PEBENNIAL PLANTS. 15 



ment of the plant iu one or another direction. Manin-ing 

 a sward with ashes will draw from it clover plants ; if 

 acid phosphate of hme is employed, French rye-grass will 

 spring up in thickly serried blades. 



Li all perennial plants, the underground organs are 

 usually very much greater in mass and extent than those 

 of annual plants, ^^'^lilst the roots of the latter die every 

 year, the former preserve theirs in a state of readiness to 

 absorb food at every favourable opportunity. 



The cii"cle from which a perennial plant draws its food 

 enlarges from year to year ; if one part of its roots finds 

 little nourishment in a given spot, other parts draw their 

 supply from other spots richer in the food required. 



Only a very small portion of the plants of a thickly 

 covered meadow mil produce stems ; the far greater part 

 will develope only tufts of leaves ; and many will for years 

 be confined to the production of underground suckers. 



For perennial grass and meadow plants, the production 

 of underground suckers is of the highest importance, 

 since by them the plant is furnished with nutriment at a 

 time when a scarcity of supply would endanger the hfe of 

 annual plants. 



A good soil, and all other conditions of vegetable life, 

 will of course exert the same favourable influence upon 

 perennial as on annual plants ; but the developement of 

 the former is not so much dependent upon accidental and 

 passing states of the weather, as is the case with the 

 latter. Unfavourable conditions will, indeed, check the 

 growth of a perennial plant, but only for a time, until a 

 favourable change ensues, when the plant will resume 

 growing ; whereas an annual plant, under the same 

 circumstances, reaches the hmits of its existence and dies. 



The permanence of vegetation on our meadows, and 

 the certainty of their produce under varying conditions of 



