of our flowers and fruit have been obtained. 
 A single dwarf Larkspur sports by chance to double ; the seeds 
 of the sport are saved carefully and sown ; three-fourths of the 
 seedlings are single^ but a few are double; the first are thrown 
 away, the best of the second are saved for seed, and the second 
 crop of seedHngs comes truer. Thus arise the race of double 
 Larkspurs. A double Larkspur next sports to a stripe, that is 
 
 Fig. XCVIII.— Monstrous Dahlia. 
 
AND OTHEB SPOETS. 485 
 
 to say, bands of red or of violet appear upon the pale ground of 
 the petals of a few flowers ; these flowers are marked, the seed 
 is saved, and so begins the breed of what are called Uniques, 
 at one time the pride of the flower-garden, though now dis- 
 carded for newer favourites. In the same way, first came 
 Camellias, Chrysanthemums, and others. The old purple 
 Chrysanthemum accidentally sported to buff: the buff branch 
 was struck, proved true to its new nature, and became the 
 ancestor of a race of other buffs. The colour of a red Camellia 
 " breaks ; " red streaks appear in the flowers of a sporting 
 branch; that branch is separated, and grafted upon a stout 
 stock; on goes the sportive branch, retains its tendency, 
 produces striped flowers all the better for the new blood infused 
 into them, and the tendency is fixed ; skilful gardeners cut it 
 limb from limb, and every mutilated morsel starts into life 
 another variegation. 
 
 It is the same with vegetables ; a wild Carrot accidentally 
 found in cultivated ground refuses to run to seed, but builds 
 up a root stouter than any Carrot had before. The watchful 
 eyes of a gardener remark the change; the changeling, still 
 a sport, flowers at last; its precious seeds are saved, and 
 committed to still richer ground. Nine-tenths of the seedlings 
 run back to the wild form — but a very few prove obedient to 
 the will of man, shake off their savage habits, refuse to flower 
 till the second year, spend their autumn and winter in the 
 further enlargement of their roots, then rise up into blossom 
 iQvigorated by six months' additional preparation, and yield 
 other seeds, in which the fixity of character, or habit of domes- 
 tication, is still more firmly implanted. And thus begins the 
 race of Carrots. 
 
 Nectarines, Pears, Peaches, Plums, and other valuable fruits, 
 must be supposed to have in numerous instances derived their 
 origin from similar circumstances; they were far more the 
 children of accident than design, and we see to what they have 
 come. , 
 
 Gardeners, then, should keep a watchful eye upon every 
 tendency to sport, wHch they may remark among the plants 
 entrusted to their care. The sports, howeyer unpromising. 
 
i86 CONSTITUTIONAL TENDENCY TO VARIATION. 
 
 should be made the sulbject of repeated experiment ; year after 
 year seeds should be saved, seed-beds " rogued," and attempts 
 made to secure fixity of character. If they end in nothing, as 
 they often will, such experiments have the advantage of also 
 costing nothing ; but if they lead to a good result a permanent 
 ■ gain is secured. 
 
 The tendency of plants to variation being so general, and in many 
 cases so remarkably great, we may reasonably expect that by taking 
 proper advantage of it we may obtain much, if not all that we would 
 wish. " We see every day the wide range of seminal diversities in our 
 gardens," said Dean Herbert, in the Journal of the Horticultural 
 Society. " We have known Dahlias from a poor single dull-coloured 
 flower break into superior forms and brilliant colours ; we have seen a 
 Carnation, by the reduplication of its calyx, acquire almost the appear- 
 ance of an ear of Wheat, and look like a glumaoeous plant ; we have 
 seen Hollyhocks in their generations branch into a variety of colours, 
 which are reproduced by the several descendants with tolerable certainty. 
 We cannot, therefore, say that the order to multiply after their kind 
 meant that the produce should be precisely similar to the original type ; 
 and, if the type was allowed to reproduce itself with variation, who 
 can pretend to say how much variation the Almighty allowed ? Who 
 can say that this glorious scheme for clothing the earth was not the 
 creation of a certain number of original plants, predestined by Him in 
 their reproduction to exhibit certain variations, which should hereafter 
 become fixed characters, as well as those variations which even now 
 frequently arise, and become nearly fixed characters, but not absolutely 
 so, and those which are more variable, and very subject to relapse in 
 reproduction?" 
 
 But we are by no means destitute of the power of procuring, 
 with some certainty, improved varieties, by an application to 
 practice of physiological principles. In the last chapter has 
 been shown the importance of securing the production of seed 
 by plants in the niost healthy state possible, because a robust 
 parent is likely to afford a progeny of similar habits to itself. 
 In annuals, however, this is apparently restrained withia 
 narrower limits than in woody plants, from the great difficulty 
 of fixing a new peculiarity in the former, and the facility with 
 which it may be effected in the latter case, by means of buds, 
 cuttings, grafts, and similar modes of propagation. The object 
 of the scientific gardener who desires to improve the varieties 
 
THE BEST SEEDS PRODUCE THE BEST BEEEDS. 487 
 
 of plants upon principle will be, then, by artificial means, to 
 bring the parent from which seed is to be saved as near as 
 possible to that state at which he desires the seedling to arrive. 
 It is known that the abstraction of fruit and flowers 
 augments the vigour of the branches, or of the parts connected 
 with them, and that the removal from the former of any part 
 which takes up a portion of the food employed in the support 
 of the flowers increases their ef&ciency. Thus those varieties 
 of the Potato, which will neither flower nor fruit otherwise, 
 may be made to do both by stopping the development of tubers ; 
 and, on the other hand, the size and weight of the tubers them- 
 selves are increased by preventing the formation of flowers and 
 fruit. The course, then, to take, in obtaining the largest 
 possible tubers in a new variety of the Potato, would be, in the 
 first place, to efiiect that end temporarily, but during several 
 successive seasons, by abstracting aU the flowers and fruit, and 
 by such other means as may suggest themselves ; and then to 
 obtain the most perfect seed possible by a destruction of the 
 tubers during the season when seed is finally to be saved. Mr. 
 Knight found, in raising new varieties of the Peach, that, when 
 one stone contained two seeds, the plants these afforded were 
 inferior to others. The largest seeds, obtained from the finest 
 fruit, and from that which ripens most perfectly and most early, 
 should always be selected {Hort. Trans., i. 39); and, in his 
 incessant efforts to obtain new varieties of fruit of other 
 genera, he had reason to conclude that the trees, from blossoms 
 and seeds of which it is proposed to propagate, should have 
 grown at least two years in mould of the best quality; that 
 during ^at period they should not be allowed to exhaust them- 
 selves by bearing any considerable crop of fruit ; and that the 
 wood of the preceding year should be thoroughly ripened (by 
 artificial heat when necessary) at an early period in the autumn ; 
 and, if early maturity in the fruit of the new seedling plant is 
 required, that the fruit. Within which the seed grows, should be 
 made to acquire maturity virithin as short a period as is con- 
 sistent with its attaining its fuU size and perfect flavour. Those 
 qualities ought also to be sought in the parent fruits, which are 
 desired in the offspring; and he found that the most perfect 
 
488 IMPOETANCE OF CEOSSING. 
 
 and vigorous progeny was obtained, of plants as of animals, 
 when the male and female parent were not closely related to 
 each other, (See the Horticultwral Transactions, i, 165.) 
 
 There are no processes known to the cultivator so efficacious 
 in producing new varieties as that adverted to in the last 
 paragraph, that is to say, muling or cross-breeding; and it 
 is to these operations, more than to anything else, except 
 accident, that we owe the beauty and excellence of most of our 
 garden productions ; more, however, I think, to cross-breeding 
 than to muling. By cross-breeding is meant the intermixture 
 of varieties ; by muHng or hybridising, that of species. It was 
 by the first of these processes that have been so greatly multi- 
 plied and improved our fruits for the dessert, and the gay flowers 
 that adorn our gardens. The Pelargonium, the Calceolaria, 
 the Dahlia, the Verbena, and a thousand others— what would 
 they be, but simple wild flowers, without the power of man 
 exercised in this way ? " To the cultivators of ornamental 
 plants," says Mr. Herbert,* " the ' facility of raising hybrid 
 varieties affords an endless source of interest and amusement. 
 He sees in the several species of each genus that he possesses 
 the materials with which he must work, and he considers in 
 what manner he can blend them to the best advantage, looking 
 to the several gifts in which each excels, whether of hardiness 
 to endure our seasons, of brilliancy in its colours, of delicacy in 
 its markings, of fragrance, or stature, or profusion of blossom; 
 and he may anticipate, with tolerable accuracy, the probable 
 aspect of the intermediate plant which he is permitted to 
 create : for that term may be figuratively apphed to the 
 introduction into the world of a natural form wl4ph has 
 probably never before existed in it. In constitution the mixed 
 offspring appears to partake of the habits of both parents; 
 that is to say, it will be less hardy than the one of its parents 
 which bears the greatest exposure, and not so delicate as the 
 
 • See much the most valuable and practical accounts of cross-breeding and muling 
 ■yirHch haTe been yet published in regard to horticulture, in the AmarylUdaceoe of Dean 
 Herbert, p. 335, et seq., and in the,sarie author's papers published in the fowrnal of 
 the SorticidPwraZ Society, vol. ii. pp. 1 and 81. See also a most important memoir 
 upon the same subject by Gtertner, translated by the Key. M. J. Berkeley, in the same 
 work, vol. v., p. 1S6, and vol. vi., p. 1. 
 
EXPERIMENTS IN CROSSING. 489 
 
 other : but, if one of the parents is quite hardy, and the other 
 not quite able to support our winters, the probability is, that 
 the offspring wiU support them, though it may suffer from 
 a very unusual depression of the thermometer, or excess of 
 moisture, which would not destroy its hardier parent." 
 
 " In few characters is the influence of muling more striking than in 
 the size and colour of hlossoms. In many closely allied spebies, which 
 differ hut little in habit or foliage, the colour of the coroUa is of great 
 importance. In a wild state it is for the most part constant, and is 
 often indicative of distinct groups or species. In other groups, on the 
 contrary, it is extremely variable, and is notably different at different 
 periods of growth. Where, however, colour is the most constant and 
 distinctive, union is often practicable, and in general the consequence 
 of hybridisation is a complete derangement of the laws on which such 
 constancy of hue depends. Neither axe the hues resulting from the 
 union necessarily intermediate. Blue and yellow, for instance, do not 
 produce green, as is proved by Verbascum phoeniceum and phlomoides. 
 Gladiolus cardiuaU-blandus exhibits the less briUiaht hue of the male 
 parent rather than the splendour of the mother ; and in some cases the 
 tone of colour of one of the parents is exhibited under a more briUiant 
 tint, as in Mcotiana suaveolenti-gliitinosa. 
 
 "Little has been done at present in the hybridising of cereals, but 
 Herbert believed that more useful varieties than at present exist of 
 Wheat, Oats, and Barley, might be produced by combining the fruit- 
 fulness of one variety with the hardiness of another, to both of which 
 might be added the thin sldn and, consequent superior weight of a third. 
 Knight's wrinMed Peas are a proof of what may be done by hybridising, 
 and it is probable that much might be effected in Beet, Cabbages, Car- 
 rots; Celery, &c,, by especial attention to this point. 
 
 "Amongst woody plants also there are instances of peculiarly 
 luxuriant growth, such as Lycium barbato-afrum. Varieties therefore 
 might be produced, of much more rapid growth, which for some pur- 
 poses might have their value, though the quality of the timber would 
 probably suffer. 
 
 " Another peculiarity of hybrids is their precocity, of which advan- 
 tage may be taken where early fruit is desirable, or where the summers 
 are not long enough to ripen the later fruit. 
 
 " A very important quality of hybrids is also their power in very 
 many cases of enduring a greater degree of cold than the pure species 
 from which they are derived, and hence the acclimatisation of many 
 useful plants by means of hybrid forms or varieties may be effected. 
 The hybrids, for instance, of Nicotiana are far less susceptible of frost 
 than their pure parents, a circumstance of very great importance if the 
 cultivation of Tobacco were to be materially extended. 
 
^90 GARTNER'S CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 " The great fruitfulneas of many hybrid varieties is also a material 
 point as regards their useful qualities, especially in orchards and -vine- 
 yards, and where ornament, effect, or what the Germans call sesthetic 
 botany in its various branches is concerned, hybrids supply an endless 
 subject of experiment. 
 
 "And lastly, the longer duration of many hybrids and their more 
 persistent larger blossoms make them especial objects of favour and 
 delight. 
 
 " The great difficulty in the way of experiment is the frequent want 
 of fertility in the seeds of hybrids, and their tendency to wear out, 
 wherever there is a possibility of impregnation from neighbouring 
 varieties. 
 
 " The simple hybrid reverts to the mother type by repeated impreg- 
 nation with the maternal pollen, or when the paternal pollen is applied, 
 goes forward to the type of the father : the conversion of the mother 
 into the father is, however, seldom synchronous with the contrary 
 change. Mootiana rustica was changed in. this manner by Kobeuter 
 into N. paniculata, and similar changes have been effected by others. 
 
 "When hybrids are impregnated a third or fourth time with the 
 pollen of the original male parent, they gradually approximate more 
 and more to the male type, and at last are not distinguishable fi^om it, 
 except perhaps in a less degree of fertility, though this negative sign 
 vanishes sooner or later. There is no certainty as to the number of 
 successive impregnations necessary to produce this complete change. 
 Different species exhibit in this respect very different results. Mco- 
 tiana rustico-paniculata, even in the fifth degree, is occasionally com- 
 pletely sterile either as to the stigma or anthers, but especially aa 
 regards the latter. 
 
 " The tendency of varieties to return to the maternal type seems to 
 be a peculiarity general to the vegetable kingdom, especially it left to 
 themselves, free from the trammels of cultivation. This return, how- 
 ever, in the second generation of simple hybrids, or of paternal mules of 
 the second degree, is always effected by fructification, and not by any 
 other mode of propagation. It seems also more easy than the approach 
 to the paternal type, though in neither case does it take place to a 
 considerable extent, nor does it take place in all genera, and when it 
 does occur the produce is less fertile." — Oesrtner. 
 
 The following are ^ihs practical instructions for hybridising given by 
 Mr. Isaac Anderson, one of our most skilful operators in this way : — 
 
 " To those who would attempt the hybridising or cross-breeding of 
 plants, I will now offer some suggestions for their guidance. It is an 
 essential element to success that the operator be possessed of indo- 
 mitable patience, watchfulness, and perseverance. Having determined 
 on the subjects on which he is to operate, if the plants are in the open 
 
ANDEBSON'S PRACTICE. 491 
 
 ground, he win have them put into pots, and removed xtnder glass, so 
 as to escape the accidents of variable temperature — of wind, rain, and 
 dust, and, ahove all, of insects. A greenhouse fully exposed to the 
 sun is best adapted for the purpose, at least as regards hardy and 
 proper greenhouse plants. Having got them housed, secure a corner 
 where they are least likely to be visited by bees or other insects. The 
 plants which are to yield the pollen, and the plants which are to bear 
 the seed, should be both kept in the same temperature ; but where this 
 cannot be managed, pollen from an outside plant, in genial summer 
 weather, may be used, provided it can be got ; for there is a class of 
 insects which live exclusively on pollen, and devour it so fast after the 
 pollen vessels open, that, unless the plant is under a hand-glass (which 
 I would recommend), it is scarcely possible to get any pollen for the 
 required purpose. To secure against chances of this nature, a sprig 
 with opening bloom may be taken and kept in a phial and water inside, 
 where it will get sufficient sun to ripen the pollen. But here, too, 
 insects m.ust be watched, and destroyed if they intrude. An insect 
 like, but smaller, than the common hive bee, which flits about by fits 
 and starts, on expanded wings, after the manner of the dragon-fly, is 
 the greatest pest, and seems to feed exclusively on pollen. The hive 
 bee, the humble bee, and wasp, give the next greatest annoyance. All 
 these may be excluded by netting fixed over apertures from open 
 sashes or the like. Too much care cannot be bestowed on excluding 
 these intruders, whose single touch, in many cases, might neutralise 
 the intended result ; for the slightest appilication of pollen native to the 
 parent plant is said by physiologists to supersede all foreign agency, 
 unless, perhaps, in. the crossing ef mere varieties ; and the truth of 
 this observation consists with my own experience. Without due pre- 
 caution, now, the labour, anxiety, and watchfulness of years may 
 issue in vexation and disappointment. As a further precaution stUl, 
 and to -prevent self -fertilisation, divest the blooms to be operated on 
 not only of their anthers, but also of their corollas. Remove also all 
 contiguous blooms upon the plant, lest the syringe incautiously 
 directed, or some sudden draft of air, convey the native pollen, and 
 anticipate the intended operation. The corolla appears to be the 
 means by which insects are attracted ; and though, when it is removed, 
 the honey on which they feed is stiU present, they seem puzzled or 
 indifferent about coUeoting it ; or if, haply, they should alight on the 
 dismantled flower (which I never have detected), the stigma is in most 
 cases safe from their contact. It will be some days — ^probably a week 
 or more, if the weather be not sunny — ere the stigma is in a fit condi- 
 tion for fertilisation. This is indicated in many families, such as 
 Ericacese, Eosacese, Sorophularinse, Aurantiacese, &o., by a viscous 
 exudation in the sutures (where these exist) of the stigma, but gene- 
 rally covering the entire surface of that organ. In this condition the 
 
*92 ANDERSON'S PEAOTICE. 
 
 stigma may remain many days, during which fertilisation may be 
 performed : and this period will be longer or shorter as the weather is 
 sunny, or damp or overcast. In certain families, such as the Malvaoese, 
 Geraniaoese, &c., where the stigma divides itself into feathery parts, 
 and where the viscous process is either absent or inappreciable by the 
 eye, the separation of these parts, the bursting of the poUen, the matu- 
 rity of the stigma, and aU. which a little experience will detect, indicate 
 the proper time for the operation, sunny or cloudy weather always 
 affecting the duration of the period during which it may be successfully 
 performed. As to the proper time and season best adapted for such 
 experiments, a treatise might be written ; but here a few remarks must 
 suffice. As for the season of the year, from early spring to midsummer 
 I would aoooxm.t the best period ; but, as I have just observed, I regard 
 aU cold, damp, cloudy, and ungenial weather as unfavourable. On 
 the other hand, when the weather is genial, not so much from sun 
 heat as at times occurs from the atmosphere beiug moderately, charged 
 with electricity, when there ig an elasticity, so to speak, in the balmy 
 air, and all nature seems joyous and instruct with life, this, of all 
 others, is the season which the hybridist should improve, and above all 
 if he attempt muling. The hybridist should be provided with a pocket 
 lens, a pair of wire pincers, and various coloured silk threads. "With 
 the lens he will observe the maturity of the poUen and the condition of 
 the stigma, whether the former has attained its powdery, and the latter 
 (if such is its nature) its viscous condition. If he find both the pollen 
 and the stigma in a fit state, he will, with the pincers, apply an anther 
 with ripened pollen, and by the gentlest touch distribute it very thinly 
 over the summit of the stigma. The operation performed, he will 
 mark it by tying round the flower-stalk a bit of that particular coloured 
 s ilk thread which he wishes to indicate the particular plant which bore 
 the pollen, and at the same time tie a bit of the same sUk round the 
 stem of the latter, which wiU serve till recorded in a note-book, which 
 should be kept by every one trying experiments on a large scale. 
 
 " It is quite unnecessary to offer any directions as to the results to 
 be effected. If it is desired to reproduce the larger, finer formed, or 
 higher coloured bloom of a plant having a tall, straggling, or too robust 
 a growth, or having too large or too coarse foliage in a plant without 
 these drawbacks, I need not suggest to select, in another species of the 
 same family, a plant of an opposite character and properties — say of 
 dwarf compact growth, handsome foliage, and free flowering habit; 
 and if such can be obtained, work with it, making the latter the seed- 
 bearer. Or, if it be desirable to impart the fragrance of a less hand- 
 some kind to another more handsome, I woiild make the cross upon the 
 latter. I cannot speak with certainty from my own experiments how far 
 perfume may be so oommunioated; but I have some things far advanced 
 to maturity to test it ; and I entertain the hope that fi:agrance may not 
 
ANDEBSON'S PRACTICE. 493 
 
 only be so imparted, but even heightened, varied, and improved. Or 
 if it be desired to transfer all, or any valuable property or quality, 
 from a tender exotic species to a native or hardy kind, work upon the 
 latter ; for so far as constitution goes, I agree with those who hold that 
 the female overrules in this particular, I would offer this caution to 
 those who wish to preserve the purity of certain flowers for exhibition, 
 especially those having white grounds, not to cross such with high 
 coloured sorts. I once spoiled a pure white-bloomed Calceolaria for 
 exhibition by crossing it with a crimson sort ; all the blooms on those 
 branches where the operation had been performed, being stained red, 
 and not the few flowers merely on which the cross was effected. In 
 this note, already too long, I cannot further illustrate my remarks, by 
 recorded experiments in the various tribes upon which I have tried my 
 hand; but I cannot leave the subject without inculcating, in the 
 strongest manner, the observance of the rules I have Md down to 
 prevent vexatious disappointments. If any doubts arise about the 
 cross being genuine or effectually secured, let not the seeds be sown. 
 Three, four, five, and even six years, must oftentimes elapse with trees 
 and shrubby things ere the result can be judged of ; and if eventually 
 it prove a failure, or even doubtful, it is worse than labour lost, inas-, 
 much as it may mislead. If there is no great departure from the 
 female parent, the issue is to be mistrusted. It is singular, if well 
 accomplished, how much of both parents is blended in the progeny. 
 Gentlemen eminent as physiologists have read nature's laws in these 
 matters a little differently from what my own humble experience has 
 taught me, and assigned to the progeny the constitution and general 
 aspect of the one parent, while they gave the inflorescence and fruit to 
 the other. I have crossed and inverted the cross, and can venture to 
 give no evidence on the point, except, perhaps, as to constitution, to 
 which the seed-bearer, I think, contributes most. A well-managed 
 hybrid should and will blend both parents into a distinct intermediate, 
 insomuch so as to produce often what might pass for a new species. If 
 the leaning be to one more than another, it is probably to the female, 
 though this will not always be the case. Again, it is asserted that a 
 proper hybrid — i.e., one species which is crossed with another species, 
 which is separate and distinct from it — will produce no fertile seeds. 
 This does not accord with my observations. Dr. Lindley has remarked 
 very justly (Theory of Horticulture, p. 69), ' But facts prove that 
 undoubted hybrids may be fertile.' My hybrid, Yeronica Balfonriana 
 (an intermediate between V. saxatilis and V. fruticulosa), seeds, I 
 would say, more abundantly than either parent ; and the progeny from 
 its self-sown seeds I find ix) be of various shades of blue, violet, and 
 red, rising in my garden, some having actually larger, finer, and 
 higher-coloured blooms than the parent bearing the seed ; and I am 
 familiar with the same result in other things. Yet I am far from 
 
494 PRECAUTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN CROSSING. 
 
 asserting fertility in the produce between two members of allied but 
 distinct genera — such, for example, as in the Brianthus, which I have 
 found to be unproductive, whether employed as the male or female 
 parent. As above conjectured, its parents were far too remote in 
 nature's own arrangement. The hybridist has a field before him ever 
 suggestive of new modes of acting. He may try, as I have done, what 
 may be effected under various tinted glass. My persuasion is that I 
 effected from a pale yellow a pure white-grounded Calceolaria, by 
 placing the plants under blue shaded glass, by which the sun's rays 
 were much subdued. He may also apply chemical solutions to plants 
 with ripening seeds. Nature, in producing," as it sometimes does, 
 plants with blooms of colours opposite to those of the parent, must be 
 governed by some law. Why may not this law be found out ? For 
 example, under what influence was the first white Fuchsia, the F. 
 Venus Victrix, produced, the purest yet of all the race, and the source 
 from which all the whites have been derived ? " — McIntosKs Booh of 
 the Garden. 
 
 In the many successful attempts made by Mr. Knight to 
 improve the quality of fruit4rees by raising new varieties, his 
 method was to obtain crossbreds by fertilising the stigma of 
 one variety of known habits with the pollen of another also of 
 known habits. But, in doing this, his experiments were not 
 conducted at random, find without due consideration; on the 
 contrary, we learn from himself, that he was very careful in 
 selecting the parents from which his crossbreds were obtained. 
 He found that the general opinion, that the offspring of cross- 
 bred plants as well as crossbred animals usually presents great 
 irregularity of character, is unfounded ; and that if a male of 
 permanent habits, and of course not crossbred, be selected, that 
 will completely overrule the disposition to sport, " the perma- 
 nent character always controlling and prevailing over the vari- 
 able." He tells us tha;t he usually propagated from the seeds 
 of such varieties as are sufficiently hardy to bear and ripen 
 their fruit, even in unfavourable seasons and situations, without 
 the protection of a wall ; because, in many experiments made 
 with a view to ascertaining the comparative influence of the 
 male and female on their offspring, he had observed in fruits, 
 with few exceptions, a strong prevalence of the constitution and 
 habits of the female parent. This, however, is the reverse 
 of the result at which Dean Herbert had arrived in the very 
 
DEAN HERBERT'S INFERENCES. 495 
 
 great number of experiments performed by himself on that 
 subject, he believing that the male parent generally influences 
 the character of the foliage, and the female that of the flowers. 
 {Ama/ryllidacece, p. 348, 377.) At a later period of his experi- 
 ments he even ventured to say, " as far as I have observed, the 
 prevailing disposition of crossbred vegetables seems to assimi- 
 late more to the male than to the female parent, though the 
 appearance may possibly be sometimes the reverse, and often 
 strictly intermediate; as far as I have seen, if we obtain a 
 cross between a hardy and a tender species, the produce, where 
 the male is hardy, will be much more hardy than where the 
 female is hardy and the male tender. This is very important 
 and very conspicuous m crossbred Ehododendrons.'^ {Journ. of 
 Uort. Soc.) It does appear to me that, in the majority of cases, 
 Dean Herbert's opinion is the more correct of the two, yet I 
 fear there is too little certainty in the results of hybridising 
 to justify the establishment of any axiom upon the subject. 
 
 In. the midst of many experiments conducted without exactness, from 
 which no safe conclusion can be drawn, there are some which, in the 
 hands of such men as the late Dean, seem to justify the inference, that 
 in general the properties of the male parent will be most conspicuous in 
 the hybrid. For example, he crossed the long-yeUow-cupped common 
 Daffodil, with the small red-edge-cupped Poet's Narcissus ; and the seeds 
 of the common Daffodil ftrmished a bulb with most of the attributes 
 of the Poet's Narcissus. The same experimentalist also obtained out 
 of a capsule of Rhododendron pontioum, inoculated by Azalea pontica, 
 seedlings which had entirely the habit of the latter or male parent. 
 In like manner the arborescent crimson-flowered Rhododendron altacle- 
 rense was raised from the seed of the dwarf pallid E. catawbiense 
 hybridised by the arborescent crimson E. arboreum ; and when the 
 common scarlet Azalea, with its crimson flowers and narrow leaves, 
 was inoculated at Higholere by Azalea pontica, Mr. Gowen found that 
 its seeds produced plants much more like the male than the female 
 parent. Exceptions, or apparent exceptions to this, no doubt exist, and 
 hybrids could be found which are either half-way between their father 
 and mother, or more like the mother than the father ; but as far as any 
 means of judging at present exist these would seem to be the exception 
 and not the rule ; and therefore the greater influence of the male may 
 be taken as a tolerably safe guide in experiments upon this subject. 
 Some highly interesting experiments, by M. Lecoq, upon muling 
 Marvels of Peru, are on record. {Gardeners^ CJtronicU, 1853, p. 483.) 
 
GARTNER'S INFERENCES. 
 
 Hybrids were obtained between the species MirabUis Jalapa and M. 
 longiflora. A plant of the latter was crossed with the former, but not 
 one fertile seed was obtained. Prom M. Jalapa fertUised with pollen 
 of M. longiflora, some plants were raised which produced seed. The 
 flowers were of various colours ; and the roots of these hybrid plants 
 were of enormous size — three and a-half feet in length. The general 
 conclusion to which these experiments led was, that hybrids between 
 species are exactly intermediate, at least in the ease of the Mirabilia. 
 But he arrives at the singular result that hybrids from hybrids do not 
 follow this law, but become infinitely varied and far removed from their 
 original type ; that all hybrid plants are not sterile, and although they 
 may produce seeds but sparingly, yet when the plants from these are 
 crossed with their own parents, the plants resulting are of great 
 fertility. This completely justifies the opinion that no absolute rules 
 for judging of the efifect of an experiment in muling have been yet 
 discovered. 
 The conclusions of Gsertner as to this point are as follows : — 
 
 1 . Various notions have existed, both in the animal and vegetable king- 
 dom, with respect to the degree of influence which the sexes have in the 
 production of hybrids : according to one authority, the male, in animals, 
 giving origin to internal qualities, the female to external ; to another, 
 the former to the cellular system, the latter to the nervous, &c. 
 Amongst plants, the difference of opinion is as great ; but the truth 
 appears to be, that no general rule can be laid down— in Digitalis the 
 influence of the female parent being predominant, in Mcotiana that of 
 the male, and the differences exhibited by individual species are no less 
 decisive against any universal law. And this is no less true as to 
 comparative degrees of fruitfulness. Indeed, the identity of the 
 produce, when the sexes are reversed, is a sufB.cient proof of its non- 
 existence. 
 
 2. When impregnation takes place between two pure species, it is an 
 universal rule, " that the characters of the parents never remain pure 
 and unaltered in the formation of the hybrid." In general every part 
 of the new production is modified, so that it presents a decided differ- 
 ence from either of the parents, though resembling the one more than 
 the other. In no case, however, are anomalous forms generated bearing 
 no resemblance to either. At the same time they are not produced 
 according to mathematical formulse and ratios ; their differences are 
 mingled in unequal proportions. 
 
 3. When the hybrid is impregnated by the original male parent, the 
 result is much the same as in simple hybrids self-fertilised, both in 
 respect of the types produced and the degree of fertility. Various 
 forms are raised from one capsule, and the different individuals'do not 
 present the same degree of susceptibility for impregnation. Different 
 capsules, too, offer very different results. When these mules are in 
 
MULING IS CONFINED WITHIN NARROW LIMITS. 497 
 
 tnm self-impregnated, either naturally or artificially, they are com- 
 monly more fruitful than they were after the first impregnation. As 
 might he expected, the seedlings approach nearer to the paternal type : 
 when the original simple mules in their second generation and the 
 paternal hybrids of the second degree exhibit a return to the type of 
 the maternal ancestor, such a return is never perfect, but only partial. 
 
 This power of muling, properly so called, is confined within 
 very narrow limits, and can hardly be said to exist at all 
 between species of different genera, unless under that name are 
 comprehended some of the spurious creations of inconsiderate 
 botanists. There are, indeed, many cases of species very 
 closely allied to each other which it is either impossible to 
 mule, or so difficult that no one has yet succeeded in effecting 
 it. Mr. Knight never could make the Morello breed with the 
 common Cherry. I have in vain endeavoured to mule the 
 Gooseberry and Currant, and we do not possess any garden 
 production known to have been produced between the Apple 
 and the Pear, or the Blackberry and the Easpberry, any of 
 which might have been expected to intermix. As to mules 
 obtained between plants of distinct genera, we have, no doubt, 
 upon record, some experiments said to have been performed 
 successfully in crossing a Thorn- Apple with Tobacco, the Pea 
 with the Bean, the Cabbage with the Horseradish, and so on ; 
 but Mr. Herbert regards these cases, and I think with great 
 reason, as apocryphal, and not to be relied on ; the fact being, 
 as he truly states, " that in this country, where the passion for 
 horticulture is great, and the attempts to produce hybrid inter- 
 mixtures have been very extensive during the last fifteen years, 
 not one truly bigeneric mule has been seen." 
 
 He never could cross a Bomarea aniAlstrcemeria, near as they are to 
 each other. But he succeeded, without difficulty, in making Sermione 
 Ajax, and Queltia breed together, as might have been anticipated from 
 the unbotanioal grounds upon which these spurious genera have been 
 carved out of Nar^iiasus. The long and carefully conducted experi-. 
 ments of Geertner ended in the same result ; and this author remarks, 
 that supposed eases of muling between Cucumis and Melo, Cheiranthus 
 and Matthiola, Brassica and Buphanus, Lychnis and Saponaria, 
 Pisum and Vicia, and some others, all seem to be more or less uncertain 
 in some part of their history. 
 
498 CEOSS-BEEEDING EXTEBMELT EASY. 
 
 On the other hand, cross-hreeding will take place as readily 
 among plants as among animals, and it is difficult to estimate 
 the alteration which this process has really produced, although 
 unperceived by us, in the amelioration and alteration of long 
 cultivated plants. "We cannot reasonably doubt that a process 
 so simple as that of dusting the stigma of one plant with the 
 pollen of another, which must be continually happening in 
 our gardens, either through the agency of insects or the 
 currents in the air, and which, where it takes place between 
 two varieties allied to each other, must necessarily produce a 
 cross, — we cannot suppose, I say, that this occurs in our 
 crowded gardens and orchards at that time only when we per- 
 form it artificially. 
 
 The operation itself, although so simple, consisting in 
 nothing more than applying the pollen of one plant to the stigma 
 of another, nevertheless requires to be guarded by some pre- 
 cautions. In the first place, it is requisite that the flower 
 whose stigma is to be fertilised should be deprived of its own 
 anthers before they burst, otherwise the stigma will be self- 
 impregnated, and although superfoetation is not impossible, 
 yet it is not likely to occur. Then, again, the application of 
 the stranger pollen should be made at the time when the 
 stigma is covered with its natural mucus ; if not, the pollen will 
 not act, either in consequence of the necessary lubrification of 
 itself being withheld, from the stigma being too young, or 
 because the stigma, from age, has lost its power of receiving 
 the action of the pollen. Neither should the stigma be in 
 any way injured after fertilisation has apparently taken place. 
 The art of fertilisation consists in the emission, by the 
 pollen, of certain tubes of microscopical tenuity, which 
 pass down the style, and eventually reach the young seed, 
 with which they come in contact; and, unless this contact 
 takes place, fertilisation misses. Now the transmission of the 
 pollen tubes from the stigma to the ovule, through the solid 
 style, is often very slow, sometimes occupying as much as a 
 month or six weeks, as in the Mistletoe. 
 
 Gsertner's experiments lead him to these practical con- 
 clusions : — 1. The time when impregnation will take place is 
 
ELECTIVE AFFINITY. . 499 
 
 comprised within certain limits, varying with the particular 
 species. Very early experiments in hybrid fecundation before 
 the expansion of the blossom seldom succeed, and no impreg- 
 nation will take place with strange pollen when the stigma has 
 arrived at such a state that its own pollen is not able to 
 fecundate the whole ovary. In any case, however, there is no 
 difference in the hybrid types resulting from the experiment. 
 3. The stigma, when ready for the reception of the pollen, 
 secretes in every case a greater or less quantity of moisture, 
 which doubtless acts an important part in the process of 
 fecundation. In certain cases it may be thought necessary to 
 apply some fluid to the stigma for the better retention and 
 development of the pollen grains. For this purpose the honey 
 secreted by the flower, or that of some allied species, may be 
 used without any modification of the produce. Oily fluids, 
 such as various purer oils, also have been used with success, 
 though not uniformly. Water, on the contrary, is generally 
 unfavourable, though in some water-plants, in strict analogy 
 with the observations of Spallanzani on the fecundation of the 
 ova of certain aquatic reptiles, it has clearly no injurious if not 
 a beneficial influence. 3. In some cases, especially in those 
 where hybridisation is rare, outward conditions, such as 
 increased temperature, predispose plants for hybrid impreg- 
 nation, and cultivation in general is favourable to this end, as it 
 is to the production of deviations from a normal condition. 
 Varieties are usually far more disposed to mix than the species 
 fi-om which they are derived, and hence the great difficulty of 
 keeping our most valuable vegetables pure and genuine. Of 
 all genera Calceolaria seems to present the greatest tendency 
 to hybridise ; the pure species unite with the utmost facility, 
 and their hybrids are aU fertile and disposed to fresh 
 admixture. 
 
 He also attaches great importance to what he calls elective 
 AFFINITY, or the preference which the stigma has for the poUen 
 of one plant rather than of another. He found that when 
 the stigma is dusted at the same time, or within certain limits, 
 with its own pollen in sufficient quantity, and that of some 
 other species, the latter is whoUy inert, and the result is plants 
 
 K K 2 
 
500 HYBRIDS ARE DIFFICULT TO PRODUCE. 
 
 not differing in any respect from the matrix; nor is the 
 effect different if a division or portion of the stigma be dusted 
 with either pollen separately, precaution being taken that 
 there shall be no possibility of admixture. The elective 
 affinity for the natural poUen makes the other completely 
 negative. 
 
 After all his experience Gsertner was finally obliged to con- 
 fess that experiment shows a great, perhaps the greater portion 
 of plants not to be susceptible of hybridisation. Out of seven 
 hundred species submitted to nearly ten thousand distinct sets 
 of experiments only two hundred and fifty true hybrids were 
 raised. Allowing the possibility of repeated experiments 
 proving that union is possible in some cases where it has not 
 yet been obtained, the result is sufficiently striking, showing 
 especially when taken in conjunction with the large number of 
 failures where success has in some cases been obtained, not 
 only that the least portion of the vegetable kingdom is capable 
 of hybrid fecundation, but that as a general rule it is a forcing 
 of nature. It, moreover, seems to be a general rule that the 
 pollen of a species possessing a greater elective af&nity 
 neutralises the influence of that of one less closely allied in 
 that respect, as also does that of the matrix the fertility of the 
 pollen of another species. 
 
 Those who occupy themselves in attempts at improving the 
 quality of cultivated plants should be aware of this ; namely, 
 that the real quality of either the fruit or the flower of a seed- 
 ling cannot be ascertained when they are first produced, for it 
 is only as plants advance in age that the secretions necessary 
 for the perfect production of either the one or the other are 
 elaborated. Of this fact the first produce of the Black Eagle 
 Cherry-tree afforded a striking example. A part of it was 
 sent, with other Cherries, to the Horticultural Society ; and it 
 was then, in the Fruit Committee, pronounced good for 
 nothing. It was so bad, that Mr. Knight, who raised it, would 
 most certainly have taken off the head of the tree, and employed 
 its stem as a stock, but that it had been called the property of 
 one of his children, who sowed the seed which produced it, and 
 who felt very anxiovis for its preservation. It has now become 
 
MODE OF OBTAmiNG DOUBLE FLOWERS. 501 
 
 one of the richest and finest fruits of its species which we 
 possess. 
 
 It may be expected that some mention should here be made 
 of double flowers, and of the manner in which they are to be 
 obtained. But I confess myself unable to discover, either in 
 the writings of physiologists, or in the experience of gardeners, 
 or in the nature of plants themselves, any sufficient clue to an 
 explanation of the causes to which their origin may be ascribed. 
 There are, however, several facts, apparently connected with 
 the subject, which deserve mention. 
 
 A double flower, properly so called,* is one in which the 
 natural production of stamens or pistils is exchanged for petals, 
 or in which the number of the latter is augmented without any 
 disturbance of the former ; in other words, it is a case of the 
 loss, on the patt of a plant, of the power necessary to develope 
 its leaves in the state of sexual organs. But what causes that 
 loss of power we do not know. It can hardly be a want of 
 sufficient food in the soil ; for double flowers (the Narcissus, 
 for instance) become single in very poor soil. On the other 
 hand, it can scarcely be excessive vigour, for no one has ever 
 yet obtained a double flower by promoting the health or energy 
 of a species. 
 
 On the contrary, the Freneh rely upon a debilitating process to pro- 
 cure double flowers, if we are to credit a writer in the Revue Horticole, 
 who expresses himself thus : — ^Every gardener who sows seed, wishes to 
 obtain plants with double flowers, so as to obtain blossoms which pro- 
 duce the greatest effect. Every double plant is a monstrous vegetable. 
 To produce this anomaly, we must attack the principle of its creation, 
 that is to say, the seed. This beiag granted, let us examine in what 
 way these seeds ought to be treated. If, after having gathered the 
 seeds of Malcolmia annua, or Ten-weeks Stock, we sow them imme- 
 diately afterwards, the greatest number of the seedlings will produce 
 single flowers, whilst, on the contrary, if we preserve these same seeds 
 for three or four years, and then sow them, we shall find double flowers 
 upon nearly aU the plants. To explain this phenomenon, we say that 
 
 * What is called a DouWe Dahlia is misnamed ; and so are all so-called double 
 composite flowers. The appearance of doubling is caused in these plants by a mere 
 alteration of the florets of their disk into the form of florets of the ray, a very different 
 thing from double flowers, 
 
502 DOUBLE FLOWERS ACCIDENTAL, 
 
 in keeping a seed for several years, we fatigue it and weaken it. Then, 
 when we place it in a suitable boU, we change its natural state, and 
 from a wild plant make it a cultivated one. What proves our position 
 is, that plants, in their wild state, shedding their seeds naturally, and 
 Bowing them as soon as they faU to the ground, yet in a long succession 
 of time scarcely ever produce plants with double flowers. We think, 
 then, after what we have said, that whenever a gardener wishes to 
 obtain, double flowers, he ought not to sow the seeds till after having 
 kept them for as long a time as possible. — This practice ought to be 
 observed with all plants that we wish should produce double flowers, 
 for all varieties of the Brompton Stocks, Pinks, &c. 
 
 When plants are excessively stimulated by ruausually warm 
 damp weather at the period of flowering, their flowers in such 
 cases sometimes become monstrous : but the effect of this is to 
 lengthen their axis of growth, and to form true leaves instead 
 of floral organs, just the reverse of what occurs in a truly 
 double flower ; the varieties of Eosa gaUica often exhibit this 
 kind of change. In damp cloudy summers, some flowers 
 assume the appearance of being double, by the change of then- 
 sexual organs into small green leaves, as occurred very 
 generally to Potentilla nepalensis in the summer of 1839, a 
 representation of which is given at page 90 ; but there was, at 
 the same time, scarcely a trace of any tendency, on the part of 
 those leaves, to assume the colour or texture of petals. 
 
 There is, evidently, a greater tendency in some flowers to 
 become double than in others, and especially in those having 
 great numbers of stamens or pistils. All our favourite double 
 flowers, Hepaticas, Pseonies, Camellias, Anemones, Eoses, 
 Cherries, Plums, Eanunculuses, belong to this class ; and, in 
 proportion as the natural number of stamens diminishes, so do 
 both the disposition to become double, and the beauty of the 
 flowers when altered. The Pink and Carnation with ten 
 stamens are the handsomest race next to those just mentioned ; 
 while the Hyacinth, the Tulip, the Stock, and the Wallflower 
 with six stamens, and the Auricula and Polyanthus with five, 
 form altogether an inferior race, if symmetry of form, and 
 regularity of arrangement in the parts of the flower, are 
 regarded as beauties of the highest order. If the mere circum- 
 stance of a plant having but a small number of stamens be a 
 
BUT MAT BE PEODUCED ARTIFICIALLY. 503 
 
 bar to its beauty when made double, how much greater an 
 obstacle to it muist be the natural production of unsym- 
 metrical flowers. This occurs in the Snapdragon, which, 
 with a five-lobed corolla, has but four stamens ; and the 
 consequence is, that, when it becomes double, the flower is a 
 confused crowd of crumpled petals issuing from the original 
 corolla. 
 
 Attempts have been made to produce double flowers by 
 artificial processes, but I never heard of the smallest success 
 attending such cases, unless the tendency to their production 
 had already manifested itself naturally ; as in the Stock, which 
 will frequently become single from having been double, in 
 which case its original double character may be recovered. A 
 mode of effecting this has been described by Mr. James Munro. 
 {Gard. Mag., xiv. 121.) Having a number of Single Scarlet 
 Ten- week Stocks, he deprived them of all their flowers as soon 
 as he found that five or six seed-vessels were formed upon each 
 spike, by which means he compelled all the nutritive matter 
 that would have been expended upon the whole flower-spike 
 and its numerous seed-vessels to be concentrated in the small 
 number which he left ; and the result, he says, was, that from 
 the seed thus saved he had more than 400 Double Stocks in 
 one small bed. 
 
 Gsertner asserts that in the production of double blossoms, 
 it is a matter of indifl'erence whether the pollen be taken from 
 a double or single variety, provided the flower of the mother is 
 double. 
 
 There can be little doubt that, if any original change to a 
 double flower can be effected by art, it will be more likely to 
 occur with respect to those species which have an indefinite 
 number of stamens, where the tendency to this monstrosity 
 already exists. It is not many years since the Chryseis 
 (Eschscholtzia) caJifornica, a polyandrous plant, was introduced 
 to our gardens : and I, at one time, made some attempts to 
 render it double, conceiving it a good subject for experiment 
 on that account, but I had no success ; it, however, accidentally 
 became semi-double in Mrs. Marryat's garden, at Wimbledon ; 
 and we stiU see semi-double plants in our gardens. 
 
504 HIGHLY-CULTIVATED RACES ARE SAID TO 
 
 It appears from evidence, the truth of which can scarcely be 
 questioned, that in some cases the most highly improved races 
 of cultivated plants suddenly revert to, or far towards, their 
 wild state when raised from seed. 
 
 M. Chevreuil, in an ingenious essay on " Species," makes the 
 following statement : — " In North America, neither Pear-trees, 
 nor Apple-trees, nor Peach-trees exist in a wild state, belonging 
 to the species of our own contuient. The Europeans, in 
 settling there about three centuries since, carried thither the 
 seeds of these trees ; but instead of reproducing our cultivated 
 variety, they yielded at least in Virginia, in the first generation, 
 trees producing nothing hut wild frvAt, too austere to he eaten hy 
 people accustomed to our cultivated fruits. The seeds of the 
 American fruits of this first generation, produced trees whose 
 fruit was a little less bad than those of the preceding gene- 
 ration ; and finally, from generation to generation, there was a 
 perceptible improvement, but stiU of such a nature that the 
 fruits last produced are stUl inferior to our own ; and, what is 
 remarkable, those which have improved the most from seed 
 differ from the fruits of Europe ia taste and perfume. These 
 facts, which M. Poiteau collected in Virginia five-and-forty 
 years ago, prove the modifications produced by a succession of 
 generations of plants, the issue of a single seed, and at the 
 same time justify my definition of a species. And if it is said 
 that the seeds of the first fruit-trees sent to Virginia could not 
 have belonged to varieties possessing qualities of the same 
 excellence as the varieties now cultivated, nevertheless the fact 
 would remain that fruits gathered in Virginia were absolutely 
 different from those which their ancestors prod/uced at the same 
 time in Europe." 
 
 Thatcher, in his American Orchardist, confirms this. He 
 says, that " a hundred seeds of the Golden Pippin will produce 
 large-leaved Apple-trees (the Golden Pippin itself has a small 
 leaf), bearing fruit of a considerable size ; but the tastes and 
 colours of each will be different, and none will be the same in 
 kind with the Pippin. Some will be sweet, some bitter, some 
 sour, some mawkish, some aromatic ; some yellow, others 
 green, red, or streaked." 
 
EETEBT SUDDENLY TO THE OKIGINAL TYPE. 505 
 
 From this it would seem that we are to infer that the climate 
 of N. America is so mifavourable to the Apple and Pear, that 
 when these trees were first raised there from seeds, they imme- 
 diately lost their domesticated qualities, and went back to their 
 original wild nature. If the facts are reaUy as stated, we must 
 infer that the seeds had been accidentally crossed in Europe 
 mth wild races ; which is quite possible, and this becomes the 
 more probable when it is recollected that in the remote times, 
 three centuries ago, to which the American authorities refer, 
 wild Pears and Apples must have been much more abundant 
 than now, and their pollen was far more likely to contaminate 
 domesticated plants. 
 
 We can scarcely doubt indeed that something of this kind 
 occurs even now. Mr. Thompson states as the result of his 
 own great experience that " Seedlings from the same tree not 
 only differ widely from each other, but even those from pips, 
 taken from the same Apple, produce fruit possessing qualities 
 entirely different. For example, the excellence of the Eibston 
 Pippin need only be mentioned ; but the " Sister Eibston 
 Pippin " was a white, semi-transparent, sour-fleshed Apple, or 
 rather a large Crab. It therefore appears that the same fruit 
 may contain the germs of good and bad, both protected by the 
 same pulp and nourished by the same juice. Whether the fruit 
 of the parent tree of these - possessed intrinsic merit has not 
 been ascertained; but this we know, that many seeds from the 
 Eibston Pippin have been raised, yet none of its progeny are found 
 to inherit its peculiar flavour and excellence. The same remark 
 appHes to the old Nonpareil." From these facts he infers that 
 there is a strong tendency in plants from seeds of cultivated 
 frmt-trees of high quality to revert immediately to the state of 
 
 Undoubtedly this may be so, but we incline to refer such 
 sudden changes much more to accidental cross-breeding. We 
 do not now receive from our colonies complaints of the bad 
 quality of the seedlings raised from highly domesticated 
 European fruits, and yet for at least twenty years the 
 Horticultural Society has annually sent considerable quantities 
 of Peach, Nectarine, Plum, Cherry, and Apricot stones, pips of 
 
506 THAT IS SOAECBLY TRUE. 
 
 Apples and Pears, and seeds of Strawberries, Easpberries, 
 Gooseberries, and Currants, always selected from the finest 
 varieties cultivated in England. It is, moreover, entirely at 
 variance with the experience of the great Belgian fruit growers. 
 (See De Jonghe on raising Pears frOm seed in the Gardeners' 
 Chronicle, 1855, p. 31.) 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OV RESTING. 
 
 A GABDENER is Said to rest a plant when he exposes it to a 
 condition in which it cannot grow, aud which is analogous to 
 its winter state. For many parts of gardening, especially what 
 relates to forcing, and the management of exotic plants, this is 
 a subject of the first importance. 
 
 If we look over the different climates of the world, we shall 
 find that in each there are a season of growth, and a season in 
 which vegetation is more or less suspended; and that these 
 periodically alternate, with the same regularity as our summer 
 and winter. I do not know that there is in nature any excep- 
 tion to this rule : for even in the Tierra templada of Mexico, 
 where it is said that, at the height of 4000 to 5000 feet, there 
 constantly reigns the genial climate of spring, which does not 
 vary more than 8° or 9°, intense heat and excessive cold being 
 alike unknown, and the mean temperature varying from 68° to 
 70°, we cannot suppose that, even in that favoured region, a 
 season of repose is wanting ; for it is difficult to conceive how 
 plants can exist, any more than animals, in a state of incessant 
 excitement. Indeed, it is pretty evident that these countries 
 have a period when vegetation ceases ; for Xalapa belongs to the 
 Tierra templada, and we know that the Ipomoea purga, an 
 inhabitant of its woods, dies down annually like our own 
 Convolvuli. We also know that Jonquils, Hyacinths, and 
 Tnhps when grown in the Bahamas, where they are unable to 
 take the rest which is natural to them, refuse to flower. 
 
 But, although aU plants have naturally a season of repose, 
 their winter is not in all cases cold. In the topics it is marked 
 
508 PERIODS OF RESTING 
 
 by coolness and dryness, while the summer is rainy and very 
 hot; and in extra-tropical comitries the two seasons vary in 
 their character, according to latitude and local circumstances. 
 
 In some parts of Persia, Armenia, and Mesopotamia, the 
 summer heats are excessive, while the winters are rendered 
 cold by the proximity of mountains. Bagdad is described as 
 having a cold winter, because of the proximity of the mountains 
 of Koordistan ; yet its heats are intense: in August, 1819, the 
 thermometer stood at 130° in the coldest parts of the house, 
 and at 108° at midnight in the open air. This was preceded 
 by heavy rains, which raised the Euphrates 7j feet above the 
 ordinary level : the whole country was like a vapour bath, and 
 multitudes of persons dropped down dead : twenty-two in three 
 days in a siagle caravan. In the northern provinces of Mexico 
 the winters are of German rigour, while the summers are those 
 of Naples and Sicily ; the Tierra fria of its southern provinces 
 has however a very dififerent chmate, the mean heat of the 
 summer being 76°, and the winters so mild that the thermo- 
 meter only occasionally falls below 33°. 
 
 At the Cape of Good Hope there are districts in which the 
 period of wet is long and very severe ; and many of the favour- 
 ite flowers of our gardens are produced by those districts. 
 The Karroos are plains of great extent, destitute of running 
 water, with a soil of clay and sand, coloured like yellow ochre 
 by the presence of iron, and lying on the solid rock. During 
 the dry season the rays of the sun reduce the soil nearly to the 
 hardness of brick : Fig-Marigolds, Stapelias, and other fleshy 
 plants, alone remain green ; nevertheless, the bulbs and tubers 
 of Irids and other plants are able to survive beneath the sun- 
 scorched crust, which appears indeed to be necessary to their 
 nature. But in the wet season these bulbs are gradually 
 reached by the rain ; they swell beneath the earth ; and at last 
 develope themselves so simultaneously that the arid plains 
 become at once the seat of a charming verdure. Presently 
 afterwards, myriads of the gay flowers of Irids and Mesembry- 
 anthemums display their brilliant colours : but in a few weeks 
 the verdure fades, the flowers disappear, hard dry stalks alone 
 remain; the hot sun of August, when in those latitudes the 
 
IN DIFFERENT COUNTBIES. 509 
 
 days begin to lengthen, completes the destruction of the few 
 stragglers that are left, the Karroo again sinks into aridity and 
 desolation, and the desert reappears. What succulents survive 
 are covered with a grey crust, and derive their nourishment 
 only from the air. In other parts of the Cape of Good Hope 
 the mean range of the thermometer in winter is 48° to 93°, 
 with cold rain, while that of the summer is from 55° to 96°, 
 with dry days and damp nights. 
 
 In the Canaries we have the season of growth from Novem- 
 ber to March, when rains fall like those of Europe, and the 
 mean temperature is 66°; the period of rest is April to 
 October, when it never rains, and the mean temperature is 73°. 
 
 In Brazil the seasons are thus described by Mr. Cald- 
 cleugh : — " The summer begins about the months of October 
 or November, and lasts until March or April. This is the wet 
 season ; but the rains by no means descend from morniug till 
 night, as in some other tropical countries, but commence 
 generally every afternoon about four or five o'clock with a 
 thunderstorm. The heaviness of the rain can only be con- 
 ceived by those who have been in these latitudes. This fall 
 naturally arrests the sea breeze, and the succeeding night is 
 dark and cloudy. Formerly these diurnal rains came on with 
 such regularity that it was usual, in forming parties of 
 pleasure, to arrange whether they should take place before or 
 after the storm. During this period of the year there is 
 seldom, if ever, a deposition of dew. From April until 
 September very little rain falls ; vegetation almost stops, and, 
 to the eye of every one who has not just arrived from Europe, 
 a wintry appearance is discernible. The land and sea breezes 
 do not succeed each other with the same regularity, and are, 
 besides, more frequently disturbed by violent gusts from the 
 S. W., imagined to be the tails of those destructive winds, the 
 Pamperos of the Eiver Plate. The nights are beautifully clear; 
 Venus casts a shadow, and the southern constellations are seen 
 in all their beauty. The dews, as might be expected, are at 
 this season very copious." {Brande's Journal, No. 27. p. 41.) 
 
 Tte periods of rest and activity in the vegetable world are, however, 
 not always evident. The vegetation of the primitive forests of Brazil, 
 
510 ANNtTAI, EEST IS UNIVERSAL. 
 
 writes Aug. de St, Hilaire, is in a state of constant activity. The ■winter 
 is only distinguished from the summer by a changed green of the leaves, 
 and if some trees lose their leaves it is only to be immediately replaced 
 with new ones. In some districts, however, the trees become leafless 
 every year. This happens when the rains, which endure for six months, 
 suddenly cease, which takes place in February, and the heat increases 
 gradually till June. In this latter month the trees are almost leafless, 
 but in August again, before the rain commences, the buds have again 
 expanded, and the trees are covered with leaves. The cause of this 
 fall of the leaf is no doubt owing to the dryness of the soU, but it can 
 only occur in some exposed districts of the primitive forests, as in most 
 cases the trees are found on the borders of great rivers and on naturally 
 damp soUs, where the earth into which they strike their roots is never 
 dry. — Treviranus. 
 
 In other parts of the tropics the seasons of growth and rest 
 are equally marked. In Ava, during the rainy season, which 
 lasts from May to October, the mean temperature varies from 
 78° to 91.5°; while, in the dry season, from November to 
 April, it falls to from 63° to 80°. At Calcutta, in the growing 
 season, from AprU to October, fifty-eight inches of rain com- 
 monly fall, with a mean temperature of 79° to 86°; while 
 during the season of rest, from November to March, there is not 
 perhaps an inch of rain, and the thermometer sinks to from 66° 
 to 80°. At this time vegetation is said, in such countries, to 
 " labour under a deadly languor ; but one night's rain converts 
 an arid plain into a verdant meadow." 
 
 In most of the West India Islands situated under the tropic 
 of Cancer, there is said not to be much difference in the 
 climate, so that accurate observations made on any one of 
 them may be applied with little variation to them all. Malte 
 Brun gives the following sketch of their seasons. "The spring 
 begins about the month of May; the savannas then change 
 their russet hue, and the trees are adorned with a verdant 
 foliage. The periodical rains from the south may at this time 
 be expected ; they fall generally about noon, and occasion a 
 rapid and luxuriant vegetation. The thermometer varies con- 
 siderably; it falls sometimes six or eight degrees after the 
 diurnal rains, but its medium height may be stated at 78° 
 Fahrenheit. After these showers have continued for a short 
 period, the tropical summer appears in all its splendour. 
 
ANNUAL REST IS UNIVERSAL. 511 
 
 Clouds are seldom seen in the sky ; the heat of the sun is only- 
 rendered supportable by the sea breeze, which blows regularly 
 from the south-east during the greater part of the day. The 
 nights are calm and serene, the moon shines more brightly 
 than in Europe, and emits a light that enables man to read 
 the smallest print ; its absence is in some degree compensated 
 by the planets, and above all by the luminous effulgence of the 
 galaxy. From the middle of August to the end of September, 
 the thermometer rises frequently above 90°, the refreshing sea 
 breeze is then interrupted, and frequent calms announce the 
 approach of the great periodical rains. Fiery clouds are seen 
 in the atmosphere, and the mountains appear less distant to 
 the spectator than at other seasons of the year. The rain falls 
 in torrents about the beginning of October, the rivers overflow 
 their banks, and a great portion of the low grounds is sub- 
 merged. The rain that fell in Barbadoes in the year 1754 is 
 said to have exceeded eighty-seven inches. The moisture of 
 the atmosphere is so great, that iron and other metals easily 
 oxidated are covered with rust. This humidity contiaues 
 under a burning sun ; the inhabitants (say some writers) live in 
 a vapour bath." (Malte Brim's Geography, vol. v. p. 569, 
 Eng. ed.) 
 
 It is evident, from what has been said, that the natural 
 resting of plants from growth is a most important phenomenon, 
 of universal occurrence, and that it takes place equally in the 
 hottest and the coldest regions. It is, therefore, a condition 
 necessary to the weU-being of a plant, not to be overlooked 
 under any circumstances whatever, and there cannot be any 
 really good gardening where this is not attended to in the 
 management of plants under glass. Eest is effected in one of 
 two ways, either by a very considerable lowering of temperature, 
 or by a degree of dryness under which vegetation cannot be 
 sustained. 
 
 The way in which the physical powers of vegetation are 
 affected by this has been already explained, and in practice it 
 is found a point of the utmost consequence. The early fruit- 
 gardener draws his Vines out of the vinery, and takes the 
 sashes from his Peach and other forcing-houses, when the 
 
512 EFFECTS OP ANNUAL EESTING. 
 
 artificial season of growth, is over, in order to prepare them for 
 the duty of a succeeding season; although this operation is 
 performed in summer, its effect is to expose them to dryness, 
 which arrests their growth, and favours the deposit in their 
 wood of the matter required for the produce of a succeeding 
 year. 
 
 The effects of a very dry atmosphere are necessarily an 
 inspissated state of the sap of the plant, and this in all cases 
 leads to the formation of blossom-huds and of fruit. It thus 
 operated upon some Pine-apple plants in Mr. Knight's garden, 
 to such an extent as to cause even the suckers from their roots 
 to rise from the soil with an embryo Pine-apple upon the head 
 of each, and every plant to show fruit, in a very short time, 
 whatever were its state and age. Very low temperature, under 
 the influence of much light, by retarding and diminishing the 
 expenditure of sap in the growth of plants, comparatively with 
 its creation, produces nearly simUar effects, and causes an early 
 appearance of fruit. 
 
 The operations of forcing are essentially influenced by these 
 facts ; and, by a skUful alteration of the periods of rest, we are 
 enabled to break in upon the natural habits of, plants, and to 
 invert them so completely that the flowers and fruits of summer 
 are obtained to load our tables even in winter. Of this, the 
 following instance, taken from a paper by Mr. Knight in the 
 Horticultural Transactions (vi. 232), is a sufficient illustration. 
 
 " A Verdelho Vine, growing in a pot, was placed in the 
 stove early in the spring of 1823, where its wood became per- 
 fectly mature in August. It was then taken from the stove and 
 placed under a north wall, where it remained till the end of 
 November, when it was replaced in the stove, and it ripened its 
 fruit early in the following spring. In May it was again 
 transferred to a north wall, where it remained in a quiescent 
 state till the end of August. It then vegetated strongly, and 
 showed abundant blossom, which, upon being transferred to the 
 stove, set very freely, and the fruit, having been subjected to 
 the influence of very high temperature, ripened early in the 
 month of February." 
 
 The Strawberries of February and March are in like manner 
 
SEASON OF PLOWERINa MAT BE CHANGED. 513 
 
 ocufed by exposing the plants to such an amount of dryness 
 d heat as can be obtained by presenting them unwatered, in 
 ts, to the sun at an early period of summer, so as to cause a 
 fficient accumulation of excitability by the end of autumn, 
 stead of the month of May. 
 
 It must be manifest that the operations of the flower- 
 rdener should be regulated by the same principles, although 
 may be confessed that they are often little considered; a 
 ■cumstance the more strange, from the indispensable neces- 
 y of resting fruit-trees being universally known. It is to 
 3 giving their plants the proper kind of rest that some garde- 
 rs owe the magnificent blossoming of their Chinese Azaleas, 
 ,cti, Camellias, and other forced flowers, much more than to 
 y peculiarity in the compost they employ, which is often a 
 int of subordinate interest, although often regarded as of the 
 3t importance. 
 
 If little progress has been made in altering the time of 
 wering of particular races, so as to invert their seasons, this 
 certainly far froia being beyond attainment ; and there is no 
 )re reason why a Chinese Chrysanthemum should not be 
 npelled to flower at midsummer instead of November, or a 
 ihlia at Christmas, than that Vines and Strawberries should 
 len fruit in February. The great difficulty to contend 
 ainst in obtaining winter flowers is want of light and free 
 jess to air; but, by the employment of slender iron sash- 
 rs and large glass, a sufficient amount of light may be 
 tained ia England even at that season of the year ; it is 
 the free admission of warm moist air that gardeners are 
 ficient (see pages 313, &c.). 
 
 It is well known that plants from the northern half of the world, 
 when they have become naturalised in the south, have changed almost 
 entirely the time of their vegetating, blooming, and fruit-bearing, so 
 as entirely to accord with the habits of the indigenous- plants of the 
 country. Thus we find that at the Cape of Good Hope, Oaks, Alders, 
 the Almond, Peach, and Apricot, are in full bloom in August. 
 
 But it is not merely the periodical rest of winter and summer 
 it plants require ; they have also their diurnal repose : night 
 
514 NIGHT TEMPEEATUEE MUST BE 
 
 and its accompanying refreshment are as necessary to them as 
 to animals. In all nature the temperature of night falls below 
 that of day, and thus one cause of vital excitement is dimi- 
 nished ; perspiration is stopped, and the plant parts with few 
 of its aqueous particles, although it continues to imbibe them 
 by all its green surface as well as by its roots ; the processes 
 of assimilation are suspended ; no digestion of food and 
 conversion of it into organized matter takes place ; and, instead 
 of decomposing carbonic acid by the extrication of oxygen, they 
 part with carbonic acid, and rob the air of its oxygen ; thus 
 deteriorating the air at night, although not to the same amount 
 as they purify it during the day. It is, therefore, most 
 important, that the night temperature of glass houses should 
 be lower than that of the day. We are told that in Jamaica 
 and other islands of the "West Indies, the air upon the 
 mountains becomes, soon after sunset, chilled and condensed, 
 and, in consequence of its superior gravity, descends and 
 displaces the warm air of the valleys ; yet the sugar-canes are 
 so far from being injured by this decrease of temperature, that 
 the sugars of Jamaica take a higher price in the market than 
 those of the less elevated islands, of which the temperature of 
 the day and night is subject to much less alteration. At 
 Fattehpur, in the East Indies, the difference in temperature 
 between night and day amounts to from 38° to 45° ; in April 
 the greatest heat by day is 110°, that of night is only 65°; in 
 January the thermometer falls to 38° at night, while the day is 
 76°; and there are 40 degrees of difference between the day 
 and night in May, one of the hottest months, when the ther- 
 mometer ranges as high as 115°. At Calcutta, in May, the 
 thermometer averages 93° in the day, and 79° at sunrise ; while 
 in January the temperatures are 77° and 56° respectively for 
 those two periods. 
 
 But it is not merely in tte tropics tliat this great diminntioa of tem- 
 perature at night takes place ; it is universally the case in all climates 
 whence our fruit-trees have been derived. When we consider how 
 clear the sky is in the lands of the East, it is impossible that there 
 should not be a great amount of nocturnal radiation, the effect of which 
 ■will necessarily be to oool down the air to a very considerable extent, 
 especially in the spring. If we look to the registers of temperature 
 
LOWER THAN DAY TEMPEEATUKE. 615 
 
 kept in such, countries, that which was before a matter of inference 
 becomes established by direct evidence. Take Malta as an example : 
 ia the month of January, according to Dr. Davy, the thermometer 
 reaches 60° in the day, but falls to 42° at night ; and even in July, the 
 diflferenoe between the day and night amounts to 16°. In the Ionian 
 Islands, Zante, Corfu, Cephalonia, fine Grape countries, the difference 
 is not less considerable. Nevertheless, many gardeners, when they 
 begin forcing early Grapes, quite neglect this important fact. "With 
 some it is a maxim to keep the thermometer above 60° at night. But 
 what does nature do where the Vine thrives best ? In Zante, whence 
 come the Currants, or Corinth Grapes of the shops, the Vine pushes in 
 March; and it is a common saying there, "that after the 10th March 
 (Old Style), not even a dog without a tail should be allowed to enter a 
 Vineyard," {Davy's Ionian Islands, ii. 345) because of the risk of his 
 breaking off the young and tender shoots. Now the average tempera- 
 ture of Corfu, at 8 a.m., in the month of March, we learn from the 
 same authority, is only 51° ; and of course it must have been some 
 degrees lower during the night ; in AprU it is not more than 57° ; and 
 it does not reach 61° tiU May, when, since the Grapes are ripe in 
 August, the berries must be set. There can be no doubt, then, that 
 48° is quite high enough at night for Gtxapes in the first month of their 
 growth, and 54° in the second. 
 
 But there are other illustrations if we inquire into the natural history 
 of the Grape Vine. Nowhere is the climate more sultry than in 
 A%hanistan, We are told that General PoUock's troops at JeUalabad 
 were forced to dig holes in the ground to hide themselves from the 
 heat. The condition of Cabul must be much the same. At Candahar, 
 we are informed by Mr. Atkinson that, in May, the heat of the tents 
 was generally 110° ; and at midday, in the sun, 140°. In no part of 
 the world are the Grapes more delicious than in Candahar and Cabul. 
 On the 30th June, this traveller saw donkeys laden with panniers of 
 fine purple Grapes ; and at the same time, the paper on which he was 
 writing curled up and became as crisp as if it was before a blazing fire. 
 When he reached Cabul, in August, he foimd the bazaar filled with 
 delicions Grapes in astonishing profusion. But what sort of nights had 
 the troops in the spring of the year, when the Vines were growing and 
 flowering, and preparing themselves to bear fruit ? On the 7th March, 
 near Shikapore, two hundred nules south of Candahar, and above five 
 hundred south of Cabul, in the Desert, we are told that the march took 
 place in " a brilliant starlight night ; frost seemed to be in the air, it 
 was so cool and bracing; after midnight, the servants made up a 
 blazing fire, for the north wind was blowing bitter cold, and the tra- 
 veller was glad of hot brandy and water." Nevertheless, the day 
 before, Mr. Atkinson had been grilling at Shikapore, and the march 
 was over level plains, and not among the mountains. Two days after- 
 
 L L 2 
 
516 AUSTEALUN NIGHT TEMPERATURE. 
 
 wards the weather is described as being oppressively hot at mid-day. 
 Then on the 19th March there was a hailstorm at night, and the air 
 was " cold and bracing ; " and so on. Here, then, in a country totally 
 different from the islands of the Mediterranean, where the Grapes are 
 famous for their eicellenee, we have violent variations in temperature 
 between day and night in the month of March, when the Vines are 
 shooting : the air is cold and bracing by night, the sun is grilling 
 by day. 
 
 , It is probable, however, that no one has been prepared for such a fall 
 of temperature by night as is recorded in Sir Thomas Mitchell's late 
 Journal into the interior of tropical Australia. The facts revealed in 
 this interesting work have been fully extracted and made the subject 
 of comment in one of the numbers of the Journal of the Horticultural 
 Society of London, For details the reader is referred to that work. 
 The following is the author's summary of the facts. 
 
 " In the end of April (our October), in latitude 82° S., within 4^° of 
 the tropic, at an insignificant elevation, the thermometer stood at 26° 
 at sunrise, and was as low as 43° at 9 p.m. ; nevertheless, the country 
 produced wild Indigo, Mimosas, Casuarinas, arborescent Myrtleblooms, 
 and Loranths. A degree nearer the tropic in May (our November), the 
 thermometer at sunrise marked 20°, 19°, 18°, 17°, 16°, 12°, and on two 
 separate days, even 11° ! On the 22d of May the river was frozen, and 
 yet herbage was luxuriant, and the country produced Mimosas, 
 Eucalypti, Acacias, the tropical Bottle-tree (Delabechea), a Calandrinia, 
 and even a Loranth. On the 23rd of May the thermometer at sunrise 
 marking 12°, Acacia conferta was coming into flower ; and Eucalypti, 
 with the usual Australian vegetation, were abundant. On the 30th of 
 May, at the elevation of 1118 feet, the almost tropical Delabechea was 
 found growing with the temperature at sunrise 22° and at 9 p.m. 31°, 
 so that it must have been exposed to a night's frost gradually increasing 
 through 12°. And this was evidently the rule during the months of 
 May, June, and July (our November, December, and January) ; in 
 latitude 26° S. among Tristanias, Phebaliums, Zamias, Hoveas, 
 Myoporums, and Acacias, the evening temperature was observed to be 
 29°, 22°, 37°, 29°, 25°, faUiug during the night to 26°, 21°, 12°, 14°, 
 20° ; in latitude 25° S. the tents were frozen into boards at the elevation 
 of 1421 feet, the thermometer, July 5, sunk during the night from 38° 
 to 16°, and there grew Cryptandras, Acacias, Bursarias, Boronias, 
 Stenochiles, and the like. Cymbidium canaliculatum, the only 
 Orchidaceous epiphyte observed, was in flower under a night temperature 
 of 33° and 34°; that by day not exceeding 86°. These facts throw 
 quite a new light upon the nature of Australian vegetation. It may be 
 supposed that so low a temperature must have been accompanied by 
 extreme dryness, and such appears to have been usually the case. 
 Nevertheless, it cannot have been always so, for although Sir Thomas 
 
AUSTEALIAN NIGHT TEMPERATURE. 
 
 617 
 
 Mitchell made no hygrometrioal obgervations in June and July, and 
 only four in May, yet there ia other evidence to show that the dryness 
 cannot always have been remarkable.- In May the hygrometer indi- 
 cated '764, '703, "934, or nearly saturation, and "596 ; yet the sunrise 
 temperature was on those occasions 25°, 28°, 30°, and 34°. On the 
 22nd of May the Grass was white with hoar frost, and the thermometer 
 was at sunrise 20° under canvas and 12° in the open air. On the 5th 
 of July, when it rained all day and the tents were ' frozen into boards,' 
 the thermometer sank during the night from 38° to 16°. No doubt this 
 power of resisting cold is connected with the very high temperature to 
 which Australian vegetation is exposed at certain seasons, and this is 
 horticulturaUy a most important consideration. We find that in 
 latitude 32° 8. in January (our July) the thermometer stood eight days 
 successively above 100°, and even reached 115° at noon; that it was 
 even as high as 112° at 4 p.m. ; that in the latter part of February one 
 degree nearer the line it was twice 105° and once 110° ; that in March, 
 one degree further northward, it frequently exceeded 100°, and there 
 was not much fall in this excessive temperature up to the end of April. 
 This will be more evident from the following 
 
 Table of Noon-day Temperatures. 
 
 Latitude- 
 
 IS'ov., Dec. . 
 
 Average of 3 Observ., 
 
 102° 
 
 Max. 
 
 Mm. 
 
 29° S. 
 
 103° 
 
 62° 
 
 32 S. 
 
 Jan., Feb. . 
 
 ., 18 „ 
 
 97^- 
 
 115 
 
 73 
 
 31 S. 
 
 Feb., March 
 
 ,, 17 „ 
 
 90 
 
 110 
 
 80 
 
 30 S. 
 
 March . . 
 
 „ 20 „ 
 
 95 
 
 105 
 
 84 
 
 " Even such heats as these do not, however, destroy the power of vege- 
 tation, for we find in the midst of them all sorts of trees in blossom ; a 
 few bulbs, and even here and there (ia damp places, no doubt) such soft 
 herbs as Q-oodenias, Triohitiiums, Heliohrysuin, Didiscus, Teucrimn, 
 Justioia, herbaceous Jasmines, Tobacco, and Amaranths. During these 
 heats the night temperature seldom remains high. Sometimes, indeed, 
 the thermometer was observed as much as 88°, and once even 97° at 
 sunrise, the average noon-heat of the month being 97^°, but generally 
 the temperature is lower. Thus ; 
 
 Nov. and Dec, averaging 102° at noon, 62' 
 
 Jan. and Feb. „ 97| „ 61 
 
 Feb. and March „ 90 „ 61 
 
 March ... „ 95 ,,'68 
 
 . Temperature 
 occasioiially at Sunrise. 
 , 58°, 61°. 
 
 60 59 47°, &o. 
 
 59 64 48 &c. 
 
 65 51 47 &o." 
 
 These facts seem to demonstrate that it is the purpose of 
 nature to reduce the force which operates upon the excitability 
 
S18 EXPERIMENTS ON GROWTH BY NIGHT. 
 
 of vegetation at that period of the twenty-four hours, when, 
 from other causes, the powers of digestion and assimilation 
 are suspended. As far as is at present known, that power is 
 heat ; and therefore we must suppose that, to maintain at night 
 in our hot-houses a temperature at all equal to that of the day, 
 is a practice to be condemned. Plants will no doubt lengthen 
 very fast at night in a damp heat, but what is at this time 
 produced seems to be a mere extension of the tissue formed 
 during the day, and not the addition of any new part; the 
 spaces between the leaves are increased, and the plant becomes 
 what is technically and very correctly called "drawn"; for, as 
 has been justly observed, " the same quantity only of material 
 is extended to a greater length, as in the elongation of a 
 wire." 
 
 Some observations made in the garden of the Horticultural 
 Society a few years since place this in a striking light. Certain 
 plants were placed for several weeks in a stove, with a high 
 night temperature — supposed to average 69°: the following 
 were the rates of growth in inches : — 
 
 Night. Day. 
 
 Fig 9.60 .... 9.92 
 
 WiUow .19.08 .... 21.65 
 
 Passionflower 36.20 .... 35.85 
 
 Vine 34.15 .... 34.45 
 
 99.03 101.77 
 
 That is to say, they grew as fast by night as by day, for the 
 apparent difference is obviously unimportant. But when these 
 and other plants were grown in the open air, exposed to the 
 low night temperature of England, the result was wholly differ- 
 ent, as will be seen by the following table : — 
 
 Night. . Day. 
 
 Fig 1.63 .... 6.80 
 
 "WiUow 3.77 .... 9.94 
 
 Hop 42.02 . . . .100.53 
 
 Yine ■ . . . 2.34 .... 4.20 
 
 Scarlet Kunner .'. . .23.11 . . . .97.72 
 
 Jerusalem Artichoke , . 8.23 .... 22.26 
 
 Gourd 21.23 .... 48.05 
 
 102.33 . . . .289.49 
 
NIGHT TEMPEKATUKE TO BE KEPT DOWN. 519 
 
 The last experiment being carried still further, by observa- 
 tions continued during a part of another month, the result 
 remained the same, the total growth by night being 119.07, 
 and by day 337.16. Thus we see that plants exposed to 
 natural circumstances only made one inch of growth by night 
 while they made three by day ; but that, on the contrary, 
 under bad artificial treatment, they grew equally day and night. 
 The inevitable consequence of this inversion of natural 
 growth is immature or unripe wood, with imperfect iU- 
 constructed buds, and a feeble constitution, incapable of bearing 
 the shock of great falls in temperature. More especially, water 
 accumulates in the system, and is never decomposed or removed 
 by perspiration, in the requisite degree. In short, plants 
 growing fast by night can neither ripen their wood nor form 
 their inner structure weU. And therefore they are incapable 
 of developing their natural beauty, or of resisting those 
 extremes of temjferature which are natural to them. 
 
 This seems to explain why our greenhouse plants would 
 perish under the night temperature to which they are exposed 
 in New Holland. They are in the condition of a Peach-tree 
 kept growing fast in a forcing-house, and turned out for the 
 winter without having ripened its wood: if that is done it 
 dies, and yet the Peach-tree, when properly ripened, is capable 
 of resisting much severer winters than England ever knows. 
 An Oak-tree, treated in the same way, would be as tender. 
 
 If, however, the English gardener cannot command an 
 ItaUan or Australian sun, if he cannot expose his plants for 
 days together to a temperature of 100° — 115°, and if, therefore, 
 he cannot harden their tissues, and strengthen their constitu- 
 tion so as to enable them to bear the rudeness of their native 
 land, there are other things which he can do. He can keep 
 down their growth at night, he can maintain among them 
 continual currents of air, and having done this skilfully he will 
 have done aU that the circumstances of his position render 
 possible. 
 
 It wiU be apparent from these remarks that gardeners are 
 not recommended to freeze their greenhouse and stove plants, 
 because they are frozen habitually in Australia, and occasionally 
 
520 EVEN STOVE PLANTS 
 
 in Bengal. He cannot possibly do artificially all that is 
 requisite to enable plants to bear such extremes. But that is 
 no reason why he should not approach the operations of 
 Nature as near as the different circumstances wiU permit, and 
 why he should not so treat his plants as will enable them to 
 bear a degree of cold to which, when mismanaged, he dare not 
 expose them. 
 
 That greenhouses ought not to be heated at night more than 
 is suf&cient to exclude frost is certain; that, if properly pre- 
 pared, plants win bear frost is also indisputable, as indeed is 
 proved by the Camellias^ Chinese Azaleas, and similar plants 
 which are kept in cold frames through our hardest winters, and 
 where they thrive far better than in greenhouses. 
 
 With stove plants it is different : experiments are needed to 
 determine how much cold they will bear at night. There seems 
 to be no doubt that the colder they can be safely kept the better 
 for the plants. We must not forget that Mr. Barnes fruited 
 admirable Pines in the open air, and that where Cymbidium 
 canaliculatum was found by Sir Thomas Mitchell in full 
 flower, the thermometer fell at night to 33° and 84°, It is 
 probable that a minimum night temperature of 40° or 45° wiU 
 be found sufficient, as Mr. Beaton long since asserted ; especi- 
 ally if the soil can be maintained at 60° or 65°. 
 
 Mr Henry Bailey, of Nuneham, a most experienced and intelligent 
 practical gardener, has expressed his feai that a low night temperature 
 ■win not agree with stove plants, and mentions the following experiment 
 tried by himself. His employer haying no stove for plants, he has been 
 in the habit of growing a few kinds every year by removing them from 
 one stnioture to another, as dictated by convenience. One year some fine 
 specimens were thus obtained of Euphorbia jacqniniflora and punicea, 
 Stephanotis floribunda, Clerodendron splendens and others, which having 
 completed their growth by the end of September, were removed into a late 
 Vinery varying in nocturnal temperature from 35° to 43°. In this place 
 they received scarcely any water ; their treatment in all other respects 
 being subservient to the preservation of the Grapes, for which slight 
 fires were lighted every morning, and ventilation given on all possible 
 occasions to dispel damp. All went on apparently well, till a house 
 being about to be started for forcing flowers, the plants were removed 
 into it, with a night heat of from 45° to 50°, allowing it to rise 10° 
 more with sun heat. The Clerodendron splendens, which maintained 
 
KEQUIEE COOL NIGHTS. 521 
 
 the most luxuriant verdure of leaf up to this time, then sickened and 
 died, every leaf falling off. Euphorbia jacquiniflora lost aU its leaves, 
 but the Stephanotis was not materially injured. 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Spencer, another of our great gardeners, has 
 had to manage a house at Bowood, which, though generally called a 
 stove, and fiUed with stove plants, is never kept during the winter 
 months at a higher temperature than from 40° to 50° by fire heat. The 
 plants are principally used for decorating rooms, and for this purpose 
 late flowering plants are mostly cultivated. The roof is partially 
 covered with creeping stove plants, including Combretums, Bignonias, 
 Passifloras, Stephanotis, &c. The effect of this low temperature on 
 these and similar plants is to produce not only an entire cessation from 
 growth in winter, but in some cases they become partly deciduous, and 
 he found that they bore this low degree of heat not only without injury, 
 but when the warm days of spring returned they broke with unusual 
 strength and vigour, enjoying as they do, in fact, almost a natural 
 eUmate. It is generally thought Bignonia venusta will not bloom freely 
 except it grows in bottom-heat. That plant grows in a border inside 
 this house, without having any bottom-heat beyond what the house 
 affords, which, during the autumn and winter, is necessarily very low ; 
 and yet the plant is every season covered with bloom for two or three 
 months. Stephanotis blooms equally well in July, and the Combretums 
 and Passifloras nearly throughout the year. Eehites splendens blooms 
 equally well in the summer, and he finds the flowers of a much higher 
 colour than those from plants grown in a warmer house ; in the winter 
 Eehites becomes a deciduous tree. 
 
 The same result was obtained at Drayton Manor, where, in a Yinery, 
 Pergularia odoratissima, Eehites splendens, Stephanotis floribunda, 
 Bignonia Chamberlaynise, Combretum purpxireum, and Clerodendron 
 volubUe were planted in the year 1847 against the back wall, and 
 where they grew in the greatest vigour. Mr. MUne's account of their 
 treatment is this : — " When the stove climbers were planted on the 
 back wall of the Vinery, it was with the understanding that they 
 should receive the same treatment as an early Yinery requires, and live 
 or die. At the same time what could be done was done for them, in 
 order to preserve them through the winter ; water was withheld from 
 them after September, in order to induce rest before the dead of the 
 year. No particular attention was paid to the thermometer in the house, 
 few fires were used in the winter, and the temperature of the house was 
 frequently as low, in the mornings of frosty nights, as 35°, and on 
 one occasion 32°, when the earth in watered pots in this house was 
 frozen ; no fire was made to thaw, but they took their chance. The 
 house was fully opened on all mild days, and partially so every day 
 during the winter. The temperature of the earth about their roots was 
 not always measured, but it is known to have been 68°, and in the absence 
 
522 THESE PACTS ILLUSTKATE 
 
 of all moisture it may have indicated not less than 50° in January. The 
 most difQlcult period to deal with those climbers was found to bfe the 
 time of starting. In a short time after the application of heat they 
 began to exhibit some signs of debility, but a low night temperature 
 (40°), and water withheld stiU, overcame this small difficulty. Similar 
 results were obtained by Mr. D. Beaton, and others. 
 
 Upon the right understanding of these great facts depend 
 all the details of forcing, which is never successful unless the 
 hahits of a plant in a wild state are carefully followed. :By.way 
 of illustration, the case of the Strawberry may be taken as a 
 very common and well understood plant, from which, however, 
 unskilful gardeners obtain no crop when forced, although, as 
 they say, they give it plenty of heat, shut it up close at night, and 
 expect to gather ripe fruit from it in six weeks. They evidently 
 do not consider how it is that the Strawberry is made to bear 
 fruit naturally. The cold of winter does not suddenly change 
 to the heat of the dog-days. Warm dew does not incessantly 
 bathe the rising herbage. The nigBts of sprmg are not more 
 oppressive than the days. In short the climate in which the Straw- 
 berry naturally delights is not in the smallest degree like that 
 which is provided for it. On the contrary, where the Strawberry 
 dwells the temperature rises very slowly, and at about the same 
 rate as light increases ; if one day is warm another is cold, and 
 the nights are always so ; the air, too, is dry more often than 
 damp — as will be evident if we bear in mind how ceaselessly 
 the east wind breathes upon the land of Strawberries. Three 
 long months of steady growth are required to produce the 
 Strawberry under these favourable circumstances. It is there- 
 fore foUy to imagine that in six weeks, the same end is to be 
 accomplished by unnatural means. We may assist Nature, we 
 cannot compel her. What is true of the Strawberry is equally 
 so of all other forced productions, whether fruits or flowers. 
 
 Knight pointed out as one of the ill effects of high tempe- 
 rature during the night that it exhausts the excitability of a 
 tree much more rapidly than it promotes its growth, or 
 accelerates the maturity of its fruit, which is, in consequence, 
 ill supplied with nutriment at the period of its ripening, when 
 most nutriment is probably wanted. The Muscat of Alexandria 
 
THE TRUE PEINCIPLES OF FORCING. 523 
 
 and other late Grapes are, owing as he thinks to this cause, 
 often seen to wither upon the branch in a very imperfect state 
 of maturity, and the want of richness and flavour in other 
 forced fruits is often attributable to the same cause. The 
 same great experimentalist records {Hort. Trans., ii. 135) the 
 result of his own management of a Peach-house, where a due 
 regard was had to the preservation of a sufficiently low tempe- 
 rature at night. "As early in the spring as I wanted the 
 blossoms of my Peach-trees to -unfold, my house was made 
 warm during the middle of the day, but towards night it was 
 suffered to cool, and the trees were then sprinkled, by means of 
 a large syringe, with clear water, as nearly at the temperature 
 at which that usually rises from the ground as I could obtain 
 it, and little or no artificial heat was given during the night, 
 unless there appeared a prospect of frost. Under this mode of 
 treatment the blossoms advanced with very great vigour, and 
 as rapidly as I wished them, and presented, when expanded, a 
 larger size than I had ever before seen of the same varieties, 
 which circumstance is not unimportant, because the size of the 
 blossom in any given variety regulates to a very considerable 
 extent the bulk of the future fruit." It is, however, proper to 
 add that the observations of Knight referred to a period when 
 the principles of gardening were not generally understood so 
 well as they now are. 
 
 The preceding remarks apply exclusively to plants in a 
 state of growth. When growth ceases and fruit begins to ripen, 
 circumstances in some instances wholly change. 
 
 In its favourite regions the Grape ripens its fruit at the 
 hottest and dryest period of the year. In Corfu the Grapes 
 are ripe in September. It appears from Dr. Davy's observa- 
 tions that the range of the thermometer in that island, day and 
 night, is in August from 77° to 84° ; and in September from 
 74° to 83° ; that is to say, it is never colder at night than 74° 
 in September, or than 77° in August. At Malta the lowest 
 temperature obser\'-ed in August was 74°; and in September 
 69°. In Candahar, Mr.. Atkinson found Grapes ripe in June. 
 The night temperature of Candahar in May and June is not 
 given; but we may be very sure that in a country lilte 
 
524 RIPENING FRUIT REQUIRES WARM NIGHTS. 
 
 that, where a burning sun has been shining for three 
 months, and the ground is excessively heated, there must of 
 necessity be a very high teinperature at night. In fact, in 
 Persia, which is nearly the climate of Candahar, the midnight 
 temperature of August has been known to be as high as 108°; 
 and it is certain that in all such countries the difference 
 between the temperature of the day and night, at the hot season of 
 the year, when Grapes ripen, is inconsiderable. We may, there- 
 fore assume that a night temperature of from 70° to 80° ought 
 to be secured when Grapes are ripeniag. 
 
 At that period of their existence much atmospheric moisture 
 is unnecessary, or rather injurious to Grapes, for it will inevi- 
 tably cause the Vine to break into a multitude of little 
 branches to the impoverishment of the fruit. In the Vine 
 countries the air is parching ; Mr. Atkinson's paper curled up 
 in Candahar, while he was writing on it ; and the Vine wiU bear 
 such a climate well, if it is gradually inured to it, provided the 
 roots are in a moist soil, and there is a free circulation of 
 air. It is to be recollected that when a tree is ripening its 
 fruit, it is in quite a different condition from what occurs when it 
 is flowering. At the latter period its energies are all directed 
 to organizing itself, and consolidating the parts that may have 
 been formed ; it is growing, and hardening its growth. But at 
 a later period organization and consolidation are accom- 
 plished, and it is the elaboration of the fluids, stored up within 
 the plant, that has to be provided for. The fruit of such a 
 plant as the Vine is incessantly sucking fluids out of the 
 branches ; but that fluid is little more than water and mucilage. 
 It is after reaching the fruit that it thickens by evaporation, 
 and changes owing to chemical combinations brought about by a 
 variety of phenomena ; the result of which is the conversion of 
 acid into sugar, and the creation of the delicate flavours which 
 give the Grape its value as a fruit. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OF SOIL. 
 
 The word soil signifies that portion of the crust of the earth 
 in which plants grow ; what lies below it is rock. It is to a 
 great extent formed by the wearing down or decomposition of 
 rock, with the addition of matters derived from the action of 
 plants and animals, and from their decay. Soil, therefore, 
 consists of two kinds of matter arising from different sources : 
 one formed by the decay of rock is inorganic; the other 
 originating in living things is organic. Clay or loam, sand, 
 lime, and all the earthy or alkaline matters found associated 
 with them, are inorganic. Peat, mould, and every thing which 
 is convertible into these two substances, is organic. The 
 supposed action upon vegetation of these kinds of matter has 
 been scientifically investigated by all modern writers upon 
 rural chemistry, to whose most valuable labours the reader in 
 search of chemical facts will have recourse. In this place they 
 will be regarded merely from a practical point of view. 
 
 Clay is a dense, plastic substance, pasty when wet, abounding 
 in iron, tenacious of water, hardening and cracking when long 
 exposed to dryness, and having the power of condensing 
 ammonia and other gaseous matters. Its peculiar properties 
 are chiefly owing to its containing alumina, a substance in- 
 capable, when pure, of supporting vegetation. In cultivated 
 land clay always occurs mixed with sand or chalk, or both, in 
 variable proportions. Hewvy clay contains about 30 per cent, 
 of sand ; loam 50 or 60 per cent. ; calcareous loam has a con- 
 siderable quantity of lime (chalk) in addition ; fibrous loam 
 
526 CLAT AND LOAM. 
 
 contains the roots of herbaceous and fibrous-rooted plants in 
 greater or less abundance. 
 
 The term " loam" (Angl. Sax. Lam) comes from an ancient word in 
 different langfuagea, signifying a fat, unctuous, tenacious earth. XJnder 
 the name of "loam" there is comprehended a class of compound or 
 mixed earths, composed of dissimilar particles — ^hard, stiff, dense, harsh, 
 and rough to the touch — not easily plastic while moist, readily diffusible 
 in water, and usually composed of sand and a tough viscid clay. Loams 
 are very concisely divided into two kinds — ^the friable and crumbly 
 sorts, composed of sand and a less viscid clay — and the tough and viscid 
 in texture, that are composed of sand and a more adhesive clay. The 
 colours have also been used to distinguish loams — ^the black and white, 
 which are not acted upon by acids ; yellow loams, some of which are 
 affected by acids ; the alkaline brown loams, that are acted upon by 
 acids ; and the green loams, that suffer no disturbance. 
 
 According to Woodward, loam consists of clay mixed with fine sand ; 
 or of clay with a superabundance of sand ; and Bergman found a good 
 loam to contain 87 per cent, of a reddish grey sand, as fine as meal, and 
 13 per cent, of alumina. Supposing clay to contain, as it most frequently 
 does, 70 per cent, of fine sand and 30 of alumina, we shall find, as Mr. 
 Kirwan observes, that loam of the best kind contains an excess of sand 
 amounting to 17 per cent. ; if the excess of sand be greater it wiU form 
 a "sandy loam," if smaller, a "clayey loam." When anything 
 calcareous is found in the loam, it inclines to the nature of marl, or a 
 "marly loam," which may be either sandy or clayey, according as the 
 proportion above indicated is exceeded on either side. But loams most 
 frequently contain a portion of oxide of iron, which produces a con- 
 siderable variety in the colour, and probably in the vegetative powers 
 of the loamy earth, if its proportion be considerable, viz., 4 or 5 per 
 cent. ; they often contain, also, some proportion of sulphuric acid. 
 The sandy part of the loam often has much effect in giving the colour. 
 When gravels and pebbles are mixed with loams, the distinctions arise 
 of " gravelly, stony, siliceous, and limestone loams," according as the 
 substances predominate. 
 
 Loams are generally understood to consist of clay, siliceous sand, and 
 some carbonate of lime. The quantity of iron, magnesia, and various 
 salts, is so inconsiderable, as never to alter materially the texture of 
 the loam. Decayed vegetable and animal matters in the form of humus 
 are often found in loams in very considerable quantities, and the soU is 
 fertile in proportion. Loams vary in quality ; those composed of loose 
 sand with little humus, and impregnated with iron, are very \inpro- 
 ductive ; those which contain too much clay, and lie upon an impervious 
 subsoil, are difloult to cultivate. Between these two extremes there 
 are soila that form the very best that are found on the face of the globe. 
 
SAND. 527 
 
 Loam seems to be naturally formed for the pTirposes of fertility ; the 
 pure earths are in themselyes almost entirely barren ; sands receive and 
 discharge moisture much too quickly ; clays retain it too long in their 
 own substance, refuse it when wanted, and starve the roots of plants in 
 a cold impervious mass ; chalk has the same mechanical quality, and 
 contains very little organic or soluble matter. Sand and clay alone 
 would not make a rich soil, but a portion of calcareous matter and of 
 humus being added, the mass is rendered open and porous, and the clay 
 and sand are prevented from forming a mortar which hardens too 
 rapidly, and prevents the influence of the air from reaching the roots. 
 The invaluable quality of loams is that their texture allows the due 
 circulation of air and moisture. Moist climates require a greater 
 portion of sand to make a fertUe loam, but less in proportion as humus 
 abounds. All fertile soils contain some portion of calcareous earth. 
 The climate of England reqTiires one-half of the soil to be sand, one- 
 third clay, and the rest chalk, to form a good loam, and rather light 
 than heavy. Loams require less tillage than stiffer soils, and will bear 
 more stirrings to clean them than sands — the produce is always certain 
 and abundant. Every kind of manure can exert the proper action in 
 loams, as they find a variety of substances on which to apply their 
 influence. 
 
 The constituent parts of a good loam being correctly ascertained, and 
 the deficiencies of inferior soils being also learned, it only remains to 
 supply the wants iu the latter as they appear from a comparison with 
 the former. If clay be in excess, chalk and sand may be added ; and 
 a portion of the clay may be burned, in order to destroy the attraction 
 for water, and thus act the part of sand in helping to form the loam. 
 Limestone, gravel, and sand are also useful for this purpose, as they 
 equally correct too great porosity, or too much tenacity. If there be 
 too much sand in any loam, clay and chalk will be the remedy ; and 
 though the utmost art of man is able to effect "only" a mechanical 
 mixture in place of the chemical combination of the substances that are 
 sought to be amalgamated, yet the repeated stirrings which the land 
 undergoes in the process of time doubtless tend to the most perfect 
 blending of the matters to be assimilated. — J. D. in O. Chron, 1849, 
 p. 628. 
 
 Sand consists of minute fragments of flint, or silica. It is 
 white when pure, and is then called silver- sand, but is usually 
 red or brown in consequence of the presence of iron. It has 
 no power of cohesion, and therefore allows water tb pass 
 through it freely. In its natural state it is usually mixed with 
 some portion of clay. It is more or less soluble in water 
 holding alkaline matter or carbonic acid in solution ; and 
 
528 SHELL SAND— LIME— MOULD. 
 
 constitutes a portion, sometimes a most important portion, of 
 the food of plants. For garden purposes that kind of sand is 
 alone suitable which has been rounded in water. The angular 
 particles of " road-sand " form hard impermeable masses, and 
 should never be employed. 
 
 Shell sand is not sand at all, but rounded particles of carbonate of 
 lime, fragments of sbells and corals long rolled in water. 
 
 Lime occurs commonly in the form of its carbonate {chalk). 
 It is to some extent soluble in water, and forms an important 
 portion of the food of many plants, especially when combiued 
 with acids, as in the sulphate (gypsvm), or the phosphate {bone 
 earth). It readily dries, absorbs and detains heat, and has 
 great value in modifying the wet tenacious quality of clay. In 
 its caustic state it has the power of decomposing animal and 
 vegetable substances, the result of which is a compound partly 
 soluble in water, and peculiarly fit for the food of plants. It, 
 however, requires to be used with caution, in consequence of 
 the property it possesses of setting free ammonia, one of the 
 most indispensable constituents of the food of plants. 
 
 Peat consists of the dead remains of roots, brancheSj and 
 leaves, mixed with various proportions of sand. It also com- 
 monly abounds in iron. "When reduced to a powdery con- 
 sistence by decay, it becomes mould or humus {black mould, 
 leaf-mould). It has the important property of restoring alkaline 
 matter to soU, of producing carbonic acid by slow combination 
 with oxygen, and of aiding greatly in preserving soil in an 
 open state, so as to allow water and air to pass freely through 
 it. In the state of mould it condenses gaseous matter by 
 virtue of its porosity. 
 
 These four kinds of matter are all that concern the busiaess 
 of the cultivator. Each, in its pure state, has Httle or no power 
 of sustaining' healthy vegetation; but when mixed in various 
 proportions, they constitute the richest soils in the world. 
 Hence it is that gardeners constantly employ a mixture of 
 loam, peat, and sand, from which lime is only absent in 
 appearahce, abounding as it does in all good loam in the state 
 of chalk. Nature demands no other means of sustaining 
 
SOILS PECULIAR TO PLANTS. 529 
 
 jetable life except clay, lime, and sand, with the aid of water 
 i the gaseous matters of the atmosphere. Those gaseous 
 tters are nitrogen, brought to the land by rain, in the form 
 ammonia, or of nitric acid (see page 39), and carbonic 
 d, or other gaseous forms of carbon. Phosphoric acid and 
 phur seem to be sufficiently abundant in all sand or clay 
 enable plants to exist at least, if not to grow in them with 
 [our ; for although chemists, in their analyses, report in some 
 ies only a trace of such substances, yet it must be remem- 
 ced that, as Dr. Daubeny has remarked, if only -j-owoth 
 ft may be present in a given sample of soil, yet even that 
 )resents more than 350lbs. as existing in the soil of an acre 
 ivn to the depth of a foot, 
 ^at the gardener tries to imitate is the soil in which plants 
 
 I naturally found in the greatest vigour. "When he learns 
 it the pedunculate Oak always thrives best in strong clay, he 
 ers that heavy clay is necessary to that kind of tree. If he 
 IS that the Box-tree delights in chalky hiUs, and the Saint- 
 
 II in chalky fields, he is justified in considering that cal- 
 •eous land is what they each prefer ; and when he knows 
 it fibrous-rooted plants, like Khododendrons and Heaths, 
 Irish wherever peat and sand occur, he has recourse to 
 it and sand for their cultivation. Nor is he to be censured 
 
 this. On the contrary; even if his conviction that the 
 Is in which plants grow wild are what suits them best should 
 
 theoretically wrong, he at least knows that it is practically 
 ht ; and that if following nature closely shall not lead to the 
 3t possible results, it is sure not to lead bim astray, provided 
 has the skill to interpret natural phenomena with accuracy. 
 It is probable, however, that the influence exercised by soil 
 on vegetation is due as much to its physical conditions as 
 its chemical nature. At all events, I entertain no doubt 
 it the former have been too much lost sight of in the search 
 
 chemical evidence ; and that in gardening, which is always 
 cultivation of fertile soils, it is the subject which most 
 Bands attention. Soil, considered without reference to the 
 janizable substances it contains, appears to act upon plants 
 lefly by its power of absorbing and parting with heat and 
 
530 THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF SOIL IMPORTANT. 
 
 moisture. When soil is tenacious, or plastic, it absorbs heat 
 slowly, and it parts with its water with great difficulty, as is 
 the case in the London clay ; the number of cultivated plants 
 to which this is suitable is so small that it is almost expelled 
 from gardens, where the object is to expose the cultivated 
 species to conditions more favourable than those afforded 
 them by nature. The small amount of bottom-heat afforded 
 by clay, and the difficulty of draining it, sufficiently explain 
 the badness of its quality for gardening purposes, even without 
 taking into account the resistance experienced by plants in 
 passing their spongioles through so compact a substance. On 
 the other hand, loose sand, whose piirticles have no cohesion, 
 although it imbibes water with great facility, parts with it as 
 readily, and, being easily heated by the sun's rays, becomes so 
 Boon dried up as to be for that reason as unsuitable to most 
 plants as the worst plastic kinds of clay. It is by obtaining 
 a mean between these extremes that the soU is formed most 
 favourable to the growth of plants' in general. 
 
 As has been already stated, the artificial soil of the gardener 
 is for the most part a combination, in various proportions, of 
 loam, sand, and peat. The loam is a source of fertility, and 
 parts with water reluctantly; sand increases porosity; and 
 peat, in addition to any manuring value it may have, at once 
 prevents consolidation, secures free drainage, and enables 
 delicate roots to spread without hindrance. If chalk is seldom 
 or never employed by gardeners, except as a manure, it is 
 because that substance is abundant in garden loam. They 
 know by experience the best loam to be what is called cal- 
 careous, and that they always obtain, if possible. 
 
 It is by no means meant by the author that the whole use 
 of such substances is dependent upon physical qualities ; it 
 is only suggested that their principal mode of action is such 
 as has been described, and that the precise chemical condition 
 of loam, sand, and peat, is of comparative unimportance in 
 horticulture. With agriculture it is otherwise. 
 
 For example, it was once a general belief, and stiU is in some places, 
 that a fruit-tree border could only be made by paring off the surface of 
 an old pasture, and employing the sods after having been laid in a 
 
ARTIFICIAL SOILS— FEUIT-TREE BORDERS. 531 
 
 heap till tie Kve turf had perished. There can be no doubt about the 
 excellenoe of this material, which is moderately rich, retentiTe of 
 moisture, and yet permeable to air and water in aU directions. But 
 to destroy an old pasture in order to obtain this result, is an act of 
 mere ignorance. The points to be attended to in forming a substitute 
 for turfy soda are — 1, to obtain an e(5pivalent for the roots that pene- 
 trate sods in all directions, forming myriads of fine tubes, which convey 
 air and moisture through the whole mass oi earth ; 2, to exclude every 
 kiad of matter which gives rankness to growth, as all putrid or putre- 
 flable materials do. This can be done by imitating the roots of the 
 Gbass that formed the turf : a neglect of that precaution can only end 
 in failure. The roots of Grass are merely underground straws, of a more 
 compact texture than usual ; the two are chemically, as well as orga- 
 nically, the same, so far as cultivation is connected with them. Re- 
 place roots with straw: stable litter, but little fermented, contains 
 all the equivalents — organic matter, saline matter, an absence of 
 azotized matter in excess, and mechanical properties. Provided proper 
 soil is procurable, everything else is thus furnished; and this litter 
 is better than even decayed leaves, because it keeps the soil more 
 open. The difficulty consists in the thorough incorporation of the 
 requisite materials. It is difficult to incorporate hng litter with 
 anything. It could be shortened by chopping, and then the difficulty 
 would vanish. 
 
 The best way of preparing a substitute for a turf border is to pro- 
 cure a light calcareous loam, and incorporate it with a quarter of 
 its bulk of tolerably fresh stable litter and horse droppings. This 
 incorporation may be effected by turning the mass over a few times 
 during the three or four months which are required to reduce the 
 straw to a proper state of decay, and it is then fit for use. 
 
 In like manner peat, so extensively used for "American plants" 
 is by no means essential to their health. They grow very well in fine 
 sandy loam, in leaf-mould, or in any very loose soil which is not 
 calcareous, provided it is damp at.the time when they are in full growth. 
 Rhod. maximum grows in damp deep woods {A, Oray) and on the 
 borders of mountain streams and lakes, requiring cool and perennial 
 streams for its nourishment and support {Elliott) ; R. ponticum thrives 
 on the face of the oozy hill at the back of St. Leonards in soft loam. 
 Captain, now Lieut.-Col. Monro, says, " Rhododendron arhoreum grows 
 on the Himalayas in disintegrated granite, mica slate, and gneiss, with- 
 out anything approaching to peat. Rhododendron nilagiricum, a species 
 first indicated by Zenker, and one I believe generally considered distinct 
 from arhoreum, does in the Neelghenies grow in a thin stratum of peat, 
 which, however, is frequently not more than six or eight inches in 
 depth, and consequently the roots must soon pass through it into the 
 soil belowr The finest mass of Rhododen^on arhoreum I oyer saw was 
 
 II M 2 
 
S32 PEAT. 
 
 within 500 feet' of the top of Dodotolia, a hill 10,000 feet high, in 
 Kumaon, between Almorah and Sireenugger, on the Bhaugeruttie river, 
 growing in company with Quercus Kamroopii, and just above the 
 Deodar. Here every possible variety of colour capable of being pro- 
 duced by a mixture of crimson and white was to be found amongst the 
 Rhododendrons ; the whole side of the hiU was one blaze of colour. A 
 thirst-exciting ascent, in the middle of the day, 23rd April, made me 
 search eagerly for water, which I could only find in the shape of some 
 immelted snow on the north side of the lull in a shady nook, till I 
 descended at least 6000 feet to the stream in the valley below.'' It is, 
 therefore, clear that peat is by no means indispensable to such plants. 
 
 A gardener must attend to three points if he wishes to grow 
 American plants well : 1, the soil must be loose and rich ; 2, while they 
 are growing there must be free and constant access of moisture without 
 stagnation ; and 3, there must be no chalk. — The soU must be light and 
 rich. Peat is not insisted upon ; on the contrary, our great growers 
 expressly state that other substances wiU answer the same purpose, 
 provided they are in the same mechanical condition. The reason of this 
 is obvious. "American" plants have in all cases deUoate hair-like 
 roots, which remain for years without any considerable increase in 
 diameter; such roots cannot find their way through a soil which offers 
 much resistance to their progress. Sand, very sandy loam, and decayed 
 vegetable matter intermingled form the soU that American plants 
 demand. Feat is a good material, because it consists of sand and 
 decayed vegetable matter ; and any other mixture of the same kind 
 will be also a good material. Decayed leaves, fragments of very rotten 
 branches or roots, probably charcoal, and such matters mixed with sand, 
 in order to prevent the soil from becoming too compact, replace it per- 
 fectly. The value of peat consists in its being a good natural mixture, 
 teadily procurable in large quantities, in many districts. The necessity 
 for loam depends upon its power of retaining moisture longer than dead 
 or decayed vegetable matter. Provided the requisite moisture can be con- 
 stantly secured, loam ceases to have value. Standiah and Noble recommend 
 the following as an excellent compost : — "To two parts of sandy loam 
 or peat, or in fact any sandy soil that does not contain much calcareous 
 matter (American plants exhibit a great dislike to that), add one-fourth 
 leaf-mould, one-eighth sand, and one-eighth rotten manure. If wanted 
 immediately, the whole should be weU beaten, and thoroughly incor- 
 porated before using. It would, however, be of great advantage to 
 allow the mixture to remain twelve months, turning it well two or 
 three times during that period. In old exhausted beds, a good dressing 
 of rotten manure forked in will be found highly beneficial." 
 
 There must be free and constant access of moisture, without stag- 
 nation. In American plants the roots are much more quickly dried 
 than those of other plants. They are not thick, fleshy, cellular 
 
PEAT. 533 
 
 masses, coated with a spongy bark capable of detaining moisture with 
 great force. On the contrary, they are, as has leen already stated, 
 delicate hair-like fibres, whose bark is little more protection to 
 them than the skin of a leaf. Such being their structure, they are 
 emptied of whatever fluids they may contain when the earth in contact 
 with them becomes dry ; and if in a growing state" they necessarily 
 perish. All those directions, therefore, which insist upon keeping the 
 level of American beds below the surrounding surface, when the 
 situation is not naturally damp, are founded upon a correct appreciation 
 of the nature of these plants. Why calcareous matter in excess 
 should be offensive to them we are unable to explain. Such is the 
 fact ; and it is probable that the reason why the American plants at 
 Knap HUl and Bagshot are finer than any in the valley of the Thames, 
 is on account of the great abundance of lime in the water of all the 
 latter district. It appears from analysis that while London water, that 
 is to say Thames water, contains 16 grains of lime in a gallon, Bagshot 
 water contains only oiie grain, or less. The true difficulty, then, in 
 growing American plants, is not the want of proper soU, for that may 
 be made, but the want of a sufficient supply of pure water ; and it may 
 be a question whether a very material difference would not be found in 
 those places where American plants grow badly if rain-water alone were 
 used in watering them, instead of that from pumps and ditches. 
 
 It is as well to observe that the peat from bogs is not suited to garden 
 purposes, until it has been rotted down by long exposure to weather, or 
 by the action of lime or caustic ammonia (gas water). This is owing 
 to the large quantity of free aoetic acid and tannin in its composition, 
 which renders it unfit to support vegetation till the acid is neutralised 
 and the tannin decomposed. Another way of rendering it a fit sub- 
 stitute for the upland peat, which gardeners prefer, is to ferment it in 
 a heap, mixied with stable litter ; if moistened with gas water, so much 
 the better ; in a twelvemonth it is fit for use, with the addition of loam 
 and about 80 per cent, of sUver sand. 
 
 When we see that the Box-tree, the Fig-tree, the shrubby 
 Bwplewum delight in chalky hUls, it is inferred that chalk is 
 necessary to those plants. But they will also grow in clay, 
 though not so well ; and it is possible that they may prefer the 
 hills they live on, because they are hot and dry, not because 
 they are calcareous. Elyrlms arewarms lives in blowing sand ; 
 but it may occupy that soil because of its extreme looseness and 
 dryness, not because of its being siliceous. Epiphytes do not 
 grow in earth ; apparently because the peculiar organization of 
 their roots renders them impatient of having those parts 
 covered ; and they prefer the branches of trees to rocks, not 
 
534 HEKBERT'S THEORY OF SOILS. 
 
 perhaps because of any peculiar food which they find on trees, 
 but because wood is a bad conductor of heat, and because they 
 find shade among branches, while rocks conduct heat more 
 rapidly, and are exposed to more dryness or to more wetness. 
 If rocks are soft, shaded, and so placed as to be exposed to no 
 sudden changes of temperature, then Epiphytes grow as weU 
 on them as on trees. 
 
 Dean Herbert, a most acute anfl experienced gardener, held 
 
 that PLANTS DO NOT GEOW NATUBAILY IN THE SOIL BEST 
 
 SUITED FOR THEM. He Contended that the reason why many 
 plants are found in peculiar places is not at aU because they prefer 
 them, but because they alone are capable of existing there, or 
 because they take refuge there from the inroads of stouter 
 neighbours who would destroy them .: and consequently he by 
 no means advised the gardener to imitate, in a servile spirit, 
 all that he saw happening in the abodes of wild vegetation. 
 
 " I saw,'' said the Dean, " a Crocus, a Sternebergia, and an 
 Ornithogalum growing in contact with each other aloft on the 
 meagre sod of Mount (Enos ; but not a seed-pod of the Sterne- 
 bergia could be discovered, and very few of the Crocus. In a 
 more fertile sod they would have been choked by some stronger 
 plant, but they would rejoice in a better soil, if protected 
 against the oppressor. * * * The compost in which the Dutch 
 raise their improved bulbs of various kinds is known to be (see 
 Sismondi, des Jacinthes) a compost of humus, obtained from 
 thoroughly decayed Elm-leaves and dung of stall-fed cattle, 
 and mixed with sand deposited by the sea on a bed of prostrate 
 timber of unknown antiquity, in which there is probably 
 nothing calcareous. Does it not then appear that the case 
 stands thus — not that calcarieous matter is essential to the 
 growth of Crocus, or even a useful auxiliary, but that Crocus 
 can bear the sterility of elevated calcareous mountains better 
 than most other plants of stronger growth ? If that be true of 
 one genus, it will probably be applicable to others. * * * It 
 will be found that Orchis latifolia, removed from the swamp, 
 in which it struggles with other swamp -plants, will grow more 
 vigorously where it is cultivated with less wet. The small 
 Polygala vulgaris is stated in Mr. Babington's Manual to grow 
 
HERBERT'S THEORY OP SOILS. 535 
 
 in dry pastures, having flowers either blue, white, or red. I 
 believe the stated habitation to be only thus far true, that it 
 does not grow in water. I do not recollect seeing it in sandy 
 pastures ; I know it well on chalk and on clay. In England it 
 is little admired. In the alluvial and very moist meadows of 
 Zante, near the sea, in the vicinity of Trieste, it formed a most 
 conspicuous part of the meadow-crop at the end of May, and 
 the beauty with which it painted the herbage was to me 
 astonishing. It seemed that, in a warmer climate, it could 
 endure more moisture than with . us. On the slope of Monte 
 Spaccato, where no Grass grows, large single plants of it stood 
 in the bare soil amongst the stones, with every intermediate 
 diversity of pearl-colour and lilac, showing evidently that the 
 merits of that little plant under cultivation are not appreciated 
 or known." / 
 
 We believe that in this instance the views m Dean Herbert 
 were in perfect accordance with every well ascertained fact 
 relating to other plants ; and that one of the greatest errors 
 that have been committed is an unintelligent imitation of soils. 
 Men do not, in fact, distinguish between natural accidents, such as 
 soil, and natural habits, such as manner of growth coupled with 
 atmospheric peculiarities. It is the natural habit of the Sikkim 
 Rhododendrons to grow in a damp atmosphere, highly charged 
 with the results of frequent thunderstorms; and they may 
 never be grown well except in the presence of such conditions 
 or of their equivalents. But the growing upon the branches 
 of trees is with them an accident, and they grow quite as well 
 if not better in soil ; for there is nothing in the anatomical 
 condition of iheir roots which declares that in air alone are 
 they capable of existing. 
 
 A striking example of this is given iu the Botanical Magazine, 
 Speaking of the management of the Lace-bark tree, Mr* John Smith 
 says : " Mr. WUson informed us that ' it is invariably found growing 
 in very dry situations on marly limestone hills, where there is not a 
 particle of earth to be seen. The young plants grow in the crevices, or 
 honeycomb, as it is caUed, and in order to obtain them with roots, a 
 hammer or large stone is required to break away the porous limestone.' 
 He further adds, that ' the soil for growing it in should be composed of 
 one-tjiird marl or lime-rubbish ; for I am persuaded that pure loam 
 
536 NATUEAL SOIL NOT ALWAYS THE BEST. 
 
 ■vpill kill them.' " But Mr. Smith observes : " In our experience, we 
 have never found any plant thrive by retaining it in its native soil, or 
 in soil too closely resembling it. If we could also imitate all the 
 various influences of climate that modify and control the growth of 
 plants in their native localities, it might then be proper for us to 
 cultivate the Lace-bark tree in marly soil, like limestone; but our 
 plants afford evidence that such soil is not required when they are 
 grown in an artificially heated atmosphere. We have used good yellow 
 loam, mixed with a little leaf-mould and sand. In this they have 
 attained the height of 8 feet, and continue in a perfectly healthy state." 
 
 This opinion is greatly supported by such facts as the fol- 
 lowing, which show that great numbers of plants have no 
 particular predilection for soil, or at least, that if they have we 
 cannot show it to exist, and that there are facts in the relation 
 between plants and soil which remain without explanation. 
 Mr. Knight observed that varieties of the same species of fruit- 
 tree do not succeed equally in the same soil, or with the same 
 manure : the Peach in many soils acquires a high degree of 
 perfection, where its variety, the Nectarine, is of comparatively 
 little value; and the Nectarine frequently possesses its full 
 flavour in a sml which does not well suit the Peach. The 
 same remark is also applicable to the Pear and the Apple ; 
 and, as defects of opposite kinds occur in the varieties of every 
 species of fruit, those qualities in the soil which are beneficial 
 in some cases wiU be found injurious in others. In those 
 districts where the Apple and Pear are cultivated for cider and 
 perry, much of the success of the planter is found to depend 
 on his skiU or good fortune in adapting his fruits to the soil. 
 {Hort. Trans., i. 6.) Ehododendrons and Kalmias are usually 
 cultivated in peat earth mixed with sand, and yet they grow as 
 well in fresh hazelly loam, without any mixture whatever; 
 and, than these two kinds of soil, none can be apparently more 
 dissimilar. The fine American cottons are grown in a cal- 
 careous sand, those of India in a deep black saponaceous earth ; 
 the American cotton will not thrive in the latter, nor that of 
 India in the former, as has now been ascertained ; and yet the 
 species of Gossypium producing the two qualities have no 
 organic differences which can, so far as has yet been ascer- 
 tained, explain in the smallest degree the necessity, under 
 
PINE-APPLE SOIL. 537 
 
 •which it is evident that they labour, of being provided with 
 different kinds of food. The Ahius glutinosa, or Common 
 Alder, flourishes in wet clayey meadows ; while Ahius incana, 
 or Upland Alder, is equally suited to a dry and light land : we 
 are totally ignorant of the reason of such a case as this. 
 Ehododendron hirsutum and Erica carnea are, in their wUd 
 state, confined to calcareous soil ; while Rhododendron ferru- 
 gineum grows exclusively on granite, and Erica vagans on 
 serpentine. "We are informed by Beyrich {Gardeners' Magazine, 
 iii. 443) that " the Pine-apple, in its wild state, is found near 
 the sea-shore ; the sand accumulated there in downs serving 
 for its growth, as well as for that of most of the species of the 
 same family. The place where the best Pine-appleS are culti- 
 vated is of a similar nature. In the sandy plains of Praya 
 velha and Praya grande, formed by the receding of the sea, and 
 in which no other plant will thrive, are the spots where the 
 Pine-apple grows best. The cause of this lies evidently in the 
 composition of the sand, which chiefly consists of salt, lime 
 from decomposed shells, and a very little vegetable mould. 
 "Warmth, lime, salt, and moisture seem thqjefore to be the 
 principal ingredients in which the Pine-apple thrives. Sand 
 wOl take a very high ajid continued degree of warmth, being 
 often heated by the sun so much as to scorch vegetation, and 
 yet it seldom dries to a greater depth than from eight inches 
 to one foot ; sea salt is well known for its property of attracting 
 the nocturnal damps, and retaining them a long time. The 
 lime of the shells seems to be the principal manure, which has 
 also been proved by the English here, who, by manuring their 
 Pine-apples with a mixture of stamped oyster-shells and vege- 
 table earth, produce very large fruit. The natural mould, 
 usually shghtly mixed with sand, is partly of a vegetable and 
 partly of a mineral origin." But it is well known that the 
 Piae-apples of England are much superior to those of South 
 America, and yet English gardeners grow their plants neither 
 in sand, nor saline, nor calcareous soil. Moreover we learn 
 from Mr. Campbell Lees that in the Bahamas the Pine-rapple 
 wUl neither grow in decomposed Madrepore limestone, nor in 
 light deep black vegetable soil ; but that it thrives exclusively 
 
538 STERILE SOILS UNACCEPTABLE TO PLANTS. 
 
 in a red soil, which Professor Edward Solly found to be chiefly 
 remarkable for an unusually large proportion of oxide of iron. 
 (Journ. ofHort. Soc. i. 126.) 
 
 On the other hand we know that salt plants, like Nitraria, will 
 not thrive in the absence of the salt soil in which they naturally 
 grow; and that others, such as Samphire, the garden Pink, 
 the Eed Valerian, the Sea Beet, are much improved in health 
 by its presence, to say nothing of Salicornias, and other purely 
 salt plants, which wiU not grow in saltless land. Chalk also 
 appears to be fatal to the healthy growth of others, such as 
 Rhododendrons, and some Conifers; while Beech and Box 
 prefer it. Clay again, which is invaluable as a soil for Quercus 
 pedunculata, is ill suited to Q. sessiliflora, and will not grow 
 Heaths at aU. Therefore the opinion that the soil which 
 plants inhabit when wild is not necessary to them, requires a 
 good deal of qualification. 
 
 In Tike manner plants grow naturally and remain healthy in 
 places where no manure can reach them. But they are not 
 .benefited by the absence of such agents; on the contrary, 
 even Mosses aij^ Lichens flourish most where they are best 
 fed, and plants inhabiting peat, sterile as that soil is, feed 
 greedily and thrive greatly when well manured. Of this a 
 striking instance is furnished by Bagshot heath. 
 
 A more unpromising appearance than that originally belonging to 
 the present American nursery at Bagshot, can scarcely he imagined. In 
 its, present improved state, it affords a good example of what can be 
 done in the most sterile spots. The ground in question forms part of 
 50 acres, the whole of which is rated in the poor's-rate book at 81. The 
 soil, which is from 12 to 15 inches in depth, is a black sandy peat, 
 resting upon a clayey subsoil very deficient in vegetable matter, and 
 naturally incapable of producing any crop. With cultivation it has 
 been rendered in the highest degree productive. The first operation 
 was to drain it from 3 J to 4 feet deep ; it was then trenched 2 feet deep, 
 and to every acre so treated, from 30 to 40 tons of good farm-yard 
 manure was added ; and as a precautionary measure, in order to exhaust 
 the rankness attendant upon this treatment, it was deemed necessary to 
 take off the land a root crop of Potatoes, Carrots, Turnips, and Mangel 
 "Wurzel. After this treatment, American plants were found to thrive 
 amazingly ; but, like all crops in very poor soils, they continue to be 
 benefited by the application from time to time of suitable enriching 
 materials. — Standish on American Plants. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 OF MANURE. 
 
 To manure a plant is to feed it artificially. 
 
 We see that plants and animals exist in a wild state without 
 the aid of any other food than what is presented to them 
 spontaneously. There is everywhere around us a hountiful 
 provision for sustaining life. Providence has created animals 
 and plants to be fed on by man, animals prey on animals and 
 plants, plants subsist upon the decay of animals and plants ; 
 and these mutual relations are so nicely adjusted, that we have 
 no reason to suppose that any one species has disappeared 
 since the creation from want of food. When species have 
 perished they have been exterminated by man. 
 
 But although plants are surrounded on all sides by the 
 materials necessary to sustain life, yet when man invades their 
 haunts and turns them to his peculiar purposes, natural 
 circumstances no longer suffice. Water and air and what 
 belongs to them remain indeed as before, but the food provided 
 in the soil becomes exhausted ; when the races of plants are 
 altered by domestication they require more abundant nutri- 
 ment; and to obtain from the earth a greater produce than it 
 can yield spontaneously becomes a matter of the first neces- 
 sity ; hence arises the application of manure, which is to the 
 vegetable kingdom what artificial feeding is io animals. 
 
 The object of manuring is either to increase the fertility of 
 land, or, if fertile by nature, to keep it in that state by con- 
 tinually returning to it the substances which crops may have 
 removed. If a tree advances in the course of time from a mere 
 
540 NATURAL FERTILITY OP SOIL. 
 
 point till it acquires the weight of many tons, it does so by 
 gradually absorbing from the earth and air such food suitable 
 to its nature as is found there. What is derived from the air 
 may be disregarded, the constituents of the atmosphere being 
 ever renewed and inexhaustible; but inorganic matter, pre- 
 sented to our eyes by the ashes of the tree when burnt, is 
 wholly derived from the soil, which is neither ever renewing 
 nor inexhaustible. Should the tree perish where it stood and 
 there decay, the soil \5r0uld receive back all that it had given 
 up, and no exhaustion would have taken place. But if the 
 tree is felled and carried away, then the soil is robbed of all 
 the inorganic matter which entered into the composition of the 
 timber, and becomes ][)ro tanto exhausted of its nutritive powers. 
 The matter thus removed is restored by manure. And so of 
 all plants else. Such is the inevitable result of cultivation. 
 
 Although it is unquestionable that all cultivated plants require 
 manure, on account of the exhaustibility of all soils, sooner or later, 
 yet it must he remembered that the rate of exhaustion depends upon 
 the proper nature of soil, and the treatment it receives at the hands of 
 the gardener. Sandy soils are rapidly rendered barren by cropping 
 without manure ; clayey and loamy soils much more slowly. And 
 when the latter are skUfully cultivated crop after crop of certaia kinds of 
 plants may be taken from them with no apparent loss of fertility. This 
 has been strikingly illustrated by the Rev. Mr. Smith, an accomplished 
 agriculturist residing at Lois-Weedon, a remote village on the oolitic 
 clay of Northamptonshire, where repeated crops of wheat, at the rate of 
 40 bushels an acre, have been obtained for many years successively, 
 without manure, by mere spade cultivation. This gentleman thus 
 succinctly describes his mode of tillage (the land being of course 
 thoroughly drained) : — 
 
 " At the outset I plough the whole field early in autumn an inch 
 deeper than the staple, harrow, and roll, and harrow again — ^pulverising 
 and preparing it, in short, as for Barley. T then get in my Wheat, 
 leaving yard-wide fallow intervals between the rows. When the 
 Wheat is up I begin to dig, which is done thus : — ^At the end of the 
 interval I iif st throw out on the headland about 3 feet of soil to the 
 entire depth I intend to go the first year, and, supposing the staple to 
 be 6 inches, and the 4 inches of subsoil to be clay, this depth altogether 
 will be 10 inches. The spadesman now, with a shallow spit, casts the 
 6 inches of staple to the bottom of the trench of this yard length of 
 interval; and then, with another spit stiU shallower, throws the 4 
 inches of the subsoil lightly on the top, and so on all over the field. 
 
LOIS-WEEDON CULTIVATION. 541 
 
 This process is clearly accomplished at two diggings. My object in 
 thus keeping the pure subsoil separate and unmingled on the surface, 
 which no single digging to the same depth could do so effectually, is to 
 enable the atmosphere during winter to have its full and unobstructed 
 influence on the clay ; and when this effect has been produced, as it 
 win he found to be in spring, these important results will have ensued : 
 — The clay wiU have crumbled down to dust, a portion of its known 
 mineral constituents will have been rendered soluble, and it wiU be 
 brought into a condition to receive and retain the organic elements of 
 fertility contained in the atmosphere. It is only after this that the 
 horse-hoe in the summer well mixes the now pulverised clay with a 
 portion of the staple below, and fits the land for the following crop. In 
 the third and fourth years (the other moiety of the field having gone 
 through a similar process the second year) an inch more of the subsoil 
 is brought to the surface ; and so on year after year tUl a depth be 
 attained by inch degrees, of 20 or 24 inches, ' beyond which it is 
 neither needful nor convenient to go.' The principle of the practice 
 being that no more of the subsoil be brought to light than can be 
 wholly pulverised before it be mixed with the staple, it is evident that, 
 in the end, after many years of gradual deepening, and repeated 
 stirrings throughout each year, the entire depth of these two fuU spits 
 will have become friable as garden mould." * 
 
 Although this is an Agricultural fact, it is one equally applicable to 
 Horticulture ; for it shows that by constantly exposing oolitic clay to 
 the action of the atmosphere, as much inorganic matter suited to the 
 food of wheat is annually set free in the soil as is removed by the crop ; 
 and that where doses of azotised manure are not required, deep and 
 careful cultivation has a better effect than mere manuring. 
 
 On the one hand, with shallow cultivation, puddled furrow- trenches, 
 and polished furrow slices, rain-water highly charged with the most 
 nutritious ingredients either runs off to ditches, or is so ill-directed 
 that it very imperfectly reaches the roots. On the other hand, by 
 means of close cropping, that which is intended to bathe every part of 
 a plant, and to be instantly absorbed by its verdant surface, is turned 
 aside. But at Lois-Weedon the soil is made so deep and kept so open, 
 that every root is certain to receive its allotted share of the invigorating 
 shower, and before the rain-water finds its way to drains, it has given 
 up its fertilising ingredients either to the living suckers, for which they 
 were intended, or to the soil which detains them till they are wanted. 
 There, too, the plants are so widely spaced, that no one row intercepts 
 what is intended for another. Even when manuring is indispensable, 
 the effect of the inanure is much increased by the same kind of culti- 
 vation. Turnips and similar root crops have 5 feet for every plant to 
 
 * For fall particulars of this practice, see A Word m Season; or How to Orow 
 Wheat mth Profit. 12th ed, London, 1S54.. 
 
542 EXHAUSTION NATUKALLT PREVENTED. 
 
 spread in ; the lines of wheat are a yard asunder, and catch all the rain 
 or dew that descends upon them ; and thus half an acre of heavy clay 
 land brings six or seven quarters of Beans, or twenty-seven tons of 
 Swedish Turnips; and would carry Carrots, Cabbages, Celery, and 
 Onions, in similar proportion if it were a kitchen garden. 
 
 It may be added, that by a similar process were obtained some 
 magnificent British Gueen Strawberries, exhibited a few years ago, at 
 Chiswick, by the Speaker of the House of Commons, which the spec- 
 tators fancied that the right honourable gentleman must have raised by 
 excessive doses of guano. 
 
 Under natural circumstances exhaustion is provided against 
 by the decay of plants where they stand, the soil thus receiving 
 back from the dead not only what it yielded up to the living, 
 but as much more as the living were able to solidify at the 
 expense of the atmosphere. And hence the extraordinary 
 fertility of the soil of some virgin countries. When nature 
 causes the tree to shed its leaves, it is not merely because they 
 are dead and useless to the tree, but because they are required 
 for a further purpose — ^that of restoring to the soil the principal 
 portion of what had been abstracted from it during the season 
 of growth, and thus of rendering the soil able to maintain the 
 vegetation of a succeeding year. Every particle that is found 
 in a dead leaf is capable, when decayed, of entering into new 
 combinations, and of again rising into a tree for the purpose 
 of contributing to the production of more leaves, and flowers 
 and fruit. If the dead leaves, which nature employs, are re- 
 moved, the soil will, doubtless, upon the return of spring, 
 furnish more organizable matter without their assistance; 
 because its fertility is difficult to exhaust, and many years 
 must elapse before it is reduced to sterility. But the less we 
 rob the soil of the perishing members of vegetation which 
 furnish the means of annually renewing its fertility, the more 
 wiU our trees and bushes thrive; for the dead leaves of 
 autumn are the organic elements out of which the leaves of 
 summer are to be restored in the mysterious laboratory of 
 vegetation. They contain the carbon or humus, and the 
 alkaline substances essential to the support of growing plants ; 
 and although such substances can be obtained from the soil, 
 even if leaves are abstracted, yet they can never be so well 
 obtained as through the decay of those organs. 
 
LEAVES AEE THE MANURE OP TREES. 543 
 
 For these reasons the practice of removing the leaves which fall in 
 shrubberies, in order to preserve neatness, cannot be too much con- 
 demned. Such leaves, when dried, contain from 5 to 101b. of inorganic 
 matter, suited for the food of plants, in every lOOlbs. ; and this is 
 generally enclosed in a vegetable tissue, which runs rapidly to decay. 
 It is only otherwise with the hard leaves of certain resinous evergreens, 
 such as Pine-trees. Neatness, no doubt, must be observed ; and this 
 will be sufficiently consulted if leaves are swept from walks and lawns, 
 and cast upon the borders in heaps, where they may lie and decay tUl 
 the winter has arrived, when they can be spread upon the earth like 
 so much manure. 
 
 The subject of manures has been most fully and ably treated 
 m both a theoretical and agricultural point of view by a great 
 number of accomplished chemists, whose works of themselves 
 form a small library,* to which the reader is referred. In this 
 place it would be superfluous, even were it possible, to present any 
 other than the slightest possible sketch of so great an enquiry. 
 
 In considering the action of manure there are two points 
 which more especially demand attention — the one, what constir 
 tutes the more important part of the food of plants in general : 
 the other, what special food certain kinds of plants are known to 
 
 * Among these may he more partioulaily mentioned the foUovritng ; — 
 
 Anderson, in the Jowmal of the Highlamd, Society. 
 
 Boussingaiilt, Eamomie Rwale consid4r4e dwns ses rapports avec la Chimie, la 
 PAygigue, et la MMorologie. 
 
 Vawa, A Milch Mammal for Fa/rmers. 
 
 Daubeny, Three Leclmrea on Agrioidtv/re, Papers m the Jowrnal of the Agricultu/ral 
 Society, &e. 
 
 De Qasparin, Covers cl! Agriedtm-e, 
 
 Dumas, Chemistry of Orgamio Life. 
 
 Johnson, J. F. W., Lectures on Agrwultwral Chemistry, and Agriculfv/ral Chemistry. 
 
 Lawes, Vanoms Papers imthe Cfardeners' Chronicle, Jowmal of SoyalAgricvltwral 
 Society, Transactions of British Association, &c. 
 
 Xiebig, Chemistry in its Applications to AgriauMwe and Physiology. 
 
 Mulder, Chemistry of Vegetaile and Animal Physiology, 
 
 Payen, Chimie IndustrieUe, 
 
 Playfeir, in Morton's Encyclopwdia of Agricultwe. 
 
 Sohubler's Agricultu/r-Chemie, 
 
 Solly, E., Rural Chemistry, aaid Various Papers in the Tramactions of the horti- 
 cultural Society, &o. 
 
 Sprengel, Chemie der Pfla/neen, Bodenhmde, Lehre von Danger, Lehre «om den 
 
 Voloker, in Morton's Encyclopaedia of AgricuUwre. 
 
 Way, in Morton's Encyclopcedia of Agricultare, and in the Jownal of the JRoyai 
 Agriailtwal Society, 
 
Sii CAEBONIC AdlD. 
 
 thrive upon. The first has been already very slightly adverted 
 to (pp. 38 and 29), but must now be more fully examined. 
 
 Nothing can be taken into the system of a plant while in a 
 solid state. To be suited to absorption, it is indispensable that 
 matter should be gaseous, or fluid, or soluble in water. 
 
 The most important gaseous substances are — 1, Carbonic 
 Acid ; 2, Nitrogen ; others may be practically disregarded.' 
 
 Carbonic acid. When a plant is exposed to high heat, it is 
 soon reduced, however delicate it may be, to a brown or black 
 substance. That substance is charcoal, which constitutes by 
 far the larger part of all vegetable structure. Charcoal is assimi- 
 lated by plants from carbonic acid, in which all atmospheric air 
 abounds ; the carbon or charcoal is separated by vital force, 
 and the oxygen is liberated. 
 
 Carbonic acid is formed slowly by all animal and vegetable 
 substances undergoing decay in the presence of moisture ; 
 hence in part the manuring value of decaying leaves, of vege- 
 table mould, of the excrements of animals, &c. 
 
 It has been doubted, indeed, whether it ia by the formation of carbonic 
 acid, that decaying vegetable matter acts beneficially, and it has been 
 imagined that what ia called hixmic acid, formed from decaying mould 
 by the action of alkalies is taken up directly by plants as food. 
 Opinion is generally unfavourable to this theory ; and since we know 
 from the experiments of De Saussure and others, and it is not indeed 
 denied, that dead vegetable matter disappears in consequence of its 
 gradually combining with oxygen, and forming carbonic acid, there is 
 no necessity for looking to some supposed action of humates ia order 
 to account for the manuring value of vegetable substances in a state of 
 decay. 
 
 It has been found that charcoal itself is highly beneficial 
 when introduced into the soil, and it has been inferred that even 
 charcoal acts by its property of assuming a gaseous form when 
 combined with oxygen. But chemists believe that it is rather 
 by virtue of its porosity, whence it derives the jpower of con- 
 densing gaseous matter, and slowly parting with it again, that 
 charcoal acts beneficially. According to Mitscherlich, "the 
 cells of wood-charcoal have a diameter of about -rjVo of an 
 inch, and if a cubic inch consisted entirely of cells, their 
 united surface would amount to 100 square feet. By expe- 
 
CHARCOAL. 545 
 
 riment it can be shown that the cells constitute -f-ths of the 
 whole cuhic contents of the charcoal; and allowing for the 
 space occupied by the charcoal, the actual surface of the cells 
 would be about 73 square feet. When charcoal is plunged into 
 carbonic acid gas, it absorbs into its cells no less than 56 
 times their cubic contents at the ordinary temperature and 
 pressure, and consequently the gas is condensed to 56 atmo- 
 spheres. But according to the experiments of Adami, car- 
 bonic acid liquefies under a pressure of 36'7 atmospheres, and 
 we are hence compelled to conclude that above one-third of the 
 carbonic acid which is condensed on the walls of the cells is in 
 the hquid state." 
 
 Of late years a great deal lias been said of the value of charcoal in 
 soil. Experiments have shown that in powdered charcoal alone plants 
 flourish with an extraordinary degree of vigour ; charcoal has been 
 recommended as the best of substances in which to strike cuttings, and 
 by degrees it has gained a reputation which nothing now can shake. 
 It is true that some experiments with it have failed, owing, probably, 
 to its having been used in too fine a state, or to other accidental causes ; 
 nevertheless, the opinion of practical men is setting steadily in its 
 favour. Messrs. Loddiges employed it advantageously in the cultivation 
 of Orchidaceous plants, charring the wooden blocks on which they are 
 attached : that practice was introduced beneficially at Chatsworth, and 
 nothing can be more striking than its good effects in other gardens, 
 where a few weeks sufH.ce to give a dark green healthy colour to the 
 plants attached to charcoal blocks. By mixing it with the soil of 
 Orange-trees their health is increased in a remarkable degree ; and it 
 is used largely as an ingredient in the soil employed by Mr. Barnes for 
 the production of the fine Pine-apples of Bictoni This may be in part 
 ascribed to the mechanical action of charcoal, and to its freedom from 
 insects ; or, as chemists maintain, it may be owing to the power 
 possessed by charcoal of condensing within its pores carbonic acid and 
 other gaseous substances which are slowly yielded up to plants as they 
 are required ; or it may arise from a slow formation of carbonic acid, 
 as Mr. Eigg ascertained to occur ; for in six weeks he obtained more 
 than half a cubic inch (.64) of carbonic acid from 50 grains of soft Elm 
 charcoal ; and we know from experience the softer the charcoal the 
 better it is suited to cultivation ; as indeed is shown by Peat charcoal, 
 a most valuable substance for gardeners. 
 
 Fortunately it matters little in practice whether charcoal acts bene- 
 ficially on plants by forming gaseous compounds from its own substance, 
 or by seizing them from the atmosphere, locking them in its pores, and 
 then releasing them as plants require them for their food. That it does 
 
546 CARBONIC ACID. 
 
 feed plants, and most abundantly, is proved by evidence that cannot be 
 controverted. 
 
 " The great utility of charcoal and wood ashes," writes a correspondent 
 oi ^6 Gardeners^ Chronicle, "being admitted on all hands for gardening 
 purposes, I would direct attention to the necessity of a somewhat syste- 
 matic course of procedure in the mode by which it is made. Whilst 
 the felling of trees, the ' stocking' of hedges, or thinning of woods are 
 proceeding, is the time to lay in a considerable stock for the year. The 
 process of burning is most simple. I begin by burning all the largest 
 of the brush as a centre of operations ; following up with the smaller 
 wood ; and when in a due state of combustion, covering the whole with 
 a rough refuse of the kitchen garden, which has been twelve months in 
 collecting. Finally, a coating of turves or soil — double if turves ; the 
 latter being reserved for prime potting purposes. The material thus 
 managed will furnish large masses of charcoal for Orchids, &e. ; smaller 
 lumps for drainage to pots ; and wood-ash in abundance for dressing 
 seed-beds, for any plants which require fresh material." 
 
 Being heavier than atmospheric air, carbonic acid has a 
 constant tendency to fall to the earth and to settle down among 
 its crevices, even if it is not carried thither in water. Hence 
 we find it abundantly in wells, drains, old sewers, and similar 
 places, in which, if moisture be present, roots develope with 
 prodigious rapidity. (See page 20.) 
 
 Boussingault and L6wy have ascertained experimentally that the 
 quantity of carbonic acid in the soil is very much beyond what has 
 been supposed, especially if it has been recently manured, as appears 
 from the following statement : — 
 
 In its normal condition atmospheric air contains ,0004 in volume of 
 carbonic acid. In soil, on the contrary, twelve months after the appli- 
 cation of manure, from 22 to 23 times as much were found, and in land 
 recently manured as much as 245 times in weight. If, however, the 
 object is to ascertain the quantity of carbonic acid that is placed at the 
 disposal of the plants growing in the soil, the proportion contained in 
 the air confined in its pores wiU not suffice. It is necessary, then, to 
 know the quantity of air in a given volume of earth. This volume may 
 be easily estimated by saturating the soil with water, as the volume of 
 air displaced will exactly equal the volume of water introduced. Some 
 of the main results of the experiments, instituted for this second object, 
 are stated by the authors as follows : — 
 
 1. The air inclosed in a hectare (10,000 square metres, 11960,33 
 square yards) of arable land, one year after being manured, contains as 
 much caibonio acid as 18,000 cubic metres of atmospheric air. That is 
 to say, inasmuch as taking the average depth at 35 centimetres (about 
 
NITROGEN. 547 
 
 14 inches), the hectare contains 3500 cubic metres of soU, the carbonic 
 acid in. the soil in proportion to that in the air, volume for volume, is 
 as 36:7. 
 
 2. In the same quantity of land recently manured, the carbonic acid, 
 under certain circumstances, may be represented by that contained in 
 200,000 cubic metres of normal air, or in the proportion of 400 : 7. 
 
 3. In the loamy subsoil of a forest, taking the average depth, as in 
 the former instances, the amount is that contained in 5000 cubic metres, 
 or as 10 : 7. There are of course more or less especi^il cases, for every 
 shade of difference is capable of occurring under peculiar data. In the 
 sandy subsoil of a forest, for instance, the proportion, as compared with 
 the loam in No. 3, was only as 1 : 2.76. 
 
 Nitrogen, or azote, abounds in all the young parts, especially 
 while in rapid growth; as organs become old it disappears. 
 It is evidently connected with high vitality, whatever its exact 
 action may be ; and is as indispensable to the growth of a plant 
 as carbonic acid itself. The atmosphere consists of 79 per 
 cent, of nitrogen and 21 per cent, of carbonic acid. But 
 whether or not plants obtain their nitrogen in its pure state 
 from the atmosphere is uncertain. There is no doubt, how- 
 ever, that in the form of ammonia (an acrid gaseous compound 
 of nitrogen with hydrogen) it is eagerly consumed, provided it 
 is first reduced to the state of a soluble salt so as to lose its 
 causticity. The carbonate, sulphate, muriate and nitrate of 
 ammonia are all common forms of the substance, and being 
 soluble in water are readily absorbed by all parts of the live 
 surface of a plant. Lime has the power of decomposing these 
 salts and setting free their ammonia, for which reason lime 
 should never be used in conjunction with them. Nitric acid (a 
 compound of nitrogen with oxygen) is also another source of this 
 element, whence arises the great manuring value of nitrates ; 
 it exists abundantly in the atmosphere, as is shown by the 
 experiments of M. Barral, quoted at p. 29. 
 
 Like carbonic acid, ammonia is condensed and detained in porous 
 bodies. Mr. Way was the first who drew attention to the remarkable 
 power which soils generally have of absorbing ammonia and its salts. 
 It had always been believed that all porous soils possessed the power of 
 condensing ammonia, and it had likewise been long known that, in 
 addition to this, which might be called a merely mechanical effect, certain 
 soils possess the power of absorbing or fixing ammonia, in consequence 
 
 N M a 
 
548 AMMONIACAL GAS. 
 
 of certain chemical agents present in them ; but other facts seemed to 
 point to some physical property belonging to most soils, in consequence 
 of which they possessed these powers. Mr. Way's experiments show 
 the great absorptive power which the soil has; and give us some 
 evidence of the mode in which this power practically operates. It 
 appears that, if strong liquid manure, or a strong solution of ammonia 
 in water, is filtered through a portion of soO, the ammonia wiU be 
 absorbed, and the liqxiid which passes through will be found to contain 
 no ammonia. It is plain, therefore, that the small quantity of carbonate 
 of ammonia which rain-water usually contains, wiU be absorbed by the 
 surface soil, and that in a very heavy shower of rain, sufficient to render 
 the soil thoroughly wet to a considerable depth, there is no fear that the 
 ammonia thus supplied to the soil will be washed away by the con- 
 tinuance of the rain. "It is also evident," says a writer in the 
 Gardeners^ Chronicle "that, when land is flooded, the ammonia 
 which the water contains will be for the most part arrested by the soil 
 over which it flows. The great fertilising effects produced in Egypt 
 by the waters of the WUe, in its periodical floods, were no doubt partly 
 due to this cause ; the benefit resulting not from the small quantity of 
 slimy mud which the water left behind, but from the saline matters 
 which it brought with it, and which were absorbed and retained by the 
 surface of the soil as the water flowed over it. Mr. "Way's experiments 
 show that a good soil (one which contains a reasonable quantity of clay, 
 which is essential to this effect) has the power of thus absorbing or 
 fixing ammonia in whatever state that substance is presented to it ; it 
 is the same whether the ammonia is in its free and uncombined form or 
 whether it is united to some acid constituting a neutral salt. In the 
 former case the ammonia is directly absorbed, and the water passes off 
 entirely deprived of it ; in the latter case the salt appears to be decom- 
 posed under the influence of this peculiar power of absorption, the acid 
 with which the ammonia was previously combined uniting to lime or 
 some other base present in the soil." 
 
 Wherever animal matters are decaying there ammoniacal gas 
 is evolved. Throvsm into the air in the form of a carbonate, it 
 is immediately dissolved in the vapour eternally present, and 
 when that vapoiu- is precipitated as rain it is conveyed to the 
 earth and to all the foliage that intercepts it. Absorbed by the 
 leaves, sucked up by the roots, it adds intensity to the green 
 colour and vigour to all the powers of vegetation. How it acts 
 is immaterial ; that it does act, and with admirable effect, is 
 now undoubted. 
 
 " The nitrogen of putrefied animals," says Prof. Liebig, "is 
 contained in the atmosphere as ammonia, in the state of a gas 
 
MANURING PLANTS THROUGH THEIR LEAVES. 549 
 
 which is capable of entering into combination with carbonic 
 acid, and of forming a volatile salt. Ammonia in its gaseous 
 form, as weU as all its volatile compounds, is of extreme 
 solubility in water. Ammonia, therefore, cannot remain long 
 in the atmosphere, as every shower of rain must effect its 
 condensation, and convey it to the surface of the earth. Hence, 
 also, rain-water must at all times contain ammonia, though not 
 always in equal quantity. It must contain more in summer 
 than in spring or in winter, because the intervals of time 
 between the showers are in summer greater ; and when several 
 wet days occur, the rain of the first must contain more of it 
 than that of the second. The rain of a thunderstorm, after a 
 long-protracted drought, ought, for this reason, to contain the 
 greatest quantity conveyed to the earth at one time." 
 
 TMs fact has been occasionally applied to the improvement of the air 
 of glass-houses, by mamiritig plants through their leaves. When the 
 philosopher of Giessen demonstrated the important truth that ammonia 
 is derived from the atmosphere, a new light was thrown upon the 
 refreshing and invigorating effect of heavy rains, which act, not 
 merely by their water, as once was thought, but also by the car- 
 bonate of ammonia which they bring down. So far as agriculture is 
 concerned this is, however, a truth devoid of possible application, 
 because the volatile carbonate cannot be advantageously used, arti- 
 ficially, through the agency of the atmosphere. But it is otherwise 
 with gardeners, who have to create an artificial atmosphere in a con- 
 fined space. It is not a little remarkable, then, that so simple an 
 agent, so easily procured, and applicable with so little trouble, should 
 have scarcely ever been employed in hot-houses in the proper manner. 
 Where it has been used it has been almost invariably when dissolved 
 in water, and applied with a syringe. 
 
 The carbonate of ammonia of the atmosphere is suspended, dissolved 
 in invisible vapour. In this state it is incessantly in contact with 
 every part of the foliage. When rain falls, the ammonia disappears 
 for the moment, passing downwards in the rain-drops to the ground, 
 and thence arriving at the roots of plants. But if it is in gardens first 
 dissolved in water, and then thrown upon plants with a syringe, natural 
 conditions are by no means imitated. It reaches no part except that 
 on which the water falls, half the upper surface and nearly all the under 
 surface of the foliage is missed, and it is scarcely detained even upon 
 the parts which the water actually touches. The proper course is to 
 throw it into the air ia the form of gas. This is easily effected in the 
 following manner. When a greenhouse or hothouse is shut up, warm 
 
550 EFFECT OF AMMONIACAL MANURE. 
 
 arid damp, rub upon the heated pipes, the flues, or a hot piece of metal, 
 a small piece of carbonate of ammonia with some water (not dry) j the 
 peculiar smell of smelling salts will be instantly perceived, and if this 
 is done at the two ends of a house, as well as in the middle, the air 
 will rapidly receive a sufficient charge of the substance. After it has 
 been allowed to remain about the plants for a short time, some gardeners 
 syringe their houses freely ; but it is doubtful whether that is the best 
 plan, provided the air of the house is naturally damp. The effect of 
 this simple application is very remarkable, quickly producing a visible 
 change for the better in the appearance of the plants. 
 
 But caution must be used in the application. A piece of carbonate 
 of ammonia as large as a shilling is sufficient for one charge in a stove 
 40 feet long ; and it is indispensable that it should be volatilised by 
 rubbing it in water, otherwise its causticity is too great, and leaves are 
 burnt. 
 
 It is no doubt owing to the quantity of carbonate of ammonia 
 which they evolve, that " dung-linings " have been foimd so much 
 more conducive to healthy vegetation, than heating materials of any 
 other kind. An experienced gardener gives the following directions 
 for employing it in Cucumber pit^ heated by hot water : — Use it twice 
 a week, in the following manner. When you close the pit for the 
 night, place a bit of the carbonate (pure), about the size of a large 
 garden Pea, alternately back and front, under each light, on a small 
 piece of glass, but dip the glass first in water, to wet it. The surface 
 of the soU and interior of the pit should also be slightly syringed or 
 otherwise moistened, in order that a quantity of moisture or vapour 
 may be formed in the atmosphere at the time of the application ; then 
 shut up close for the night. The only caution required is to take care 
 to procure pure carbonate of ammonia, and to use it only in a moist 
 atmosphere, for it is much more caustic in dry than in moist air. 
 
 The effect of ammoniaoal manure is to promote the growth 
 of all the green parts, the colour of which becomes rapidly 
 more intense under its influence. In excess it causes rank- 
 ness, that is to say, it forces the vegetable tissue to form faster 
 than it can consolidate, and in such a state plants are pecu- 
 liarly subject to the attack of mildew. It is weU known among 
 farmers that rank corn is certain to mildew; rank potatoes 
 suffer more from the same cause than such as form slowly; 
 and the fact has been also observed in the case of the Vine 
 disease. Whether the presence of nitrogen in excess is pecu- 
 liarly favourable to the development of all kinds of fungi, 
 which is probable, or whether they merely attack rank plants 
 
PUTEID YEAST— WATEI^-LIME. 551 
 
 because they are in a state of debiKty, is at present one of 
 those uncertain subjects which are greatly in need of careful 
 experimental investigation. 
 
 Putrid yeast is one of the most powerful of the nitrogenised manures ; 
 and it consists chiefly of fungi in a state of decay. The dark green 
 colour assumed hy the grass of fairy rings seems to show how large a 
 quantity of nitrogenous matter Agarics possess. The property which 
 such manure possesses of causing an excessive production of green parts 
 is apparently exemplified by the tendency which Roses, manured with 
 rank matter, have to form such green leaves in their centre as are 
 represented at page 84. 
 
 The only natural fluid which is of itself a food for plants is 
 water ; and there can be Httle doubt that, independently of its 
 important offices as a solvent and a vehicle of other matters, it 
 does directly contribute to Vegetable nutrition. It forms more 
 than half the weight of fresh vegetables. When introduced iuto 
 a plant it is decomposed and recomposed under the influence 
 of vital force. Its energy is increased by an augmentation of 
 temperature, to which may no doubt be ascribed, in part, the 
 powerful effect of bottom-heat. 
 
 Of Soluble Substances those which need engage the 
 attention of the gardener are chiefly, 1, Lime ; 2, Potash ; 
 3, Soda ; 4, Phosphoric acid ; and 5, Sulphur. 
 
 Lime. — When this substance is mixed with decayiag matter, 
 it hastens its decomposition, and renders it more easily assimi- 
 lable by plants. This is its chief horticultural value, if regarded 
 as a manure. (See p. 528.) In old cultivated land rich in 
 humus it suddenly increases productiveness in a remarkable I 
 degree, increasing the properties of dormant animal or vege- 
 table manure. Hence it has a most important effect in kitchen 
 gardens. But Umed land soon loses its productiveness unless l 
 manure is subsequently applied ; and poor soils are soon run ( 
 out by it. To some plants, such as many Conifers, it is inju- 
 rious ; to others it appears to be an indispensable article of 
 food, such as Potatoes, Saiatfoin, Barley, Beet-root, Peas, 
 Clover, &c. It also expels ammonia from manure. 
 
 Combined with sulphuric acid it forms Gypsum (Sulphate of 
 
552 LIME. 
 
 Lime). This substance is considered to act in two ways : — 
 directly, as food for plants, to which, being soluble in water, it 
 supplies sulphur and lime ; and, indirectly, by its action on the 
 volatile carbonate of ammonia, which, wherever they meet, it 
 "fixes." In this latter respect it acts in the soil on the 
 ammonia of rain-water, as it does when applied to our dung- 
 hills. Between sulphate of lime and carbonate of ammonia, 
 when they meet in solution, a double action ensues ; each of 
 these salts is decomposed, and their elements unite in the forms 
 of carbonate of lime and sulphate of ammonia : the advantage 
 of the change arising from this latter salt of ammonia not being 
 volatile as the carbonate is. The ammonia, the most important 
 ingredient in manures, and the most fertilising element of rain- 
 water, is thus retained for the benefit of the soil — safe from 
 risk of loss by evaporation to the air again. Gypsum has been 
 found to benefit green crops, as the Turnip, Cabbage, Potato, 
 &c., and leguminous crops, as the Clovers, &c., more than 
 grain crops. The results of numerous experiments have been 
 published : much greater importance was at one time attached 
 to the manure, especially on the Continent, than subsequent 
 experience has justified, and accordingly its influence on a 
 variety of plants has been tested in every possible way. Those 
 who are curious on the subject wiQ find a long and interesting 
 chapter upon it in Boussingault's Rural Economy. Johnston's 
 Agricultural Chemistry, too, is as instructive upon the theory 
 and use of gypsum as it is upon all the other points regarding 
 manures, soils, and plants which come within its province. 
 
 As to the rate at which this manure should be used, that of 
 course is dependent upon the composition of the soil and of 
 the plants for whose benefit it is to be applied : points so 
 difficult and expensive to ascertain, that the common practice 
 of sowing 4 or 5 cwt. per acre broadcast over the young plant 
 in spring must in general be adopted. And when applied 
 along with farm-yard manure, for the purpose of retaining the 
 ammonia evolved during the fermentation of the mass, it must 
 be used in the same rough way. It is cheap, and of itself 
 useful as a fertiliser, independently of its indirect value as a 
 fixer of ammonia. The theory of its action in this latter 
 
GYPSUM— GAS-LIME. 553 
 
 respect would probably require in the case of rich manure 
 nearly 1 cwt. of it to every ton — a quantity much greater than 
 is generally used, though 30 cwt. and upwards per acre have 
 been recommended by some writers. 
 
 M. Mene, however, says, that from numerous experiments 
 he arrives at the following conclusions : — 
 
 1. That gypsum has by itself no fertilising power, and is 
 useless as a manure if employed alone. 
 
 2. That gypsum is only useful when mixed with substances 
 containing ammonia ; in which case there is a double decom- 
 position, and the ammonia is stored up for the use of the 
 plants. 
 
 3. That for gypsum may be substituted any other salt which 
 will fix ammonia, and render it not volatile at the ordinary 
 temperature. 
 
 Gas-lime, or " Blue Billy," a substance poisoaous to plants, has been 
 oooaaionally employed incautiously as a manure, because it contains a 
 large quantity of foetid matters wMcb bave been tbougbt to be beneficial. 
 Manufacturers of fraudulent Guano employ it to scent tbeir worthless 
 compounds. Dr. Ure, speaking of this substance, says, it " contains and 
 easily affords so much of the cyanic compounds that an eminent Parisian 
 chemist has taken out a patent in France for manufacturing prussic 
 acid and Prussian blue from that refuse. The only obstacle to the 
 profitable working of this patent is the accompanying sulphurets, which 
 discharge a great deal of sulphuretted hydrogen, along with the vapour 
 of prussic and sulphooyanio acids ; an aerial mixture of the most intense 
 malignity to breathing animals." And he goes on to say that "that 
 vile refuse should be buried many fathoms deep in some barren region, 
 for when spread on the farmer's field, after discharging the above 
 gaseous poison for some time, its sulphiir gets oxygenated into sulphur- 
 ous acid, two volatile products alike detrimental to plants." Without 
 going into the chemistry of the subject, it is sufficiently obvious that 
 fresh gas-lime is a dangerous agent, wholly unfit for use in confined 
 places. 
 
 It must not, however, be therefore inferred that gas-lime is worth- 
 less or dangerous when properly applied. Its deleterious qualities 
 disappear upon exposure to the air ; sulphuretted hydrogen and 
 sulphurets are speedily decomposed by contact with air and moisture ; 
 and any other pernicious matters which it may originally contain 
 disappear, or enter into harmless combinations. Gas-lime is therefore, 
 when old, a good calcareous manure, fit for the purposes iu which Ume 
 is required — and something more ; for the sulphur-compounds which it 
 
POTASH— SOAPBOILERS' KEF USE. 
 
 contains themselves act as valuable manures, as soon as their intensity 
 is destroyed by diffusion through masses of earth. Such at least 
 appears to be the general opinion of practical gardeners. 
 
 Potash. — The ash which is left after wood or other vegetahle 
 matter is burnt, consists to a great extent of Potash, an alkali 
 which seems to be indispensable to healthy vegetation. In 
 uncleared countries the trees are burnt for the sake of this 
 substance, which, after proper treatment, becomes the pearlash 
 of the shops. It occurs in all plants, and with Soda and Lime 
 is regarded by Liebig as specially destined to serve as a base 
 for the organic acids of vegetation. In its caustic state it actd 
 on decaying matter like Lime ; as a manure it is only known 
 in the form of some salt, of which the carbonate, chloride, and 
 nitrate alone deserve mention. The carbonate is the common 
 form in which it appears in wood-ashes. The periodical 
 burnings of whole districts of heather, or bushes, or grass 
 land, so common among savage. nations, is for the purpose of 
 manuring land with carbonate of potash, after which the 
 scorched land is rapidly covered with a briUiant coat of green. 
 The chloride exists in soapboilers' refuse, a good manure, whose 
 efficacy is chiefly owing to this salt. Nitrate of potash (or 
 Saltpetre) has a great influence on vegetation, promoting vigour, 
 and rendering the tissues solid. It probably owes its action in 
 part to the nitrogen it contains, and in part to the potash. 
 
 ( According to Persoz, potash contributes directly to the formation of 
 
 ^ flowers and,_fridt, and therefore he recommends it to be applied to 
 the Vine in the following manner : " When it is wished that wood 
 should be developed, the Vines must be placed in. a trench and covered 
 with 3 or 4 inches of earth, with which have been mixed, for every 
 square yard of the surface of the trench, 8 lbs. of pulverised bone, 
 4 lbs. of pieces of skin, leather, horns, tanners' refuse, &o., and 1^ lb. 
 of gypsum. (Here ammonia is depended upon. ) 
 
 " When the wood is sufficiently formed, which will be in a year or 
 two, aooordiag to ciroumstanoes, the roots must be supplied with salts 
 r of potash, in order that the fruit may be produced. For this purpose 
 it is necessary to spread over the trench, at a distance of 3 or 4 inches 
 from the buried wood, for every square yard of surface, 5| lbs. of a 
 mixture formed of 8 lbs. of silicate of potash, and 2f lbs. of double 
 phosphate of potash and lime. The trench is then to be filled up, and 
 the roots have as much potash as they will want for a long time. To 
 
SOAPSUDS— SODA— SALT. 555 
 
 prevent, however, the exhaustion of the potash, it is as well to spread 
 every year at the foot of the stools a certain quantity of the marc of 
 grapes ; this marc containing 2.5 per cent, of carbonate of potash, will 
 restore annually a large proportion of the potash which may have 
 disappeared from the trench." 
 
 Soapsuds have an undoubted value because of their potash, irrespective 
 of the animal matter they contain. Upon Cabbages, Cauliflowers, and 
 all the Brassicaceous race they produce an immediate and very advan- 
 tageous effect. Potash constitutes the most valuable part of the ashes 
 left after a plant is burnt, and adds powerfully to the fertilising effect ( 
 of all composts to which they are added. 
 
 Vegetable or wood ashes are esteemed the very best manure by the 
 Chinese. The weeds, which are separated from the land by the 
 harrow, with what they otherwise are able to collect, are carefuUy 
 burnt, and the ashes spread. The part of the field where this has been 
 done is easily perceived by the most careless observer. Indeed, the 
 vigour of the productions of those parts of their land where the ashes 
 have been applied, is evident as long as the crop continues on the 
 ground. The ashes of burnt vegetables are also mixed with a great 
 variety of other matters in forming the compositions which are spread 
 on the fields, or applied to individual plants. {Hort. Trans, v. 62.) 
 
 Soda is regarded by Liebig and otbers as a natural 
 equivalent for potasb, although it is present in much smaller 
 quantities iu the structure of plants. Weigman and Polsdorff 
 foimd that the Salsola Kali which naturally grows in pre- 
 sence of a salt of soda (chloride of sodium) grew quite as well 
 without soda if a salt of potash (chloride of potassium) 
 were present ; but that it would not^ grow in soil containing 
 neither one nor the other. Hence, if this be so, we must 
 infer that provided soil contains alkaline matter it is im- 
 material whether that matter be soda or potash ; and also that 
 the salts of soda have as good an effect on vegetation as those 
 of potash. This point wants further examination. In the 
 meanwhile it may suffice to say that the influence of the salts 
 of soda is very analogous to that of salts of potash, as we 
 believe we see in nitrate of soda and nitrate of potash. But 
 in these instances it is not at aU settled whether their good 
 effect is owing to their nitrogen or their alkali. 
 
 Common salt (chloride of sodium) is very frequently used as a 
 manure, and to plants naturally found on the sea-shore is indispensable. 
 The magnificent Asparagus of St. Sebastian owes its excellence in some 
 
566 ACTION OF SALT ON ASPARAGUS. 
 
 measure to the beds being inundated with sea- water at spring tides, as 
 we learn from Capt, Churchill, and we know that its influence is 
 extremely beneficial to this crop whenever it is applied while the plants 
 are making their growth. 
 
 The following testimony has been borne to its effect on Asparagus, in 
 the Gardeners' Chronicle: — " I forked into worn-out beds some manure 
 from an old Cucumber bed, levelled the surface, and completely covered 
 the beds with fine salt, at least a 5 of an inch in thickness, leaving it to 
 be washed in by rains. The result was that every weed was killed, and 
 the Asparagus has thriven in a remarkable degree, throwing up nume- 
 rous heads of large size and of excellent quality." With equally good 
 success another applied salt in summer at the rate of 2 lbs. per square 
 yard. A third in the spriag of ] 843, which was cold and wet, manured 
 his beds, 14 yards long and 1 wide, with salt at the rate of 2 lbs. to the 
 yard. He adds that, notwithstanding the unfavourable season, his 
 produce was greater and finer than ever he previously had it. In the 
 following year the same plan was adopted, the spring being dry and 
 frequently hot, and the produce was even greater and better in every 
 respect than that of the previous year. So satisfied is another corre- 
 spondent with the system of salting Asparagus beds, that he says : — ■ 
 "I have a bed 30 feet in length and 5 feet in width, on which I put 
 1 cwt. of salt about the middle of March for two years successively. 
 The increase of crop, both in regard to size and munber, is most extra- 
 ordinary ; I intend to continue 1 cwt. of salt for this bed every March." 
 In like manner other writers used salt at the rate of from 1 lb. to 
 2J lbs. per square yard with the most striking advantage, applying it 
 after cutting off the tops, and in spriag in rainy weather. From these 
 and numerous other instances it would appear that the beneficial effects 
 of salt as a manure for Asparagus is fuUy established, provided it is 
 applied at a proper period, which, in the majority of cases, has been 
 when the plant was in a growing state. Mr. Bree, of Stowmarket, 
 however, applied it with great advantage after dressing the beds ia 
 autumn, and again early in spring, using 1 lb. to a square yard. Ha 
 argues that the salt has to be washed through a considerable depth 
 of soil before it reaches the root, and when it does arrive there that its 
 caustic character will have materially altered by dilution and chemical 
 decomposition, and that it will do no harm then, but that it is injurious 
 when applied to the delicate texture of the young shoots late in the 
 spring. In the few oases in which salt has been said to be injurious, 
 the beds have either been in bad condition as regards drainage, or it 
 has been applied to beds newly formed, and therefore to plants with 
 wounded roots, for such recently planted Asparagus must be considered 
 to be, however carefully the plants may have been taken up. The 
 same may be said of Sea Kale : about 1-|- lb. is used to the square yard. 
 It is sometimes employed with advantage for Celery, but in that case 
 
GLAUBERS SALT— PHOSPHORIC ACID. 667 
 
 the dose should not be half so strong. Its general effects are not to 
 force plants and give them a dark colour, Kke ammonia, but to con- 
 solidate their tissues, and to render them crisp as well as succulent. 
 There is no sufficient proof of its preventing mildew, as has been often 
 asserted ; nor, on the other hand, is there any satisfactory disproof of 
 that statement. 
 
 Glaubers salt {sulphate of soda) has been occasionally recommended, 
 but it seems to have little value, and is hardly known in gardening. 
 It may produce such good effect as belongs to it as much by its sulphur 
 as its soda. According to Prof. Johnston it acts energetically on 
 Potatoes, Rye, Peas, and Beans, " not upon the straw but upon their 
 pods, increasing their number and enlarging their size." Dose, not 
 less than 1 cwt. of the dry salt per acre, applied dissolved in water, or 
 broadcast in wet weather. 
 
 Phosphoric Acid. — It has been long known that bones exercise 
 a very powerful effect upon plants. If broken bones are used 
 as the drainage of pots, roots soon find their way down to 
 them and pierce them. Bone-dust has been used for years as 
 a most valuable manure for Turnips when drilled in with the 
 seed. The pastures of Cheshire, exhausted by the continual 
 removal of grass by the animals that grazed upon them, 
 recover their fertility when dressed with bones. To what is 
 this owing ? It was at first thought that it was the animal 
 matter contained in them which gave the value. But boiled 
 bones, and bones burnt to an ash, proved to be as ef&cacious 
 as fresh bones. Then it was imagined that the lime contained 
 in bones produced the effect ; but lime used separately had no 
 effect. Hence it became an irresistible conclusion that it was 
 the phosphoric acid that in combination with lime (pfeosp/iate 
 of lime) constitutes bones, which principally caused such un- 
 accountable fertility. Hence arose the manufacture of super- 
 phosphate of lime, by Mr. Lawes, now so Ludispensable to 
 cultivators. By mixing bones with sulphuric acid, their lime 
 is in part seized upon by the acid, and converted into gypsum 
 or sulphate of lime, and in part remains combined with the 
 phosphoric acid, forming a superphosphate (or biphosphate) 
 which readily dissolves in water, and is thus immediately pre- 
 sented to plants in a form in which it can be absorbed. Mere 
 bones, on the contrary, part with their phosphoric acid slowly. 
 The practical consequence is that mere bones continue to 
 
558 PHOSPHATE AND SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIME. 
 
 produce an effect on land slowly but for a long time ; while the 
 effect of superphosphate, which act's immediately, soon dis- 
 appears. 
 
 Superphosphate of lime is prepared by pouring over bones their own 
 weight of sxilphurio (or hydrochloric) acid, or half their weight; 
 or by using their acids diluted with twice their weight of water, and 
 when effervescence has ceased adding to the mass terrified sawdust, 
 peat charcoal, bpne-dust, or any other dry powder, which will reduce it 
 to a state fit for drilling. Or it is mixed with a large quantity of water, 
 and used in a liquid form. Or it may be prepared by placing 1} bushel 
 of finely-ground bones in a tub, with half their weight of acid, diluted 
 with four times the quantity of cold water ; after some hours, a few 
 bushels of fine mould and some coal-ashes should be added, so as to 
 make the whole amount to 15 bushels of compost. This may be used 
 in three days after its preparation, but would be better if kept longer. 
 The mixture is to be applied at the rate of little more than 2 bushels 
 per acre ; when it successfully rivals 16 bushels of bones. Another 
 way is the following. Take a large but shallow tub, about 18 inches 
 deep (regulating the size according to the quantity required), spread 
 the bones at the bottom of the tub, and add suflieient water barely to 
 cover them, then pour in the acid, stirring the whole mass with a, 
 strong fork ; an immediate effervescence takes place, and the bones 
 will be sufficiently dissolved for use in 48 hours, or even less. To 
 prepare the compost, mix half the quantity of peat or wood ashes — 
 according to quantity of bones used, passing it, if necessary, through a 
 coarse sieve — and afterwards adding as much dry mould as the drill 
 requires. This plan is better than, dissolving the bones in a heap of 
 dry mould, because, without great care, the acid, when poured on the 
 bones, is apt to escape into the mould, therefore it is better to add the 
 water first ; a tub is better than an iron vessel ; sulphuric acid having 
 a great affinity for metal wiU soon destroy it, but it has no effect 
 upon wood. 
 
 If bones are to be used ^thout preparation it is best to buy half-inch 
 or inch bones, in order to avoid the frauds of dealers, who are apt to mix 
 plaster of Paris and other worthless materials with bone-dust. It has 
 also been suggested that it is advantageous to employ a preparation of 
 bone, which, being very flue, requires no digesting with sulphuric or 
 muriatic acid, and is both immediate and permanent in its effects : 
 that is to say, the sawdust of a button factory ; its effects are astonish- 
 ing. The progress of the plant after the first shower of rain is so great 
 that it has been employed by many gardeners with much advantage, 
 among other things upon Pine plants, and the effects were wonderful. 
 In 1842 Mr. Spencer, gardener at Bowood, used this bone-dust for 
 Pelargoniums, and with good results. The roots that were emitted into 
 
PHOSPHATES— SULPHUB. 659 
 
 the soil containing the bone-dust, were as large as moderate-sized 
 goose-quills ; and the plants, in consequence of their having such strong 
 and Tigorous roots, grew to a size almost incredible. And not only were 
 they large, but they were strong and vigorous enough to support their 
 trusses without the aid of sticks, although many of the trusses con- 
 sisted of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen flowers each. The plants had 
 only a few sticks at the commencement of their growth, merely to keep 
 the branches at regular distances from each other. The flowers were 
 half as large again as usual. Some of these plants kept up a succession 
 of flower from four to six months. A few that were " spotted " were 
 put in soil containing the bone-dust, and in ten days they had put on 
 so many young leaves as to completely hide the "spotted" ones. This 
 dust was purchased cheap at a button factory in Bristol in 1839, but its 
 value being soon ascertained, in 1842 the price was more than doubled. 
 It is obvious that bone-ash only differs from button-dust in the want of 
 animal matter. 
 
 The apparent effect of phosphates is to stimulate vegetation, 
 and to promote the formation of roots. It is in this way more 
 especially that they operate upon root crops, whose seeds form 
 their radicles rabidly under the influence of phosphoric acid, 
 and soon establish them securely in the ground beyond the 
 reach of dryness. All plants whose ashes have been examined 
 contain phosphates, which may therefore be regarded as universal 
 vegetable food. "Alkaline and earthy phosphates form in- 
 variable constituents of the seed of all kinds of Grasses, of 
 Beans, Peas, and Lentils." — Liebig. In Rhododendron ferru- 
 gineum they amount, according to Saussure, to 17'25 per cent. 
 To have any value it is, however, indispensable that they should 
 be soluble. Hence the insoluble phosphate of iron is useless 
 to vegetation. This is to be remembered in estimating the 
 worth of manure, for phosphates are now regarded as the most 
 important ingredient in manure, with the single exception of 
 ammoniacal salts. Hence when sewage water is deodorised by 
 salts of iron, the resulting phosphate being insoluble, the liquid 
 loses much of its value. 
 
 Sulphwr. — " Plants contain, either deposited in their roots or 
 seeds or dissolved in their juices, variable quantities of com- 
 pounds containing sulphur. In these nitrogen is an invariable 
 constituent. Two of the compounds contaiaing sulphur exist 
 in the seeds of cereal plants, and in those of leguminous 
 
560 SULPHURETTED HYDROGEN. 
 
 vegetables, such as Peas, Beans, and Lentils. A third is always 
 present ia the juices of all plants; and it is found in the 
 greatest ahundance in the juices of those which we use for the 
 purposes of the table." — Liebig. 
 
 This sulphur is obtained from the sulphates contained in 
 soil. Hence the value of such substances as sulphate of lime 
 (gypsum), of sulphate of ammonia formed when sulphuric acid 
 is brought into contact with carbonate of ammonia in dung- 
 hills, and of the foetid gas called sulphuretted hydrogen, which 
 is formed abundantly in the decomposition of animal matter. 
 
 Sulphur alone has been used to advantage as a manure. Not teing 
 soluble in water, it cannot pass as suob into the plants; still, if it is 
 well pulverised, it will be converted (by attracting the oxygen of the 
 air) into sulphuric acid, which wiU then unite with any bases of the 
 soU into a sulphuric salt. This process will most probably easiest take 
 place when the soil contains much carbonate of Ume, as the lime dis- 
 poses (by its great affinity for sulphuric acid) the sulphiir to unite 
 quicker with the oxygen of the air. It is, however, yery doubtful if 
 sulphur ooiild be used as a manure on a large scale. In addition to this 
 it is asserted that experiments have proved the utility of sulphurets 
 (combinations of sulphtir with the metals of Hme, soda, or potash) as 
 manuring substances. It is also stated that they destroy worms and 
 insects, most probably by developing sulphuretted hydrogen gas by 
 their decomposition. We have seen before, that gypsum and ashes 
 often contain sulphuret of calcium and sulphuret of potassium. Further 
 experiments have to prove whether these substances can ever be use- 
 fully employed in agriculture on a large scale. I have often used 
 potashes, containing much sulphuret of calcium, as a manure, but the 
 effect seemed neither good nor bad. — Sprengel. 
 
 The great objection to manures containing sulphuretted hydrogen 
 is its intolerable fcetor. " The offensive exhalations produced by putre- 
 fying matters arise," says Sehattenmann, "principally from the ilying 
 off of carbonate of ammonia and sulphuretted hydrogen gas : but if a 
 solution of sulphate of iron is thrown among such matters, a double 
 decomposition immediately takes place ; the sulphuric acid of the 
 sulphate of iron combines with the ammonia, and converts it into 
 a fixed salt; the iron combines with the sulphur, and forms a sul- 
 phuret of iron. The unpleasant smell of ammoniacal vapour and of 
 sulphuretted hydrogen disappears immediately, and the putrefying 
 matter that is acted on retains nothing more than a feeble odour, 
 which is not in the, slightest degree disagreeable." The objection to 
 this mode of disinfecting manure is that the phosphoric acid of munure 
 is likely to be converted into an iron phosphate and thus rendered 
 
COPPER— IRON— SILICA. 561 
 
 useless, and that the free sxdphurio acid attacks the straw and renders 
 it less capable of decay. 
 
 It thus appears that the important substances which are 
 required to form an artificial food for plants are 1, Carbonic 
 acid; 3, Nitrogenous compounds; 3, "Water; 4, Lime; 5, Potash; 
 6, Soda ; 7, Phosphoric acid ; and 8, Sulphur. For practical 
 purposes other matters may be neglected. 
 
 We are not, indeed, warranted in regarding the presence of iron, 
 copper, or other substances, in plants, ia minute quantities, as alto- 
 gether accidental and unimportant ; for I do not know what warrant 
 we have for saying that any of the constant phenomena of nature, 
 however minute they may seem to be, are accidental. It is certain, 
 that, where mineral substances occur abundantly in plants, they are 
 part and parcel of their nature, just as much as iron and phosphate 
 of Ume are of our own bodies ; and we must no more suppose that 
 grasses can dispense with silica in their food, or marine plants with 
 common salt, than that we ourselves could dispense with vegetable and 
 animal food. Copper occurs in Coffee, .Wheat, and many other plants 
 (it is believed in the state of a phosphate) ; iron, as a peroxide, in 
 Tobacco, John, in his experiments upon these matters, found that 
 the Ramalina fraxinea aiid Borrera oiliaris, two Uohens, contained a 
 great quantity of the last metal, although he could not find a trace of 
 it in the Fir-tree, on the topmost branches of which the lichens grew. 
 We cannot suppose that such things are the result of accident, and 
 that it is unimportant to the plants containing minerals thus con- 
 stantly, whether such substances are present in their soil or not ; but 
 we may be permitted to believe that all cultivated land contains as 
 much as plants require, and that they need not be supplied artifloiaUy. 
 
 In order to ascertain which of these is most important to a 
 given plant, recourse has been had to the analysis of the ashes 
 of plants, and we have a large quantity of evidence upon the 
 subject; the value of that evidence has, however, been much 
 disputed. An eminent chemist speaks with great disrespect of 
 the laborious analyses of Sprengel, and those of others have 
 been objected to on various grounds. There are, however, 
 certain great facts which are admitted. AU Grasses and Horse- 
 tails must have silica in abundance ; lime is indispensable to 
 the Vine, to Peas, Clover, Saintfoia, and Tobacco ; soda-salts 
 to mariae plants ; alkaline matter, especially potash-salts, to 
 land-plants, and especially to Conifers and other trees ; phos- 
 
562 FARM-TAED MANURE. 
 
 phates to plants yielding flour, the Jerusalem Artichoke, 
 Cabbages, Turnips, &c. On the other hand, Hme is injurious 
 to Heaths ; manures contaiuing much nitrogen to Conifers and 
 stone-fruits, and so on. 
 
 The progress of Chemistry has not, however, been able to 
 furnish the gardener with any considerable amount of such 
 detailed information as he can use; the application of soils 
 and manures to plants remains for the most part within the 
 routine of a/rt, and the gardener is still obliged to trust to his 
 dunghiU for the elements of fertility. The author is, there- 
 fore, content to leave the refinements of manuring within the 
 province of the chemist, and to point out the peculiar properties 
 of the manures in common use. 
 
 Farm-yard Manure, when well made, is probably the best of 
 all, because of the great variety of substances which it contains. 
 It owes its blackness to vegetable mould, its peculiar odour to 
 ammonia and sulphuretted hydrogen ; it acts mechanically by 
 the undecayed straws of which it consists, and it contains within 
 it all the alkaline and earthy salts and phosphates that were 
 locked up in the tissues of the various plants of which it is 
 composed. When wood-ashes, the ashes of coal, the highly 
 fertilising " house slops " of all kinds, consisting of urine, soap- 
 suds, grease, are carefuUy added, it becomes greatly improved ; 
 and if decaying animal matter is superadded, its nitrogenous 
 products are so increased as to render it necessary to weaJten 
 its force by mixing it with earth. For garden purposes such 
 manure is, however, inappropriate, except in the case of kitchen 
 garden crops like Cabbages, &c.. Celery, Asparagus, Sea Kale, 
 Lettuces, and the like. To fruit-trees it is injurious. When 
 otherwise used in gardens it requires to be reduced to the 
 condition of mere mould, when its nitrogenous constituents 
 shall have been much dispersed. 
 
 According to Ricliardsoii's analysis, 10,000 parts of farm-yard dung 
 contain 332 potasli, 273 soda, 34 lime, 711 phosphate of lime, 226 
 phosphate of magnesia. Boussingault found only 2 per cent, of nitrogen 
 in what he examined in the dry state ; and Richardson none at all : 
 from -which we must conclude, either that the substance examined was 
 badly made, or that the analyses are imperfect. 
 
GUANO— NIGHT SOIL. 563 
 
 Gardeners may substitute advantageously for farm-yard 
 manure the follovdng compost. In a hole or dry ditch deposit 
 during the year all the leaves, straws, vegetable refuse, that can 
 be collected; over these pour daily the "house slops." If 
 offensive smell arises stop it by Peat, or Peat charcoal, or any 
 substance which will advantageously deodorise putrescent 
 matter. Should gas-water be obtainable, an occasional drench 
 with this win be advantageous. To the whole add from time 
 to time all that remains after heaps of wood and cuttings have 
 been burnt. The " mixen " will contain all the eight sub- 
 stances by which plants are artificially fed. 
 
 Guano, the deposit of sea-birds on dry islands in the Pacific, 
 is the richest of all natural manures. It will contain, if of 
 good quality, in the best possible state for application to land, 
 about 17 per cent, of ammonia, and 35 per cent, of phosphate 
 of lime, upon which alone its value depends. But it is enor- 
 mously adulterated. 
 
 There is perhaps no garden crop which this does not suit, if not 
 applied too much at a time ; the liquid form -is preferred by gardeners. 
 It would be a most valuable ingredient in the compost just mentioned. 
 
 Night Soil. — This is a material of great energy, and was 
 probably one of the first substances employed by man when he 
 began to discover the value of manure. It forms the principal 
 resource of the Chinesej whose agriculture may be assumed, 
 owing to the unchanging habits of that people, still to bear a 
 strong resemblance to its primaeval condition. In its ordinary 
 state this is largely composed of water, and is rich in phosphates 
 and ammoniacal compounds ; but it runs rapidly into a state 
 of fermentation, evolving nauseous gases, and becoming too 
 offensive for employment in its natural state. Moreover, if so 
 used, it proves absolutely poisonous to vegetation unless it is 
 largely mixed with other substances, or diluted with water. 
 The most advantageous and economical manner of employing 
 it is to add powdered charcoal, peat, charred sawdust, or even 
 mere clay, daily, to the receptacles in which it is deposited, 
 by which means its peculiar gases are detained, and its offen- 
 sive odour destroyed. Lime should never be mixed with it, if 
 
 o 2 
 
664 PIGEONS' DUNG— BliOOD. 
 
 its value as a manure is to be preserved. Kitchen garden 
 crops, requiring strong manure, such as Asparagus, are those 
 to which it is most suitable. Trees, shrubs, and fruit-trees are 
 the least fit to receive its influence. 
 
 Various deodorised preparations of tMs substance are in the market, 
 under the names of Poudrette, animalised black, Poitevin's manure, 
 Dutob. or Flemish manure, &e. ; but such preparations are frequently 
 almost inert, in consequence of unskilful management on the part of 
 the makers. No state of night-soU is so active as that ia which it is 
 mixed with fine charcoal tUl its offensive odour is destroyed. Another 
 valuable preparation consists in mixing it with twice its weight of dry 
 bog earth, and the same weight of gypsvim in fine powder ; but in this, 
 as in aU other cases, the urine belonging to it should never be allowed 
 to run to waste. 
 
 Pigeons' Dung approaches nearly to guano in its effects. In 
 Persia dove-cotes are kept in the midst of the plains for the 
 purpose of securing this valuable dejection. The Persians use 
 it, as the Peruvians use guano, by mixing a small quantity in 
 the soil in which their Melons and other crops are planted. 
 Wherever it has been tried in this country, it has been found 
 of the greatest energy. The only danger in using it is that it 
 may be too strong and burn. The Belgians employ it as a top- 
 dressing for flax. "When fresh it contaias about 23 per cent. 
 of ammoniacal and alkaline salts, besides a considerable 
 quantity of phosphoric acid. It deteriorates by keeping. 
 
 " A plant of Heath (Erica australis, I believe) was placed under my 
 care in the spring of 1823, with a request that I wotild treat it in any 
 way I wished. It was then about eight iuches high, and growing in 
 a small quantity of peat earth and sand ; and in that it continued to 
 grow with very little increase of size till the foUbwing spring. From 
 that period it was regularly supplied with water, which, though clear, 
 was considerably tinged with an infusion of pigeons'-dung. I was 
 apprehensive this kind of food would prove fatal to it ; but far from 
 this being the result, the plant grew with excessive health and 
 vigour, emitting very numerous branches, eight of which exceeded 
 eighteen inches each in length. It was then taken away by the owner 
 of it, and I have not since seen or heard of it, but it left me in a state 
 of luxuriant health." — Knight in Sort. Trans., vii. 183. 
 
 The Blood of Animals, when dried, yields about 17 per cent, 
 of ammonia, but no phosphoric acid. Mr. Way suggests that 
 
HAIR— MALT-DUST— SAWDUST. 565 
 
 it should be mixed with mineral superphosphate of lime. It 
 has been much praised as a manure for Orange-trees and 
 the like. 
 
 Hair, horns, shavings, and refuse matter of a similar nature, 
 are very like blood in their action, as they are in their compo- 
 sition, each containing about 17 per cent, of nitrogen. They, 
 however, decompose much more slowly, and may be used 
 advantageously wherever ammonia is to be formed slowly but 
 permanently. Vine borders are improved by them, and to 
 Hops they seem to be of specific value. 
 
 Malt-dust, the dried radicles of barley, is very rich in 
 nitrogen. It is employed as a top-dressing for lawns, or to 
 promote the formation of roots by sifting over ground about to 
 be turfed. Its effects are powerful but transient. 
 
 Oilcake, in powder, has also a highly energetic though 
 transitory action. Its great value consists in giving an impulse 
 to vegetation in the early stages. 
 
 SawdMSt, Spent Tan, and similar refuse woody materials, 
 have no value in gardening until they have been rotted down or 
 charred; on the contrary, they are apt to injure the soil to" 
 which they are applied. This has, however, been denied. 
 
 ".The following experiment with. Strawberries in tan I saw made near 
 Edinburgh.. The soil was very light, and appeared unfit for their 
 growth, yet finer fruit or of better flavour I have seldom seen. This 
 was entirely owing to a covering of old tanner's bark, about an inch 
 thick, being applied between the rows. The bark not only kept the 
 ground moist and the fruit clean, but it is the material of all others in 
 which this plant most delights. Many persons may have remarked 
 how almost all plants, but particularly the Strawberry, wiU root into 
 the old tan of a bed in which they have beenj forced, and yet because 
 they know new tan will kiU weeds, they do not think it valuable as a 
 manure. In the same garden were beds of Strawberries which had 
 not been covered, but after growing, and flowering well, these bore no 
 fruit worth gathering (a very common thing if the soil is too light) ; 
 others were almost burnt up, whilst those to which the tan had been 
 applied were luxuriant, and the ground was covered with fine runners 
 fit to plant out, though the fruit was just in perfection — an uncommon 
 circumstance near Edinburgh." — I. R. Pearson, Chikvell. 
 
 Bmnt Clay. — ^Why burnt clay should be better than that sort 
 of soil in its ordinary condition, is sufficiently obvious. Its 
 
56& BURNT CLAY. 
 
 texture is changed. In its natural state it is so adhesive, that 
 air cannot get into it, nor water out of it. It also offers great 
 mechanical opposition to the. passage of roots through its viscid 
 mass, and hence it is exclusively inhabited by a coarse and 
 worthless vegetation. Burning changes all this ; the particles 
 of clay lose their adhesiveness, and this alone gives a new 
 character ,to the soil, which offers freedom to the entrance 
 of air and exit of water, and which crumbles readily away 
 beneath the advancing roots of a soft and succulent race of 
 plants. Such changes are in themselves most important ; but 
 this is not aU the difference between burnt and unburnt clay. 
 The roots of plants, which were before unable to decay, are 
 reduced by fire to their saline constituents, and so enrich the 
 land. And, moreover, the burnt particles of clay acquire the 
 power of absorbing ammonia from the air, and holding it within 
 their pores till showers fall and wash it into the land, where it 
 immediately acts as a nourishing food to the crops. 
 
 Mr. W. Paul, of Cheshunt, says, " It lias .been the custom here for 
 some years, in spring, when the operations of pruning, &c. are ended, 
 instead of suffering the rough branches to lie about, presenting an 
 untidy appearance, to collect them in a heap, and build a waU. of turf 
 round them in a semicircular form, about three feet high. They are 
 then set fire to, and when about half burnt down, such weeds and other 
 rubbish as collect in every garden, and will not readily decompose, are 
 thrown on the top, and earth is gradually cast up as the fire breaks 
 through. During the first two or three days no ordinary care is requi- 
 site to keep the pile on fire, but after this, if the fire is not allowed 
 to break through and thus expend itself, it will certainly spread 
 through the whole heap, and almost any amount of soU may be burnt 
 by still adding to the top. The soil we burn is the stiffest loam that 
 can be found within our limits, and is rather of a clayey nature ; also 
 turf from the sides of ditches and ponds, in itself naturally sour and 
 full of rank weeds. The clay thus burnt has been found beneficial in 
 every instance. In black garden mould, where Peach-trees were dis- 
 posed to sucker and oanker, despite of animal manures and drainage, 
 two or three annual dressings of burnt earth appear so to have altered 
 the soil that they now grow clean, vigorous, and healthy, are free from 
 suckers, and produce roots completely matted with fibre. The like 
 success has attended its application to other fruit-trees. During the 
 summer of 1842, six beds of Tea-scented Roses, growing in an alluvial 
 loam (the adjacent fields are of the same soil, and grow large crops of 
 
BURNT CLAY. 567 
 
 Wheat and Potatoes, but the particles of soil run together after rain, 
 and present a smooth cemented surface) were manured with the follow- 
 ing substances, \iz,, 1, bone-dust ; 2, burnt earth ; 3, nitrate of soda ; 
 4, guano ; 5, pigeon-dung ; and 6, decomposed stable manure. The 
 guano produced the earliest visible effects, causing a vigorous growth, 
 which continued through the season,- the flowers, however, were 
 not so abundant, and the shoots did not ripen well, and were conse- 
 quently much cut with the frost. The bed manured with burnt earth 
 next forced itself into notice ; the plants kept up a steadier rate of 
 growth, producing abundance of clean, well-formed blossoms ; the wood 
 ripened well, and sustained no injury during winter. The results of 
 the other manures were not remarkable — acting as gentle stimulants, 
 the nitrate of soda and bone-dust least visibly so — although they were 
 applied in the quantities usually recommended by the vendors. From 
 the fact of the beds of Roses being all planted at the same date, and 
 their progress being carefully watched, I would suggest the application 
 of burnt earth as an excellent manure for Roses in adhesive soils, as 
 weU as for fruit-trees where disposed to canker, "Whether it acted by 
 furthering drainage, or by opening the soil to the fertilising influences 
 of the atmosphere, or by fixing the ammonia conveyed to the soil by 
 rain, I do not pretend to say, but its value is sufficiently apparent. 
 I believe it is considered that the vegetable matter contained in 
 soils is destroyed by the act of burning ; and I do not think the 
 remains of the materials used in combustion could exercise any extended 
 influence, as the quantity compared with the earth burned is so smaU, 
 and the earth comes from the heap burnt red and hard, and a great 
 portion qtiite free from the substances used in ignition," This ia con-^ 
 firmed by Mr. Rivers, another eminent Rose-grower, and by Sir Oswald 
 Mosley, who makes the following remarks : — " I have had for some 
 time past several of these burning heaps in the environs of my garden, 
 which produce us in succession a very valuable manure : they are 
 easily kept in a state of combustion, and aU the care they require is, to 
 cover and surround them occasionally with fresh clay or marl, that 
 they may not burst out into an open flame. My gardener sowed 
 two beds of Onion-seeds of the GHobe, James's Keeping, and Strasburg 
 sorts, mixed together, about the 10th of March last, with one pound of 
 seed to each bed. The beds were each of them eighteen yards by twelve 
 yards, and one of them was manured with good stable dung; the other 
 by this mixture of burnt clay and vegetable ashes. The produce of 
 the first did not exceed five bushels of an inferior size, the greater part 
 having been destroyed by the larva of the Onion-fly, whilst that of 
 the latter was twenty bushels of Onions, as large as those imported 
 from Portugal. Another remarkable circumstance is, that the former 
 have not kept well ; but the latter are as soxmd as possible, not a 
 single bulb in the strings showing the least appearance of decay. The 
 
668 GREEN MANtTKES. 
 
 same burnt mixture haa been applied withequal suooeas in my fruit- 
 garden. I had observed a great decrease in my crop of Apricots for 
 several years past, and upon a careful investigation as to the cause, my 
 gardener and I agreed that it must be owing to the tenacity of the 
 border ; we therefore had the old soil removed, and a quantity of this 
 burnt mixture with a little fresh loam substituted for it. My gardener 
 planted the border so renewed with runners of Eeen's Seedlingg in 
 rows ; they became strong plants by June, when they flowered and 
 produced an abundant crop, and all my Aprioot-trees were covered 
 during the summer with well-ripened fruit. I am so fully persuaded 
 of the excellence of this kind of manure, that I intend to adopt it 
 generally on my farm. It will there have a double advantage ; for I 
 shall be enabled to save the farm-yard dung for composts, and I shall 
 have the gratification of seeing my hedges neatly trimmed and my 
 ditches well cleared out. Our stiff soils wiU be also rendered more 
 friable, and wiU not suffer as they now do from the retention of wet on 
 the surface." 
 
 Green Manure is, perhaps, for many places, the best of all, 
 inasmuch as it consists of young highly nitrogenous matter, 
 ready to pass immediately into fermentation and decomposition, 
 and to restore to the earth all that it has abstracted, as soon 
 as it is buried. Moreover, if the plants used for this purpose 
 are tap -rooted, they bring up from the depth of the soil a large 
 quantity of alkaline and earthy matter, and leave it near the 
 surface, within reach of the roots of plants with less power of 
 penetration. 
 
 It has been said that by this method the most infertile soils 
 may be rapidly rendered productive. Lupines, Borage, Eape, 
 Spurry, or in fact any crop that forms large leaves and grows 
 fast, being sown close, and dug in as soon as they are ready to 
 come into flower, rapidly enrich land poor in organic matter, or 
 exhausted by repeated cropping, and render it fit for renewed 
 cultivation. If crops suited to the climate are selected for this 
 purpose, two or three crops will succeed each other in the same 
 year, and each contribute their quota to the soU. It is also 
 said that, owing to the increased temperature of soil thus 
 treated, owing to the fermentation of the green matter buried, 
 each successive crop grows faster and adds more than that 
 which preceded it. In this way barren sands are said to have 
 been rendered fertile, and exhausted kitchen gardens are 
 
GREEN MANURES. S69 
 
 known to have been speedily renovated. It is no objection to 
 this mode of treatment, which is of great antiquity, to say 
 that it has only a temporary value, because the same must be 
 said of any other way of manuring. 
 
 The following experiments attest the value of the practice : — 
 " I received &om. a neighbouring farmer a field naturally barren, 
 and so much exhausted by iU management, that the two preceding 
 crops had not returned a quantity of corn equal to that which had been 
 sowed upon it. An adjoining plantation afforded me a large quantity 
 of Fern, which I proposed to employ as manure for a crop of Turnips. 
 This was cut between the 10th and 20th of June ; but as the small 
 cotyledons of the Turnip-seed afford little to feed the young plant, and 
 as the soil, owing to its extreme poverty, could not yield much nutri- 
 ment, I thought it necessary to place the Fern a few days in a heap, to 
 ferment sufB.oiently to destroy life in it, and to produce an exudation 
 of its juices ; and it was then committed, ia rows, to the soil, and the 
 Turnip-seed deposited with,a drilliag machine over it. Some adjoining 
 rows were manured with the black vegetable mould obtained from the 
 site of an old wood-pile, mixed with the slender branches of trees in 
 every stage of decomposition, the quantity placed in each row appearing 
 to me to exceed more than four times the amount of the vegetable 
 mould, which the green Fern, if equally decomposed, would have 
 yielded. The crop succeeded in both cases, but the plants upon the 
 green Fern grew with greatly more rapidity than the others, and even 
 than those which had been manured with the produce of my fold and 
 stable-yard, and were distinguishable in the autumn from the plants 
 in every other part of the field by the deeper shade of their foliage." 
 — Knight, in Sort, Trans., i. 260. 
 
 A writer in a Bavarian weekly journal recommends sowing Borage, 
 and when it is full grown ploughing it down. The good effects of 
 this plant as a green manure he has proved by long experience. 
 What renders it preferable to most other plants for this purpose is the 
 great quantity of soda and other salts which it contains. It may be 
 sown in AprU, and ploughed down in August in time to be followed by 
 Wheat. {Gardeners' Magazine, i. 200.) 
 
 "I had been engaged in the year 1810 in some experiments from 
 which I hoped to obtain, new varieties of the Plum, but only one of the 
 blossoms upon which I had operated escaped the excessive severity of 
 the frost in the spring. The seed which this afforded, having been 
 preserved in mould during the winter, was in March placed in a small 
 garden-pot, which was nearly filled with the living leaves and roots of 
 grasses, mixed with a small quantity of earth, and this was sufficiently 
 covered with a layer of mould, which contained the . roots only of 
 grasses, to prevent in a great measure the growth of the plants which 
 
570 TIME TO APPLY MANUEB. 
 
 were buried. Tlie pot, which contained about one- sixteenth of a 
 square foot of mould and living vegetable matter, was placed under 
 glass, but without artificial heat, and the plant appeared above the 
 soil in the end of April. It was three times during the summer re- 
 moved into a larger pot, and each time supplied with the same matter 
 to feed upon ; and in the end of October its roots occupied about the 
 space of one-third of a square foot, its height above the surface of the 
 mould being then nine feet seven inches. In the beginning of June a 
 small piece of ground was planted with Potatoes of an early variety, 
 and in some rows green Fern, and in others Nettles, were employed 
 instead of other manures ; and, subsequently, as the early Potatoes 
 were taken up for use, their tops were buried in rows in the same 
 manner, and Potatoes of the preceding year were placed upon them 
 and covered in the usual way. The days being then long, the ground 
 warm, and the decomposing green leaves and stems affording abundant 
 moisture, the plants acquired their full growth in an unusually short 
 time, and afforded an abundant produce, and the remaining part of 
 the summer proved more than sufficient to mature Potatoes of an early 
 variety." — Knight in Sort. Trans., i, 249. 
 
 Provided manure is of a permanent character, it does not 
 very much, matter at ^what time it is administered, because, if 
 it does not act at first, it will sooner or later ; but when it is 
 of such a nature as to be easily dissipated, like malt-dust, or 
 soot, or putrid yeast, a knowledge of the proper season becomes 
 extremely necessary. Plants wiU not receive the influence of 
 / manure so readily at any season as when they are in the most 
 \ rapid and steady growth ; because at that time the absorbing 
 lorce of their roots, and their vital energies, are all greatest. 
 It is for this reason that a top-dressing is almost useless to a 
 lawn at midsummer, but better in the spring, and best of all in 
 October. If applied at midsummer, the ground is dry, the 
 herbage closely shorn, and the vegetation extremely languid, 
 partly in consequence of the constant operation of the mower, 
 and partly because our summertide is the winter of herbage 
 grasses, which only flourish in the cool and damp seasons of 
 the year. When a top-dressing is applied in the spring, the 
 lawn profits by it so long as it continues to grow vigorously ; 
 but the quick approach of summer daily interferes with the 
 force of this kind of vegetation, and diminishes the effects of 
 the manure. On the contrary, if October is the season chosen 
 for the operation, the grasses are then beginning to grow 
 
MANNER OF ITS APPLICATION. 571 
 
 steadily, the operations of the mower are, or should he, sus- 
 pended, and there are seven clear months at least during which 
 the effects of the manure continue to he felt. 
 
 It may be indifferent at what season such manures as bones, 
 and other kinds of matter which decompose very slowly, are 
 employed ; yet there can be no doubt that upon every known 
 principle they also should be given at a time when vegetation 
 is most active, or about to become, so ; hence the every-day 
 practice of digging manure into the borders of a garden in 
 spring, or shortly before an annual crop is about to be com- 
 mitted to the soil. 
 
 As to the manner of applying manure, it must be obvious 
 that it can be of no use unless it is in contact with the ahsorbing 
 parts of the roots ; now those parts are the young fibres and 
 spongioles, as has been already stated, and, when plants have 
 arrived at any considerable size, the roots form the radii of a 
 circle whose circumference is the principal line of absorption. 
 This being so, if a plant has arrived at the state of a bush or 
 tree, it is useless to apply manure to the base of the stem, 
 because that is precisely where the power of absorption is the 
 weakest, if it exists at all ; and, as the circle formed by the 
 roots is generally greater than that of the branches, the proper 
 manner of applying manure is, to introduce it into the ground 
 at a distance from the stem about equal to the radius formed 
 by the branches. And yet, although this is so evidently right, 
 I have seen a gardener, who ought to have known much better, 
 sedulously administering liquid manure, by pouring it into the 
 soil at the base of the stem ; which is much the same thing as 
 if an attempt were made to feed a man through the soles of 
 his feet. 
 
 Manure may be applied in either a solid or liquid form. 
 The former gradually parts with its fertilising properties ; the 
 latter communicates them instantly. When solid manure is 
 used a certain, and perhaps large, portion of what is volatile is 
 lost; of liquid manure the whole may be a;bsorbed, or safely 
 deposited within reach of roots, if precautions are taken 
 against its running to waste. The application of solid manure 
 is costly, in consequence of the labour which attends it : liquid 
 
572 SOLID AND LIQUID MANURES. 
 
 manure, on the other hand, if distributed by either superficial 
 or subterranean channels, reaches plants at a comparative 
 small cost. On the other hand solid manure acts not merely 
 in its capacity of nutriment, but as an effectual means of 
 counteracting the natural tendency of soil to consolidation, a 
 tendency which liquids, repeatedly applied, augment. It 
 "keeps the land open." Moreover, it parts with its nutrient 
 qualities, slowly, giving plants time to absorb them, and not 
 overfeeding them at one time, while at another it starves them. 
 The last-mentioned advantage on the part of solid manure is, 
 however, less than it seems to be, for in consequence of the 
 facility of its application, liquid manuring may be repeated 
 over and over again without difficulty or material expense. 
 Upon the whole it seems to be now generally admitted that 
 when circumstances favour its application on a great scale it is 
 preferable to solid manure ; and that in the finer operations of 
 gardening its superiority, under all circumstances, is incon- 
 testable. 
 
 Cultivators who know nothing of manure except from the action of 
 the solid, and sometimes not very useful, materials produced in farm- 
 yards, cannot believe that half-a-dozen crops of Grass per annum are 
 possible, each heavier than the preceding. Nevertheless, such crops are 
 attained by skilful men, and wUl one day be common. Liquid manure 
 works the wonder ; it operates like the overflow of the Nile or the 
 Indus. Where such periodical floods occur, they soak the land within 
 their reach with the rich ingredients dissolved or suspended in their 
 waters, and this, combined with the high temperature of the land itself, 
 forces on vegetation at a rate unknown with us, except where liquid 
 manure is expeditiously and abundantly administered. That being 
 done we have the heavy and frequent crops of Messrs. Huxtable, 
 Dickinson, Kennedy, Telfer and others. Grass begins to grow ; it is 
 deluged with liquid manure ; on goes the crop, exhausting the land, 
 but rapidly forming an abundant swathe ; it is cut. Instantly after- 
 wards the exhaustion is made good by a new torrent of liquid manure, 
 which restores fertility and something more ; up springs the crop again ; 
 again it yields itself to the scythe, but more abundantly than ever. 
 The process of liquid manuring continues to be repeated with the same 
 results as long as the season permits of growth ; and it may be repeated 
 for ever. What is true of a Grass fleld is equally true of a Cabbage 
 garden, of Celery, Peas, Lettuces, Asparagus, and all kinds of garden 
 stuff, so far as the power of liquid manure in causing exuberant growth 
 is concerned. 
 
LIQUID MANURE. 573 
 
 In delicate horticultural operations, liquid manure, prepared 
 by steeping dung or other fertilising matter in water, and 
 drawing off the latter when clear, is most generally now ■ 
 employed, and is undoubtedly the best form in which it can be 
 administered, in consequence of its concentration, the facility 
 of its administration in any quantity, and its containing 
 nothing but soluble matter. It was first used by Knight, 
 who not only applied it with much advantage to fruit-trees, 
 but also to Heaths and other flowers ; and it is, with the 
 exception of bone-dust, the form of manure best adapted to all 
 plants in pots. 
 
 Among the many receipts for making liquid manure, the following 
 are the hest : — One gardener recommends, as " a composition which is 
 within everyhody's reach, and which has benefited every plant to which 
 he has applied it, — soot, dissolved, or rather mixed, with rain-water, 
 in the proportion of one tablespoonful of soot to a quart of water for 
 plants in pots, but for Asparagus, Peas, &o., six quarts of soot to a 
 hogshead of water. It must never be applied to plants in a state of 
 rest. It succeeds admirably with bulbs." Another great grower, 
 though writing anonymously, says, " Liquid manure is within the 
 reach of every small gardener who possesses a supply of water and a 
 common watering-pot, or an old barrel. Idle boys are plentiful enough, 
 and will gladly pick off a common a bushel of sheep's dung for a shilling. 
 If this cannot be procured, guano is excellent ; 1 lb. of either to six 
 gallons of water may be applied to the roots of most plants to much 
 advantage. Annuals, Pelargoniums, Verbenas, Calceolarias, and similar 
 ornamental plants are astonishingly improved by a watering twice 
 a- week, especially in dry weather, when these things suffer, and flower 
 in consequence weakly. The culinary department will also repay the 
 cultivator for similar attention. Cauliflowers, Celery, Cabbage, &o., 
 can scarcely have too much liquid manure. Twice every week will do 
 immense service. There is no better prevention of mildew on Peas than 
 this — the crop will be greatly increased by its application, and the 
 quality infinitely raised." Mr. Errington suggests some kinds of urine, 
 combined with good guano in solution, for plants in pots. " I have 
 used this mixture constantly for the last two years, and its effects on 
 many plants is quite astonishing. Sometimes I use that from the cow- 
 house, sometimes horse refuse ; and I am not prepared at present to 
 point out any perceptible difference. I have a reservoir in which these 
 fluids lay to ferment a fortnight ; they are then transferred to another, 
 when I add highly clarified guano-water, made by dissolving the best 
 Peruvian guano, in clear tepid water, after the rate of four ounces to 
 every gallon of the above fluids. My Camellias surprise every one 
 
57* HOW TO APPLY LIQUID MANUEB. 
 
 who sees them ; they are so dark a green that they are almost black, 
 whilst the texture of the leaves is like that of the Hoya carnosa, and 
 the buds, with which they are covered thoroughly, are of immense size. 
 Fibrous masses of soil, in conjunction with thorough drainage, coupled 
 with the constant use of weak and highly clarified liquid manure, 
 constitutes, in my opinion, the ne plus ultra of plant cultivation, as far 
 as the root management is concerned." 
 
 / In order that the full effects of liquid manure should be felt, 
 
 /without injurjj.it is indispensable, — 1, that it should be weak, 
 
 / and frequently applied ; 3, that it should be perfectly clear ; 
 
 ( 3, that it should be administered when plants are in full 
 
 Vgrowth. If strong it is apt to produce great injury, because of 
 
 the facility with which it is absorbed, beyond the decomposiug 
 
 and assimilating power of plants. If turbid it carries with it, 
 
 in suspension, a large quantity of very fine sedimentary matter, 
 
 which fills up the iuterstices of the soil, or, deposited upon the 
 
 roots themselves, greatly impedes their power of absorption. 
 
 If applied when plants are torpid it either acts as in the case 
 
 of being over strong, or it actually corrodes the tissues. 
 
 " Sir Joseph Paxton collects at Chatsworth the manure water from 
 water-closets, horse-dung linings, and various other sources, into large 
 covered tanks ; the waste, also, from a small bath is emptied into one 
 of these, by which means the solution becomes very thin. The liquid 
 so coUeoted passes almost immediately into a state of incipient or partial 
 decomposition, and thus becomes fit for the food of vegetation ; when 
 drawn off for use, it is always greatly diluted with water, and never sup- 
 plied except when the plants are in a state of aetivity and growth; other- 
 wise he considers the effects would in many cases be prejudicial, rather 
 than otherwise. It is used by him liberally to Vine-borders, Peach- 
 trees, Melons, Cucumbers, Pines, and other fruits, with the most power- 
 ful and satisfactory results ; in fact, the use of plant food in a liquid 
 state, if properly prepared and administered, supersedes in a great 
 degree the necessity for manure in a solid form ; and the produce in 
 favour of the liquid greatly preponderates, being both larger in quantity 
 and weight, richer in colour, and superior in flavour. These advan- 
 tages, however, could not be secured with certainty, unless the solution 
 were so prepared as to suit the habits and requirements of the various 
 plants to which it is supplied. This preparation is of two kinds : — 
 First, by diluting the liquid sufficiently with water to prevent the 
 spongioles of roots becoming glutted with too great a supply of food ; 
 and, secondly, rendering it of a proper temperature by the addition of 
 hot water. Pines reqxdre the liquid at about a heat of 80° Fahr,, and 
 
HOW TO APPLY LIQUID MANURE. 575 
 
 other plants ia proportion ; fruit-frees, and other open-air products, 
 
 however, do not necessarily require the addition of hot water to the 
 
 same extent as in-door produce, but are, notwithstanding, much 
 
 heneflted by receiving it in a moderately warm state. Wherever a 
 
 steam-engine is employed. Sir Joseph Paxton's practice of artiftcially 
 
 warming the liquid manure might be easily adopted, by allowing some 
 
 of the waste steam to blow through the tank or pipe. Experience has, 
 
 however, amply shown that, for ordinary crops, sewerage in its usual 
 
 state is' the most valuable manure that has yet been introduced. By 
 
 attention chiefly to the proper administration of liquid food, and other 
 
 suitable appliances, the Pine-apple, a plant formerly considered of so 
 
 slow a growth as to require three years before it could produce fnll- 
 
 sized fruit, has by Sir Joseph been so hastened in its growth as to yield, 
 
 within an average of fifteen months, a far greater supply of finer fruit 
 
 than was formerly produced by three years' expense and labour. From 
 
 every day's experience, an instance or two out of a multitude might be 
 
 cited by way of illustrating that even a much shorter period than fifteen 
 
 months is not unfrequently sufficient to accomplish all that could be 
 
 desired. An ordinary sucker of a Providence Pine was detached from 
 
 the old stock during the month of March, and was planted out in a 
 
 prepared bed of soil in a pit, and in the following August it produced a 
 
 ripe weU-grown fruit, weighing 8 lbs. Two suckers also of a Cayenne 
 
 Pine were separated and planted out ia April, and in the following 
 
 September one of them produced a fruit weighing 7| lbs., and the other 
 
 one 8 lbs. A large pit of Cayenne suckers of various sizes were planted 
 
 out in a pit last spring, and in the autumn the fruit, when ripened, 
 
 gave an average of one pound in weight for every month the plants had 
 
 grown. These were not isolated or extraordinary instances of early 
 
 production, but the common and natural result of this system of culture, 
 
 which stimulates to extraordinary growth, and the most perfect deve- 
 
 lopement. The efiects of liquid manure, when applied to the roots of 
 
 Vines in pots, and on rafters, and to Cucumbers and Melons, are 
 
 equally apparent ; the leaves assume a rich deep colour, become 
 
 large and spreading, the growth is rapid and healthy, and the produce 
 
 is invariably fine, plump, and becomes quickly matured." — Board of 
 
 Sealth ^Report. 
 
 Let the manure he extremely weak ; it owes its value to matters 
 that may be applied with considerable latitude ; for they are not abso- 
 lute poisons, like arsenic and corrosive sublimate, but only become 
 dangerous when in a state of concentration. Gas-water illustrates 
 this ; pour it over a plant in the caustic state in which it comes from 
 gas-works, and it takes off every leaf, if nothing worse ensues. Mix 
 it with lialf-water^ — still it burns ; double the quantity once more — it 
 may still burn, or discolour foliage somewhat. But add a tumbler of 
 gas-water to a bucketful of pure water, no injury whatever ensues ; 
 
576 HOW TO APPLY LIQUID MANUEK. 
 
 add two tumblers full, and still the effect is salubrious, not injurious. 
 Hence it appears to be immaterial whether the proportion is the 
 hundredth or the two hundredth of the fertilising material. Manur- 
 ing is, in fact, a rude operation, in which considerable latitude is 
 allowable. The danger of error lies on the side of strength, not of 
 weakness. To use liquid manure very weak and very often is, in fact, 
 to imitate nature, than whom we cannot take a safer guide. This is 
 shown by the carbonate of ammonia carried to plants in rain, which is 
 not understood to contain, under ordinary circumstances, more than one 
 grain of ammonia in 1 lb. of water ; so that in order to form a liquid 
 manure of the strength of rain-water, 1 lb. of carbonate of ammonia 
 would have to be diluted with about 7000 lbs. weight of water, or more 
 than three tons. Complaints which have been made against guano- 
 water and the like are unquestionably referable to their having been 
 used too strong. 
 
 Iiet such manure he applied only when plants are in a growing slate. 
 In addition to Sir Joseph Paxton's evidence, and to the general notoriety 
 of this rule, may be usefully added a statement made by Mr. Mitchell, 
 Lord EHesmere's gardener, and quoted by the Board of Health, This 
 experienced cultivator says " That he has never seen any manure 
 produce so good a crop of Strawberries as the liquid («. e. town or sewer 
 manure) has this year done at the Worsley Hall gardens. Manure," 
 he adds, " often causes a crop of Strawberries to be lost, by forcing the 
 growth of leaves. Liquid may be applied just when the plants are 
 forming their Jlower-huds, and the strength of the manure is spent in 
 producing fruit, not leaves. When the plants were bearing, it could 
 be seen to a plant how far the irrigation had extended." 
 
 It must be borne in mind — 1, that liquid manure is an agent ready 
 for immediate use, its main value depending upon that quality ; 2, that 
 its effect is to produce exuberant growth ; and 3, that it will continue to 
 do so as long as the temperature and light required for its action are 
 sufficient. These three propositions, rightly understood, point to the 
 true principles of applying it ; and, if they are kept in view, no mis- 
 takes can well be made. They render it evident that the period in the 
 growth of a plant, at which it should be applied, depends entirely upon ■ 
 the nature of the plant, and the object to be gained. 
 
 If, for example, wood and leaves are all that the cultivator desires to 
 obtain, it will be evident that liquid manure may be used freely from 
 the time when buds first break, until it is necessary that the process of 
 ripening the wood shall begin. Wood cannot ripen so long as it is 
 growing ; wood will continue to grow as long as leaves form, and its 
 rate of growth will be in direct proportion to their rate of develop- 
 ment ; therefore, in order to ripen wood, growth must be arrested. 
 But the growth of wood will not be arrested so long as liquid manure 
 continues to be applied, except in the presence of a temperature low 
 
TIME TO MANURE FOE PKUIT. £77 
 
 enough to injure or destroy it. Hence it is obvious that liquid manure 
 must be wiljhheld from plants grown for their wood and leaves, at the 
 latest, by the time when two-thirds of the season shall have elapsed. 
 To administer it in such cases towards the end of the year would be to 
 produce upon it an effect similar to that caused by a warm wet autumn, 
 when even hardy trees are damaged by the earliest frost. 
 
 In the case of flowers it is to be remembered that the more leaves a 
 plant forms the fewer blossoms in that season ; although, perhaps the 
 more in a succeeding season, provided exuberance is then arrested. 
 The application of liquid manure is therefore unfavourable to the 
 immediate production of flowers. It is further to be remarked, that 
 even although flowers shaU have arrived at a rudimentary state at a 
 time when this fluid is applied, and that therefore their number cannot 
 be diminished, yet that the effect of exuberance is notoriously to cause 
 deformity ; petals become distorted, the coloured parts become green, 
 and leaves take the place of the floral organs, as we so often see with 
 Eoses grown, with strong rank manure. In improving the quality of 
 flowers liquid manure is therefore a dangerous ingredient ; nevertheless 
 its action is most importajit, if it is rightly given. The true period of 
 applying it, with a view to heighten the beauty of flowers, is undoubt- 
 edly when their buds are large enough to show that the elementary 
 organisation is completed, and therefore beyond the reach of derange- 
 ment. If the floral apparatus has once taken upon itself the natural 
 condition, no exuberance will afterwards affect it ; the parts which are 
 small will simply grow larger, and acquire brighter colours ; for those 
 changes in flowers which cause monstrous development, appear to take 
 effect only when the organs are in a nascent state — at the very moment 
 of their birth. Hence it is clear, that in order to affect flowers advan- 
 tageously by liquid' manure, it should be given to plants at the time 
 when the flower-bud is formed and just about to swell more rapidly. 
 
 With fruit it is otherwise ; the period of application should there be 
 when the fruit, not the flowers, is beginning to sweU. Nothing is 
 gained by influencing the size or colour of the flower of a fruit-tree ; 
 what we want is to increase the size or the abundance of the fruit. If 
 liquid manure is applied to a plant when the flowers are growing, the 
 vigour which it communicates to them must also be commxmicated to 
 the leaves ; but when leaves are growing unusually fast, there is some- 
 times a danger that they may rob the branches of the sap required for 
 the nutrition of the fruit ; and if thg,t. happens, the latter falls off. 
 Here, then, is a source of danger which must not be lost sight of. Wo 
 doubt, the proper time for using liquid manure is when the fruit is 
 beginning to swell, and has acquired, by means of its own green 
 surface, a power of suction capable of opposing that of the leaves.. At 
 that time, liquid manure may be applied freely, and continued, from 
 
578 MANURE FOB ROOT-CROPS. 
 
 time to time, as long as the fniit is growing. But, at the first sign oi 
 ripening, or even earlier, it should be wholly withheld. The ripening 
 process consists in certain changes which the constituents of the fruil 
 and surrounding leaves undergo ; it is a new elaboration, which can 
 only be interfered with by the continual introduction of crude matters, 
 such as liquid manure will supply. "We all know that when ripening 
 has once begun, even water spoils the quality of fruit, although i1 
 augments the size ; as is sufficiently shown by the Strawberries pre- 
 pared for the London market, by daily irrigation. Great additional 
 size is obtained, but it is at the expense of flavour ; and any injurj 
 which mere water may produce, mU. certainly not be diminished bj 
 water holding ammoniacal and saline substances in solution. 
 
 Koot-erops stand in. a different position to any of the foregoing, 
 They are most analogous to the fiist of the above cases ; for their rooti 
 may be compared to wood, of which they are equivalents. But theri 
 is this important difierenoe, that whereas the quantity of wood is ir 
 direct proportion to the quantity of leaves, the reverse is the case witl 
 root-crops. The Turnip that throws up an enormous tuft of leaves hai 
 a very small bulb ; and so of the Carrot. In these plants the root ii 
 formed by the leaves ; but only when they themselves cease growing 
 vigorously. The true object is to obtain plenty of foliage early enougl 
 to afford time for the after formation of the root. This is what happens 
 under ordinary circumstances. The leaves grow rapidly during the 
 warm weather of early autumn ; but when the temperature falls, theii 
 own development is languid, and all their energy is expended ir 
 augmenting the mass below them. By the constant application o: 
 liquid manure a Turnip might be absolutely prevented from forming 
 more root than a Cabbage. In root-crops what is wanted is ai 
 abundant supply of liquid manure when the leaves are forming, so a 
 to secure early a large and vigorous foliage ; after which no liqui 
 manure whatever ought to be applied. This is quite consistent witl 
 the evidence collected by Mr. Dudley Fortescue, and published in th 
 Minutes of the Board of Health. Speaking of Mr. Kennedy's farm i 
 Ayrshire, this gentleman says : " Of the Turnips, one lot of Swede 
 dressed with ten tons of solid farm manure, and about 2000 gallons c 
 the liquid, having six bushels of dissolved bones along with it, wa 
 ready for hoeing ten or twelve days earlier than another lot dresse 
 with double the amount of solid mamire without the liquid applicatioi 
 and were fully equal to those in a neighbour's field which had receive 
 thirty loads of farm-yard dung, together with three cwt. of guano an 
 sixteen bushels of bones per acre ; the yield was estimated at forty toi 
 the Scotch acre, and their great luxuriance seemed to me to justify tl 
 expectation. From one field of White Globe Turnips sown later, ar 
 manured solely with liquid, from forty to fifty tons to the Scotch aci 
 was expected. A field of Carrots treated in the same manner as tl 
 
SUBTEKRANEAN lEEIGATION. 579 
 
 Swedes, to which a second application of liquid was given just hefore 
 thinning, promises from twenty to twenty-five tons the acre." 
 
 There is a mode of applying liquid manure, not by super- 
 ficial channels, but by underground pipes, filled from a head, 
 which would force the manure upwards into the soil by virtue 
 of its own pressure. There is no doubt that this plan, which 
 was, I believe, first proposed by the Eight Hon. T. F. 
 Kennedy, lately one of H.M.'s Commissioners of Woods, &c., 
 is theoretically the best. The sole objection to it is the cost 
 of its application. The Dutch do nearly the same thing by a 
 method mentioned below, and it may be conceived that a 
 combination of the two methods would be preferable to either. 
 
 Mr. Prideaux remarks that "the Dutch, who are admirable gardeners, 
 had in. the Great Exhibition an instrument called ' Earth-borer,' for 
 manuring fruit-trees without digging the ground. A circle of holes is 
 bored round the tree, at two feet distance from the tree, and a foot from 
 each other. Taking the tree at a foot diameter at the surface of the 
 soil, the circle will be five feet diameter and fifteen feet circumference ; 
 and if the holes are three inches diameter and a foot apart = fifteen 
 inches, there will be about twelve holes ; more or less according to the 
 diameter of the tree. They are eighteen inches deep (where there is 
 enough depth of soil), and slanting towards the centre ; are filled with 
 liquid manure, diluted more or less in dry weather, and stronger as the 
 weather is wetter." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Absorptiok, force of, in spongelets, 19 
 
 most energetically carried 
 
 on by the spongioles, 456 
 power of, poBsesaed by cer- 
 tain soils, 548 
 
 rate of, in certain plants, 59 
 
 Acetate of lime, solution of, rejected by 
 
 roots, 27 
 Acorns, best mode of packing, 251 
 jEgUopian wheat, origin of, 483 
 Aerial roots are sources of nourishment 
 which dry up when most 
 wanted, 142 
 — explanation of the phenome- 
 non of, 141 
 Affinity, elective, 499 
 Air and moisture, axioms relating to, 
 
 212 
 currents of, . greatly increase the 
 
 effects of heat and light, 101 
 drying of, by means of sulphuric 
 
 acid, 244 * 
 evil arising from the external, being 
 
 colder than that under bell- 
 glasses, 293 
 
 importance of free, to fruit, 101 
 
 importance of preserving, in an 
 
 uniform state, 293 
 in cold pits, necessity of being kept 
 
 in motion, 217 
 7 — in hothouses, 215 
 ■ introduction of heated, to plant 
 
 compartments, 223 
 moisture of, at London and other 
 
 parts of the world, 185 
 purification o^ by plants during the 
 
 day, 62, 514 
 
 roots growing in, 21 
 
 Air-passages penetrate plants in all dii-ec- 
 
 tions, 134 
 Alburnum, 40 
 
 its connexion with the spon- 
 
 gelet, 18 
 ■ its importance, 46 
 
 Alburnum, its quantity proportionate to 
 the number of buds, 265 
 
 offices perfornied by, 45 
 
 — instance of being cut into 
 
 and preserved for centu- 
 ries, 39 
 Alburnous substance, 265 
 Alkaline substances, their effects upon 
 
 germinating seeds, 235 
 Alpine plants, probable cause of the diffi- 
 culty iu growing, 218 
 American aloe, the number of years 
 
 before it flowers, 93 
 American plants, points to be attended to 
 in their culture, 532 
 soil for, 531 
 
 Ammonia employed to promote germina- 
 tion, 236 
 
 its extreme solubility in water, 
 
 549 . 
 
 proportion of, in rain water, 28 
 
 power of soils generally to ab- 
 
 sorb, 547 
 Ammoniaoai manure, effects of,. 550 
 Amputating, effects of, 405 
 Anatomy of leaves, 66 
 Anemone japonica, adventitious buds in' 
 
 roots of, 31 
 Ansesthetic substances, effect of, 8 
 Annuals, oleraceous, 166 
 Annual rest of plants, 506 
 Anther, 81 
 Antherids, 10 
 Antherozoids, and spores, phenomena 
 
 attending their fertilisation, 11 
 Apple-tree, pruning of, 374 
 Apricot-tre^ pruning of, 387 
 Aquatic plants, conditions under which 
 
 they exist, 160 
 — mode of treating to in- 
 duce themto flower.lSO 
 require the water to be 
 
 brought to a fitting 
 
 heat, ISO 
 
682 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Aqueous matter, neceasity of its excess 
 being decomposed during the progress 
 of ripening, 167 
 Aqueous pariiioles in plants, effect of 
 
 their being frozen, 113 
 Araucaria seeds, mode of packing, 251 
 Arid regions, 608 
 Arsenic, its effects on plants, 8 
 Ashes, vegetable or wood, as manure, 
 
 655 
 Ash-tree decorticated by lightning, 46 
 ■ -remarkable instance of an in- 
 scription found in the interior 
 of one, 33 
 Asparagus, importance of salting, 556 
 Atmosphere, a very dry, induces the 
 formation of flowers and 
 fruit, 512 
 
 ■ gaseous matters of, 529 
 
 mean temperature of, rela- 
 tion it bears to that of 
 the earth, 130 
 
 of hothouses, importance of 
 
 being damp, 210 
 
 ' of rooms not deteriorated 
 
 by plants, 61 
 
 temperature of, at various 
 
 places, 117-125 
 
 unfavourable state of, a cause 
 
 of sterility in flowers, 240 
 Atmospheric dryness or moisture, ex- 
 tremes of, 188, 189 
 
 moisture, 177 
 
 Australia, temperature of, 123 
 
 night temperature o^ 616 
 
 Axil, 43 
 
 Axils of leaves, the situation where leaf- 
 buds are formed, 44 
 Azaleas, injury to, when permitted to 
 ripen their seed, 98 
 
 instance of striking cuttings of, 
 
 in water, 293 
 Azote, 23, 547 
 
 Balloon training, 426 
 
 Bark, 42 
 
 ' instance of its power of reparation 
 
 by superficial increase, 37 
 
 its absorbent property, 18 
 
 its anatomical relation to leaves, 56 
 
 its distinct parts in trees and shrubs, 
 
 39 
 
 its production, 35 
 
 unaided by leaves, 
 
 38 
 its rind and epidermis in some cases 
 
 perform the office of leaves, 69 
 
 of the root, its office, 18 
 
 performs the functions of leaves in 
 
 "leafless "plants, 34 
 
 Bark, superiority of fast-grown to slow- 
 grown for tanning purposes, 417 
 
 when wounded or out, converges 
 
 from all parts to repair the 
 injury, 37 
 
 Bablow, Professor, his experiments on 
 
 the strength of oak timber, 419 
 Barral, M., experiments on rain-water, 28 
 Barrenness, cause of, 369 
 Bastardising happens more frequently to 
 single plants than to large masses, 468 
 Bedewing, its importance, 206 
 Beet-root, singular instance of grafting 
 
 red and white, 343 
 Bell-glasses, evil arising from the air 
 Burroimding them being 
 cold, 293 
 
 maintain a steady saturated 
 
 atmosphere around cut- 
 tings, 296 
 
 of different colours, 299 
 
 their action, 293 
 
 their use in propagating, 
 
 278, 292, 299 
 Bigeneric muling, apocryphal, 497 
 Birch-tree, remarkable instance of one 
 growing out of the decayed trunk of 
 an old cherry-tree, 349 
 Blackeniag garden walls, doubtful effects 
 
 of, 199 
 Bleeding, 50 
 
 ■ cause of, 51 
 
 — — - — causes incurable debility or 
 death, 50 
 
 ■ materially influenced by the 
 
 state of the weather, 50 
 
 ■ necessity of guardiog against 
 
 in pruning, 363 
 remedies for, 364 
 
 Blood as manure, 564 
 Blossom-buds analogous to leaf-buds in 
 the first stage of their organisation, 92 
 Blue BUly as manure, 563 
 Bones as manure, 667 
 
 time for applying, 671 
 
 Borders, artificially warming of, 142 
 
 cold, the cause of "shanking," 
 
 140 
 
 concreting of, 146 
 
 formation of, for fruit-trees, 631 
 
 for vines, 146 
 
 Bottom-heat, 134 
 
 amount required by plants 
 
 varies with the species, 
 135 
 
 a proper degree of, the 
 
 fundamental requisite 
 in the striking of cut- 
 tings, 291 
 
INDEX. 
 
 583 
 
 Bottom-heat, a stimulus and protection 
 to vegetation, 134 
 
 degree of, communicated 
 
 to plants in pots from 
 tlie atmosphere of a 
 stove, 1S2 
 
 its effects different from 
 
 those resulting from 
 solar radiation, 126 
 
 its great importance when 
 
 well regidated, 150 
 
 Knight's opinion respect- 
 ing its necessity, 152 
 
 necessary for the flowering 
 
 of many tropical plants, 
 148 
 
 though beneficial in the 
 
 first instance becomes a 
 source of mischief, 135 
 
 waste steam as a medium 
 
 of, 151 
 
 Bradley, Richard, his book on the propar 
 gation of plants by leaves, 271 
 
 Branches, effect of shortening, 362 
 
 effect of their being in a dif- 
 
 ferent temperature from 
 their roots, 69 
 
 inarching of, 326 
 
 in which buds are inserted 
 
 should be shortened, 307 
 
 ■ their vigour augmented by the 
 
 abstraction of flowers and 
 fruit, 487 
 Breeds, the best produced by the best 
 
 seeds, 487 
 Brussels sprouts, supposed disposition to 
 
 degenerate, 470 
 ■ the question of degene- 
 racy reftited, 471 
 Buds, adventitious, developed by the 
 
 stems of trees, 260 
 adventitious, in roots, 30, 302 
 
 embryo, 44 
 
 formed in the axils of stamens, 54 
 
 instances of their formation on 
 
 leaves, 80, 272 
 
 ■ latent, 54 
 
 . mature preferable to immature for 
 
 the purpose of propagation, 306, 
 
 337 
 
 mode of propagating by, 265 
 
 not the origin of roots, 25 
 
 power of leaves to form, 54, 80, 
 
 272 
 
 the origin of branches, 25 
 
 the youngest most excitable, 837 
 
 ■ ■ their formation in all cases the first 
 
 step in the process of propagar 
 tion, 276 
 
 Budding, D'Albret's practice, 309 
 
 Budding, flute, 308, 313 
 
 inverted J., 312 
 
 ligatures -usually employed iuc 
 
 305 
 
 mode of executing, 304, 310 
 
 ought not to be performed in 
 
 wet weather, 309 
 
 propagation by, 303 
 
 reverse, 307 
 
 shield, 305, 312 
 
 time to perform, 311 
 
 Bulbs, 43 
 
 a species of bud, 44 
 
 ■ cultivation of, 165 
 
 in arid regions, 508 
 
 mode of treating newly imported, 
 
 165 
 precautions demanded in the 
 
 packing of, 254 
 
 propagation by, 473 
 
 Burnt clay as a manure, 665 
 
 Cacti, best time for grafting, 316 
 
 method of grafting, 315 
 
 instance of their living for years 
 
 without water, 261 
 Callus, 36 
 Calyx, its situation and colour, 81 
 
 its use, 95 
 
 Cambium, 310 
 
 Camellias, a method bf propagating 
 them, 325 
 packing growing plants of, 258 
 
 Canker, cause of, 148 
 Cape-Heaths, mode of striking, by cut- 
 tings, 298 
 • importance of good drain- 
 
 age for, 437 
 Capillary tubes give hygrometrical force 
 
 to tissue, 27 
 Carbon, excess of, in seeds, 14 
 
 in seeds, 243, 247 
 
 ■ — • requires its proportion 
 
 altered before germi- 
 nation can be effected, 
 104 
 
 its conversion into carbonic acid 
 
 during the process of germina- 
 tion, 14 
 Carbonate of ammonia, mode of apply- 
 ing it to plants, 
 549 
 
 must be applied 
 
 with great cau- 
 tion, 650 
 Carbonic acid, a component part of the 
 food of plants, 28, 544 
 
 — . conditions under which it 
 
 is slowly formed, 233, 
 644 
 
584 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Carbonic acid, decompoaed furnishes an 
 essential part of the 
 Becretionsof plants, 545 
 
 formation of, in seeds, 248 
 
 its decomposition in plants 
 
 during the day, 60 
 
 its formation during the 
 
 process of germination, 
 14 
 
 its formation by plants 
 
 during the night, 60 
 
 its mode of introduction 
 
 into the system of plants, 
 60 
 
 ■ periods at which plants 
 
 cease to decompose it, 
 79 
 
 probable effect of preserv- 
 ing seeds in an atmos- 
 phere of, 262 
 
 Carburetted hydrogen gas, 168 
 
 Celery, instance of a broken leaf emitting 
 roots, 24 
 
 Cells of which plants consist, have their 
 own special power of secretion, 344 
 
 Cellular matter formed by leaves, 276 
 
 its junction, the cause 
 
 of adhesion in the 
 stock and scion, 344 
 
 surfaces must be brought in con- 
 
 tact in grafting, 336 
 
 system, 336 
 
 horizontal system, 337 
 
 tissue combined with woody 
 
 fibre, 35 
 Centrifugal development of leaves, 55 
 Centripetal development of leaves, 55 
 Ceratonia siliqua, remarkable instance of 
 
 vitality in, 261 
 Chara, singular motion in, 9 
 Charcoal, packing seeds in, 249 
 method of preparing it for gar- 
 dening purposes, 546 
 
 — peat, 545 
 
 ■ powdered, its value when mixed 
 
 with soil, 545 
 Chemical changes in seeds, 227 
 Cherries, forcing of, 149 
 
 propagation of, by budding, 310 
 
 Cherry-tree, instance of a Birch growing 
 out of the decayed trunk, 
 349 
 
 pruning and training of, 389 
 
 Chestnuts, beat mode of packing, 251 
 
 propagation of, by budding, 
 
 310 
 Chinese mode of dwarfing trees, 368 
 Chlorine employed to promote germina- 
 tion, 237 
 proportion of in rain-water, 28 
 
 Chloroform, its effects on plants, 8 
 Circulation of sap, 40 
 
 ■ Hales's experiments 
 
 on, 51 
 Cissus hydrophora, remarkable instance 
 
 of vitality in, 261 
 Clay, burnt, as manure, 666 
 
 its mode of action and gi'eat 
 
 value, 567 
 
 oolitic, successful mode of culti- 
 
 vating a soil of, 640 
 
 its properties, S25 
 
 — r- Boil, has the power of absorbing or 
 
 fixing ammonia, 548 
 Cleft grafting, 328, 330, 331 
 Climate of Ava, 610 
 
 ^ BrazU, 509 
 
 Canaries, 609 
 
 Cape of Good Hope^ 508 
 
 Mexico, 507 
 
 ' Persia, 608 
 
 W. Indies, 610 
 
 Climates, extreme, 163 
 
 imitation of, 163 
 
 Climbers, 428 
 
 Cold, effects of, on plants, 113, 140 
 
 the manner in which it acts upon 
 
 plants, 110 
 Collodion applied to cuttings, 294 
 
 a remedy for bleeding, 364 
 
 ■ in budding is said to form an 
 
 effectual ligature, 305 
 Colour, absence of, sometimes owing to 
 low temperature, 110 
 
 green, in plants how produced, 
 
 110 
 
 of leaves influenced by light, 70 
 
 yellow in plants, causes of its 
 
 occurrence, 109 
 
 Coloured light, effects of, on plants, 300 
 
 its influence on germina- 
 tion, 238 
 
 Colouring matter in the madder plant, 
 its production, 300 
 
 Colours of plants, cause of their forma- 
 tion, 109 
 
 Columella's assertion of grafting the olive 
 on the fig explained, 347 
 
 Combretum purpxireum, mode of increas- 
 ing it, 450 
 
 Composite flowers require to be kept dry 
 before they will ripen seed, 242 
 
 Compost for American plants, 532 
 
 for Dutch bulbs, 534 
 
 Concrete applied to vine borders, 144 
 
 Concreting,' its effects in raising the tem- 
 perature, 147 
 
 Conduction, 161 
 
 Conifers, instances of some being struck 
 from pieces of the root, 283 
 
INDEX. 
 
 585 
 
 XiJouifei's, method of grafting, 322 
 
 method of striking, by cuttings, 
 
 297 
 that are grafted, generally worth- 
 less, 847 
 Confervae, freshwater, evidence of vital 
 force in, 10 
 
 motionin, stopped 
 
 by iodine, 1 
 Corbeil's, M., method of inarching the 
 
 branches of the pear-tree, 323 
 Corme, 43 
 Corolla, its situation and colour, 81 
 
 its use, 95 
 
 Cortical integument, 39 
 Cotyledons, 16 
 
 supply nourishment to the 
 
 plumule, 16 
 Cree's method of pruning forest-trees, 401 
 Creepers, 428 
 Crops, change of, 433 
 Cross-breds, 96 
 
 ' in general are papable of pro- 
 ducing fertile seed, 96 
 
 ' in general assimilate naore to 
 
 the male than female, 495 
 Cross-breeding, 488 
 
 differs from muling, 488 
 
 experiments in, 489, 496 
 
 practical instructions for, 
 
 490 
 
 precautions to be taken 
 
 in, 494, 498 
 
 will take place as readily 
 
 among plants as ani- 
 mals, 498 
 Crown-grafting, 315 
 
 Cryptogamio plants, phenomena of repro- 
 duction, 11 
 Cucumbers, advantage of growing, in 
 forcing houses in winter instead of 
 pits, 218 
 Currant-bush, pruning of, 393 
 Curl in potatoes, 99 
 
 Cuttings, amount of heat necessary for 
 the striking of different 
 species, 290 
 
 application of collodion to, 
 
 294 
 
 best kinds of soil for stiiking, 
 
 287 
 
 bottom-heat a fundamental 
 
 requisite, 291 
 
 conditions required in order to 
 
 enable them to become 
 young plants, 2^5, 293 
 double bell-glasses for, inju- 
 rious, 296 
 
 ' double pots employed in 
 
 striking, 288 
 
 Cuttings, evil of the soil in which they 
 are placed being kept too 
 wet, 293 
 
 importance of their ends touch- 
 ing the bottom of a pot, 286 
 
 in what respect they differ 
 
 from seeds, 269 
 
 M. Delacroix's method of 
 
 striking, 296 
 
 mode of preparing, 298 
 
 mode of striking, in phials of 
 
 water, 297 
 necessity for a due adjustment 
 
 of heat, light, and moisture, 
 
 in the striking of, 289 
 
 necessity for the shading of, 291 
 
 of succulents, mode of treating, 
 
 294 
 
 packing of, 255 
 
 propagation by, 281 
 
 singular phenomenon with 
 
 respect to the striking of, 295 
 the most favourable time for 
 
 striking of, 282 
 their power of rooting always 
 
 greatest when they begin to 
 
 push, 292 
 Cytoblast, or vital centre, 7 
 
 D'Albket's practice of budding, 309 
 practical directions for graft- 
 ing, 325 
 Damping off, 212 
 
 Dampness, excess of, indispensable to 
 plants in a state of rapid 
 growth, 211 
 
 of glass-houses, 205 
 
 Darkness favouraUe to the production of 
 
 roots, 25 
 Daubeney, Dr., his experiments on the 
 power of plants to se- 
 lect their food, 27 
 
 experimentson the effect 
 
 of coloured light on 
 plants, 300 
 Debility brought ou by high tempera- 
 ture, 107 
 
 propagation by division, not a 
 
 cause of, 269 
 
 secures permanence in some va- 
 
 rieties of plants, 467 
 
 Decaisue, M., his experiments relative to 
 the production of colouring matter in 
 madder, 300 
 
 De Candolle, M., laws of temperature 
 with respect to its influence on vege- 
 tation, 113 
 
 Deciduous cypress, great extension of its 
 root in search of water, 19 
 
 plants, 79 
 
586 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Deciduous trees, season for transplanting, 
 
 447 
 Degeneracy, means of preventing, in seed 
 crops, 468 
 
 of races negatived, 475 
 
 ■ of varieties, no foundation 
 
 for, 269, 471 
 Delacroix's method of propagating by- 
 cuttings, 296 
 Deleterious matter, when attenuated, is 
 most likely to prove injurious to roots, 
 27 
 Denmark, temperature of, 120 
 Deodar, grafting of, 347 
 Development of leaves, 65 
 Dew point, tables of, 182, 183 
 Dicotyledonous trees, 41 
 Digestion a function of the leaves of 
 plants, 69 
 
 , rate of, in a healthy plant, 73 
 
 Disease, renewal by seed not always a 
 
 preventative of, 474 
 r the manner in which it is pro- 
 pagated, 480 
 Diurnal rest of plants, 613 
 Double bell-glasses for cuttings injurious 
 
 rather than beneficial, 296 
 Double composite flowers, 601 
 
 dahlias not truly double flowers, 
 
 601 
 
 ■ flowers, supposed to arise from a 
 
 debilitating process, 601 
 
 tendency in some plants 
 
 to produce, 602 
 
 conditions under which 
 
 they may, and may not 
 produce seed, 242 
 
 their origin, 82, 601 
 
 ■ stocks, mode of producing, 503 
 
 yellow rose, effect of budding it, 
 
 303 
 Drain pipes, instance of roots choking, 
 
 20 
 Drainage, advantages derived from, 137 
 
 . effects of, 169 
 
 essential for plants grown in 
 
 pots, 437 
 
 experiments relating to, 138 
 
 . importance of, 170 
 
 modes of effecting, 438 
 
 necessity for, in the striking of 
 
 cuttings, 287 
 - probable rationale of, 170 
 
 Drained land much warmer than water- 
 logged land, 137 
 
 Drains, ventilation by, 226 
 
 Dryness, atmospheric, table of, with re- 
 gard to the direction of the 
 wind, 190, 191 
 
 causes of, in hothouses, 207 
 
 Dryness, complete, necessary in the pre- 
 serving of seeds, 244 
 
 mean degree of, during the au- 
 
 tumnal months near London, 
 
 454 
 table of average degree of, in 
 
 the middle of the day, 189 
 though favourable to seeds, is 
 
 prejudicial to plants, 254 
 
 though fatal to plants in a state 
 
 of growth, is beneficial while 
 ripening their fruit, 192 
 Dung heat, grapes and nectarines forced 
 
 by, 210 
 Durand, M., his experiments to show that 
 
 trees may increase in bulk vrithout 
 
 leaves, 75 
 Dutrochet, M., his experiments on the 
 
 circulation of fluid in plants, 9 
 Dwarfing trees, Chinese method of, 368 
 
 Earth-boeeb, and mode of using it, 579 
 Earth, mean temperature of, in various 
 
 parts of the world, 117 — 125 
 mean temperature of, relation it 
 
 bears to that of the air, 130 
 
 temperature of, most favourable 
 
 for germination, 230 
 Earth temperature, India, 129 
 London, 128 
 
 Earths, certain of them enter into the 
 food of plants, 28 
 
 Earthing up, its great utility in certain 
 cases of grafting, 340 
 
 Easterly winds, their dryness, 186 
 
 Edwards and Colin, M.M., their experi- 
 ments on the 
 temperature 
 bornebyoer- 
 tain seeds, 
 231 
 
 their experi- 
 ments on the 
 earlyproper- 
 ties of plants 
 raised from 
 small seed, 
 466 
 
 Elective affinity, 499 
 
 Electrical action, 15 
 
 Electricity has no discoverable influence 
 on vegetation, 236 
 
 Embryo buds, 44 
 
 Endogens, 35, 43 
 
 mixed arrangement of their 
 
 tissue, 35 
 
 Eridosmose, 62, 240 
 
 Ennobling, 356 
 
 Envelopes, not a necessary part of the 
 flower, 81 
 
INDEX. 
 
 587 
 
 Epidermis, action of, 59 
 
 ^ — an extension of the outer bark 
 
 of the stem, 59 
 
 — in its young state highly sen- 
 sible to the influence of 
 Ught, 164 
 
 of leaves, its nature and pro- 
 perties, 57 
 
 — of the leaves of evergreens, 
 
 450 
 
 of plants inhabiting shady 
 
 situations, 62 
 
 regulates the amount of per- 
 
 SpiratioUj 79 
 
 Epiphytes, 533 
 
 Esculent herbs, difTerence between them 
 and woody plants, 414 
 
 Espaliers, pruning and training of, 377, 
 390 
 
 Evaporation, affected by elevation and 
 wind, 186 
 
 an important vital function, 
 
 177 
 
 danger in checking it, 161 
 
 necessary as a means of 
 
 keeping plants cool, 161 
 precautions sometimes ne- 
 cessary to check, 448 
 
 prevented by clay, from the 
 
 surface of scions, 340 
 Evergreen plants, 79 
 Evergreens, epidermis of their leaves, 450 
 
 ■ perspiratory organs less 
 
 active than in deciduous 
 plants, 80 
 
 — . produce roots at all seasons, 
 
 451 
 
 proper season fortransplaut- 
 
 ing, 452 
 
 pruning of, 420 
 
 reasons why autumn is pre- 
 ferable for transplanting, 
 453 
 
 Excitability diminished by lowness of 
 temperature, 113, 514 
 
 • exhausted by a high night 
 
 temperature, 522 
 
 . in the vine may be re- 
 pressed, 258 
 
 promoted by heat, 295 
 
 Excretions of roots, 29 
 
 Exogens, 35 
 
 explained, 43 
 
 pith of, central and distinct, 35 
 
 Eyes, are greatly assisted by leaves, 266 
 
 excessive food for, injurious, 267 
 
 occasionally separate from their 
 
 mother stem, and form new 
 plants, 264 
 propagation by, 263 
 
 reason why some plants grow from, 
 
 more readily than others, 264 
 
 the youngest, more excitable than 
 
 those at the middle or base of 
 potatoes, ^67 
 
 Pabrb, M., experiments by, 483 
 Pall of the leaf explained, 79 
 Pai-m-yard manure, 562 
 substitute for, 563 
 
 ■ longevity of some, 40 
 
 Exposure of greenhouse plants not advi- 
 sable, 435 
 
 to S.E. not so favourable for a 
 
 garden as is generally sup- 
 posed, 204 
 
 Fertilisation, 95 
 
 Gsertner's practical conclu- 
 sions respecting, 498 
 the art of, 498 
 
 Fibre, woody, originates in the leaves, 
 34 
 
 Fibrous roots, production of, by root- 
 pruning, 461 
 
 Field crops, germination of, in wet sea- 
 sons, 244 
 
 Fig-trees, beneficial effect of removing 
 late, 363 
 
 mode of pruning, 381 
 
 Filament, 81 
 
 Filbert, mode of pruning, 362, 382 
 
 Fir-trees, grafting of, 322 
 instance of theii' roots being 
 
 alive many years after their 
 stems had been felled, 74 
 Floral envelopes, 81 
 Flower-buds, 92 
 
 their production depends 
 
 upon the presence of nu- 
 tritive matter for their 
 support, 95 
 Flowers are only leaves in a modified 
 state, 92 
 
 become monstrous in warm damp 
 
 weather, 502 
 
 become rosettes of leaves, 90 
 
 ■ circumstances which advance or 
 
 retard their production, 93 
 
 double, their origin, 82, 502 
 
 essentially constituted only by 
 
 the presence of the sexes, 82 
 
 grow into branches, 84, 89 
 
 manure for, and time of applica- 
 tion, 577 
 may be prolonged by any circum- 
 stance which hinders the act 
 of fertilisation, 95 
 
 produce buds and tubers, 85 
 
 pruning, in order to produce, 363 
 
 ^ sporting of, 485 
 
588 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Flowers, tendency of some to become 
 
 double, 602 
 their action, 81 
 
 their metamorphosisj 82 
 
 their structure, 81 
 
 Flowering season of certain plants may 
 
 be changed, 513 
 Flues inferior to hot-water pipes for 
 
 heating, 207 
 Fluids are attracted into the system of 
 plants during the night, 69 
 
 ■ ascending channel in plants, 40 
 
 their lateral transmission, 45 
 
 their mode of descent, 40 
 
 Flute-budding, 308 
 
 Food, artificial, for plants, 561 
 
 natural, of plants, 28, 651 
 
 power of plants to select, 27 
 
 the amount received by a plant is 
 
 in proportion to the size and ex- 
 tent of its roots, 369 
 Foramen, 10 
 Forces' of vegetation, 60 
 
 adjustment of, in 
 
 the striking of 
 cuttings, 289 
 Forcing, cause of success in the Dutch 
 method of, 218 
 
 cherries, successful mode of, 149 
 
 importance of a low night tem- 
 perature in, 615 
 
 principles of, illustrated, 522 
 
 ■ vegetables, Dutch method of, 
 
 149 
 Foreshortening, 402 
 
 ill effects of, 405 
 
 Forest-trees, pruning of, 400 
 
 . true principles of managing 
 
 them, 398 
 Forsyth's ingenious plan for striking 
 
 cuttings, 288 
 Frost, its accumulation in valleys, 200 
 
 its effects on plants, 110 
 
 Frozen plants, 112 
 
 . . good efTects of watering 
 
 and gradually thawing 
 them, 112 
 
 must thaw gradually, 204 
 
 Fructification induced by an inspissated 
 state of the sap, 512 
 
 influenced by ringing, 94 
 
 — its removal in a young 
 
 state strengthens the 
 functions of leaves, 105 
 may be advanced or re- 
 tarded artificially, 93 
 
 period of its commence' 
 
 ment in plants, 92 
 Fruit, action of leaves on, 99 
 age at which plants can bear, 93 
 
 Fruit, an advanced stage of a flower, 96 
 
 affected by the stock on which it is 
 
 pi'oduced, 355 
 
 aqueous matter in, requires decom- 
 
 position, 167 
 
 cause of the lim'sting or cracking 
 
 of, 167 
 
 cause of the weaker portion of it 
 
 being generally thrown off, 99 
 
 changes which it undergoes, 100, 
 
 624 
 
 decomposition or dissipation of 
 
 water by, 102 
 
 derivation of its food, 99 
 
 differs from leaves in its appro- 
 
 priation of the sap it receives, 
 100 
 
 effects produced on, by ringing, 372 
 
 exhausting action of, 98 
 
 flavour of, improved when plants 
 
 are grown in pots, 435 
 
 great purpose for which it is 
 
 formed,. 98 
 grows into branches, 86 
 
 increases in size but diminishes in 
 
 flavour by copious watering, 167, 
 » 678 
 its maturation, 97 
 
 its physiological action in certain 
 
 cases analogous to that of a leaf, 
 97 
 
 its secretions, 100 
 
 manure for, with time and mode of 
 
 application, 577 
 
 maturation of, accelerated or re- 
 tarded by diminished or excessive 
 supply of water, 102 
 
 on what its size and excellence de- 
 
 pend, 99 
 
 pruning in order to produce, 362 
 
 raising new varieties of, 487 
 
 removal of, beneflcial in certain 
 
 cases, 105 
 
 ripening of succulent, 167 
 
 the secretions of, influenced and 
 
 partly changed by heat and light, 
 100 
 
 very low temperature causes an 
 
 early appearance of, 512 
 Fruit-tree border, formation of, 531 
 Functions of leaves; 59 
 
 . termination of their 
 
 performance, 79 
 Fungi, deleterious parasitic, 212, 223 
 
 their ravages on crops, 176 
 
 Garden, choice of soil for, 199 
 situation for, 200 
 
 Garreau, M., his experiments on the func- 
 tions of the skins of plants, 59 
 
INDEX. 
 
 589 
 
 Gan-eau, M., experiments on the perspi- 
 ration of leaves, 68 
 
 Qsertner's conclusions on muling and 
 hybridising, 490. 498 
 
 Gaseous matters of atmosphere, 529 
 
 substances most important to 
 
 plants, 544 
 
 Gas-lime as a manure, 653 
 
 water as a manure, 575 
 
 Gei'mination, 13, 104 
 
 causes of, 103 
 
 conditions required to pro- 
 duce it in seeds, 14, 247 
 
 ■ electrical action in, 15 
 
 influence of coloured light 
 
 on, 238 
 
 interrupted, 228 
 
 is assisted by the absoi-p- 
 
 tion of water, 15 
 
 means of assisting, in seeds 
 
 with very hard integu- 
 ments, 234 
 
 means of promoting it, 233 
 
 requires communication 
 
 with the atmosphere, 14 
 
 requires different degrees 
 
 of heat in different 
 species, 15 
 
 temperature of earth most 
 
 favourable for, 230 
 
 why best effected in the 
 
 absence of light, 14 
 
 Glass, coldness of its surface condenses 
 the enclosed atmospheric va- 
 pour, 207 
 
 experiments showing the rays of 
 
 light that pass through differ- 
 ent coloured, 300 
 
 roofs, their coldness a cause of 
 
 dryness in the state of the in- 
 ternal air, 207 
 Glazed houses, means of applying tem- 
 perature and moisture to the atmos- 
 phere of, 205 
 Glaubers salts as a manure, 557 
 Gooseberry bush, pruning of, 391 
 Grafting, conditions to be observed in, 
 339, 346 
 
 cleft, 32S, 330, 331 
 
 crown, 315, 334 
 
 deceptions practised with re- 
 gard to it; 347 
 
 D'Albret's vaiieties of, 326 
 
 degrees of affinity within which 
 
 the operation may be per- 
 formed, 346 
 
 herbaceous, 321 
 
 herbaceous plants, 332 
 
 induces fructification, 93 
 
 modes of operation, 304, 325 
 
 Grafting, natural, 320 
 
 ooly successful in cases where 
 
 stock and scion are very 
 
 nearly allied, 346 
 
 ■ ■ on roots, 350 
 
 pines, 322 
 
 plug, 336 
 
 propagation by, 303 
 
 saddle grafting, 318 
 
 • summer tongue, disadvantage 
 
 of, 325 
 
 use of, 304 
 
 whip, 314 
 
 Grafting-clay, its use and superiority 
 over other plasters, 340 
 its use in preventing eva- 
 poration and affording 
 aqueous food to the 
 scion, 340 
 
 substitute for, 340 
 
 Grafting-wax, composition of, 331 
 
 French, 339 
 
 Grafts that are diseased will continue so, 
 
 480 
 Granulations, formation of, 286, 315, 447 
 Grapes, cause of " shanking," 140 
 
 require a high temperature when 
 
 ripening, 524 
 Grasses, Caldrini's experiments on the 
 
 grafting of, 345 
 
 Greenhouses ought not to be heated at 
 
 night more than to exclude frost, 520 
 
 Greenhouse plants, their exposure to the 
 
 open air in summer not advisable, 435 
 
 Green manure, 568 
 
 experiments relating to, 
 
 569 
 Ground temperature, average of, in au- 
 tumn near Lon- 
 don, 463 
 
 in various parts of 
 
 the world, 156 
 
 natural to certain 
 
 plants, table of, 
 165 
 
 — points on which it 
 
 is necessary to be 
 informed, 164 
 Growing point, 33, 55 
 Growth by night, experiments on, 518 
 
 by the root, 16 
 
 by the stem, 33 
 
 season of, demands water, 164 
 
 without leaves, 74 
 
 Guano, as manure, 563 
 
 Gypsum, its action and rate at which it 
 
 should be used, 551 
 ■ M. Mene's experiments on, 551 
 
 Hair, as manure, 565 
 
590 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hales, Dr., experiments on the eircnla- 
 tion of the 
 sap, 61 
 
 the perspi- 
 ration of 
 plants, 65 
 
 Heart wood, its formation, 40 
 
 Heat acts as a stimulus to the vital 
 forces, 148 
 
 amount of, uecessaiy for the strik- 
 
 ing of cuttings, 290 
 
 Boussingault's method of deter- 
 
 mining what amount a plant 
 requires, 163 
 
 ■ cannot be transmitted downwards 
 
 through water, 138 
 
 degree of, best suited for cuttings, 
 
 282 
 degree of, most conducive to vege- 
 tation variable, 15 
 
 high degree of, required by certain 
 
 plants at particular seasons, 153 
 
 its agency in changing the secre- 
 
 tions of fruit, 100 
 
 its effect in causing the foimation 
 
 of pollen, 108 
 
 necessary to produce germination, 
 
 14 
 
 necessity of adjusting, in the strik- 
 ing of cuttings, 289 
 
 produces a distention of all the 
 
 organic parts, 15 
 
 sets the vital principle in motion, 16 
 
 the stimulus of excitability, 114 
 
 unusual degree of, injurious in the 
 
 striking of cuttings, 291 
 Heating by hot-water pipes preferable to 
 
 flues, 207 
 Heaths, mode of striking, by cuttings, 298 
 
 much heat injurious to, 299 
 
 Heel, a term applied to the part of a 
 
 scion that is sometimes left in certain 
 cases of grafting, 340 
 Herbaceous grafting, mode of operating, 
 and precautions necessary to ensure 
 success, 321 
 Himalayas, temperature of, 122 
 Horizontal plane, bad effects of training 
 on one, 423 
 
 system of stems, 85 
 
 systems of stocks and scions, 
 
 necessity for their corre- 
 spondence in growth, 351 
 Horn shavings as manure, 665 
 Hot bed, its utility in the striking of 
 
 cuttings, 285, 288 
 Hothouses, bad effects of a high night 
 temperature in, 208 
 
 . . cause of atmospheric dryness 
 
 in, 207 
 
 Hothouses, important that the night 
 temperature should be lower than 
 that of the day, 514 
 Hot springs, their effects on surrounding 
 
 vegetation, 135 
 Hunt, Mr., his enquiries into the effects 
 
 of coloured glass on plants, 238, 300 
 Humus, of what composed, 526, 528 
 Hyacinths, remarks on theii- management, 
 
 165 
 Hybrids are often sterile, 96 
 
 may be fertile, 493 
 
 ■ their origin, 96 
 
 their precocity and power of 
 
 enduring cold, 489 
 
 Hybridising, Gasrtner's conclusions on, 
 
 490, 498 
 
 greater proportion of plants 
 
 not susceptible of, 600 
 
 points to beconsideredin,488 
 
 practical instructions for, 
 
 490, 498 
 
 ■ precautions to be taken in, 
 
 494, 498 
 Hydrogen fixed in the tissue of plants, 14 
 derivation of its supply, 28 
 
 Hygrometers, and their mode of appli- 
 cation, 178, 184 
 Hymen inarching, 326 
 
 Impossible grafts, 347 
 Impostors' graft, 348 
 Inarching, 322, 325 
 
 as performed by the French on 
 
 pear-tree branches, 323 
 
 circumstances conducive to its 
 
 success, 323 
 
 mode of operating, 323 
 
 India, difference between the night and 
 day temperature in, 514 
 
 earth temperature in the peninsula 
 
 of, 124 
 India-rubber bandages, use of, ingrafting, 
 
 340 
 Inner bark, 35 
 Inscription, ancient one covered over by 
 
 young wood, 39 
 Insects conduce to fertilisation, 241 
 Inverted J. budding, 312 
 Iodine, its power in stopping the motion 
 
 of confervse, 10 
 Irritability of certain plants, 11 
 Ivy, origin of the tree, 481 
 
 Jasmine, curious instance of variegation 
 in, 358 
 
 Knaurs, analogous to propagating by 
 
 seed, 268 
 propagation by, 44, 268 
 
INDEX. 
 
 591 
 
 Knight, Mr., precautions taken by, in 
 raising new Tarieties 
 from seed, 494 
 
 ■ result of his experiments 
 
 in raising new varieties 
 from seed, 487 
 
 . hia tlieory that all parts of 
 
 a tree have a common 
 end to their life refuted, 
 269, 475 
 
 Laob-bark tree, soil for, and manage- 
 ment of, 635 
 Laudanum, its effects on plants, 8 
 Layers, propagation by, 301 
 their nature and method of pre- 
 paring, 301 
 Layering, Chinese mode of, 302 
 Leaf, analogous to the stomach and lungs 
 of animals, 72 
 
 an expansion of the bark, 56 
 
 belongingtothebudshouldbepartly 
 
 removed in 
 budding, 307 
 doubtful advan- 
 tage of, in dry 
 weather, 308 
 
 -supposed to be 
 
 beneficial in 
 wet weather, 
 308 
 
 &U of, 79 
 
 Leaf-buds, adventitious, 44 
 
 locality of their formation, 
 
 43 
 
 formation on leaves, 80, 272 
 
 stems, 43 
 
 ■ their identity with blossom- 
 buds in the first stage of 
 their organisation, 92 
 
 . their importance, 45 
 
 the parents of wood, 45 
 
 their presence universal, either 
 
 latent or developed in the 
 axUs of leaves, 54 
 
 their reproductive properties 
 
 different from that of seeds, 13 
 Leaves absorb fluid from the air, 69 
 
 ■ anatomy of, 56 
 
 ■ ■ are organs of digestion and respi- 
 ration, 80 
 are the great agents of propaga- 
 tion, 276 
 cases which justify their remo- 
 val, 73 
 
 ■ centrifugal development of, 55 
 
 centripetal development of, 55 
 
 experiments to show their in- 
 fluence upon increasing the 
 trunk of trees, 71 
 
 Leaves, force of suction by, 69 
 
 fully grown are the best for the 
 
 purpose of propagation, 277 
 
 give origin to woody tissue, 34 
 
 have universally leaf-buds, either 
 
 latent or developed, in their 
 axils, 54 
 
 history of their development ex- 
 plained, 55 
 
 how to strike, 277 
 
 instances of their forming buds, 
 
 80, 272 
 
 mixed development of, 56 
 
 modified, constitute the parts of 
 
 flowers, 92 
 
 M. Neumann's modes of propa- 
 gating by, 278 
 
 number of stomates on the surface 
 
 of, in various species, 58 
 
 objection against employing them 
 
 as a means of propagation, 
 278 
 
 parallel development of, 56 
 
 period when they cease to decom- 
 pose carbonic acid, 79 
 
 propagation by, 80, 272 
 
 raiionale of the rooting of, 275 
 
 remarkable instance of plants 
 
 continuing to exist and increase 
 in size without, 74, 76 
 
 rooting of, 23, 274 
 
 rooting of, conditions favourable 
 
 for, 275 
 their action, 54 
 
 their action forms the peculiar 
 
 secretion of plants, 70' 
 
 their action reciprocal with that 
 
 of the roots, 19 
 
 their attracting force partly causes 
 
 the sap to ascend, 52 
 
 their colour influenced by light, 
 
 70 
 
 their epidermis, 57 
 
 their free action essential to the 
 
 health of plants, 59 
 
 th^ir functions strengthened by 
 
 the early removal of the fructi- 
 fication, 105 
 
 their great importance, and the 
 
 injury plants sustain by remov- 
 ing them, 72 
 
 their nature, 54 
 
 their perspiratory action renders 
 
 transplantation of deciduous 
 trees in a growing state diffi- 
 cult, 446 
 
 their physiological- action analo- 
 gous to that of the fruit, 97 
 
 their power of forming buds, 54, 
 
 80, 272 
 
592 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Leaves, the practice of removing fallen 
 leaves in shrubberies con- 
 demned, 543 
 
 ultimately become incapable of 
 
 performing their functions, 79 
 
 Lettuces, how forced, 149 
 
 Liber, 40 
 
 its consistence, 35 
 
 its importance, 46 
 
 its situation, 28 
 
 offices performed by it, 45 
 
 Ligatures for buds, 305 
 
 object of their application, 372 
 
 shouldbeoccasionally loosened, 
 
 311 
 
 Light, absence of, conducive to the for- 
 mation of carbonic acid, 14 
 
 absence of, conducive to the for- 
 mation of roots, 25 
 
 action of, on cuttings hardly m- 
 
 ferior to that of heat, 291 
 
 adjustment of, in the striking of 
 
 cuttings, 289 
 
 ' artificial effects of, 64 
 
 by its action on the leaves is a 
 
 principal agent in forming se- 
 cretions, 70 
 
 capability of plants to bear the 
 
 action of, varies according to 
 their specific nature, 79 
 
 coloured, its effects on plants, 300 
 
 its influence on germi- 
 nation, 238 
 
 detrimental to the germination of 
 
 seeds, 14 
 ' its agency in changing the secre- 
 tion of fruit, 100 
 
 its effects on the colour of leaves, 70 
 
 white, the most natural and best 
 
 adapted for plants, 300 
 Lightning, instance of an ash-tree being 
 
 decorticated by, 47 
 Lignification depends on the action of 
 
 leaves, 34 
 Lime, acetate of, rejected by roots, 27 
 
 in its caustic state requires to be 
 
 used with caution, 628 
 
 its effects in assisting germination, 
 
 236 
 
 its value as a manure, 551 
 
 muriate of, its absorbent proper- 
 
 ties, 244 
 
 . proportion of, in raiu-water, 28 
 
 should never be used in conjunc- 
 tion with any nitrogenised sub- 
 stance, 547 
 
 when combined with acids forms 
 
 an important portion in the food 
 of plants, 528, 651 
 Liquid manure, its importance, 433, 572 
 
 Loam, calcareous the best for gardening 
 purposes, 530 
 its composition, 526 
 
 Loddiges, Messrs., mode of packing plants 
 for long voyages, 258 
 
 Lois-Weedon, mode of tillage without 
 manure, 
 540 
 
 the prin- 
 ciple of, 
 541 
 
 — ' practice of removing leaves 
 
 from crops at, 76 
 
 Longevity of plants, 41 
 Lopping, or snag-pruning, 403 
 
 Maolcea aurantiaca, mode of increasing 
 
 by cuttings of its root, 283 
 Macquart's explanation of the cause of 
 the formation of different colours, 110 
 Madden, Dr., on drainage, 169 
 Madder, colouring matter in, experiments 
 
 respecting its formation, 300 
 Magnesia, proportion of, in rain-water, 28 
 Magnetic force has no influence on the 
 
 circulation of the fluids in plants, 9 
 Male flowers in unisexual plants, 107 
 Malt dust as manure, 665 
 Mandirola, F., hia mode of striking orange 
 
 and lemon leaves, 271 — 276 
 
 Manures, amtnoniacal, effect of, 550 
 
 farm-yard, 562 
 
 gas-lime, 553 
 
 gas-water, 575 
 
 liquid, 433, 572 
 
 best adapted for plants in 
 
 pots, 573 
 
 for root-crops and mode 
 
 of application, 579 
 receipts for making, 573 
 
 should be applied weak 
 
 and frequently, 574 
 
 Sir Joseph Paxton's mode 
 
 of treating, 574 
 
 superior to solid, 572 
 
 true principles of apply- 
 ing it, 676 
 
 unfavourable to' the pro- 
 
 duction of flowers, 577 
 
 - maniier of applying, 571 
 
 - mode of tillage without, 540 
 
 - objects and necessity for their 
 
 application, 539 
 
 - sewerage preferable to all others, 
 
 575 
 
 - soluble substances as, 651 
 
 - their action, 572 
 
 - time of their application, 570, 676 
 ■ works on, 543 
 
 Marcett, Dr., experiments by, 8 
 
INDEX. 
 
 593 
 
 Marsh plants, 160 
 
 Maturation of fruit accelerated or re- 
 tarded by water, 102 
 Medullary rays, 35, 42 
 
 instances of tissue thrown 
 
 out from, to replace a 
 surface injury, 37 
 Melons, effects of their roots being im- 
 . mersed in water, 168 
 
 importance of "setting" their 
 
 flowers, 469 
 
 Mr. Knight's experiments in the 
 
 cultivation of, 469 
 
 Persian, their tendency to de- 
 
 generate, 469 
 
 Melon seeds, reason why old are pre- 
 ferred to new, 104 
 
 M^ne, M,, result of his expeiiments with 
 gypsum, 553 
 
 Metallic substances in plants, 561 
 
 Metamorphosis of the parts of plants, 
 82-92 
 
 Mignonette, remarkable instance of the 
 rooting of, 19 
 
 Mildew, prevented by watering, 176 
 
 probable cause o^ 550 
 
 Mineral substances in plants, 561 
 Mistletoe, grafting of, 346 
 Mixed development of leaves, 56 
 
 Mohl, Professor, his refutation of Knight's 
 theory, 269 
 
 remarks on the descend- 
 ing sap in plants, 71 
 
 — — ■ remarks on the duration 
 
 of plants, 41 
 
 Moisture, abundant supply of, required 
 by plants in a growing state, 
 164 
 
 absorption of, by leaves, 70 
 
 action of, on cuttings hardly 
 
 inferior to that of heat, 
 291 
 
 atmospheric, when amounting 
 
 to saturation occasions a ces- 
 sation- of perspiration in 
 plants, 68 
 
 connected with temperature, 
 
 177 
 
 effects of an excessive supply 
 
 of, 166 _ ^^^ 
 effects of, in inducing vegeta- 
 tion, 261 
 
 effects of, on pollen, 241 
 
 equability of, a neoessaiy con- 
 dition in the striking of 
 leaves, 277 
 
 — in the air of hothouses, axioms 
 
 relating to, 212 
 its mean near London, 185 
 
 its range, 184 
 
 Moisture, its tendency to produce decay 
 in seeds, 247 
 
 maxims relating to the proper 
 
 balancing of, 212 
 
 much atmospheric, injurious 
 
 when fruit is ripening, 524 
 
 ■ necessary to produce germina- 
 tion, 14, 227 
 
 necessity of, adjusting in the 
 
 striking of cuttings, 289 
 
 of hothouses, necessity of re- 
 gulating, 205 
 
 of the soil, 159 
 
 preserved by means of oiled 
 
 paper, 218 
 
 should be sparingly applied to 
 
 the roots of trees previously 
 too much dried, 462 
 
 Monocotyledons, 41 
 
 Monstrosity, a cause of sterility, 242 
 causes inducing it, 502 
 
 Moon, the April, 174 
 
 Moonlight, its effects on plants, 63 
 
 Motion of fluid within the cells of plants, 
 
 different from motion of sap, 9 
 Mulberry, Knight's mode of striking, 285 
 
 mode of pruning, 380 
 
 propagation of, by budding,310 
 
 Mules, their origin, 96 
 Muling, 488 
 
 almost impossibility of species, 
 
 497 
 bigenerio, apocryphal, 497 
 
 Gsertner's conclusions, 496 
 
 limits of its operation, 497 
 
 practical instructions for, 490 
 
 Mviriate of lime, its use in the preserva- 
 tion of seeds, 244 
 
 of soda, its free absorption by 
 
 roots, 27 
 
 Natural grafting, 320 
 Nectarine-trees, mode of pruning, 384 
 rules and directions for, 
 
 Neumann, M., his mode of propagating 
 by leaves, 279 
 
 by roots, 282 
 
 his mode of treating cut- 
 tings of succulents, 294 
 
 Night, diminution of the functions of 
 plants in the, 514 
 
 soil as manure, ^nd mode of ap- 
 plying it, 563 
 
 Nilgherries, temperature of, 121 
 
 Nitrate of potash as manure, 564 
 
 Nitric acid, 28, 547 
 
 Nitrogen, or azote, a component part in 
 the food of plants, 28, 529 
 
 derivation of its supply, 28, 648 
 
S9i 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Nitrogen, in excess the probable cause of 
 mildew, 550 
 
 indispensable for the first for- 
 mation of tissue, 28 
 
 its abimdanoe in young tissue, 
 
 547 
 
 proportion of, in rain-water, 28 
 
 Niven, Mr., experiments by, in regard to 
 
 the circulation of the sap, 48 
 Nodules in the bark of trees, 44 
 Nutmeg-tree, mode of packing the seeds 
 
 of, 252 
 Nutritious matter in plants influences the 
 
 production of flower-buds, 95 
 
 Oak, instance of the power which the 
 bark possesses of repairing on 
 injury, 37 
 
 timber, annual rate of growth of, 
 
 416 
 
 experiments on the relative 
 
 strength of fast and slow 
 grown, 419 
 
 fast grown, superior to slow 
 
 grown, 416, 418 
 Odour of plants occasionally produces 
 unpleasant effects on peculiar consti- 
 tutions, 62 
 Oil-cake, as manure, 565 
 Oleraceous annuals, 166 
 Olive, auoient practice of grafting, 358 
 
 grafted on the fig, explanation of 
 
 this assertion, 347 
 
 mode of propagating in Italy, 267 
 
 One-shift system, 442 
 
 principal points to be 
 
 attended to, 443 
 Orangery, Count de Charolais's, 259 
 
 instance of trees in, remaining 
 
 for six years without air and 
 water, 259 
 Orange-tree, best stock for, 355 
 
 '- hardiness of, 192 
 
 injudicious treatment of, 136 
 
 long vitality of, 259 
 
 manure for, 566 
 
 mode of increasing by bud- 
 
 ding, 307 
 
 natural temperature of the 
 
 soil for, 136 
 
 ^— thrive amazingly in soil 
 
 mixed with charcoal, 646 
 
 —. „ trifacial, 359 
 
 Origin of various kinds of vegetables, 466 
 
 Ovary, 81 
 
 .Ovules, 81 
 
 Oxalic acid employed to promote the 
 
 germination of seeds, 237 
 Oxide of iron, large proportion of, in a 
 soil in vhich the pine^apple thrives, 538 
 
 Oxygen, derivation of its supply, 28 
 
 employed to promote germina- 
 tion, 236 
 
 extrication of, in leaves by solar 
 
 light, 60 
 
 inhaled by leaves in the absence 
 
 of solar light, 60 
 is absorbed by leaves when their 
 
 functions become languid 
 
 through age, 79 
 is absorbed from water during 
 
 the process of germination, 14 
 Oyster-shells, their use when pounded,637 
 
 Paokino grafts, D'Albret's mode, 342 
 
 growing plants for long voyages, 
 
 257 
 
 seeds, 245 
 
 Poeonies, root-grafting of, 361 
 Pan-feeders, 433 
 
 Parallel development of leaves, 66 
 Paulownia imperialis, mode of increasing 
 
 from portions of its root, 282 
 Paving the soil, 171 
 
 Peach-tree, cause of the enlargement of 
 the stem wherebudded, 361 
 
 . mode of budding, 306 
 
 mode of pruning, 384 
 
 rules and directions for prun- 
 ing, 386 
 Pear-tree, efi^ects of puiching the laterals, 
 
 378 
 • inarching the branches of, with 
 
 young wood, 324 
 pruning of, 376 
 pyramid, French method of 
 
 managing, 378 
 training of, 377 
 I, securing a late crop of, 176 
 Peat, from bogs not suited for gardening 
 purposes unless prepared, 533 
 
 instances of rendering it productive, 
 
 538 
 
 ■ in what its value consists, 535 
 
 its composition and properties, 628 
 
 not essential for American plants, 
 
 531 
 Peat-charcoal as a deodoriser, 563 
 Pendulous training, 424 
 Pepin, M., his statement relative to the 
 
 long vitality of certain plants, 259 
 Perspiration, a function performed by 
 the leaves of plants, 59 
 
 an important vital function, 
 
 177 
 arrested when the air is satu- 
 rated with moisture, 68, 
 211 
 
 commencement of its action, 
 
 164 
 
INDEX. 
 
 695 
 
 Perspiration, Dr. Hales's experiments on, 
 
 64-68 
 
 is affected by winds, 186 
 
 is promoted by solar light, 
 
 60, 455 
 its amount is in proportion 
 
 to the intensity of the 
 
 solar raySj 67, 455 
 its amount regulated by the 
 
 epidermis, 79 
 not performed at night, 69, 
 
 514 
 
 rate of, in a healthy plant, 73 
 
 supplied chiefly by the action 
 
 of the spongioles, 19 
 
 through young bark, 448 
 
 Petals, 81 
 
 Phosphates, their effect on vegetation, 
 
 559 
 Phosphoric acid abounds in all clay or 
 sand, 529 
 
 its value as manure, 557 
 
 Physiological principles upon which the 
 operations of horticulture essentially 
 depend, 133 
 Pigeon's dung as manure, 564 
 Pileorhize, 18 
 Pine-apple, application of waste steam to 
 
 the forcing of, 151 
 -^— importance of the old stump 
 
 for producing suckers, 302 
 
 its habit in a wild state, 537 
 
 ripening out of doors, at 
 
 Bioton, 101 
 succeeds better unpotted, if 
 
 supplied with a proper 
 
 amount of bottom-heat, 
 
 433 
 Pine, grafting of, 321 
 
 instances of a root forming new 
 
 layers of wood without the ex- 
 istence of a stem, 261 
 
 method of striking, by cuttings, 297 
 
 Pistil, its parts and situation, 81 
 Pith, 42 
 
 distinct, and central in its formation, 
 
 35 
 
 in endogens is intermingled with 
 
 woody fibre, 35 
 Placenta, 103 
 Plant, its nature, 5 
 
 mode of its birth, 16 
 
 Plantations, danger in thinning such as 
 have been crowded, 411 
 
 directions for managing, 407 
 
 Planting, ill effects of close, 409 
 Plants, all cultivated, require manure, 
 540 
 
 alpine, difficulty in cultivating, 
 
 218 
 
 Plants, aphyllous, offices of leaves per- 
 
 formed in, by the riud and 
 
 epidermis, 34, 59 
 
 artificial food for, 561 
 
 are penetrated in all directions 
 
 by air passages, 134 
 
 at rest, require but little water, 169 
 
 -^ cannot long exist on pure water, 
 
 28 
 
 capacity of bearing light, variable 
 
 in different species, 79 
 
 circumstances which advance or 
 
 retard the flowering of, 93 • 
 
 commencement of the period of 
 
 their fructification, 92 
 
 conditions required to preserve 
 
 them in a torpid state, 257 
 
 constitution of certain, undergoes 
 
 considerable changes with age, 
 479 
 
 cryptogamio, their mode of re- 
 
 production, 11 
 
 deciduous, 79 
 
 decompose carbonic acid during 
 
 the day, 59 
 deteriorate the air at night, 514 
 
 do not grow naturally in the 
 
 soil best suited for them, 534 
 
 donotvitiate theair of rooms, 61 
 
 do not wear out when artificially 
 
 multiplied by division, 477 
 
 effects of arsenic upon, 8 
 
 effects of chloroform on, 8 
 
 effects of cold, 113 
 
 effects of coloured light on, 238, 
 
 300 
 
 effects of moonlight on, 63 
 
 poisons on, 8 
 
 - facts relating to the long vitality 
 
 of, 259 
 
 - fallacy of growing, in a confined 
 
 atmosphere, 214 
 
 - flowering season of, may be 
 
 changed, 513 
 
 - form carbonic acid during the 
 
 night, 60 
 
 ■ grafted, should be similar in 
 
 structure and constitution, 345 
 • greater portion of, not suscep- 
 tible of hybridisation, 500 
 
 ■ growing in water are protected 
 
 from the usual cooling in- 
 fluences, 163 
 
 scorched by 
 
 sun's rays, 
 164 
 growing on grass, 199 
 growing under shelter, 199 
 have a tendency to variation, 
 486 
 
 Q Q 2 
 
596 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Plants, health of, ia in propoHion to the 
 
 health of leaves, 72 
 — — — ■ imbibe an excess of fluid during 
 
 the night, 69 
 
 improved by cultivation, have a 
 
 tendency to revert to their 
 wild state, 465, 505 
 
 in a state of growth, require an 
 
 abundant supply of moisture, 
 164 
 
 injured by excess of water, 137 
 
 in numerous instances have no 
 
 predilection for soil, 636 
 
 in sitting rooms, impossibility of 
 
 preserving long in a healthy 
 state, 211 
 
 irritability of, 11 
 
 leafless, offices of leaves performed 
 
 by the rind and epidermis, 34, 
 59 
 
 liable to injury from contact with 
 
 deleterious matter, 27 
 
 like animals have their diurnal 
 
 seasons of rest and repose, 
 114 ■ 
 
 list of such as require to be 
 
 " earthed up " when grafted, 
 
 341 
 
 I longevity of, 42 
 
 . maintain the air in a fit state for 
 
 the respiration of animals, 42, 
 
 62 
 
 may possess an inherent power 
 
 of growth without leaves, 75 
 
 natural food of, 28, 551 
 
 natural mode that some have of 
 
 propagating, 473 
 
 occasionally formed from " eyes " 
 
 separating from the mother 
 stem, 264 
 
 occasionally inoreasedby cuttings 
 
 of the midrib of their leaves, 
 280 
 
 of extreme climates, 153 
 
 packing of, in Wardian cases for a 
 
 long sea voyage, 257 
 , — perennial, are renovated annually, 
 
 472 
 — : — plunging of potted, 436 
 
 possess some quality analogous 
 
 to animal irritability, 295 
 -. power of producing roots from 
 
 various parts, 21 
 
 . power to select their food, 27 
 
 , probable cause of the difficulty of 
 
 cultivating alpine, 218 
 
 prolonged vitality of, 262 
 
 ^ raised from small-sized seeds, 
 
 supposed to be earlier than 
 
 those from large seed, 466 
 
 Plants require the soil and atmosphere 
 to correspond in tempeiatvire 
 with that of the countries of 
 which they are natives, 136 
 
 should never have more moisture 
 
 than they can consume, 164 
 ■ species and varieties of, in their 
 
 intrinsic qualities the same, 476 
 species of, appear to be eternal, 
 
 471 
 ■ succulent, should be packed dry, 
 
 257 
 
 suffer from cold in proportion to 
 
 the quantity of water they 
 contain, 111, 113 
 
 that are frozen must be thawed 
 
 gradually, 204 
 
 that grow fast at night do not 
 
 ripen their wood, 519 
 
 that inhabit shady situations will 
 
 not endure full exposure to 
 the sun, 62, 79 
 
 the channel through which their 
 
 ascending fluids are conducted, 
 40 
 
 the theory of their wearing out 
 
 erroneous, 478 
 
 their diurnal rest, 518 
 
 their healthiness depends on the 
 
 free action of the leaves, 59 
 
 their limit of enduring tem- 
 
 perature, 106 
 
 their natural resting, 611 
 
 their rest necessary to flowering, 
 
 513 
 
 universally have a season of rest, 
 
 507 
 
 vital actions of, 5 
 
 vital force in sensitive, 9 
 
 Plug-grafting, and mode of performing, 336 
 Plum-tree, budding of, 306 
 pruning of, 388 
 
 Plumule, 33 
 
 derives its nourishment partly 
 
 from the root and -partly 
 from the seed leaves, 33 
 Plunging of potted plants, 435 
 Poisonous substances, fatEkl to man, prove 
 
 equally so to plants, 27 
 Poisons, alkaline and metallic, destructive 
 to plants, 27 
 
 their effects on plants, 8 
 
 Pollen, 81, 498 
 
 agents which afiect its fertilising 
 
 powers, 241 
 
 deficiency of, a cause of sterility, 
 
 240 
 
 is conveyed to considerable dis- 
 
 tances by wind and insects, 
 468 
 
INDEX. 
 
 597- 
 
 Pollen, its fertilising power impaired by 
 low temperature, 110 
 
 . its formation induced by high 
 
 temperature, 108 
 
 Populus monilifera, instance of extending 
 its roots, 19 
 
 Potash as a manure, 554 
 
 employed to promote germina- 
 
 tion, 236 
 Potato, curl in the leaves of, 99 
 renewal of, by seed, 474 
 
 size and weight of, increased by 
 
 preventing the formation of 
 flowers and fruit, 487 
 
 tubers of early varieties, their ap- 
 
 propriation of nutritive matter, 
 242 
 
 unequal period of its maturity 
 
 from different eyes, 267 
 Potatoes, greater weight of, obtained 
 from sets than from whole 
 tubers, 266 
 
 propagation of, from eyes, 267 
 
 Pots, double, for plants, 436 
 
 effects produced by, when plants are 
 
 suffered to remain too long in, 440 
 
 for plants, their drainage, 170 
 
 importance of being well drained, 
 
 and mode of effecting it, 438 
 importance of the end of the out- 
 ting touching the bottom of, 286 
 
 necessity of their being proportioned 
 
 to the size of the plants, 441 
 need not be made of porous mate- 
 rial, 444 
 
 suggestions for the improvement of, 
 
 432 
 
 suited for cuttings, 288 
 
 Potting, 431 
 
 cases in which it may be advan- 
 
 tageously dispensed with, 432 
 
 objects attained by, 431 
 
 Precautions to be observed in the 
 
 striking of leaves, 277 
 Preservation of races by seed, 463 
 Flicking out of seedlings, 432 
 Principles upon which the operations of 
 
 horticulture essentially depend, 132 
 Productiveness, 94 
 
 Propagation, by buddingandgrafting, only 
 successful within certain 
 limits of affinity, 346 
 
 by cuttings, 281 
 
 by cuttings of roots, 282 
 
 by division, not a cause of 
 
 disease, 270 
 
 by eyes, 264 
 
 by eyes and cuttings, diffe- 
 rence of, from budding 
 and grafting, 304 
 
 Propagation, by knaurs or uovoU, 268 
 
 by knots or excrescences, 267 
 
 by layers or suckers, 301 
 
 by leaves, 80, 266, 271 
 
 by roots, depends on the 
 
 formation of adventitious 
 
 buds, 30 
 
 by runners, 473 
 
 by scales, 273 
 
 by seeds, 464 
 
 ■ its objects, 304 
 
 its rationale explained, 285 
 
 natural mode of, by various 
 
 plants, 473 
 Protection afforded by walls, 186 
 Protothall, 11 
 Pruning, 361, 400 
 
 considerations necessary to be 
 
 observed in, 364 
 
 evergreens, 420 
 
 for flowers or fruitj 
 
 for timber, 395 
 
 good and bad, illustrated, 373 
 
 injury o&casioned by, when 
 
 carried to excess, 408 
 its effects, 71, 73, 366 
 
 its objects, 362 
 
 of roots, 367 
 
 of shrubberies, 419 
 
 of transplanted trees, 366 
 
 ■ practice of, 373 
 
 principles of, 362 
 
 seasons for, 365, 419 
 
 Pterooarpus marsupium, facility with 
 
 which it may 
 be increased, 
 284 
 
 remarkable in- 
 stance of vi- 
 tality in cut- 
 tings of, 284 
 
 Puddling round transplanted trees not 
 always necessary, and often 
 injurious, 462 
 
 substitute for, 462 
 
 Pyramid pear-trees, French method of 
 
 managing, 378 
 
 QniNOE-tree, mode of pruning, 379 
 
 Eaohs of plants, accidental alterations in, 
 474 
 
 are said to wear out, 471 
 
 degeneracy of, negatived, 
 
 476 
 
 improved, suddenly re- 
 vert to their wild state, 
 504 
 
 improveiuent of, 465, 
 
 481 
 
598 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Races of plaats, means of fixing their 
 habits, 464 
 
 means of their preserva- 
 tion by seeds, 463 
 
 origin of, 485 
 
 theory of wearing out 
 
 erroneous, 478 
 Radiation, 162, 194 
 
 nocturnal, 199 
 
 Radicle, 16 
 
 Rain, average depth of, near London, 29 
 Rain-water, substances found in, 28, 29 
 Raspberry, period of ripening changed by 
 pruning, 365 
 
 pruning of, 394 
 
 Receipts for making grafting wax, 340 
 Repotting, 434 
 
 Reproduction, property of, in leaf-buds 
 
 and seeds, 13 
 Respiration, a function performed by the 
 leaves of plants, 59 
 
 M. Pepy's experiments on, 61 
 
 impeded, the cause of death 
 
 to seeds that germinate in 
 water, 227 
 Rest of plants, 159 
 
 diurnal, 513 
 
 ■ how effected, 511 
 
 -— • in tropical regions how 
 
 imitated, 511 
 
 periods of, in tropical 
 
 regions, 507 
 Resting plants, 607 
 
 Rhododendrons, difBculty of cultivating 
 those from Siktim- 
 Himalaya, 220 
 
 grafting of, 347 
 
 injured when permitted 
 
 to ripen seed, 98 
 
 ■ — their natural habits, 535 
 
 Rind, 39 
 
 Ringing, an operation by which the pro- 
 duction of roots is accelerated, 
 25 
 
 effects of, 372 
 
 experiments on, 48 
 
 induces fructification, 94 
 
 its ultimate consequences, 372 
 
 permanent, not always injurious, 
 
 371 
 physiological nature of the ope- 
 ration, 370 
 
 proper seasons for, 371, 372 
 
 substitute for, in Malta, 372 
 
 Ripening of seeds, the effects of, 243 
 Root, at first grows by a general disten- 
 tion of its tissue, 17 
 
 is the part soonest developed, 17 
 
 its proportion to the stem variable, 
 
 26 
 
 Root, mode of its increase in length after 
 passing the embryo state, 17 
 
 offices of its bark, 18 
 
 substance from which it derives its 
 
 means of accretion, 16 
 — ^ crops, manure for and mode of 
 application, 578 
 
 excretions, theory of, abandoned, 30 
 
 pruning, an old practice, 369 
 
 as performed by the Chi- 
 nese, 368 
 
 ■ its effects in inducing fruit- 
 fulness, 367 
 
 season for, 367 
 
 Root watering, substitute for, 462 
 Roots, absorb whatever is fluid and suf- 
 ficiently attenuated, 27 
 
 are naturally placed in a higher 
 
 mean temperature than branches 
 and leaves, 148 
 
 augment in diameter simulta- 
 
 neously with the stem, 21 
 
 aerial, phenomenon of, 141 
 
 bad effects of their being deeply 
 
 covered with soil, 140 
 
 bruised, necessity of removing, 
 
 367, 460 
 
 ■ can generate buds, 32 
 
 cause of their formation, 25 
 
 cause of their production in the 
 
 stems of vines, 140 
 
 cork-screw, formed from being 
 
 confined in pots, 440 
 — — • differ from branches in not being 
 the development of previously 
 formed buds, 25 
 
 effects of their being in a widely 
 
 different temperature from that 
 of the branches, 69 
 
 emitted into the air, 284 
 
 employment of, as stocks for 
 
 grafting on, 350 
 
 feed on water, 29 
 
 growing in water, 21 
 
 — — have no greater power of excreting 
 matter than other parts of a 
 plant, 30 
 
 in general have no buds, 30 
 
 instances of, bleeding, 50 
 
 of excessive develop- 
 ment of, 20 
 
 of, forming layers of 
 
 wood without the ex- 
 istence of a stem, 261 
 
 of leaves producing, 
 
 without forming buds, 
 278 
 
 ■ of, increasing in bulk 
 
 without leaves, 74, 
 76 
 
INDEX. 
 
 599 
 
 Root, instances of their formation by 
 
 the atom, 22 
 of their production by 
 
 leaves, 23, 275 
 of theirremainingburied 
 
 and torpid for many 
 
 years, 262 
 
 ^ of vitality in, 30, 31 
 
 lengthen at their points only, 17 
 
 local motion of, in quest of fresh 
 
 food, 19, 20 
 
 matted, 439 
 
 may be grafted, 350 
 
 mode of increase after passing the 
 
 embryo state, 17, 20 
 
 most readily formed in darkness 
 
 and moderate moisture, 25 
 
 nature of their food, 28 
 
 never inactive except when frozen, 
 
 26 
 
 perish if their formation be not 
 
 speedily followed by the deve- 
 lopment of leaves, 25 
 
 power of forming adventitious 
 
 buds, 30 
 
 — produced by removing a ring of 
 
 bark, 25 
 
 produced from various parts of a 
 
 plant, 21 
 
 propagating by cuttings of, 282 
 
 proportion borne to the stem, 
 
 variable, 26 
 — — the fact of their increasing in bulk 
 
 without leaves or branches, ex- 
 plained, 78 
 the theory that they are only 
 
 formed by the action of leaves, 
 
 erroneous, 448 
 their action reciprocal with that 
 
 of the leaves, 69 
 their deep penetration into cold 
 
 soil a cause of canker, 148 
 
 their feeding property depends on 
 
 the hygrometrioal force of their 
 tissue, 18, 27 
 
 their fitness for propagation de- 
 pends on their power of forming 
 adventitious buds, 30 
 
 the remote cause of their forma- 
 tion, 25 
 
 their great importance, and danger 
 
 of destroying them, 19 
 
 their hygrometrioal properties, 17 
 
 ■ their immediate cause involved in 
 
 obscurity, 24 
 
 their principal of&ce, 25 
 
 their slender power of selecting 
 
 food, 26 
 why their extreme points are 
 
 called spongelets, 18 
 
 Roses, mode of budding, 809 
 
 -! neat mode of training, 426 
 
 Royle, Dr., successful mode of packing 
 
 seeds, 252 
 Runners, propagation by, 473 
 
 Saddle grafting, 318 
 
 SaJt as a manm-e, and mode of application, 
 
 555 
 Saltpetre as a manure, 654 
 Salts, certain of them enter into the com- 
 position of the food of plants, 28 
 
 nitrogenous, are connected with 
 
 high vitality, 547 
 Sand employed in the propagation of 
 cuttings, 288, 293 
 
 its composition, 527 
 
 loose, unsuitable for plants, 530 
 
 sometimes constitutes a most im- 
 
 portant portion in the food of 
 
 plants, 528 ' 
 Sap, accumulation of, 99 
 an inspissated state of, produced by 
 
 a dry atmosphere, 612 
 
 artificial obstacles to, 48 
 
 ascending, its force, 67 
 
 ascends partly in consequence of an 
 
 attracting force by the leaves, 52 
 
 ascent of, explained, 52 
 
 cause of its flow, 49, 5.1 
 
 course of, not prevented by wounds, 
 
 45 
 
 descending, 71 
 
 when obstructed induces fruitful- 
 
 uess, 352 
 
 direction given to, by pruning, 362 
 
 experiments in regard to the circu- 
 
 latian of, 48, 51 
 falls back at night in consequence 
 
 of cold, 53 
 flow of, materially influenced by the 
 
 state of the weather, 50, 140 
 
 generates buds, 32 
 
 its ascending and descending cur- 
 rents communicate with difier- 
 
 ent systems of veins in the 
 
 leaves, 57 
 its changes during the course of its 
 
 circulation, 40 
 its circulation affected by motion 
 
 communicated to plants by wind, 
 
 218 
 
 its constituents, 45 
 
 its transmission through the stem, 
 
 40 
 may be compelled to organise itself 
 
 externally as roots, 301 
 
 motion of, different from its flow, 49 
 
 superabundance of, detrimental to 
 
 buds, 311 
 
600^ 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sapwood, and mode of its formation, 40 
 Saturation, hygrometrical, 1 84 
 Saw-dust as manure, 565 
 Scales, propagation by, 273 
 Scion affects the stock, 358 
 
 and stock, example to show their 
 
 mode of adhesion, 343 
 
 ■ should be well suited to 
 
 each other, 351 
 effects of the stock on, 353 
 
 influenced by the stock, 303 
 
 Scions, how to keep fresh, 342 
 
 . — . from the trunk of a tree con- 
 sidered preferable to those 
 from the branches, 341 
 
 should be more backward in their 
 
 vegetation than the stocks, 339 
 Scorching, causes of, in damp houses, and 
 
 mode of preventing, 208 
 Screens, form of, for guarding plants from 
 •wind, 189 
 
 of oiled paper, 218 
 
 their importance in modifying 
 
 the dryness of the air, 186, 198 
 Seasons, alternations of, 116 
 — — — tropical, 132 
 Seaweeds, M. Thuret's experiments on 
 
 the spores of, 10 
 Secretions, an essential part of them 
 formed by the decompo- 
 sition of carbonic acid, 
 545 
 
 , are generated faster by the 
 
 aid of heat, 277 
 
 are improved-in quaiity when 
 
 air has the fullest access to 
 the plants, 101 
 
 of plants, formative agents of, 
 
 70 
 result from the ac- 
 tion of their leaves, 
 70 
 their formation fa- 
 voured by a high 
 temperature with 
 dryness, 100 
 of the fruit, changes they un- 
 dergo, 100 
 
 saccharine, formed by the 
 
 germinatiug seed, 16 
 Seed, care required to save, 468 
 
 its nature, 13 
 
 its properties of reproduction dif- 
 ferent from those of the leaf- 
 buds, 13 
 Seedlings, health depends on that of the 
 seed, 474 
 
 . Mr. Thompson's experience in 
 
 regaird to, 506 
 — pricking out of, 432 
 
 Seedlings, real quality of, cannot be ascer- 
 tained when first produced, 
 500 
 
 Seeds, cause of their longevity, 103 
 
 cause of their rotting in the 
 
 ground, 247 
 
 chemical changes in, 227 
 
 - close packing of, injurious in hot 
 
 climates, 249 
 
 ■ conditions requisite to produce 
 
 germination, 13 
 
 consequences of gathering them in 
 
 an unripe state, 243 
 
 degree of heat which some will 
 
 bear, 247 
 
 depth at which to sow, 228 
 
 — — destruction of their vitality, 104 
 
 difierence in their vigour, 104 
 
 effect of boiling,, 106, 235 
 
 effect of deoxydising, 236 
 
 effect of electrical action on germi- 
 
 nating, 15 
 
 evils of deep sowing, 229 
 
 excess of carbon in, 14 
 
 germinating, effects of, under dif- 
 
 ferent coloured glass, 238 
 
 germinating, effects produced on, 
 
 by alkaline substances, 235 
 
 germinate from a saccharine secre- 
 
 tion, 16 
 growing in air, 21 
 
 influence of circumstances under 
 
 which they are matured extends 
 to the progeny, 243 
 
 invigorated, 243 
 
 length of time they will remain in 
 
 the ground without growing, 238 
 
 manner of germination, 14 
 
 of composite plants, 242 
 
 old, of spruce fir, germination pro- 
 
 moted in, 236 
 
 old, of stocks, &c., produce double 
 
 flowers, 502 
 
 of tropical trees, degree of heat 
 
 requiredfortheir germination, 135 
 — r- origin of their food, 103 
 
 peculiar modes of sowing, 234 
 
 period of their retention of the 
 
 power of germination, 103, 246 
 
 preservation of races by, 463 
 
 remain dormant whilst their pro- 
 
 portion of carbon is undimi- 
 nished, 104 
 
 —. — renew the languid vigour of a 
 species, 472 
 
 — ; — renewal by, not always a preventa- 
 tive of disease, 474 
 
 reproduce species only with cer- 
 
 tainty, 13, 95, 463 
 
 ripeness in, 243 
 
INDEX. 
 
 601 
 
 Seeds, small-sized, supposed to produce 
 plants capable of coming early to 
 maturity, 466 
 
 steeping of, useless, 237 
 
 temperature borne by, 231 
 
 temperature required for their ger- 
 
 mination, 230 
 
 the best, produce the best breeds, 
 
 487 
 
 their preservation, 244 
 
 weak, produce weak plants, 243 
 
 will not produce the same pecu- 
 
 liarities which characterise varie- 
 ties of the same species, 13, 95, 
 504 
 
 with very hard integuments, means 
 
 resorted to for assisting their 
 germination, 234 
 
 Seed-packing, 245 
 
 best mode for, 250 
 
 exceptions to the general 
 
 rule to be observed in, 
 351 
 
 in bottles plunged in 
 
 ships' water tanks, 253 
 
 in charcoal, effects of, 249 
 
 in clayed sugar, objection- 
 able, 249 
 
 in hermetical enclosures, 
 
 bad, 248 
 
 successful mode of, em- 
 ployed by Dr. Eoyle, 
 252 
 
 Seed-saving, 239 
 
 Seed-sowing, 227 
 
 depth of seeds in the soil, 
 
 228 
 peculiar modes of, 234 
 
 Silex, in solution, absorbed by the wheat 
 plant, 27 
 
 ' rejected by the pea, 27 
 
 Situation of a garden, 199 
 
 low, how improved, 201, 203 
 of more consequence than soil, 
 
 200 
 relation of, to cold, 
 
 Sensitive plant, experiments on, 8, 64 
 
 Sepals, 81 
 
 Sets of potatoes preferable to whole 
 tubers, 266 
 
 Setting flowers, importance of, 469 
 
 Sewerage manure, most valuable of any, 
 575' 
 
 Sexes, the essential part of flowers, 81 , 
 
 Shade, disadvantage of too much, 292, 296 
 
 —— necessary for cuttings, 291, 296 
 
 Shaink, cause of, 69 
 
 Shanking of grapes, 140 
 
 Shield-budding, 306 
 
 square, 312 
 
 without alburnum, 312 
 
 Shifting plants in pots, 433 
 
 successive, 441 
 
 Shoots, unripe, their diminished capabi- 
 lity of resisting extreme cold, 
 113 
 
 young, their susceptibility of 
 
 frost, 113 
 
 Size, in some cases a mark of unhealthinesa, 
 467 
 
 Skin of plants, M. Garreau'a enquiiiea 
 into its functions, 59 
 
 Smith, Rev. J., his experiments confir- 
 matory of the fact that roots 
 increase in bulk in the absence 
 of leaves, 76 
 
 his mode of tillage without 
 
 manure, 540 
 
 Smyrna, curious practice at, in regard to 
 the orange, 359 
 
 Snagging, or lopping, ill effects of, 403 
 
 Soap-boilers' refuse as manure, 554 
 
 Soda as manure, 555 
 
 Soil, 526 
 
 adaptation of stocks to, 354 
 
 artificial, its composition, 530 
 
 best for striking cuttings in, 287 
 
 calcareous loam the best for general 
 
 use, 530 
 
 choice of, for a garden, 199 
 
 clay, badforgardeningpurposes, 530 
 
 ■ different, requisite for different 
 
 varieties, 354, 536 
 
 effects of one too wet, 168 
 
 effects of rapid evaporation from, 
 
 172 
 
 evil of one too wet for cuttings, 293 
 
 for American plants, 632 
 
 for fruit-tree borders, 531 
 
 imitation of, an error, 535 
 
 ^— its exhaustion in pots, 433 
 
 its superior heat at top taken advan- 
 tage of for the cure of canker, 
 148 
 
 ^— its temperature and moisture more 
 important than its mineralogioal 
 quality, 149 
 
 — — mean temperature of, is always 
 above that of the air, 134 
 
 moisture of, 159 
 
 ' must be warmed for the striking of 
 
 cuttings, 290 
 
 natural temperature of, 136 
 
 necessity of its being changed, 434 
 
 oolitic clay, successful mode of 
 
 cultivating, 640 
 peat, instance of rendering, produc- 
 tive, 638 
 
 relation which the temperature of, 
 
 bears to that of the air, 130 
 
602 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Soil, sterile, its effects in accelerating 
 fructification, 93 
 
 temperature of, in autumn most 
 
 favourable for transplanting ever- 
 greens, 453 
 
 temperature important in the ger- 
 
 mination of seeds, 230 
 
 the kinds of, most essential to the 
 
 cultivator, 528 
 
 the manner in which it appears to 
 
 act upon plants, 529 
 
 the most suitable condition of, at 
 
 the period of vegetable rest, 160 
 
 its power of absorbing ammonia 
 
 and its salts, 547 
 
 warm and dry, influences the ex- 
 
 citability and maturity of certain 
 crops, 466 
 
 warmed from being drained, 138 
 
 Solar light, difference of its effects on 
 
 plants when transmitted 
 through different colour- 
 ed media, 300 
 
 effects a decomposition of 
 
 carbonic acid in plants, 60 
 
 ■ its effect on leaves, 60 
 
 its influence o: 
 
 life, 60 
 
 occasions the extrication of 
 
 oxygen in plants, 60 
 promotes insensible perspi- 
 ration in plants, 60 
 Solar radiation, 195 
 
 • ~ immense power of, 197 
 
 Solar rays, the immediate cause of per- 
 spiration in plants, 177 
 
 their exhausting effects on 
 
 plants under certain cir- 
 cumstances, 79 
 Solly, Professor Edward, his experiments 
 on the effects of electricEil action on 
 germination, 15 
 Soluble substances as manure, 551 
 Spanish chestnut, instance of the trunk 
 
 of an old tree emitting roots, 22 
 Species and varieties iu their intrinsic 
 
 qualities the same, 476 
 —— continue to propagate without 
 losing their specific peculia- 
 rities, 472 
 
 of plants appear to be eternal, 
 
 471 
 
 the almost impossibility of mu- 
 
 ling, 497 
 Specimen plants, mode of obtaining, 441, 
 
 443 
 Spongelets, act as absorbents, 18 
 
 are not special organs, 19 
 
 carry on the absorption of 
 
 food most energetically, 456 
 
 Spongelets, reason of the extreme points 
 of roots being so called, 18 
 
 their connection with the al- 
 burnum, 18 
 
 their force of absorption, 19 
 
 their nature and consistence, 
 
 18 
 
 Spore of seaweeds, M. Thuref s experi- 
 ments on, 10 
 
 its motion and fertilisation, 11 
 
 Sports, are or may become permanent, 
 
 482 
 
 how continued, 485 
 
 origin of, 481 
 
 Springs, temperature of, imsatisfactory as 
 indicating that of the earth, 
 . 117 
 Stamens, buds formed in the axils of, 54 
 
 their parts and situation, 81 
 
 their use, 95 
 
 Starch, its accumulation in seeds, 243 
 Steam, application of waste, as a medium 
 
 of bottom-heat, 150 
 Stem, bears a variable proportion to the 
 roots, 26 
 
 different forms, 43 
 
 growth by the, 33 
 
 is a branch produced by the first 
 
 leaf-bud, 34 
 
 is at first merely a vegetable cell, 
 
 afterwards increased into cellular 
 tissue, 34 
 
 its horizontal system, 35 
 
 its office, 45 
 
 its origin, 33 
 
 its parts, 35, 42 
 
 its perpendicular system, 35 
 
 • processes by which wounds in them 
 
 are healed, 36 
 
 its properties of forming leaf-buds, 
 
 43 
 
 subterranean, suitable for propaga- 
 
 tion, 282 
 • ■ transmission of sap through, 40 
 
 wounds of, repaired by cellular or 
 
 horizontal system, 35 
 Sterility, 93 
 
 causes of, 239, 369 
 
 from cold, 109 
 
 remedy for, 241, 369 
 
 Stigma, 81, 498 
 
 elective affinity of, 499 
 
 Stock affected by the scion, 357 
 
 and graft, cause of the enlargement 
 
 at their junction, 351 
 
 effect produced by different kinds 
 
 of, 352 
 
 has the effect of inereasing the 
 
 hardiness of a variety that may 
 be worked upon it, 363 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Stock and scion, adhere by the mere 
 junction of cellular 
 matter, 344 
 curious instance of ad- 
 hesion in, 343 
 must haye a great si- 
 milarity of constitu- 
 tion, 345 
 Stocks, adaptation of, to soUs, 854 
 
 affect the fruit, 355 
 
 cutting back of, when budded, 311 
 
 when grafted, 339 
 
 heading down, 339 
 
 in some cases promote the early 
 
 bearing and early death of the 
 graft, 358 
 
 necessity of a correspondence in 
 
 growth between their horizontal 
 system and that of the graft or 
 bud, 336 
 selection of, a matter of great im- 
 portance, 349 
 
 their effects in modifying the 
 
 growth of the tree, 304 
 
 their effect on fniotification, 304 
 
 their influence on grafts, 304 
 
 Stomates, 57 
 
 number of, in a square inch of 
 
 . the leaves of various species, 
 , 58 
 - - permit the escape of vapour, 164 
 their number and size propor- 
 tionate to the natural habits 
 of plants, 58 
 
 their positiouand adaptation, 70 
 
 Stopping, its importance, 396 
 
 Stove plants, night temperature for, 520 
 
 Strontian rejected by certain plants, 27 
 
 Structure of flowers, 81 
 
 Style, 81 
 
 Succulency a mark of unhealthiness, 467 
 
 Succulents are best preserved for a long 
 
 voyage by being packed dry, 257 
 M. lyTeumann's mode of treat- 
 ing cuttings of, 294 
 
 their small proportion of 
 
 roots, 26 
 Suckers of the pine-apple, 302 
 Sulphate of soda as a manure, 557 
 Sulphur, 559 
 
 its value as a manure, 560 
 
 Sulphuric acid employed in drying air 
 
 for the preservation of seed, 244 
 Summer pruning prevents excessive 
 
 luxuriance, 377 
 Superphosphate of lime, mode of pre- 
 paring, and way to apply as manure, 558 
 Sun's rays, force of, 127 
 
 scorching effects of, on plants 
 
 growing in water, 164 
 
 Sweden, temperature of, 119 
 Sylvan inarching, 327 
 Syringing, 206 
 
 frozen plants with cold water, 
 
 good effects of, 112, 204 
 newly transplanted trees, 448 
 
 System, horizontal cellular, 35 
 
 one-shift, in cultivation, 442 
 
 perpendicular, of stems, 35 
 
 Tanneb's bark, spent, as manure, 565 
 Tap-root, advantageous sometimes to 
 
 remove, 461 
 Temperature, a difference between that 
 of day and night univer- 
 sal, 514 
 
 alternations of, necessary 
 
 to plants, 114 
 
 Australian night, 516 
 
 average, at Chiswick, 115 
 
 average, at Madras, 115 
 
 borne by seeds, 232 
 
 diurnal variations of, 114 
 
 effects of an unnaturally 
 
 low, 109 
 
 effects of great discrepancy 
 
 in, as regards different 
 portions of a plant, 69 
 effects of its annual alterna- 
 tions, 116 
 effects of its diurnal alter- 
 nations, 114 
 
 effects on pollen, of one 
 
 too low, 241 
 effects ofone too high in hot- 
 houses at night, 208, 518 
 
 effects of one too high on 
 
 plants, 107 
 
 extremes of, to which plants 
 
 are subject when grow- 
 ing, 153 
 high, conjoined with dry- 
 ness, favourable to the 
 formation of fruit, 109 
 high, vrith moisture, favour- 
 able to the production of 
 leavesand branches, 109 
 
 importance of securing a 
 
 properoneforplants, 148 
 
 inutility of mean air, 154 
 
 laws of, with respect to its 
 
 influence on vegetation, 
 113 
 
 limits of, endurable by 
 
 plants, 106 
 
 night must be lower than 
 
 day, 514 
 
 of drained laud, much 
 
 higher than that of un- 
 drained, 138 
 
60i 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Temperature of earth and air, at Chis- 
 wick, 128 
 
 of earth and air, results 
 
 deduced from tables, 124 
 
 of earth, in and near the 
 
 tropics, always warmer 
 than the air, 131 
 
 : of earth, in various parts 
 
 oftheworld, 117, 125 
 
 ■ of earth, reason why it is 
 
 necessary to be higher 
 than that of air, 148 
 
 of Boils, its important in- 
 fluence on vegetation, 149 
 
 of soils, relation it bears to 
 
 that of the air, 130 
 
 of springs, unsatisfactory 
 
 as indicating that of the 
 earth, 117 
 
 of tropical seasons, 132 
 
 sudden changes in, inju- 
 rious to plants, 435 
 
 Mr. Thompson's tables on, 
 
 117 
 
 very low, under the in- 
 fluence of light causes 
 the early appearance of 
 fruit, 612 
 
 which grain will bear, 248 
 
 with regard to the direc- 
 tion of the wind, 190 
 
 Thawing plants that are frozen, 112 
 
 Thumb-pots, the best adapted for first 
 potting of cuttings, 299 
 
 Thuret, M., experiments on the spores of 
 seaweeds, 10 
 
 Timber, annual rate of growth in oak, 415 
 
 its composition, 413 
 
 pruning for, 395 
 
 refutation of the fallacy that slow- 
 
 grown is superior to fast-grown, 
 
 412 
 Tissue, cellular, is the component of the 
 
 first rudiments of the stem, 
 
 84 
 contracts imder the influence of 
 
 cold, 187 
 
 disorganisation of, 168 
 
 fibro-vascular, 413 
 
 ■ forming veins has a double origin, 
 
 56 
 
 general distention of, in roots 
 
 growing in air and water, 21 
 general distention of, in the em- 
 bryo state of roots, 17 
 its first formation requires nitro- 
 gen, 28 
 
 its hygrometrical force depends 
 
 on the action of the vital prin- 
 ciple, 27 
 
 Tissue, live, cannot form an organic union 
 with that which is dead, 405 
 
 mixed arrangement of, in endo- 
 
 geus, 35 
 
 reproduction of, upon a decorti- 
 cated space, 36 
 
 Tongueing, 301 
 
 its use, 315 
 
 Training, 
 
 421 
 
 diseases induced by, 429 
 
 downward, advantageous, 424 
 
 its disadvantages, 428 
 
 = its effects on the circulation of 
 
 the juices, 429 
 
 objects to be attended to, 424 
 
 Transformation of the parts of plants, 
 
 82,92 
 Transplanted trees, importance of pre- 
 serving the roots of, 
 455 
 
 languid from previous 
 
 dryness, efiects on, 
 by the too rapid 
 absorption of water, 
 462 
 
 their pruning often 
 
 injurious, 366 
 Transplanting, 445 
 
 — eSects of, on annuals, 467 
 
 facts relating to, 459 
 
 in spring, objectionable, 
 
 450 
 
 its rationale, 446 
 
 leads to the production of 
 
 flowers and fruit, 94 
 
 manner of performing the 
 
 operation, 456 
 
 of deciduous trees, 446 
 
 of evergreens, 450" 
 
 preparation of old trees 
 
 for, 457 
 
 why autumn is 
 
 — reasons 
 
 the best season for ever- 
 gi-eens, 453 
 
 seasons for, 447 
 
 very large trees, 458 
 
 Trdcul, M., his explanation of the de- 
 velopment of leaves, 65 
 
 Tree-ivy, origin of, 481 
 Trees and shrubs, are renovated annually, 
 472 
 
 ' distinct parts of their 
 
 bark, 39 
 
 Chinese mode of dwarfing, 368 
 
 hard-wooded and resinous, modes 
 
 of grafting, 321 
 
 inscription on, remarkable instance 
 
 of, 38 
 
 instance of being decorticated by 
 
 lightning, 47 
 
INDEX. 
 
 605 
 
 Trees, longeTity of, 40, 41 
 
 nodules in the bark of, 44 
 
 remarkable instances of vitality in, 
 
 260 
 Trifacial orange, 360 
 True sap wholly generated in the leaves, 
 
 370 
 Tubers, 43 
 instances of, formed by flowers, 85 
 
 propagation by, 473 
 
 Undeeoeoukd climate, 137 
 Unisexual plants, effects of temperature 
 on, 108 
 
 Valleys, general coldness of, compared 
 with higher ground, 200 
 
 • their liability to sudden cold, 
 
 200 
 Van Hall, his observations on the in- 
 fluence of leaves in increasing the 
 trunks of trees, 71 
 Varieties and species, in their intrinsic 
 
 qualities the same, 476 
 Varieties are usually far more disposed 
 to mix than species, 499 
 
 early and late, influenced by 
 
 soil, 466 
 
 how continued, 485 
 
 means of fixing them, 464 
 
 owe theirorigiu to some special 
 
 circumstance, 479 
 Vegetable, cells, have their own special 
 
 power of secretion, 344 
 ■ excitability, 295 
 
 irritability, 11 
 
 life, ; principal circumstances 
 
 connected with, 6 
 respiration, Mr. Pepy's ex- 
 periments on, 61 
 Vegetation in forcing houses, mode of 
 
 resting it, 611 
 Veins, 56 
 
 of leaves consist of two systems, 56 
 
 Ventilation, 213 
 
 advantages of, 215 
 
 ^— by drains, 226 
 
 injurious effects of, 222 
 
 in winter, 
 
 Vine borders, effect of concreting, 144 
 
 mode of concreting, 146 
 
 precautions for draining 
 
 of, 170 
 
 countries, temperature of, 515 
 
 effects of grafting, 304 
 
 grafting of, 352 
 
 in Greece, 350 
 
 its necessity, 214 
 
 just as necessary in winter 
 
 as in summer, 217 
 
 Knight's remarks and ex- 
 periments on, 216, 225 
 
 practice of, 224 
 
 Williams of Pitmaston's 
 
 mode of, 225 
 
 Vine, application of potash to, 654 
 
 borders, formation of, 146 
 
 artificially warmed, 143 
 
 mode of increasing from eyes, 264 
 
 pruning, diagram illustrative of, 72 
 
 remedy in cases of bleeding, 364 
 
 soil in which it arrives at the 
 
 greatest perfection, 144 
 
 warmth of soil for, 136 
 
 cause of earlyforoed,notsetting, 140 
 
 Vital force, 7 
 
 in plants decomposes water, 60 
 
 its presence exemplified in 
 
 fresh-water confervas, 10 
 
 manifestedby pollen tubes, 10 
 
 proofs of, 8 
 
 of vegetation, 60 
 
 Vital functions of plants, 177 
 Vital points on the stem, formation of, 43 
 Vitality explained, 12 
 in seeds, causes of its destruc- 
 tion, 104 
 
 in plants, evidence of, 11 
 
 remarkable instances of, in 
 
 plants, 259, 261 
 Vital principle, its presence admitted, 
 enables us to elucidate 
 many things that are 
 obscure in vegetable 
 physiology. 111 
 stimulated by heat, 15 
 
 universal, 12 
 
 Walls, effects of blackening, 199, 423 
 
 impoi*tance of, in improving 
 
 the flavour and hastening the 
 maturation of the fruit, 423 
 
 importance of, with regard to 
 
 shelter, 186 
 Walnut, propagation of, by budding, 310, 
 337 
 
 by grafting, 338 
 
 Wardian cases, fault of, 222 
 
 unfit for cultivation, 221 
 
 useful for sending live 
 
 . plants by sea, 257 
 Water, a copious supply of, increases the 
 size, but diminishes the flavour 
 ofthefrait, 166 
 a vehicle by which oxygen is sup- 
 plied during the process of 
 germination, 14 
 
 circulation and cooling of, 162 
 
 conduces to germination, 15 
 
 effects of immersing roots in, 168 
 
606 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Water enters into the composition of the 
 
 food of plants, 28 
 evil effeota of, to seeds when 
 
 given in excess, 233 
 excess of, in the soil, injures 
 
 plants, 137 
 injvirious effects of, to cuttings, 
 
 prevented by collodion, 294 
 
 in a tepid state applied to roots, 14 9 
 
 instance of the extension of roots 
 
 in search of, 19 
 
 in which aquatics are grown, 
 
 necessity of regulating to a due 
 
 degree of temperature, 150 
 is decomposed by the vital 
 
 action of plants, 60 
 
 its decomposition or dissipation 
 
 by fruit, 102 
 
 its effects on maturation, 102 
 
 its importance in supplying the 
 
 food required by cuttings, 292 
 
 pure, cannot solely support vege- 
 
 tation for a long period, 28 
 
 rain,or river, bBstforcuttings,299 
 
 relation of, to succulence, 167 
 
 replaces the sap on which leaves 
 
 usually subsist until they emit 
 roots, 277 
 
 roots growing in, 21 
 
 should be diminished when fruit 
 
 is ripening, 167 
 
 the natural food of plants, 651 
 
 . the temperature for watering, a 
 
 matter of great moment, 176 
 Watering, 159 
 
 a preventative of mildew in 
 
 annuals, 176 
 , effects of natural and artificial, 
 
 171 
 
 effects of, on stiff soils, 172 
 
 frozen plants, good effects of, 
 
 112 
 
 lowers the temperature of the 
 
 sou, 172 
 newly planted trees, 462 
 
 the evils of, 176 
 
 time of day for, 173 
 
 Water-plants, flowering of, 150 
 
 Wax for grafting, composition of, 339, 
 331, 340 
 
 Wearing out of plants, theory of, er- 
 roneous, 478 
 
 Wet borders, 170 
 
 Wheat segilopian, origin of, 483 
 
 Whip-grafting, 314 
 
 Wind causes cold, 187 
 
 its effect in increasing the dryness 
 
 oftheair, 186 
 
 Wind, its effect on the circulation of the 
 
 sap, 215 
 with regard to fertilisa- 
 
 tion, 241 
 
 statement of, with degi-ees of dry- 
 
 ness, 188 
 Winter ventilation, 223 
 
 wet, effects of, 160 
 
 Wood, 42 
 
 ashes as a manure, 556 
 
 charred blocks of, valuable for 
 
 orchidaceous plants, 646 
 
 central, example of its removal, 48 
 
 central, of little consequence in 
 
 comparison with that of the 
 alburnum and liber, 45 
 
 formation of, 34, 70 
 
 Wood, formation of, in a root without the 
 existence of a stem, 261 
 
 formation of, wholly local and 
 
 superficial, 343 
 
 formation of, without the aid of 
 
 leaves, 38 
 
 inscriptions buried in, 39 
 
 of exogens, 35 
 
 of stems, 40 
 
 reason why more is formed on the 
 
 south side of a tree than on the 
 north, 71 
 ■ — — removal of, in budding, does not 
 injure the eye, 306 
 
 renovation of, 36 
 
 the channel for the ascent of all the 
 
 fluids of plants, 40 
 
 theory of growing downward from 
 
 leaves erroneous, 71 
 Woody fibre, originates in the leaves, 34 
 Woody matter, is abundant or absent 
 in proportion to the 
 strength or absence of 
 the leaves, 34 
 its first appearance, 34 
 
 Worms, injury occasioned by, to plants 
 
 in pots, 171 
 Wounds, of roots, should be cut to a 
 clean smooth face, 460 
 
 of stem, repaired by cellular or 
 
 horizontal system, 35 
 Burface,instances of, and power 
 
 of reparation, 37 
 
 Yeast, putrid, its powerful effects as a 
 manure, 561 
 
 Zantedbschi, M., his experiments on the 
 influence of moonlight on plants, 63 
 
 ERADBUBV AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITBFRIARS. 
 
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LIST 
 
 VOEKS IN GENERAL UTEEATURE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN. GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 
 39 Patbenostee Row, London. 
 
 CLASSIFIED INDEX, 
 
 ciculture and Rural 
 Affairs. 
 
 lavtdou on Valuing Rents, &c. - i 
 
 ■ " Hoad Legislation - 4 
 
 !aird'8 Prairie Farming - - 6 
 
 Jeeil'a Stud Farm " " ' ,« 
 
 JoBUyna'B Talpa - " " i, 
 
 aOudon'B Agriculture - - - i? 
 
 .ow'sElementB of Agriculture - !•* 
 
 dorton on Landed Property - lo 
 
 ts. Manufactures, and 
 Architecture. 
 
 Bourne's Catechism ot the Steam 
 
 Engine - - „„ : -. " ; 
 
 Brande'B Dictionary of Science,&c. 4 
 
 " Oreanic Chemistry- - 4 
 
 3reBy'B Oivll Engineerins " " S 
 
 Fairbairn's Informa. for Engineers 7 
 
 Ewilt'B Encyclo. of Architecture - 8 
 
 Harford's Plates Irom M. ingelo - 8 
 
 HumphreyB's Parahla lUuminatea l J 
 
 Jameson's Sainta and Martyrs - 11 
 
 '* Monastic Orders - " } ; 
 
 " Legends of Madonna .- U 
 
 ■ " Commonplace-Book - H 
 
 KSnig'sPictonal Life of Luther - 8 
 
 LoudSn'B Rural Architecture - lU 
 
 MacDougairs Campaigns of Han- 
 
 nibttl - - - - - 1* 
 
 MacDougall's Theory of War - 1* 
 
 MoBeley'B Engineering - - * 1° 
 
 Piesse'a Art of Perfumery - - " 
 
 Richardson's Artof Horsemanship 18 
 
 Sooffern on Projectiles, &c. -* - 19 
 Steam-EnRine,bytheArtiBanCluh 4 
 
 Ore's Dictionary of Arts, «c. - »3 
 
 .ography. 
 
 Araeo's Lives of Scientific Men - 3 
 BailUe's Memoir of Bate - - 3 
 Brialmont'B Wellington - - » 
 Bunsen'fl Hippolytua - - - o 
 Bunting's (Dr.) Life - - - 6 
 Crosse's (Andrew) Memorials - ° 
 Green's Prinoesaes of England - 8 
 Harford'fl Life of Michael Angelo - 8 
 Lardner'B Cabinet Cyclopsedia - 12 
 Marshman'a Life of Carey, Matah-: 
 
 man, and Ward - - - 14 
 
 Maunder's Biographical Treasury - 15 
 Morris's Life of Becket - - |6 
 Mountain's (ColO Memoirs - - 16 
 "Parry's (Admiral) Memoirs - - 17 
 KuBseU'B Memoirs of Mooie - - 16 
 - « (Dr.) Mezzofanti - - 19 
 iBohimmelPenninck's (Mis.) Life - 19 
 Southey's Life of Wesley - - 21 
 JE^ephen'sEccleBiasticalBioiiraphy 21 
 l^ickland'a Queena of England - 21 
 Sy^y Smith's Memoirs - - 20 
 SVmond's (Admiral) Memoirs - 21 
 Taylor'aLoyola - - ' ~ ^) 
 
 . « Weslef - - - - 21 
 tJ;wine's Memoirs - - - - 23 
 WBierton'BAutobiography&EBBAyB 24 
 
 >oks of General Utility. 
 
 Acton's Bread-Book - - . 3 
 " Cookery - - - - 3 
 Black's Treatise on Brewing - - 4 
 Cabinet Gaietteer - - - - 6 
 " Lawyer - - - - 6 
 Cnat's Invalid's Own Book - 7 
 Hints on Etiquette - - 9 
 Hudson's Executor's Guide - 10 
 " on Making Wills - - 10 
 Eesteven'B Domestic Medicine 12 
 Lardner'B Cabinet Cyclopedia 12 
 Loudon's Lady's Country Compa- 
 nion ------ 13 
 
 Maunder'B Treasurv of Knowledge 15 
 
 ** Biograpnical Treasury 15 
 
 " Geographical Treasury 15 
 
 " Scientinu Treasury - 14 
 
 " .Treasury of History - 15 
 
 " ' Natural History - - 15 
 
 Fiesse's Art of Perfumery - - 18 
 
 Pitfa How to firew Good Beer - 18 
 
 Pocket and the Stud - - - 9 
 
 Pycroft's English Readinjj, - - 18 
 
 Rich's Comp. to Latin Dictionary 18 
 
 Richardson's Art of "Horsemanship 18 
 
 Riddle'BLatin Dictionaries - - IS 
 
 Roget'8 English Thesaui us - - 19 
 
 Rowton>a Debater - - - 19 
 
 Short Whiflt 20 
 
 Simpson's Handbook of Dining - 20 
 
 Thomson's Interest Tables - - 23 
 
 Webster's Domestic Economy - 24 
 Willich's Popular Tables - - 24 
 
 Wihnof s Blackstone - - - 24 
 
 Botany and Gardening:. 
 
 Ilassall's British Freshwater Algee 9 
 
 liooker'B British Flora - - - 9 
 
 « Guide to Kew Gardens - 9 
 
 .Lindley'B Introduction to Botany 13 
 
 " Synopsis of the British 
 
 ■ i-lora - - - - 13 
 
 " Theory of Hortici^lture - 13 
 
 Loudon'B Hortua Britannicus , - 13 
 
 *• Amateur Gardene^ - 13 
 
 " Trees and Shrubs - - IS 
 
 " Gardening - - - 13 
 
 " Plants - - - - 13 
 
 Pereira'B Materia Medica - - 17 
 
 Rivera's Rose-Amateur's Guide - Id 
 
 Watson's Cybele Britannica - 24 
 
 Wilson's British Mosses - - 24 
 
 Chronology. 
 
 Brewer's Historical Atlas - - 4 
 
 Bunsen's Ancient Egypt - - 6 
 
 Haydn's Beatson's Index - - 9 
 
 Jaquemet'B Chronology - - 11 
 
 " Abridged Chronology- 11 
 
 Nicolae'B Chronology of History - 12 
 
 Commerce and Mercantile 
 Affairs* 
 
 Gilbart's Logic of Banking - 8 
 
 " Treatise on Banking 8 
 
 Larimer's Young Master Mariner - 13 
 M'Cnlloch'sCommerce&Navigation 14 
 Thomson's Intefest Tables - - 23 
 Tooke's History of Fiices - 23 
 
 C riticism. History ^ and 
 .laenioirs. 
 
 Brewer's Historical Atlas 1 
 
 Bunsen's Ancient Egypt - 6 
 
 ** HippolytuB - - 5 
 
 Chapman's Gustavus Adolphus - 6 
 
 Conybeare and Howaon's bt. Panl 6 
 
 Connolly's Sappers and Miners - 6 
 
 Crowe's Hiatory of France - - 6 
 Frazer'a Lettera during the Penin- 
 
 snlar and Waterloo Campaigns 8 
 
 Gleig'a Easays - - . . g 
 
 Gurney'a Historical Sketches - 8 
 
 Hayward's Essays - ~ - . o 
 
 HerscheVa Essays and Addressea - 9 
 
 Jeffrey's (Lord)'£sEays - - 11 
 
 Kemble'a Anglo-Saxons - - 11 
 
 Lardner'B Cabinet Cyclopedia - 12 
 
 MaccLuLayla Grit. &nd Hist. Essays 13 
 
 " History of England - 13 
 
 " Speeches - - 13 
 
 Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works 
 " History of England - 
 
 M'Culloch'aGeograpnicalDictionary 
 Maunder'B Treasury of History 
 Merivale's History of Rome - 
 " Ronmn Republic - 
 
 Milner'e Church History 
 Moore's (Thomas) Memoirs, &c> - 
 Mure'g Greek Literature ' - 
 Normanby'3 Year of Revolution - 
 Perry's Franks - - - - 
 Porter's Knights of Malta - 
 Raikea's Journal - 
 pi.iddle'a Latin Lexicon 
 Rogers's Essays from Edinb. Revie 
 
 " (Sam.) BecoUections 
 Roget'a English Thesaurus - 
 SchimmelPennincU's Memoirs of 
 Port Royal . - - 
 SchimmelPenninck's Principles oi 
 Beauty, &c. . - - 
 SchmiW's History of Greece 
 Southey's Doctor - - - - 
 Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 
 '' Lectures on French History 
 Sydney Smith's Works - 
 " Lectures 
 
 " Menioirs 
 
 Taylor's Loyola _ - _ 
 " " ^fesley - - - 
 Thiriwall's History of Greece 
 Turner's Anglo-Saxons 
 Uwina'a Memoirs - 
 Vehse's Austrian Court 
 Wade's England's Greatness 
 Young's Christ of History - 
 
 Geograpliy and Atlases 
 
 Brewer's Historical Atlas - 
 Butler'sGeography and Atlases ■ 
 Cabinet Gazetteer - - - 
 Johnston's General Gazetteer 
 M'Culloch'eGeographicalDictiooa 
 Maunder'e Treasury of Geography 
 Murray's Encyclo. of Geography ' 
 Sharp's Britisti Gazetteer 
 
 Juvenile Books- 
 Amy Herbert - - - - 
 CleveHaU - - - _ 
 Earl's Daughter (The) - 
 Experience of Life 
 Gertrude - . . _ 
 Howitt's Boy's Country Book 
 
 " (Mary) Children's Year 
 Ivors - - - - - 
 Katharine' Ashton « - . 
 Lanetou Faraonase 
 Margaret Percival - - - 
 PJPBae'B rhymical. Natural, am 
 
 Physical Magic - 
 Fycroft's Collegian's Guide - 
 
 Medicine^ Surgery, &c 
 
 Brodie's Psycholoi^ical Inquiries 
 Bull's Hints to Mothers - 
 
 " Managementof Children 
 
 " on Blindness 
 Copland's Dictionary of Medicine 
 Cust'a Invalid's Olvn Book - 
 Holland's Mental Physiology 
 
 " Medical Notes mi Reflec 
 Kesteven'a Domestic Medicine 
 Pereira's Materia Medica 
 Richardson's Cold- Water Cure 
 Spencer'sPayidiology - - - 
 lodd'a CyelopBBdla of Anatomy 
 
 and Physiology - _ - . 
 
CLASSIFIED INDEX TO GENERAL CATALOaUE. 
 
 Miscellaneous and General 
 Iilteratnre. 
 
 - 7 
 
 Bacon's (Lord) Worka - 
 Defence nt Eclipse of Fai^ - 
 Be Famblanque on Arin; Adniinis 
 
 tration 
 Eolipee ofFaith 
 Piscner'a Bacon and Realistic Phi- 
 losophy -' - - - - 7 
 ■ Greathed'a Letters from Delhi - 8 
 Gre7son'8 Select Correepondence - 8 
 GurneT's ETening'Keereationa - 8 
 HasialreAdulterationiDetectedj&c. 9 
 Haydn'B Book of Dignities - - 9 
 HoUand's Mental Physiology - 9 
 Hooker's Kew Guide - - - 9 
 Howitt'a Rural Life of England - JO 
 " YiaitatoReniarlcablePlacealO 
 Jameeon's Commonplace-Book - H 
 Last of the Old Squirea - - 17 
 
 Lettera of a Betrothed - - - 13 
 Macaulay'a Speeches 
 
 MacVintoah'sMisceUaneouB Warts 14 
 
 Martinean's Miscellaniea - - 14 
 
 Pycroft'8 English Keadin^ - . - 18 
 
 Rich's Comp. to Latin -Dictionary 18 
 
 Riddle's Latin Dictionariee - - 19 
 
 Rowton's Debater ^ - - 19 
 
 Sir Roger De Coverley - " " „? 
 
 Southey'B Doctor, &c. " ' " ^} 
 
 Spencer's Essays - -. - " ?; 
 
 Stow'B Training System - " *i 
 
 Thomson's Laws of Thought - 33 
 TrevelyanontheNatiTeLanguflges 
 
 oflndia - - " " " *f 
 
 Willich's Popular TahleB - - M 
 
 ■ Tonge'sEnelish-Greeli Lexicon - 24 
 
 " Latin Gradus - - 24 
 
 Zumpt's Latin Grammar - - 24 
 
 Natural History ingeneral. 
 
 Agassiz on Classification - 3 
 
 Catlow'B Popular Conchology - 6 
 
 Ephemera's Book of the Salmon - 7 
 
 Garjatt's Marvels of Instinct - 8 
 Goase'B Natural History of Jamaica 8 
 
 Kirhy and Spence'a Entomology - 12 
 
 Lee's Elements of Naturia History 12 
 
 Maunder'8 Natural Hietory - - 15 
 Morris's Anecdotes in Natural 
 
 History }° 
 
 Qaatrefages' Naturalist's Rambles 18 
 
 Stonehenge on the Dog - - 21 
 
 Turton'aShellBQftheBritiahlelands 23 
 
 Van der Hoeven'a Zoology - - 23 
 
 Waterton's Eaaayson Natural Hiat. 24 
 
 Touatt'B Work on thu Dog - - 24 
 
 Touatt's Work on the Horee - 24 
 
 1-Volume encyclopaedias 
 and Dictionaries. 
 
 Blaine's Rural Sports - - " f 
 
 Brande'6 Science.Literature.ana Art 4 
 
 Coplaml's Dictionary of Medicine - 6 
 
 ■Creay's Civil Engineering - - S 
 
 GwiH'B Architecture - - - 8 
 
 Johnston'a Geographical Dictionary 11 
 
 Loudon's Agriculture - - - 13 
 
 " Rural Architecture - 13 
 
 *• Gardening - - - 13 
 
 '* Plflmta '' - - - 13 
 
 '* Trees and Shrubs - - 13 
 
 M'Culloch'sGeographicalDitftionary 14 
 
 " Dictionary of Commerce 14 
 
 Murray's Encyclo. of Geography - 16 
 
 Sharp's Britisn Gazetteer - - 20 
 
 Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &o. - - 23 
 
 Webster's Domestic Economy - 24 
 
 Religious 6e Moral Works. 
 
 Afternoon of Life - - - - 3 
 
 Amy Herbert - - - - 20. 
 
 Bloomfleld'aGreekTeataraent - 4 
 
 Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress - 6 
 
 Calvert's Wife's Manual - - 6 
 
 Catz and Farlie's Moral Emblems G 
 
 Cleve Hall - - " „ " ," ^2 
 
 Oonybaare and Howsou's St. Paul 8 
 Cotton's Instructions m Christianity 6 
 
 Dale's Domestic Liturgy - ' I, 
 
 DeTmae of EeUpse of Faith - - v 
 
 Earl's Daughter^CnM!) - - - 20 
 
 BcUpae of Faith - - " \ 
 
 Engliahman'B Greek ■ ConnordanoB 7 
 « HebiAChald.Conoord. 7 
 
 ExpBriente(The).orLife - - 20 
 
 Gertrude - - - " - % 
 
 Hawison'sLiRhtfOf-theForfje - 8 
 
 Home's Introducbon to Scriptures 10 
 
 " Abridgment of ditto - JO 
 
 Hue's Chrlstiaiutyin'Ohina- - 10 
 
 HumphBcys'fl Ptwablea Illuminated ll 
 
 Ivors ; or, the Two Cousins 20 
 
 Jameson's Sacred Legends - 11 
 
 " Monastic Legends - 11 
 
 " LegendB«f.the Madonna 11 
 " Lectures on Kem^e !Em- 
 ployment - - - - - 11 
 Jeremy Taylor's Works - - 11 
 
 Katharine Aahton - . - 20 
 
 Konig'B PictotialXifcofLuther - 8 
 Laneton Parsonage - -'20 
 
 Letters to my Unknown FriendB 13 
 Lyra Germanica - - - - .5 
 Mflguire's Rome - - - - 14 
 Margaret Percival - - - - 20 
 U'ar&hman'B'Seram.pDiie Miseion - 14 
 Martineau'a Christian Life - - 14 
 '• Hymns - - - 14 
 
 ' btudies of Christianity 14 
 
 Merlrale's Christian Records - 15 
 Milner's Church of Christ - - 15 
 Moore.onthe^Uaeof the Body - 16^ 
 " " Soul and Body 16 
 
 " 'a Man and hia Motives - IP 
 MomingClouda - - - - IS 
 Neale's Closing Scene - - - 16 
 ipattison's Earth and Word - - 17 
 Powell's OhristianSly without Ju- 
 daism - - - - 18 
 ■" Order -of Nature - - 18 
 Readinjga for Lent - - 20 
 
 ''^ Confirmation - - 20 
 Robinson's Lexicon to the Greek 
 
 Testament - - - - - 19 
 Self-Examinaiion-foT'Confirmation 20 
 ■SewelPs History of the Early 
 
 ■Cbnrch - - - - 20 
 
 Sinclair's Journey of Life - - 20 
 
 Smith's (Sydney) Moral PhiloBophy 21 
 
 " (G.) Wesleyan Methodism 20 
 
 " (J.) St. Paia'a Shipwreck - 20 
 
 Southey-B Life of Wesley - - 21 
 
 Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 31 
 
 Taylor's Loyola - _ - - 21 
 
 '' Wesley - - - - 21 
 
 Theologia Germanica - - 5 
 
 Thumb Bible (The) - - 23 
 
 Ursula 20 
 
 Toung'B Christ of History - - 24 
 " Mystery - - - - 24 
 
 Poetry and the Drama. 
 
 Aikin'B (Dr.l British Poets - 
 Arnold's Merope ^- 
 
 " Poems _ - - - 
 Baillie's (Joanna) Poetical Works 
 Goldsmith's Poems, illustrated - 
 L.E.L.'B Poetical Works 
 lAnwood'B Anthologia Oxonienais- 
 liyra Germanica - - - - 
 MTacaulay's Lays oX Ancient Rome 
 Mac Donald's Within and Without 
 " Poems - - - 
 
 Montgomery's Poeftiatal Works - 
 Moore'B Poejical Works 
 
 " -Selcctiona fillusfetiuted) - 
 " Lalla Rookh - - - 
 " Irish Melodies - - - 
 " National Melodies - 
 " -Sacred Songs {toithMuaic) 
 " Songa and'Ballads - 
 Shakspeare, by Bowdler 
 .South?y',B iEtoetical W-orkg 
 Thomson^a Seasons, illugtriOeil - 
 
 The Sciences in general 
 and Mathematics. 
 
 Arago'a Meteorological Essays - 3 
 '° Popular Astronomy - - S 
 Bournels Catechism oT -Steam- 
 Engine - - ... • - 4 
 Boyd's Naval Cadet's Manual - 4 
 Brande'a Dictionaryof Science, &c. 4 
 " Lectures on Oceanic ChemiBtry 4 
 Conington's Gbemical Analysis - -6 
 ■Oresr'aiCivil Engineering - - 6 
 De la Rive'a 'Electricity - - 7 
 GroTB'-B Correla. of Hweical Forces 8 
 Herschel'B Outlines or Aatreaomy 9 
 Holland's Mental Phjeiology - 9 
 Humboldt'^ Aspects ofNntura - 10 
 *' Cosmos - - - 10 
 Hunton Light - - - - 11 
 Lardner'B'CabinetiCrOlopKdia 
 Maxcet'B (Mrs.) CoaVersationB 
 Morell's Elements of iPayoholt^ - la 
 Moseley'aEn^HteerioBifeA-rchlteotuie 16 
 Ogilwe^eiUaBter-'BuRder'sPlRn - 17 
 Owen'4 LectareEen'Oomp.A!natom7 17 
 Pereira on Polarised Light - - 17 
 
 14 
 
 Peachel's Elements of Physics - 17 
 Phillips's Mineralogy - - - 17 
 " Guide to Geology - - 17 
 Powell's Unity of Wonlds - - 18 
 Smee's Eleotro-MefsaLtuisy - - 20 
 Steam-Enginfe(Tn]ej - - _ j 
 W-ebb'g Celestial Objects-for Com- 
 mon TeleBCopes - - - 21 
 
 Rural Sports. 
 
 Baker's Rifle and Hound in Ceylon 
 Blaine's Dictionary of Sports 
 Cecil's Stable Practice - - - 
 *' Stud Farm - - - - 
 Davy'sFishing Excursions, 2 Series 
 Ephemera on Angling - - - 
 '< 's Book of the Salmon - 
 Freeman and Salvin's Falconry - 
 Hawker's Young Sportsman - 
 The Hunting-Field - - - 
 Idle'8 Hints on Shooting 
 Pocket and the Stud - - - 
 Practical Horsemanship - 
 Pycroft's Cricket-Field - - - 
 Richardson's Horsemanship - 
 Ronalds' Fly- Fisher's Entomology 
 Stable Talk and Table Talk - - 
 Stonehenge on the Dog - - - 
 
 " on the Greyhound 
 
 The Stud, for Practical Purposes - 
 
 Veterinary Medicine^ ftc. 
 
 Cecil's Stable Practice - - I 
 
 " Stud Fairm - - - I 
 
 Hunt's Horse and his Master - 1! 
 
 Hunting-Field (The) - - - i 
 
 .Miles's^oree- Shoeing - - - !■ 
 
 " on the Horse's Foot - - ll 
 
 PocI^etFand the -Stud - - . I 
 
 Practical Horsemanship - - I 
 
 Richardeon's Horsemanship - II 
 
 Stable Talk and Table Talk - - : 
 
 Stonehenge on the Dog - •■ - 21 
 Stud (The) -----! 
 
 Touatt's Work on-the Dog - - 2i 
 
 Touatt's Woik,6n the Horse - 2i 
 
 Voyages and Travels. 
 
 Baker's Wanderings in Ceylon 
 
 Earth's African Travels 
 
 Burton's East Africa _ _ - 
 
 '* Medina and Mecca - 
 Domenech'< Texas - - - 
 " Deserts of North America 
 FiretlmpreBsions of the New World 
 Forester's Sardinia and Uorsica - 
 HinchlilTa Travels in the Alps 
 Hewitt's Art-Student in Munich - 
 " (W.) Victoria - - - 
 Hue's Chinese "Empire - - - 
 Hudson and IKennedy's Mont 
 Blanc - - - - - 
 
 Humboldt's Aspects of Nature 
 Hutchinson's Western Africa 
 Kane's Wanderings cf-aa Artist - 
 Lady's Tour round Monte Rosa - 
 M'Clure's North- West Passa— 
 
 MavDougall'sYoyage of ffaelCeso7t(te 14 
 
 Mintnm's New Tork to Delhi - 15 
 MaUhausen's Journey to tbe-Shores 
 
 ofthePaciflc - - - - 15 
 
 Osbom's Q.uedah - - - 17 
 
 Peaks,i'asseB, and Glaciers - 17 
 
 Scherzer's Central America - - 10 
 Senior's Journal in 'Srnrkey and 
 
 Greece _ _ - - - 19 
 
 Snow'aTierradelFuego - 21 
 
 Tennent's-Ceylon - - - - 21 
 
 Ton Tempsky's Mexico - - 33 
 
 Wanderings in Land of Ham - 23 
 
 Weld's Vacations in Ireland - - 24 
 
 " Pyrenees - - - " « 
 
 " United StUtes and Canada- 24 
 
 Works of Fiction. 
 
 Connolly's Romance of the Ranks 
 Cruikshaaik's Falaiaff - - - 
 H«witt's Tallangetta - - - 
 Mildred Norman - - 
 Moore*a Epicurean - - - 
 SeweH's Ursula - - - - 
 Sir Roger Be Coreriey - 
 Sketches {The},^hreeTale3 
 Soutiiey'sThe'Doctor&c. - 
 Trollope'B Barohester Towers 
 « Warden 
 
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 Afternoon of Lif«. By the Author 
 Morning Clouds. Second and '^«aper 
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 LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE & CO. NEW-STEEET SQIB^BE 
 
-JM£W"-C6TtI0NS of Thil LIFE AND WRITINGS OF 
 MRS. MARY ANNE SCHIMMELPENNINCK. 
 
 LIFE OF MARY ANNE SCHIMMELPENNINCK 
 
 Including lier AUTOBIQfi]liJ!BYrarai-CDprau3,Extraots from her JOURNALS 
 mid ^ORKESPOSDENCE. Edited by, her_ relation, CHRISTIANA G. 
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 Painting by PisHEB Post'W 10*. M. 
 
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 Fifth Edition, thoroughly revised /.......Sjfolsssposi; 8i(|?21j, 
 
 THE PRmcIPLES OF BEAUTY, ,"\ 
 
 As manifested in Nature, Art, and H^^K Character 3 with a 'Classification of 
 Deformities. . II. Ari Essay on the Temperaments (with 12 chromo-lithograpliic 
 Illustrations in fac-simile of water-colour Drawings by the Author). III. 
 Thoughts on Grecian and Gothic Architecture, indited.; by the Author's 
 relation, CHRISTIANA C. HANKIN ........l vol. post;8vo. 12*. M: 
 
 THERE is a curious old-world 
 savour hanging about this volume. 
 Varied as it is in its contents, it aims 
 at » consistent reduction of Beauty to a 
 siitglg idea, quite unusual at the present 
 day, when the world wanders in active 
 search, not of Beauty, biit of the Beau- 
 tiful, over hill and dale with rather a 
 discursive purpose, under the gHidanoo 
 of the imagination, aided by the high- 
 flown rhapsodies of art-.criticis_ni, ^ Jts 
 method is almost that of Burke on the 
 Sublime j t)uc inrtroiig religious element 
 is here present, converting whole pages 
 of speculation on nature and art into 
 something like mystical theology...... 
 
 We listen willingly to our earnest and 
 excellent guide, whom we are glad froni 
 time to time to aoltnowledge as an in- 
 structress ; not always sure that we un- 
 derstand her, or convinced flfthfe correct- 
 ness of her judgment, but admiring the 
 purity of her purpose and the^ffigty of 
 
 her information, and confident 
 that she will never krioVingly lead us 
 ,.5v:i:oiig......The charm of: the/ present 
 
 worfc, as of its author's life, ' lies partly 
 in "its psychological interest ; but much' 
 more, in that; affectionate and devotional 
 temper which so tihorpnghly- pervaded 
 he r jhiB^^^KE cbngectfid in .practice, if 
 it'tppH^^BioUy a^simjkte itil^eoiry, 
 the tastes ' and feelings of hei eajly 
 yo\ilh with the religious aspiratJbris of 
 Iier Kbturer age» It* purity of tdhe 
 and -simple innocence bt, purpose must 
 attract faiany who will be ^trite indif- 
 ferent to its subdivision of Beauty, or 
 discussions of the Temperaments. We 
 should imagine the principles of Beauty 
 would have an especial fascination for 
 the young, who, . if they cannot learn 
 from its pages a perfect theory of taste, 
 may learn from them much which is 
 a great deal better. 
 
 GUAEDIAN, August 24. 
 
 ^don : LijSTGMAN, GEEEIST, and CO. 
 
 Paternoster How. 
 10 
 
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