1S4 



7///-; C.ih'PF.A'/.h' S MOXrill.Y 



[ June, 



plants liivvc" not .succt-H-.clod, or li;iv»' uctuncd 

 without. furtluT conseciuimci- y Tlu* last Franco. 

 Cu'iinan war fiirnislu's sucli an instance. About 

 IGM (lilVcrc.nt hj»ch'Jcs of i)lant.s were in»j)orte(l into 

 France in tlie. fora<;(' ()!" (Jcrman lior.ses. Not 

 finding favorable cicnu'nt.s tiicrc, tlicv u'Jaduallj 

 disappeared, nil but seven of l.bon, wliicb arc 

 now citizens of French soil. 



The.se phenomena of vepictalion .an l)c ex- 

 plained by physiological laws, by the eternal 

 ninlation of chemical and pliysical prop(>rties of 

 the soil, and by climatic inllucnces. 



There rci<;ns in nature a constant motion, a 

 continual chans;e, the laws of which are fixed 

 and immnlablc. The change already of one sin- 

 Cle factor of the conditions of vejietation of a 

 place or country ]>roduces a correspondinji 

 chauire in its plants or in their vitality. Take 

 the trolible and mark on your next meadow the 

 spot where a certain plant now grows, return to 

 it after one or several yeara and you will not find 

 it there any more, but replaced by some other 

 one. The same takes place in the woods, only 

 trees live longer, and .so the changi^ takes more 

 yeai-s. Every pomologist knows that, in the 

 place of a dead fruit tree, no new one of the 

 same kind can l)e planted without giving it new 

 soil. 



Every jjlant, in accordances with its specific 

 individuality, appropriates to itself such ele- 

 ments of the soil as are most suitable, return- 

 ing to the soil the un.suitable ones, which, how- 

 ever, are absorbed in their turn by other and dif- 

 ferent plant.s. 



This explains a steafly change of our earth's 

 green dress. 



Greater attention to this process and more 

 precise, records of its details seem to be most 

 desirable. 



SEEDING OF WISTARIA SINENSIS. 



l$y A COURE.SPOXDKNT, nOSTOX, MASS. 



The fact that Wvilaria sinensis, \\\\ii\\ support- 

 ed, that is, grown as a climber — if I understand 

 the phraseology — is seedless ; while the "tree" or 

 self-supporting plant bears "ruit abundantly. 

 This, which Mr. M^elian allud3S to in his paper 

 ''On the Laws Governing the Production of Seed 

 in IVisfarnsinensis, (see Gardener's Monthly. 

 page 152), is hardly of very general application. 

 The fii'st time I ever saw Wistaria in fruit was 

 two years ago, when I saw a plant well covered 

 with pods running over the porch of a house in 

 New Jersey. In this latitude (Boston), the Wis- 



taria rarely I'l iiit.-', hut last year vv:u«i exceptional. 

 Three staiuJards of "Tree Wistaria" came under 

 my notice — two bore no fruit, and the third, al- 

 though a vi'ry large plant, had then a dozen, 

 while two supported plants in the same neigh- 

 l)orhoi»d were loailed with pods. 



1 Newspaper abstracts seldom do more than 

 let the reader know that a paper of the nature 

 indicated has been ottered. The paragraph we 

 gave, was just as it appeared in o\ir conteini)orary, 

 and as mere news. The Wistaria fiu-t was nu^rely 

 uiven to illustrate the dilFereMit efVects of vegeta- 

 tive from reproductive force; and we; fan<;y, if 

 our correspondent gets an opportunity to read 

 the whole article, ho will nol lind much to ob- 

 ject to. In relation to the Wistaria itself and 

 its seeding, we are not sure just now that the 

 original pa[»er says the Wistaria never produces 

 seeds except as a tree, any more that it alum, s 

 seeds when grown on tl tnu' ; for we certainly 

 know of tree Wistarijis which do not seed some- 

 times. But the words, if employed at all, are in 

 a general sense. The jirinciijles sought to be 

 illustrated in i]w paper, will show that there can- 

 not be this exact dividing line, for it will be 

 seen that it is not a (jut stion of support, or non- 

 support, but of exhausted vegetative force that 

 governs seed production. It may, and no doubt 

 often does happen, that this exhaustion will occur 

 as well or better on sqme vines which have run 

 over trellises than in the self-supi>ortmg case ; and 

 when this occurs Mr. McehaiTs paper will show 

 the plant ought to be correspondingly more pro- 

 ductive.~Ep. G. M.] 



EDITCmiAL NOTES. 



New Varieties nv Gr.vftixg.— The experi- 

 ments on apples, by the editor of the Garden- 

 er's Mokthly, show that new varieties can be 

 o])tained by grafting ; and observations, previ- 

 ously recorded by other persons in various 

 departments of culture, ))rove that the very old 

 idea is not without some foimdation. During 

 the visit of the Emperor of Brazil to the sugar 

 plantations, he communicated to some gentle- 

 men there that new varieties of sugar-cane had 

 been originated by grafting, and promised 

 to send the documents in relation thereto. 

 These have been recently received and trans- 

 lations made, by which it a])pears that a variety 

 known as St. Julian was obtained in that way. 

 It was raised by Commander Julian Ribeiro de 

 Castro by splice-grafting ; the Cayenne being 

 the stock and the Molle being the scion. The 



