66 On the Cultivation of 



It is as unnecessary to point out the general antipathy which 

 vegetables in general have to towns, as it is at present difficult 

 to explain the cause. It would be somewhat extraordinary, 

 indeed, if it were understood ; when what is called the science 

 of botany is solely occupied in making and changing names 

 and arrangements, as if its objects were not only dead matter, 

 but useless specimens of forms ; and when the conventional, 

 or perhaps necessary limitations of the far other valuable 

 science of horticulture, together with the extent of this pur- 

 suit, and its no very remote origin as a science, seem to cut 

 it off from the more refined anatomical and physiological 

 inquiries necessary to illustrate this, and far more in the his- 

 tory of this great division of animated nature. 



But, indeed, if the immediate or proximate cause is un- 

 known, we are scarcely better informed as to the remote and 

 acting one. It is not exclusively want of light, because as 

 much light can be obtained in towns as in the country ; and 

 '* want of air" is a term without meaning. If it is excess of 

 carbonic acid, or indeed if it be any other derangement of the 

 proportions in the constituents of the atmosphere, why cannot 

 our refined chemistry detect this ? It is said to arise from 

 smoke, and, in our own towns, to depend exclusively or espe- 

 cially on coal smoke. Certainly this is not the exclusive 

 cause ; since similar effects take place in towns where wood is 

 burnt, and where comparatively there is little smoke of any 

 kind ; nor is it easy to conceive how smoke acts, when we 

 know what its nature is, and know that this very substance 

 can be applied largely to plants in a solid state, or mixed with 

 water, without injuring them in the same manner. It is pro- 

 bable, however, that the clue must be sought in that which 

 has not simply been neglected, but denied ; and that is, the 

 sensations, the vital power, or nervous system of plants ; 

 denied by those who have, through all time, explained the 

 actions of plants by mechanical principles, by the immense 

 majority of botanists, or nearly by all ; and in exactly the 

 same deep philosophical spirit which, in the hands of a few 

 others, assigned the actions of animals to similar causes. 



But to pass what cannot at present be explained, it is an 

 object of interest to trace the effects, be the cause, whether 



