612 GAEDEX MANAGEMENT. 



lute darkness, he shaded parts of the branch of a tree, the leaves of 

 which were in three different stages of colour, and found that no 

 further change took place,- a green leaf fell oflf green ; a leaf yellow before 

 seclusion fell off yellow ; if variegated, the leaf fell off green, yellow, or 

 brown. Seclusion from the light seemed to arrest the natural change 

 which was going on under the action of the sun ; but the cause of 

 colour in plants is somewhat obscure. The decomposition of carbonic 

 acid, and the exhalation of oxygen, is productive of a green colour in a 

 ratio proportioned to the intensity of the decomposing cause— light. On the 

 other hand, where water is present in too great abundance in the system, 

 yellow prevails, as if the blue, which is necessary, with the yellow, to produce 

 green, were discharged by the surplus moisture, while the green becomes 

 intense in proportion to the action of light and air. The fall of the leaf itself 

 is a phenomenon not very easily comprehended. "It is not enough," says 

 the author of ''Observations of a Naturalist," "to say that the leaf falls 

 because it is weakened or dead ; for if a branch is struck by lightning, or 

 detached from the stem by any other cause, the leaves still adhere tenaciously 

 to the dead branch. To produce the natural fall of the leaf, in deciduous 

 trees, the branch must continue to live, while the leaves die." It is only 

 when it has satisfied the ends of its being, that it is discharged, as it were, 

 from its functions ; the sap, which it was called forth to elaborate, is con- 

 solidating into wood ; and the leaf, no longer required, returns to earth to 

 restore its exhausted powers. It is, therefore, a melancholy sight to witness 

 the falling leaf. We are irresistibly reminded of the holy text,—" We all do 

 fade as a leaf." In spite of these solemn associations, awakened by the 

 season, however, the varied hues of autumn are beautiful to look upon : all 

 that rendered summer green and lovely is dying by the wayside ; but in its 

 place we have a universal and peculiar serenity of atmosphere, a more in- 

 tensely shining sky, and an impression of ampler expansion ; an array ot 

 sunny clouds with their silvery hning, the distant horizon, and a landscape of 

 unequalled variety and richness of colouring. 



1922. The garden, it is true, begins to look somewhat desolate ; flowers 

 which bloomed a few weeks ago — bloomed in numbers innumerable— are now 

 " few and far between ;"— but some still hnger with us, the plaintive question 

 of the poet notwithstanding, who asks, — 



" Where be the violets gone. 



Those of late that bloom'd so gay ?" *■ 



19:3. Dahlias, before the close of the month, are probably touched by frost, 

 and the chrysanthemums and the autumnal roses are the chief ornaments of 

 the garden on which reliance can be placed ; but most of the other denizens 

 are only on sufferance. The first frost will play sad havoc with them, except 

 where they occupy very warm and sheltered spots in the garden. Even 



there, — 



•* Thev daily await without terror or grief, 

 Thesummons that tells of the fall of the leaf* 



