The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-10-14

tune? You now know you were what
the English describe as a 'bloonins
idiot, but you did not find it out in
time, so You squared affairs with your
self by concluding that you We're tenn
porarily insane.
The Eastwood must have an idiotic
area somewhere on it's pith. if it has
any. or it would not play on itself
such trick as to keep on growing
until frost is at hand Other trees are
more thoughtful They remember last
winter and that winter will come again
so, in the fall. they stop growing. a
little later shake off their leaves, then
harden their twigs and buds. take on
more bark-in short, put on more
clothes.
But the Eastwood forgets all about
last winter until reminded by frosty
nights that next winter is at hand.
then, of sudden. it bethinks itself
what an idiot it has been and de-
hoerately cuts off the tender ends of
It's tWlSs, lets two or three inches of
each go with the leaves. and so hastily
prepares for the cold season.
The linden and the willow share the
oasswood's lack of judgment and make
amends in somewhat similar fashion.
what the census bureau calls defec-
tives, keep growing with cheerful lido
cy sending out new shoots and foliage
until along comes the merciless FROST
and cuts them to the ground.
GOOD PLANTS GO WRONG.
Many plant families have seasons of
mental alteration. Every florist knows
he can find blossoms in his violet bed
in September and October. Every or
chard owner can tell stories of his pear.
apple, and peach trees showing bios
SONS in the fall. The plants are not
out-and-out idiots. They simply have
fits of forgetfulness like the balance
of US. The cool weather reminded
them of spring. and they hurried out
their blossoms without thinking
Occasionally the alteration lasts
through whole season. In some parts
of the West during the season of 1906
the pear-trees produced three sets of
leaves and two crops of fruit, and
when frost came there were young
leaves. old leaves, blossoms, and fruit
of every size, from that of a pea to
That OF an orange.
The trees were simply befuddled
about the season. If they were men.
We would say they had been drinking
but plants are not subject to delirium
tremens, they only go crazy, Occa-
sionally they all become foolish. the
ANIMALS at least, for in a wet spring
they send their roots far and wide just
under the surface of the soil without
thinking Of the hot summer to come.
and so in July roots and branches are
parched by the sun.
Some nlanfS like Soma aranfS ra
almost idiotic about their children.
ed, like a rich father, sets up all it's
offspring in business ere they leave
the parental home. The peanut blooms
and starts It's seed above ground. but
like a careful mother, fearful of the
exposure, deliberately pushes its OFF,
spring into the ground as into bed.
and covers it up.
Others, regular brutes of plants, kick
them out without ceremony as soon as
they are old enough to be kicked, and
if they do not shift for themselves, the
fault is their own.
The climbing cucumber, whose seed
pods remind you of the contents of
your mothers pickle-jar, when the
seeds are old enough to go simply
opens a valve in the bottom of their
home and the offspring are dropped
out as though through a trapdoor in
second-story porch.
The night-blooming tobacco plant of
our gardens. the poppy and many other
plants, like the old woman of the nurs-
cry rhyme, have so many children they
don't know what to do, SO they Spen
the seed-pod, shake them out, let them
fall throw them out, anywhere, to get
rid of them. Sometimes the family
dispersion is attended by an explosion
in the household, a row in the family,
for there are the touch-me-nots, bal
sans, jewel-weeds and Silver-weeds,
which burst their seed-pods and throw
all their children out at once, as far as
possible, perhaps with the wish that
they may never again darken the
parental door.
Highly gifted parents have some
times stupid children and very talented
plants have occasionally idiotic Off
spring. Everybody knows that night
blooming plants have either white or
very light colored blossoms, generally
fragrant.
Easily seen in the dark, their color
and perfume attract the moths which
bear from flower to flower the fertiliz-
ing pollen. Some of the nybridized
nymphae, though descended from
parents having all the excellent quail
ties reputable ancestors ought to have,
are themselves so idiotic that they
cannot understand the necessity of re-
naming white, but turn red or pink;
some of them even lose their perfume,
and so are often entirely missed by the
haunting moths and thus ignobly
perish, victims of their own lack Of
brains.
ALMONDS MENTAL ALTERATION
Freaks of lunacy involving whole
species of plants are only too COM
mon. The Towering almond falls VIC
tim of mental alteration when it pro-
duces a tuft of leaves in the heart OF
it's blossom. 1t has plenty OF leaves
elsewhere, but, through idiocy, tempo
rary arrangement, or other cause,
whore