120 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



{April, 



of the gases given oft' by beef tea, would cause 

 an acid reaction in the leaves of the plants. 



If Prof. Beal had made a stand directly under 

 the leaves of his plants, and placed putrid beef 

 tea on that stand, he might have noticed con- 

 sidei-able difference in the growth of his plants. 

 The fresh beef tea placed directly on the leaves 

 clogged the pores, hence the damaged appear- 

 ance. 



In conclusion, sir, 1 am well aware that facts, 

 not theories, are what the Gakdener's Month- 

 ly requires. Still theories are always the fore- 

 ]-unners of facts. I am also aware that my 

 theories or ideas are crude ; but if they are wrong 

 some of your able writers will soon dispel my 

 illusions, and I shall be well repaid by the 

 knowledge I gain. On the other hand if any 

 part of them be correct, it rhay help to arrive at 

 the truth, and at the same time entertain your 

 readers. I am sure I have spent many a pleas- 

 ant hour in the examination of the Drosera, and 

 an 3' of your readers can do the same, as the 

 plants are quite common and can be had for the 

 cost of collecting. As a means of arriving at 

 the truth I would suggest : 1. That the experi- 

 menter disabuse his mind as to the correctness 

 of any theory whatever. 2. That a thorough 

 microscopic examination of the structural pecu- 

 liai'ities of the Drosera family be made. 3. 

 That all tests made on the plants with food ex- 

 tend during the entire life of the plant. 4. 

 That the results of different foods be noted ; 

 also the chemical composition of these foods. 

 5. That a chemical examination of the soil in 

 which the plants are grown be made both before 

 planting and afterwards. 



[We have thought proper to allow a great deal 

 of latitude to our correspondents, and have let 

 them have their say on this question exactly in 

 their own manner and way, without a suggestion 

 or alteration of our own. We cannot now resist 

 the temptation to say that Mr. Forfar's opinions 

 are precisely ours. Mr. Darwin's views have 

 suff'ered much from the hands of friends who 

 have dealt in the sensational in science. Every 

 one now knows that leaves absorb carbonic acid, 

 and no gardener who has ever grown plants in the 

 heat from a dung bed, and compared their ama- 

 zing growth with that of plants grown in other 

 artificial heat l)ut must know that they can and 

 do absorb nitrogenous matter in the same way. 

 To us the chief value — and it was great value — of 

 Mr. Darwin's work was that for the first time we 

 had opened to us a view of the manner in which 



the work was done, and especially in connection 

 with those plants which had sensitive organs. 

 But we could never see why this power in plants 

 should be styled carnivorous in any special sense ^ 

 any more than that the grape should be specially 

 carnivorous because, as old garedners tell us, it 

 loves a dead carcass when buried near its roots. 

 We have little doubt but that if some one 

 would try 200 Dionseas or Droseras in a dung 

 bed, and 200 in an ordinary greenhouse, sup- 

 posing the temperature and other conditions to 

 be the same, the former would be found a& 

 "cai'nivorous" as any one could expect. — Ed. 

 G. M.] 



MR. HENDERSON'S EXPERIMENTS. 



BY PROF. C. V. RILEY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



I have read the account of Mr. Peter 

 Henderson's interesting experiments with 

 Dionrea muscipula, published in the Monthly, 

 and rei)roduced in many other horticultural and 

 agricultural papers. 



In a recent lecture delivered before our Dis- 

 trict of Columbia Horticultural Society, on the 

 relations between insects and plants, I took oc- 

 casion to refer to these experiments ; but as the 

 lecture was not published, permit me to publicly 

 express my belief in your columns, that, not- 

 withstanding the care with which the experi- 

 ments were made, the period covered by them 

 was too short to give much weight to the con- 

 clusions arrived at, seeing that these conclu- 

 sions are opposed to those of many other care- 

 ful and painstaking experimentors who have 

 studied diffei'ent insect-catching plants. As a 

 practical gardener, Mr. Henderson will not deny 

 that many plants with tender foliage may be 

 nourished, and are, in fact, frequently nourished 

 by the application of liquid manure to their 

 leaves, and this fact being admitted, it is reason- 

 able to suppose that a plant like Dionaia, which 

 has a special contrivance for obtaining animal 

 matter, and special glands for digesting andi 

 assimilating it, should still more fully benefit 

 thereby. 



The conclusions of Curtis, Canby, Dr. 

 Burdon-Sanderson, Hooker, the Darwins, Keiss, 

 Kellerman, Von Raumer, Mrs. Treat and 

 others cannot be so easily upset when they con- 

 firm that which seems so plausible ; and I 

 would suggest to Mr. Henderson that if he 

 should continue his experiments during a longer 

 period, he would in time, discover a decided 

 difference in favor of the insect-fed plants, or 



