1866.] 
AMERICAN AQRICULTURIST. 
325 
a flower-biul, cutting through two of these 
pockets, and showing the anthers ensconced 
therein. Fig. 3 shows the half of a flower just 
expanding; and in so doing it lias carried the an- 
thers outwards and downwards, bending their 
filaments. When the flower is wide open tlie 
filaments are bent backwards still more, with 
considerable tension, like that of a bent bow. 
Pull the filament a little, or gently lift the an- 
tlier with the point of a pin, so as to disengage 
it, and the bow straightens itself with consider- 
able force, throwing the pollen out of the anther 
FiK. S.— One half of an openinET flower of the eame, Bhowlng 
6 of the 10 anthers in their pouches. 
with a momentum which carries it far over the 
stigma. In fact, this stamen is on the plan of, 
and acts like, a boy's pea-shooter, or rather like 
a double pea-shooter,— two quills upon one bit 
of whalebone. So the pollen is shot at the stig- 
ma; and out of ten shots some may hit the 
mark. But we may well believe this elaborate 
contrivance was not got up for such a pur- 
pose. On enclosing a truss of flowers in 
gauze, so as to keep off flying insects, we 
find tliat the anthers remain in their pouches 
till the flowers wither, or till tlie filaments lose 
their elasticity and become flabby. Evidently 
the anthers are to be set free by insects. Now 
bees and wasps visit the Kalmia-flowcrs abund- 
antly, chiefly in early morning. A bee on the 
wing poises liimself directly over the centre of 
the flower, and usually rotates around, his fore- 
legs hitting or even pulling at the filaments in 
succession, while his proboscis is searching the 
bottom of the flower on every side ; and the an- 
thers, one after another, discharge their pollen 
upon the bee's chest and abdomen, the very 
parts of the body which, during the operation, 
are continually rubbing against the stigma. 
We ought next to describe tlie curious flow- 
ers of the common Milkweed, in which the pol- 
len coheres to form a waxy mass, and these 
masses are connected in pairs ,.., 
to a sticky gland ; much as in » 
the Orchis famil}^, otherwise 
very different; and these glands, 
with the pollen attached, stick 
to the legs of bees and butter- 
flies, by which they are con- 
veyed from flower to flower. 
But we have not room for the 
description and for the figures 
which would be needed to 
make the account intelKeible. 
° Fig. 4.— One of the 
There is no need, however, stamens, more en. 
to restrict our view to flow- larged. 
ers of extraordinary structure, such as Or- 
chids or Kalmias, or endowed with extraor- 
dinary irritability, like the Barberry-blossom. 
Most of our common brightly colored blossoms, 
and many that are not at all showy, plainly 
reveal on inspection their adaptation to cross 
fertilization by the aid of insects. Look into 
the corolla of a Foxglove, and see the four an- 
thers and the two-lobed stigma pressed against 
the upper side of the tube, about lialf way 
down ; but, the style being a little longer than 
the filaments, the stigma projects beyond tlio 
anthers. As the flower hangs moutli down- 
wards, it might be supposed that the pollen 
would fall on the stigma ; but, the stigma facing 
forward, so as to prevent that, the pollen must 
foil useless to the ground. Now the flowers 
are much visited by bees; and it is interesting 
to see either a humble-bee or a honey-bee crawl 
into the flower: alighting on the projecting 
border or lip on the lower side, he turns over 
so as to face the stamens and stigma, catches 
hold of the curving filaments to aid in the as- 
cent, and works his way upwards until the 
proboscis reaches the nectar at the very bottom 
of the flower. In so doing he brushes his chest 
and belly, first against the stigma, bringing to 
it the pollen from the previously visited blos- 
som, and then against the anthers, thus receiv- 
ing a charge of pollen for the next flower. 
We need not multiply examples. Every gar- 
den and every field offers equally good exam- 
ples, — lessons which anybody may read and 
understand, if he will only open his eyes, and 
be convinced that the familiar ditty of our 
childhood has a more extended application than 
the good old Dr. Watts ever dreamed of When 
the "Hymns for Infant Minds" are brought up 
to the present state of science, we shall read : 
" How doth the little busy bee 
Improve each shining hour 
By canying pollen day by day 
To fertilize each flower," 
and the lesson of disinterestedness will carry a 
worthier moral than the praise of selflsh accu- 
mulation. A. G. 
Dutch Bulbs. 
The superiority of hyacinths and tulips as 
grown in Holland, over these raised in this 
country, has been so long insisted on that there 
must be some truth in it. All gardeners who 
have bought fresh imported bulbs know that for 
the first year they are very flue, the next year 
less so, and so on for a succession of years. At 
least, it requires extraordinary skill to keep up 
their original excellence. Perhaps our hot and 
dry summers, with our stimulating manures, 
has something to do with this deterioration ; but 
we can not believe that good bulbs are an im- 
possibility here, if we attend carefully to the 
condition of the soil. A writer in the Gar- 
dener's Chronicle gives us an account of the 
nature of the soil in which the best Dutch bulbs 
are grown. The land about Haerlem is com- 
posed chiefly of sand and decaying shells, com- 
bined with considerable vegetable matter. This 
is dressed every year with a liberal supply of 
cow-dung, and nothing else. Where bulbs are 
to be grown, the land is trenched two feet deep 
and heavily dunged. The ground is not yet ready 
for liyacinths : the manure when first applied is 
too rank for the healthy culture of such roots. 
Accordingly, the ground is devoted the first 
year, to some hoed crop, such as potatoes; after 
these are harvested, the ground is again plowed 
and harrowed smooth ; and then, say in Octo- 
ber, the bulbs are put in. They are set about 
4 inches deep, and when frosty nights set in, the 
ground is covered with reeds, 4 or 5 inches 
thick. So managed, the bulbs form strong 
rootlets before winter, and in spring shoot 
up vigorously. — It is added that great pains are 
taken during the summer to ensure a healthy 
growth of leaves. As soon as the flowers fade, 
and even before, the flower stalks are cut off', 
both to strengthen the roots and to prevent 
these stalks falling down and bruising llic leaves. 
Perhaps we in tliis country mistake by cutting 
off the leaves before they are fully ripe. At 
any rate, the foregoing are the Dutch facts ; 
let us speculate upon them and profit by lliem. 
The Wine ftuestion. 
Grapes will, in many localities, be ripe this 
month, and it will be expected that we shall 
say something about wine making. To those 
who intend to make any considerable quanti- 
ties of wine, wo cannot do any better service 
than to commend to them Jlr. Ilusmann's excel- 
lent treatise on Grapes and Wine. In October, 
1864, we gave the process as followed in a 
small way, and we very briefiy recapitulate it. 
Let the grapes be thoroughly ripe, pick out 
all decayed ones, and grind them in a mill 
that will not crush the seeds, or pound them in 
a barrel. The pulp is allowed to stand from 
one to three days, according to the desired 
quality of the wine. The longer it stands the 
more color and astringency it will acquire ; for 
light wines, one day is enough. The juice is 
then to be pressed from the pulp and put into a 
perfectly clean cask to ferment. The cask 
being filled, it is closed by a bung, which has 
fixed in it a tin or glass tube bent into the form 
of a syphon, or twice at right angles. The open 
end of this tube dips under the surface of water 
in a cup or other vessel, and allows the gas pro- 
duced during fermentation to escape, while it 
completely excludes air from the contents of 
the cask. When active fermentation has ceased, 
the cask is bunged tightly, and left for two or 
three months, or until the wine becomes clear. 
The wine is then carefully racked off from the 
lees and transferred to a clean cask. Usually 
another, but less violent, fermentation sets in 
the following spring, and after this is over the 
wine may be bottled. This is a rough outline 
of the process, which should in every part be 
conducted with the greatest care and cleanli- 
ness, using no casks or other vessels that can 
impart any flavor to the wine. This is the pro- 
cess of the best makers, to produce wine from 
the fermented juice of the grape, without any 
addition. We headed this article the " wine 
question," as there is a question that has been 
discussed by our western vintners, with more 
or less acrimony on both sides. One side 
holds that wine should be the fermented natural 
juice of the grape and nothing else. The other 
side maintains, that in some seasons the grape 
does not contain sufflcient sugar to make wine, 
while it has all the necessary acids and other 
constituents. They have a process of testing — 
which it would take too long to describe here 
— by which the amount of both acids and sugar 
is ascertained, and when there is a deficiency 
of sugar they add enough to make up the quan- 
tity to that of normal must. This is the case 
stated in brief, and the question, whether this is 
a proper procedure, is one wliich is likely to 
make still more discussion among wine makers. 
There are good arguments for both sides, and 
we are not yet prepared to express an opinion, 
except so far as to say that the claim that grape 
sugar makes wine, and that cane sugar makes 
rum — has no foundation in fiict. Perfectly pure 
cane sugar, and pure grape sugar in fermenta- 
tion will yield alcohol precisely the same, and 
it is only the .associated matters that make wine 
of one and rum of the other. We know that it 
is not safe to advocate the doctoring of wines in 
any way, as in bad kinds it is liable to abuse. 
