148 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. c February u, issi. 
more than ordinary pretensions where it is not grown. This 
neglect of a beautiful plant is strange, for when its delicate wax¬ 
like white flowers with their rich purple central rays are fully 
expanded, the plant is unrivalled except by its near relative 
H. Paxtoni. The neat trusses of flowers are invaluable for 
cutting when something particularly choice is required.— L. 
EARLY TOMATOES. 
Under the above heading Mr. Muir, on page 108 of your last 
issue, had a very interesting article. He says that the present is 
a good time to sow the seed for an early crop of Tomatoes, and 
he is right if early and late crops are all that are required. 
If Tomatoes are so highly esteemed as they are said to be, why 
not have them all the year round ? They are easily grown, any 
ordinary rich soil will suit them, and with careful attention to 
tying, pinching, and watering there is no difficulty in growing 
them successfully. 
We are cutting fruits from our early crops now, and have been 
doing so since the beginning of the year. For an early crop of 
Tomatoes I recommend plants raised from cuttings taken in 
August in preference to seedlings, as I find that cuttings fruit 
more freely. Their final shift may be either into 10-inch pots or 
into boxes of a suitable size. They will flower freely, and by the 
end of October plenty of fruit will be formed for a crop ; and 
when the plants are introduced into a house where a temperature 
of from 50° to 60° can be maintained during the dull months of 
the year the fruits will swell rapidly, and by the beginning of 
January will give a plentiful supply of good Tomatoes.—J. M. K. 
TIIE^ EFFECTS OF ELECTRICITY ON VEGETATION. 
[(Continued from page 128.) 
Mildew. —It has been pointed out that plants consist of two 
different conditions, one taking the stain and the other resisting 
it; the one taking the stain belonging to the root or supply 
system, the other to the oxygenated or product class. Procure a 
leaf spotted with mildew, and dip it for an instant into the 
dilute magenta stain, and all the mildewed pait will become 
deeply dyed in opposition to the unaffected portions. This at 
once proclaims the fungoid growth to belong to the root section. 
Take a thin slice out of any part of a Mushroom, or any of the 
Toadstools, and it will take the stain very readily, the gills 
least so, but all showing the same tendency. But the Mushroom 
or the Toadstool is only one part of the fungus, representing the 
flowering or fruit portion of the true plants; the other, or more 
mischievous division, is the creeping root which usurps the nu¬ 
trient fluid of the victim upon which it feeds. This root portion, 
or “ spawn,” is composed of single elongated cells attached to 
each other lengthwise in strings, and continually extending and 
creeping along amongst the cells, choking up the intercellular 
spaces and appropriating their nutriment. It is a noticeable 
point that these growths seldom or never penetrate the cells 
themselves, but are almost if not entirely confined to the in¬ 
tercellular spaces and divisional walls, as may be seen under 
the higher powers of the microscope in well-prepared specimens. 
Now this *' mycelium,” or spawn, may exist for an almost in¬ 
definite period without advancing to fructification, and it is only 
when the specially favourable conditions for this ultimatum are 
brought into existence that the Toadstools and Mushrooms appear. 
There is one peculiar feature pertaining to fungi that separates 
them completely from the general bulk of vegetation—they are 
altogether entirely destitute of chlorophyl grains — the green 
colouring matter of the leaves of Ferns and flowering plants, Jcc.; 
and by the absence of this, and there being no other substance 
corresponding with or replacing it, these organisms are thus de¬ 
monstrated to be non-polar, or in other words, to be associated 
with, and to partake of the particular electric condition of the 
part to which they belong. In referring to the experiment 
with Cress seed (page 266, last vol.), those seeds which were 
around the positive, or oxygen-attracting electrode, were the first 
to germinate ; but they very soon died and blackened as if burnt, 
which in fact they were. They also germinated heels upwards, 
and ultimately became infested with the mycelium of a fungus. 
With regard to this blackening process in the case of the seed, it 
was purely an electrolytic proceeding. Dip a match-stick or a 
piece of straw into concentrated sulphuric acid, and it will in¬ 
stantly become charred in a similar manner. The oxygen of the 
acid at once seizes upon the hydrogen of the albuminous com¬ 
pound, and so liberates the carbon in the state of charcoal. With 
the battery the oxygen is provided by the electrode. But then 
the air immediately in contact with and surrounding the seeds 
being rendered electro-negative, or reversed from its normal state 
and made to correspond with that of the earth, the radicles or 
rootlets were also made to follow the same order, and to push 
their way into the negative as usual, which in this instance proves 
to be the air instead of the earth, and hence their inverted posi¬ 
tion. Now, as the electrolytic action will still be going on after 
the death of the seed, and not ceasing with this change, the al¬ 
buminous material of the seed will also be undergoing further 
changes and necessarily be forced into some other form. 
Around the negative electrode the seeds were longer in ger¬ 
minating, but when they did so they were well plumped out and 
exceedingly bright-skinned; they grew on healthily for some 
little time, or so long as the required nutriment contained within 
themselves was unexhausted ; but when this supply ceased and 
there being no root-action to replenish the store, growth came to 
an end. These results fully demonstrate the dependance of the 
two conditions upon each other, one to prepare the food and the 
other to convert it into growth. Hence, had the two actions been 
simultaneously or alternately exerted upon the same seed, one 
would have furnished the supply and the other converted it into 
growth. But as the negative growing action was absent from 
the positive electrode we have the positive forcing the nutriment 
it goes on forming, into a special growth of another kind—the 
cellular threadlike mycelium of a “ fungus.”—W. K. Bridgman, 
Norwich. 
THE METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
The usual monthly meeting of this Society was held on 'Wednesday 
the 16th inst., at the - Institution of Civil Engineers, Mr. G. J. Symonsi 
F.R.S., President, in the chair. J. L. Bell, F.R.S., J. Bernays, A. W* 
Blyth, J. Church, F. W. Cory, S. Cutler, T. L. K. Edge, C. Horsley, 
W. J. Howard, C. Kelly, M.D., G. Lingwood, W. Macgeorge, Capt. J. 
P. Maclear, R.N., A. Rigg, and H. C. Stephens, were elected Fellows 
of this Society. The following papers were read :—“ Relative Hu¬ 
midity,” by Charles Greaves, M. Inst. C.E., F.G.S. The object of this 
paper was to show that the term “ Relative Humidity ” was frequently 
the cause of misunderstanding, and that it was desirable that some 
other tables with a more correct denomination should be used in order 
that reliable values of this factor in our climate should be recorded. 
“ On the Frost of January, 1881, over the British Isles,” by William 
Marriott, F.M.S. The author pointed out that the severe frost of the 
7th to the 26th was remarkable for its unexpected appearance, its 
long continuance, and its sudden breaking up. The weather during 
the first week of January was comparatively mild, but frost set in 
over the north of Scotland on the oth. The author then gave the 
lowest thermometrical readings from about three hundred stations in 
the United Kingdom for each day of the frost, which were plotted 
upon diagrams clearly showing the relative severity of the weather 
experienced in each district. The lowest readings were, 15° at 
Garstang on the 16th, 22° at Blackadder, 16° at Kelso, 15° at 
Stobo, 11° at Thirlestane Castle, and 10° at Melrose on the 17th. 
Reference was also made in detail to the rivers and lakes which had 
been frozen over, and to other incidents proving the remarkably low 
temperatures which had occurred. Some idea of the intensity of the 
frost may be gathered by the fact that in the south of Scotland the 
temperature fell below 10° on more than eleven occasions, below 20? 
on nineteen occasions, and was below 32° on twenty-five to twenty- 
nine occasions. In the London district readings below 10° occurred 
on two or three days, below 20° on ten days, and below 32° on twenty 
days. In Ireland temperatures below 10° were registered on six or 
seven occasions, below 20° on twelve or fourteen occasions, and below 
32° on twenty-two to twenty-four occasions. No place in the British 
Isles was exempt from the frost ,• even at Scilly the temperature was 
below 32° on three days, the lowest being 29° on two occasions. The 
winter seaside health resorts afforded no protection from the frost; 
at Penzance the temperature fell below 32° on ten occasions, at Tor¬ 
quay on eleven occasions, and was below 20° on six occasions ; at 
Yentnor it was below 32° on nineteen occasions, and below 20° on 
three occasions ; and at Bournemouth it was below 32° on twenty- 
three and below 20° on ten occasions. The heavy falls of snow pre¬ 
vented the frost from penetrating far into the ground, but where the 
snow was cleared away the temperature of the soil fell considerably. 
A diagram was exhibited showing the mean temperature of January 
in the neighbourhood of London for each year from 1774 to 1881, from 
which it appeared that the low mean temperature of 31 - 6° for last 
month had only been surpassed on five occasions, and that the three 
years 1879-81 have been very cold, the mean for this period being 
only 32 - 2° ; there is no instance during the past hundred years of any 
three consecutive Januarys having so low a mean temperature. 
• The Best Late Potato—Ieeland. —The question is whether 
such a list of three hundred varieties as Mr. Shirley Hibberd 
publishes (referred to in Journal page 133), does not mystify 
instead of enlighten. To the general cultivator, would it not be 
more important to know which are the best earliest, intermediate, 
and late varieties 1 But then I may be asked, Have they not a ten¬ 
dency to degenerate 1 If the seed is not properly selected, and the 
