370 APPENDIX. [No. XXXIV. 



year. That is a very important point. In the propagation of our fungi 

 the same thing occurs ; the fungi have very small spores, which answer to 

 the seeds of other plants. They start, throw out minute threads, and give 

 rise to a new plant. If we come across a particularly good mushroom, it is 

 no use to try and propagate it by the spores. This must be done by the 

 mycelium, which consists of minute threads which traverse the ground in 

 which the mushroom grows, and which is commonly known as mushroom 

 spawn. By this we can propagate any particular variety. So that the 

 modes of propagation of plants are, the propagation of different varieties 

 by seeds, and the propagation of any specific variety by cuttings, grafting, 

 division of roots, budding, by spores, and by many other ways. 



Having noticed those great points upon which we must base our 

 operations in order to ensure successful horticulture, I should like in 

 imagination to take you round my garden, and say a few words about the 

 plants which grow in it. 



I will first say a few words about the vegetables. They are not the 

 most interesting perhaps, though you all know how important they are. 

 You know it has been said that more people have perished from want 

 of vegetable food than have ever perished in battle, and probably at 

 the present time there are as many lives saved by taking vegetable 

 food to sea as ever were lost by sending ships to sea. With this before 

 us we have to consider what vegetables we should grow. To my mind, 

 the king of all vegetables is the watercress. To have it at its best it 

 must be grown in a very pure stream of water, which ought to come 

 from the depths of the earth at the temperature of those depths, say 

 52 F., and then ought to run over a clean pebbly bed. To start, you take a 

 handful of watercresses and put a stone upon them, then another and so on 

 until you have covered the space on which you want them to grow ; and 

 then, if you pick them fresh from the brook, they are one of the most 

 wholesome vegetables which the country can afford. But you often see 

 them grown upon the verge of sewage beds, and then consequences may 

 arise from eating them which are almost too serious for me to contemplate. 

 You have heard of the terrors of the tapeworm ; you know that it may 

 consist of two or three hundred joints, and that each of these may contain 

 about 30,000 ova. If you consider that these are common in the sewage 

 beds and that they are so distributed to the watercress plant, and if you 

 consider that they are thus taken into the animal economy, you may judge 

 the danger there is in using watercresses, and the necessity for preventing 

 their sale under those circumstances. When they are sold in the neigh- 

 bourhood of large towns, the danger is much greater than those who eat 

 them are aware of. We cannot all get perfectly pure and fresh water- 

 cresses, but I can. My crystal brook comes to my aid. But we cannot all 

 have this crystal brook. 



Now mustard is always at hand. We buy mustard, but we get rape 

 seed. These two are very much alike, and there are very few who can tell 

 the difference. But there is a total difference in their quality, and what 

 we pay for we ought to have. But those who sell, think they ought to sell 

 us the cheapest article at the dearest rate. 



But I will not detain you with the salading plants, I will not take you 

 through the various herbs, except that I will say one word upon one of 

 them. I have a plant of absinthe, not to use myself or to give my friends, 



