282 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[September, 



Freezing the Sap. — Geo. W. D., Kent, 0., 

 writes : " I was much interested in what was 

 said in your vahiable Monthly in regard to 

 foliation and heat, but was, I confess, startled 

 by your statement that the sap is never frozen 

 in the living cells without killing, those cells 

 dying afterwards. I grant that if the cells 

 and ducts were full of sap, this would be the 

 result, but I believe the truth of the matter 

 to be that when the tree is in its dormant 

 state they are not full, and in this state what 

 moisture remains can be, and is frozen without 

 bursting the cells and without injury to the tree. 

 I have noticed that in very cold weather the 

 young shoots of trees are smaller, and that the 

 thin outer bark is wrinkled in consequence of 

 the slirinkage." 



[The observation of our correspondent is quite 

 correct. Not only do twigs shrivel under severe 

 frost, but the actual girth of a tree is less after a 

 few hours of severe frost than it was before. In 

 experiments made by the writer of this, there 

 has been as much as a quarter of an inch 

 shrinkage in a luxuriant silver maple tree about 

 three feet round before the thermometer fell to 

 near zero. Now if the sap froze the trunk would 

 expand and not shrink. It should not be for- 

 gotten that when moisture is in a finely divided 

 condition it does not " freeze." The atmosphere 

 in winter is often full of moisture, though the 

 thermometer may be at zero, and moisture in 

 trees is so constituted that it does not freeze 

 under low temperatures, but evaporates through 

 the tissues, and the branches shrink just as our 

 correspondent has noticed. Some trees or 

 plants have not this power. A geranium has 

 not. Its sap does freeze, and the plant is killed ; 

 but when trees die in winter, that do not have 

 their sap freeze, they die because the branches 

 dry up. The sap does not freeze, it evaporates. 

 —Ed. G. M.] 



Honey Dew.— D. S., Newburgh, N. Y., writes : 

 " I trust you will pardon me for asking of you 

 some information in relation to what is usually 

 called Honey Dew. 



From my boyhood I have noticed that at cer- 

 tain seasons of the year, usually about the mid- 

 dle or latter part of June, the leaves of certain 

 of the forest and fruit trees were covered with a 

 viscid saccharine substance, not very unlike 

 honey in substance and taste, hence for want of 

 a better name, the farmers gave it that of honey 

 dew. By informing the readers of your valuable 

 magazine what this substance is, and how it jg 



produced, j'ou will confer a favor and satisfy 

 many an anxious mind. If as Chambers asserts 

 in his Encyclopaedia, under the head of Honey 

 Dew, it is an exudation from the leaves, how 

 shall we account for its being found only on 

 certain kinds of trees, and also in greater quanti- 

 ties on some than other years. From observa- 

 tion I have learned that at times it has been 

 found on the Oak, Chestnut, Elm, Cherry, &c.; 

 and this year, I am reliably informed, it was 

 found in equal quantity covering the share of a 

 plow that had been left exposed on the surface 

 of the ground over night, not far from an elm that 

 was covered with it, the wood portion of the plow 

 showing no indication of its presence. Some to 

 whom the matter has been referred, insist it is an 

 animalcule, but give no satisfactory reason for its 

 appearance. Others with far less reason assert 

 that it is produced by the aphides that are often 

 found apparently feeding on it. 



Thus j'^ou see the dilemma that we are in; can 

 you extricate us from it?" 



[Honey dew is a secretion from the foliage, 

 resulting from the change of starchy matter 

 which always exists in the leaves of plants, into 

 saccharine. Sometimes it is produced in such 

 abundance as to fall to the ground ; and we 

 know of no reason why it might not be on the 

 wood as well as the iron of a plow, except that 

 it did not happen to fall on the wood, — or the 

 wood might have absorbed the liquid. We 

 could not give the " why" of this question, un- 

 less we examined the case ourselves. 



Why honey dew only appears on certain trees, 

 or in greater quantities or none at all some years 

 than others, must be answered pretty much as 

 one would answer a question why some people 

 had dropsy or none at all. The production is 

 abnormal, and depends wholly on unusual cir- 

 cumstances for its production. Very little is 

 known of the precise way in which the honey 

 dew is brought about. Perhaps if those who had 

 the opportunity to observe had not, as they have 

 concluded, — aphides always at the root of it, — 

 we might know more than we do. — Ed. G. M.] 



Wax-wort. — J. D. H., Peacedale, R. I., writes: 

 ■'On the rocky hills of 'Salem, Mass., I observed 

 effects of golden flowers that almost rivaled the 

 famous Gorse of Great Britain. Upon inquiry, 

 I found it was called Wax-wort, that is said to 

 have been imported from England long ago, and 

 having spread from gardens into fields as a great 

 foe of farmers, and an almost inexhaustible one. 



