218 
A POPULAR FALLACY RESPECTING THE SUNFLOWER. 
doubting whether the giant in dispute really exists, draws down the whole weight 
of wrath, of all the angry disputants, upon his devoted head ; and, after having 
despatched the offender, they fall again to disputing and speculating upon the thick- 
ness of the giant’s nails, and size of his little finger. 
So, of our giant, let us be certain that it exists, before we go into disquisitions 
with Doctor Hales, respecting the “ contraction of the stem, by the heat of the sun, 
to enable the flower to incline,” &c. 
Three years since we had saved an unusual quantity of the seed of this plant ; 
and having heard, that by feeding poultry upon the ripe grains, the flavour of game 
would be imparted to their flesh : having, moreover, ample space to make the 
experiment, we sowed an immense number in different parts of the premises, — in 
shade, in sun, in beds, clumps, rows, and shrubberies : every variety of soil and 
situation, which we could command, was afforded it ; and a glaring, tasteless, 
frightful display of disks, was the consequence. 
The experiment however was serviceable, it enabled us to prove the inaccuracy 
of two popular assertions, that the flesh of poultry, fed on the seeds, acquires the 
flavour of game ; and that it was the nature of the flower to turn towards the sun. 
We made it a particular point to watch the plants, in the then full expectation of 
proving the truth of the remark — not with a view to refute it : for as others are, 
we were — i. e. frm believers in the existence of the giant , or rather in the delicate 
susceptibility of the plant, to the influence of the sun. I remember, that a rigid, 
sullen, down-looking, broad, ugly, brown face, with a scanty, short, bristly-looking 
beard of dingy yellow, resolutely keeping its head bowed towards the earth, first 
made me sceptical on the subject of its poetical constancy : I raised, and propped 
its drooping ill-looking face, and hoped to find that the morrow’s sun had cheered 
it. No — it loathed the bright luminary, and lived and died without having caught 
a stray Jbeam upon its face. This led us to investigate others. We looked at all 
hours, and found them ever the same : as the buds unclosed, so the flowers remained, 
looking to every point of the compass. The same disk that nodded to the north- 
pole star, where it opened, retained its unvarying position, apparently more 
attracted by its magnetic influence, than by the electrical light of the sun, that 
was travelling in the south. The same fierce face that would be glaring at me, 
and looking due east in the morning, still stared due east when I went to visit it in 
an afternoon, and again by the light of the moon at night. 
So fair an opportunity of watching and remarking so great a number of plants, 
as we at that time possessed, is seldom afforded ; and so well did we profit by our 
opportunity, that, without fear of contradiction, I repeat, that whoever will care- 
fully examine the inclination of a number of sunflowers, will find that the heads do 
not vary from the position in which they first appear — that that position indis- 
criminately points in every direction, and that the rigid unyielding fibrous stalks 
remain u uncontracted by the heat of the sun,” and possess no elasticity whatever. 
July 28th. Viola. 
