118 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[April, 



not say so, I said the 100 plants — meaning such 

 of them of course as showed to be in condition 

 to receive it were fed almost daily, the point 

 with us being to place the insect in the trap 

 when its indications showed it to be in the 

 proper condition to close on it. Any one who 

 has seen the Dionsea growing in a healthy condi- 

 tion knows that each plant in the course of 

 three months would develope from ten to twenty 

 of these leaf traps, but developed of course, as 

 the plant grows, — not all at once. 



That being the case in our experiment, there 

 was never at any time any " accumulation " of 

 the insects, as Mr. Seeyle from his mis-reading 

 of my article assumes there was. Then he 

 triumphantly says: "If the insects remained 

 upon and about the plants unappropriated by 

 them, this ends the whole question." But un- 

 fortunately for the "ending of the question" 

 the insects did not remain, they "dissolved," 

 but whether their dissolution was due to one of 

 nature's laws that we know something of— de- 

 composition — or whether they were " assimila- 

 ted " as Mr. Darwin would say, leaves the 

 question, as far as my judgment goes, yet an 

 open one. All that has been said yet by our 

 experiments is only to flatly contradict those 

 made by Mr. Francis Darwin as regards any 

 improvement shown by such "feeding." 



It would be edifying to know to enable com- 

 parison to be made, what means Mr. Darwin 

 had for making his experiments, or how they 

 were conducted. We have some knowledge of 

 how such experiments are usually conducted by 

 amateurs, and we have rarely seen them to be 

 such as to give professional horticulturists much 

 respect for the deductions they draw. 



The question whether these plants thrive bet- 

 ter with such " food " is not a subordinate one 

 as Mr. Seeyle says it is. Darwin gives it as proof 

 of his extraordinary theory, and if experiments 

 fairly made will show that such treatment im- 

 proves their growth, over those not so treated, 

 then he has gained a strong point. Our experi- 

 ments made, we think under the most favorable 

 conditions, and in the most careful manner 

 showed conclusively that no change or improve- 

 ment took place. Mr. Darwin had asserted that 

 his "meat fed" plants were much better than 

 those " unfed," and our trial was made solely 

 in the interest of science and with the sole de- 

 sire to get at the truth ; and for that reason not 

 wishing to place my single experiment against 

 such an authority as Mr. Darwin, as having set- 



tled the question, I offered then, as I offer now, 

 to send without charge, a sulficient number of 

 plants of the Dionrea to any one who wishes to 

 test the question, having the proper means to 

 try the experiment. 



Professor Beal, your other coi'respondent on 

 this subject, raises what seems to me to be a 

 very tritling objection to our experiment in say- 

 ing that Mr. Francis Darwin's trial was with 

 the Drosera rotundifolia, while ours was made 

 with the Diona^a muscipula. But Mr. Darwin 

 says that both these plants are insect eaters, 

 and inasmuch as they are near relatives of the 

 same family (Droseracefe), surely if one im- 

 proved by being " meat fed" it was fair to pre- 

 sume the other would. Professor Beal further 

 says that though he tried to feed his tomatoes 

 through their glandular hairs with beef soup, 

 but damaged them thereby, it probably having 

 been too strong, he does not think that such 

 failure has overthrown Mr. Darwin's theory. 

 In this I entirely agree with him. Such an ex- 

 periment would never be likely to overthrow 

 or confirm anything. 



The question whether or not certain plants 

 are insect-eating is not yet settled ; that the 

 wondrous rat-trap like structure of the Dionsea 

 leaf should make men jump to the conclusion 

 that nature designed them to eat the insect that 

 they caught is not to be wondered at ; but that 

 it is certain that after catching their prey they 

 devour them, we do not think has been proved 

 by Mr. Darwin or any one else. Nature shows 

 many such instances where insect life is " trap- 

 ped " by plants. The gummy exudations from 

 scores of different species of plants are covered 

 with insects, the butterfly and bumble bee are 

 found impaled on the spines of the thistle and 

 the burdock ; the pond lily, Nymphea alba, 

 spreads its petals in the sun light, and when 

 night comes and closes them, scores of insects 

 are often found imprisoned in a single flower. 

 The Physianthus albens, which Professor 

 Thurber has well named the "cruel plant," 

 catches almost every unfortunate moth or but- 

 terfl}^ that tries to sip the nectar from its flower 

 cup, and dozens may be seen dangling dead and 

 dying from asingle plant ; but are these ti-apped 

 for the purpose of being "assimilated" by the 

 plants? Certainly not, yet when we find the 

 Dionoea closing on a fly and holding him there, 

 (it will close on and hold a wad of moist paper 

 or cotton exactly tlie same), it is said that it 

 kills to eat. 



