March 7,1805. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
203 
Dr. Thornton’s sumptuous volume, “ The Temple of Flora,” pub¬ 
lished in 1812,1 must own I felt rather indignant at its gratuitous 
nature, for no one knew better than Linnaeus that the labours of 
the florist had greatly augmented floral variety and beauty in the 
gardens of the world, without injuring in any way the species or 
types which it was his life-long work to classify and describe. 
However, lest we sink under the fearful weight, let us remember 
that a greater man than Linnaeus has something to say on our side, 
for Shakespeare, in “ The Winter’s Tale,” written 1601, has the 
following lines for the characters, Perdita and Polixenes ;— 
Peb, .... the fairest flowers o’ th’ season 
Are our Carnations, and streaked Gillyflowers 
Which some call Nature’s bastards :—Of that kind 
Our rustic garden’s barren, and I care not 
To get slips of them. 
Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden, 
Do you neglect them ? 
Per. For I have heard it said 
There is an art which in their piedness shares 
With great creating Nature. 
Pol, Say there be. 
Yet Nature is made better by no mean 
But Natnre makes that mean : So over that art, 
Which you say adds to Nature, is an art 
That Nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 
A gentler scion to the wildest stock, 
And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
By bud of nobler race : This is an art 
Which does mend Nature, change it rather, but 
The art itself is Nature. 
Our great poet defends the art of the florist so well that one is 
led to wonder whether he had interested himself in some patch of 
“ streaked Gillyflowers ” in an old-world garden down at Stratford- 
on-Avon, or admired them in the pleasure grounds of some of his 
aristocratic friends near London. One could almost excuse the 
severe language of Linnaeus, if one might suppose that it was 
written after an initial attempt at “dressing” a Carnation, and 
comparing the result with another manipulated by one of the 
“adepts” he so scornfully condemns. But, speculation apart, 
florists may rest assured that Nature never produced our glorious 
Tulips, Koses, Carnations, and other flowers to be neglected by any 
haughty pretender to superior reason. 
THE FUNCTIONS OF BOOT, LEAF, AND BUD.« 
My subject being a very large one, to bring it somewhat within the 
requisite compass I must be content to treat it in a general and super¬ 
ficial manner, and confine my observations to the functions of these 
organs as they appear to me in relation to a few hardy deciduous fruit 
trees, and try and deduce from it a few lessons of practical utility to us 
as gardeners, 
The Roots. 
We all know that roots have two distinct functions to perform—one 
to hold the tree or plant in a firm stationary position, the other to 
gather and supply the food which the tree receives from the soil. The 
stability of the tree is chiefly secured by the larger or more woody 
portions of the roots; in young trees, and plants from seed, by the tap 
root, which is the first formed. In properly grown fruit trees, however, 
the tap roots are destroyed long before they are permanently planted, 
and though some of the other roots may afterwards partake of the 
nature of tap roots—that is to say, become unduly long, strong, woody, 
and strike deep into the soil, it should be the aim of the cultivator to 
prevent it. 
The most important roots are, of course, those which take up the 
materials for nourishment to be supplied to the tree. Those slender 
thread-like filaments we usually call “ fibres,” the feeding hairs or 
glands, are situated around or near their growing points. These and 
the fibrous parts which bear them are annual in duration. “ In all roots 
and under every mode of management the fibrous parts are strictly 
annual; they decay as winter approaches, and are produced with the 
returning vigour of their parent in spring.”—("Johnson’s Gardeners’ 
Dictionary”). These roots vary in their nature in different species of 
trees as well as in different soils, the roots of some appearing to thrive in 
certain soils better than others ; hence if a certain variety of fruit does 
not flourish to our satisfaction we work it on another stock, the roots of 
which we may consider, or have proved from experience, are better 
adapted to our particular soil. 
I shall not attempt to define the exact nature of the materials the 
roots imbibe; it is unnecessary for my purpose, though I may put them 
down roughly as carbonates, phosphates, and nitrates; these compounds 
being soluble, the roots take them up dissolved in water. The com¬ 
pounds of carbon are of very great importance, carbon forming a large 
proportion of the wood of all trees, as well as entering into the composi¬ 
tion of fruits, carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen composing those important 
carbohydrate bodies, starch, cellulose, sugar, and gum. Nitrogen does 
* A paper read before the Bournemouth and District Ctardeners’ Mutual Improve- 
ment AsEociation by Mr. H. Eli.iott. 
not exist very largely in vegetation, yet its conversion by chemical com¬ 
bination with oxygen and soda or potash to form nitrates, is so important 
that from a practical point of view it may be considered synonymous 
with fertility, as in reality the soil will be fertile in proportion to the 
extent in which this process of nitrification is effected. It is therefore 
necessary that we should have a clear conception of this process, and the 
conditions most favourable for its development, so as to be able to assist 
Nature to our own advantage. 
There is abundance of nitrogen all around us, forming as it does 
about five-sixths the bulk of atmospheric air ; it also exists as ammonia 
both in the air, soil, and decaying bodies. But the process of its con¬ 
version into nitrates, or nitrification, is only carried on in the soil, 
associated with a low form of organised life, and the necessary presence 
of atmospheric air and warmth. These two latter conditions we can do 
much to promote by frequently working the surface of the soil and 
exposing it to the action of light and heat, and this should always he 
attended to, because in this country “ The temperature of the soil during 
most months of the year is very much below the most favourable for the 
development of nitrification.”—(“ Johnson’s Elements of Agricultural 
Chemistry”). Wet soils to the same end should be drained, and in many 
cases liming is highly beneficial. “ In waterlogged soils a process the 
reverse of nitrification is apt to go on, whereby the nitrates present in 
the soil beeomes deoxidised, or denitrified, with the result that the 
nitrogen is set free and escapes,”—("Johnson’s Elements of Agricultural 
Chemistry ”). All this points to the extreme necessity of well working 
the soil, so as to promote the free absorption of atmospheric air and sun 
heat, as well as keeping the roots of all trees and plants, especially fruit 
trees, as near the surface as possible, where the extra heat and fertility 
of the Boil will promote their growth. 
Roots growing near the surface of the soil are always more fibry, hnd 
multiply their feeding hairs much more abundantly than those found 
deeper down. They also appear to multiply in the immediate presence 
of decaying vegetable matter, and to have the power of extending them¬ 
selves a very considerable distance in the direction in which such matter 
exists ; but apparently " They have little or no power of selecting their 
food, but they appear to take up whatever is presented to them in a 
sufficiently attenuated form. Their feeding property depends upon 
the mere hydrometrical force of their tissues.”—(“Lindley’s Theory and 
Practice of Horticulture ”). 
If this statement is reduced to its logical conclusion it amounts to 
this, that pretty well the same materials (compounds) are supplied in 
the sap to all kinds of trees and plants growing in the same kind of 
soil, and that the difference in the nature of the various plants arises 
from the different construction of the resultant compounds derived from 
the elements in the sap after they have been decomposed in the leaves, and 
that those elements taken up in the sap by the roots and not required 
by the particular species of tree are afterwards returned to the air or 
soil, either as compounds or in elementary form. To announce such 
an opinion I fear would be considered very heterodoxical, so I will leave 
this part of my subject for the present, and pass on to a consideration 
of other very important organs of plant life. 
The Leaves, 
I will not waste time in attempting to define what leaves are, the 
sort of leaves I am referring to will be perfectly understood, so we will 
proceed to consider not what they are, but what they do, and how they 
doit. 
" The functions of respiration, perspiration, and digestion, which are 
the particular offices of the leaves, are essential to the health of the 
plant, its healthiness being in proportion to the degree in which these 
functions are duly performed.”—(" Lindley’s Theory and Practice of 
Horticulture ”). 
" The leaves have been compared to the lungs of animals, the 
functions of which they reciprocate, for whilst in the lungs of animals 
an absorption of oxygen and an evolution of carbonic acid is observed, 
in the leaves it is the carbonic acid which is absorbed and oxygen is 
disengaged.”—(“ Bloxham’s Chemistry : Inorganic and Organic ”). 
The leaves, then, are the organs in which are carried on the very 
important functions of decomposing the compounds taken up in solution 
by the roots, in the form we know by the name of sap, and which, 
having passed through the stems and branches unchanged, are there, by 
the action of solar light and heat, converted into other compounds 
required to build up the tissues of all the organa of that particular tree, 
to which these particular leaves belong. 
It must have been observed by most practical gardeners that the sap 
of a deciduous tree in spring before the leaves are developed is perfectly 
clear and limpid, and in no way differing in general appearance f lom 
ordinary water. This is particularly noticeable in the bleeding of Vines. 
If Vines are pruned late, and the wounds have not had time to heal 
before the rising temperature causes the sap to expand in the tissues, 
and the buds to develop, the sap oozes out of the ends of the severed 
shoots, and falls in clear sparkling drops, similar in taste and smell to 
ordinary water. This fact might be illustrated in many ways, showing 
that the sap is but very little if at all changed in its passage through 
the roots, stem, and branches, before the leaves are produced ; but as 
soon as the leaves are developed all this is changed. The sap, before so 
clear, in bleeding Vines becomes viscid and gummy, showing that it has 
passed through the leaves, and these leaves have commenced their 
ordinary functions of decomposition and reconstruction of the compounds 
necessary for all the purposes of growth of wood, fruit, new leaves, and 
buds, which organs we will next pass on to consider. 
(To be continued.) V . 
