88 MR. SOLLY ON THE 



over any part of the garden or field. An apparatus of this kind 

 he had placed in the middle of a garden, and found it produced 

 favourable effects on the plants growing below. He says of it, 

 " This instrument is applicable to all kinds of vegetables, to all 

 places, to all weathers, and its utility and efficacy can only be 

 questioned or doubted by those timid persons who are not at- 

 tracted by discoveries ; who never enlarge the barriers of science, 

 but remain for ever confined in the narrow boundaries of a 

 cowardly fear which they frequently qualify with the name of 

 prudence ; a name, however, which no longer answers their pur- 

 pose. If I may believe my enlightened friends, the electro-ve- 

 geto-meter is one of the most beautiful and most useful discove- 

 ries which has been made this century." 



In order to increase the natural supply of electricity, he also 

 proposes to water them with electrified water ; for this purpose 

 an insulated stool or stand is required, upon which the gardener 

 stands, bearing in his one hand a chain connected with the posi- 

 tive conductor of a machine, whilst in the other he holds a 

 syringe to throw the water into the plants to be electrified, or in 

 place of a syringe he may merely hold a common watering-pot, 

 and if the insulated stand be placed on wheels it may easily be 

 so arranged tliat the gardener can supply a large extent of plants 

 with electrified water. Lastly, he proposes to electrify the 

 whole cistern or basin of water which serves for irrigation, by a 

 powerful electrical machine, the cistern being lined with resin, 

 to insulate the water. 



In order to diminish the natural quantity of electricity when 

 there is too much in the air, he proposes to water the plants 

 frequently, as thus becoming better conductors they will more 

 readily discliarge the superabundant electricity of the air ; and 

 secondly to place pointed metallic conductors, well connected 

 with the ground, in the immediate vicinity of the plants to be 

 protected. M. Bertholon attributes the increase and develop- 

 ment of certain insects, which feed on plants, to the agency of 

 electricity, which he says exerts the same influence upon them 

 as upon the seeds of plants ; and accordingly proposes to kill 

 them by an excess of electricity ; passing the shocks of Leyden 

 jars through the trunks of trees in which the larvse of insects are 

 deposited : this plan he found to answer well on repeated trials, 

 and provided the shock was not too powerful, the tree was not 

 injured. All the ordinary diseases to which plants are subject 

 may, he thinks, be diminished, counteracted, or entirely cured 

 by a judicious and appropriate application of electricity : after 

 describing the modes in which this may be done, he says, " the 

 diseases of plants are not so numerous as tliose of man ; plants 

 ha\ e no diseases of the mind — none of those mental ills which 



