INSECT- CATCHING PLANTS. 



411 



advantage in their seed production from manurial aids, whether 

 obtained from the decomposed insects which so often crowd 

 their pitchers, or from direct artificial applications to their roots, 

 or through the atmosphere ; in the case of the Nepenthes, it must 

 be remembered that under cultivation so many circumstances 

 are altered that it is often difficult to predict results likely to 

 follow certain causes. It is certain, however, that in all these 

 plants there is a manifest adaptation for enticing insects into the 

 modified leaves, and there retaining them until they are lifeless. 

 It is equally certain that whether any portion of the decomposed 

 substance is absorbed direct by the leaf, or aids in fertilising the 

 surrounding soil, or in imparting gases to the atmosphere, the 

 influence must be of a stimulating character, exactly as under cul- 

 tivation we endeavour to assist plant-growth by various artificial 

 means. Why so few plants should be thus strangely modified 

 when so many others have exactly similar requirements, it is 

 difficult perhaps to understand, but the student of nature is 

 always meeting with difficulties of this kind, that only serve to 

 humble him to a due sense of his own limited capacity and 

 knowledge. 



FKUITS FOR COTTAGERS AND SMALL FARMERS. 



Attention having lately been directed to the advantages which 

 may be gained by a more general and more careful cultivation 

 of fruit, the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society have 

 requested their Fruit Committee (which consists of forty of the 

 leading experts in fruit culture in this country) to prepare a list, 

 for the information of cottagers and small farmers, of those 

 varieties which they would recommend as being most suitable 

 for the purpose. 



In preparing the list the Committee were particularly 

 requested — 



(i) To consider the matter entirely from a cottager's or 

 small farmer's point of view ; 



(ii) To make it applicable, as far as possible, to the 

 whole of England ; * 



(iii) To include in it none but varieties possessing the 

 * A revised edition has since been prepared for Scotland. 



