LIXXEAX SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



45 



parenchyma, as found in Hijmenophi ilium scahrum. The isolated 

 inner endodermis is probably a relic ot" a previously better- 

 developed system of endodermal pockets, or of the latter connected 

 with a central tube of endodermis, but without internal phloem 

 (?'. e., in the latter case, the ectophloic siphonostelic type of 

 Jeffrey). The third possibility, that the structure of Scluz(m may 

 have been reduced from the solenostelic type (?". e. with internal 

 phloem and endodermis), such as is found in some species of Anemia, 

 is not excluded, though no evidence can at present be brought 

 forward in support of this \ie\x. 



December -1th, 1902. 



Leguminous Plants recommended by Virgil to restore Exhausted 

 Soil. By Dr. George Henderson, F.L.S. 



A few days ago it was pointed out to me by my friend 

 Sir Annesley De Eeuzy that in Virgil's first Georgic, line 73, the 

 poet, after recommending a system of fallowing, proposes as an 

 alternative, and a means of restoring the fertility of the soil, 

 that before taking a second grain-crop, the soil should be re- 

 fertilized, by planting it with a leguminous crop. Tlie Romans, 

 it would seem, believed that these plants actually enriched the soil, 

 especially if the roots were ploughed in. 



Virgil, Georgics I., lines 71-7S. 



Alternis idem tonsas cessare novales, 

 Et segnem patiere situ durescere campum ; 

 Aut ibi flava seres mutato sidere farra, 

 Unde prius laetum siliqua quassante legumen, 

 Aut tenuis foetus vicioe, tristisque lupini 

 Sustuleris fragiles calamos, silvamque souantem. 

 Urit enim hni campum seges, urit avenae, 

 Urunt Lethseo perfusa papavera somno. 



\J£i'anskttionJ^ 



You will also permit your fields from which you reap your 

 harvest to lie idle each alternate year and the indolent ground to 

 be strengthened by rest. 



Or the season being changed you shall sow the golden barley 

 whence formerly you had borne away the luxuriant pulse, in their 

 rattling pods or the slender produce of the Vetch, or the bitter 

 Lupin's fragile stalks and rustling straw. 



For a crop of flax burns up the soil and so does one of oats, 

 and so do the poppies steeped in the slumbers of Lethe. 



It seems remarkable that the late discoveries about the nitrifica- 

 tion of soil by means of the roots of the Leguminosae should have 

 been foreshadowed so long ago by a people who could have known 

 nothing of chemistry or vegetable physiology. It also seems 

 strange that it took so long to ascertain anything definite as to 



