THE BESPONSE OF PLANTS 



I have no doubt that to many of my readers the title 

 of this chapter will be taken as a figure of speech. 

 * ' Plants responsive ? ' ' they perhaps will say. ' ' "Who ever 

 heard of such a thing? We should sooner expect re- 

 sponses from the planets than from plants. The people 

 on the planet Mars are no doubt digging ditches for pur- 

 poses other than irrigation, and the wireless shall yet 

 signal them to some intelligible response, but plants 

 why, Linne himself, the spiritual father of all such as 

 study vegetables, Linne has said ' Stones grow ; plants 

 grow and live; animals grow, live, and feel'; plainly to 

 indicate that sentiency, ability to respond is the very 

 prerogative of the animal. To assert the response of 

 plants is heresy ; it is but to introduce confusion ; to un- 

 settle our knowledge; induce intellectual discomfort, or 

 intellectual activity which, for some people no doubt, is 

 just the same. Plants exist, indeed, the dull stems and 

 leaves of wood and field; yes, live and manage to grow, 

 poor things, in some far-off uninteresting way; but as 1 

 for response, there certainly is none. We agree with 

 Mr. Lowell ' How can one keep up a dialogue, with a 

 dull wooden thing that must live and must die a log?' 

 Whispering trees and oaks of Dodona exist only in the 

 realm of fable; and only in poetry do we hold converse 

 with the flowers." 



Nevertheless, there are other things besides logs with 



