282 ON THE PROPAGATION OF STRAWBERRY PLANTS. 



favourable circumstances I have seen a very large portion perfectly alive 

 and growing in the spring ; and in the last year I tried the following 

 experiment, the evidence of which is, I think, conclusive. Having 

 observed that fig-trees of some varieties are capable of ripening their fruit 

 in much higher temperature than others, I thought it expedient to try 

 whether the same variation of power to bear different degrees of temper- 

 ature did not exist in varieties of other species of fruits. Young plants 

 of different new varieties of nectarines were therefore placed in the stove 

 in the spring of 1823, where they grew well till Midsummer, after which 

 all, except one, indicated, by shedding prematurely their full grown young 

 leaves, the presence of excess of temperature. One tree, whether owing 

 to any peculiarity of the constitution of the variety, or other cause, 

 remained in full health till the end of the summer ; when its wood and 

 foliage, having become perfectly mature, and the latter beginning to turn 

 yellow and fall off, it was removed, in September, to the open wall. In 

 this situation it remained till the middle of December, its roots having 

 been purposely carefully guarded from injury either from excess of 

 moisture, or of frost. In December, owing to the high excitability the 

 plant had acquired by the treatment to which it had been previously sub- 

 jected, its buds showed much disposition to vegetate ; and it was conse- 

 quently taken from the pot to the situation it was intended permanently 

 to occupy. 



Supposing the minute fibrous roots of a plant, thus treated, to be, like 

 its leaves, organs of annual duration only, they ought in this case to have 

 wholly ceased to live ; but on the contrary, I found them all alive, and 

 all in the act of elongating. The evidence in this, and in many other cases, 

 of the fibrous roots continuing to live and vegetate in a second season is 

 positive ; that of my opponents is wholly negative ; and a little positive 

 evidence in this, as in all other cases, is more than equivalent to a great 

 deal of negative evidence. I must therefore conclude, in opposition to 

 the opinion of those whom I am much disposed to treat with deference, 

 that the preservation of the minute fibres of plants is important ; and I 

 believe almost every experienced gardener will coincide with me. 



