DEBILITY SKCUEES PERMANENCE IN SOME CASES. 467 



weighing 3 ounces 56 grains, and sown on the same day, 60 

 pushed into ear. 



Some facts tend to show that many of our most esteemed 

 garden plants are the result of debility, and that the succulence, 

 the sweetness, or the excessive size, which render them so well 

 suited for food, are only marks of unhealthiness. At least, it 

 is almost necessary to assume this to be the case, in order to 

 account for the efficacy of one of the modes of maintaining races 

 genuiue. It is perfectly well known, that, if such an annual as 

 a Turnip is transplanted shortly before it runs to seed, the 

 characters of its variety will remain more strongly marked, and 

 have far less tendency to vary, than if, all other circumstances 

 remaining the same, the seed is saved without the process of 

 transplantation having been observed. Now, the only effect 

 of transplanting, at the season immediately preceding the 

 formation of a flower-stalk, would seem to be that of checking 

 the luxuriance of the individual operated on; or, upon the 

 above assumption, of increasiug its debility of constitution. 

 And the same explanation appears applicable to a strange 

 custom mentioned by Mr. Ingledew as being pra;ctised in the 

 Dekkan, to prevent the rapid deterioration, in that climate, of 

 the Carrot, the Radish, and the Parsnep, the favourite table 

 vegetables of the inhabitants. He states that the Indian 

 gardeners, in the first place, prepare a compost of buffalo's 

 dung, swine's dung, and red maiden eart^, mixed with, water 

 tiU they have the consistence of paste, and scented with a small 

 quantity of asafoetida, the use of which seems to be 

 imaginary. "The vegetables for this t)peratior( are drawn, 

 when wanted, from the beds, when th^y have attained about 

 one-third of their natural growth, and those plants are chosen 

 which are the most succulent and luxuriant; the tops are 

 removed, leaving a few inches from their origin in the crown 

 upwards ; and a little of the inferior extremity, or tap-root, is 

 cut straight off likewise, allowing nearly the whole of the edible 

 part to remain, from the bottom of which to within about an 

 inch of the crown, are made two incisions across each other 

 entirely through the body of the vegetable, dividing it into 

 quarters nearly to the upper end. They are then dipped into the 



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