74 PLANT LIFE ON THE FARM. 



those which foster growth. Gardeners recognise this by 

 affording plenty of water and sufficient heat to their plants 

 when growing, and by reducing the amount of water as the 

 plant is about to produce flower, fruit, and seed. They 

 apply liquid manure in the growing stage, but withhold it 

 in the ripening period. They root-prune their fruit trees 

 when growth is too vigorous and fruit production too scanty. 

 They check rampant growth by keeping the roots in small- 

 sized pots. The farmer unfortunately has not the same 

 control over his plants that the gardener has, but he is care- 

 ful as to the time when he applies manure. He is not par- 

 ticularly distressed at a wet growing season, but he looks 

 forward with hope to a relatively dry hot period for the corn 

 to ripen. Of great practical importance also is it to note 

 the different effects of manures as particularly observed at 

 Rothamsted; some, such as nitrogenous manures, stimulat- 

 ing growth more especially ; others, such as the alkalis and 

 superphosphates, being more particularly favourable to the 

 ripening of the seed or the consolidation of the straw by 

 tlie formation of woody fibre. 



Growth is the same throughout all plants, but the mode 

 of development is much more specialised. In its initial 

 stages, the atom of protoplasm that is to be the future 

 potato plant is not appreciably different from that which is 

 destined to grow into a wheat plant or into a fruit tree. 

 While growth is common to all plants and uniform in 

 character, development is special and different, less or 

 more, in the case of each particular species or kind of 

 plant. Outward conditions greatly influence the amount 

 of growth, while they have relatively less influence on the 

 extent, still less on the direction of development in the 

 individual plant. 



