No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 209 



Protection against the various enemies of our cultivated plants 

 can best be secured in this way. 



Prevention is better than cure, and vigorous growth is the key- 

 note in securing immunity from interference by weeds, fungi and 

 insects. 



Negligence in properly preparing the soil is the chief means for 

 inviting the enemies of cultivated plants, and when attack has been 

 fairly made it cannot be successfully resisted. 



Success in growing plants of any kind comes from an intelligent 

 appreciation of a few fundamental laws of growth, and careful at- 

 tention to them at every step. 



f 



ROUND TABLE— SECTION B. 

 (Cottducted bj Prof. Buckhout.) 



QUESTION: "How many times should a microscope magnify to be 

 of use to study plants?" 



Answer: The minute structure of plants can be satisfactorily 

 studied only by the compound microscope, and then only after care- 

 ful preparation of the parts examined. One cannot see into or 

 through opaque parts. The enlargement should be 25 to 150 diam- 

 eters; some would call this G25 to 22,500 times. 



QUESTION: " In what manner do plants select and store in fruit, 

 variations in color and flavor, although growing in the same soils?" 



Answer: There is no positive knowledge on this point and the re- 

 sult in a given case will be found not the same from year to year. 



QUESTION: "Will the pruning of root hairs, while cultivating, 

 stimulate or retard the growth of plants? Also apply this to the 

 pruning of limbs of trees." 



Answer: There are so many factors concerned in the growth of 

 plants that such root pruning as results from cultivating may have 

 little or no effect upon growth. The pruning of limbs is quite likely 

 to stimulate the growth of the plants, but not necessarily, nor always 

 so. 



QUESTION: "How much plant growth occurs at night?" 



Answer: Growth, in the sense of addition to the size and bulk of 

 a plant, occurs almost entirely at night; but there would be no such 

 grov/th were it not for the physiological processes which took place 

 the preceding day. 



14—7—1904 



