50 CHAPTER VI. 



help to throw light on the history of some of our 

 cultivated plants ? 



Professor Mayor asserts that the seeds of the 

 Vine and of the cultivated Fig have lost the power 

 of germinating. In the case of the Vine this state- 

 ment is incorrect, for grape-pips will grow freely 

 under favourable circumstances. In fact, if the 

 refuse from the wine-press is thrown on the land 

 as manure, the seedling vines are so numerous as 

 to be a nuisance. 



I am now about to relate a remarkable fact con- 

 nected with the Great Squill, the friend of the Fig 

 tree, and I beg to state that this is not what 

 James Payn would call a " taradiddle " : mira seel 

 acta loquor it is open to any one to repeat the 

 experiment. I wished to see the flower of this 

 gigantic bulb, so I planted one in a large plot, and 

 took great care of it. Each year it grew bigger, 

 and threw up its broad handsome leaves, but no 

 flowers appeared. You might as well buy a raven 

 to see if he lives a hundred years as keep the 

 Great Squill to find out what the flower is like. I 

 was about to spend the Summer in Switzerland, 

 and was not returning to the same house in Nice ; 

 so I packed up my things, and stored my furniture. 

 The Great Squill, I thought, could not hold out 

 much longer without flowering, so I packed it up 

 too, intending to replant it on my return. I trimmed 

 off the roots close to the bottom, and cut away the 

 leaves close to the top, put it in a brown paper 

 bag which exactly fitted, wrapped the bag in a 

 newspaper, tied it up with string, and threw it into 

 the bottom of a trunk with other odds and ends. 



