76 THE LOIS WEEDON PBACTICE. 



operated upon ia the same maimer gave the same result. Exp. 2. A 

 ring was cut out of a Beet-root standing above ground ; the incision 

 was made between two and three inches below the orown, where the 

 buds and leaves grew. The crown was out off immediately below the 

 first leaves, excepting that a rudimentary leaf-bud was saved on one 

 side of the plant. Xke bud grew ; the root increased in all diroptions. 

 Below the bud was formed a small protuberance, which, when 

 examined, was found to consist of five new woody layers ; but those 

 layers did not extend round the root ; they went no further than the 

 protuberance itseH. Eight and left of the protuberance the plant had 

 the same number of layers of wood as it had when the experiment com- 

 menced, which was seven. Nevertheless, the diameter of the Beet-root 

 had much increased in the parts not beneath the protuberance. Some 

 variation was made in this experiment, but the result was the same ; it 

 was clear that bulk increased without the assistance of leaves, &c. 



A most interesting practical example of this neglected fact is 

 recorded by the Rev. J. Smith, of Lois Weedon, the soundness of 

 whose physiology is attested by his briUiant success where he applies 

 priaciples to practice. 



This gentleman has recorded in the Gardeners' Chronicle, for 1852, 

 p. 707, the unexpected fact that he is able to take off his Turnips, when 

 they have become fully organized, a crop of tops, for the use of his 

 stock ; that nevertheless the roots continue to swell, and produce a 

 second crop of foliage, to be applied like the fijst : so that this part of 

 the Turnip crop is in some sort doubled. It would be unjust not to put 

 this fact upon record in Mr. Smith's own words. "I have made the 

 experiment this year on an acre of Swedes, which, on my usual plan of 

 cultivation, were managed thus:— The land— a heavy clay, with a 

 staple originally of only five or six inches— has been gradually brought, 

 by trenching and horse-hoeing, to a pulverised state eighteen or twenty 

 inches deep. In the autumn I buried the manure. (made by cows and 

 swine, fed on Swedes and bran, with the other usual fodder) with two 

 or three inches of the bottom of the rows intended for my plants; and 

 in April, over that manure, and within five or six inches of the surface, 

 I stirred in one hundred weight of guano. The first week in May I 

 driUed my seed, together with a sprinkling of superphosphate, in single 

 rows five feet apart. The result was— as it always has been under the 

 same system, pursued for several years— that dt the beginning of 

 September the leaves of the plant met across the five feet intervals, and 

 that I am promised a yield equal, perhaps, to the measured produce of 

 last year, which amounted to twenty-seven tons. It will be understood 

 by those who know; the constituents and the properties of clay made 

 friable to the depth I have described, how the continuous and 

 inexhaustible supply of moisture in such a soil saves the plant from 

 mildew, the common result of early sowing in shallow ground, but from 



