Outuber 23, 1873 ] 



JODBNAL OF HOSTICDLTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



311 



High caltivalion — the abundant supply of rich appropriate 

 manure — will work strange changes in all plants ; and we have 

 no doubt upon our minds that, as in many similar instances, 

 ' the muck heap ' has elevated the Asparagus of the beach into 

 the Asparagus of the garden. It is quite true that some gar- 

 deners have (ailed in effecting this change ; but, ou the other 

 hand, Miller and some more practitioners equally trustworthy 

 succeeded in their experiments directed to the same point ; and, 

 in cases like these, one affirmative testimony is unshaken by a 

 thousand negatives. (Even Cato was aware that the wild As- 

 paragus (Corruda), planted in rich moist soils, becomes that 

 which is cultivated. — Vc He liustica, 6.) 



" Cato flourished about 150 years before the Christian era, 

 and in his work just quoted we have a full detail of the mode of 

 cultivating the Asparagus pursued by the Romans. These di- 

 rections are an epitome of those which oct ur in Abercrombie, 

 Miller, or any other standard work on horticulture. They are 

 as follows : — ' You must well work a spot,' says Cato, ' that is 

 moist, or which has richness and depth of soil. Make the beds 

 80 that you may be able to clean and weed them ou each side ; 

 let there be a distance of half a foot between the plants. Set in 

 the seed, two or three in a place, in sti-aight line ; cover with 

 mould; then scatter some compost over the beds. At the vernal 

 equinox, when the plants come up, weed often, and take care 

 that the Asparagus is not plucked-up with the weeds. The year 

 you plant them, cover them with straw during the winter, that 

 they may not be killed. In the beginning of the spring after, 

 dress and weed them. The third year after you have sown 

 them, burn the haulm in the beginning of the spring. Do not 

 weed them before the plants come up, that you may not hurt 

 the stools. The third or fourth year you may pluck them close 

 by the root ; if you break them off they yield side shoots, and 

 some will die. You may take them until they run to seed. The 

 seed is ripe in autumn. When you have gathered the seed, 

 burn the haulm; and when the plants begin to shoot, weed 

 and manure. After eight or nine years, when the beds are old, 

 lay out a spot, work and manui'e it well, then make drills where 

 you may plant some roots ; set them well apart, that you may 

 dig between them. Take care that the roots may not be injured. 

 Carry as much sheep dung as you can on the beds ; it is best for 

 this purpose ; other manures produce weeds.' " 



We have extracted the foregoing from a volume we published 

 some years ago, to correct what Mr. Earley says upon the 

 derivation of the name of the plant and its early history. On 

 the more important subject, its successful cultivation, he is 

 more correct. We wUl make one extract and recommend the 

 little treatise to those who need information ou Asparagus 

 cnltare. 



" In instances where produce of the finest possible character is 

 the aim of the grower, irrespective of the time or trouble neces- 

 sary to obtain it, I strongly recommend the following system as 

 the right one to follow : — Select a piece of ground, in size ac- 

 cording to the number of plants required, clear out the soil to 

 the depth of 6 or 8 inches, and make the bottom level and hard 

 with cinder ashes or any other substance that the roots do not 

 like. Upon this make a provisional bed of the richest and best 

 materials procurable, from 15 to 20 inches in depth. Upon this 

 bed BOW the Asparagus seeds, about the 1st of May, in rows 

 about 3 feet apart, and at about 1 inch below the surface. The 

 seeds will soon germinate, and as soon as the plants are observed 

 to be growing freely, water them copiously with well-diluted 

 liquid manure during aU dry or moderately dry periods through- 

 out that summer. By these means a fine vigorous growth will 

 be assured. At as early a date as possible the plants should be 

 thinned-out, the strongest ones only being retained, and these 

 if possible at about 12 inches apart. 



" Having the permanent beds prepared as previously advised, 

 freshly forked over and made ready for the reception of the 

 yonng plants by an early date in the month of May of the foUow- 

 me year, proceed as follows with the transplanting : — Chop-out 

 a line between the rows in the seed-bed, and then between tho 

 plants in the rows. Then remove each plaut with as much soil 

 as possible, by passing the shovel along the surface of the hard 

 cinder bottom, to a previously prepared shallow trench in their 

 new quarters. Such trenches, as I have before stated, should be 

 3 feet apart, and the plants put in them at about 20 inches from 

 each other. 



" It will readily be seen that, by following this plan, a race of 

 young, robust plants will be formed, and which, so treated, will 

 be well able to carry a vigorous growth up to old ago. Plants 

 indifferently grown when young, and otherwise stinted and im- 

 poverished, cannot, and never will, produce fine Asparagus." 



Sir Montague Cholmeley, M.P.'s, and there died in harness. 

 Ho was a contributor to the Gardeners' Ueuevoleut Institution, 

 and I believe was on the committee of that excellent institution. 

 His contributions have also enriched this .Journal. The fol- 

 lowing is from his daughter — " My dear father departed this 

 life for a better on the 'Jth inst. He only kept liis bed a fort- 

 night. His end was peace." — J. Wkight. 



Mr.. Jons Edlinoton was of tho celebrated Thomson school. 

 He had many years' training at Wrotham, and subsequently, 

 after a worthy term in charge of Crom Castle Gardens, he was 

 called to the chief charge of Wrotham. He eventually suc- 

 ceeded to the interesting and qaaint old gardens at Eastou — 



THE MOVEMENTS OP THE GLANDS OF 

 DROSERA. 



• The peculiar movement of the glands which cover the mar- 

 gin and the upper side of the leaf of the Sundew has often 

 attracted the attention of botanists ; and having had the op- 

 portunity of observing it somewhat minutely during the past 

 autumn in Westmoreland, the following uotc^ may interest the 

 members of the Association. The observations were all made 

 on the commonest species — Drosorarotuudifolia. It should be 

 noted in the first place that the glands of Drosera are in no sense 

 hairs — that is, cellular expansions of the epidermis of the leaf. 

 They have been shown by Greenland and 'iruoul to be an inte- 

 gral part of the leaf itself, penetrated by a fibro-vascular bundle 

 with spiral threads (in other words, by a vein or nerve of the 

 leaf) from one end to tho other, and even furnished with sto- 

 mata on their surface. They terminate in a pellucid kaob, 

 within which is formed their peculiar viscid secretion. Under 

 a low magnifying power this secretion may bo seen coUected 

 about the knobs, and stretching in glutinous strings from one 

 to another. The secretion has probably an attraction for flies 

 and other small insects, as, if the plaut is examined in its 

 native bogs, scarcely a leaf will be found in which an insect is 

 not imprisoned, and one leaf will very often show as many as 

 three or four. The experiment was made of placing a very 

 small insect — a species of thrips — ou a leaf at that time quite 

 unencumbered, beneath a low power of the microscope. Im- 

 mediately on coming into contact with the viscid secretion, it 

 made vigorous efi'orts to escape, but these efforts only seemed 

 to entangle it all the more deeply. The contact of the insect 

 appeared to excite a stronger flow of the secretiou, which soon 

 enveloped the body of the animal in a dense and almost trans- 

 parent slime, firmly glueing down the wings, and rendering 

 escape hopeless. It still, however, continued its struggles, a 

 motion of the legs being still clearly perceptible after the lapse 

 of three hours. Daring all this time the insect was sinking 

 lower and lower down among the glands towards the surface 

 of the leaf, but only a slight change had taken place in the 

 position of the glands themselves, which had slightly converged 

 so as to imprision it more completely. But after the struggles 

 of tho prisoner had practically ceased, a remarkable change 

 took place in the leaf. Almost the whole of the glands on its 

 surface to its margin, even those removed from the body of the 

 insect by a distance of at least double its own length, began to 

 bend over and point the knobs at their extremities towards it, 

 though it was not observed that this was accompanied by an 

 increased flow of the secretion from them. 



The experiment was made in tho evening, and by the next 

 morning almost every gland on the leaf was pointing towards 

 the object iu the centre, forming a dense mass over it. The 

 sides of the leaf had also slightly curved forwards so as to 

 render the leaf itself more concave. Tho nearly allied Venus's 

 Fly-trap, or Dionsea muscij>ula of North America, which im- 

 prisons flies by a much more sudden motion of the tides of the 

 leaf, collapsing when irritated on the upper surface, is said to 

 digest and absolutely consume the insects thus entrapped. 

 What becomes eventually of the prisoners of the Sundew my 

 experiments have not yet been carried sufliciently far to as- 

 certain. It will be seen that the most singular feature in the 

 phenomena described is that the motion of tho greater number 

 of the glands did not begin till after the insect had become 

 comparatively motionless ; and, therefore, it is very difficult 

 to attribute it to the excitement caused by tho struggles on 

 any "contractile tissue" at the base of the glands, an explana- 

 tion which has been offered for the sudden and rapid motions 

 of the stamens of Borberis on the leaves of Mimosa. It is also 

 quite certain that tho impinging of rain drops on the surface 

 of the leaf causes no similar motion — a peculiarity similar to 

 that which Darwin has observed in the case of tho motions of 

 tendrils and cUmbing stems. In order to determine what 

 share in theso motions of tho glands was due to tho organic 

 nature of the substance imprisoned, and to its power of motion, 

 the following experiments were also made : — A small piece of 



