126 BOTANY AND INTENSIVE CULTIVATION 



science to practical affairs we may trace, albeit 

 only in briefest outline, the recent improvements 

 in the methods of forcing plants. To the layman 

 the subject may appear to be one of only moderate 

 importance; but that view will not be shared by 

 those who know how desirable it is to improve 

 the national dietary, particularly in the seasons 

 when natural growth is dormant. Our knowledge 

 of the methods of awakening plants from their 

 winter rest began with Johannsen's discovery that 

 whereas chloroform or ether vapour anaesthetises 

 the active it quickens the dormant plant. No 

 sooner had market gardeners the raisers of 

 primeurs applied this method of etherising to the 

 forcing of flowers and fruit than Molisch discovered 

 the now well known warm bath method of forcing. 

 He proved that in order to quicken a resting plant 

 into growth it suffices to submerge its stem and 

 branches for some hours in tepid water. Yet more 

 recently other investigators have shown that in- 

 jection of warm water at the base of a bud or even 

 a prick with a needle causes a plant prematurely 

 to resume growth. Finally Stahl and his pupil 

 Lakon have demonstrated that if a plant or cut 

 branch be plentifully supplied with a solution of 

 nutrient (mineral) salts it emerges forthwith from 

 its quiescent winter condition and if placed under 

 suitable conditions of temperature begins to grow 

 in winter as though spring were already come. 

 Here every step in the advance has been made 



