1880.1 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



247 



grows abundantly on the lots around this city 

 and is a powerful narcotic." 



Can any of our readers tell what is " Pick- 

 weed " in New England ? " Pickweed " in some 

 parts of England is a large leaved Chenopodium, 

 and which is eaten as spinach ; but we suppose 

 this is not the plant of "New England." 



The Origin of Life. — No one who sees any 

 form of plant-life but wonders if it were always 

 as it is now. The history of the earth shows 

 that there has been a succession of forms in 

 plant-life. Thousands of species have become 

 extinct ; and yet there is no reason to believe 

 that the number of species on the earth's surface 

 is any less than it was before these thousands of 

 missing ones died. It may be accepted as an un- 

 doubted truth that plants were not all created at 

 one time, but that there has been a continuous suc- 

 cession of created forms. Then we look at a plant 

 and note that it is made up of living cells. The 

 matter of which the cells are made is little more 

 than senseless clay — it is but earthy matter and 

 gases; but it becomes endowed with some 

 power of selection and power of reproduction, 

 and we call this plant-life. How did these selec- 

 tive and reproductive powers originate? How 

 did " life " obtain this power over the senseless 

 elements ? How did life become a part of inor- 

 ganic matter? And how, when it once got con- 

 trol, did all these various forms arise? These 

 constitute what is known as questions of evolu- 

 tion and spontaneous generation. Notwith- 

 standing the most careful studies the knowledge 

 has not yet been reduced to scientific certainty. 

 There is as yet no evidence that it would be safe 

 to accept that any live creature, no matter how 

 simple, has been produced from anything but 

 had life before; and, notwithstanding the truth 

 is manifest that there has been a succession of 

 forms, IS there any direct evidence that any great 

 class of plants has been derived from others that 

 are gone. They look alike, and we can trace re- 

 semblances, but we cannot see the truth so clearly 

 that all must of necessity embrace it. 



The Movements of Plants. — Mr. Charles Dar- 

 win, the industrious worker among the mysteries 

 of plant-life, is earnestly at work studying those 

 plants which have peculiar motions, and will 

 probably publish ere long. Though advancing 

 in years he is comparatively strong and vigo- 

 rous, and all will hope that he will have yet many 

 more years in which to continue his useful labors. 



Drouth in Kansas. — Kansas seems to be fall- 



ing back on its original drouthy reputation. 

 A correspondent from Fort Larned writes that 

 not a soaking rain has fallen between the Big 

 Arkansas and the Rocky Mountains in twenty- 

 two months, and that the Arkansas Eiver is 

 entii-ely dry from Hutchinson westward. Large 

 numbers of settlers are leaving. 



Freezing of the Sap in Plants. — In many 

 discussions differences of opinions arise from 

 failure of one side to grasp just what the other 

 means. A good illustration of this is furnished 

 by the following from the pen of Mr. Hovey to 

 the London Garden: "Does the sap of trees 

 freeze? This is a question which has been in 

 dispute, and some of your contemporaries here do 

 not believe in the theory. Under certain condi- 

 tions, however, there can be no doubt the sap 

 does freeze, and under others probably not. So 

 far as sugar and starch freeze, just so far a tree 

 will freeze ; but the sap does freeze. I have had 

 strong plants of Tea Roses frozen so hard as to 

 split open the stem and the exuded sap to com- 

 pletely cover the wood with a coating of thin 

 ice; and I cannot doubt that any tree before it 

 has finished its winter hibernation will freeze 

 when the cold is severe enough. There is a row 

 of Lime trees on Boston Common which freeze 

 so hard in our severe winters as to open the 

 trunk for the distance of twenty feet or more 

 from the ground fully one inch in diameter. I 

 have put my hand in the crack. Yet these same 

 trees in July would show no more signs of the 

 opening than a mere vertical line of extravasated 

 tissue. I have recently read in the papers that 

 trees in the Jardin des Plantes were split from 

 top to bottom by the frost." 



Now there is scarcely a person of experience 

 in cold countries but has seen trees split from 

 the top to the bottom by frost. If such persons 

 still believe that " sap does not freeze," it ought 

 at once to suggest that they understand by that 

 something diflferent from what the one under- 

 stands who calls attention to the split trees. 



Now what is really meant is that the sap in 

 living healthy cells does not freeze. If it did, 

 every tree in Massachusetts would be as surely 

 bound to split as the " row of Li me trees on Boston 

 Common." A hundred bottles of water set on 

 " Boston Common " would all split if one did. 

 Frost knows no such favoritism as smiting one 

 row of bottles and letting all the rest alone- 

 The action of frost is always uniform under 

 equal circumstances. But in a tree only a few 

 outer rows of the woody circles contain living 



