374 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[December, 



Sugar from Sorghum. — There seems no doubt 

 now of the success of this industry. In Cape 

 May county, New Jersey, the enterprise is now in 

 its third year, and from all accounts it is quite 

 profitable. 



The Lattice-Leaf Plant. — This wonderfully 

 interesting water plant, which seems to have leaves 

 made up only of veins, without any green con- 

 necting tissue, is among the latest additions to the 

 excellent collection of Mr. Sturtevant, of Borden- 

 town, N. J. 



Dead Wood on Trees. — The editor of this 

 magazine, stated in these columns some years 

 ago that a dead branch on a tree makes almost as 

 great a strain on the main plant for moisture as 

 does a living one, and many of the practical di- 

 rections in this magazine have been based on this 

 fact. Some good people, not satisfied with the 

 authority, called Prof. Bessey's attention to the 

 statement, who thus replies in the New York 

 Tribune : 



" I have been asked whether the statement 

 lately going the rounds of the American papers 

 that ' a dead branch on a tree makes almost as 

 great a strain on the main plant for moisture as 

 does a living one ' is accurate or not The state- 

 ment is coupled with another referring to its prac- 

 tical application in tree culture, the conclusion 

 being that every dead branch ' should be at once 

 cut away.' Briefly it might be answered that the 

 first statement is true in the main, and that, with- 

 out any doubt at all, the conclusion is a wise one, 

 and ought to be followed in practice. To explain 

 this matter will take considerably more space, and 

 in order to understand it we must go to vegetable 

 physiology and inquire into the nature of the 

 evaporation of water from plants. It was long 

 supposed to be a physiological process, and was 

 considered to be entirely different from ordinary 

 physical evaporation. As long as this view was 

 held the process was called transpiration, to dis- 

 tinguish it from the physical process. The breath- 

 ing pores, the stomata, which occur in the epider- 

 mis of all leaves in great numbers, were supposed 

 to be organs of transpiration, which was consid- 

 ered to be one of the most important functions of 

 the leaf" 



Epicures Among Birds. ^Birds and beasts 

 have their epicurean tastes and will go through a 

 good deal of labor for the sake of a very little tit- 

 bit. In Australia there is a species of pigeon 

 (Carpophaga spilorhoa) which feeds, or rather 

 takes a sort of appetizer, on the fruit of a combre- 

 taceous plant, named Terminalia melanocarpa. 

 This fruit is little more than a hard stone, an inch 

 long, with the thinnest kino of a sarcocarp. It 

 certainly can afford no nourishment to its greedy 

 devourers, but must be enjoyed solely for the ex- 



tremely bitter and to human beings very unpleas- 

 ant taste. — Independent. 



Sheep-Killing Kalmia. — It now having been 

 clearly demonstrated by chemical analysis, as pub- 

 lished in the Gardeners' Monthly, that there is 

 no poison in the leaves of Kalmia, some other 

 theory has to be guessed at, and a correspondent 

 of a foreign horticultural journal states, as a result 

 of observation and experiment on his part, that 

 Kalmia latifolia (mountain laurel) kills sheep that 

 eat its leaves, not because of any poisonous prop- 

 erties in the leaf, but because of injuries caused in 

 the animal's stomach by the sharp edges of the 

 leaves. 



Variety in Nature — Some attention is just 

 now being paid in Europe to the singular circum- 

 cumstance of almost identical variations from nor- 

 mal specific forms appearing simultaneously in 

 widely separated localities. This has long been 

 noted in this country and the facts placed on 

 record. The form of the bird's-foot violet, Viola 

 pedata, which has the two upper petals purple or 

 crimson, as in the pansy, is often found in various 

 parts of our country. It has also been recorded 

 that the form of blackberry with very large 

 heart-shaped leaves is very local yet widely scat- 

 tered. A curious variety of raspberry — once raised 

 to the dignity of a species by Prof Peck as Rubus 

 neglectus — occasionally appears as isolated plants 

 in localities a long distance apart. The facts are 

 of great importance to the evolutionist. If species 

 are only varieties more advanced, and if identical 

 varieties will appear from different individuals a 

 long way separated, there is no necessity for the 

 belief that all species sprung from a sohtary indi- 

 vidual in the usual sense of the word, and then 

 spread from one common center. Identical species 

 may have had several home centers. — Inde- 

 pendettf. 



Battles Between Ants. — Horticulturists 

 have excellent opportunities to observe natural 

 phenomena, denied to many others. Studies in 

 ants are especially interesting. They fight like 

 human beings, seeming to have their generals, 

 captains and privates, with regular military ma- 

 nceuvres as human beings have. Dr. Henry Mc- 

 Cook, of Philadelphia, has given histories of these 

 creatures, which, only for general observation 

 confirming what he says, might be almost regarded 

 as fictitious. They are following after our investi- 

 gation in the old world. A recent number of Le 

 Temps records a battle lasting seven days, and 

 reporting that the armies started every day at 



