276 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 28,1895. 
little heat is at command. For this reason they should be more 
extensively grown by amateurs. Where they do not succeed the 
failure is to be attributed to growing the plants in an unsuitable 
atmosphere, or using a wrong compost. Calanthes require a 
minimum temperature of 65° to 70°. 
The plants like abundance of water when growing vigorously, 
an open compost, a light position not far from the glass, a little 
bottom heat in their earlier stages of growth, and a gradual ripen¬ 
ing off process, which ends in a state of perfect rest. As soon as 
the plants have finished flowering water should be withheld, the 
pots turned on their sides, and placed anywhere out of sight in 
the stove, where they can remain till the pseudo-bulbs have begun 
to throw out young shoots, which is a sure indication that it 
is time to recommence operations. 
We then shake out all the old soil, dividing the bulbs, and about 
the end of March we repot them, using 6, 7, and 8-inch pots, 
which should be clean and dry, but not quite so heavily crocked 
as for some Orchids. They must be filled nearly to the rim with 
soil, and the bulbs pressed down to the depth of from 1 to 2 inches, 
making the soil moderately firm round each bulb. The compost 
should consist of two parts fibrous loam broken in pieces, one part 
leaf soil, one part good peat, together with some rough sand and 
broken charcoal, thoroughly mixed together by the hands. When 
potted the most suitable place to stand the plants is on a bed or a 
light airy shelf near to the glass in the stove. Too much water 
must not be given directly after potting, as the bulbs have no live 
roots at first, and only just sufficient water is required to keep 
the compost moist, and it ought to be given through a fine rose 
in a very careful manner. As the plants dislike cold water either 
at the roots or on the foliage, it ought to be at about the same 
temperature as the atmosphere of the house. 
Slight shading must be provided from the strong rays of the 
sun, and air should be admitted on all favourable occasions. By 
following the above conditions, and with ordinary care, they will 
grow very freely, and produce fine spikes of bloom. Some we had 
here during the last winter had flower spikes which measured from 
3 to 4 feet, and contained between forty and fifty flowers on a 
spike.—A. Shuttleworth, Bolton. 
THE FUNCTIONS OF BOOT, LEAF, AND BUD. 
Having 203) dealt as concisely as possible with the functions 
of roots and leaves, I now direct attention to the nature and functions 
of those important organs 
The Buds. 
These organs are intimately connected with the leaves. The leaves 
nourish them, also give them their form and character, and from the 
buds the leaves reproduce themselves. Let us take an illustration from 
the insect world. The leaves are like the caterpillar that feeds until it 
is perfectly developed; it then forms itself a case, and enters into the 
pupa or resting state, from whence it emerges a perfect, and perhaps 
a gorgeous insect. The leaves are the feeding stage, the buds the pupa 
stage, and the blossom and leaves represent the perfect butterfly. 
The buds are indeed wonderful organs, wonderful in their construc¬ 
tion and development, in their diversity of form, and in their important 
object—the perpetuation of the life and the multiplication of the species 
or variety to which they belong. They possess the property of maintain¬ 
ing their vitality unimpaired, and their tissues comparatively unchanged 
for a considerable time during periods unfavourable for active growth. 
The whole process of perfecting and ripening the bud appears to be a 
preparation for a season of rest. It is a law of Nature that all the 
created world should be subject to periodical changes. Night and day, 
winter and summer, cold and heat, light and darkness, follow each other 
in ever changing relation, certain only in the certainty of variability, 
yet ever constant in the harmonious adaptability of all organic life to 
the varied surroundings of a natural state of existence. 
In our own country the growing season is during summer, this being 
followed by a season of torpidity, brought about by the low temperature 
winter brings with it. In some southern countries the season of rest 
in vegetation is during a period of extreme heat and drought, and may 
arise primarily from absence of moisture in the soil and air, but in all 
the preparation is attained in a similar manner. During the height of 
the growing season food has been stored up in the tissue of the plant, 
and before its close abundance of this in the form of starch fills the 
cells in the immediate neighbourhood of the fruit buds; besides, a quantity 
has been used up to form the embryo leaves and blossoms, which are 
the chief characteristic of these buds. As the temperature becomes 
Ipwer the functions of the leaves are less actively carried on, and 
ultimately cease. The fibreless cells at the base of the leaves become 
ruptured, and the leaves drop to the ground, there to decay and return 
their elements to the soil to feed another year’s growth. About the 
same time the root feeders having completed their work for the season 
they too decay, and the whole plant enters on its season of rest or 
torpidity, and so remains virtually unchanged until the time arrives 
when suitable conditions again exist for it to recommence active growth. 
I will now draw attention to a few examples of vegetable buds. 
They will admirably enforce the lesson of Providence—looking forward. 
and providing for the day yet to come, but a long way off. This lesson 
it is important for every gardener to learn and act upon, and without 
which he can never thoroughly succeed. The first bud to be noted is 
called a “ bulb,” say that of a Hyacinth. The plant probably shed its 
leaves and roots about July—more than six months ago. The bulb is in 
sound condition, and I question if it has very much changed since the 
day the ripening process was completed. If we take a sharp knife and 
divide it vertically through the centre, we find the bloom spike in an 
undeveloped state, but perfect in the number and position of all its 
parts. All the cultural skill of all the gardeners in England cannot 
add one single bell more to that spike between now and the time of its 
perfect development. The result—at least, the limit of its perfection— 
was unalterably decided while still growing in those well-watered,, well- 
fertilised, sandy beds of Holland ; and not only was the embryo flower 
spike and leaves formed, but a sufficiency of food was stored around 
them to carry them through to the period of perfect development of new 
leaves and roots. 
We will next for a moment consider the branches of Pear trees. We 
may observe three kinds of buds—no, that is wrong, there is only one 
kind ; but they are in three different stages of development. These fat, 
scale-covered buds are fruit buds, perfect buds. Those higher up on last 
season’s shoot are only partially developed buds, and may either develop 
into fruit buds or wood buds, but in any case they possess within them¬ 
selves the characteristic properties of their own particular variety, and 
are capable of communicating these to a distinct individual life, as in 
the process of budding or grafting. A seed may, and often does, produce 
a tree differing widely from its parent ; but it is very rare for a tree, 
or plant produced from a bud, to differ from its parent, even when 
united to a stock of a very different nature, and is fed by sap taken up 
by roots belonging to that different stock. How is this ? Because that 
bud had within itself its own characteristic embryo life, and food of its 
own to start with—food elaborated or manufactured by its own par¬ 
ticular leaves according to its own specific wants. 
This explains many phenomena not otherwise explicable. We may 
bud or graft half a dozen sorts of Apples or Pears on one stock differing 
from all the buds, and of each sort will come true to its kind, having 
the characteristic shape, time of ripening, colour, and flavour of its own. 
Again, we may work a Peach on a Cherry, a Plum on an Apple, or a 
Pear on a Thorn, and all these produce their fruit unchanged, showing 
that the roots have little or no effect on the variety of fruit for the 
growth of which they supply the sap. 
I have drawn attention to the food stored around the buds before the 
leaves fall in autumn. Let us consider for a moment the object of this. 
The buds are mostly situated high up in the tree, at least the fruit buds 
are; the roots are down in the soil. As the days lengthen in spring, and 
the sun gains power, the temperature of the air increases faster than 
that of the soil, and the buds feel the influence of the sun’s increased 
heat before it reaches the roots. It is therefore but natural that the 
buds should commence growing first. They do begin first, and now we 
see the reason why the food, in the form of starch, was stored in the 
buds before the leaves fell in autumn—namely, that there should be 
something for nourishing the growth until the roots could become active 
again. 
The warm spring showers come and soften the gummy covering of 
the buds ; the heat of the atmosphere expands the water ever present in 
all vegetable tissues to nearly half of the whole bulk; the buds 
gradually open and let in the carbonic acid gas, which, acting on the 
starch, converts it into matter suitable for building up the cellular 
tissues of the leaves; the leaves and the blossoms begin rapidly to 
develop, and feed on the store of food at hand. They commence their 
proper functions and communicate vitality to all parts of the tree, 
lastly to the roots, and by this time the soil has become warm, and 
nitrification is going on. They reproduce their feeding hairs, and these 
fulfil their proper functions in taking up nourishment from the soil. 
If it were necessary for me to attempt to prove that growth begins 
in the bud before it does in the root, I could point out many examples. 
There are also many exceptions. Look at yonder tree ; it was cut down 
last autumn ; it has lain there all winter. In the proper season it will 
expand the buds and develop its leaves, and even make shoots; but 
having no roots they will soon wither and die. You insert a Vine eye 
or a cutting ; they will each make several leaves before any roots are 
produced. Notice your Vines start in spring, particularly those forced 
by artificial heat; they will break, produce several leaves, and even the 
bunch may be seen; presently growth seems to cease, the leaves appear 
thin and ill nourished, the shoots become spindly, and in this state they 
remain without perceptible progress for days, or even weeks. You 
wonder what is wrong with them, and begin to fear for your crop ; but 
presently they make a fresh start, and your hope rises with the sap, 
which has at last come up from the roots, to supplement that food 
which had been exhausted before the roots were ready to provide a 
supply. And why were these roots behindhand in their work ? Probably 
the soil in which they were embedded was cold and damp—a most 
fertile source of mischief—the chief cause of shanking and half the 
other ills that vegetation is heir to. 
I have been trying to explain to you some sort of theory of plant 
life, and have tried to deduce from it, observations to account for, and 
prove the motive of our practice ; and even if my theory is wrong, that 
does not prove that the practice on which it is founded is wrong, but 
rather that I have misunderstood and misinterpreted the means by 
which certain results have been attained by that practice. 
The theory is shortly this ; In the decay of natural organic matter— 
1 vegetable and animal organisms—the simple elements of which these 
