78 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



{b) Those iu which the electricity more or less hinders the 

 development : 



Pees, Turnips, 



Carrots, Cabbages, 



Rata Baga, Tobacco. 



2, The more fertile the soil, and, consequently the more vigor- 

 ous the vegetation, the greater is the harvest due to the influence 

 of the electric current. 



It now remained to determine whether the results obtained iu 

 Finland can be expected iu other parts of the world, or if they are 

 possible only in high latitudes. The scene of experimeutation 

 was now transferred to France, where cereals, garden vegetables, 

 aud a variety of fruits were treated. An incident in this experi- 

 ment was the behavior of strawberries which were subjected to an 

 aerial discharge of from 2,000 to 3,000 volts continuously, night 

 aud day, from the middle of April to the middle of June. The 

 first flowers appeared upon the 29th of April in the treated area, 

 and upon the 7th of May in the other portion. The treated plants 

 were in every way superior to the others until the 18th of May, at 

 which time there followed eight days of excessively hot weather. 

 The treated plants languished, and the yield was much less than 

 that of the normal area. The conclusion drawn from this inter- 

 esting test is that the simultaneous action of electricity and high 

 temperature is injurious to plants, and suggests that the electric 

 current be discontinued in the hottest part of the day, as had been 

 done in the Finnish experiments. 



The season of 1888, iu France, was abnormal because of the 

 excessive rainfall and coldness of the summer, yet the general 

 results of the investigations were encouraging, and justified the 

 statement that "the effect of electricity produced by the method 

 described is the same in the two countries, from which one may 

 conclude that the effect will be the same in all parts of the globe." 

 And it is further concluded that " the effect of the electric current 

 depends to a certain degree upon external conditions or environ- 

 ments in whicli the plant is placed ; or, in other words, the more 

 favorable the external conditions, the more marked is the effect of 

 the electricity." 



Altliough these remarkable experiments of Lemstrom have 

 shown that the application of electricity to the atmosphere gener- 



