227 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Juuir 19, 1859. 
observed, that during the first year the plants in No. 1 produced 
the best crop; but the second and third years (no more dung 
being added), No. 2 produced the best crop ; after which, both 
seemed alike exhausted.— (Ann. de Chimie, xiv. 57.) The same 
chemist found that a soil manured with wood-shavings did not, 
during the two succeeding years, produce a superior vegetation to 
the same soil without any manure ; the third year, however, it 
was better, but it was not until the fifth year that it reached the 
maximum of fertility. The site of a wood-stack, and the newly 
cleared lands of America are eminently fertile, from the gradually 
decomposing vegetable remains they contain. 
These facts and observations teach us that the most prompt 
manures are the reverse of economical. Vegetable remains, in¬ 
corporated with a soil, will ensure an average produce during 
several years ; animal matters and dungs highly putrescent are 
powerfully but transiently beneficial. Putrefaction is evidently 
the means of rendering these substances available to plants: 
hence, thoroughly decayed stable manure is usually employed by 
gardeners, as being of immediate benefit, admitting of clean hus¬ 
bandry ; and because economy is not, in private establishments, 
the generally presiding genius of the gardens. If stable dung or 
other manure be allowed to putrefy in an unenclosed heap, the loss 
is immense; all the gases which pass off during decomposition, all 
the soluble matters which drain away, are highly nutritious to 
plants, as has been proved by Davy and others. If the decom¬ 
position be thus allowed to proceed until the heap becomes a 
soap-like mass, the loss cannot be less than fifty per cent. Not¬ 
withstanding all the reasoning of chemists, however, putrefied 
dung will continue to be used; it admits of clean workmanship, 
with less labour, and ensures a good immediate crop : to prevent 
as much loss as possible, therefore, the dung-heap should be in a 
brick cistern, and covered over with earth at least nine inches 
deep, with a well at one corner to retain the drainage, which from 
time to time, should be returned over the heap. 
The chief component of plants is carbon, and we shall not be 
far wrong if we estimate it as constituting 50 per cent, of every 
vegetable; it is the decayed organic remains of the soil which 
supply a considerable portiou of this to the growing plants. It 
is a subject of debate amongst chemists how the carbon of 
, manures is imbibed by plants. Carbon, say they, is insoluble, 
and experiment has demonstrated that the roots cannot absorb it 
in a solid state, Sennebier, having observed that water im¬ 
pregnated with carbonic acid, when applied to the roots of plants, 
was beneficial, concluded that the carbon of manures is converted 
i into carbonic acid, and is in that state imbibed by them.— (Phys. 
Veg., v. iii., p. 55.) 
1 We consider that the facts of which we are in possession, if 
i progressively estimated, place the subject in a very clear light, 
i Saussure found that a soil deprived of its soluble matters, by 
i repeated boiling in water, would not support vegetation so well 
i as that portion of the same soil not so deprived of its soluble 
| constituents (Peckerch. sur la Veg., cv., sect. 11., p. 170.) The 
extract thus obtained was evidently composed of saccharine 
matter, mucilage, extractive principle, &c. These we know are 
nutritive to plants, and are elaborated and assimilated by them 
after being absorbed by their roots. Now, vegetable substances, 
as straw, &c., gradually yield these soluble matters as they decay. 
Straw, wood, leaves, &c., consist chiefly of woody fibre; to 
convert this into saccharine and mucilaginous matters is the 
work of putrefaction; to effect this, oxygen must be absorbed, 
and the extra proportions of carbon be got rid of, as is evident 
from the following table of constituents :— 
Carbon 
Woody Fibre. 
. 52.53 
Gum. 
42.23 
Sugar. 
27.5 
Oxygen . 
. . 41.78 
50.84 
64.7 
Hydrogen 
. 5.69 
6.93 
7.8 
100.00 
100.00 
100.0 
That such processes actually do occur Saussure has demon¬ 
strated by experiment: he found that moist wood,«exposed to the 
air absorbed oxygen, evolved carbonic acid, and water was evi¬ 
dently decomposed. Thus, then, putrefaction seems to render 
organic matters fit for the nourishment of plants by converting 
them into saccharine and mucilaginous compounds, capable of 
solution in water. Hence the phenomenon of wood, which is 
slow of decomposition, being a permanent manure; animal matters 
which rapidly putrefy, being transient, though temporarily power¬ 
ful : hence the economy of using partially decomposed composts 
is also explained ; when completely decomposed, their soluble 
matters, being more than can be consumed at tho time by the 
orop, pass away with the drainage water, much is lost in the state 
of gas, and all that is left are a few earthy, saline, and carbo¬ 
naceous particles of comparatively little value.— !. 
(To be continued.) 
FERTILE AND BARREN STRAWBERRY 
PLANTS. 
“ AH agree in the conclusion that there are fruit-producing and 
barren Strawberry plants, and the general advice is, to get rid of 
these latter as soon as they are detected; but to the best of my 
recollection, and I have referred to all the numbers of your valu¬ 
able journal which I have in my possession lor the past two 
years, there is no method Bhown by which this can be done, 
except that the plants do not flower. Now, from the fact of my 
having planted runners from British Queen in September, 1857, 
that did not flower in 1858, but sent out runners in abundance, 
which got firm hold, and in 1859 are bearing most abundantly, 
whilst the old plants, with very few exceptions, have not flowered 
at all, I am at some loss to undei-stand how this applies. The 
young plants of 1858 were all first runners carefully pegged 
down. The questions that naturally suggest themselves are— 
Firstly, Is the first runner invariably a productive plant, and the 
second one a barren plant ? And, secondly, Does it matter 
whether the parent plant of the runner is a productive or a 
barren plant ? Would you recommend me to destroy every 
plant that has not flowered this year ? A Subscribe it. 
[The questions involved in “A Subscriber’s” letter are of 
considerable importance. Did time at this busy season permit, 
I should like to enter upon the subject more fully ; but, in the 
meantime, must pass it over with some of the results of my 
practical observation, hoping that others will lend a helping 
hand duly to ventilate the questions raised. 
Whether, as a general fact, there are fruit-producing and 
barren plants, depends greatly on the kinds. For instance, in 
the old Hautbois there are very apt to be a redundancy of plants 
with male blossoms only, and, consequently, those only having 
female blossoms bore fruit. Were there none but plants with 
female blossoms, Strawberries of good siz^ could only be obtained 
by the pollen being carried from other Strawberries. In the 
prolific Hautbois, most of the plants are furnished with the 
female organs, or the incipient young fruit; but often there is a 
lack as respects quantity, and sometimes a total deficiency as 
respects stamens or male organs. In such cases as tho last, even 
when the flowers were covered with thin muslin, so as to prevent 
bees, flies, and, to a certain extent, the wind, carrying the ferti¬ 
lising pollen, I have found the receptacle, which we call the Straw ¬ 
berry, sometimes swell to a fair size ; but if the pollen from the 
stamens were rigorously excluded, the seeds, or the marks of 
seeds on the surface were imperfect, and, properly speaking, had 
no kernel or heart in them, and, consequently, would not grow if 
sown, treat them how you would. So far the prolific Hautbois 
unfertilised resembled a Cucumber unfertilised, the Cucumber 
for the table being all the crisper and more beautiful in shape if 
it escaped the fertilising process. 
Our correspondent’s letter, however, has more of a reference 
to plants that never flower than to those producing imperfect 
blossoms. The producing imperfect blossoms is what I have 
noticed in all Strawberries at times, as well as in the Hautbois. 
Hence, in forcing, I have frequently had to dust the flowers of 
one plant with another, the former being deficient in pollen dust. 
With respect to some of the old Chilian Strawberries, and also 
such late kinds as Bit on and Eleanor, I have often observed 
what our correspondent alludes to—plants growing strongly, 
showing no bloom-trusses at all, making runners freely, and these 
runners when planted having a strong tendency to possess the 
infirmities, as to fruiting, of their parent. A second season, how¬ 
ever, should transpire before such plants are pulled up, or 
marked, so that runners should not be taken from them; as, 
though they do not show the first season, they often throw up a 
splendid mass of flower-stalks in the second. Prudence, how¬ 
ever, would Say, Select runners only, if possible, from fruitful 
plants. Even from these that showed no flower-stem for two 
years I have had runners that showed fruit the first year; but 
the many cases in which they resembled their parents showed 
tho undesirability of such a practice as general routine. 
Earlier kinds, such as Black Prince, Keens' Seedling, and 
British Queen, are less liable to this destitution of flowers. In 
