150 AKE SOILS EXKICHED, IMPOVERISHED, pt. hi. 



to the plants which grow in their vicinity ; and in this 

 manner the hkings and antipathies of certain plants 

 may be accounted for.' 



In any branch of science other than vegetable 

 physiology it would be considered a mechanical 

 difficulty to pass the two contrary currents of absorp- 

 tion and excretion through the same capillary tubes 

 of the ' slender extremities,' to say nothing of the 

 chemical difficulty of passing the food and poison 

 through the same conduits. But what nonsense can 

 be too nonsensical for vegetable physiologists ! 



De Candolle, Liebig, &c., believe that each planta 

 socialis assists and is assisted by his fellow planta 

 socialis; that there is, as Liebig expresses it, 'a 

 mutual interchange of nutriment between the plants ; ' 

 that each battens on his neighbour's excretions ; and 

 that each is reheved by his neighbour from his own, to 

 himself, poisonous excretions, in which an all- wise 

 Providence has thought fit to envelope the roots of 

 every vegetable. When will these great theorists 

 persuade practical farmers to sow social plants with 

 their crops, or even not to eradicate these social 

 intruders? Charlock has sworn an eternal friendship 

 with turnips. The poppy and cornflower with corn- 

 crops. But the thistle is the desire among vegetables. 

 The amiable qualities of this plant have made it a 

 vmiversal favourite. When we cut our coppice woods 

 here periodically it will grow ten feet in one season, 

 while the pigmy of the race makes love so dihgently 



