246 THE FLORISTS JOURNAL. 
when the plants are growing in their native localities, and left 
undisturbed by art. Sometimes one property of the plant gives 
way, and sometimes another; and the subject has not been so 
thoroughly studied as to enable even the most experienced 
cultivator to say beforehand, what change shall be produced in a 
new plant by placing it in circumstances different from those 
which are natural to it. But as the number of cultivated plants, 
especially flowering ones, has been greatly increased of late,—as 
they have been brought from every known region in the world, 
and from every variety of soil and atmosphere,—the knowledge of 
them, and of their adaptation to places and modes of treatment, is 
gradually increasing, by the slow but sure process of experiment 
and observation ; and this long neglected, but most essential, 
portion of the art is extending even to plants which have been 
so long acclimated as to have become almost natives. 
As this knowledge extends, it will save the cultivator much 
labour, and also remove that uncertainty which still belongs to 
many branches of his art. Thus, the cultivation of the Cerealia , 
or corn plants, for the purpose of obtaining larger and more 
farinaceous seeds, has thrown the principal action of life in the 
plant into this operation, so that, by the time the seeds are 
perfectly ripened, the plant is dead as an individual. TV heat is 
perhaps the first, and also, in England, the best example of this 
change by culture. The native plant is not known ; but from 
the fact of its tillering at the root, and the general analogy of the 
grasses, it is highly probable that the original plant has been 
perennial in the root, from which new branches burgeoned every 
season, although those which produced stems and ears were 
annual. In a cultivated state, however, and indeed as now 
known anywhere, wheat plants are annual in every part of their 
structure ; and the tillering, which forms an aftermath in the 
grasses as they are mowed or eaten down, but more especially in 
the latter case, occurs in the early part of the season ; and the 
tillering or lateral shoots send up stems, the ears of which, 
generally speaking, ripen at the same time with those of the 
central or principal ones. This is a very important instance, as 
it is one in which the change is very conspicuous, and it is open 
to every one’s observation. The general principle is, that the 
forcing of the plant by rich manure and artificial culture has 
worked it into more vigorous growth, and a greater production 
