68 THE PLANT WORLD. 



The notched poles were then laid in the furrows, end to end in a single 

 line. Then another furrow was run along each side, the cast of the 

 plow covering the poles completely with soil, and the work was 

 finished. 



The cottonwoods, like the willows, are readily propagated by set- 

 ting the lower end of cuttings in the moist earth. In such cases the 

 cutting becomes a perfect plant with no other addition than that of 

 new roots. That is, in such cases epitropous action only is necessary 

 to make the cuttings a perfect plaat, but as it takes some time for 

 nature to adjust the new condition to the old, the growth of such a re- 

 constructed plant is, at first, usually somewhat slow. 



In the case of the planted poles, however, both epitropous and 

 apotropous action take place together in the cambium layer at points 

 adjacent to each notch made by the ax. That is, both branch and 

 root buds are quickly formed there beneath the moist soil and 

 clusters of suckers soon appear above ground. Only the most vigor- 

 ous of these suckers were allowed to grow, and they became trees 

 sooner than would either seedlings or cuttings under the best condi- 

 tions. Their growth is probably aided by the sap supplied by the 

 buried poles. 



The conditions which gave origin to this remarkable method of 

 propagating trees have mostly passed away in the region where I 

 witnessed it, but the traveler there now often sees tall artificial groves 

 of rectangular shape and with straight rows of trees, which had the 

 origin just described. The rectangular shape was due to conformity 

 to the section lines of the government land surveys, and the straight 

 rows indicate the places of the pole -planted furrows. 



Smithsonian Institution. 



In my botanizing rambles I have found twenty-seven species of 

 spring plants that bloom in autumn, and have no doubt that a longer 

 search will reveal the fact that all the spring plants occasionally do so. 

 Some families of plants have apparently half fallen into this habit of 

 thus blooming twice in a year, as the violets, of which one can always 

 find flowers in October; but others are less impulsive and it is a greater 

 prize when we find them. The most recent addition to my list of 

 flowers that bloom out of season is the common Indian-pipe ( Mono- 

 tropa ), which was found in bloom on a crest of the palisades on Octo- 

 ber 30th. Beside it, stiffly erect, stood the seed capsule of its mid- 

 summer flower. What made this find memorable was the fact that in 

 the company was a great German botanist who had come out on this 

 excursion to see what rarities our woods afforded, and was much 

 pleased with this species which he had never seen before. — Willard 

 N. Cliite^ New York City, 



