October 18, 1888. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
353 
from this explanation being far-fetched, Belt found that the former 
'• tree is actually unable to exist without its guard,” which it could not 
secure without some attraction in the shape of food. One fact which 
strongly impresses me with a belief in the adaptive significance of 
vegetative characters is the fact that they a<-e constantly adopted in 
almost identical forms by plants of widely different affinity. If such 
forms were without significance one would expect them to be infinitely 
varied. If, however, they are really adaptive, it is intelligible that 
different plants should independently avail themselves of identical 
appliances and expedients. 
Although this country is splendidly equipped with appliances for 
the study of systematic botany, our universities and colleges fall far 
behind a standard which would be considered even tolerable on the 
'Continent in the means of studying morphological and physiological 
fijotany or of making researches in these subjects. There is not at the 
moment anywhere in London an adequate botanical laboratory, and 
though at most of the universities matters are not quite so bad, still I 
•am not aware of any one where it is possible to do more than give the 
routine instruction, or to allow the students, when they have passed 
through this, to work for themselves. It is not easy to see] why this 
should be, because on the animal side the accommodation and appliances 
for teaching comparative anatomy and physiology are always adequate 
and often palatial. StiH less explicable to me is the tendency on the 
part of those who have charge of medical education to eliminate 
botanical study from the medical curriculum, since historically the 
animal histologists owe everything to botanists. In the seventeenth 
century, as I have already mentioned, Hooke first brought the microscope 
to the investigation of organic structure, and the tissue he examined 
was cork. Somewhat later, Grew, in his “ Anatomy of Plants,” gave 
the first germ of the cell-theory. During the eighteenth century the 
anatomists were not merely on a hopelessly wrong tack themselves, but 
they were bent on dragging botanists into it also. It was not till 1S37, 
a little more than fifty years ago, that Henle saw that the structure of 
epithelium was practically the same as that of the parenchyma plantarum 
which Grew had described 150 years before. Two years later Schwann 
published his immortal theory, which comprised the ultimate facts of 
plant and animal anatomy under one view. But it was to a botanist, 
Von Mohl, that in 1846 the biological world owed the first clear 
description of protoplasm, and to another botanist, Cohn (1851), the 
identification of this with the sarcode of zoologists. 
Now the historic order in discovery is not without its significance. 
The path which the first investigators found most accessible is doubtless 
4hat which beginners will also find easiest to tread. I do not myself 
believe that any better access can be obtained to the structure and 
■functions of living tissues than by the study of plants. However, I am 
•not without hopes that the serious study of botany in the laboratory 
will be in time better cared for. I do not hesitate to claim for it a 
position of the greatest importance in ordinary scientific education. 
All the essential phenomena of living organisms can be readily demon¬ 
strated upon plants. The necessary appliances are not so costly, and 
the work of the class-room is free from many difficulties with which 
the student of the animal side of biology has to contend. 
Those, however, who have seriously devoted themselves to the pursuit 
of either morphological or physiological botany need not now be wholly 
at a los9. The splendid laboratory on Plymouth Sound, the erection of 
which we owe to the energy and enthusiasm of Prof. Ray Lankester, is 
•open to botanists as well as zoologists, and affords every opportunity for 
the investigation of marine plants, in which little of late years has been 
done in this country. At Kew we owe to private munificence a com¬ 
modious laboratory in which much excellent work has already been 
•done. And this Association has made a small grant in aid of the 
establishment of a laboratory in the Royal Botanic Garden at Peradeniya, 
in Ceylon. It may be hoped that this will afford facilities for work of 
the same kind as has yielded Dr. Treub such a rich harvest of results in 
the Buitenzorg Botanic Garden in Java. 
Physiological botany, as I have already pointed out, is a field in 
which this country in the past has accomplished great things. It has 
not, of late, however, obtained an amount of attention in any way 
proportionate to that devoted to animal physiology. In the interests of 
physiological science generally this is much to be deplored ; and I 
-believe that no one was more firmly convinced of this than Mr. Darwin. 
Only a short time before his death, in writing to Mr. Romanes on a 
book that he had recently been reading, he said that the author 
Siad made “ a gigantic oversight in never considering plants : these 
would simplify the problem for him.” This goes to the root of the 
.matter. There is, in my judgment, no fundamental biological problem 
which is not exhibited in a simpler form by plants than animals. It is 
possible, however, that the distaste which seems to exist amongst our 
biologists for physiological botany may be in due in some measure to the 
extremely physical point of view from which it has been customary 
to treat it on the Continent. It is owing in great measure to the method 
of Mr. Darwin’s own admirable researches that in this country we have 
been led to a more excellent way. The work which has been lately done 
in England seems to me full of the highest promise. Mr. Francis 
Darwin and Mr. Gardiner have each in different directions shown the 
entirely new point of view which may be obtained by treating plant 
phenomena as the outcome of the functional activity of protoplasm. 
1 have not the least doubt that by pursuing this path English research 
will not merely place vegetable physiology, which has hitherto been too 
much under the influence of Lamarckism, on a more rational basis, but 
that it will also sensibly react, as it has often done before, on animal 
physiology. 
(To be continued.) 
SURFACE RENEWAL OF VINE BORDERS. 
So much has been written on this subject that to bring forward any¬ 
thing really new would, I think, be rather difficult, but as the time for 
lifting unsatisfactory Vines has now arrived, I venture to make a 
suggestion. Mr. Abbey a short time back pointed out the errors of 
planting Vines deeply, and advised lifting the roots to the surface. I 
have seen a few vineries the occupants of which have been so treated, 
and it has been two or three years before anything like a full crop of 
fruit could be taken. Is there a preferable way to lifting the Vines ? 
1 think there is in many instances—namely, by taking the surface to 
the roots instead of bringing the roots to the surface. Obviously this 
would only be beneficial when the drainage is correct and the border 
good. The roots of numbers of Vines are too far from the surface. 
Tear after year manure has been placed on the border, to the injury 
instead of benefit to the roots, by keeping out the sun’s warmth. If the 
soil be taken off well down to the roots, and a light dressing of good 
compost given, then covered well with some strawy manure for the 
winter to be taken off in spring, I think it would in many cases give 
more satisfaction and less anxiety than lifting the roots, especially in 
cases where gardeners are entering on new duties, and wish to make an 
improvement the first season without the risk of failure through careless 
lifting.— Expeeihexto. 
THE CULTIVATION OF THE CUCUMBER. 
The Cucumber is very popular in this country, and indeed in most 
countries on the Continent of Europe, in India, Africa, and America, 
where it is grown in great quantities and used in salads, pickles, and 
sometimes as a vegetable dish, but in this country it is principally 
grown as a salad. 
There are several ways of cultivating the Cucumber, but the simplest 
of these is the method generally adoptel by market gardeners in the 
open air by forming ridges or mounds, and the Cucumbers which grow 
are a small variety which is sold very readily to greengrocers and others 
from Is. to Is. 6d. per dozen during the summer months. The ridges 
are made and the plants cultivated in the following manner. After the 
ground has been selected it is marked out in 4-feet beds, and a trench 
dug 2 feet wide and 1 foot deep in the centre of it, which is filled with 
hot stable dung a little higher than the level of the surrounding ground, 
and the soil which is dug out is then spread over it when finished, form¬ 
ing a ridge. The seeds are then sown five or six together in a little 
clump on the top of the bed at the distance of 4 feet apart, and hand¬ 
glasses placed over each clump. When the plants are large enough to 
distinguish which are best, three of the most promising are left to cover 
the space between the clumps. Great care must be exercised in giving 
air and watering the plants as they grow, and when they fill the light 
three little stones can be placed under it to allow the plants to get out, 
which should be encouraged to cover the ground as quickly as possible. 
The after treatment consists in watering, stopping the points of the 
shoots, thinning and removing bad leaves. When the sun is scorchingly 
hot sometimes it is found necessary to shade the tender plants with 
Rhubarb leaves until they are thoroughly established, after which the 
same care is not needed, and the handlights may be removed altogether 
with safety. Cucumbers grown on the rid.e sjstem are more subject 
to the attacks of slugs than those in frames, therefore they should be 
carefully looked over every morning and the pests destroyed, or they 
would soon ruin the plants. 
FRAME CULTURF. 
Cucumbers are now mostly grown in frames by amateurs and in 
small gardens where there are no glass houses or pits ; but at one time 
before glass was so cheap they were grown in frames by the most 
practical gardeners in the country. The great art in this method of 
culture is in making the hotbed, the materials for which may consist of 
stable litter, leaves, or spent tanner’s bark. The bed may be made 
wholly of stable litter or of litter and leaves mixed together, or of barks 
and litter mixed together, according to convenience. The litter for 
this purpose should be thrown up in a heap to heat and turned over 
frequently to allow the rank gases to escape before the bed is made. If 
