A POPULAR FALLACY RESPECTING THE SUNFLOWER. 
481 
sibility to light. Its stem is compressed in some degree, to facilitate 
the movement of the flower, which, after following the sun all day, 
returns after sunset to the east, by its natural elasticity, to meet his 
beams in the morning. 
“ Doctor Hales thought the heat of the sun, by contracting the 
stem on one side, occasioned the flower to incline that way; but if 
so, it would scarcely return completely at night.” 
Voltaire’s pleasant exemplification of superstition here presses it¬ 
self forcibly on my recollection. A giant, seventy feet high, is re¬ 
ported to exist; the learned soon begin to discuss and dispute about 
the colour of his hair, the thickness of his thumb, &c. They exclaim, 
cabal, and even fight on the subject. A stranger modestly doubting 
whether the giant in dispute really exists, draws down the whole 
weight of wrath, of all the angry disputants, upon his devoted head; 
and, after having despatched the offender, they fall again to disputing 
and speculating upon the thickness of the giant’s nails, and size of 
his little finger. 
So, of our giant, let us be certain that it exists, before we go into 
disquisitions wdth Doctor Hales, respecting the “ contraction of the 
stem, by the heat of the sun, to enable the flow’er to incline,” &c. 
Three years since we had saved an unusual quantity of the seed of 
this plant; and having heard, that by feeding poultry upon the ripe 
grains, the flavour of game would be imparted to their flesh : having, 
moreover, ample space to make the experiment, we sowed an immense 
number in different parts of the premises,—in shade, in sun, in beds, 
clumps, row's, and shrubberies: every variety of soil and situation, 
which we could command, was afforded it; and a glaring, tasteless, 
frightful display of disks, was the consequence. 
The experiment however was serviceable, it enabled us to prove 
the inaccuracy of two popular assertions, that the flesh of poultry, 
fed on the seeds, acquires the flavour of game; and that it was the 
nature of the flower to turn towards the sun. We made it a particu¬ 
lar point to watch the plants, in the then full expectation of proving 
the truth of the remark—not with a view to refute it: for as others 
are, w r e were—i. e.Jirm believers in the existence of the giant, or ra¬ 
ther in the delicate susceptibility of the plant, to the influence of the 
sun. I remember, that a rigid, sullen, down-looking, broad, ugly, 
brown face, with a scanty, short, bristly-looking heard of dingy yel¬ 
low, resolutely keeping its head bowed towards the earth, first made 
me sceptical on the subject of its poetical constancy : I raised, and 
propped its drooping ill-looking face, and hoped to find that the mor¬ 
row's sun had cheered it. No—it loathed the bright luminary, and 
