12 JOURNAL OF THF ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the bits to their holes, and he not unnaturally asked, ' What do 

 the ants do with these bits of leaves ? ' Belt, another English 

 traveller in the same region in 1874, suggested that the ants 

 make beds of leaf-mould in their underground passages, and use 

 as food the fungi which grow from these prepared mushroom- 

 beds. Of course the idea of ants turning gardeners in this way 

 was laughed at, though a little inquiry will show that ants, 

 bees and wasps, do carry out many other operations quite as 

 remarkable. 



However, it turns out that Belt was right, for in 1893 

 Mtiller published the results of his careful observations extending 

 over several years, and showed that the ants not only build up the 

 bits of leaves into definite garden-beds, but they foster the 

 growth of the fungi which spring from spores attached to the 

 leaves, carefully weed out foreign forms, and regularly harvest 

 the crop for food. Not only so. Moller himself sowed the 

 fungus in microscopic gardens, obtained the crop and found out 

 what species it was, and proved that the ants were better hands 

 at microscopic gardening than had even been imagined, for 

 during the course of ages they have selected and bred a special 

 variety of the fungus, so peculiarly close, short, and juicy that it 

 reminds him of the cauliflower varieties of our own cabbages, and 

 he names it the ' cauliflower ' variety. 



Here is microscopic gardening on a refined scale, and 

 although we must not be led away in our ignorance into un- 

 founded speculations as to the motives or objects— plans, if you 

 like — of the ants themselves, the success of their communistic 

 efforts in market -gardening on a microscopic scale cannot be 

 denied, and may teach many a lesson to the thoughtful who 

 reflect on how often a little intelligence is employed on cultiva- 

 tions on a much bigger scale of commercially useful plants. 



It will probably occur to most of you that brewing is one of 

 the most ancient of all forms of microscopic gardening, and it too 

 has a history of development from the mere accidental exposure 

 of decoctions of vegetable origin to fermentation, advancing to 

 the refined pure cultures of special races and varieties of yeast in 

 carefully prepared worts and musts of the present day, just as 

 L'anL niii" and agriculture have progressed from the rough clear- 

 ing of un weeded patches about the homestead to the scientific 

 l-ivpuration of soils and manures and the selection of pedigree- 



