( 350 ) [July, 



VI. FOREIGN TKEES AND PLANTS FOE ENGLISH 

 GAEDENS.* 



By Alfred W. Bennett, M.A., B.Sc, F.L.S. 



The introduction of new forms of vegetable life into our gardens and 

 greenhouses has made considerable progress during recent years. 

 The Acclimatisation Societies of Paris and London have, it is true, 

 paid more attention to the domestication of foreign animals than of 

 plants; something, however, has been attempted in this direction, 

 and with considerable success. This branch of acclimatisation would, 

 indeed, seem likely to be the most fertile in results beneficial to 

 mankind. For one fresh animal introduced that will be of real 

 utility, there will probably be a dozen plants that yield important 

 economical products. The early races of mankind appear to have 

 exhausted our powers over the lower animals — the horse, the ass, 

 the dog, the camel, the ox, the sheep, were all brought under sub- 

 jection to man at the earliest period of his history ; and within his- 

 toric times no important addition has been made to the number of 

 our domestic animals. Not so with plants. A large number of 

 the vegetable substances used as food at the present day, and of the 

 vegetable articles of manufacture, were unknown to the ancients; 

 and the field for further extension of our utilisation of the vege- 

 table kingdom seems indefinitely large. The power of cultivation 

 in modifying plants is also much greater than any corresponding 

 power of domestication in modifying animals. The oldest extant 

 drawings of the horse, the ox, or the camel, scarcely point out any 

 distinctive features from their descendants now living ; the potato 

 and the apple, on the other hand, may almost be considered as ma- 

 nufactured products ; while many gardeners' flowers, such as the 

 Pelargonium and the Tulip, differ so widely from their ancestors as, 

 in some cases, to obscure their parentage. The term Acclimatisation 

 has been objected to by some scientific men, on the ground that the 

 descendants of any animal or plant which has been transported from 

 one climate to another have no more power than their ancestor of 

 adapting themselves to that climate, unless the principle of Natural 

 Selection has come into play to eliminate the individuals least able 

 to adapt themselves to the new climate, those only surviving which, 

 from some cause or other, are most suited to the fresh conditions. Be 

 this as it may, there is no question about the fact that the farmer 



* 'The Planter's Guide: Trees and Shrubs for English Plantations.' By 

 A. Mongredien. London : J. Murray. 1870. 



' Alpine Flowers for English Gardens.' By TV. Kobinson, F.L.S. London : 

 J. Murray. 1870. 



' Dendrologie : Baume, Straucher, und Halb-straucher welche in Mittel oder 

 Nord-Europa im Freien kultivirt vrerden.' Kritisch bearbeitet von Karl Koch. 

 Erster Theil. Erlangen. Enke, 1869. 



