862 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
sets in, by a layer of littery mauure, or loaves, 
which last may be kept down by spriukfing a 
little soil over them. Bulbs may be potted now 
and kept in a cool place imtil frosts come, when 
they may be placed in the cellar, from which 
they are to be taken during the winter at inter- 
vals, a few at a time, to a warm room to flower. 
— . ^K*M ►-- 
Insects and Plant Fertilization. 
FIFTH ARTICLE. 
Fig. 1.^ 
Are .all flowers then, it may be asked, aided 
by insects in the essential business of forming 
seeds ? By no means. In many cases, where 
cross-fertiliz.atiou equally takes place, the trans- 
port of pollen is left to the winds. Sucli flow- 
ers produce no honey, nor anything attractive 
to insects, and such flowers, we may add, have 
no showj' corolla. So we may conclude that 
corollas, or bright colors in any part of the blos- 
som, and also fragrance, are^jiven to plants in 
order that they may attract insects, and be aided 
by them ; an aid which many are absolutely 
dependent on. Not that all plants destitute of 
corollas get no help from insects. "Willows, for 
instance, which bear stamens 
and pistils on different trees, as 
every one knows, are thronged 
by bees when in blossom, and 
the pollen is carried from the 
male to the female catkins. Pines, 
Spruces, and the like, on the 
contrary, are left to the winds to 
fertilize. And here it is worth 
while to notice what a great pre- 
ponderance of male flowers these 
produce, and what a vast amount 
of pollen — many millions of 
grains for every female flower or 
seed — for, with only the winds to carry it, this 
seemingly wasteful superabundance of pollen 
is really a needful provision to secure fertility ; 
while in AVillows, where bees are invited to 
carry it from flower to flower, the proportion 
of pollen to the seeds is bj' no means excessive. 
Grasses and grains also depend upon the wind, 
and have accordingly a vast excess of pollen. 
Their flowers are most commonly hermaphro- 
dite ; but when the pollen is about to be shed, 
the anthers on their long and delicate filaments, 
and the feathery branching stigmas, are both 
hung out to the breeze together, so that there 
is sure to be a copious crossing. 
We now understand what the good of cross- 
ing is, and it may be 
asked, is crossing pro- 
vided for in all flow- 
ers ? Are there any her- 
maphrodite flowers in 
which self-fertilization is 
regular or certain ? Yes : 
there is one class of 
such cases. Most of the 
earlier flowers in our 
"Wild Balsam, Jewel- 
'Weed,or Touch-me-not, 
fertilize in the early 
flower-bud; and so do 
most of the later flowers of Wood-sorrel, and of 
our common Violets. These flower-buds never 
open, have no showy corolla to attract insects, 
and no pollen but their own can reach the stig- 
mas. These and the few stamens are shut up 
close together. " Nature here being as care ful to 
secure close-fertilization as she ordinarily is to 
prevent it. — Two things about this are worth 
• Fi23. 1 and 3.— Flowers of 2)/cfn<ra spectnhilis ; 1. nn- 
openert ; 2, opea : 3, with the united inner petals pushed 
otr til one siae. 
Fig. 3. 
noticing. First, since fertilization is made sure 
by shutting up the anthers in close contact with 
the stigma, there need be no superfluity of pol- 
len ; and it is a remark- 
able fact that these .an- 
thers really contain on- 
ly a dozen or two of 
grains of pollen, but 
these are large and un- 
usually efficient, and al- 
most every one of them 
does its work. Naturei 
so prodigal where she 
has only winds and 
chance to rely on, but 
less so when insects are 
carriers, is parsimonious 
enough when her arrangements are such that no 
pollen is likely to be lost. Secondly, all plants 
which produce flowers of this kind (of which 
many are known), have ordinary blossoms also, 
with showy corollas, open to the visits of insects 
and actually cross-fertilized by their aid; so that 
the advantage of a cross is secured for each 
generation in a part of the flowers, while cer- 
tain fraitfulness by close breeding is economi- 
cally secured in the rest. We may fiiirly sup- 
pose that the latter could not go on for many 
generations unless it were alternated with the 
former. For if it could, what would be the use 
of the former sorts, which are always less pro- 
lific than the latter ? No plant is known in 
which at least an occasional cross-breeding is 
not provided for. 
At first view, however, we should say that we 
have just Such a case in all the Fumitory fami- 
ly. Here there is only one kind of blossom, 
and that seemingly contrived on purpose for 
self-fertilization. The Showy Dicentra, com- 
monly called Dielytra, of late years a great orna- 
ment of our gardens in spring, is the most con- 
spicuous example. The red, heart-shaped co- 
rolla is seen, unopened, in fig. 1. The tips of 
the two outer and larger petals soon roll back- 
wards, as in fig. 3. But the inner and smaller 
pair of petals remain stuck together at the tips, 
and may be likened to a pair of little spoons in 
contact, face to face ; the cavity so formed com- 
pletely shuts in the six anthers, closely surround- 
ing the 3-lobed stigma. The anthers open early, 
and on their inner face, and the pollen is abund- 
antly shed^pon the enclosed stigma. Here, 
we should say, close-fertilization is a sure thing, 
and crossing is out of the question. But con- 
sider, first, that there is nectar in the sac at the 
bottom of the large petals ; also that bees, espec- 
ially humble-bees, visit these flowers ; in reach- 
ing the nectar the bee brmgs his head down to 
the opening at the upper jiart of the flower on 
each side. AVhen thus sucking out the nectar 
from one side of the flower, his head pushes the 
cap formed of the inner petals off to the other 
side,' i.e., into the position represented in fig. 3, 
and brushes against the now exposed anthers 
and stigma. Some of the pollen which thus 
smears the head of the bee, carried to the next 
flower, is most likely to be in part deposited 
upon its stigma. So that here, after all, we 
have a beautiful arrangement for cross-fertiliza- 
tion ! In both the Dicentra and in the smaller 
one-sided but otherwise similar blossom of Cory- 
dalis, we have seen the bees at work, carrying 
the pollen rapidly from flower to flower, and 
from plant to plant. And the crowning and very 
curious fact has recently been ascertained by 
experiment, that if insects be excluded, even 
these flowers set little or no seed. Yet the stig- 
mas get completely covered with poUeu from 
their own stamens ! So it must be that the pol- 
len is powerless, or nearly so, upon the stigma 
of the same flower, but is efficient upon the 
stigma of neighboiing flowers ; and that breed- 
ing in-and-in, which seemed unavoidable from 
the structure of the blossom, is here prevented 
only by this differentiation of the pollen and 
stigma. The proof that this is re.ally so, as 
shown by some other flowers, will be given in 
another article. A. G. 
Preservation of Vegetables in Winter. 
BY PETER HENDERSON, SOUTH BERGEN, N. J. 
The following timely article is a chapter from 
Mr. Henderson's forthcoming work on Garden- 
ing, alluded to in the " Basket." 
" Our manner of preserving vegetable roots in 
winter is, I thmk, peculiar to this district, and is 
very simple and safe.— After taking np such crops 
as beets, carrots, horse-radish, parsnips, turnips, 
potatoes, etc., in fall, they are put in tempo- 
rary oblong heaps, on the surface of the ground 
on which thej' have been growing, and covered 
up with 5 or 6 inches of soil, which will keep 
off such slight frosts as are likely to occur until 
time can be spared to put them in permanent 
winter quarters, this is done in this section 
usually during the first part of December, in the 
following manner : A piece of ground is chosen 
as dry as possible ; if not natur.ally drj', provision, 
must be made to carry off tlie water, lower than 
tJie bottom of tlie pit. The pit is dug out from 
three to four feet deep, about six feet wide, and 
of the length required ; the roots are then 
packed in in sections of about two feet wide 
across the pit, and only to the hight of the 
ground level Between the sections, a space of 
h.alf a foot is left, which is tilled up with the 
soil level to the top ; this leaves the pit filled up 
two feet wide in roots, and half a foot of soil, 
and so on until the whole is finished. The ad- 
vantage of this plan is, that it is merely a series 
of small pits, holding from three to five barrels 
of roots, which can be taken out for market 
without exposing the next section, as it is closed 
off by the six inches of soil between. Also that 
we find that roots of all kinds keep safer when 
in small bulk, than when large numbers are 
thrown into one pit together. In covering, the 
top is rounded so as to throw off the w.ater, with 
a Layer of from 18 inches to 3 feet of soil. This 
way of preserving roots, with perhaps the qx- 
ception of potatoes, is much preferable to keep- 
ing them in a cellar or root house, as they not 
only keep fresher, retaining more of their nat- 
ural flavor and color, but fiir fewer of them are 
lost by decay than when exposed to the air and 
varying temperature of a cellar. Unmatured 
heads of cauliflower or broccoli, however, are 
best matured in a light cellar or cold frame, by 
being planted in close together ; in this way 
good heads may be had to Januaiy. Cabbages 
are preserved very simply ; they are left out as 
late as they can be pulled up by the roots, in 
this section about the end of November, they 
are then ijulled up and turned upside down — 
the roots up, the heads packed close together, 
in beds six feet wide, with si.x feet alleys be- 
tween, care being taken to have the ground 
levelled where the cabbages are placed, so that 
they pack nicel}'. Tliey are left in this way for 
two or three weeks, or as long as the ground 
can bo dug between the alleys, the soil from 
which is thrown in on the beds of cabbage, so 
that when finished they have a covering of four 
or six inches of soil. This is not enough to 
cover the root however, which is left partly ex- 
