n6 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



March, 1908 



The Plant and the Season 



By S. Leonard Bastin 



[HERE is nothing in all the wide world to 

 compare with the magical touch of spring. 

 A few weeks of genial weather, and the 

 sun-kissed countryside is adorned with the 

 vivid greens of the most joyous time of the 

 year. The sequence of the seasons and the 

 changes which their rotations bring about 

 are such ordinary happenings that few people will consider 

 that there can be any mystery in the matter. Yet the problem 

 as to how plants know the seasons is to a very large extent 



an unsolved one, and one of rare and unusual interest. 

 At first sight it may appear that the plant is aware of the 

 passage of the seasons by the changes which take place in the 

 weather at the different quarters of the year. But although 

 in some localities there is a very definite line between the 

 periods, this is far from being a universal condition. In this 

 connection the behavior of trees in Great Britain, where the 

 variability of climate is notorious, is very instructive. It is 

 not an unusual circumstance for the winter to pass without 

 any severe frost, the weather being mild and open through- 





The Trees and the Season : the Winter and Summer View 



