2 INTRODUCTION. 



fruits and roots formed man's earliest food ! The cultivation of 

 the soil, and consequently the artificial improvement of plants, 

 has been practised ever since the first man tilled the garden ; 

 and some of the artificial methods of propagating existing forms 

 of vegetation already improved by culture have been employed 

 from time immemorial. Herodotus describes the process of 

 fecundation that -is, the transference of the pollen from the 

 male to the female trees, by which the ancient Egyptians 

 insured a crop of Dates. Virgil, Martial, Columella, Galladius, 

 and Pliny all speak of grafting, although not always correctly ; 

 but many years elapsed ere Grew pointed out the sexual organs 

 of hermaphrodite plants. Indeed, even now, man is but a 

 bungling novice in his recently assumed office of marriage 

 priest in the garden. The balmy zephyr, and curious insect 

 on hidden sweets intent, have performed the noble office 

 since creation for the flowering-plants of every clime, just as 

 they still perform the plant or flower nuptials on every moun- 

 tain-side and dewy meadow and trackless forest in the universe, 

 for man is as yet but strong enough to perform priestly func- 

 tions for his captives in the garden. I said that Zephyrus had 

 assisted in fertilising flowers, and this is true of very many 

 plants. Have we not noted the clouds of pollen or fertilising 

 dust shaken by the breeze from the tapering Pine, the sombre 

 Yew, or gloomy Cypress ? Or if the garden is more familiar than 

 the forest, the benefit of a current of air during sunny weather, 

 and its pollen-wafting influence, on the setting of early Peaches 

 or Golden Muscatelles, is well known. Again, while we banish 

 our thrifty neighbour's honey and pollen collecting bees from 

 the conservatory, where they cunningly cut the throats of every 

 Achimenes flower in the most systematic manner, because they 

 somehow know the nectar is there, but cannot creep down 

 the slender tube to secure it ; yet we welcome them among the 

 flowers in the early Peach houses, just because we know that 

 they fertilise a flower, and secure for us a delicious rosy-cheeked 

 Peach or Nectarine for every drop of honey they steal, or 

 rather, rightly earn. The breeze and the insect are, then, 

 essential to the welfare of flowering-plants ; but how about Ferns, 

 Mosses, Mushrooms, and other so-called flowerless plants? 

 Here are no dusty life-laden pollen-grains to be wafted by the 

 breeze or carried by the insect, and so there are no hidden 

 sweets and no bright colours.* But if these indirect agents 

 are here useless, it is not because agents to secure fruition are 

 not required. The same end has to be reached, but by differ- 



* " Ah ! " says an observing friend, "you should see the Fly Agaric " 

 (Agaricus muscari) " a glowing shield of scarlet enriched with pearls." 



