196 GROWTH AND MATUKATION OF THE WOOD OF PLANTS. 



And when we take into consideration the importance of the 

 question, which is nothing less than the ground-work of the 

 science of plant-cultivation, the superstructure upon which alone 

 success can be raised, it will not, I think, be too much to oc- 

 cupy a page or two in the Journal of the Horticultural Society, 

 in wliich to give a few ideas drawn from the best of all sources 

 — persona] observation. 



When we investigate the principles of success in any instances 

 of extraordinary development, we shall perceive that though 

 those may appear fortuitous, though they may have arisen with- 

 out any recognized efforts towards an end by the cultivator, 

 yet those effects have not been produced without a cause. In 

 other words, that certain unintentional operations or circum- 

 stances have been afforded, and the results are such that if 

 similar circumstances were employed as a means towards a 

 desii'ed end, like results must inevitably follow. A remarkably 

 fine specimen of any given plant is not produced miraculously, 

 even though the results produced may have arisen from causes 

 not understood. But as certainly as a complexity of calculations 

 are indispensable to the correct arrival at a mathematical solu- 

 tion, so is a certain series of processes necessary for the de- 

 velopment of the higher capabilities of vegetable life. For plant 

 cultivation in its most extended and scientific application is but 

 the science of development. We can create nothing ; we can 

 only develop. 



In common garden phraseology, plants are divided into two 

 great divisions ; hard and soft wooded. But these vague terms 

 must be considered as of a very arbitrary character, conveying 

 as they do but the mere outlines of a comjjlicated series of de- 

 velopments — complicated, inasmuch as that a vast diversity of 

 character in the processes of elongation and solidification of a 

 shoot is observable in different genera, or perhaps more pro- 

 perly, different families of plants. In some, the growth and 

 subsequent maturation are two entirely distinct processes, each 

 process taking place at a period separate from the other. A 

 type of this character of growth is strikingly apparent in our 

 common Pinus sylvestris. In this tree the utmost extent of the 

 elongation of the current season's branches is attained in a won- 

 derfully short period of time. In favourable seasons a shoot of 

 12 or 14 inches in length will have been produced in as many 

 days ; but, at the expiration of that period, little or no dis- 

 tinction of parts has been effected : the foliage is rudimentary, 

 and its perfect development is a subsequent process. Other 

 instances of an exotic nature are offered to us in Inga pnlcherrima 

 and Rhododendron arboreum, and the reader will instantly 

 recall many others. Now before I proceed to other peculi- 



