TWE PLANT WORLD UNDER CARE. 



77 



the moon is revealed to you encircled by 

 rainbow-colored clouds : — A marvellous 

 effect that you will never forget. 



Alas! All too soon you are drawn 

 into the world of humanity that has gath- 

 ered under one roof from all parts of 

 the universe, to flirt, to dance, to amuse 

 itself for a month or so, and thus to 

 enjoy a "change." Hut this is not the 

 "change"' you have been seeking. Hu- 

 manity is everywhere and much the 

 same. Here you have come to see the 

 mountains, to let them teach you, so 

 tnat in the drudgery of winter work their 

 influence will still be over your soul. 

 The result of this learning must ever 

 stir your imagination and rest your 

 weary brain in the midst of the city strife 

 and overwork. And yet, in humanity, 

 there is a certain claim that nature will 

 never feel or give. These same glor- 

 ious mountains may furnish the poetry 

 in your life, but it is humanity that must 



furnish the prose, — you can live without 

 the former but never without the latter. 

 After all, the young girl who came all 

 the way up in the car with you has made 

 a certain impression on your mind. 

 After a day's journey by her side, as a 

 stranger, you soon meet in the hotel and 

 in half an hour are like old friends. 

 This so-called complex creation is all 

 very simple. The revelation which the 

 mountains stirred in your own soul is 

 nothing compared to the revelation of 

 this girl's soul. It is she who draws you 

 into an appreciation of humanity once 

 more, and who, hereafter, shares with 

 you those woodland walks and those sub- 

 lime thoughts ; which suddenly you dis- 

 cover she has experienced in greater or 

 less degree since the years of her earliest 

 understanding. The mountains had 

 made you a poet, a contented dreamer, 

 but the awakening" to realities under the 

 influence of sweet companionship was 

 still more beautiful. 



CHEMICAL 



TABLETS FOR 

 PLANTS. 



FEEDING 



BY EDWARD F. BIGFLOW, STAMFORD, CONN. 



(Reprinted, with revision, from "The 

 Nature Study Reviczv.) 



I am requested to tell how I use in tab- 

 lets the chemicals of Sachs' nutrient so- 

 lution for the artificial feeding of plants. 

 For those not familiar with feeding 

 plants with chemicals I first quote briefly 

 from Prof. Sachs :* 



"The complete revolution which ra- 

 tional agriculture and forestry have ex- 

 experienced through the establishing of 

 the theory of the nutrition of plants, 

 proves how much has been accomplished 

 in this department. It would extend far 

 beyond the scope of this lecture to re- 



produce even briefly the substance of 

 the literature of the subject. The most 

 significant result of the development of 

 the nutrition theory is met with, how- 

 ever, in the fact that we are now able 

 to rear plants artificially- — that we are in 

 a position, with chemically pure water to 

 which we add some few chemically pure 

 salts, to rear artificially highly devel- 

 oped plants as well as the simplest algae 

 (and mutatis mutandis, also fungi) — 

 that from inconspicuous and often 

 scarcely ponderable quantities of vege- 

 table substance, quantities of it as large 

 as we choose may be produced in this 

 way. 



"Such being the favorable position of 

 affairs, I regard it as the simplest and 



l See Lecture XVII, "Ths Nutritive Materials of Plants," in Professor Julius von Sachs' "On the 

 Physiology of Plants." 



