May 7 , 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
371 
riche3 he found ; and I know another thing, that some vegetables that 
placed Burghley second on a certain memorable occasion were not grown 
on untrenched land. That is not so many “years” ago, and it was 
“ years ” after that that deep, thorough, unmistakeable trenching was ia 
progress at Burghley ; but although I cannot name the date of Mr. 
Gilbert’s recantation, I can, if needed, remind him exactly when I saw 
his good work in progress. He may have trenched enough. I say nothing 
about that; but he has been one of the best trenchers and best vegetable 
growers in England, and he knows as well as I do that he would not 
have done what he has if the field of his operations had never been worked 
more than a “ spade deep.” 
I AGREE with him fully and unconditionally that the crowbar system 
of planting Broccoli is the safest and the best in districts where the winters 
are apt to be severe. My first lesson in planting in hard undug ground 
from which Strawberries had been chipped was received from a fine old 
Yorkshire gardener in 1850, and 1 have tried the plan carefully against a 
more generous method of culture time after time, and always, when the 
winters were unusually severe, the results were in favour of the hard land 
planting. As the Broccoli-planting season will soon be here the plan 
advocated may well be thought about with a view to its trial by persons 
who have not yet adopted it in localities where this valuable crop is liable 
to destruction by frost. 
Noav for a few thoughts about Liliums. I have grown these bulbous 
plants for many years and observed them closely. I go a very long way 
with Mr. Bardney (page 333) in his opinions, but am bound to come to 
a full stop when he suggests the removal of the roots as they are formed 
above the surface of the soil. I am inclined to believe that stem roots 
are not produced to any extent except the roots from the bulbs, 
cannot absorb sufficient nutriment for proper support of the plants and 
consequently of the bulbs, as an important and integral part of them. This 
means that in my view the presence of stem roots is indicative of weak¬ 
ness, and to remove them entirely the weak plant would be made weaker, 
and the plants so “ assis‘ed ” would neither grow nor flower so well, while 
this very check to growth would have the correlative effect of checking 
also the extension of roots from the bulb, thus leading to a decided loss 
at the top and no gain at the bottom. “ Yery fine theory,” perhaps 
same “ practical ” reader may soliloquise, “ but not much substance in it.” 
Let me say that when I find so-called “ theory ” clashing with practice I 
conclude the former i3 unsound ; and what I have said above is founded 
cn practice. 
I have read the excellent rejoinder of “ Theta ” to Mr. Bardney’s 
observations, but I should have been more impressed with the argument 
on page 347 if “ Theta ” had told us that the strongest and best plants of 
Lilium auratum in Japan produce stem roots naturally and in proportion 
to the strength of the top growth from bnlb3 established in the soil. I 
can tell him as a fact that Liliums have grown well and flowered beauti¬ 
fully supported wholly by stem roots and with the bulbs from which the 
growths started entirely removed ; that in my mind settled the matter of 
the usefulness of stem roots, and had they been removed there would 
certainly have been no flowers. They were late and much-dried bulbs 
that did not produce a root from the base, and if those that bristled from 
the stem had been removed instead of being specially attended to the 
growths would have died instead of flowered, as some did from which a 
good extension of surface roots could not be coaxed. 
Reverting to strong, and in every sense fully supported plants, I have 
to say that the finest examples I have ever seen produced no roots above 
the soil. Some of the stems exceeded 4 inches in circumference, and the 
plants ranged from 6 feet to upwards of 9 feet high. One stem, not 
fasciated, but quite natural, expanded seventy-five blooms; one fasciated 
had above 100 buds and flowers crushed together, the whole collection 
planted out being quite wonderful by the vigour of the growth and the 
profusion and size of the flowers. I carefully removed the soil from some 
of the big bamboo-like stems to see if there were roots from them just 
below the surface, but not a fibre was found above the bulbs. There 
were no doubt plenty below them, and they were in the best of soil, with 
abundance of moisture, which was constantly passing upwards by capil¬ 
lary attraction. That is exactly what Liliums, if not all bulbs, like, and 
the reason why Hyacinths, &c., grow so well in Holland is because 
the sandy soil in which they are planted is, as it were, floating on water, 
which the bright sun is always drawing upwards to the roots. My 
thought, then, on the matter of the roots produced from the stems of Liliums 
is that they are mainly adventitious, of great service when they come, but 
that they do not come if not wanted for the full and adequate support of 
the plant and future bulb ; and, as a rule, they are much more prevalent 
on plants with their roots cramped in pots than on those planted out and 
growing strongly in suitable soil in the open air. To continue would be 
tedious. If I think of it I will on a future occasion refer to what I con¬ 
ceive to be the best method of preparing dry Lilium bulbs for planting, 
also the best time for potting those that are established, as I am convinced 
the plan pursued by many gardeners is utterly wrong. The whole ques¬ 
tion of bulbs after flowering is important, but too large to be entered on 
with the Thomson problem before me. 
I Am asked to “ explain how I prove it to be a settled fact that 
moisture passes from the atmosphere into fruit and causes splitting.” I 
said “ in my view ” that fact is settled. I will try and explain it, and 
if perchance I should learn Mr. Wm. Thomson something, I shall be 
pardoned for feeling it will be a “ feather in my cap,” and some slight 
return for much that I owe to his practice and teaching—ten times more 
than I do to Mr. Mclndoe, whom I may appear to support. It is not a 
question, however, of “ supporting ” anyone, as I take it we are all 
honestly searching after truth. 
Curiously enough the same paper (April 23rd), in which I ventured 
to sug;ge-it that Mr. Thomson would have some difficulty in disproving 
what, in my view, was a fact that the splitting of Mr. Mclndoe’s Grapes 
at Manchester was caused by the transmission of moisture from the 
atmosphere into the fruit—curiously enough, I repeat, the same paper con¬ 
tained Mr. Thomson’s estimate of the cause, and his disproval of my 
view in anticipation. His answer was clever. It was impossible to 
attribute the evil to an influx of sap from the roots, which were about 
100 miles away, so that fact is settled ; and the splitting was attributed 
to the expansion of the fluids in the fruit in consequence of the high 
temperature. This is illustrated by the excessive heat, 110° in the shade, 
in the show tent at Leicester; but we must remember that the Grapes 
split at Manchester, not at Leicester, and if the meteorological records 
are examined it will be found that the heat was by no means great 
during the week commencing August 24th, 1881, the period of the 
Manchester Show. There was a rise in temperature, but not so great 
as even Mr. Mclndoe imagines, and not nearly so marked as has occurred 
on many other occasions in vineries when the fluids did not expand to 
split the fruit. It was, in my opinion, no more the expansion of fluids 
in the fruit that caused the Grapes to split at Manchester, than it was 
the expansion of fluids in the Grapes at Clovenfords when the 
gimleting prevented the evil by arresting the supply of moisture from 
the roots. 
I AM compelled to re-a ; sert, for I can rest on no other principle, that 
the Grapes really did “ glutton-like absorb more moisture from the atmo¬ 
sphere than they could hold.” I do not say they did this of their own 
“ free will,” for they had no will in the matter ; they did so because they 
could not help it, and in obedience to a law of Nature—the “ equilibrium of 
densities,” scientifically known as the principle of osmosis. I can find no 
other firm ground than this to stand on in considering this important 
matter. 
I will, however, proceed a step further in explanation of what I 
believe to be a fact. I have previously stated that Melons and Tomaties 
cut and placed in a moist position in a warm plant stove split, and were 
ruined; but when placed immediately over the hot-water pipes where 
the air was dry they did not split. Yet it was many degrees warmer, and 
the fluids did not expand, and in that way cause splitting. I have had 
scores of Tomatoes crack in a moist atmosphere, but I believe it is not 
possible for them to do so in a dry place in a temperature of even 120° 
in the shade, for under such conditions they will shrivel, and so will 
Grapes. The “fact” I advanced of Grapes absorbing moisture is there¬ 
fore as clear to me as the fact of Mr. Thomson stopping his Grapes 
splitting with the gimlet is clear to him. I can understand there may be 
no escape of moisture from the gimlet holes when the Vines are in leaf, 
for they may be pruned then to any reasonable extent without bleeding ; 
but I cannot understand their splitting in a hot dry place by the 
expansion of fluids, and I have yet to be convinced that it is in the powej 
of man to make them split in that way without cooking them. 
Moisture not only passes from the atmosphere through vegetable but 
also through animal membranes, the thinner fluid in the air being attracted 
by the denser fluid in fruit. 
Mons. Dutrochet found that if he filled the swimming bladder of 
a carp with thin mucilage and placed it in water, the bladder gained 
weight by attracting water through its sides : to this phenomenon he 
gave the name of Endosmose. He also found that if he filled the 
same bladder with water and placed it in thin mucilage, it lost 
weight, its contents being partially attracted through its sides into the 
surrounding mucilage; this counter phenomenon he named Exosmose. 
The same circumstances were seen to occur in the transmission of fluids 
through the tissue of plants ; it was found possible to gorge parts of 
vegetables with fluid by merely placing them in water, and to empty them 
again by rendering the fluid in which they were placed more dense than 
that which they contained. It was also ascertained that this phenomenon 
took place with considerable force : Dutrochet says that water thickened 
with sugar in the proportion of 1 sugar to 2 water, was productive of a 
power of endosmose capable of sustaining a column of mercury of 
127 inches, or the weight of 4$ atmospheres. When organic tissue dies 
it does not lose its mere hygrometrical power, nor do its tubes cease their 
capillarity ; for endosmose will take effect through dead membranes, as 
is proved by the instrument called an endosmometer. Dutrochet con¬ 
siders endosmose to be owing to what he calls intercapillary electricity, 
grounding his opinion partly upon the experiment of Porret, who found 
that when two liquids of different levels are separated by a membrane, 
they may be brought to a level by establishing an electrical current 
between the two, thus rendering the membrane permeable; and partly 
upon experiments of his own. But M. Poisson, on the contrary, has 
demonstrated that endosmose may be the result of capillary attraction 
joined to differences in the affiaity of heterogeneous substances.— (Ann. 
de Chim., 1827, v. 35, p. 98.) Time flies, paper fills, the midnight oil 
burns low, or more evidence on Grapes absorbing moisture through 
their skins could be adduced by—A Thinker. 
