FOREIGN AND AHSCELLANEOUS NOTICES. 



tremely in quality according to the manner in 

 which it is treated. 



We are .sure that our readers will he greatly 

 obliged to M. de Jonghe for having given us 

 the mean.s of preventing much disappointment 

 to all parties by thus pointing out the true 

 cliaracter of a variety, wliich, in the absence of 

 sucli an examination, would soon have found 

 its way into the market as a great novelty, with 

 a very fine name, and with a price high in pro- 

 portion to the .skill witli whieh it would have 

 been puffed. — Gardeners' Chronicle. 



The Roots of Plants. — It is long since we 

 paused from our observations on the science of 

 gardening, but we will now resume (from vol. 

 iii. p. 330) our remarks relative to the roots 

 of plants. 



We have seen that plants search after and ac- 

 quire food by the agency of their roots; and 

 the extremities of these appear to be the chief, 

 if not the only parts employed, in the sucking- 

 in of all food not in a gaseous state, for M. Du- 

 hamel observed that that portion of a soil was 

 soonest exhausted in which the greateet num- 

 ber of the extremities of the roots were as- 

 sembled. (Physique des Arhres, vol. iii.) 



M. M. Sennebier and Carradori found that 

 if roots of the carrot, scorzonera, and radish 

 are placed in water, some with onlj^ their ex- 

 tremities immersed, and others with their en- 

 tire surfaces plunged in, except the extremi- 

 ties, the former imbibe the water rapidly, 

 and the plants continue vegetating; but the 

 others imbibe no perceptible quantity, and 

 speedily wither. It suggests also the reason why 

 the gardener, in applying water or manure to 

 trees or shrubs, does so at a distance from their 

 stems. A good rule for ascertaining the pro- 

 per distance for sucli applications, seems to be 

 to make them beneath the circumference of the 

 head of the tree; for, as M. De CandoUe ob- 

 served, there is usually a relation between that 

 and the length of the roots, so that the rain 

 falling upon the foilage is poured off most 

 abundantly at the distance most desirable for 

 reaching the extremities of the roots. 



This explains why the fibrous points of roots 

 are usually annually renewed, and the caudex 

 (or main limb of the root) extended in length: 

 by these means they each year shoot forth into 

 a fresh soil, always changing their direction to 

 where most food is to be obtained. If the ex- 

 tremity of the root is to be cut off, it cea.ses to 

 increase in length, but enlarges its circle of ex- 

 tension by lateral shoots. 



The distance to which the roots of a plant ex- 

 tend is much greater than is usually imagined ; 

 and one reason of the stunted growth of plants 

 in a poor soil is, that the sap collected and 

 elaborated by them has to be expended in the 

 extension of the roots, wliich have to be larger 

 in proportion as the pasturage near home is 

 scanty. An acorn accidentally deposited on a 

 oduced a young oak ; but this made no 

 ess until its root had descended the whole 



height of the wall, and had penetrated 

 at is base. 



In deep, poor siliceous soils we have traced 

 the roots of trees from twelve to fourteen feet 

 perpendicular without reaching their termina- 

 tion. Those of the Canada thistle, seven feet; 

 common fern, eight feet; wheat, thirty inches; 

 oats twenty-four inches; potatoes, eighteen 

 inches; onions, twenty inches; carrots, pars- 

 nips, and beet, two feet. The distance to which 

 roots will travel, and their tenacity of life, 

 render them often very obnoxious to the gar- 

 dener. Thus tlie common couch grass ( Triti- 

 cum repens) is the most troublesome of weeds, 

 for every fragment of its far-spreading roots 

 will vegetate ; and the sweet-scented coltsfoot 

 and lemon mint are not less to be avoided, for 

 the same cause renders them extremely diffi- 

 cult of extirpation, and they never can be kept 

 within moderate bounds. Yet these creeping 

 rooted plants are not to be condemned without 

 exception ; for whoever has grounds under his 

 care bordering upon the sea-shore, the sands 

 of which are troublesomely light and shifting, 

 may have them effectually bound down by in- 

 oculating them with .slips of the root of these 

 grasses, Ehjinus arenarius, C'arex arenaria, 

 and jlrundo arenaria. 



The roots of plants, unless frozen, are con- 

 stantly imbibing nourishment, and even develop- 

 ing parts; for if the roots of trees planted dur- 

 ing the winter be examined after an interval of 

 a few weeks, they will be found to have emitted 

 fresh raidcles. 



It is by their extremities, then, that roots 

 imbibe food ; Init the orifices of these are so 

 minute, that they can only admit such as is in 

 a state of solution. Carbon reduced to an im- 

 palpable powder, being insoluble in water, 

 though offered to the roots of several plants, 

 mingled with that fluid, has never been observ- 

 ed to be absorbed by them; yet it is one of 

 their chief constituents, and is readily absorbed 

 in any combination which renders it fluid. 



Roots then must obtain from a soil nourish- 

 ment to plants in a gaseous or liquid state: Ave 

 may next, therefore, consider what constituents 

 of soils are capable of being presented in such 

 forms. Water can be the only solvent employ- 

 ed; indeed, so essential is this liquid itself, that 

 no plant can exist where it is entirely absent ; 

 and, on the other hand, many will exist with 

 their roots in ves.sels containing nothing but 

 distilled water. Plants with a broad surface 

 of leaves, as mint, beans, &c., we have always 

 found increase in carbonaceous matter, whilst 

 thus vegetating; but onions, hyacinths, &c., 

 with small surfaces of foliage, we, as invariably, 

 have finind to decrease in solid matters. The 

 first, at all times, obtain nourishment by de- 

 composing the carbonic acid gas of the at- 

 mosphere: the latter do so in a much smaller 

 proportion: hence the reason why the latter are 

 so much more impoverishing crops tha 

 former, inasmuch as that they acquire 

 all their solid matter by means of their 



