28 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



swallow the food adapted to the wants of the tree. 

 Think of this, reader ; here is a suggestion for 

 some interesting pencil-work. You have a pencil 

 and a power to use it. Burn a plant, and how 

 small a portion remains as ashes. Where is the 

 balance ? In the atmosphere. Where then does 

 the plant obtain this organic matter for its con 

 struction ? Not altogether from the atmosphere 

 direct, but when we consider that each square 

 inch of the surface of the leaves of some plants 

 contains from 150,000 to 175,000 mouths, which 

 absorb and assist in preparing the food for the 

 plant, we may form some idea of their impor- 

 tance. 



POWERS OP VEGETATION TO RESIST 

 EXTREMES OF TEMPERATURE. 



It is most essential to the success of the oper- 

 ations, both of the agriculturist and the horticul- 

 turist, that as comprehensive a view as possible 

 should be obtained of the organization of the 

 vegetable kingdom, and of the powers of resist- 

 ance that it possesses of the extremes of temper- 

 ature. For although practically he may pass 

 through life without ever even seeing the moss 

 which in Lapland not only lives, but grows be- 

 neath the snow, and furnishes the frugal meal of 

 the docile reindeer, and without boiling eggs for 

 his breakfast reposed upon the herbage which we 

 shall presently advert to as growing in the hot 

 springs of the Himalaya mountains, yet the 

 knowledge of such powers of endurance in differ 

 ent families of plants, when combined with other 

 knowledge of various descriptions, connected 

 with the organs of plants, tends immensely (if it 

 does nothing else) to make the inquiring agricul- 

 turist cautious and careful in his experiments , 

 and in the deductions which he draws from them* 



Hastily-formed conclusions are seldom very 

 accurate, in whatever branch of scientific inquiry 

 they arrived at, and applied to. But in- no de- 

 partment of practical knowledge is it more need- 

 ful to guard against them, than in the prosecu- 

 tion of agricultural pursuits. Slight differences 

 of temperature, of moisture, or| of atmospheric 

 change, have frequently been sufficient to con- 

 found and to obscure the most carefully conduct- 

 ed experiments. And in the much canvassed, but 

 yet unsolved, problem of the potato disease, we 

 have at this moment unfortunately patent evi- 

 dence that our present acquirements in agricul- 

 ture have by no means attained a degree of ef- 

 ficiency, with which we can rest satisfied. 



Nothing is more surprising in the study of 

 vegetable physiology than the variation of the 

 powers of endurance of the extremes of heat and 

 cold in different famflies. And this is the more 

 remarkable, because those powers appear to have 

 little or nothing in connection with the texture 

 of their organization. In reference to the pow- 

 ers of endurance of moisture and drought, it is 

 otherwise, at least to a considerable extent. For 

 we find the Cacti family, and many others that 

 are indigenous to climates that have long sea- 

 sons of drought, are provided with organs that 

 are calculated to retain, as it were, reservoirs of 

 moisture, whilst the organization of their cuticle 

 is such as to lessen evaporation and exhalation 

 from their surface. But in regard to the powers 

 of resisting extremes of heat and cold, [many 



families of plants with organizations of the most 

 fragile texture, are found to have these po;;Ner3 

 equally ; some as to heat, others as to cold. 



This is a subject that deserves considei-ation 

 in connection with the study of climate, and the 

 following descripcion of the hot springs of the 

 Himalaya from Dr. Hooker's Journal, are well 

 deserving attention : 



"The hot-springs (called Soorujkoond) near 

 Belcuppte (altitude 1219 feet) in the Behar 

 mountains, north-west of Calcutta, (lat. 24 N., 

 long. 86 E.,) are four in number, and rise in as 

 many ruined brick tanks about two yards across. 

 Another tank fed by a cold spring about twice 

 that size flows between two of the hot, only two 

 or three paces distant from one of the latter on 

 either hand. All burst through the Gueiss rocks, 

 meet in one stream after a few yards, and are 

 conducted by brick canals to a pool of cold water 

 about 80 yards off. 



"The temperatures of the hot springs were re- 

 spectively 169°, 170'', nS'', and 190° of the cold, 

 84° at 4 P. M., and 75° at 7 A. M. the following 

 morning. The hottest is the middle of the five. 

 The water of the cold spring is sweet but not 

 good, and emits gaseous bubbles; it was covered 

 with a green floating conferva. Of the four hot 

 springs the most copious is about three feet 

 deep, bubbles constantly, boils eggs, and though 

 brilliantly clear, has an exceedingly nauseous 

 taste. These and the other warm ones cover the 

 bricks and surrounding rocks with a thick in- 

 crustation of salts. 



"Conferva abounds in the warm stream from 

 the springs, and two species, one ochreous brown 

 and the other green, occur on the margin of the 

 tanks themselves, and in the hottest water ; the 

 brown is the best salamander, and forms a belt 

 in deeper water than the green ; both appear in 

 broad luxuriant strata, whenever the tempera- 

 ture is cooled down to 168° and as low as 90°. 

 Of flowering plants, three showed in an tmioent 

 degree a constitution capable of resisting the 

 heat, if not a predilection for it ; these were all 

 cyperacea, a ojperas, and an elescliaris, having 

 their roots in water of lOO'', and where they are 

 probably exposed to greater heat ; and a timhri- 

 stylis at 98° ; all v/ere very luxuriant. From the 

 edges of the four hot springs I gathered sixteen 

 species of flowering plants, and from the cold 

 tank five, which did not grow in the hot. A wa- 

 ter-beetle, colymbetes, and notonecta, abounded 

 in water at 112° with quantities of dead shells ; 

 frogs were very lively, with live shells at 90° ; 

 and with various other water-beetles." 



From the foregoing quotation it will be per- 

 ceived that the temperature of the hottest spring 

 was 100° Farenheit, which is but little below that 

 of boiling water. And although not so luxuriant 

 as in the cooler springs, yet vegetable life was 

 found to exist and grow in that high tempera- 

 ture. Had a cabbage or a potato been placed by 

 the side of the conferva in that spring, it would 

 have been soon cooked ready for the dinner ta- 

 ble ; and the powers of endurance of the action 

 of heat possessed by a living plant, therefore, can 

 be easily conceived. 



With such well attested facts before us, we 

 may well hesitate before we form a decided opin- 

 ion upon the adaptability of any plant of a new 

 character, that it may appear desirable to intro- 



