12 The Bulletin. 



Part 11. 



CHANGE OF SOIL ENVIRONMENT. 



"If the environment remains tlie same," says Lamarck, "the species 

 also remains the same." Spencer had in mind practically the same idea 

 when he said : "If the environment remains unchanged for many genera- 

 tions the plants becomes thoroughly fitted into the conditions and then 

 remain in a state of equilibrium." You will recall that the variety was, 

 in Darwin's time, pretty generally considered an incipient species. 



From the foregoing definition of plant environment it is evident that 

 a change in either soil or climate will produce a change in the environ- 

 ment- 

 Suppose we take as a simple illustration some of our potted plants 

 that apjjear so beautiful along the thirty-second parallel and move them 

 fifteen degrees north, leaving them unpi'otected. The change of climate 

 alone kills the plant. Now take a plant that has been grown for a gen- 

 eration in a rich, moist loam, and repot it, putting in place of the rich 

 loam a very poor sandy soil. With no change of climate the plant dies. 

 Of course every one knows that with an extreme change of both soil and 

 climate the plant must die, but how many scientific agriculturists have 

 noted that with a change of soil type, it may be but a few yards away, 

 the cultivated plant may not only have its form and habit of growth 

 changed, but its yield so reduced as to place it far below the point of 

 profitable production? We could bring forward more illustrations to 

 substantiate this proposition than the limits of this paper will justify. 

 We will quote, therefore, only a few of the leading authorities who have 

 either conducted experiments or have observed in this field of thought. 

 While Mr. Hilgard was in Mississippi he noted that "A single variety 

 of cotton, planted on two adjoining soil types, was so changed by the 

 two soils as not to be recognizable as the same variety in the two fields." 

 This observation has not only been made in the case of cotton, but also 

 in the growth of corn, oats, wheat, beets, etc. This breaking up of corn 

 in habit of growth has, as a rule, been accompanied by reduced pro- 

 ductivity. 



Most experiment stations have demonstrated this conclusively. Kansas 

 station has found that "the purest bred corn secured from other States, 

 when grown under new conditions of soil * * * varies greatly in the 

 type and quality of the corn produced, and must be carefully bred and 

 selected again when planted in Kansas in order to secure a hardy and 

 productive type of corn which is adapted for growing in the new 

 environment." This bit of experimental knowledge is in perfect accord 

 with Darwin's observation that "When plants are removed from their 

 natural conditions they are extremely liable to have their reproductive 

 systems seriously affected," and that "Organic beings, long habituated 

 to certain uniform conditions in a state of nature, when subjected to a 

 considerable change in their conditions, very frequently are rendered 

 more or less sterile." The works and observations of Messrs. Bailey and 

 Webber have enabled them to voice practically the same opinion as that 

 advanced by Darwin. 



