127 



and I was thus obliged to defer mowing my fiorin rood 

 until December 6; and on that day began, with little hopes 

 of being able to save the hay. 



The weather was not different from what is usual at 

 that season; yet my hay was made up into trampcock, 

 with as much facility as if it had been Juhji and was re- 

 markably fine. 



Tlie vegetation of the mthered stolones, which I had 

 tied up round sticks the year before, concurring with other 

 circumstances, made me suspect, that dry fiorin stolones, 

 even after they had been long severed, were still animated ; 

 and I determined to try if my conjecture was well founded. 



My neighbour and friend, General Trotter, now 

 commanding the Artillery in Ireland, agreed to assist 

 me: we divided what remained of the hay into two shares; 

 one we put into the house, and of the other made a cock in 

 the field ; and ever>' second Monday we took some sto- 

 lones from each, and laid them on the surface of pots in 

 my hot-house, scattering some compost over them : they 

 always vegetated until the middle of April, when failures 

 began to appear ; these rapidly became more frequent, and 

 before the end of May, the powers of vegetation seemed 

 extinguished. The beginning of June was showery, and 

 my little cock, which had braved the winter deluges, and 

 the spring rains, now collapsed, grew fusty, and rotted, 

 under a summer shower; like ^neas, when his tender 

 feehngs were awakened : 



Quein primiim nan ulla injecta ?novehant 

 Tela, nec adverso glomerati ex agmine Graii 

 Nunc ventus territat omnis, sonus excitat omnis. 



The case was plain, for so long as life remained in the 

 stolones, the vital spark counteracted the tendency to pu- 

 trefaction ; but when that was extinguished in the stolones, 



