Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-07-17

The Government has been going quite
extensively of late into the propagation
of whiskey shops and lager beer saloons.
Its laboratory employed for this purpose
is the National Botanical Garden here !;
for the lager beer and whiskey shops re-
ferred to are purely of a vegetable ma
ture. They are, in fact, nothing more
or less than plants of a very extraordinary
description, which devote their attention
exclusively to the manufacture and sale
of intoxicants.
You would be struck at once with the
curious appearance of one of these vegeta-
BILE whiskey shops if you saw it standing
in a big flower pot, carrying on the
end of each of its long green leaves a
pitcher-shaped receptacle. If the plant
is open for business you can look into
the pitchers and find them to contain
quite quantity of watery looking liq-
uor. This is the intoxicant which is
offered to customers, each one being
permitted to help himself to is much
as he likes for the stipulated and inva-
riable price. Maybe you will find the
pitchers all shut up, for each pitcher
has a cover that shuts down whenever
any rain or dew is falling, to prevent
the liquor from becoming diluted.
Now, the customers spoken of are in
sects of all sorts-such as bluebottle flies,
mosquitoes cockroaches, red ants, and
so on There is not bug of any sort,
apparently, that has not weakness for
the liquor supplied by the vegetable
whiskey shop. The insect walks out on
one of the long leaves till he comes to the
end of it, and finding here a quantity Of
delicious drink in the pitcher, he crawls
in and swigs and swigs at it until he dies.
as is supposed, of alcoholism. At all
events he pays for his drink with his life
and leaves his corpse in the pitcher to
sustain by absorption the healthful exis-
tence of the plant. And it is just for
this object-to entrap customers for food
that the plant prepares its liquor.
What the said liquor is composed Of,
chemically speaking, attempts are now
being made to find out by analysis. So
far it is only known that it is a powerful,
and palatable intoxicant. How much
the insects enjoy it you can perceive by
looking into the pitchers, where you will
often find in each receptacle hundreds of
bugs Of all descriptions Another form
of vegetable whiskey shop has long per
pendicular trumpet-shaped receptacles
for the liquor, with the wide end of the
trumpets at the top, where the bugs are
expected to crawl in. And when you
tear open one of these trumpets-it may
be foot or more in length-after it has
survived its usefulness aud dried up, You
will usually find it filled from one end to
the other with flies and ants and such
things.
1t has recently been discovered and
herein lies the expected usefulness of the
investigation now going on regarding
these plants-that different vegetable
whiskey shops have different classes of
customers. One kind of these shops is
frequented almost exclusively by cock
reaches. for whose reception unusually
large pitchers are provided-the plant
carrying them looking as if it had sus-
pended from the ends of its strong leaves
a lot of small bath tubs. Another kind,
with pitchers that resemble in appearance
great big beans, is frequented only by
red ants; and still another kind is patron
lied by slugs, and has the rims of its
pitchers armed with teeth to delay guests
who might wish TO depart So it would
apear that these whiskey shops could be
propagated for use in destroying such
enemies of the household and the gar
den, and it is proposed to find out how
far such a thing may be practicable.
There is no difficulty, certainly, in rear
ing and maintaining the plants, which
are not tropical exotics. but natives OF
this very region about Washington. and
readily to be cultivated in any temperate
climate.
Quite as interesting, in its way, as the
whiskey shop, is the vegetable lager beer
saloon referred to at the beginning of
this article In general appearance it
resembles the whiskey shop strongly, but
its pitchers are wider at the mouths and
have no tops to them. Thus the liquor
dispensed by the lager beer saloon is
diluted more or less by the dews and
rains, so that it is not very intoxicating.
However, the drink is intended to attract
the insect customers and not to poison
them. Patrons, crawling into the
pitcher, take drink, and. without feel
ing it go to their heads very much, start
To VAIN Ohl tt%aih DNtf
the whole inside of the pitcher is lined
with strong, hairy projections, all point
ing downward toward the liquor and
away from the brim. 1t was easy
enough to walk downward, but when the
victim attempts to go upward and out
again the hairs obstruct his progress so
eifectually that he finally tumbles back
into the drink and is miserably drowned.
That is the way the vegetable lager beer
saloon captures its customers by drown
ing.
Another fascinating plant now being
propagated at the botanical garden is the
s.butcher.n which kills the insects and
such things that it feeds upon by crush
ing them alive, afterward consuming
them at its leisure. This is considered
to be of all vegetables the one exhibiting
an intelligence most nearly approaching
that which animals possess. Its appear
ancc is not impressive, save for its pecu-
liarity. Growing along the ground, it
has for leaves little green things shaped |
-