Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-31
PLANTS MAZE DRUNK
Very Latest Thing in Horti-
culture in France.
FORCING THE GROWTH
PRODUCING FLOWERS AT A TIME
WHEN THEY'RE IN DEMAND.
How the Use Of Ether Affects Develop
notwithstanding Expert
ments.


ments.
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.
PARIS, October 81, 1903.
We saw a drunken man go staggering by
"a most rare thing in Paris.
what a vice is drunkenness" I said to
my companion.
Il made fifty organisms as drunk as
| boiled owls today" he answered. when
| I got through tempting them, they were
quite paralyzed. Yet 1 hold that my act
was meritorious and theirs quite blame
less.''
You are a horticulturist," said. What
do you mean?" And then he told me the
strange up-to-date tale Of his trade.
1.-THE living things that I made drunk
today were lilac plants" he said. Il made
them drunk with ether, for their good and
mine. I am one of the first of French hor-
ticulturists to practice the new art as an
everyday matter of business
What art?'
1.-THE art of forcing and retarding the de-
velopment of plants at will Aided by the
application of Industrial cold, 1t is bound to
fruits out of season.
Thus he explained the matter to me.
To produce an elegant plant at the
minimum cost and to bring 1t to the mar
ket at the exact hour desired by the buyer
such is the new formula of horticulture
at the opening of the twentieth century,
he said. These words are not my own.
They are from the discourse Of Count o.
wald de kerchove, president of the Royal
Society of Agriculture and Botany Of Gand,
at the opening of its recent annual EXPOSE
ton. in which quantities Of object lessons
In the new art were exposed and debated
on.
A Great Discovery.
''Never mind the season; the up-to-date
grower must learn how to furnish on de-
mand. We do 1t. Something had been
done already by the artful use Of artificial
cold. Then came the great discovery Of
Johannsen, professor of vegetable physi-
ology of the Superior School of Agriculture
of Copenhagen, of the anesthesia OF
plants"
"As one might say, the art of doping
them, or making them dead drunk?"
Exactly. In the present-day state of
biology there is nothing surprising in the
faculty of plants to enter into the condi-
ton of drunkenness" continued my COM
panion. Profound analogies exist be-
tween plants, animals and human beings.
Leclerc of Tours tipsified the sensitive
plant with opium in 1850. In 1870 DR..
Heckel experimental with chloroform and
ether on the bignenia and gratiola. Paul
Bert analysed the mechanism of the move
ments and the states of the motor cells of
the sensitive plant under the influence of
ether and chloroform. In 1878 Claude
Bernard wrote his Lessons on the Phe-
nomena of Life Common to Animals and
Vegetables" in which he demonstrated that
the movements of protoplasma in plant
cells are interrupted by these anesthetics.
He showed that ether vapors also suspend
ed the assimilation of carbonic acid in the
green parts. In 1880 the Finnish botanist
Arloing showed that very different effects,
exciting or Supplying, can be produced by
different doses of ether, sprinkled in water
on the leaves or allowed to soak to the
roots Of the sensitive plant.
And so we are led to the wonderful new
art of forcing plants by making them
drunk?" l said, to hurry him on.
Period of Repose.
Gently" he replied. ASK rather what
correlation can be established between this
sending to sleep of plants and their prema-
ture entrance into vegetation. This is the
discovery Of Prof. Johannsen Of Copen-
hagen. To make you understand it I must
call your attention to another factor, the
natural repose of plants, or, rather, their
inactivity during a certain period of the
year or of their growth, called exactly their
period Of repose.'
THE potato, I said
Eyes, all vegetables of temperate regions.
During the year they live two distinct lives:
(a) Their active life, during which they de-
velop, put out leaves, grow blossoms, ripen
their fruits or grains, absorb nutritive mat
ter breathe air and sweat in normal way;
(b) their slOwed-up life, corresponding regu-
larly to the winter season, during which all
exterior vegetation seems stopped, when
they lose their leaves and seem to exist
only by their roots, inert in the ground"
produced by the cold" suggested
Not only by cold" answered my friend,
but quite much by dryness, which is,
indeed the only cause in tropical countries.
Thus with the aid Of cold and drought the
vital activity of plants Is suspended; and
with it all other vital manifestations, ex-
changes of matter, growth, movement. Prof.
Johannsen names this suspension caused d.
rectly by outside conditions forced mac
ton
Natural repose?" I suggested.
Not at ALL" he answered. There is
where the great difference comes in., We
know now that the natural repose' of plants
is caused, not by unfavorable exterior con-
dtions, but by interior regulating modifica-
tons. For example, potato will not grow,
even in a hot house and we'll watered If
planted Immediately after it is ripe and dug
up. On the contrary, later, and even in a
cold cellar it will send out sprouts.
Uniform Growth.
Take the buds of fruit and ornamental
trees he continued Contrary to what YOU
might suppose, they are already entered in
to their state of repose, under their scales,
before the leaves of the tree fall; and the
falling of the leaves has no direct connec-
ton with their repose. Their growth goes on
uniformly, and not by fits and starts. This
is SO true that If while they are still young
some cause dixie that of period of excess
sive drought followed by much rain) deter
mines premature falling of the leaves of
the tree and an interruption of the steady
growth of the buds, you will then see the
buds as it were, hurry to make up for lost
time: their development will become intense,
causing a premature development of new
leaves and even premature Towering. This
is what happens every autumn to the horse
chestnut trees of the Avenue of the Champs
Elysees in Paris
II have seen it happen to a pear tree
in PENNSYLVANIA" said
''Take the lilac. which flowers in the
spring and which is pruned in the summer.
If, in July, you pluck off its leaves and at
the same time keep the earth quite dry
around its roots. and then. after a few
days, water it, its flower buds. which ought
to open only in the succeeding spring, will
break out; and a real leaflng and Towering,
though abnormal will occur. 1 say abb
normal" continued my companion, be