1876 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
101 
pearauce of “founder;” ultimately their hoofs 
drop off, and deformed hoofs may grow out; 
in the meanwhile the pigs become permanently 
blind. If when blindness and lameness are 
first noticed in young pigs, they are removed 
to a pasture where they cannot get at the root, 
they soon recover; and even old ones that 
have become incurably blind will take on fat if 
We had read in the recent European journals 
of Senecio macrogbssus ; were proposing to send 
for it, and here it was right at hand ! By this 
time every flower-growing reader of the Amer¬ 
ican Agriculturist knows the German or Parlor 
Ivy; that quick-growing, tender vine, now so 
popular for window and basket culture, and so 
useful for soon covering a screen in the garden. 
characters of trifling value, such as that of col¬ 
or, may be of importance in natural selection, 
in adapting animals or plants to a locality, as 
they are known to be in artificial selection by 
man. The immunity from adverse influences 
of certain dark colored fruits is pointed out by 
him, and that of black pigs in this case, is not 
the only instance in which there is a direct re- 
paint root. —(Lachnanthes tinctorial) 
lation between the color of animals and their 
adaptation to certain localities, and their sus¬ 
ceptibility to certain poisons. White horses in 
eastern Prussia, if they eat mildewed vetches, 
soon have ulcers break out upon the skin, and 
even those which are spotted with white, have 
every place upon which there are white hairs, 
affected by troublesome sores, while horses 
with no white spots are not injured. In a 
part of Sicily there are only black sheep, as the 
white ones are all killed off by a species of St. 
Jolm’s-Woft, {Hypericum), which grows there, 
and other instances are given. The case of the 
black pigs in this country is quoted by Darwin 
on the authority of that acute observer, the 
late Dr. Jeffries Wyman. Upon this point we 
are able to present very recent testimony from 
Dr. P. Stotesbury, of Clinch Co., Ga., one of 
the Executive Committee of the Georgia State 
Agricultural Society, a gentleman who takes a 
most lively interest in every product of his 
state, and to whom we were largely indebted 
for our account of the Wire-grass published in 
January last. Dr. S. writes us that his own 
experience, and that of his neighbors, is, that 
while black pigs are unharmed by feeding on 
the Paint-root, white ones are invariably in¬ 
jured by it; the white pigs, if allowed to feed 
freely upon it, become lame, with every ap- 
cate ivy. —{Senecio macroglossus.) 
The German Ivy, as we have stated before, is 
not an Ivy proper at all, but belongs to the 
great composite family, it is Senecio scandens, 
and own brother to the Groundsel, a common 
weed, to the Tassel-flower of the gardens, 
(sometimes called Cacalui), and to that golden 
yellow Squaw-weed, or Golden Rag-wort, 
{Senecio aureus), which is everywhere so bright, 
especially in wet places, in spring. . This new 
plant has received in Europe the name of Cape 
Ivy, and it well distinguishes it from the other 
climber, which, though called German, comes 
from the same locality—South Africa. After 
growing the little plant from Mr. Dreer for a 
few weeks, we have had an engraving made of 
it, which, while the leaves are not so large as 
they would be on a stronger plant, gives a good 
idea of their shape and ivy-like appearance. 
While the color of the better known German 
Ivy is of a light and rather yellowish green, the 
leaves of this have the dark and blackish green 
so peculiar to true Ivy, and which gives to this 
newer one a richness which the other lacks; 
besides this, the leaves have much more sub¬ 
stance than those of the other, though they are 
still soft, and have not the rigidity of those of 
true Ivy. Some months ago we made the state¬ 
ment that, though we had in 1867 figured the 
German Ivy in flower, it rarely bloomed ; since 
given other food, and their flesh is eaten with¬ 
out ill effects. Dr. S. states that the color of the 
excrement and the urine of the pigs w ill show 
at once if they have fed upon the Paint-root; 
and that the animals, when killed, show by the 
color of the enveloping membrane of the bone, 
{periosteum), the coloring effects of this food. 
—-««G>-4 0v-<Si»*--- 
A lew Climber—The Cape Ivy. 
“ Plants, Henry A. Dreer, Philadelphia,” was 
on the outside of the parcel, and we made haste 
to inspect the inside, knowing that when a 
parcel comes from this well-known establish¬ 
ment, it is likely to contain something desira¬ 
ble. We took out a new geranium or two, of 
which great things are spoken, and then—an 
Ivy. Mr. Dreer knows our fondness for odd 
forms of Ivy, but what should induce him to 
send this tiny specimen, and by mail too, which, 
though a respectable looking Ivy, presented 
nothing very remarkable, was for the moment 
a puzzle, until we touched the leaves, when we 
found that the plant was no Ivy at all!—“ Fairly 
taken in”—yes, we own that the eye did de¬ 
ceive us, but the touch did not, and we were 
quite willing to be deceived, for here was the 
very plant for which we had been longing. 
