By G. J. Towers, Esq. 



45 



and threw out two or three small laterals, whereas, the others 

 continued erect ; all continued to show blossom so persistingly, that 

 I ceased to pull them off. At the period of examination, the soil 

 watered with infusion was blackened throughout : that with iron 

 was coloured by rust of a yellow tint. When the experiment was 

 concluded, being willing to see the fate of the wounded plants, I 

 took them out of the pots with entire balls, and set them in the 

 open border. The plant simply watered, had been cut too deeply 

 and broke off, and the stem decayed : that watered with iron was 

 not safely tied up, and the wind twisted it, so that it fell, but did 

 not snap off at the wound ; it has expanded four or five lilac and 

 white large blossoms ; and has on it twice the number of buds ; it 

 is now secured to a stick, and I doubt not will grow. The third 

 plant is covered with white and pink blossoms, and these with 

 buds amount to thirty or more, though the plant is scarcely a foot 

 high. 



One more fact remains to be mentioned, and it is most im- 

 portant. I caused another plant to strike in water, and having 

 prepared an infusion of Brazil wood, and a solution of iron, both 

 as before described, I carefully removed the new rooted cutting 

 from water, and placed it with a simple slip from off another 

 Balsam, together in solution of iron, soon after, I placed a cutting 

 fresh from a plant in the infusion of Brazil wood. The rooted 

 plant was killed in a few minutes; it drooped, fell over the rim 

 of the vessel in a state of complete flaccidity, and dwindled to a 

 close collapsed thread; the cutting perished within six hours. 

 That also in the red infusion never showed health ; leaf after leaf 

 curled, became brown and fell off. In three days the mere stem 

 only remained. 



Thus it is proved, that the identical liquid which yields life, 

 support, and health to roots when ramifying in a bed, or matrix of 



