206 SYEINGING AND BEDEWING-. 



the floors and flues, which is one of the best means of supplying 

 the atmosphere with a steady supply of elastic vapour ; or by 

 discharging steam into a house, by open tanks of water resting 

 on pipes or flues; or by syringing, which not only throws mois- 

 ture into places not easily reached by other means, but disturbs 

 the numerous insects which infest such places, and removes 

 the dust and honey-dew which accumulate in the absence of 

 natural rain. The immense importance of the last of these 

 results has been fuUy explained at pages 58 and 59. 



It will be evident that syringing is an imitation of raia or dew ; of 

 rain when water is dashed violently upon leaves ; of dew when it is 

 forced through fine roses and gently deposited upon leaves. Gardeners 

 confound the two operations under one common name ; but it would be 

 better, as I have suggested elsewhere, if the term Svsinging were 

 confined to the imitation of rain, and the more gentle method were 

 denominated bedewdtg. The French call the latter hassinage. In 

 this, as in all things else, the operations of Nature should be imitated 

 with all the exactness possible ; we may be certain that what we call 

 Nature is right, and that we, when we neglect her precepts, are wrong. 

 Dew is not deposited in the morning or at noon ; therefore bedewing at 

 noon or in the morning is to be carefully avoided. Dew falls in the 

 evening, cUngs to plants during the night, disappears as the sun gains 

 power. Bedewing, then, should be efected in the evening, and in such 

 abundance that it may remain for dispersion~T5y the returning sun. 

 This is opposed to the practice of the older gardeners, but its fitness is 

 shown by such considerations as the following : — 



When plants are bedewed at night, no perspiration is going on ; all 

 the surface is engaged in absorption. In this way the loss of fluid by 

 day is virtually repaired. During the dark hours the tissues absorb 

 the moisture in contact with them ; drooping leaves straighten, bending 

 stems stand onoe more erect, and the very hairs that clothe the surface 

 of a leaf, on which they lay relaxed at sun-down, presently fill, 

 stifien and rise up, and drink till they can drink no more, the limpid 

 fluid at last hanging in drops from their gorged points. Were it 

 otherwise, vegetation would perish in the autumn, however vigorous it 

 might have been during the summer; for in autumn the earth is 

 exhausted of its moisture, and plants feed chiefly by their green 

 surfaces. Each returning sun expels from a plant more fluid than the 

 earth can possibly supply ; but the waste is amply made up by the dews 

 which act from sunset to sunrise. What occurs out of doors also 

 occurs in a hothouse, so far as waste of fluid is concerned ; but in a 

 glasshouse there is little or no restoration at night, because dew will 

 not form beneath a roof, and therefore the process of artificial bedewing 



