106 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



who have apjjles frozen accideutallj-, and don't go through successfulh', is 

 simpl}- that he bnilds his on the ground. He has a perfectly stable body, 

 it is not disturbed by winds, it is not disturbed in any way, and even when 

 he took his piano-box he put it up against the barn where it was likely 

 to be steady, and I think one secret of his success is in not moving them 

 when they are frozen. Let me tell another instance : I had, when I was a 

 boy, a plant of which I thought a great deal. It was an abutilon. It 

 froze hard enough so that it was cracked open. I took it with the utmost 

 care, without disturbing it, and sat it in a room and thawed it out slowly, 

 and it did not seem to be hurt by the freezing. I took the greatest care 

 not to disturb it, not to shake it. I accorded it a good deal more attention 

 than I would a basket of eggs, made every effort not to jar it in the least; 

 and I think frozen vegetation, if allowed to thaw where it is not disturbed 

 while the ice particles are in the various cells, will go through a good deal 

 more freezing than we suppose. 



Prof. Waite: This question of freezing and thawing of fruits and plants 

 brings up a very interesting theory that has been brought forward to ac- 

 count for it, and which possibly ma^' be of interest to the members of 

 the society. It goes back to Nagle's theory of the structure of vegetable 

 tissues. 



In the first place, you know that vegetable tissues, such as that of an 

 apple or an onion, contain a large quantity of water and also contain 

 solid matter, wood fibre, sugar, salts, and protoplasm, which latter is 

 something like the white of an eg^. Nagle's theory is that the solid mat- 

 ter is not evenl}' diffused through the watery portion, and that even in the 

 solid portions, as in the cell walls and the fibres, the woody portions, the 

 solid matter is in groups which he calls mj'celhie. Between those groups 

 of solid matter the water is arranged. The freezing of any mixture, or of 

 at least most mixtures, of water and solid matter, is more difficult, re- 

 quires a lower temperature, than the freezing of pure water; as, for 

 instance, the freezing of salt water takes a greater degree of cold than the 

 freezing of pure water, so that in the freezing of an apple, onion, or the 

 green leaf of a plant, the formation of the crystals within the solid mat- 

 ter requires a lower temperature than the freezing of water, for the 

 reason that the solid particles hold to this water as long as possible, with 

 a certain degree of strength, and that the water has to be pulled out with 

 a degree of force from them and formed on the crvstal. The crvstal now 

 slowly forms, be it embodied in the protoplasm or in the cell wall, under 

 tension. The living portions of the plants, the cell walls and the proto- 

 plasm, have had a large portion of their water taken out and formed into 

 crystals. If that is suddenly thawed we have a new drop of pure water in 

 contact with living protoplasm and cell wall. The result is death. By 

 the way, pure water is one of the greatest poisons to plant life, if it touches 

 protoplasm. It is a strange thing, but it is true, and if the crystals within 

 the cells are suddenly thawed and the water comes in contact, it dies and 

 rots. Now, what do we have when we thaw an apple out slowly? This 

 tension still remains, the solid portions are still pulling at the molecules 

 of water in the crystal. If the rise in temperature comes very slowly, the 

 moment a molecule of water is warmed enough so that the crystal loosens 

 its hold upon it, it drops back into place among the solid particles; and 

 if that goes on slowly enough there is a slow procession of the water from 

 the crystal back into position in the living tissues, and they come out 



