Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-31


| important to the horticulturist Is knowl-
edge Of the various periods Of repose Of
/ various plants"
| "HowT ! asked
"Why simply this: Forcing will not sue
coed If the period of repose refuses to be
| broken. And 1t Is all the more important
because subjects Of the same species. and
| even different buds Of the same plant, may
behave differently. In the forcing Of plants
| by the new art of anesthesia. the period OF
repose is divided into three phases. Prof. Jo-
| hansen calls them 'before-repose' cavant-
| repos), 'central-repose,' and after-repose'
Capres-repos). During the 'before-repose.'
| in August, the buds can be made to de-
velop under ethertzation, but in entering
| into 'central-repose' they gradually lose the
faculty. Then etherization will again sue
| coed during the state of 'after-repose.
| How do you do it?'
Being familiar with the work of the ex-
perimenters already named, Prof. Johann
| sen had the idea of applying anesthetics to
| organs on the road to maturity and in the
state Of repose. He thought 1t might be
| possible by anesthetics to completely sup
| press the phenomena of condensation in
| the organs on the road to maturity.
His experiments" continued my inform
| ant proved clearly that a sufficiently
| strong dose of ether will suppress the ac
| tIvity of condensation in maturing organs;
I and, as further result, he was led to eX-
! periments which had for object to suspend
| the period of repose itself by anesthetics.
AS early as 1898, by etherizing willow
| oIdNCHeS, the tuDerS or pOta toes ana other
plants, he brought about their rapid en-
| trance into vegetation. Any one can repeat
| the experience today"
How It is Done.
'How?" I asked.
| 1T is sufficient to place your little willow
branches under receiver along with dose
| OF four-tenths of a cubic centimeter Of ether
! per cubic decimeter Of the receivers ca
| pacity. You leave the willow-branches
| alone with their dope under the receiver
| for twenty-four hours. Take them out,
! plunge them into water, and then put them
| In warm dollhouse, other equally
warm place. After two days the covers of
| the buds will open and the little silver gray
leaves Will begin coming out. This expert
| ence can be tried from August to Novem-
Der, after which time. the willow coming
out OF its state of repose, the ether will
have no further accelerating influence on it.
quantities Of other spring Towering plants
give the same results, the lilac, the snow
ball, the azalia, the deutzia. the China
plum and the glycine in PARTICULAR
so that was what you were doing to
your fifty lilac plants2" I said. you are
| going to make them bloom in the first
week of November?'
Yes, replied my horticulturist, "and I
now come to practical observations. If we
wish to operate successfully, we must make
sure, % that the buds are completely
formed, the wood ripened by the heat of
IL L
this reason, In practice, ca it is best
to wait until the first frosts have sus-
pended all exterior vegetation. 60 We
really provoke this arrest of vegetation by
taxing up the Shrubs and allowing the dirt
around their roots 10 get very dry. Under
the old systems Of forcing they would now
be planted in the dollhouse; but when the
autumn Is warm and damp the immediate
results are small. The shrubs will develop
| few flowers, but the majority of the
flower buds will abort or-dry up; the flowers
that bloom will be Of little value. and the
horticulturist, left to himself, is at the
mercy of natural conditions.
Now with the applicati ton of anesthetIcs
all changes. The grower is not obliged to
walt till early spring to force his Towering
shrubs, but can make them bloom again
from July and August on, from four to
five months earlier than is possible by the
old methods Furthermore, the forcing
time Is shortened by fifteen or twenty days;
and all, instead of only a few of the
flower buds, are forced to bloom"
You have taken your shrubs NM
said, to hurry him.
Unless they be planted in pots" he cor
rected.
What do you do next?'
In Big Box.
''They must in both cases, be allowed to
stand few days under a protecting shed,
to dry the earth around their roots, be-
cause the ether penetrates wet earth with
too great facility. We use pure sulphurous
ether marking 65 degrees and weighing
TO grammes. The etherizing must be done
in some absolutely tight space, which must
not be opened during the process. A great
wooden box with it's joints filled with putty
and well painted all over will serve though
the ideal, l fancy, will be found to be an
immense zinc bell. such M. Aymard, in
the south of France is using
THE shrubs are placed very close to each
other and the soil around their roots is
well covered with sand. Then the big
wooden box or zinc bell is lowered over
them and dirt is packed around it's lower
edges to prevent the ether fumes escaping"
How do you put in the ether, then?'
You understand that the box is placed
over the plants upside down, so that what
call its top Is really its bottom2'
Certainly
AS the specific gravity Of the ether
vapors is greater than that of the atmos-
phere. the ether ought to be always sus-
pended in can from the top Of the box
or bell inside it, so arranged that the ether
can be poured into it by means Of a funnel
through hole that can be afterward
Theoretically sealed The dose of ether to
employ. no matter what may be the num-
her of bushes is from 35 to 40 grammes
per hectoliter of air Capacity of the box
or belD, at an average temperature of II
to 10 degrees centigrade. This is for a
northern temperate climate. In the eli
mate Of the south of France and along the
Mediterranean less ether has been found
to work better
1.-THE plants remain in this state, getting
drunk, during forty-eight hours in July
August, but they often require seventy-two
hours of it in Observation-Disclosures. Or we
can very advantageously apply two ether
DRINKS of forty-efght hours each with
forty-eight hours between"
'Then what happens?"
''The result of the drunk Is this: If the
shrubs are still covered with leaves, these
fall, as under the influence of first frost
or prolonged drought The buds swell, and
If you look carefully you con note a ten
sion of their scales, indicating that vegeta-
ton has begun. And this continues rap
idly If they are not put Immediately into the
forcing dollhouse and treated by the ordl-
nary methods If before giving them their
ether-drunk the bushes have already lost
their leaves, the swelling of the buds be-
comes marvelously rapid"
Fastening the Bloom.
'How soon will they bloom If they are
now treated in the forcing hothouse2" 1
asked.
IF you are treating lilacs, ten days after
ward the thyrsus are developed and the
Towering is complete in a period of from