i = AUGUST 8, 1874.] 
THE GARDENERS CHRONICLE. 
173 
Condition of the Fruit Crops, 1874. 
RDENERS’ CHRONICLE 
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Office, 41, Wellington Street, W.C. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1874. 
APPOINTMENTS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. 
QNDAY, Aug, 10 { Orchids, 
s. 
P Shor os (Rugby) Horticultural Society’s 
eford Horticultural rA s Exhibition 
eio 
T days). 
Weston- -super-Mare and East Somerset Hor- 
ticultural Society’s Show. 
L Meldrum Horticultural Society’s Show 
Ellon Horticultural Society's K 
SDAY, Aug. 124 Taunt eane Horticultural Society's 
$ Sho ey Park, Taunton). 
oyal y Ireland's 
otun EA 
Aug. 13 hibiti 
Malmesbury Horticultural Society’s Show. 
A Birmingham Horticultural Society’s Show 
cg (two days). 
, we imagine, outside the so- 
d ‘can estimate at 
We make no allusion 
| Or i dsolnical views, as these are 
schools, with no tesi training, 
try 
it eea which a tyro in 
smile, 
3 man 
he would, like PRIESTLEY or HA) 
leaves and green parts of plants. One would 
have thought that such a man would have been 
specially honoured by chemists and botanists, 
and yet the singular fact remains that a great 
zoologist, me was called on to pronounce 
his éloge years ago; and another great 
zoologist, i oa, was told off to do a like 
service on the occasion of the erection of a 
statue to his memory, and neither chemist nor 
botanist, so far as we know, took part in the 
ceremony. o the chemist and the botanist, 
a ignore the capital value of the facts which 
PRIESTLEY brought to light? That is an im- 
possibilit Å 
Another circumstance that strikes us 
worthy of comment is that a great discovery 
like that of PRIESTLEY’S should have been made 
without those Ficaropretth advantages which 
students eve a ha ime had, and 
laboratories and apparatus 
generally considered essential. W 
tomed, and rightly so, to lament the utter 
absence of any provision in this country at the 
present time of laboratories for the teaching of 
vegetable physiology and the carrying on of ex- 
perimental research. Germany, France, Italy, 
Belgien are all far in advance of us in this 
respect, and the progress which has been made 
of late years in this particular branch of science, 
so essential to the future of agriculture and hor. 
ticulture, has been made mainly in Germany, 
while we in this country have ei com- 
paratively very little. On the other hand, 
may proudly point to HALES and PRIEST mihi as 
oa ws of Vegetable Physiology; and we ma 
point out that neither of these men were trained 
in laboratories, but each depended on his own 
natural genius and personal means. This bein 
so, it would rather seem that our deficiencies as 
students and workers in vegetable physiology 
are to be attributed to the want of men, rather 
than of means. 
self independent of extraneous Ani But this is 
a point we are not concerned to pursue further 
on this occasion. Let us rather indicate, for the 
sake of the general reader and the gardener, 
what PRIESTLEY did for vegetable physiology. 
The e chemist, BONNET, had remarked 
sisted of oxygen gas. Seeing that air is as 
necessary to plant-life as to that of animals, he 
thought that the quality of that air must be the 
same in the two cases, and that the action 
and results would be the same in both. e 
was previously, of course, aware that animals 
deteri oe the atmosphere by their breathing, 
so that i be shut up in a close 
vessel or access of fresh air, it sooner 
or ag aes, stifled a byi its own emanations ; and 
more than this, PRIESTLEY had 
that Cie candle introduced into a vessel 
in which an n thus co 
was forthwith extinguish — air 
rendered so impure as = pi allow of combus- 
h o experiment on 
plants, he was surprised to “find opposite results. 
He took a spray of Mint, placed it in a closed 
vessel, inverted that over water, and expo 
the whole to the action of light. He imagined 
that a lighted taper introduced into this vessel 
would be eter ieee by the exhalations from 
the plant, as d been from those of the 
animal. But it was not so. The light intro- 
which had held the plant | the 
was found E 
no longer burn in it. Ten days after the 
introduction of the plant, 
taper would burn perfectly well in it. 
the same result. 
case, and that plants had the function of purify- 
ing the atmosphere corrupted and rendered 
impure by the breathing of animals. This was 
truly a splendid discovery to make, and that it 
was considered so even at the time is evidenced 
.vitiate the atmosphere by the emission of car- 
bonic acid gas, while SENEBIER ascertained 
that the oxygen gas eliminated from the leaves 
and green parts of plants, under the influence 
of solar light, was derived from the decomposi- 
tion of the carbonic acid my taken up by the 
plant by the leaves and roo 
The value of Peers discovery, and the 
accuracy of this EEN remain unaffected, 
though in our own tim a different en ser 
h that 
of the expired gas was exactly opposite 
in the two cases. Modern research, however, 
goes to show that the process which PRIESTLEY 
discovered is not the true respiratory process, 
but is a process of assimilation or nutrition. 
The truer respiration pis, is, as LE’ 
of pas The eimthation OF oxygen n 
the influence of sunlight i is, on the other 5 
ich 
plant to build up its tissues, while the oxygen 
Respiratio: n proper goes on in light : 
s ali carbonic acid gi ge 
under both conditions The 
oxidising process, as we haye setm, goes Ae 
n exposed to the 
full light of the sun. The discovery then of 
oxygen gas, and the unravelling of history 
of its emission from the leaves, constitute the 
chiefclaims which PRIESTLEY has on the grateful 
remembrance of physiologists. Gardeners will 
be further interested in the fact that it was at 
ood that PRIESTLEY pursued, under the 
hose zotee 
the hierarchy 0 science. —— = aso 
tember next, 
held 
Domine the month of, Sepi 
as of Noxious INSECTS, wi 
the mischief wrought by them. The objects 
of the Society are—1, to make known the best 
methods of propagating useful insects, of pre- 
serving them from disease, and of procuring is 
greatest amount of roa from them and, 2, 
to study the destructiv insects 
orchards, forests, bı g: 
