Popular errors about plants

Gee

YE

SERB

EL LE
Lill

N

Es

AKA
~~ \\

Sa

.

\

We

\ \ \\

Cornell University

Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http :/Awww.archive.org/details/cu31924090196688

POPULAR ERRORS

ABOUT PLANTS

BY
ae
A. A. CROZIBR.

NEW YORK:
RURAL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1892.

Publications by A. A. GROZIER,

POPULAR ERRORS ABOUT PLANTS.—A collection
of errors and superstitions entertained by farmers,
gardeners and others, together with brief scientific
refutations.

169: Diy CLOT ypicscroine witar, eisalsavia tie whi ners 1.00.

THE MODIFICATION OF PLANTS BY CLIMATE.—
A.thesis on the influence of climate upou size, form,
éolor, fruitfulness; ete., with a discussion on the”
question of acclimation.

35 pp , paper’

THE CAULIFLOWER.--A treatise on this vegeta;
ble for market gardeners, including information in
regard to climate, soil, fertilizers, cultivation, enem-
jes, harvesting, marketing, seed growing and vari-
eties.

280. PPig ClO D sists isis sntremmmna naaanes serra $1.00.

A DICTIONARY OF BOTANICAL TERMS.—A refer-
ence book for students of botany and the general
reader, including especially the names of the
various parts of plants, and the terms used in
describing them. (In Press.)

RURAL PUBLISHING CO.,

TIMES BUILDING,
NEW YORK.

COPYRIGHT, 1892.
BY A. A, CROZIER.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Woe

l

wt

LIBRARY

3 1924 090 196

688

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

SPONTANEOUS GENERATION\......:.cc0ccseecesceeeeeceeease 9
VITALLY, OW SHEDS tecsstensseaucesvenessnscaicnveaseeteeanaees 14
DOES WHEAT TURN TO CHESS?........ccccccceceeeeneeeee 38
PLANTING IN THE MOON... ceeeeceeecenceneeeeeeeeeeess 51
DO VARIETIES RUN OUT Pou... cececceseeeeeeeetneeaeees 66
VAN MONS’ THEORY.........cccccsssssseeceecesesensneseeceees 72
Bups AND SEEDS....... 76
SEEDLESS FRUITS se eeeeeeseesenessessenecseneeeenensennenenees 79
ERRORS ABOUT GRAFTING.....c.ccccceeseccccensnsseeeneees 81
ERRORS ABOUT CROSSING........c:ccccseseceeeeeeeereeee 85
MISTAKES IN PRUNING ...........cccccccececeetereeeeeeceeess 88
EEXOGENS AND ENDOGENSG.........:::cceeseeceeeeeeeeteeeeces 93
ERRORS CONCERNING THE PITH..........c:ccceeceeeeeee 95
ERRORS ABOUT ROOTS )...........ccccseeceseeeeeccecaeteeeoes 97
SPONGIOLES iisicavsccaeszsicccniansarendaiantoncanaan sieneuneiieundeicenn

CIRCULATION OF TIIE SAP

ELONGATION OF TREE TRUNKS, ETC.........0.:000005 110
FEEDING SQUASHES MILK..........scccscessesseee seen eeuee 114
THE TLUMUS THEORY....-...0-ccceseceeccucsececsonesevenseass 117
LIEBIG’S MINERAL THEORY............ccesseccesseeeserees 118

(3)

4 CONTENTS.

ARE House PLants Ingurious To IIEALTH?... 127
BLUE GLaAss

PLANT) DISEASES. sssstedeszacseteseedtovesenemosnssaesanierssts 138
"Waa “IS: AL SECIS: Sc caateansancdedtacanaanceaecteusndeses 141
SOMBEPHING: NE Woven ccsaaasnnsenatnumendercnseniinndisecas 146
AP PEN DING? a cavinea cans wtacasgergheadk Severance 155

Fruits true tO Variety. cssssrcesssnencwnnsavesesnecenses
TLow tO SLOW lgSvcsssesassesinsesssonezcrenswsnneenenne
INO CEA popcitccseims tbesbarmee cede epenilomn anatianvannatsarseyss
Origin of the cabbage... eens

Second Nowering of timothy
APPS SCCUS scsiosinccinsneaunaainiariesanwcariciweds sndiaratiien
NTU CIAL POTASTLCS scscacancnnwscseeuedsaar sive dusieeties ts
iy PATUGNERS: CWby.cideu-useansaremaieiieenaeasearuass weed
The seat of VitalityVsrsewccceceveces sewers ere
Potatoes mixing in the hill... eee
Cactus leaves

A fruit tree invigorator........... cece eee
OCd POM ZOLrS: so vaceccetsanlaadewaeadeacomonnscounaonaed
Silica to stiffen wheat straw
EL PIPACTA] OPEN FES iia'vacevcoisunassivanens savsilgeuveiegadvvne

Influence of electricity on plants.........seeccee 166

4

PREFACE.

T would be a thankless service indeed if this con-
| tribution to the history of errors were nothing
more than a mere exhibition of certain mistakes
and delusions. However prone any of us may be
to observe and criticise the errors of others no right
minded person can seriously contemplate imperfec-
tion of any kind with any degree of pleasure; the
search for errors has in it none of the satisfaction
which rewards the seeker after truth; except, there-
fore, as a basis for juster views of plant life, and as
a lesson of caution against accepting beliefs not
founded in reason, this little work has no excuse
for its existence. But if it shall, to some extent,
enable those for whom it was prepared to see more
clearly some of the principles which underlie the
operations of the farm and garden, and lead them
to rely with greater confidence on their own ability
to understand these natural laws it will have ful-

filled the leading purposes for which it was writ-
ten.

Next to acquiring knowledge, one should desire
to know where reliable information may be ob-

tained. Ignorance is chiefly disastrous when united
()

6 PREFACE.

to self-confidence. Although the following pages
record many mistakes made by men of science,
they nevertheless show that the true interpreters of
nature’s laws have nearly always been those who
have given some branch of science long and earnest
study. It is easy to understand almost any princi-
ple of science, but it often requires years of patient
effort to discover and demonstrate a simple natural
law. We need to know who the original workers
are, and who are best informed on all scientific sub-
jects. It is because we do not always know whose
opinions are most to be relied upon that erroneous
beliefs remain so long among us. Nor can it be
said that the educated always fulfil their whole duty
in rendering information accessible to others. It
is to be feared that they sometimes have too little
sympathy with those who are unfamiliar with sub-
jects to which they themselves have devoted their
attention; and they possibly fail at times to appre-
ciate the capacity of every-day people to understand
what is called scientific truth. If there should be
such an impression in the mind of any teacher who
may have occassion to consult this book he will
doubtless become convinced by its contents that
erroneous theories are often quite as complicated
and difficult of comprehension as the average pro-
positions of science. Nothing is more true than
that every healthy mind seeks for an explanation of

PREFACE. 7

all phenomena which come to its notice. So
strong and universal is this desire that most of us
will accept any explanation, however absurd, rather
than remain in doubt. This being the case, it cer-
tainly rests with those who can give true explana-
tions to do so. Too often the leading facts of sci-
ence are taught only to regular learners in schools
and colleges, and fail to reach the outside world,
where, after all, most of the lessons of life are
learned. I can think of no better way of impress-
ing a truth upon one who has no time for sys-
tematic study than to offer it in exchange for an
error already held. In recording the following
popular errors, therefore, I have frequently given
in connection with each topic a brief account of the
best existing information upon the subject.

It is needless to say that this is not a text-book
or a systematic work on popular science; but if the
suggestions it contains, and the fragmentary
insight into a knowledge of plants which it affords,
shall lead any to seek further information upon the
subjects treated the wish of its author will be
gratified,

I.
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.

LL antiquity, down to the end of the Middle
A Ages, believed in the spontaneous generation
of both plants and animals, that is to say, their ori-
gin directly from the earth or other dead material
without a previous germ or egg. Three centuries
before the Christian era Aristotle taught the spon-
taneous origin of eels and other fish out of the
slimy mud of rivers and marshes; also that certain
insects originated from the dew deposited upon
plants, that lice were spontaneously engendered in
the flesh of animals, and that caterpillars were act-
ually the product of the plants upon which they
feed. Von Helmont, who died in 1644, described
in detail the conditions necessary for the spontane-
ous generation of mice! Dr. William Harvey, the
discoverer of the circulation of the blood, has the
credit of first propounding the principle that no
life could exist without pre-existing life. He main-
tained that all living things proceeded from eggs,
but just what he meant by eggs seems to be uncer-
tain, though he probably included in the term seeds

and germs of all kinds,
(9)

10 POPULAR ERRORS.

Francesco Redi, an Italian physician, seems to
have been the first to discover (in 1668), what it
now seems difficult to believe that anybody could
have ever failed to observe, that the maggots found
in putrefying meat were not a direct product of
putrefaction, but came from eggs deposited by flies.
He proved this to the doubting people of his time by
placing some meat in jars having gauze over the
top, when the meat within the jars decayed as
usual, but contained no maggots.

During the revival of learning, at the close of the
Middle Ages, the belief in spontaneous generation
gradually died out. Upon the invention of the micro-
scope, however, and the discovery of low forms of life,
the existence of which were before unknown, it cameto
be believed by scientific men that these organisms
were exceptions to the general rule, for it was seen
that wherever suitable conditions for their growth
existed they made their appearance.

Pasteur of France, who is still living, undertook,
almost unaided, to refute this opinion, and suc-
ceeded so well that his results have been accepted
throughout the scientific world. Students of fungi,
bacteria, and other microscopic plants and animals,
now take it for granted that wherever any of these
organisms appear it is conclusive evidence that
there were previously present germs of the same

kind.

SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 11

Intelligent people have now become so accus-
tomed to the thought that every living thing comes
from a pre-existing germ that it is difficult for us
to understand that any other belief was ever held.
When Pasteur, however, first began his demonstra-
tions that were to banish the last remnant of the
belief in spontaneous generation from the educated
world he was vehemently opposed by the leading
scientific men of the time. His chief immediate
opponents were Pouchet of France, who devoted a
volume to the advocacy of the spontaneous genera-
tion of microscopic organisms, and Liebig of Ger-
many, the eminent chemist. Liebig held that fer-
mentation is a change undergone by nitrogenous_
substances under the influence of the oxygen of the
air: Pasteur proved that the alcoholic yeast plant,
which had long been known, but which had not
been regarded as of particular importance, was the
real cause of alcoholic fermentation. He discov-
ered also the germ which causes the fermentation
which takes place in the souring of milk, and made
many other discoveries of a similar nature. He
proved that when these germs were excluded no
fermentation took place.

One of his experiments was to take a tube con-
taining a liquid liable to fermentation, destroy by
heat all the living germs it might contain, then
admit air which had passed through a red-hot tube

12 POPULAR ERRORS.

to kill the germs which the air contained. Under
these conditions the liquid was found to keep for
any length of time without fermentation. The
presence of living germs in the air was proved by
actually collecting them by drawing air through
plugs of gun cotton; the numerous minute bodies
which are usually floating in the air were rendered
visible to those who doubted their existence by
admitting a beam of light into an ordinary darkened
room. The fact that the visibility of the beam
depended wholly on the reflection of the light from
the suspended particles in the air was proved by
keeping the room closed until all the particles had
subsided, when the beam was no longer visible,
though admitted by a small opening as before. By
these and many other ingenious experiments Pas-
teur proved the almost universal presence of living
germs, and their ability to originate all known cases
of fermentation and putrefaction. A debate with
Pouchet and others on this subject before the
French Acadamy was carried on for months during
the years 1861-62, and resulted in a triumphant
vindication of the principle for which Pasteur con-
tended. It was not until after the Franco-Prus-
sian war, however, that Liebig, declining to dis-
cuss the question longer, virtually admitted that the
fermentation of liquids was due to the presence of
living ferments derived from the air as claimed by

SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 13

Pasteur, and that others who held that these and
other similar organisms were capable of originating

directly from non-living matter ceased to advocate
their belief.

II.

VITALITY OF SEEDS.

OTHING in connection with forests has at-
N tracted more attention than the springing up
of a different kind of timber when one forest growth
is removed by the ax or fire. This has been attrib-
uted to the exhaustion of certain elements in the
soil, rendering necessary a natural rotation of
species, in order to maintain the continued growth
of vegetation, thus furnishing a grand lesson from
nature on the importance of a rotation of crops.
Without discussing at present the truth of this
explanation, or the frequency with which such a
natural rotation of forests actually occurs, the case
is presented as a familiar illustration of the appear-
ance of plants where none of the same kind were
known to exist before. The apparently spontane-
ous growth of immense quantities of Fireweed, and
other species rarely found in either cultivated land
or natural forests, on ground which has been newly
cleared, is a similar instance of the growth of vege-
tation where there is no visible supply of seed.
Such cases were formerly regarded as conclusive

evidence of spontaneous generation, a belief held
(14)

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 15

by the ancients, not only with regard to plants, but
concerning many forms of animal life also. The
advance of science, especially by means of the
microscope, has overthrown the argument for spon-
taneous generation, and there is hardly an intelli-
gent person in any civilized community to-day who
does not know that every plant, whether large or
small, originates from a seed, or germ. But this
conclusion renders it impossible to account for the
appearance of new forms of vegetation in such
cases as have been referred to unless we can show
the origin of the seed. The difficulty of account-
ing for the origin of the seed from any plants living
in the vicinity made it seem probable that
the seeds from which they sprang were trans-
ported to the locality many years before and have
retained their vitality by being protected by the
soil and a covering of leaves, until the removal of
the forest, or perhaps the burning of the protecting
leaves, admitted the sun and air and furnished the
conditions for germination. Other causes besides
the removal of forests have furnished new condi-
tions which have brought into being new forms of
vegetation. I have in mind the case of an old farm-
house which had stood for at least 200 years and
which was pulled down, when there appeared on
the site a thick growth of Charlock or Wild Rape, a
plant wholly new to the neighborhood.

16 POPULAR ERRORS.

In an editorial in the Gardeners’ Chronicle for
1863, page 1, 228, an account is given of the follow.
ing observations by Mr. G B. Wollaston of Chisle-
hurst, on the Mid-Kent Railway

“ Certain excavations were necessary, and these
had to be made to a depth varying from five to ten
feet in the virgin sand and gravel of the district.
Thereupon Erigeron Canadense sprang up every-
where, so as to completely cover the earth to the
almost total exclusion of other vegetation. The
Erigeron was not previously known to grow in the
neighborhood. Indeed it is one of the so-called
rare species, of which comparatively few habitats
are known in England, and even its claim to rank
as a native plant is generally questioned. Yet, the
interesting fact Mr. Wollaston records, though not
to be taken as exact evidence, seems to afford strong
presumptive proof that the plant is a true native,
and that its seeds must have been buried for an

‘indefinite period in the soil.”

In “Schooleraft’s Missouri” (1819), page 29,
Henry R. Schoolcraft says: ‘The soil thrown out
of the pits sunk in search of ore also produces sev-
eral plants and trees which are not peculiar to the
surface. Such are the Poplar or Cottonwood, and
Beach Grape, which are found to flourish only on
the rich alluvial lands composing the banks of
rivers. Nevertheless, I have seen these growing

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 17

about the mouths of long neglected pits, the soil of
which had been raised thirty or forty feet, or where
previous to digging no such trees or vines existed.
Tais fact is to be referred only to a difference in
the quality of the soil at the depth alluded to, and
warrants us further in the conclusion that all soils
are impregnated with the seeds of the trees and
plants peculiar to them, as well at great depths as
on their surfaces. ”’

A similar case is quoted by Geo. P. Marsh, in
his work on “ Earth and Man.” On the Penobscot
River in Maine, forty miles from the sea, a well was
dug, in the bottom of which sand similar to that of
the seashore was found. Some of this was placed
in a pile by itself and afterwards spread about the
place. The next season there sprang up in this
sand a number of trees, which when they came to
maturity were found to be the Beach Plum, which
never was known so far from the shore. The pres-
ence of these seeds, and the peculiar character of
the sand from the well, was accepted by some geol-
ogists as evidence that the sea-coast had formerly
occupied that spot. This and similar instances led
Professor Marsh to say that the vitality of seeds
“seems almost imperishable while they remain in
the situation in which nature deposits them. ”

Another case, which I have never seen doubted,
is a three Raspberry plants growing in the gar-

18 POPULAR ERRORS.

dens of the London Horticultural Society, raised
by Professor Lindley from seed discovered in the
stomach of a man whose skeleton was found thirty
feet below the surface of the earth at the bottom
of a barron or burial mound near Dorchester, Eng-
land. With the body had been buried some coins
of the Emperor Hadrian; from which it is assumed
that these seeds had retained their vitality for the
space of sixteen or seventeen hundred years.

In the Gardeners’ Chronicle for 1848, page 700,
is an account of some seeds of Roman origin taken
from a tomb in France, and referred to the third
or fourth century, and therefore 1,500 or 1,600
years old.

The seeds were carefully removed and were sown
by two different persons, whose names are given,
together with the manner in which they were sown.
From both lots there were obtained plants of
Medicago lupulina and Heliotropium Europeum,
and from one of the lots Centaurea cyanus in addi-
t.on, Another case is given in the same connection
of seeds found in an earthen vessel eight feet be-
low the surface, and supposed to belong to an age
anterior to the Roman conquest of Gaul. From
these seeds about 20 plants of Mercurialis annua
were grown.

But the cases which have attracted more atten-
tion than any others are those of the germination

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 19

of wheat and other seeds taken from the wrappings
of Egyptian mummies, or from the tombs in which
mummies were found.

In a recent number of the Christian Union I
find this statement by Canon Wilberforce, the great
English preacher: “I have seen beneath the micro-
scope a seed 38,000 years old start into instant
germination when touched with a drop of warm
water; so a human soul, long apparently lifeless,
begins to grow when touched with the water of
life.’ In the New York Voice, for March 27, 1890,
is the following, entitled “Seed Corn 4,000 years
Old.” “During the season of 1889 a most remark-
able crop of corn was raised by David Drew, at
Plymouth, New Hampshire. In 1888, Mr. Drew
came into possession of some corn grains found
wrapped with a mummy in Egypt, supposed to be
4,000 years old. These were planted and grew. It
had many of the characteristics of real corn; the
leaves were alternate; it grew to be over six feet
high; the midribs were white; but the product of
the stock—there is where the curious part came-in.
Instead of growing in an ear like modern maize, it
hung in heavy clusters at the top, on spikelets;
there was no tassel, no silk, each sprig was thickly
studded with grain, each provided with a separate
husk, like wheat grains.” [Evidently sorghum. ]

In the London Times for September, 1840, Mar-

20 POPULAR ERRORS.

tin Farquhar Tupper gives an account of experi-
ments on the germination of mummy wheat, con-
cerning which the editor of the Gardeners’ Chronicle
states that he finds no flaw whatever. Following
is an abstract taken from the latter journal:

“Sir Gardener Wilkinson, when in the Thebiad,
opened an ancient tomb (which had probably re-
mained unvisited by man during the greater part
of 8,000 years), and, from some alabaster sepulcral
vases therein, took with his own hands a quantity
of wheat and barley that had been there preserved.
Portions of this grain Sir G. Wilkinson had given
to Mr. Pettigrew, who presented Mr. Tupper with
twelve grains of the venerable harvest. In 1840
Mr. Tupper sowed these twelve grains.” Of these
only one grew, producing two small ears. Details
are given of the pains taken to insure that the
plants which might grow should come from the
seed planted. The soil was carefully sifted and
three seeds were planted in each of four garden
pots at the angles of a triangle. The grains sown
were brown and shrunken, unlike any modern
wheat.

Another case, described by George Wilkes in the
same journal for 1856, relates to the finding of
some wheat in the wrappings of a mummy opened
at Cambridge. He states that a nobleman who
was present gave some of the seed to his gardener

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 21

who planted it and grew therefrom three kinds of
wheat different from any that Mr. Wilkes had ever
seen.

A writer in the Country Gentleman for 1888,
quotes from a recent paper read before an English
society on the vitality of mummy wheat, in which
it was stated that no fewer than fifty-nine species
of flowering plants, raised from mummy wrappings
in Ezgypt, had been identified.

In one instance “a sarcophagus was brought from
Egypt by the Duke of Sutherland; and seeds which
were taken from it, being planted, germinated.”

The late Professor Alexander Winchell quotes
Lord Lindsay as saying that he found a bulb in the
hands of a mummy at least 2000 years old, and
that it grew and produced a Dahlia. But the
Dahlia does not grow from a bulb, is a Mexican
plant, and was not known to botanists until 1789.
Another account of this case by Rogers in his
“ Scientific Agriculture” speaks of it as a ‘‘root”
being so found. This might do, if the Dahlia had
been known in Egypt at the time indicated.

These and other instances of the supposed
growth of seeds taken from the Egyptian cata-
combs have been published in nearly every agricul-
tural journal and work on agriculture for the past
fifty years, and have been accepted even by good
authorities in science, including Doctor Carpenter

22 POPULAR ERRORS.

of England and Professor Agassiz of our own
country. The dry air and uniform temperature of
the tombs of Egypt, and the protection afforded
by the embalming process, which has so wonder-
fully preserved the ancient bodies, has been regarded
as sufficient to preserve vitality in the grains which
it was the custom of the ancient Egyptians to bury
with their dead, either upon the body itself or in
receptacles placed near them.

The subject of the vitality of seeds buried by
natural agencies in the soil has been fully treated
by Professor Alexander Winchell in his admirable
work, the “Sketches of Creation.” It is known to
geologists that at the close of the Tertiary period,
just preceding the glacial epoch, the climate of the
United States was very similar to what it now is,
though somewhat warmer. In rocks of that period,
found in Kentucky, have been discovered remains
of the Beech, Live Oak, Chincapin, Pecan, Honey
Locust, and other trees found in the same region
to-day. In the rocks of this age on the upper
Missouri River have been found the Walnut, Per-
simmon, Tulip tree and other species, in localities
which have since become too cold and dry for them.
There is abundant reason to believe that in the Ter-
tiary period the vegetation of North America was
more vigorous than now, but composed of nearly the
same species, During the glacial period this vege-

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 23

tation is supposed to have been nearly all destroyed,
as far south, at least, as Alabama and Texas. How
then came the continent to be re-clothed when
the glaciers receded to the northward, leaving im-
mense deposits of sand and gravel and barren rock
in place of the original prairies and forests? This is
the question Professor Winchell endeavors to
answer. In the work referred to, in a chapter on
the “ Vitality of Buried Vegetable Germs,” he says:

“For some years past I have been inclined to
believe that the germs of vegetation which flour-
ished upon our continent previous to the reign of
ice, and many of which must have been buried from
twenty to one hundred feet beneath the surface of
the glacial rubbish, may have retained their vitality
for thousands of years, or even to the present
time.” Facts, he says, show the presence of grains
“where they could not probably have been intro-
duced during the human epoch.”

The remains of ancient vegetation are abundantly
sufficient in all the glacial region of the northern
hemisphere to have supplied these germs had they
retained their vitality, and the gradual washing
away of the surface by streams has been a sufficient
means of bringing them to the surface. In his
remarks upon ancient forests, Professor Winchell
Says:

24 POPULAR ERRORS.

“The existence of a succession of forests of
different prevailing species has been satisfactorily
established in Denmark by the researches of Steen-
strop on the Skovmose, or forest bogs of that
country. These bogs are from twenty to thirty
feet in depth, and the remains of forest trees in
successive layers prove that there have been three
distinct periods of vegetation in Denmark—first a
period of the pine; secondly a period of the oak;
lastly a period of the beech, not yet arrived at its
culmination.”

Similar buried forests are found in our own coun-
try, in New Jersey, Wyoming and elsewhere.
These extinct forests, he says, have no doubt
“stocked the accumulating soils with their stores
of vitalized fruitage.” “The drift deposits became
the vast granary in which nature preserved her
store of seeds through the long rigors of a geolo-
gical winter. ”

Such is the theory presented by an astute geolo-
gist, to account for the reappearance of vegetation
after the glacial epoch,—as at least more probable
than spontaneous generation, or the “ fortuitous
distribution by any modern agency.” He directly
adds, however: “it must be confessed that crucial
observation is yet to be made. If vegetable germs
exist in the drift they can be discovered before-

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 25

hand. I am not aware that any thorough search
has ever been made for them. ”*

Let us now turn to the second part of our sub-
ject and re-examine some of the cases which have
been presented, and see to what extent they appear
well founded, and how far they are supported by
other and more direct evidence. Let us see what
has been done in the way of direct observation and
experiment to determine the limit of vitality in
seeds, and notice whether any explanations can be
afforded to account for what, if true, are certainly
remarkable instances of duration of life. For seeds
are living objects, and require, like all other living
things, a constant supply of food to support life;
and as they have no means of supplying this out-
side of themselves, we come, by this course of rea-
soning, to the idea that there must necessarily be
some limit to the duration of their vitality, however
abundant their supply of stored up food may be.
We know that under ordinary conditions seeds vary
in their limit of vitality; hence we may suppose
that under even the most favorable conditions they
will also vary. The seeds which in ordinary exper-
ience keep the longest are seldom those which are
of the largest size, hence we infer that amount of
available food is not the most important feature in

* In a recent article published in the Forum, Prof.
Winchell shows that there is reason to doubt the belief
in a continuous continental glacier.

26 POPULAR ERRORS.

prolonging the life of a seed. Probably seeds
never lose their vitality from having entirely
exhausted their supply of stored up food. The fact
that seeds may germinate again and again, after
having their store diminished by previous attempts
at vegetation, shows that for at least the first stages
of germination most seeds contain more nutriment
than they need. There are two agents nearly
everywhere present reducing all organized matter
to the inorganic state; that is to say, two causes
at work producing decay in everything of an ani-
mal or vegetable nature. These causes are, first,
the oxygen of the air; second, numerous low forms
of vegetable life which feed upon decaying organic
matter and assist in producing decay. These out-
side sources of destruction are far more active
in their,demands upon the seed than is the living
plant which it contains. To protect themselves
against these destructive influences seeds are en-
closed in a more or less impervious covering; and the
length of time during which seeds will live depends
very much upon the nature of this covering. The
differences in duration of vitality among seeds how-
ever depend probably even more on the composi-
tion of the seed itself than on the character of its
covering. Why it is that the thick-shelled Chestnut,
Walnut and Hickory will retain their vitality only
a few months, while the thin-skinned grains of corn

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 27

and wheat ordinarily live as many years, we do not
fully know. If we say that the oiliness of the nuts
is the cause of their quickly becoming rancid, what
shall we say of the oily seeds of the cabbage tribe,
some of which are noted for their long vitality?
It is enough for our present purpose to know that
there exist recognized differences depending on the
nature of the seed. That the coating of seeds is an
important factor in resisting decay is seen by the
quickness with which corn meal or wheat flour
deteriorates, as compared with the whole grains
from which they are made. Everyone knows too
that the conditions under which seeds are kept have
much to do with the duration of their vitality.
The most favorable conditions for prolonging life
in the seed are the opposite of those which favor
germination. Thus, to keep seeds we put them in
a dry place. Dampness, even if it does not induce
the germination of the seed itself, favors the growth
of fungi which destroy its vitality. Thus it is that
in the damp climate of England it is more difficult
to keep seeds than in this country. But moisture,
if sufficient to exclude the air, or accompanied by
too low a temperature for the germination of the
species, may favor prolonged vitality in seeds.
Under whatever conditions seeds are kept, however,
there is a continual loss of vitality from the time
that they ripen, It is true that some seeds ordi-

28 POPULAR ERROBS.

narily require to be of a certain age before they will
germinate readily, but this time is needed for the
softening and partial decay of their shells, and the
incipient stages of germination; there is no
recorded case of old seeds germinating with greater
vigor than fresh ones.

The rapid deterioration of nearly all seeds, and
the perfectly well known fact that very few kinds
are reliable for planting after more than four or five
years, is sufficient in itself to cast serious doubt
over the statements of seeds having grown which
were taken from the ancient tombs of Egypt or
from great depths in the earth. Nevertheless, as
one positive example is sufficient to refute any
amount of presumptive evidence to the contrary, it
is necessary to inquire into the accuracy of the
reported cases of the germination of such ancient
seeds, and to learn whether similar results have
been obtained in other cases.

In 1840, the British Association for the
Advancement of Science appointed a committee to
conduct a series of experiments for the purpose of
determining how long seeds of different kinds could
retain their vitality. These experiments were car-
ried on for ten years, and included the testing of a
great number of samples of many species. Among
them were samples of wheat and other grains from
Egyptian and other tombs, none of which germi-

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 29

nated. The oldest seeds which germinated were
those of the Choronilla, at 42 years, and Colutea at
48 years of age; of the latter only one seed germi-
nated out of seventy-five which were planted.

In 1843 the Gardeners’ Chronicle published an
editorial on mummy wheat, of which the. following
is an abstract: ‘Every year produces cases of this
sort about the harvest season, and even this season
at least twenty specimens have been sent us of
wheat ears purporting to have a ‘mummial’ ori-
gin; and strange to say they have all proved to
belong to the Egyptian wheat, or Ble de Miracle,
called by botanists Triticum compositum. Wehave
never however succeeded in satisfying ourselves
that the corn from which such wheat is said to have
been produced was really taken from mummy-cases.
There is always some defect in the evidence.”

In 1856 George Wilkes of England said: “TI
had three small parcels of wheat, two of them
directly from Egypt, and I was assured they were
taken out of mummies; the other was very old, but
from whence I know not. I planted the whole very
carefully, but not a grain grew.”

In 18638 the Press Scientifique des Deux Mondes
contained the following description of a series of
experiments made in Egypt by Figari-Bey on the
wheat found in the ancient sepulchres of that
country. “A long dispute occurred a few years

80 POPULAR ERRORS.

ago as to what truth there might be in the popular
belief, according to which this ancient wheat will
not only germinate after the lapse of three thou-
sand years, but produce ears of extraordinary size
and beauty. The question was left undecided; but
Figari-Bey’s paper, addressed to the Egyptian
Institute of Alexandria, contains some facts which
appear much in favor of a negative solution. One
kind of wheat which Figari Bey employed for his
experiments had been found in upper Egypt at the
bottom of a tomb at Medinet Aboo, by Mr Schnepp,
Secretary in the Egyptian Institute. There were
two varieties of it, both pertaining to those still cul-
tivated in Egypt. The form of the grains had not
changed; but their color, both within and without,
had become reddish, as if they had been exposed to
smoke. The specific weight was also the same, viz.,
twenty-five grains toa gramme. On being ground
they yield a good deal of flour; but are harder than
common wheat, and not very friable; the colour of
the flour is somewhat lighter than that of the
outer envelope. Its taste is bitter and bituminous;
and when thrown into the fire it emits a slight but
pungent smell. On being sown in moist ground,
under the usual pressure of the atmosphere, and at
a temperature of 25° (Reaumer), the grains became
soft, and swelled a little during the first four days;
on the seventh day their tumefaction became more

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 81

apparent, with an appearance of maceration and de-
composition; and on the ninth day this decomposi-
tion was complete. No trace of germination could
be discovered during all this time. FPigari-Bey
obtained similar negative results from grains of
wheat found in other sepulchres, and also on bar-
ley proceeding from the same source; so that there
is every reason to believe-that the ears hitherto
ostensibly obtained from mummy wheat proceeded
from grain accidentally contained in the mould into
which the former were sown.”

In 1860, twenty years after the publication rela-
tive to the germination of mummy wheat by Mr.
Tupper already referred to, Professor Heuslow pub-
lished in the Transactions of the British Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science an account of
his investigation of the circumstances under which
this former experiment was made. A quantity of
the original lot of mummy wheat was found still in
the possession of Sir Gardener Wilkinson. This
was carefully examined and found to contain a few
grains of unmistakably fresh wheat; and besides
this it contained grains of Indzan corn, a grain not
known in Egypt until after the discovery of America.
Further inquiry revealed the fact that the ancient
wheat had been for a time in the keeping of agrain
merchant of Cairo, who supplied the jars into
which it was put after being taken from the cata-

32 POPULAR ERRORS.

combs. Under this new light the fact that one
grain grew out of the twelve which were planted
will hardly be considered as evidence that the seeds
which grew actually came from the tombs. Such
errors as these, together with the uniform failure
of more recent attempts to germinate this ancient
wheat, have convinced the scientific world that no
actual germination of such wheat ever took place.
In regard to the supposed cases of the germina-
tion of seeds in earth thrown from the bottoms of
wells or other deep excavations, it is very difficult
to prove directly that seeds have not grown as
supposed from such soils, and few actual experi-
ments have been made upon the subject. In 1875,
Doctor Hoffman reported some experiments of this
kind in the Botanische Zeitung, in which he says:
“For the purposes of the experiments about three-
quarters of a hundred weight of the Loess soil was
taken out at a depth of twelve feet below the sur-
face when the earth was being leveled for the rail-
way station at Mousheim, near Worms. <A newly
broken spot was selected and the tools previously
cleaned with well-water. In fact every conceivable
precaution was taken throughout the experiment to
prevent the introduction of foreign seeds or spores.
Notwithstanding all this care, various common
mosses, ferns and flowering plants sprang up in the
pots which were closely covered with bell-glasses.

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 33

It is noteworthy, too, that all the species that
sprang up in this way were common either in the
green house or its immediate vicinity, and not in
the locality whence the soil was procured. A simi-
lar set of experiments was instituted with white
Tertiary sand, and the result was the same; then
the experiment with Loess soil was repeated again.
In this instance the only plant that could possibly
spring from a seed in the long buried soil was
Festuca: pratensis, but this was a delicate plant,
probably from a very small light seed that might
have been conveyed by the air.” In 1885, I made
at Grand Rapids, Michigan, two small experiments
of the same nature. Three flower pots were filled
with sand taken from twelve feet below the surface,
and three more with surface soil. Each pot was
kept covered with a pane of glass except at the
time water was applied. In the three pots from
the subsoil no seeds germinated, while each of the
other pots produced numerous grasses and other
weeds. I also took about 100 pounds of muck
from two feet below the surface of a marsh and
exposed it in a Wardian case kept continually
closed. In this soil one plant, of a kind common
on the marsh, germinated.

A few experiments have been tried on burying
seeds in the soil to determine the duration of their
aa under such conditions. Professor Beal, of

34 POPULAR ERRORS.

Michigan, buried weed seeds of different kinds for
several years and many of them when again brought
to light germinated. I buried seeds of corn,
beans and buckwheat five feet deep in sandy soil.
All were dead at the end of a year, though some
had first germinated. Nevertheless, cases are
known where seeds have retained their vitality in
the soil longer than they ordinarily do in the open
air.

Henry Doubleday states in the Gardeners’
Chronicle for 1885, page 854, that seeds of Lavatera
arborea continued to come up in his garden for
twenty years, though none were allowed to seed
there during that time.

M. J. Berkley, in the same journal for 1863, page
1011, describes an abundant growth of “ water-
cress, with a slight admixture of Ranunculus
aquaticus, and some grass’ in the muck of a pond
which had been filled for 83 years. ‘The seed-
lings burst out from the edge of the soil where it
had been cut through with the spade, taking their
origin beneath the superincumbent rubbish.” The
seedlings were growing three feet below the general
surface at the time of observation.

C. M. Hovey, of Boston, said in the London
Garden, 1880, Volume XVII. page 84: “I have a
spot of peaty ground deeply trenched and filled in
with brush just twenty years ago. It was then

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 85

planted with Rhododendrons, Azaleas and Kalmias.
Two years ago we took up all the Rhododendrons,
etc., and allowed the space to go to waste, as it was
to be used for bedding purposes. It had been kept
thoroughly clean all the time up to the removal of
the shrubs. This year a customer was anxious to
get a lot of Golden Rod flowers, and upon the little
spot of half an acre we cut three hundred heads, of
at least five species or varieties, with stems three to
four feet high. Here the seeds had lain all the
time, only waiting for the sun and air to give them
life.” In this case we cannot be quite sure from
the circumstances as recorded that seeds may not
have come from surrounding sources.

As an example of the way seeds may become
buried in the soil without being of great age the
following case will serve:

A writer in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, for 1856,
page 6, states that in a stone quarry the excava-
tions of the common earth worm were traced to the
depth of ten or twelve feet: “At the bottom is a
chamber, which generally contains quantities of
small stones and seeds; of these I noticed particu-
larly the rough “boll” of flax, the stones being a
size larger than these. The cavities run from one
inch to one and a half inches in diameter, the per-
pendicular tube or track (amd chambers also ) being
lined by an exceeding fine black earth, like that

36 POPULAR ERRORS.

which forms the casts on the surface; and though
to common observation no seeds are apparent,
whenever the bisected pipes or chambers happen to
remain exposed to the weather on the face of the
hard clay section for a sufficient time the whole
becomes green from the growth of grasses, the seeds
or germs of which must apparently have existed in
the fine black earth.”

Darwin, in his remarkable work on the forma-
tion of vegetable mold by means of earth worms,
gives similar examples of seeds being carried into
the soil by their agency.

Regarding the duration of the seeds of forest
trees in the soil, Henry D. Thoreau makes the fol-
lowing remarks in an article on the succession of
forest trees in the report of the Massachusetts
Board of Agriculture for 1860: ‘So far from the
seed having lain dormant in the soil since oaks
grew there before, as many believe, it is well known
that it is difficult to preserve the vitality of acorns
long enough to transport them to Europe; and it
is recommended in Loudon’s Arboretum, as the
safest course, to sprout them in pots on the voyage.
The same authority states that very few acorns of
any species will germinate after having been kept
a year, that beech mast only retains its vital prop-
erties one year, and the black walnut seldom more
than six months after it has ripened. “I have

VITALITY OF SEEDS. 37

frequently found,” he says, “that in November
almost every acorn left on the ground had either
sprouted or decayed. What with frost, drouth,
moisture and worms, the greater part are soon
destroyed, yet it is stated by one botanical writer
that “acorns that have lain for centuries on being
plowed up, have soon vegetated.”

Mr. George B. Emerson, in his valuable report
on the ‘Shrubs and Trees of Massachusetts,” says of
pines: “The tenacity of life in the seeds is re-
markable. They will remain for many years un-
changed in the ground, protected by the coolness
and deep shade of the forest above them. But
when the forest is removed, and the warmth of the
sun admitted they immediately vegetate.” “Since
he does not tell us on what observation his remark
is founded,” says Thoreau, “I doubt its truth.”

Without giving further testimony I will simply
say in conclusion that few, if any, cases exist in
which seeds are known to have retained their vital-
ity over fifty years; while a large majority lose their
vitality under ten years. Some kinds live the
longest covered with water or buried deeply in the
soil, while most kinds keep best if thoroughly dried.

A good paper on this subject, by Professor Wil-
liam H. Brewer, may be found in the report of the
Connecticut Board of Agriculture for 1879, pages
208-221.

Il.

DOES WHEAT TURN TO CHESS?

“And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed
after his kind.”—Genesis i. 12.
X° popular error has been more generally held in
this country than that wheat will turn to chess.
No other subject has, during the past fifty years,
been more actively discussed in the agricultural
press. There are signs, however, that interest in
the question is dying out, which probably means
that the better educated farmers have ceased to be-
lieve in the transmutation theory.

None of the leading agricultural periodicals now
advocate this theory, and some of them decline to
discuss it any longer. Nevertheless, the subject is
by no means out of date. There is doubtless
hardly a rural neighborhood in which one or more
intelligent and successful, if not in all respects well
informed, farmers do not hold to this belief. A
well known botanist says, “Of all the numerous
farmers’ institutes which I have attended, scarcely
one has adjourned without bringing up this sub-

ject. No other question has been so frequently
(38)

DOES WHEAT TURN TO CHESS? 39

asked.” Upon taking up the last number of a
prominent agricultural journal I find an article on
this subject.

In a recent report from the Chicago Board of
Trade I read that the price of wheat suddenly ad-
vanced, owing to reports “that the wheat in Mis-
souri and Kansas was turning to chess.” The
Director of at least one of the State experiment
stations holds firmly to this belief.

The causes assigned for the alleged transmutation
of wheat to chess are numerous and varied: sowing
shrunken seed; sowing in a certain time of the
moon; injury by the Hessian fly; eating off of the
plants by stock or by fowls; trampling by animals,
or injury by passing vehicles; drowning or freezing
out during winter; cutting off the “tap” root, in
imitation of heaving during winter.

It is remarkable that in this country the belief
in transmutation is confined almost wholly to the
single case of the change of wheat into chess. In
Europe a belief in the change of various plants into
one another is common. In Sweden and in some
parts of England chess is believed to be degener-
ated rye. The common darnel (Lolium temulen-
tum) was formerly, at least, believed to be degen-
erated wheat by most farmers in the south of Eng-
land. The name “rye grass,” by which this plant
is wideiy known, was given because of the belief in

40 POPULAR ERRORS.

many parts of Europe that it was degenerated rye.

Tusser, in his ‘Five Hundred Points of Good
Husbandry,” says:

“Who soweth his barlie too soon or in raine,

Of otes and of thistles shal after complaine.”

A writer in the Gardeners’ Chronicle says, “How
often have we heard it asserted that it is dangerous
to sow Italian Rye Grass, as it is sure to turn into
Couch” [Quack grass]. In some localities the
various grains are supposed to be convertible into
each other in a certain progressive order—wheat
into rye, rye into barley, barley into rye grass, and
rye grass into chess. In this free country where
“belief is untramelled, even by reason,” we go at
one step from wheat to chess. In the English agri-
cultural journals of a number of years ago are ex-
plicit directions for transforming one kind of grain
into another. A case in which these directions were
followed, apparently with more than usual care, may
be given as an example:' “In June, 1855, a few
rows of oats were dibbled in in a garden, each oat
carefully noted before planting. The plants were
cut down in the green state twice during the sum-
mer, and were protected from frost in the winter.
Several of the stools survived the winter, and in the
summer of 1856 produced several ears of perfectly
formed barley, of thin quality, but entirely distinct

1Journal of Agriculture, 1861, p. 321.

DOES WHEAT TURN TO CHESS? 41

from oats.” This was repeatedly planted, and
gradually improved, producing an improved variety
of barley which was extensively cultivated.

The above experiment was performed by Mr.
Elkins of Bluntisham, in Huntingdonshire. Other
similar cases are recorded.

No longer ago than 1885 Mr. C. 8. Read, a well
known farmer, agricultural writer, and member of
Parliament, stated’? that he had known oats which
were kept cut during the first year, and protected
by a covering of straw during the winter, to pro-
duce the next year other kinds of grain—in one
case wheat, in another rye, and in another barley.
The editor of the journal in which this report is
published, who is also a botanist, states, naturally
enough, that he is astounded that such beliefs
should still be held by persons of intelligence:

It seems incredible that anyone should have over-
looked the fact that the oats, which are known to
be liable to die out during winter, might have been
replaced in the above experiments the next year by
plants of other grain from seed contained in the
straw with which the oats were covered. At least
one experiment is recorded, however,’ in which
oats safely passed the winter without protection and
produced a good crop of pure oats the next season.

1Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1885, p. 533.
2P. Grieve, in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1875, p. 723,

42 POPULAR ERRORS.

Botanists themselves are not without responsibil.
ity for the existence of the belief in transmutation.
The serious discussion concerning the origin of the
cultivated cat from some of the known wild species
might have led to the common belief (though it
probably did not do so) among certain European
peasantry that the wild oat, Avena fatua, is either
the parent of the cultivated oat, or a degenerated
form of it. The long and learned discussions con-
cerning the possible origin of wheat from another
well known wild grass, Avgilops ovata, probably
tended to keep alive other belicfs in the transfor-
mation of one kind of grain into another. It seems
that an intermediate form is found, in the vicinity
of wheat fields, between the common wheat and
this wild grass, which is wholly distinct from,
though ciosely related to, wheat. For a long time
this intermediate form was taken to indicate either
that the wild grass was becoming converted into
wheat, or that the wheat was degenerating into a
wild state; in either case it was considered as evi-
dence that the Augilops was the original plant from
which our cultivated wheats were derived. Further
observation, however, has convinced botanists that
this intermediate form, which has been named
Aigilops triticoides, is neither wheat nor Aigilops,
but a natural hybrid between the two. It is never
found except on the borders of wheat fields, and it

DOES WHEAT TURN TO CHESS? 43

fails to reproduce itself, reverting when planted to
one or both of its parents, generally to the wild
state. It therefore furnishes no proof of the trans-
mutation of either species into the other.

Another scientific error may be mentioned which
was made by a botanist, and immediately corrected
by another botanist.

Prof. Buckman’ “believed that he had proved
that in the course of cultivation oa aquatica and
Glyceria fluitans, two widely distinct species, lost
their characters and became identical; that the
same thing happened between the Fesques called
loliacea and pratensis.”

Prof. Decaisne, of Paris, at once requested spe-
cimens in corroboration of such remarkable results,
and when they arrived they were, in both instances
Poa sudetica, an already known species different
from either of those named.

No better way of proving the impossibility of the
conversion of wheat into chess exists than to show
the distinct botanical differences between the two
kinds of grain, together with some of the causes by
which plants may be modified, and the limits be-
yond which such changes cannot go. To almost
every one who studies plants as the botanist does,
the different species, such as corn, oats, wheat, rye,
etc., come to be seen as realities which can no more

1Country Gentleman, 1861, p. 321 (From Gardeners’ Chronicie),

44. POPULAR ERRORS.

lose their identity than can the different species of
domestic animals.

Species may be modified by climate, soil, or other
causes, so that new varieties may in time arise, such
as the different kinds of corn. Some species may
be hybridized, producing plants or animals of inter-
mediate character, as the hybrids between wheat
and rye or between the horse and the ass. " But no
case has ever occurred in which any plant or ani-
mal has been converted into another existing species,
and even if such a case could occur we should ex-
pect it to take place gradually and show interme-
diate stages, which in the alleged transformation of
wheat into chess are never found.

Some years ago one of the editors of an agricul-
tural paper offered $500 to any one who would pro-
duce a plant part way changed from wheat to chess,
on the ground that if such changes were constantly
taking place at least a single plant might be found
in a transitive condition among the countless mil-
lions all over the country. But not a single claim-
ant applied, in the face of a small penalty in the
ease of failure or attempted imposition. Other
prizes have been offered for proof that wheat would
produce chess, and such prizes have in several cases
been claimed, but investigation has always shown,
to the satisfaction of even the contestants, that
actual proof was wanting,

DOES WHEAT TURN TO CHESS? “45

Wheat and chess belong, not only to different
species, but to distinct genera. The differences
between them are structurally as great as those
between a sheep and a horse. The difference in
the form and arrangement of the head of the two
plants can be observed by any one. The micro-
scopic differences are even greater. The cells of the
glumes or chaff of chess are oblique, those of wheat
generally right angled. In wheat only one vein of
the upper glume is bordered with stomata or breath-
ing pores, in chess every vein. In wheat the grain
in most varieties separates readily from the chaff,
in chess it remains enclosed by the two inner chaffs,
the same as in oats.

Chess is a well known wild plant in the Old
World; wheat has never been found wild, and
probably disappeared in the wild state soon after
its introduction into cultivation. There are many
species of Bromus, the natural genus to which chess
belongs. Twelve of these are natives in the United
States, besides five varieties; and twelve more species,
like chess, have -been introduced from the Old
World. Most of these are weeds, but at least one
(Bromus unioloides), called Rescue Grass, is a
valuable winter pasture in the Southern States.
About the year 1855, chess itself was widely her-
alded in the agricultural press, under the name of
Willard’s Brome Grass, as a new and valuable grass

46 POPULAR ERRORS.

for meadow and pasture, and large quantities of
the seed were sold to unsuspecting farmers in the
eastern part of the United States at high prices
before the fraud was discovered.

The idea that chess is not a real species, as dis-
tinct and permanent as any other grass or grain,
but is only a degenerated condition of wheat, is one
of those curiosities of belief for which it is hard to
account. The fact that chess’ will grow from its
own seed, and reproduce chess, has been proved
many times, and can be observed by any boy or
girl who has a little patience and an inquiring mind.
Almost any sample of winter wheat, and particularly
screenings, will furnish specimens of chess for the
purpose. Select a given number of grains of chess,
which may be distinguished from the grains of
shrunken wheat by having hulls upon them, and
plant them, one ina place, in regular rows, in moist
garden soil. In a few days the fact that chess will
germinate will be demonstrated to the satisfaction
of any one. Next year, if the plants are allowed to
remain, there will be equally good proof that chess
will reproduce the fully developed chess plant; or,
if it is desired to settle the question at once, let one
find a stool of chess in the field, carefully dig it up,
cut off the lower roots, shake gently or wash out
the dirt, and examine in the center of the roots, at
the base of the central stem, for the old kernel

DOES WHEAT TURN TO CHESS? 47

from which it grew. If he is as successful as the
writer has been he will find it in nearly every case,
and will have no difficulty in seeing that it is a
kernel of chess, and not of wheat. Occasionally a
kernel of true wheat has been found attached to
the roots of chess, and has been exhibited as evi-
dence that the chess grew from the wheat kernel.
In fact, chess plants have been exhibited with five
or six wheat kernels attached to the roots, which of
itself proves that they could no more have origin-
ated the plant than that several cows could have
one calf. In all such cases which have been exam-
ined, the wheat kernels were found at some distance
from the base of the stem, and it has turned out
that a root of a growing chess plant has merely
entered an old decayed wheat kernel which existed
in the soil. In such cases the old kernel has been
easily separated from the root and shown to have
no real connection with it, while on the other hand,
the old grain from which a plant springs is always
quite firmly attached. The position of the old seed
upon a seedling plant may be readily studied by
examining any young plant of corn or other grain.
Persons have sometimes been puzzled by finding
heads of wheat which bore one or more spikelets of
chess, and these have been exhibited as evidence
that such heads were changing to chess. One such
case was exhibited before a meeting of the Mich-

48 POPULAR ERROKS.

igan Horticultural Society,’ and referred to a com-
mittee consisting of two professors, and a gentle-
man who is now editor of an agricultural paper.
After careful examination, it was discovered that a
spikelet of chess had been caught between some of
the chaffs of the head of wheat and held in such
position as to appear as if it grew there. The
broken end of the stalk of the chess spikelet was
discovered, however, and the head of wheat was
found to be entire. Another similar case was sent
from Indiana to the Academy of Sciences at Phila-
delphia. It was some time before this case could
be explained, but the chairman of the committee to
which it was referred” finally discovered that a
spikelet of the wheat head had been artificially
removed, and a spikelet of chess substituted and
secured in place by some kind of cement. It was
afterward learned that the one who sent the speci-
men had practiced the same trick upon others,

A partial explanation may perhaps be offered to
account for the wide-spread belief that wheat will
turn to chess. It will be noticed that most of the
causes which are given for this supposed transfor-
mation are cases in which the wheat is injured in
some way, winter-killing being the most common
cause assigned. Now chess is a biennial, the same

1See Report, 1884, p. 187.
2Proc., Philadelphia Academy, 1874, p. 163.

DOES WHEAT TURN TO CHESS? 49

as winter wheat (in fact it is never found in spring
wheat) and it is known to be more hardy than
wheat. The fact that it grows wild, while wheat
dies out unless artificially cultivated, is one indica-
tion of this. Whenever the wheat is injured, there-
fore, especially by the winter, any chess plants
which remain have a better opportunity to develop,
and if there are many present they may stool out
-aud fill almost the whole ground. Had the wheat
remained uninjured it would, by its more rapid
growth, have so overshadowed or crowded the chess
that the latter would have hardly been noticed. In
a heavy growth of wheat chess plants have been
found bearing seed when only two or three iuches
high. In such cases it might readily be supposed
that there was no chess in the field. The fact that
chess seed may remain in the ground for several
years is also a source of surprise to farmers who
sow pure seed and find chess in the crop. Farm-
ers are also liable to be mistaken in thinking that
they sow pure seed. It is nearly impossible to
secure any winter wheat free from chess unless it
is hand picked. A grain dealer of Detroit, Mich-
igan, said that he believed that he had never seen
a sample of wheat which did not contain some
chess, though it was more abundant some years
than others. The present system of employing
neo threshing machines renders it nearly

50 POPULAR ERRORS.

impossible for any farmer to keep his grain en-
tirely free from the seeds of chess and other weeds.
Still, a few farmers do so, and by so doing have
proved that the origin of chess is found in the seed
planted, and not in the injury by winters and other
causes. In some parts of England since the real
character of chess has become better known this
weed has become nearly exterminated.

Chess is believed by some to be the “tares” of
the Bible. It is very common in the wheat of Syria
and Palestine to-day. How much more reason-
able to suppose, with the ancient Hebrews, that if
one sows ‘‘good seed” he will reap a clean har-
vest, than to overlook the many ways in which the
seeds of weeds may enter, and to suppose that
because weeds appear in the crop they come from
the seed which is intentionally sown.

IV.
PLANTING IN THE MOON.

“The superstitious man will not commit his seed to the earth
when the soil, but when the muon, requires it.”—Wrenfels, 1748,

SUPPOSE no more accurate index exists of the
| state of intelligence in any community in mod-
ern times than the amount of reliance placed on the
influence of the moon in human affairs.

Forty years ago ‘the agricultural journals were
frequently called upon to refute and expose the
numerous popular superstitions regarding the in-
fluence of the moon in agriculture. Now it is rare
that the subject is even alluded to, and although
the number of persons is still large who are more
or less guided in their operations by such beliefs,
they are mainly of a class who are little influenced
by published information of any kind.

Beliefs in the influence of the moon on plants
and animals and upon the weather are almost world
wide; they originated with the birth of astrology,
and developed at a time when all the heavenly
bodies were supposed each to have its peculiar in-
fluence over the affairs of men. The wisest of the

Greeks and Romans guve directions for performing
(51)

52 POPULAR ERRORS.

various operations in accordance with the different
phases of the moon. Pliny could lay aside the
weightier matters of law and history to teach that
eggs, in order to hatch successfully, should be set
in the new of the moon; that the full of the moon
was the time to sow beans, and the new of the
moon to sow lentils; that wheat intended for sale
should be purchased in the full moon, because it
will then increase in bulk and weight.

Wonderful are the effects related of the influence
of the moon upon animals, and especially on the
bodies and minds of men. Sanctorius, the inventor
of the thermometer, held that a healthy man gained
two pounds at the beginning of every lunar month,
which was lost towards the close of the month.
Exposure to moonlight has been supposed to be
the cause of the sallow complexion of those who
keep late hours. Sailors have a belief that it is
particularly dangerous to sleep with the face ex-
posed to the rays of the full moon. Horrible stories
are related of the fate of those who have thought.
lessly or wantonly disregarded this danger: how
persons so exposed have had their muscles distorted,
their mouths drawn awry, and their features dread-
fully and sometimes permanently disfigured. The
numerous mental derangements, hallucinations,
epileptic attacks, and similar strange maladies
which have been attributed to the moon’s influence

PLANTING IN THE MOON. 53

have given, to this day, the name lunatics to persons
suffering from serious mental disorders. Akin to
the supposed influence of the moon in producing
disease, is that of its effect on recovery from disease.
How often even now do watchers at the bedside of
the sick anxiously wait “ until the moon changes”
to learn the fate of the objects of their care! It is
believed by some that wounds of all kinds are
especially susceptible to the influence of the moon,
afull moon having the tendency to prevent their
healing rapidly. Similar to this is the supposed
effect of moonlight on meat of all kinds, causing it
to decay more quickly than it otherwise would.
Fish, particularly, when hung out of doors in moon-
light are thought to be rendered unwholesome
thereby, and instances are recorded where persons
have manifested the most alarming symptoms as the
result of eating fish which had been so exposed.
Coming now to the more practical operations of
the farm, we learn that pork killed in the new or
increase of the moon will not shrink in the pot as
it will if killed in the old of the moon. Calves or
other animals born in the new of the moon may be
expected to live and thrive, while if born in the old
uf the moon the chances are all against them. A
rail fence built in the old of the moon will soon
sink into the ground, while if built at any other
time it will not sink. Shingles nailed upon a roof

54 POPULAR ERRORS.

in the new of the moon will soon throw out the
nails. Sheep sheared at that time will yield heavier
fleeces than if sheared at other periods. Don’t
understand me as saying that all of these beliefs
are held in any one locality or by any single individ-
ual, however “ well informed.” But a little obser-
vation will convince one that there are persons in
almost every neighborhood whose reliance on the
influence of the moon in some things is as implicit
as on any of the laws of nature, while there are
other people who, though‘they do not acknowledge
or defend such beliefs, and who dislike very much
to be considered superstitious, yet prefer in matters
of importance to take their chances with the “signs
of the moon” in their favor. Perhaps one is not
entirely responsible for beliefs of this nature which
he may hold, for few people are able at once to
wholly banish them upon a demonstration of their
falsity.

We will now notice some beliefs regarding the
influence of the moon which at first sight appear to
be a little more rational and better founded, and
which are more generally held at the present time.
There is no notion more firmly fixed in the popular
mind than the influence of the moon on the weather.
The following from a leading agricultural journal
thirty years ago is probably true with slight modifi-
cation to-day: “The influence of the mocn on the

PLANTING IN THE MOON. 55

weather is fully believed in probably by the large
majority of our population. If the weather is foul
no change is anticipated until the moon quarters.
The new moon is particularly efficacious in bring-
ing changes. This luminary also foreshadows the
character of the weather by the angle at which its
horns make their appearence with reference to the
horizon. If the crescent holds water like a bowl,
then look out for dry times. But if the crescent
dips, so as to let the water out, look out for foul
weather and floods.”

In New England the character of a “ wet moon”
is fixed in the mind by the saying that it is so much
inclined that one cannot hang a powder horn upon
it. In some parts of the South, on the other hand, a
wet moon is one which lies upon its back, and is
supposed to be full of water, from which the rain is
derived by its overflow.

Regarding the influence of the moon on temper-
ature, two opinions are held, which in effect are di-
rectly opposite to each other. It is a common say-
ing among the French country people that “The
moon eats up the clouds.”

There is a similar belief among sailors, who feel
no danger on a stormy night if the moon is about to
rise. This fact of the influence of the moon in dis-

_persing the clouds must be due, if it be a fact, to
the increased temperature caused by its rays. The

56 POPULAR ERRORS.

apparent effect of the moon in dispersing the clouds
can be easily observed on any moonlit night when
the clouds are thin. At such a time the moon
always appears to be shining through an open space
in the clouds, though the latter may be moving rap-
idly. A little attention will convince any one that
in such cases the light of the moon has merely
illuminated the clouds and rendered them less visi-
ble, but no lessreal. The opposite belief regarding
the effect of the moon on temperature is that moon-
beams are cold. One proof of this is supposed to
exist in the fact that on a clear night, when the
moon is shining, plants are more liable to be
injured by frost than on cloudy nights, when its
“cold rays” are prevented from reaching the earth.
That plants are more liable to be killed by frost on
clear nights than on cloudy nights is a fact too well
known to be disputed, but that the presence of the
moon on clear nights has any material effect on the
temperature is not established. The misapprehen-
sion in this case will be removed by considering
that the effect of the radiation of heat from the
earth or any other body is to lower its temperature,
and that a covering of any kind, as of clouds far
above the earth, or of any artificial object nearer
to its suface, prevents to some extent the diminution
of temperature, by retarding radiation.

The presence or absence of dew likewise depends

PLANTING IN THE MOON 57

on the influence of clouds in checking radiation,
On cloudy nights little dew is formed, while on clear
nights the dews are always more heavy, providing
there is no wind and the weather is not cold encugh
for frost or is not excessively dry. The occurrence
of frost on clear moonlit nights at a temperature
apparently above the freezing point, has led the
injury by frost under certain circumstances to be
attributed to the direct malignant influence of the
moon. In France the particular moon which is
supposed to cause this result is called la lune
rousse (the red moon) from the reddish brown color
which the leaves of the vine and other plants
assume under its supposed influence. Louis XIV,
issued a royal order to men of science to determine
the date of this moon, and received an answer that
no such moon existed, and that the effect observed
was the result of frost. Another widespread belief
regarding the moon is its supposed influence on the
rise and fall of the sap in trees. It matters not
that there is no such rise and fall of the sap as
was once supposed, the belief in some form is found
in nearly all parts of the world. The forest laws of
France at one time, if they do not now, prohibited
the cutting of timber during the increase of the
moon. German foresters were careful to observe
the same rule. The explanation for this practice.
given in the words of Sauer of Germany, is that

58 POPULAR ERRORS.

the increase of the moon causes the sap to ascend in
the timber, and, on the other hand, that its decrease
causes the sap to descend. Timber, therefore, which
is cut in the decrease of the moon will contain less
sap, and hence will keep longer, than if cut in the
increase of the moon. Itis not easy to see, even
on the supposition that this theory is correct, why
a tree should contain less sap, as a rule, during the
period of its descent than during its ascent. It is
not strange, therefore, that the people of Cuba
should have become confused and adopted the
opposite idea that wood to resist the decay should
be cut in the waxing moon. It is said to be com-
monly held in that island that the palm leaf thatch
used for houses will last many years if cut during
the increase of the moon, but only as many months
if cut at any other time. One inhabitant, however,
being induced by a traveler to.make a trial of
thatch cut at the two opposite phases of the moon
confessed that he could see no difference in the
result. Duhamel of France carefully tested the
duration of timber cut in different stages of the
moon and observed no material difference in the
time of decay.

Another curious belief, which is perhaps more
widely held than any other concerning the influence
of the moon on plants, is that those plants which
bear their edible portion above ground should be

PLANTING IN THE MOON. 59

planted in the new of the moon while those whose
edible part is below ground should be planted in
the old or decrease of the moon.

Auguste Saint Hilaire states that in Brazil, culti-
vators plant during the decline of the moon all veg-
etables whose roots are used as food; and that, on
the contrary, they plant during the increase of the
moon, the sugar-cane, maize, rice, beans, etc.,
which bear their food upon their stalks and
branches. Experiments at Martinique to test this
belief showed that there was no foundation for it.
Nevertheless, I have met this belief in the United
States more frequently perhaps than any other,
and it doubtless owes its vitality and uniformity of
statement to the dash of philosophy in it which
makes it easy to remember. Many a gardener has
lost a good chance for sowing his onion seeds by
thinking that when he has failed to get them sown
in the old of the moon in March he must wait until
the old of the moon in April. This belief in the
necessity of planting root crops in the old of the
moon, and all others in the new, is somewhat mod-
ified in the case of certain crops which are likely to
be injured by too vigorous a growth.

Dr. Lardner stated some fifty years ago that
it was an aphorism received by all gardeners and
agriculturists in Europe that vegetables, plants and
trees which are expected to flourish and grow with

60 POPULAR ERRORS.

vigor should be planted, grafted, and pruned dur-
ing the increase of the moon. This increase of
vigor, however, may be at the expense of the fruit,
and in gach a case it should be checked by planting
in the old of the moon. Peas, beans, squashes,
etc., therefore, which are liable to run too much to
vines, should be planted in the old of the moon.
Thomas Tusser, in his “ Five Hundred Points of
Good Husbandry,” expresses this belief when he
Bays:
“Sow peason and beans in the wane of the moon,
Who soweth them sooner he soweth too soon;

That they with the planet may rise,
And flourish with bearing most plentiful wise.”

Let us now briefly consider what effect, if any,
the moon really does have on the affairs of our
planet, especially on the growth of vegetation.

The most important influence of the moon is in
the production of tides. The moon, by its nearness
to the earth exerts a greater attractive force upon
it than any other heavenly body. Every day, as
the earth in its revolution turns first one side and
then another toward the moon, the water and the
atmosphere upon this side are drawn toward that
body. This, in the case of the waters, produces
the diurnal rise of the tides. Twelve hours later,
when the same side is turned away from the moon,
the attraction of the moon being in the opposite

PLANTING IN THE MOON. 61

direction, the phenomenon of the ebbing tide is
completed. As the moon is always present at
about the same distance from the earth, and as we
see the tides rise and fall daily, we can understand
that the fact of the moon being “old” or “new”
can have no effect upon this movement. The moon
of course is just as real and substantial when it
appears as the smallest crescent as when it appears
at the full, so that it is difficult to see what influ-
ence it can exert, except in the amount of light
which it imparts, at one time more than another.

The tides in the air and ocean, and whatever
heat the moon may give, are the only visible sources
of influence that the moon can have upon the
weather. The effect of the tides, whatever it may
be, must be very small, and its relation, if any, to
the ordinary changes of the weather have never
been pointed out. All we know is that certain
regular currents in the air and in the ocean are
affected by the tides, but neither these currents nor
the tides have any known connection with the
changes in the moon’s appearance. The heat
furnished by the moon is practically nothing; the
moon being a cold body, far too cold to support
life of any kind. It has been estimated that the
heat accompanying the light of a full moon raises
the temperature of the air exposed to its influence
only one five thousandth part of a degree.

62 POPULAR ERRORS.

Change in temperature is the main cause of
rainfall, aside from the amount of moisture present
in the air, and this moisture is determined by the
temperature of the air and the proximity of large
bodies of water or other sources of supply. Know-
ing the slight effect of even the full moon on tem-
perature, we are prepared for the idea that no mere
changes in its phases can possibly have any appre-
ciable effect on the fall of rain. Experiments
made in England by Dr. Laycock as to the amount
of rainfall at different phases of the moon showed
little if any difference. Observations by Dr. Pen-
dleton of Georgia, and others, have given like re-
sults. Wewill next notice the effect of the moon’s
light.

Most people are apt to overestimate the amount
of light received from the moon, which, we know,
is all derived, by reflection, from the sun. This
arises from the power the eye has of adapting itself
to different degrees of light. Still, even with this
power of adaptation, probably most persons are sur-
prised when they find how difficult it is to read a
newspaper by moonlight. Dr. Wollaston has meas-
ured the light received from the moon and that
given by the sun, and finds that if the latter be
compared to the light of five and a half wax can-
dies at the distance of one foot, the light of the
moon would be represented by one one hundred

PLANTING IN THE MOON. 63

and forty-fourth of one candle at the same dis-
tance. It is difficult for any of us to realize that
there is so great a difference as this between moon-
light and sunlight; yet if we recollect that upon
going into a dark cellar, in which we can see at
first absolutely nothing, we soon become accustomed
to the darkness and are enabled to see more or less
distinctly, we will learn to have less confidence in
the impression of our unaided senses in matters of
this kind. Now what effect, if any, has this small
amcunt of light which comes from the moon on
the growth of vegetation ?

M. De Parville, of France, “in order to testa
very popular belief in America,” sowed various
kinds of seeds, both in the new and the full moon,
and found that most of the kinds, succeeded a
little better when sown at the period of the full
moon. These experiments were not regarded as
very conclusive, but whatever advantage may have
been gained by sowing at the given period was
explained by the fact that the plants came up at
a time when they had at the start the benefit
of the full moon’s light. It has, at least, been
proved repeatedly that growing plants will ‘bend
toward” moonlight as well as toward sunlight, and
that blanched plants will acquire a greenish color
when exposed to the moon’s rays.

Prof. G. Giulj “caused vetches to germinate and

64 POPULAR ERRORS.

spring up in a cellar entirely shut up from the
light, both of the sun and moon; and the little
plants were very white. Some of them were ex-
posed for several nights to the action of the moon’s
rays, while others, also in full growth, were kept in
complete darkness. The former acquired a green
color, like that of the same plants exposed in the
open air, and even to the sunlight; those, on the
contrary, kept constantly protected from the light
of the sun and moon were not at all colored and
ultimately rotted.”

The Abbé Tessier “made a great number of ex-
periments upon etiolated plants which had become
white or yellow from being kept in the dark, and
observed that those exposed to the light of the
moon, and kept in the dark during the day, were
evidently less yellow or white than those kept in
the dark day and night.”

Prof. Zantedeschi repeated the experiments of
these two observers, and found that after six nights’
exposure to the rays of the full moon the color of
etiolated plants had assumed a yellowish tint which
appeared to be changing to the green color, while
plants of the same kind which had been kept con-
tinually in the dark remained white. The same
writer found that the light of the moon had the
effect of reviving some drooping seedlings of
mimosa.

PLANTING IN THE MOON. 65

While, therefore, we cannot say that the moon
has absolutely no effect on vegetation, we can say
that it has been proved that this effect is so small
that in comparison with the numerous other influ.
ences which affect vegetation through the soil and
atmosphere there is no occasion whatever for the
cultivator to take it into account.

V.
DO VARIETIES RUN OUT?

TATED in this way, the question must be
N answered in the affirmative. Improved varieties
of fruits, grains and vegetables are being continu-
ally produced, yet the actual advance in quality
and productiveness is surprisingly slow. If every
new variety which has been brought into general
cultivation had been a permanent advance on all
that had been known before the standard of culti-
vated plants must by this time have been far
higher than it now is. It is impossible to doubt
this. If, on the other hand, we mean, as we gen-
erally do, by this question, that varieties necessar-
ily run out, without any visible cause, we are hardly
entitled to answer the question until we have
examined the possible causes of degeneration.
The most important cause to which this degener-
ation of varieties has been attributed is that of
propagation by grafts, buds, or division of the
plant in some manner, instead of by seed. Knight
believed that a variety propagated by grafts would
run out and become inferior in fruit and sickly in

tree at about the time the original tree reached its
(66)

DO VARIETIES RUN OUT? 67

limit of life. This idea has been widely adopted
and is still occasionally met with in horticultural
writings. Thus a writer in the Michigan Farmer,
for 1887, p. 3, attributes the apparent degeneration
of certain standard varieties of apples to the fact
that they originated some two hundred and fifty or
three hundred years ago; while other varieties,
such as the Baldwin which is but one hundred
years old, are still grown successfully for the sim-
ple reason that they are of later origin and are
supposed for this reason to have retained their origi-
nal vigor. Botanists have hardly accepted the idea
in this form, but they have generally held in recent
years that sexual reproduction, that is, reproduction
by seed, is essential to permanent vigor. It must
be confessed, however, that actual proof of even
this belief has hardly been offered. It is a belief
which, nevertheless, has had much influence in
stimulating the production of new varieties from
seed. The degeneration of potatoes and their
liability to the-rot has been particularly attributed
to their propagation from tubers instead of seed.
Mr. Goodrich, of New York, was mainly actuated
by this belief in his long continued experiments in
the production of new varieties of potatoes from
seed, particularly from the wild species, which he
assumed to possess greater vigor from its not
having been subjected to continuous reproduction

68 POPULAR ERRORS.

by tubers alone. Mr. Goodrich produced some
good varieties, and greatly improved the wild
species, but he failed to produce any kinds capable
of resisting rot, and there are those who think that
if he had expended an equal amount of labor in
improving the best existing varieties by seed his
results would have been greater.

As to the degeneration of varieties of apples,
pears, etc., there are those who doubt that it neces-
sarily occurs, and who claim that under suitable
conditions varieties of these fruits two hundred or
more years old are as valuable as ever. Certainly
there are some old sorts of the pear and the apple
that retain their character remarkably well. Many
others doubtless owe the fact that they are no longer
cultivated to the production of newer varieties of
greater value. Many sorts also owe their present
inferiority in certain localities to changes in the
soil or climate since they originated, through con-
tinued cultivation of the soil and the clearing up of
the forests; or to their having been raised beyond
the locality in which their excellence was first
discovered. Such varieties are still often grown
with success in favored localities. We have little
proof, therefore, in plants propagated by grafts
and similar means, that varieties necessarily, of
themselves, wear out.

The case of varieties grown from seed is entirely

DO VARIETIES RUN OUT? 69

different. Though theoretically we might expect
them to be more permanent, or at least more vigor-
ous, practically they are less stable. A few vari-
eties, like the Winningstadt cabbage and the Long
Green cucumber, have existed for many years, but
most of our improved varieties of grains and vege-
tables are of short duration. The cause of this is
two-fold. First there is its heredity always present
tending to obliterate new varieties or their distinct-
ive characters and bring them back to their origi-
nal form. A germinating seed tends to reproduce
not only the features of the plant which bore it, but
also, less strongly, those of its remote ancestors.
This hereditary tendency is strongest in plants
which have not departed widely from their original
type.

Second there is variation which obliterates a
variety by causing it to depart still farther from
the original state. Some of the causes of varia-
tion are known. High cultivation is an almost
universal condition under which new varieties origi-
nate, and under which they are cultivated for the
first few years. The originator naturally desires
to make a new variety do its best, and the gardener
or farmer is also likely to give extra care to a new
variety for which he has paid a high price. Now it
has been demonstrated not only that vigor induced
by high cultivation and an abundance of food tends

70 POPULAR ERRORS.

to be inherited, but that plants so treated are more
apt than others to furnish improved varieties. Such
treatment is therefore a legitimate method of
obtaining better varieties, but it alone does not
guarantee the permanence of varieties so produced,
though some varieties are more inclined to be per-
manent than others.

Other causes of variation which may lead varie-
ties to run out or lose their valuable and distinctive
features are peculiarities of soil and climate. Dwarf
early varieties of corn and peas ‘will lose these
characters and become larger and later if grown
for a few years on rich black soil. A cold climate
causes many plants to become dwarf in habit and
more fruitful. Oats rapidly degenerate in most
parts of the United States, but the remedy is not
so much the introduction of new varieties as the
frequent importation of fresh seed from regions
better adapted to this grain.

Crossing is another cause of the degeneration of
varieties. Systematic improvers of plants are care-
ful to prevent crossing with inferior sorts. A few
years of careful selection, preventing the access of
pollen of inferior varieties, will generally produce
an excellent sort which can be depended on to
reproduce itself. When this variety, however, is
carried into general cultivation, and exposed to

DO VARIETIES RUN OUT? 71

crossing from other inferior sorts it may in a short
time lose its acquired excellence,

Practically, therefore, varieties, at least those
cultivated from seed, do run or wear out, but they
do not necessarily do so, but on the other hand
may be expected to continually improve if care is
taken in their cultivation and selection. The proper
course therefore, is not to drop the old varieties
entirely, and thus lose the advantage already gained,
but to continually improve them and use them as
the basis for better varieties.

VI.
VAN MONS’ TIIEORY.

AN MONS was a professor in the university at
V Louvaine, Belgium, who devoted the greater
part of his life to the amelioration of fruits. His
nurseries contained, in 1823, no less than 2,000
seedlings of merit. He experimented mainly on
pears, and succeeded in raising an immense number
of varieties of high excellence. His theory, as stated
by Downing, is substantially as follows:

All fine fruits are artificial products; the aim of
nature in a wild state being only the production of
a healthy and vigorous plant, with perfect seeds
for continuing the species. It is the object of
culture therefore to subdue or enfeeble this excess
of vegetation; to lessen the coarseness of the tree;
to diminish the size of the seeds; and to refine the
quality and increase the size of the flesh or pulp.

There is always a tendency in our varieties of
fruit trees to return, when propagated by seed, to
the wild state. This tendency is most strongly
shown in seedlings raised from old trees. ‘The
older the tree of any cultivated variety of pear,”

says Van Mons, “the nearer will the seedlings
(72)

VAN MONS’ THEORY, 73

raised from it approach a wild state, without, how-
ever, ever being able to return to that state.” On
the other hand, the seeds of a young fruit tree of
a good sort, being itself in a state of amelioration,
have the least tendency to retrograde, and are the
most likely to produce improved sorts.

Again, there isa limit to perfection in fruits,
When this point is reached the next generation will
be more likely to produce inferior varieties than
will the seeds of varieties that have not reached so
high a state of development.

With these ideas in mind, Van Mons began by
gathering seeds from young trees, without much
regard to quality, except that they must be in a state
of variation; that is to say, cultivated varieties, and
not wild sorts. These he sowed in the nursery and
allowed them to grow until of sufficient size to
enable him to judge of their character. He then
selected those which appeared most promising and
allowed them to fruit, planting the seeds of their
first specimens, whether of good or inferior quality,
providing they were different from their parent.
The next generation, treated in the same manner,
came into bearing more quickly than the first; and
so on, each generation coming into bearing more
quickly than the preceding, and producing more
perfect fruit. Van Mons found the pear to require
the longest time to attain perfection, and he carried

74 POPULAR ERRORS.

his process with this fruit through five generations,
at which time nearly all of the seedlings were of
great excellence, and came into bearing at three
_years from seed. Apples, he found, needed but
four generations and peaches, cherries, plums, and
other stone fruits but three.

The leading feature of his theory was that it was
important to subdue or enfeeble the original nature
of the tree. To this end he always gathered his
fruits before fully ripe, allowed them to rot before
planting the seeds, in order to refine or render less
wild and harsh the next generation, In trans-
planting the young seedlings he cut off the tap
root, and he annually shortened the leading and
side branches, besides partially starving the trees
by planting them only a few feet apart. All this
lessened the vigor of the tree and produced, as he
believed, an impression upon the nature of the
seeds produced by the first crop of fruit. In order
to attain the full force of these influences, and to
continue without interruption the progressive varia-
tion, he allowed the trees to bear upon their own
roots.

Such is Van Mons’ theory and practice for the
improvement of fruits. It has never been adopted
in practice to any extent by others, not so much
from a disbelief in its correctness as from the large
amount of labor and patience required in carrying

VAN MONS’ THEORY. 15

it out. The most characteristic feature of the
theory; namely, that young trees produce seedlings
which are more variable and of higher quality than
old trees of the same varieties, has never been
generally accepted by horticulturists, and probably
contains but little truth. The other point, that
fruits have a definite limit of perfection beyond
which they cannot go and at which point their
seedlings begin to deteriorate, cannot be considered
as established, although it has been accepted by
many. The only truth in this point seems to be,
first, that highly developed varieties, if feeble, may
yield seedlings which are possessed of such low
vitality that they cannot be profitably grown; and,
second, that improvement for the first few genera-
tions after a variety is introduced into cultivation is
- more rapid than afterward, so that varieties may
seem to reach a limit of possible development,
though they do not actually do so.

VII.
BUDS AND SEEDS.

HE well known fact that buds can be separated

from a plant, and under certain conditions pro-
duce other plants, in a manner somewhat similar
to seeds, has led many to suppose that on the
original plant they lead a sort of independent
existence—in fact that a plant may be considered
as a colony instead of an individual, and that it
leads much the same kind of life as a colony of
sponges, each individual bud drawing its own sup-
port from the soil in the same manner as each
individual in a sponge obtains its food from the
surrounding water.

To carry out this idea the most astonishing errors
concerning the structure of plants have been put
forth. Thus, Erasmus Darwin, in his celebrated
“ Phytologia,” published in 1800, says: ‘ The bark
is only an intermixture of the caudexes of the
numerous buds as they pass down to shoot their
radicles into the earth.”

McIntosh, in his Book of the Garden, says, in
speaking of the mutual influence of the stock and

graft: “Since then the developments of the graft
(76)

BUDS AND SEEDS. V7

are proved to be in fact altogether uninfluenced by
the stock, it may be safely asserted that the latter
ought to be considered as a medium only, or vehi-
cle, through which the vascular organs of the
former pass and are conveyed into the soil, whence
their spongioles and rootlets by the aid of electric
agency affect the introsusception of the nutritious
sap!”

Carpenter, in his ‘‘ Vegetable Physiology,’’ pub-
lished in 1873, says:—“ It has even occurred that
a single bud at the summit of a stem has pre-
served its life whilst the vitality of all the others,
and of the stem, has been in some manner des-
troyed; and that from this bud have been sent
down bundles of root fibres between the bark and
wood of the dead stem, which, when they have
reached the ground, afforded abundant supplies of
nutriment to the expanding bud; and this has sub-
sequently grown into a perfect tree, enclosing the
original dead stem within its trunk. The original
root-fibres are in such a case surrounded in the en-
suing year by another layer more resembling wood.”

A similar error is refuted by Paxton in his Maga-
zine of Botany, Volume III, p. 231. “ Nothing,”
he says, ‘‘can be more erroneous than the doctrine
that the buds of the graft send woody matter down-
wards which passes through its cellular substance
into the stock and covers the wood of the stock

78 POPULAR ERRORS.

with new wood; for every gardener knows that the
graft never changes the wood of the stock.”

This subject of the mutual influence of the
graft and stock is treated in another chapter, and,
as will there be shown, certain erroneous beliefs
concerning the direct influence of the graft on the
stock, as well as the supposed presence of rootlets
passing down the trunk from the buds to the
ground, arise from the failure to understand the
fact that it is merely nourishment, and not vegeta-
ble tissue ready formed, which is conveyed from
place to place in the plant. All growth takes
place by the division of cells, and their increase in
size, and these cells have no power to move, but are
as fixed in their places as are the bricks in the wall
of a building.

VIII.
SEEDLESS FRUITS.

ERTAIN fruits are nearly always seedless, as
¢ the Banana and Pineapple. Some kinds of
grapes are seedless, as those which form the raisins
called Zante currants. Many other fruits are occa-
sionally seedless. Strange ideas have been held
regarding the cause of seedlessness in fruits,
and queer methods recommended to produce this
condition. A method firmly believed in from very
ancient times is based on the supposition that the
seed has some vital connection with the pith of the
plant. Accordingly, we are told that in order to
obtain seedless grapes and guavas, stoneless cher-
ries, etc., all that is necessary is to split the stem or
branch, remove the pith, and bind the parts together
again. Another method for producing the same
result, which occasionally appears in the newspa-
pers, is to reverse the direction of growth by
planting the tree or cutting top end down. It is
needless to say that no intelligent fruit grower
holds such an opinion.

The cause of seedlessness in fruits has been but

little studied by botanists. Two general causes,
(79)

80 POPULAR ERRORS.

however, will cover all cases. First, defective
ovules; second, want of fertilization.

Usually, when pollen is withheld no fruit what-
ever comes to maturity. But there are some ex-
ceptions to thisrule. The Date frequently produce
fruits when no pollen-bearing plant is near; but
always in such cases without seed. In the artificial
fertilization of plants it frequently happens that
where little pollen is applied few seeds are pro-
duced. It is probable that most cases of seedless-
ness are due to lack of pollen, these fruits having
the unusal power of attaining more or less com-
plete development without it.

There are other cases where seedlessness is not
due to any want of pollen but to defective ovules.
This often rises from excessive vigor of growth
and probably in some cases to abortion of the
ovules or rudimentary seeds. Hybrids, which are
sometimes remarkably vigorous, are ofteu partially
or wholly seedless. Thesomewhat abnormal fruits
of certain varieties of the orange are partly or
wholly seedless. The pods of double flowers, if
formed at all, are apt to have few or no seeds.

Seedlessness, though not fully understood, is
probably not beyond the reach of being under.
stood, but can doubtless be explained in a reason
able manner by sufficient study.

IX.
ERRORS ABOUT GRAFTING.

LANTS, to succeed. when grafted upon each
P other, must be in some way related, though as a
rule, they do not need to be as closely related as
they do for crossing. Usually, we may say that any
two plants of the same family may be grafted
together, while for crossing, the plants must gener-
ally be of the same genus. Thus the pear and
the quince may be grafted together, but will not
hybridize. The exact limits of grafting, however,
are not easily defined, and depend on causes which
are not understood. Why all varieties of pears,
which are so closely related, do not grow equally
well on foreign stocks, such as the quince and
thorn, we do not know. We know the general
limits of grafting only; the degree of success in
each case must be determined by trial. No expe-
rienced gardener, for example, would try to graft
a monocotyledon on a dicotyledon; in fact it is
almost impossible to graft monocotyledons at all.
The stories told therefore by the ancient Romans
of dates, olives, pomegranates and oranges all

growing from a single tree, may be regarded as
(81)

82 POPULAR ERRORS.

fable. We know how such results were sometimes
produced to astonish the curious. Pliny tells how
old trees were hollowed out, and the stems of vines
and young trees drawn up through the centre and
made to emerge at the top and appear as though
they were grafted there.

Another fallacy of grafting is the belief that two
scions of different varieties may be split through
the center and united together, and that when so
united they will grow as a single stem, combining
the characteristics of both varieties. Darwin
quotes, without fully endorsing them, a number of
cases of this kind. In one of these, two hyacinth
bulbs were divided through the center and the
opposite halves joined, and they were said to grow
up united stems bearing both kinds of flowers.
Darwin says that he has seen stems bearing two
kinds of flowers, but that he has never been suc-
cessful in uniting split grafts of any kind. In
this country the apple called Sweet-and sour is
supposed by some to have been produced by
uniting the scions of sweet and sour varieties.
Thomas Meehan, of Pennsylvania, tried such an
experiment, and satisfied himself that it could be
done. Twelve scions were prepared, consisting of
one-half Greening and the other half Red Astra-
chan. They were grafted in the usual way and
three of them grew, producing flowers and fruit

ERRORS ABOUT GRAFTING. 83

somewhat intermediate between the two varieties,
but so much like the Red Astrachan that it was
generally believed by others that no true union of
the split scions was effected.

Similar stories are often told of “graft hybrid”
potatoes being produced by inserting the eyes of
one variety into the tubers of another. Several
varieties cultivated in England are said to have
been produced in this way. The most carefully
conducted experiments have generally shown, how-
ever, that each variety of tuber produces its own
kind, whether grafted or not, and that when two
kinds are found in the same hill they originated
separately from the two sorts planted. Occasionally
sports appear, differing somewhat from the variety
planted, such as the White Peachblow, which is a
sport or variation from the old Red Peachblow;
and these cases have doubtless given rise to the
stories that such results were produced by grafting.

The whole theory of graft-hybridization is un-
doubtedly false. It is true that varieties, especially
of fruits, are more or less modified by the stock
upon which they are grafted, but these changes are,
as a rule, no greater or more remarkable than the
changes produced by soil and climate.

It is frequently said that sweet varieties grafted
on sour stock bear more acid fruit, and vice versa,
and that in other features the fruit of the graft is

84 POPULAR ERRORS.

intermediate in character between that proper to
the stock and scion, but many such statements are
exagerated or untrue. It is even reported that new
varieties have been produced in this manner which
have been extensively propagated. The Red Russet
apple is such an example, The Blood orange is
believed by many orange growers to have been
produced by grafting an orange upon the pome-
granate! There is much that is yet unknown
regarding the mutual influence of the scion and
stock, but such statements as these are put
forth without proof or reason and cannot be
accepted. So long as the desire for the marvelous
onthe part of so many is greater than the desire
for the truth, such stories will be published without
investigation and believed without reflection.
Among the wonderful stories emanating from Cali-
fornia, for example, is one in a recent number of
the California Fruit Grower, which is apparently
intended as a statement of fact, to the effect that
“among the remarkable novelties announced in
California for the season are Roses grafted upon
Grape vines which are growing and blooming in
Santa Cruz county !”

Xx:
ERRORS ABOUT CROSSING.

ROSS-FERTILIZATION, as a means of improv-
() ing fruits and vegetables, is at present receiving
considerable attention. To many persons there is
a mystery about the process which has favored the
adoption of erroneous ideas concerning the opera-
tion of crossing and the advantages to be derived
from it. Below ave some of the more prevalent of
these errors.

1. That any unusual feature may be due to
crossing. Nothing is more common than to attribute
half.russet apples, striped or deformed oranges, etc.,
to cross-fertilization. Many such cases are sports,
for which no cause is known; others are due to the
influence of soil, climate or heredity.

2. That crossing is the principal cause of varia-
tion in fruits. Many suppose that crossing between
the different varieties of apples in an orchard is
the reason for their not coming true from seed.
Such is not the case; our cultivated apples are
mere varieties, and not races or species, and few of
them reproduce themselves closely from seed under

any circumstances.
(85)

86 POPULAR ERRORS.

3. That crossing always gives results intermediate
between the varieties crossed. This is more or less
true when the varieties themselves come true from
seed, as with most kinds of wheat; but otherwise
the chances of obtaining any definite result by
-crossing, are little greater than by raising ordinary
seedlings.

4. That crossing always results in improvement.
On the contrary, the surest way, in many cases, to
develop a permanent and waluable variety is to
avoid crossing and to bring about a gradual
improvement of an existing variety by selection
alone.

5. That the result. of crossing can be seen the
first season. Except in the case of corn, and per-
haps other grains, in which the real “fruit” or
covering of the seed, is but a thin skin, no change
is observed tho first year. The seeds are crossed
the first year, but not the fruit or outer covering.

6. That one parent has a greater or different
influence from the other. It is commonly held in
this country that the plant which bears the fruit
or seed contributes to the cross the size, form and
hardiness of plant, and that the one which fur-
nishes the pollen fixes the leading characters of its
fruits and flowers. This is a mistake.

7. That crossing is a difficult process, requiring
a great amount of scientific skill for its successful

ERRORS ABOUT CROSSING. 87

prosecution. As a matter of fact most improved
varieties obtained by crossing have been the work
of practical gardeners who have had little theoreti-
cal knowledge of botany.

8. That crossing is such a simple process that a
little botanical knowledge will enable any one to
be immediately successful in it. - On the contrary
there are many sources of error and failure which
nothing but experience and careful attention can
fully overcome.

XT,
MISTAKES IN PRUNING.

T IS a prevalent idea among persons who are
| not professional fruit growers, but who have a
small orchard to furnish fruit for their own use,
that when trees begin to fail to bear they need
pruning. I have in mind an old apple orchard on
gravelly soil which had gradually ceased to bear
profitable crops of fruit. The land had been regu-
larly planted to field crops as long as I could
remember, in the same manner as other parts of
the farm. The owner had given little attention to
the trees beyond gathering the yearly crop of
apples, but now that they had practically ceased to
pear he saw that something must bedone. Some
one who wanted a job said that the trees needed
pruning. So men were sent into the orchard with
ladders, saws and axes, and ina short time the trees
were relieved of a large portion of their tops.
Lower limbs which interfered with cultivation
were removed entirely. Some of these were as
large as a man’s leg. The branches which remained
were trimmed up as high as possible and still leave

a “well balanced” top. The next year the corn
(88)

MISTAKES IN PRUNING. 89

crop in that field was a good deal better than
usual, and the trees bore a small crop of good
apples. The season following, however, several of
the trees were dead, and in a few years they were
all gone. This is an extreme case, but it illustrates
the rule that severe pruning usually does more
harm than good, This injury occurs in several
ways: If large limbs are removed (especially if no
waterproof coating is applied to the wound) air
and moisture soon permit the germs of decay to
enter, and gradually the center of the tree becomes
unsound. The center of the trunk is not strictly a
living part of the tree, but we know that trees
whose centers are decayed are usually less vigorous
than others. They contain a thiner layer of sap-
wood to convey nutriment, and they are probably
otherwise defective.

The removal of large limbs injures the tree also
by exposing the body to the rays of the sun, thus
often inducing sun-scald or “bark-burr.” This
injury frequently invites the attacks of borers
which work further damage.

An almost universal effect of pruning is the
lowering of the general vitality of the tree. An
apparent increase of vigor may manifest itself in
the production of water-sprouts and in a somewhat
greater growth on the branches which remain, but
this increase is mainly temporary, and it is well

90 POPULAR ERRORS.

established that orchard trees receive a check by
excessive pruning, the same as hedge plants which
are pruned for the express purpose of diminishing
their vigor.

But, it may be asked, is it not sometimes -neces-
ary to check the vigor of a tree in order to induce
fruitfulness? Very rarely in this country. More
trees here are unfruitful from lack of moisture and
fertility in the soil than from excessive vigor in the
tree. Our changeable climate (cold winters and
hot summers) is generally sufficient to induce
fruitfulness as soon as a tree reaches a proper age.

Pruning is not only less needed in this country
than in those having a milder climate, where there
is a greater tendency to form wood, but it is also
more injurious here. The wounds caused by
pruning do not heal as readily in our severe climate
asin a milder one, and the check to the tree is
therefore greater, especially.in the case of many of
our fruit trees which are not native to this country
and not fully adapted to its climate.

Pruning, of course, cannot be condemned alto-
gether, and this much has been said merely io
show that it should be practiced only when there
are excellent reasons for it. Large trees, especially,
should never be pruned to excess.

In rare cases the vigor and health of a tree is
promoted by pruning. This occurs when the tree

MISTAKES IN PRUNING. 91

is partially dead and is struggling to maintain a
number of lifeless branches. In such a case it may
sometimes be renewed by vigorous pruning to
induce the formation of thrifty shoots to take the
place of the old branches. Limbs which are very
feeble or partly dead are a burden to a tree, rather
than a help, and had better be removed. Indeed,
it is not uncommon to find whole orchards which
are too far gone to be worth the effort to save
them, but generally heavy fertilizing and good
cultivation, together with the severe pruning of
such trees as are actually dying, will work a great
improvement.

The principle of promoting vigor by excessive
pruning is illustrated by the renewal practice
adopted with currants and other bush fruits.
Stems which have become exhausted by age and
fruiting are cut away, to be replaced by new stems
to bear succeeding crops. This tendency to exhaust
themselves by fruiting is manifested in different
degrees in different kinds of plants, and the prac-
tice in pruning must correspond to the habit of the
plant in each case. With blackberries and rasp-
berries the canes are completely exhausted by one
crop and are renewed naturally each year. In
currants there is a tendency in this direction, and
good crops can only be seeured by a renewal of
the bearing stems every few years. With goose-

92 POPULAR ERRORS,

berries also there is a gain by a partial renewal
occasionally. With plums and other trees that
sprout there seems to be a natural tendency in the
same direction after the tree has attained a moder-
ate size. No such provision exists however in the
case of apple and peach trees, and in these the
only remedy for exhaustion from overbearing,
aside from good care which will often be sufficient,
is to renew the whole tree by planting a new one.
This is systematically done by growers of peaches,
and it is the only way in many cases to maintain
fruitful apple orchards.

The question of pruning thus leads one to con-
sider all the influences thut affect the health of the
tree.

XII.
EXOGENS AND ENDOGENS.

HE classification of all flowering plants into two
grand divisions, called Endogens and Exogens,’
although the most natural division in the vegetable
kingdom is founded on an error regarding their
structure and manner of growth. Exogens may
perhaps be properly enough called outside-growers,
as the term implies, since the new wood formed
each year is produced on the outside of that which
existed before, and next within the bark. But
endogens can in no peculiar sense be termed inside-
growers, since their new growth is likewise formed
near the surface of the stem (which in this case is
destitute of true bark) and not at the center, as is
usually supposed. The difference between the struc-
ture of the stems of exogens and endogens are great,
but they do not lie in the distinction implied in the
names given to the two classes. Hxogens, or more
properly Dicotyledons (so called because they usu-
ally have two first or seed-leaves ) produce their wood
in wedges which lie side by side with their edge
toward the pith of the plant, the different wedges

4 Including Gymnosperms,
(93)

94 POPULAR ERRORS.

being separated in places by thin plates of cellular
tissue called medullary rays or silver grain, which
can be seen glistening upon the surface of blocks of
wood which have been split radially from the bark
toward the pith. Monocotyledons or Endogens on
the other hand, including such plants as corn and the
other grains, have their wood in the form of small
fibres which pass through the softer tissues of the
stem. These fibres have their soft growing portion
at their centre, and after this has become old and
permanent no further growth can take place. This
is the main reason why such stems do not as a
rule, grow so large as those of Dicotyledons, in
which there is always on the outer surface of the
wood beneath the bark a layer of tissue capable of
further growth,

XIII.
ERRORS CONCERNING THE PITH.

C. LOUDON, in his Encyclopedia of Agricul-

- ture (first published in 1831), considers the
pith to serve most probably to give some peculiar
elaboration to the sap. After referring to the
ancient vulgar error that the office of the pith was
to generate the stone of the fruits (see chapter on
seedless fruits), he quotes various other errors,
which appear at least to have some reason in them.
Among these is one related by Malpighi (who did
not himself believe it), that the pith was analogous
to the brain and heart of animals. He himself,
however, believed the pith to be, like tue cellular
tissues, the viscera in which the sap was elaborated
for the nourishment of the plant, and for the pro-
trusion of the future buds. Magnol thought that
it produced the flower and fruit, but not the wood.
Du Hamel regarded it as being merely an extension
of the pulp or cellular tissue, without being des-
tined to perform any important function in the
process of vegetation. But Linnzeus was of opinicn
that it produces even the wood, regarding it not

only as the source of vegetable nourishment but as
(95)

96 POPULAR ERRORS.

being also to the vegetable what the brain and
spinal marrow are to animals—the source and seat
of life. Mr. Lindsay regarded it as being the
seat of the irritability of the leaves of Minosa,

None of these theories are found in the writings
of botanists of to-day, though among the unedu-
cated, one still occasionally meets the belief that
the “heart” is the vital part of the tree. The real
office of the pith is mainly to serve as a place of
storage for supplies of starch and other food mate-
rials during winter. After a stem has become old,
even this service is no longer rendered, and the
pith becomes more or less disorganized and is of no
apparent use.

XIV.
ERRORS ABOUT ROOTS,

PREVALENT error about roots is regarding
the extent of their development. Few have

any adequate idea of the distance to which roots
reach; and when it is understood that at the extrem-
ities only of roots is their food absorbed it is readily
seen that this is a subject that ought to be well
understood by all who have the care of plants. In
a recent newspaper article on the cultivation of
onions I find it stated that land intended for onions
should be plowed not to exceed six inches deep, as
their roots never extend beyond that depth. I
immediately went into the garden and pulled up
an onion, and found, even as was said, the roots to
be from four to six inches long. Upon examination,
however, I discovered that the ends of most of the
roots were broken off. I then tried again, this
time using a spade, carefully digging down by the
side of the plant, and tracing its roots downward,
until I found that they reached to the depth of three
feet! It is undoubtedly true that comparatively
shallow culture is best for the oniun; many of its

roots are near the surface, and as the manure which
(97)

98 POPULAR ERRORS.

is used requires to be assimilated during a com-
paratively short growing season it is placed near
the surface where it will rapidly decompose. It
has been shown, however, that the roots of onions
are not confined to the surface soil and that the
character of the subsoil is by no means unim-
portant. But the main reason why shallow cullti-
vation succeeds so well with the onion is that the
roots grow best in acompact soil. If deep plowing
is given to improve the subsoil, and then the soil is
allowed to settle a few months before the seed is
sown, and shallow cultivation afterwards given the
best results will be obtained. So the general prac-
tice of shallow cultivation for the onion is about
right, though the explanation which attributes it to
the supposed shallow rooting habit of the plant is
erroneous. :

A popular idea in regard to the roots of trees is
that they grow outward only as far as the limbs
extend. There is often some relation between the
spread of the top and the lateral growth of the
roots. Pear trees, which are inclined to grow
upright, have roots which grow more directly
downward than do the roots of apple trees, the tops
of which are more inclined to spread. This rela-
tion, however, has been but little studied, and
whatever truth there may be in it, it is certain that
the roots of all our ordinary trees extend much

ERRORS ABOUT ROOTS. 99

farther laterally than do the branches. Perhaps
it would be safe to say that the roots of trees
extend on the average to a distance equal to the
total height of the tree. They sometimes fall
short of that limit, but often exceed it, especially
in the open ground where trees do not grow as tall
as in aforest. I have, in the forest, traced roots of
the American Elm to a distance of one hundred and
twenty feet, which was about the height of the tree.
Professor Burrill tells of an elm, the roots of which
filled a tile drain 450 feet away.

The depth to which roots penetrate depends very
much on the character of the soil. If it is dry
and porous they extend deeper than if it is wet.
Thus in a swamp the roots of trees grow mainly
near the surface, and the trees are easily over-
turned by the wind when the surrounding trees are
cut away. Such trees are liable to die whenever
the swamps in which they grow are drained,
while trees of the same kinds on upland thrive
equally well in the drier soil. It is not, there-
fore, always true because certain trees are found
mainly in swamps that they naturally prefer
such locations. The fact that a moist soil and
climate favors the formation of roots near the
surface has recently been well illustrated in a
comparison of the roots of forest trees in the
eastern states with those of the same species grow-

100 POPULAR ERRORS.

ing in the west. In the east the roots grow mainly
near the surface, which makes it difficult to culti-
vate newly cleared land for the first few years; while
in Illinois and other parts of the west the roots
grow so much deeper, owing to the drier summers,
that the cultivation of new land is comparatively
easy.

The depth to which the roots of cultivated plants
extend depends also upon the structure of the
soil. It is as necessary for most of the roots of a
plant to be within the reach of air as it is for the
leaves to have light and air. If, then, the air is
prevented from entering the soil because of its
being too compact, or containing tuo much moisture,
most of the roots will remain near the surface,
whereas in deep porous soils they will run deeper.
In such soils the roots of clover have been found to
the depth of thirteen feet, those of the parsnip
twelve to fourteen feet, and those of alfalfa from
twenty to thirty feet.

A few years ago the question of the importance
of preserving the fibrous roots in transplanting
trees was under discussion. After it became known
that roots absorbed food only at or near their
extremities the preservation of the smallest fibres
in the removal of plants came to be considered a
matter of almost essential importance. Further
observation, however, showed that these fibres were

BRRORS ABOUT ROOTS, 101

easily destroyed by exposure to the air, and that
during winter a large share of the smallest of them
died as a natural process. Then it came to be
understood that while the ultimate fibres are of the
utmost value during the growing season they are of
comparatively little use during the period of rest
when plants are generally removed, and that there-
fore if the main root system is preserved in trans-
planting, down to roots the size of a pipe stem or
less, the smaller fibres are easily restored by the
plant if the soil and other conditions are favorable.
The amount of care to be given to the preservation
of the smaller roots in the removal of plants depends
on the time of the year, the condition of the plant
when it is removed, and on the amount of exposure
it must necessarily undergo before it is again
planted in the soil. Too many good roots can never
be preserved, but the value of the smallest fibres
under all circumstances has sometimes been over-
estimated.

XV.
SPONGIOLES.

HE tips of growing roots are usually covered
with a mass of loose cellular tissue which was
formerly called a spongiole, and was supposed to
be the chief agent in the absorption of fluids from
the soil. It is now known that this is not its func-
tion, and that its chief office is to protect the deli-
cate extremity of the root as it pushes its way
through the soil. In 1857, Mr. A. Trécul gave the
name “pileorhiza,” meaning root-cap, to this organ,
which indicates its appearance and office. In 1837,
Ohlert showed that if this so-called spongiole be
cut off from a young root, and the wound covered
with water-proof varnish, absorption takes place
quite as well as before the operation; he expressed
the opinion, now well established, that the chief
organs of absorption are the numerous delicate
hairs which occur a short distance back from the
apex. The following is from the pen of Dr. W. J.
Beal, of the Michigan Agricultural College, on this
subject: ‘The tips of growing roots are often
called spongioles or spongelets. Their name

originated about one hundred and forty years ago,
(102)

SPONGIOLES. 103

after some experiments by Senedier, Sarrabat,
Carradori and others. Their experiments were
inaccurate, as has been shown by repeating them.
They thought they proved that the delicate extremi-
ties of roots alone absorb liquids. It has now
been shown that these tips absorb but little moist-
ure—that the root hairs are the chief absorbents.
The term spongioles and their supposed functions,
according to the old notion, is still found in many
works of authors who ought to know better. It
occurs in Wood’s last edition; also in the works of
Mrs. Lincoln Phelps, M. C. Cook’s ‘Manual of
Botanical Terms,” WHenslow’s “Dictionary of
Botanical Terms,” MclIntosh’s “Book of the
Garden,” Thompson’s “ Gardener’s Assistant,” J.
J. Thomas’ “Fruit Culturist,” and many others.
Professor Johnson, of Yale College, remarks that
in the popular sense spongioles do not exist. Dr.
Asa Gray says they have no existence. Duchartre,
an eminent French botanist, says ‘the name
spongioles is without foundation, and ought to be
abandoffed.’”

XVI.
CIRCULATION OF TIIE SAP.

E do not yet know all about the circulation
W of the sap. The causes of its transfer are
less simple than was at one time supposed. Fora
long time there was believed to be some analogy
between the movements of the sap in plants and
the circulation of the blood in the arteries aud
veins of animals. This view was held by Erasmus
Darwin, who found in the stem of Tragopogon
scorzonera (black salsify,) two circles of vessels,
the inner of which he believed to serve for the
ascent of the sap, and to correspond to the arteries
of animals, and the outer to serve for its descent,
and to correspond to the veins. Such views have
not yet entirely disappeared. Thus Joseph W.
Talbot, of Massachusetts, says in the Transactions
of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society#for 1879,
page 13: “It will not be controverted that the
crude sap ascends from the roots through the sap-
wood to the extremities, terminating in the buds,
and thence passes into the cambium layer. It will
be remembered that the cambium layer envelopes

every living part, and separates or lies between the
(104)

CIRCULATION OF THE SAP. 105

sap-wood and the bark. In this layer all the buds
originate, and all growth is made. Nothing grows
outside of it except the bark. As the buds expand
and form shoots, they carry their envelope, the
cambium layer, with them. As in animal life
there is no connection between the arteries and
veins except at the extremities, so the ascending
sap has no connection with the elaborated sap in
the cambium except at the extremities in the buds.
The leaves, which are the receptacles of the crude
sap, throw off superfluous matter, and in their
wonderful laboratory supply carbon and other
elements from the air, preparatory to its entrance
into the cambium layer, whence it passes down for
the building up and nourishing the whole tree.”

In “The Gardener’s and Farmer’s Reason Why,”
a book published in London, in 1860, the author,
in answer to the question, What are the functions
of the bark? says:

“Tt serves to protect the young wood from
injury, and to act as a filter through which the
descending juices of a plant may pass horizontally
into the stem or downward to the root.”

The idea that the sap passes in a definite cur-
rent upward in the wood and downward between
the wood and bark after being “ elaborated” in the
leaves is the popular belief at the present time.
The familiar example of a tree continuing to live

106 POPULAR ERRORS.

for some time after being stripped of its bark is
certainly conclusive evidence that sap passes up-
ward in the wood, while the no less familiar
example of the edges of a wound growing more
upon the upper than upon the lower side is regarded
as equally conclusive that there is a downward
current between the wood and bark.

The truth is, that there is no downward current
anywhere at any time, and that the upward move-
ment of the sap takes place in the cambium and
living part of the bark as well as in the outer
layers of the wood. It is also true that, except
possibly for brief periods, there is never any well
defined upward current, the so-called sap vessels
being under ordinary circumstances filled with air.
In the season of active growth, when the upward
movement of sap is really most rapid, no free sap
capable of flowing is found in the plant. The
moisture in trees at such times all passes upward
through the living cells of the cambium, and in
and upon the walls of the cells and vessels of the
newer layers of the wood and bark, How, then,
since the only general movement is upward,
does the elaborated sap reach the lower portion of
the plant, even the extremities of the longest roots,
and perform its part in promoting growth?

Tn the first place, there is no “elaborated sap”
in the ordinary sense of the term as distinct from

CIRCULATION OF THE SAP, 107

other sap. The material which forms the larger
portion of the plant structure is not taken from
the soil and “elaborated” or fitted for use in
the leaves, but it comes directly from the air, and
is changed by means of the living cells of the leaf
into material capable of promoting the further
growth of the plant. Various salts dissolved in the
water absorbed from the soil are also essential to
the growth and health of the plant, but they form
a very small portion of the bulk of the living plant.
The downward transfer of the carbon compounds
derived from the air occurs as follows: This
material, like that derived from the soil, is all in a
soluble condition. When any matter which is either
soluble, or in solution, is placed in a vessel contain-
ing a fluid in which it may be dissolved, it becomes in
the course of time uniformly diffused through that
fluid, whether any motion exists in the fluid or not.
Thus, if a lump of sugar be placed, ever so carefully,
in one edge of a dish of water, the whole contents
of the dish will in time become equally sweetened.
In just the same manner the fluid within the living
plant tends continually to become uniform in char-
acter throughout. The sap in the lower part of
the plant being less dense than that above, con-
tinually absorbs the denser material from the leaves,
and as this material is constantly withdrawn from
the sap in the process of growth, the demand for

108 POPULAR ERRORS.

more material continues through the growing
season. We now see, since the most of the solid
material comes from above, why it is that the
greater growth takes place upon the upper side of
a wound in the trunk of atree. The food material
from the leaves which has gradually diffused down-
ward from cell to cell, would cause the sap to be
richer upon that side of the cut than it would be
below. The causes which lead the sap to enter the
plant, and continue to do so while it is in a grow-
ing condition, are somewhat complicated, and per-
haps not yet fully understood. Two very important
influences at work, however, are osmose and evapor-
ation. Ifa glass tube, having iis lower end cov-
ered by a membrane, be partly filled with a solution
of salt, sugar, or some other material, and placed in
a vessel of water, the solution will gradually pass
outward into the water; but the water will also
enter the tube and dilute the solution, and this will
occur so rapidly that the solution will rise in the
tube above the level of the water outside. Upon
the same principle the moisture of the soil enters
the plant and tends to dilute the sap already
present, but as the evaporation which takes place
from the leaves tends continually to condense this
sap, @ constant inflow of sap takes place from the
soil. A striking illustration of the fact that the
difference in density of the fluids in the plant and

CIRCULATION OF THE SAP. 109

in the soil is one cause of the rise of sap in the
plant is shown when plants are fertilized with
strong liquid manure. The strength of the manure
may not directly injure the plants, but its density
often prevents its absorption, and as a result the
plants wilt, though the roots are surrounded by the
fluid. Numerous erroneous opinions concerning
the circulation of the sap may be found in Kieth’s
“ Botanical Lexicon,” and for a more complete
account of the causes which lead to the rise of the
sap the student is referred to Sach’s or one of the
other modern works on physiological and struc-
tural botany.

XVII.
ELONGATION OF TREE TRUNKS, ETC.

O many, it is a mystery how the tops of trees,
T which, when young, are within a few feet of the
ground, become elevated, often fifty feet or more,
when the tree has become of large size. Some
have supposed that the trunk below the branches
gradually lengthens in some way, carrying the top
up with it. Those who will observe and reflect
upon the subject, however, will readily discover
thai the top which appears upon a large tree is not
the one which it had when it was small, but that,
with the exception of the main stem, which has
become the trunk, the top of the small tree has
wholly disappeared, its limbs having died naturally
one by one, or having been removed artificially, as
other limbs were developed above. In the forest,
where there is little light, and the trees are crowded
by others, these lower limbs disappear rapidly, and
the tree soon becomes tall, as it reaches upward
after more light. In the open ground, on the other
hand, where there is no obstruction, the lower
limbs continue to grow, and the top remains low.

In either case there is no elongation of any part of
(140)

ELONGATION OF THREE TRUNKS, ETO, 111

the trunk itself, and if at any time it is cut down
and examined while yet sound, the remains of the
first-formed limbs may still be found near the
center in the form of knots at the same height at
which they were originally produced. One who
doubts can easily satisfy himself that the trunk
itself does not elongate by the following experi-
ment: Drive anumber of nails or tacks in the
smooth bark of a tree, at equal distances apart, one
above the other. Measure their distance apart
when first driven, and at intervals of a few months,
and after the lapse of several years. To be very
accurate file a line across the head of the nail or tack,
so that there will be no mistake in: measurement.
Probably no difference will be found in the measure-
ments from time to time. Professor Asa Gray,
who suggested this test, found the measurements
the same in April and at the close of the growing
season in August. The trees he measured were
young saplings of Magnolia, Buckeye, and Yellow-
wood. A similar series of observations was made
at the Iowa Agricultural College with the same re-
sults. In this connection the question will prob-
ably be asked in what parts of plants does growth
in length take place? No brief answer to this
question can be given that will cover all cases. In
the chapter on sap circulation it was noticed that
growth in diameter in our ordinary trees takes place

112 POPULAR ERRORS.

in a narrow space between the wood and bark,
where the cells are thin and soft and in the grow-
ing condition. In like manner, growth, wherever it
occurs, takes place only where there is soft tissue
of this character. For the security of the plant
against external injury it is important that there
should be as little such tissue exposed as possible,
hence, there are various means of protecting the
surface while in this condition, and of limiting
its duration when exposed. In ordinary forest
trees the usual period of expansion, during which
the leaves are produced and the season’s growth is
formed, seldom exceeds two weeks, and this gener-
ally occurs in May or June, when there are few
insect or fungus enemies about and before the
weather has become hot and dry. An examination
of growing twigs at this time will show that they
elongate at first throughout their length, but that
soon the lower portion of the season’s growth begins
to harden and ceases to lengthen. This fact may
be shown in any young shoot of considerable length
by noticing that the young leaves near the end are
close together, and gradually become farther apart,
as the internodes or spaces between them lengthen.

In roots the part which actually increases in
length is confined to a very short space just back
of the tip. It is thus protected, as has already
been shown, by the root cap at the extremity, and

ELONGATION OF TREE TRUNKS, ETC, 118

in addition, all the growing force is concentrated
here to drive the point of the root through the soil.
Besides, if elongation took place for any consider-
able distance back from the poiut, the root hairs,
which are the chief agents in its absorption of food,
would be torn off by the pushing of the root through
soil; for these reasons the growing part of roots
is necessarily more restricted than that of stems,
which have in the air nothing to prevent their ex-
pansion at any point. In the leaves and stems of
grasses there are various ways by which the grow-
ing part is protected. In the leaves of June-grass,
for example, there is a narrow space near the base
of the leaf where growth takes place, so that the
leaf continues to elongate, even if eaten off above.
In all grasses thé main growth of the stem itself
takes place just above each joint, where it is pro-
tected by the sheath of the leaf.

‘

XVIII.
FEEDING SQUASHES MILK.

TORIES are told, especially by English garden-
S ers, of the production of enormous squashes,
pumpkins, etc., by supplying them with water,
milk, etc., by means of an opening either directly
into the fruit or its stem, or through the hollow
stem of an adjoining leaf. In the Michigan
Farmer for 1861, p. 235, an account is given of a
gardener who was noted for the size of the pump-
kins which he raised. The “secret” of his method
was to bore a hole into the pumpkin when a few
weeks old, and insert a candle-wick, the other end of
which was placed in a basin of water. It is alto-
gether probable that such stories were first told by
successful gardeners to their inquiring neighbors,
not for the purpose of revealing, but in order to
conceal their actual methods of operation; and there
have at all times been those who were ready to ac-
cept such improbable statements to account for ex-
traordinary results. I have known several attempts
to verify these statements, always with negative
results. In one conducted at the Iowa Experi-

ment Station by Prof. G. E. Patrick and the writer,
(114)

FEEDING SQUASHES MILK. 115

several pumpkin leaves, each of which adjoined a
part-grown pumpkin, were cut off, leaving the
long hollow stems, which were filled with milk,
according to directions. They were examined fre-
quently during some two weeks, but the milk failed
to be absorbed, and settled in the tubes less than
half an inch—no more than might be accounted for
by direct evaporation. No one who has noticed
how quickly growing pumpkins and other fruits
of the kind decay when an opening is accidentally
made in them will readily accept the idea that such
fruits may be actually nourished by means of food
introduced through such openings.

The case of the so-called “ carnivorous” plants
is wholly different. In these there are special
arrangements for taking food by parts above
ground, yet the amount which even they may
acquire in this manner is always small in compari-
son with that which is taken up by the roots. The
common Pitcher Plant was believed by Darwin to
derive nourishment from the numerous dead
insects which are always found in the fluid con-
tained in their pitcher-like leaves. Mr. Peter Hen-
derson repeated the experiments of Darwin on
these plants and was unable to see that those which
were supplied with an abundance of insects grew
any better than those from which insects were
excluded. The experiment ought to be tried again,

116 POPULAR ERRORS.

as there are glands in the hollow pitcher which
seem designed to absorb nourishment. It can
hardly be doubted that the Sundew and Venus’ Fly-
trap do receive some benefit from the insects which
they entrap in their strangely modified leaves. The
common Martynia also seems to have the power of
digesting and absorbing some portions of the small
insects which are caught upon its numerous gland-
ular hairs. Other even more remarkable examples
are known, but in all such cases there are special
glands for the preparation and absorption of the
food. The ordinary surface of a plant has very
little power of absorbing food of any kind except
gases from the air. Even the food absorbed by
the roots must be in a completely dissolved con-
dition. Bearing these facts in mind no one can
credit the stories that plants can be nourished to
any visible extent by coarse food introduced directly
into their growing stems or fruits—even if it were
possible to do so without causing them to decay.

XIX.

THE IIUMUS THEORY.

HE first attempt, says Dr. R. C. Kedzie, to
di explain the nutrition of plants was founded on
the analogy of animal life; that, as an animal may
live in vigorous health while feeding upon the
remiins of another animal, so vegetable remains,
or the humus of the soil, is the principle food of
plants. It was found, however, that the mere
presence of humus or vegetable matter in the soil
was not the sole condition of its fertility, and that
some soils, such as our peaty swamps, might be
composed almost entirely of humus, and yet for
most plants be unproductive. Liebig, of Germany,
in studying the question of plant nutrition con-
clusively refuted the humus theory, and proved
that plants obtain their chief supply of carbon or
woody material from the atmosphere.

Liebig’s own theory of plant nutrition is stated

by the same writer substantially as follows:
qi?)

XX.
LIEBIG’S MINERAL THEORY.

HE only office of the soil, aside from holding
T the plant in place, and furnishing a supply of
moisture, is to supply the ash elements of plants,
that is, those materials which remain after the
plant is burned.

2. The office of these mineral or ash elements
is to enable the plant to assimilate the organic ele-
ments which it derives from the air; the assimila-
tion of the carbo-hydrates (starch, woody fibre,
etc.) being dependent upon the presence of the
alkalies, especially potash and soda; and the
capacity of the plant to form the albuminoids
(gluten, etc.) being in like manner determined by
the presence of phosphates.

3. That the fertilizers necessary for the pro.
duction of a given crop could be determined in
character and amount by burning the entire plant
and analyzing the ash.

4. Therefore, if the proper mineral elements
were supplied to the soil in suitable quantities, no
other fertilizers would be needed. Farm-yard

manure, for example, if burned, and the ashes
(118)

LIEBIG’S MINERAL THEORY, 119

applied to the soil, would be as effective in pro-
moting the growth of the crop as if supplied in the
ordinary manner.

This theory, so cleverly stated by such an emi-
nent authority, attracted immediate and widespread
attention. Chemists engaged at once in the analy-
sis of soils to determine what they contained, and
in the analysis of plants to determine what they
required. There appeared to be no flaw in the
theory, and a new era of prosperity seemed about
to open upon agriculture. Large establishments
were erected for the manufacture of wheat manure,
barley manure, turnip manure, etc., each adapted
to the needs of the particular crop. But when
these manures came to be tried in the field the
result was a disastrous failure. We now know
that there was a flaw in the theory, that if plants
do not take up carbon from the soil they do obtain
nitrogen mainly from the soil instead of from the
air, and that the presence of decaying vegetable
matter enables soils to withdraw from the air
supplies of the much needed nitrogen for the use
of plants. Itis only recently that we have learned
how the presence of organic matter enables the
soil to accumulate the nitrogen upon which the
plants may feed. It is only during the decay or
fermentation of this organic matter through the
agency of bacteria that this valuable material is

120 POPULAR ERRORS.

withdrawn from the air and made available for
plant food. These lowest forms of vegetable life
possess the power which the higher plants do not
have of absorbing nitrogen from the air. The
humus or vegetable matter in the soil permits the
growth of the bacteria, and these as they perish
leave their accumulated nitrogen for the use of the
higher plants.

XXiI.
THE EXCRETORY THEORY.

NOTHER erroneous theory which has been too
A readily accepted because of its supposed illus-
tration of an analogy between plants and animals,
is the excretory theory of roots, originated by the
elder De Candolle, and elaborated and rendered
still more erroneous by others. De Candolle’s
theory was that plants, having no power of select-
ing their food, absorbed everything soluble that
came within reach of their roots, but afterward
rejected by the same organs such portions as were
not adapted to their use. Macaire afterward cof-
firmed this theory to the satisfaction of himself and
many others, and announced that the material
excreted by growing roots was poisonous to other
plants of the same kind, but might be harmless, or
even beneficial, to plants of a different kind. Many
agricultural writers at once adopted this theory as
an explanation of the necessity for the rotation of
crops, it being assumed that soils which have long
supported plants of a given kind become poisoned
for plants of that kind by the long continued

accumulation of the root excretions. The value of
(121)

122 POPULAR ERRORS.

crop rotation, or the introduction of plants of a
different kind, lay in the utilization of these
excreta, or at least in allowing time for them to
disappear from the soil before plants of the origi-
nal kind were again grown. The more the subject
of crop rotation was studied, however, the more
difficult it became to reconcile the observed facts to
the excretory theory. It was found that on some
soils the rotation of crops was unnecessary, but
that the same crop might be grown year after year
indefinitely. Other causes began to be discovered
to account for the advantages derived by rotation of
crops. Finally, Alfred Gyde, of Scotland, and
others, re-examined the subject of root excretion
and proved that very little if any actual excretion
takes place, and that what appeared to be such in
fdrmer experiments consisted of the ordinary juices
of the plant which had exuded from the broken roots
of the plants employed in the experiments. They
also proved that even this material was beneficial
rather than otherwise when applied to the roots of
otner plants of the same kind.

These experiments were so conclusive and satis-
factory that it is now generally accepted that no
proper excretion from the roots of plants takes
place.

Further experiments have shown, however, that
many, if not all, plants exude an acid or alkaline

THE EXCRETORY THEORY. 123

fluid in small amount from their growing roots, but
that this fluid instead of being waste material
thrown off from the plant is evidently for the pur-
pose of dissolving the food materials ia the soil to
prepare them for absorption by the plant. Even
glass may be sensibly eaten away by this fluid
exuded by delicate rootlets growing upon its sur-
face.

XXII.
IS THE WALNUT POISONOUS?

HERE is a widespread belief that the walnut
T exerts a peculiar deleterious influence upon
other vegetation growing in its vicinity. Thus the
secretary of the Central Horticultural Society of
France says: “Shrubs and underwood will gener-
ally thrive and flourish when planted under beech
trees, but will not even live when planted under
the shade of the walnut.” A writer in a London
forestry journal tells of a man who planted a row
of walnuts on the north side of an apple orchard
for a wind-break, and found that they killed the
first row of apple trees. The same belief that the
walnut is injurious to other vegetation is also quite
prevalent in the United States. It issaid that “the
drip from the leaves of the walnut will poison every
other plant it touches.”

The following discussion upon the subject took
place at a meeting of the Illinois Horticultural
Society in 1874:

Mr. McWhorter: Grass grew under the walnut
trees, but it had not the strength to stand up like

the grass elsewhere; it was different in texture and
(124)

18 THE WALNUT Poisonous ? 125

quality; in fact the cattle would not eat it if they
could get any other. The trees seemed to poison
the grass.

Mr. Douglas: Where there is a large black wal-
nut tree there generally are no other large trees
close around; it seems to clear a space for itself,
and kill out all its rivals.

Mr. Bryant: I planted an orchard, in one corner
of which there stood a large black walnut tree, and
after 20 years there was not a single apple tree
standing within five rods of that walnut tree—all
had died. out. I think the roots are in some way
poisonous to other trees.

Dr. Shroeder: The leaves of the walnut contain
a great proportion of bitter stuff and they embitter
the ground and make it sick. [Laughter |.

I have tried to observe whether there was any
truth in these statements and have been unable to
see that the effect of the walnut upon adjoining
vegetation is particularly different from that of
other trees. The walnut is a rapid grower, forms
a dense shade, and produces a large portion of its
roots near the surface of the ground. Its effect in
starving out and overshadowing other plants is
therefore greater than that of some other trees.
Similar beliefs to this regarding the walnut are
held in regard to other plants. Thus Carpenter,
in his celebrated work on ‘‘ Vegetable Physiology,”

126 POPULAR ERRORS.

says: “A remarkable fact respecting the Ash,
which seems to show that the secretions of its leaves
are injurious to other plants, is that its drip—that
is, the rain that drops from its branches,—renders
the ground unproductive around it.”

Without better evidence than is yet afforded it ia
impossible to accept these explanations to account
for the injurious influence of the walnut, ash and
certain other plants on surrounding vegetation.
The supposition that the injury is caused by poison-
ous excretions or exhalations from their leaves is
wholly unfounded. We must believe the cause of
this injury in all cases to be the same as that by
which buckwheat, hemp and other strong and
rapidly growing plants are able to free the land
from weeds and other vegetation, namely, the pro-
duction of shade, and the extraction of moisture
from the soil.

XXII.

ARE HOUSE PLANTS INJURIOUS TO
HEALTH?

HE custom of having plants in our houses has
now become so common in this country that
there appears hardly anywhere to exist a doubt in
regard to the propriety of the practice. It is buta
few years, however, since it was earnestly discussed
whether the presence of plants in living rooms, and
especially in sleeping rooms at night, was not in-
jurious to health. The idea that plants so kept
were prejudicial to the health of persons occupying
the same rooms at night arose from the reported
discovery that while plants absorbed the injurious
carbonic acid gas from the air during the day, and
gave off at the same time the life-giving oxygen,
that at night the process was reversed, oxygen
being absorbed and the deadly carbonic acid given
off. The alternation of the process appeared
natural enough; it was easy to remember, and it
was accepted without further thought as scientific
truth by many persons who possessed but a super-
ficial knowledge of the actual condition of things.

The danger at least seemed probable, and the
(127)

128 POPULAR ERRORS.

prudent housekeeper preferred to take no chances,
choosing to sacrifice her desire for the beautiful
rather than to risk in any degree the health of her
family. And so the house plants during the
winter season, when they could not be exposed to
the open air at night, to exhale without harm their
poisonous gases, were consigned to the cellar until
the following spring, thus depriving the household
of their presence during the period when they were
most needed.

This result led the florists, who were financially
interested in the question, to further investigation.
It was then found that the alternation in the exhal-
ations of plants between the day and night was
more apparent than real. They brought out the
fact that it had been proved that plants would
absorb in a few minutes of sunlight more carbonic
acid than would be given out during the whole
night. They also showed that all the plants that
could be kept in a living room would not give off
as much carbonic acid gas as would be given off by
one person. They further pointed out the fact
that persons might sleep night after night in a
green house filled with growing plants without
injury to their health. This fact, accompanied by
the repeated explanation of what actually takes
place in plant respiration, soon disabused the popu-
lar mind of the idea that plants are necessarily

ARE HOUSE PLANTS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH? 129

injurious to health. This case shows in an admir-
able manner that scientific evidence, clearly stated
and frequently repeated, may be relied upon to
dissipate erroneous beliefs, however widely they
may have been adopted.

XXIV.
BLUE GLASS.

N May, 1871, General J. A. Pleasanton, of Phila-
| delphia, gave before the Philadelphia Society
for the Promotion of Agriculture an account of some
experiments on “the influence of the blue ray of
sunlight and of the blue color of the sky in develop-
ing animal and vegetable life, in arresting disease,
and in restoring health in acute and chronic dis-
orders in human and domestic animals.”

These experiments began with the building of a
grapery in which every eighth row of glass in the
roof was colored blue. Only a part of the glass
was made of this color in order not to reduce the
temperature too greatly. The blue glass was so
placed, however, that all the plants in the house
would receive from it rays of blue light at some
time during the day. Vines placed in this house
grew the first year with wonderful rapidity, and
the second year produced an enormous crop of
fruit.

Encouraged by this success General Pleasanton
next tried the effect of blue light on domestic ani-

mals, A piggery was built with blue glass in the
(130)

BLUE GLASS. 181

roof and sides, into which one half of a litter of
pigs was placed, while the remainder were kept in
an ordinary pen. The former lot gained during
the winter twelve pounds more than the latter. A
sick calf was then placed in a blue-glass pen and it
recovered. A deaf and rheumatic mule was cured
of his infirmities by having blue glass transoms
over the door of his stall, through which the sun-
light was thrown upon his neck night and morning.
These experiments were widely published, and
others soon added their testimony to the wonder-
ful stimulating and curative properties of blue
light. A lemon tree had a portion of its limbs
exposed to light which came through some blue
panes of glass, while the remainder received ordi-
nary sunlight. The former grew with great vigor
and bore a heavy crop of fruit, while the latter
languished and bore no fruit. A sickly child re-
gained its health when blue curtains were placed
in the window. A lady afflicted with rheumatism
and baldness was cured of both by means of a few
panes of blue glass in her window. Some plants
growing out of doors were wonderfully stimulated
by having blue gauze stretched over them, while,
strange to say, all insect enemies were thereby de-
stroyed. Acting upon this suggestion, General
Pleasanton then introduced blue glass into the win-
dows of his house, with the result that all the flies

132 POPULAR ERRORS.

in the room were soon dead. Such a wonderful
discovery surely deserved to be patented. Accord-
ingly application for a patent was made, and in
September, 1871, an examiner from the United
States Patent Office visited General Pleasanton’s
place in Philadelphia, inspected his experiments,
convinced himself of their reliability, and a United
States patent was forthwith granted, “for utilizing
the natural light of the sun through clear glass,
and the blue or electric solar rays transmitted
through blue, purple or violet colored glass, or its
equivalent, in the propagation and growth of plants
and animals.” In 1876, General Pleasanton’s book
appeared, bound in blue and printed in blue ink,
in which are detailed his various experiments,
together with a discussion on the agency of the
electricity, present in the blue rays, in promoting
life, and the testimony of many eminent persons as
to the value of the new discovery and accounts of
their success in the use of the same. The work at
once attracted widespread attention, not only in
this country but in Kurope, curiosity having already
been excited by the publication of his earlier ex-
periments. In Paris the work was translated into
French and its experiments repeated. Blue glass
was introduced into conservatories and dwelling
houses everywhere by those eager to test the new
idea.

BLUE GLASS. 133

It is difficult now to read all this and resist the
idea that General Pleasanton was engaged in per-
petrating a huge joke upon the world. In vain did
eminent scientific men attempt to show the fallacy
of his reasoning and the inconclusiveness of his ex-
periments. In vain did the Scientific American
and other able journals repeatedly expose the
“blue glass deception.” There were always others

‘ready to publish every claim that was made, To
the general public one man’s experiments were as
good as another’s. Few had the time or desire to
reason closely on the subject, and in case of doubt
it was easier to test the matter for one’s self than
to decide who was right and who wrong in the
great controversy. And so the experiment was
tried far and wide, and whether tested fairly or
not, the wonderful results claimed from its use
have not been attained, and blue glass forms no
part of our present green houses or dwellings, save
here and there for the purpose of ornament. The
“blue-glass craze” has died out, and probably few
persons will ever hear of it again.

It is well enough now to examine the subject, if
we choose, and see if we can determine how much
truth, if any, there was in the blue glass theory. It
is the peculiar property of error that its effect
is temporary. However much it may attract
attention and accomplish for a time, it cannot stand

1384 POPULAR ERRORS.

against truth in single combat in the absence of ex-
citement or self interest.

General Pleasanton’s experiments were sug-
gested by the previous experiments of others upon
the same subject which had given unsatisfactory
and contradictory results. Sir Isaac Newton, in
1666, had analyzed the sun’s rays by means of a
prism into the three primary colors, blue, yellow,
and red, Sir John Herschel had studied the effects
of these different rays in chemical decomposition
and on vegetation. Others had tried the same
thing, not only with the colored rays of the spec-
trum, but also with light of different colors, pro-
duced by different colored glass and liquids. The
results disagreed not only with different observ-
ers, but also with the same observer in different
plants; and it was also found that the effect of the
blue light of the spectrum differed somewhat from
that produced by blue glass or liquids.

One of the earliest and best established facts re-
garding the effect of light on vegetation is that its
absence favors the germination of seeds. Its
presence does not, however, appear to be very in-
jurious. Professor Tracy, of Michigan, found that
seeds germinated with greatest vigor in pots left
uncovered, followed by those covered by blue, clear
glass, red, and orange, in the ordernamed. While
the seeds, therefore, germinated much better under

BLUE GLASS. 185

blue glass than’ under yellow glass, they germin-
ated about equally well under colorless glass or
none at all.

The effects of different kinds of hght on the
growth of plants are very different from their
effects on the germinating seed. Growth’ consists
of two distinct processes; first, the absorption and
fixation of carbon from the air under the influence
of chlorophyll; second, the transfer of this material
into the plant tissues, or growth proper. In the
Bulletin of the Botanical Society of France for
1886, on pages 120 and 123 of the Review, are
notices of two recent experiments on these sub-
jects; one by Bonnier and Magnin, of France, in
which it was shown that the chlorophylline action
(fixation of carbon) of the ultra violet rays is very
feeble; the other, by Henslow, of England, showing
that the rays at each end of the spectrum (red as
well as violet,) were especially favorable to transpi-
ration. Ray, of England, had long before shown
that light alone caused the formation of chlorophyll.
The experiment of Bonnier and Magnin also goes
to show that in the light this action is most rapid,
while from the experiment of Henslow we begin to
understand how it is that growth, or the use of
the accumulated food materials in the formation of
the plant, is probably favored by darkness. Every
observing farmer will tell you how rapidly his corn

136 POPULAR ERRORS.

grows in the night, while we all know that in per-
petual darkness, as in a cellar, growth, though it
may be rapid, is only at the expense of material
previously formed. The following additional ex-
periments on the effect of lights of different color
on vegetation are quoted in the Horticulturist for
1872, page 153:

“Mr. Best has studied the influence of light,
heat and color on vegetation. In order to test
the effect of green light on the sensitiveness of
the Mimosa, he placed several plants under bell-
glasses of different color, set in a warm green
house. At the end of a few hours a difference
was already apparent. Those subjected to green,
yellow, or red light had the petioles erect, and the
leaflets expanded; the blue and the violet, on the
other hand, had the petioles almost horizontal, and
the leaflets hanging down. In a week those placed
beneath blackened glass were already less sensi-
tive; in twelve days they were dead or dying.
From that time the green ones were entirely insen-
sitive, and in four days more were dead. At this
time the plants under the other glasses were per-
fectly healthy and sensitive; but there was a great
inequality of development among them. The
white had made great progress, the red less, the
yellow a little less still; the violet and the blue did
not appear to have grown at all. After sixteen

BLUE GRASS. 137

days the vigorous plants from the uncolored bell
glass were moved to the green. In eight days
they had become less sensitive; in two more the
sensitiyeness had almost entirely disappeared, and
in another week they were all dead. Green rays of
light appear to have no more influence on vegeta-
tion than complete absence of light; and Mr. Best
believes, adds the Academy, that the sensitive
plant exhibits only the same phenomenon as all
plants colored green, but to an excessive degree.”
It is thus seen that blue light, green light and
darkness are all injurious when long continued.

We know that many plants will grow in partial
shade, and that some will thrive better if somewhat
shaded. The experiments on colored glass taken
together fail to show that blue glass is of any other
advantage than as a shade, and that glass of any
other color, except yellow, will serve the same
purpose.

XXV.
PLANT DISEASES.

U* TIL within a few years the origin of the dis-
eases of plants was considered even more
mysterious than that of most diseases of animals.
But it is now becoming well known that nearly all
plant diseases are produced by certain other plants,
usually of minute size and simple structure, which
feed upon the living juices of other plants and
thus bring about a diseased condition. These
peculiar plants which are unable to obtain their
nourishment from the soil and air, but must live
upon other growing plants, are called parasites.
They are nearly all destitute of green color, and
belong chiefly to the lower orders of vegetation,
known as fungi and bacteria. Not all fungi and
bacteria, however, are parasitic and therefore injur-
ious, for many live only on matter which is already
dead, while a few kinds feed upon both dead and
living material. Toadstools and lichens are well
known examples of fungi which live mainly on
decaying matter. The fungi found on living plants
are nearly all of smaller size than these, and can

rarely beseen without the aid of the microscope. On
(138)

PLANT DISEASES. 139

this account it was long before they came to be
understood and studied, and even after they began to
be familiar to botanists it was difficult for people
who had never used a microscope to realize that
there were plants which could be named, described
and recognized, but which were wholly invisible to
the naked eye, and that many of these were the sole
cause of various disastrous diseases which afflicted
the crops of the field and garden.

The circumstance which more than anything
else has hindered the general recognition of the
fact that plant diseases are chiefly caused by para-
sitic fungi, is that the prevalence of these diseases
is largely controlled by the weather. Nearly all
plant diseases, such as potato rot, wheat rust, etc.,
are most prevalent in hot, damp weather. Botanists
soon discovered that this was due to the fact that
the spores or seed-like bodies by which fungi are
propagated, germinate, like ordinary seeds, most
readily in such warm, damp weather, and thus
spread the disease most rapidly at such times.
Most other persons, however, still believed that the
weather was the direct and only cause of the dis-
ease. Even when it became fully demonstrated
that these plant diseases were accompanied by
fungi, it was yet thought by many that the plants
became first diseased and then attacked by the
fungi, or at least that fungi only attacked unhealthy

140 POPULAR ERRORS.

plants. Repeated artificial sowings of the spores
upon healthy plants, however, proved that thrifty
plants were usually fully as susceptible to the attacks
of fungi as feeble ones, and therefore that the feeble-
ness sometimes noticed in diseased plants may be
produced by the presence of the parasitic fungus.

The remedies, therefore, for plant diseases are
somewhat like those employed to rid our crops of
weeds. They are all directed either toward the ex-
clusion of the invisible germs or seed-like bodies
from which the diseases originate, to the partial or
complete destruction of the parasites whenever they
have attacked the growing plant, or to the growth
of the crop under conditions unfavorable to the
parasite. The germs of some of these parasites,
like certain kinds of weeds, are so universally
present that they nearly always infest our crops
when the proper conditions for their growth occur.
This, for example, is the case with the red rust of
wheat, which is found on many grasses also. The
fungus which produces the potato rot, on the other
hand is more rare, and even in seasons and localities
favorable to rot, it often fails to make its appear-
ance unless it has previously existed in the neigh-
borhood. A knowledge of the habits of the fungus
is necessary in each case in order to intelligently
apply a remedy.

XXVI.
WHAT IS A SPECIES?

NTIL within less than a generation, the almost
U' universal idea among Christian nations re-
garding the different species of plants and animals
upon the earth was that they were the direct pro-
ducts of original creation, and had existed un-
changed since they first came into being upon the
earth about 6,000 years ago. Any other idea as to
their nature or origin was considered to be not
only false, but unworthy to be entertained by those
who believed in any influence of a supernatural
power over the affairs o° this world.

There had not been wanting, it is true, even from
ancient times, those wio had held to a belief io
some form of developement of highe: from lower
beings. Lamarck, in the last century, boldly advo-
cated this theory on scientific grounds {o account
for the presence of tho different forms of life upon
the earth. His opinions attracted but little atten-
tion, however, and it was not until the publication
of Darwin’s book, ‘‘ The Originof Species,” in 1859,
that scientific men began seriously to study the

subject, The arguments presented in this book
(141)

142 POPULAR ERRORS.

were so convincing, and showed so clearly many of
the ways in which gradual changes in the characters
of living beings took place, that its conclusions for
the most part were accepted almost immediately by
the greater part of the scientific world. No other
one idea has ever done so much to stimulate in-
vestigation in all departments of natural science as
this doctrine of evolution. Although there was so
little hesitation on the part of the leading scientfic
men at the time to adopt the essential features of
the new theory, the theory itself was so important,
and opened up so many new questions for considera-
tion, that a large library would be required to con-
tain all that has been'writteh upon the subject
since Darwin’s book was published. The religious
aspect of the question, which at first created alarm
in the minds of many, was soon lost sight of by
most of those engaged in scientific work, and now,
thirty years later, it has practically ceased to be a
topic of interest in the religious world, and the
leading religious teachers have come to agree with
the author of the book in question, that there is
nothing in the idea of evolution, or the gradual
development of higher from lower forms of life, to
interfere with the properly interpreted teachings of
the Bible.

Under the new idea of species these groups
come to represent, not fixed and definite ideas, but

WHAT IS A SPECIES? 143

merely assemblages of individuals agreeing between
themselves in certain important particulars which
separate them from other groups which have other
particulars in common. The question, What is a
species? can be illustrated more easily than it can
be defined. Thus all plants may first be divided
into two leading groups, those which produce true
flowers and seeds and those which do not. The
flowering plants may then be divided into those
having solid, woody stems and a true bark, and
those which have hollow or pithy stems without
solid wood, and are destitute of bark. Among the
ordinary woody plants may be found some having
the petals of their flowers more or less united into
a tube, and others with their petals wholly distinct.
In the latter group are certain kinds which attract
attention by their compound leaves, and by having
flowers with one broad petal which stands up above
the others, and which produce a peculiarly flattened
pod. Many plants, differing in other particulars,

have these three characters in common; in short,
they exhibit a family likeness, and the group taken
together is called the pea or bean family. In this
and other families are subordinate groups, called
genera, and in each genus still smaller groups,
known as species. These various groups, one
within another, were discovered and named for the
most part, before the present belief in tho origin of

144 POPULAR ERRORS.

species became generally accepted, and the exist-
ence of this belief in no way interferes with the
present system of classification, This system of
classification may be compared to a tree, whose
larger branches, bearing limbs of smaller and atill
smaller size correspond to the larger groups in the
vegetable kingdom, within which groups contain-
ing still smaller groups occur. It in no way
hinders the classification of the parts of a tree top
into limbs, branches, boughs and twigs for us to know
that every limb was first a slender twig. Neither
does it interfere with the classification of plants
into greater and lesser groups, as we find them,
for us to believe that the present complex groups
have been developed from preéxisting groups in
which the differences between the members was
less than they now are. How these differences
arose may be seen to some extent by the variations
arising in plants under cultivation. The cabbage,
kale, cauliflower and kohlrabi all originated from a
single wild species, which possesses none of the
special features of either of these cultivated plants.
It is a smooth-leaved plant, somewhat like the
mustard, destitute of a distinct head of any kind.
The cultivated varieties which have sprung from
this wild species, would, if they had been found
growing wild, have themselves been considered as
distinct species; but in practice it has not been

WHAT IS A SPECIES? 145

thought best to apply the term species to any forms
which have been developed under cultivation.

The term species, then, is applied to the smallest
distinct groups of wild plants; that is, to those
groups which cannot be further subdivided into
other definite groups. There may be some differ-
ences in form in the plants composing a species,
but if these different forms do not exist in distinct
groups by themselves, but show in the various in-
dividuals intermediate forms connecting one with
another, the plants possessing such peculiarities
are either unnoticed by the botanist and are called
mere variations, or if they occur regularly in con-
siderable numbers and are merely connected with
the form which is coisidered the type by inter-
mediate forms, they are recognized and named
varieties. Species and wild varieties generally
come true or nearly true from seed; mere variations
and most cultivated varieties do not, until they have
been fixed by a more or less prolonged course of
selection.

XXVIII.
SOMETHING NEW.

“We study and investigate, not in the vain hope of acquiring
knowledge, but to prevent the ignorance of others being thrust
upon us.”

T may be interesting, after discussing old and
| exploded beliefs, to come to a subject which in
name at least is new. No people equal the Ameri-
cans in their eagerness to adopt new ideas, and as
@ result progress is nowhere more rapid in every
department of effort than in this country. Inci-
dentally, this desire for improvement leads to fre-
quent disappointment and loss. It cannot be use-
less, therefore, to call attention, even briefly, to a
few of the errors one is likely to make in the
purchase of new seeds and plants. Ignorance is
chiefly disastrous when united to self-confidence,
and we know that to be forewarned is to be fore-
armed. Nothing is more commendable than the
widespread desire among our farmers, gardeners
and fruit growers to test new methods and varieties,
and it is therefore highly important to prevent as
far as possible unnecessary disappointments in
these trials. Large sums are lost annually in the

purchase of novelties in agriculture and horticul-
(146)

SOMETHING NEW. 147

ture, a considerable portion of which might be
saved if the purchaser possessed a general knowl-
edge of what it is reasonable to expect in a new
variety. For want of this information it is the
poor farmer as a rule, who can least afford a loss,
who meets with the most disastrous failures when
he does begin to experiment. These failures arise,
not only from his own ignorance, but too often also
from the fact that this ignorance is taken advan-
tage of by the dishonesty of others, who induce
him to purchase plants or seeds which the seller
knows to be worthless. Occasionally also, it must
be added, the cupidity of the buyer as well as his
laudable desire for gain, is utilized by the better
informed seller to his own loss.

It is no proper part of this discussion to expose
or denounce fraud, and if fraudulent practices are
here mentioned in connection with others it is only
to show the practical difficulties to be met in the
purchase of new varieties.

One of the most frequent sources of error in the
purchase of plants and seeds lies in the multi-
plicity of names which exists. To one who has not
particularly considered the subject a new name is
generally supposed to mean something entirely
different from anything before known. Such is
rarely the case. The “types,” as they are called,
even of cultivated plants, are comparatively few,

148 POPULAR ERRORS.

and different names often exist for varieties which
are practically the same. These are sometimes the
result of accident, but often due to the desire to
reap the commercial advantage of every slight
improvement. Professional growers are rarely
misled by this multiplicity of names, but to others
it is frequently a source of confusion and loss.

-- It may not be easy at all times to say when the
use of a new name is justifiable and when it is not.
Every decided improvement is entitled to a new
designation of some sort, and those who have made
the improvement, or who have this new variety for
sale, are entitled to the full benefit to be derived
from a newname. The public, however, have a
right to say that the name shall in no way mis-
represent or obscure the character of the variety,
but so far as practicable shall indicate its character.
The adoption of sensational names, therefore,
instead of simple and appropriate ones, and the un-
necessary suppression of the botanical or systematic
name, is liable to create the suspicion of an inten-
tion to mislead; and this suspicion is apt to be con-
firmed in case the merits of the novelty are over-
stated. A recent example of this kind is that of
the Japanese Wine Berry, a raspberry which had
been for some time in cultivation as an ornamental
plant under its botanical name. The plant was
certainly entitled to a common name, but it would

SOMETHING NEW. 149

have been better if it had been called Japanese
Raspberry, or some other simple appropriate name,
instead of the misleading name, “wine berry.”
There is no evidence in this case of a deliberate
intention to defraud, and the somewhat exaggerated
claims set forth in behalf of this fruit may be
reasonably attributed to well meaning enthusiasm,
but any who are disappointed in growing the
plant will not be slow to attribute both the over-
praise and the misleading name to a desire to
obscure its real character. The interests of horti-
culture certainly demand that occasion for such
suspicion, whether justly founded or not, should
always be avoided. For the individual buyer it is
sufficient to say: endeavor to find out approxi-
mately, at least, the nature of the novelty before
you buy. If one is dealing personally with an
agent, and he declines to give this information so
far as in his power it is safest not to purchase.
Another habit which, unfortunately, is still preva-
lent among American nurserymen and seedsmen is
that of deliberately enlarging the illustrations of
new fruits, etc., which are offered for sale. Not-
withstanding the frequent denunciation of this
practice by the horticultural press in late years, it
is a custom still followed by many of our well
known firms. For those who adopt such methods
this is of course a moral question, and no other

150 POPULAR ERRORS.

view of the subject is entitled to consideration, but
for those liable to be misled by misrepresentations
of this kind, such methods should be exposed, as a
matter of business.

Another source of disappointment in the pur-
chase of novelties, for which the seller may not be
in any way responsible, arises from the fact that
the treatment given by the purchaser is often not
adapted to the requirements of the new plant.
Many varieties require special treatment to suc-
ceed, and may be profitably grown only in a par-
ticular soil or climate; others on the contrary suc-
ceed under a wide diversity of conditions. New
varieties should therefore be tried with caution,
and their failure in particular cases should not be
held to condemn them altogether.

Finally, there are so many who are willing to
deliberately mislead in the sale of novelties in
plants and seeds that it cannot be too strongly
urged as a rule that such purchases should be made
only of persons or firms known to be reliable. No
one, however well informed, can safely disregard
this rule. Frauds of this character often combine
the three misleading features of an erroneous
name, exaggerated merit, and exorbitant price.
The following examples will illustrate this fact:

Cinnamon Bean. This is the common English
horse bean, dipped in oil of cinnamon and sold as

SOMETHING NEW. 151

the seed of a rare Mexican plant. Five dollars a
package has been paid by unsuspecting amateurs
for these “truly wonderful” beans.

Cocatel, or Lily of Mexico. Under this name a
thriving trade was conducted for a while by some
New York sharpers about 1878. The Cocatel was
described as a rare plant of unrivaled beauty, and
the seeds were sold at three for a dollar. They
proved to be those of the common okra or gumbo
of the gardens.

Blue Roses. For several years a number of
Frenchmen, with headquarters in New York, were
engaged in selling various horticultural novelties,
such as asparagus which could be cut in ninety
days from seed, strawberries which grew upon
bushes, and other equally impossible vegetable
wonders. Among them were roses of an unheard-
of size and fragrance, inclnding the “blue rose,”
which gardeners have long sought for but never
found.

American Velvet Plant. Under this name the
seed of our common mullein was at one time sold in
England, in large quantities, as a rare ornamental
plant. Of course the trick was soon exposed and
its sale generally discontinued, although the plant
still continued to be grown occasionally as a
curiosity. The seeds of sorrel have also been sold

152 POPULAR ERRORS.

in this country under a false name as those of a
new ornamental plant.

Green Valley Grass. Under this and other
names the well known Johnson Grass (Sorghum
halepense) has been extravagantly praised, and the
seed sold at correspondingly high prices. The
grass is not hardy in the north, and needs to be
grown with caution at the south, as when once
planted in a favorable soil, it is very difficult to
eradicate. It yields a large amount of rather
coarse hay.

Honey Blade Grass. In 1859, a few years after
Hungarian Grass was introduced into this country,
the seed was sold at extravagant prices under the
above name by certain New York and St. Louis
dealers. In this case comparatively little harm
was done, as the swindle was soon exposed, and
the grass itself was a valuable one, with which
every farmer should become acquainted.

Willard’s Brome Grass. In the chapter on
wheat turning to chess will be found an account of
the introduction of chess as a forage plant under
the above name. The fact that this vile weed
received the endorsement of eminent agricultural
writers and several leading agricultural journals
shows the importance of a practical knowledge of
botany to farmers and those who attempt to give
agricultural information,

SOMETHING NEW. 153

Swedish Clover. This is the common Alsike
Clover which a seed-peddler in Pennsylvania has
been selling at fancy prices, with the claim that it
will furnish a permanent pasture on the most bar-
ren soils, It is described in nearly all the leading
works on agriculture and is known to be inferior in
most localities to the common red clover.

Bohemian Oats. This name refers not so much
to a particular kind of oats as to a method of
selling. It represents probably the largest seed
swindle ever conducted in this country. The
farmer buys the oats at, usually, ten dollars a
bushel, giving his note therefor, and receiving a
bond from the company, binding it to purchase
back the crop, or a certain number of bushels, at a
high price. The bond is worthless, and the oats
grown are never called for, but the farmer’s note is
sold at a neighboring bank, and the sharpers dis-
appear. Sometimes the seed oats sold are not even
delivered, but usually they are. They are seldom,
however, a valuable variety, and never come from
Bohemia, as represented. At one time the old
skinless oat was supplied under the name Bohemian
oat. This is a variety occasionally grown in
Europe, but of little value in this country. Gen-
erally the oats sold are obtained at a neighboring
mill, and are the common oats of the region, which
have been extra cleaned for the purpose. With no

154 POPLAR ERRORS.

grain is it more important to have good seed than
with the oat. In a large portion of the United
States the best varieties of oats rapidly degenerate.
Frequent introduction of good varieties from local-
ities better adapted to this grain are therefore
desirable, but care should be exercised to obtain
them of reliable dealers.

It is well to add that notes given to the agents of
the Bohemian Oat Company and similar fraudulent
concerns have been declared void by the supreme
courts of Michigan and one or two other States.

APPENDIX.

HE following more or less prevalent errors it
a may be well here to place on record. Such
of them as have the most semblance of truth, or
are entertained to any considerable extent in this
country at the present time, are accompanied by
brief explanations.

Fruits True to Variety. — Fruits which are
planted whole, so that the seedlings will be
nourished by the whole fruit, will come true to the
variety.—Michigan Farmer, 1849, page 267.

How to Grow Figs.—The peasants of France
plant a certain bulb (Scilla maritima?) at the base
of their fig trees to make them fruit better.—
Nature, Vol. XXX, 1884, page 194.

Nectar.— The superfluous saccharine matter
remaining after the stamens and pistil have con-
sumed all that they require.””—Lindley and Moore,
“Treasury of Botany,” 1876.

Origin of the Cabbage.—“The Greeks have a
fable that Jupiter, laboring to explain two oracles
which contradicted each other, perspired, and from

this divine perspiration the colewort sprang.” —
; (155)

156 POPULAR ERRORS.

Phillips “History of Cultivated Vegetables,” Vol. I,
page 92.

Second Flowering of Timothy.—It is a common
belief in some localities that timothy flowers twice,
and that the proper time to cut it is in its second
blossom. It is difficult to understand how such an
idea originated. Professor Beal, of the Michigan
Agricultural College, has shown that it may be
seven days from the time a head of timothy begins to
blossom until the last flowers upon the head have
faded, but that there are not two distinct periods.

Apple Seeds.—“In every perfect ripe apple,” it
was observed in an English publication about twenty
years ago, “there will be found one or two per-
fectly round seeds, the others having one or more
flattened sides. The round ones will produce the
improved fruit, and the flat ones will produce the
crab.” —Michigan Farmer, 1855, page 53.

Artificial Parasites.—“ Captain R. Mignan, in
his ‘Travels in Chaldea,’ says that the Arabs slit
the stems of the ‘Alhagi’ (Hedysarum Alhagi,
L.,) near the ground and insert seeds of the water-
melon, which germinate and grow on the roots in
ground too dry for its own roots to succeed.

“Recent French pomologists assert that a pear
seed can in like manner be made to germinate in a
slit in a pear stock. Curious facts if true.”—
Gradeners’ Monthly, Vol, II, 1860, page 252.

APPENDIX, 157

A Gardener's Cut.—In England a carpenter or
barber will gravely show one how to make a
gardener’s cut so as to ensure the growth of a
cutting. According to such authorities a cutting
should be made so that the cut end may form a
very obtuse angle.” — Woodrow, “Gardening in
India,” 1888, page 110.

The Seat of Vitality—Many persons think that
there is something especially vital in the collar or
neck of a plant, from the fact that most plants cut
off at that point are thereby killed. The reason
for this is that ordinary plants have no buds on
their roots, and are therefore unable to sprout, and
must ultimately die if cut off at the base of the
stem.

Potatoes Mixing in the Hill.—It is sometimes
said that two kinds of potatoes planted together in
a hill will mix and form an intermediate variety.
No one, so far as known, has tried to prove this by
experiment, and the idea has doubtless arisen from
the failure to understand the true nature of the
sexes in plants. Plants mix or cross in the blossom
only. Sports or variations which are not the result
of crossing sometimes occur, and these may have
given rise to the idea of direct mixing of twbers in
the hill.

Cactus Leaves.—‘‘ Most of the species of this

158 POPULAR ERRORS.

order are remarkable for the absence of leaves, of
which no other traces can be found than tufts of
prickles arising at regular intervals from the stem
—these being the veins of the leaves, between
which the parenchyma is not developed.”—Carpen-
ter, “Vegetable Physiology,” page 416.

Probably most gardeners know by this time that
most species of cactus have true leaves on their
young shoots, but that these leaves soon fall away,
and that the spines are not leaves.

Action of Pollen.—For a long time after the
fertilization of plants was known as a fact, the
actual process was not understood. A common
supposition, held by Linnzeus and other early botan-
ists, was that the pollen upon its contact with the
stigma, exploded and discharged its contents
(which they called fovilla,) and that this possessed
some subtle influence which caused the fruit and
seed to come to perfection.

It is now well known that a pollen grain is some-
what like a seed, or more properly, like a spore,
and that it undergoes a process of germination
upon the stigma and penetrates to the rudimentary
seed within, and by imparting to it a portion of its
own substance enables it to develop.

Sex in Melons.—‘ A. W. Cooper, of Glynn
County, Georgia, informs us that a certain gar-
dener in his state raises better watermelons than

APPENDIX. 159

his neighbors because he plants alternate rows of
male and female melon seed. We cannot under-
stand how a man can plant alternate rows of melons
with seed obtained from the two sexes of the fruit,
as no male blossom of any of the melon family
ever produces fruit. The male and female flowers
are always separate and distinct on the same vine,
and it is only the latter which perfect fruit. There
are, however, many persons who, having heard that
there were two sexes of flowers in melons, think
that both produce fruit, and we have heard dealers
in our markets declare that they can readily pick
out the different sexes in the ripened fruit. Of
course, these men know nothing of” botany.”—
American Agriculturist, 1887, page 422.

“He and She” Squashes.—There have recently
appeared in several agricultural papers illustrations
and descriptions of what are called “he and she”
squashes. The former are long and pointed, and
the latter short, and have a depression at the apex.
It is believed that the latter always give the most *
and best seed. Similar differences are supposed to
exist in pumpkins and other gourd fruits. This
belief is quite common in some parts of the coun-
try. Of course, as remarked in the preceding
paragraph, persons who hold such beliefs know
nothing of botany. The female flowers of these
plants are the only ones that bear fruit, and no

160 POPULAR ERRORS.

possible difference in sex can exist in the fruits
themselves.

Flavoring Watermelons onthe Vines.—“ A Geor-
gia gentleman, we are informed by the statement now
appearing in the daily newspapers, has discovered a
method of flavoring watermelons while they are
growing. Before the melon ripens he cuts out a
slit in the stem one inch long and two-thirds
through it. In this-opening the extract or flavor-
ing substance is placed, and then he closes the stem
carefully, so as to keep out the air, and binds a
string around it. The quantity of extract used
depends upon the size of the melon. This opera-
tion is to be repeated every morning until the fruit
is flavored satisfactorily. How this point is to be
ascertained we are not informed... . This is a
specimen of the trash which is going around the
country under the head of ‘Agricultural Informa-
tion.’ ”’—American Agriculturist, 1886, page 387.

The Seeds of Clot-bur.—In West Virginia there
is a belief that the burs or fruits of this plant
(Xanthium Canadensis) which contain two cells,
with one seed in each, have the peculiar property
that one of the seeds will germinate one year and
the other the next, so that it takes two years to
free the soil of this weed. An examination of
seventy-one burs showed in thirty of them no good

APPENDIX. 161

seeds, in eighteen both good, and in twenty-three
one good and one bad.

H. W. Beecher, in his book on “ Fruit, Flowers,
and Farming,” states that this weed is particularly
hard to kill because it ripens its seed at two different
times.

A Remedy for Orange Scale-—“I have just
heard of a new method of destroying these insects
which may be worth a trial. It is to make a cross
incision in the bark, L shaped, and after rolling
back the bark, dust the wound with flowers of sul-
phur. Wax and bind up as for budding. Years
ago I found that the juice of the squash vine was a
solvent of sulphur and would take it into the cir-
culation of the plant. At all events it will cost
nothing to try and will do no injury to the tree.”—
George F. Hollis, Consul at Cape Colony, in Special
Consular Report on Fruit Culture in Foreign
Countries, 1890.

A Fruit Tree Invigorator.—“ A correspondent
in Livingston county, New York, sends us a circu-
lar, headed ‘A Revolution in Fruit Culture,’ which
is to be brought about by the use of a ‘Fruit Tree
Invigorator.’ The compound is to be applied by
boring a hole in the trunk of a tree, filling it with
the ‘Invigorator’ and closing the hole tight with
grafting wax, or a cork. It is claimed for the
compound that: ‘It so changes the flavor of the

162 POPULAR ERRORS.

sap in the leaves and bark that the aphis that
infest the tree is unable to subsist on the leaves,
and is therefore driven off, leaving the tree unmo-
lested to bring forth its blossoms and mature its
fruit.’ ”—American Agriculturist, 1884, page 131.

Seed Fertilizers—Under the head of “ Horticul-
tural Myths,” Woodrow, in his ‘“ Gardening in
india,” page 111, says that the people of that
country believe that in order to obtain fine mangoes
it is necessary to soak the seed in honey and water
it with milk.

A few years ago a Boston fertilizer company
advertised a “seed manure” which they claimed
would impart wonderful vitality to the young
plants, and increase the yield of the crop twenty-
five per cent. Upon trial at the Iowa experiment
station, no perceptible effect from its use could be
observed upon the young plants. Various things
have been recommended from time to time for the
purpose of imparting nutriment to seeds, in order to
secure more vigorous plants, but no good evidence
exists that any of them are at all beneficial. Every
properly developed seed appears to contain all the
food the young plant can use until it becomes
established in the soil. There are several sub-
stances, including chlorine and lime water, which
quicken the germination of seeds, but there seems
to be nothing except a proper amount of air, heat

APPENDIX. 163

and moisture, which can in any way promote its
vigor during the first stages of germination.

Silica to Stiffen Wheat Straw.—It has been sup-
posed, and even taught, that the office of silica,
which occurs so largely in the straw of wheat and
other grains, was to stiffen it. With this idea,
fertilizers have been manufactured, containing
silica in a soluble form, for the pupose of affording
an extra supply to prevent the lodging of grain.
Such fertilizers are no longer offered for sale, as
no beneficial results were derived from them, but it
is still believed by many that silica is the main
cause of the stiffness of straw, and that the lodging
of grain on soil which is unusually rich in vegetable
matter is due to the lack of silica in such soils.
That there is no such lack of silica, however, in
any ordinary soils is easily proved by the fact that
scouring rushes which contain as high as ninety
per cent. of silica, grow in the deepest swamps,
where there is scarcely anything but vegetable
matter, obtaining all the silica they need in solu-
tion from the water which has dissolved it from
other plants and from soil over which it has passed.
Although silica or sand may appear insoluble, it is
in fact slightly soluble in ordinary rain-water,
especially when acted upon by the roots of plants,
and all the silica which plants need is readily
obtained from this source, even where the amount

164 POPULAR ERRORS.

of sand in the soil may appear small. Silica, how-
ever, is not an important ingredient in plants, and
its presence in them is largely accidental. Still it
is of some use, but this is not mainly for the pur-
pose of stiffening them. Large forest trees, which
require great stiffness in their stems, contain only
small traces of it. In pines and other evergreens
it is almost wholly confined to the leaves, where it
is of no use for stiffening purposes. It has there,
however, another use, namely to protect the leaves
from the weather, and this appears to be its main
purpose in the wheat plant, for it does not occur in
greatest abundance in the stem, where most needed
if it were for stiffening, but chiefly in the leaves,
and especially in the chaff where it accumulates in
large quantity during the ripening of the grain
and serves to preserve the chaff from the effects of
moisture and thus protects the grain.

Trifacial Oranges.—J. N. Whitner, in his
“Gardening in Florida,” gives the following
account of this so-called composite fruit:

“Tt may interest the curious and inquiring to
read of, and perhaps test by experiment, the pro-
duction of what in some places in the Hast is called
the ‘ Trifacial Orange,’ in others the ‘ Oranger Her-
maphrodite.’ Mr. St. John, in his ‘Travels in the
Valley of the Nile,’ gives the following account,
says Lindley, of this very curious tree, in Boghos

APPENDIX. 165

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 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 flavor 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 practiced from time immemorial.’

“In confirmation of the above, the Rev. G. C.
Renouard reported, while Foreign Secretary to the
Royal Geographical Society, having seen the fruit
of an orange and lemon combined, which had
grown on a tree similarly produced. Mr. R.
described the fruit as having the size and appear-
ance of a large orange, with two or three patches of
lemon stuck on it; the color; almost to the very
edge 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

166 POPULAR ERRORS.

piece, the portions beneath the Jemon-colored parts
had not only a considerable degree of acidity,
while the orange had its proper degree of sweet-
ness, but they were separated from their sweet
neighbors by a distinct membrane, which, in some
degree, accounted for their difference in taste.”

The presence now and then of broad thickened
stripes upon the lemon and orange has long been
observed, and was attributed by Gallesio, an early
Italian writer, to cross-fertilization, and many still
believe it to be due to that cause. There is no
proof, however, that either grafting or crossing has
anything to do with it, and the appearances can
only be considered as sports for which no direct
cause is known. The resemblance of such a fruit
to a combined orange and lemon is only fanciful,
and extends no farther than the peel; the pulp is
unchanged, and the thickened portion of the rind
seldom corresponds with one of the cells of the
pulp.

Influence of Electricity on Plauts.—From time to
time some one having in mind the beneficial influ-
ence of electricity upon animals in certain diseases,
raises the question whether it cannot be applied to
stimulate the growth of plants. More than a cen-
tury ago Abbé Nollet considered that he proved
beyond a doubt that electricity, properly applied,
accelerated the growth of vegetables. Experiments

APPENDIX, 167

have since been reported in which benefits are said
to have resulted from its use. A few years ago
several such experiments were made in France.
It had been noticed that certain plants throve
better when near large trees, and it was assumed
that this was due to electricity conducted to the
soil by the trees. Iron cages were then prepared
in which growing plants were placed under the
influence of electricity, with apparently beneficial
results. Naudin, however, in repeating these
experiments, showed that the only advantage
gained by certain plants in growing in such a cage,
was due to the slight shade afforded and which
these particular plants required. The London
Horticultural Society took up the question and
satisfied itself that no beneficial result could be
obtained by the use of electricity on growing
plants.

In the United States the subject has scarcely
been heard of since the following was published by
A. J. Downing in the first volume of the Horticul-
turist :

“Our readers will remember the startling account
of the growth of crops under electric action, which
went the rounds of our agricultural papers about a
year ago. Mr. Rosse’s report, read before the
farmers’ club in New York, in which he stated that
by galvanizing a row of potatoes 200 feet long

168 POPULAR ERRORS.

merely by putting down at one end of the row a
copper plate, at the other one of zinc, and con-
necting both by a wire, by which he was able to dig
full grown potatoes, while the ordinary rows on
each side contained only half-formed tubers; and
still more that of Dr. Foster, who enclosed part of
a barley field in Scotland with a few poles driven
into the ground in the form of a square, over which
wires were stretched making a wire parallelogram
eleven feet high which was connected with a simi-
lar square formed by running a wire at the base of
the poles, about three inches under the soil—the
result. of which was stated to be the most strongly
marked difference in luxuriance and product of the
parts of the barley field thus acted upon by the
intercepted currents of electric fluid.”

These experiments were repeated in various
forms by many others in Europe and the United
States, uniformly without beneficial results.

A recent number of the Youth’s Companion
publishes the statement that some seeds which were
soaked and then electrified gave plants which were
larger and had more highly colored leaves than usual,
though the yield was not affected. As no further
particulars are given we must wait until the experi-
ment is repeated before accepting this statement.
Electricity, undoubtedly, has some effect on all
vegetable as well as animal life. If a current of

APPENDIX. 169

electricity is passed through a vessel of water in
which growing roots are suspended the roots are
said to bend toward the positive pole, or side at
which the current of electricity enters. This is
believed to be due to the contraction of the proto-
plasm or cell contents upon that side of the root.
There is no evidence that the growth of the roots
is affected, and no good reason to believe that
plants are ever benefited by a direct application of
electricity, the only effect, on their health, so far
as known, being that, as with animals, they are
killed or injured by a heavy discharge of electricity.

A word may be added regarding the effect of
electric light on plants, which is now attracting
attention. The experiments thus far conducted go
to show that growth can be accelerated by means of
electric light, but its effect on fruitfulness is stilt
undetermined. The expense of this method of
lighting will prevent its use in the cultivation of
plants except, possibly, in rare cases.

NN

SN

NN
\

N
\
‘

He

WAG
\\ “\ ~ AS
NN & RAs WS

LLL

Ze

ee

SS
SAN No
SS

a

LE

y
iY Ws

Z
BZ
Ze