Plant kingdom

“ The influence on plants of their physical environment, and the intimate inter-relations of the vegetable kingdom with the other great manifestation of organic life, the animal kingdom, are briefly considered, as is also the unique relation existing between the plant world and the human race. ”

“ The Acorn-Planter! The harvests no more are red, but golden, We are thy children. We plant for increase, Increase of wheat and corn, Of fruit and flower, Of sheep and kine, Of love and lovers; Rich are our harvests And many are our lovers. Red Cloud Death is a stench in the nostrils, Life is beauty and joy. The planters are ever brothers. Never are the warriors brothers; Their ways are set apart, Their hands raised each against each. The planters' ways are the one way. ”

“ To them we are indebted for our tulip-trees, our magnolias, our maples, our robinias, our western platanus, and a host of other noble trees, that already share the forest, and contest with our native species, the right to our soil.
At no period of the world has the number of plant-hunters been so great as at present. Will you believe it, hundreds of men are engaged in this noble and useful calling? ”

“ What our cotton fields of the South, the wheat and corn fields of the Middle West, the jute in India, and the coconut palm and sugar cane in the tropics have done to dictate the economic destiny of those regions is common knowledge. Hundreds of less important plants throughout the world contribute their quota to the huge debt that man owes to the plant world. Probably no other feature of plant life offers such attractions as the study of man’s uses of plants, which is known as Economic Botany, and for which our Government maintains a large staff of experts. ”

“ When coming into fruit the second summer, he finds, however, that not one in twenty is a Monarch plant. As an honest man, he now digs them under in disgust; but the mischief has already been done, and scattered throughout the country are thousands of mixed plants which multiply with the vigor of evil. Nurserymen should never take varieties for granted, no matter where obtained. I endeavor so to train my eye that I can detect the distinguishing marks even in the foliage and blossoms, and if anything looks suspicious I root it out. ”

“ Every plant community, in short, both adds new members to its own commonwealth, and sends off totally distinct germs to form new commonwealths elsewhere. Thus the leaf is, in truth, the central reality of the whole plant, while the flower exists only for the sake of sending out a shipload of young emigrants every now and then to try their fortunes in some unknown soil. ”

“ Is it any wonder if horticulture in its best sense—that is, the culture of the garden as a whole—is not what it should be? No gardener can get prizes for well-kept beds, for effects of harmonious colouring, for arrangement of shrubberies, for the grouping of herbaceous plants. He is tempted for the sake of a single specimen to sacrifice the beauty of a whole plant, or the clusters of an entire fruit-tree. That it is most important for nurserymen to be able to compare new species, [74] or new varieties of old species, is of course undeniable. ”

“ On every single branch of knowledge to which we have alluded, the power and skill profitably to influence the plant are dependent.
And for what purpose does the plant spring up, the soil feed and nourish it, and the blessed sun mature its seeds? To adorn, no doubt, the surface of the beautiful earth, and to keep alive and propagate its species; but principally to nourish the animal races which supply food and yield their service to man. And, upon the study of this nurture and feeding of the animal races, how much intellect has been expended! ”

“ Spread it will, every little piece of root that is broken off in the ground in digging the large roots becoming an independent plant as soon as thrown upon its own resources. Because of this tendency to "take possession of the land" many persons who have undertaken its culture refuse to give it a place in their gardens. ”

“ It does not follow that every seed will spring up: it is not so in the natural world. The plant's business is to scatter it, not withholding, not knowing which shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good; once scattered, the responsibility is transferred to the ground that receives it. But the aim of the plant--the goal of all the budding and blossoming and ripening--is that every seed should carry potential life. ”

“ That is, a plant carefully cultivated, spreading freely, its roots drawing sustenance from the soil beneath, its leaves drawing sustenance from the air and sunshine, bracing itself against the storm; the daughters the cornerstones of the home, with all the adornment that we bestow on a palace fit for the abode of royalty. ”

“ Where the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull, the poppies out by the roots than to break the stalk': Now the city folk, like other folk, are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant for all time to come. ”

“ All the willows and poplars have also winged seeds: so have the whole vast tribe of hawkweeds, groundsels, ragworts, thistles, fleabanes, cat's-ears, dandelions, and lettuces. Indeed, one may say roughly, there are very few plants of any size or importance in the economy of nature which don't deliberately provide, in one way or another, for the dispersal and dissemination of their fruits or seedlings.
Why is this? Why isn't the plant content just to let its grains or berries drop quietly on to the soil beneath, and there shift for themselves as best they may on their own resources? ”

“ Not the least interesting feature of these plant societies is that we must view them as associations of plants, often of widely differing origin due to the vicissitudes of plant distribution, but all taking their part in the society to which they belong and often, as individuals, losing their life that the society may live. Upon such a conception a wood or prairie, or river bank, or salt marsh or alpine garden upon a mountain summit are, with many other plant societies, places of intense conflict. ”

“ The Dean of Westminster, other dignitaries of the Church, highborn ladies, and people of wealth and leisure, have done much lately towards fostering this growing feeling among all classes by giving prizes for the best plants grown in dingy back yards and smoky garret-rooms; and it is as astonishing as it is touching to find how, like a human being, the little plant adapts itself to its surroundings, and throws out its beauty and fragrance in return for a little patience and tender care. ”

“ These effects of changes of circumstances are so well known that botanists prefer not to describe garden plants, at least only those which have been newly cultivated.
“Is not cultivated wheat (Triticum sativum) only a plant brought by man into the condition in which we actually see it? Who can tell me in what country such a plant lives in a state of nature—that is to say, without being there the result of its culture in some neighboring region? ”

“ A Royal Planter now descends from yonder world of older date, and bearing in his hand the choice seeds of the older Paradise, he plants them in the virgin soil of our new born earth. They grow and flourish there, and, bearing seed, replant themselves, and thus clothe the naked earth with scenes of beauty, and the air with fragrant incense. ”

“ He claimed correctly that all our best fruits were artificial products, because the essential elements for the preservation of the species in their natural condition, are vigor of the plant and perfect seeds for the perpetuation of the race. It has been the [41] object of culture to diminish the extreme vigor of the tree so as to produce early fruitage, and at the same time to enlarge and to refine the pulpy portion of the fruit. He claimed, as a principle, that our plants of culture had always a tendency to run back toward the original or wild type, when they were grown from seeds. ”

“ Though our country’s vegetation has lost in scientific interest, it has gained vastly in both economic and æsthetic value by the introduction of useful and ornamental plants from all the Temperate regions of the world; and besides, a large number of species have followed in man’s footsteps, and, taking advantage of the disturbance of the native flora caused by his operations, endeavour with more or less success to establish a footing in the country. ”

“ That which disappears even at the moment of its production is assuredly not the manifestation of one primordial power, but only a consequence of the combined operation of various powers. The plant, a particular mode or manifestation of the formative-power of Nature, when left to itself, proceeds from the first germination to the ripening of the seed. ”

“ Now the sunflower we have just thought of is probably growing in a garden well looked after by a gardener, who sees that it gets all the light and water and just the kind of soil it needs. It is therefore protected and cared for to a certain extent, but who looks after the wild plants which manage to grow everywhere? These have not only their own lives to live, but by their own efforts must overcome difficulties which are not even felt by the cultivated ones. ”

“ No principles are better known than the influences of soil, climate, darkness, and light upon a growing plant. If the truth could be appreciated that circumstances color life and character just as surely, marring, distorting, dwarfing, or beautifying and developing, according as they are friendly or adverse, the workers in the moral vineyard, instead of trying to obtain fruit from sickly vines, whose roots grope in sterility, and whose foliage is poisoned, would bring the richness of opportunity to the soil and purify the social atmosphere. ”

“ And yet cultivation is on an entirely different scale, a mere pot of earth taking the place of barrowsful under out-of-door culture. In the garden I simply place a plant at the requisite depth and in the proper exposure and soil; in the greenhouse a finer discrimination is called for. ”

“ The very great modifications which cultivated plants are constantly undergoing under our eyes, and the numerous varieties and races which spring up among them, certainly countenance the doctrine, that every domesticated vegetable, however dependent upon human care for growth and propagation in its present form, may have been really derived, by a long Succession of changes, from some wild plant not now perhaps much resembling it. ”

“ It should never be forgotten that the species of plants making up the dominant plant societies in different parts of the world are dictated by quite other conditions than those that result in the dominance of the society itself. ”

“ Plants must live together. They associate; they become adapted or accustomed to each other. Some can live in shade; they thrive in the forest, where sun-loving plants perish. Others prefer the sun, and thereby live together. There are plant societies.
Fig. 252. Weak, narrow-leaved grasses grow in the cat-tail forest.
Every distinct or separate area has its own plant society. There is one association for the hard-tramped dooryard,—knot-weed and broad-leaved plantain with interspersed grass and dandelions; one for the fence-row,—briars and choke-cherries and hiding weeds ”

“ The general law of nature must be obeyed, and each must yield its place to a successor. The art of the planter readily divides a single tree into almost any number that he wishes, but the character of the new trees, thus raised, is very essentially different from that of a young seedling plant; they possess a preternatural maturity, and retain the habits and diseases of the tree, of which they naturally formed a part. All efforts, which have hitherto been made to propagate healthy trees, of those varieties which have been long in cultivation, have, I believe, been entirely unsuccessful. ”

“ CHAPTER XIX. SACRED PLANTS. Closely allied with plant-worship is the sacred and superstitious reverence which, from time immemorial, has been paid by various communities to certain trees and plants.
In many cases this sanctity originated in the olden heathen mythology, when "every flower was the emblem of a god; every tree the abode of a nymph." From their association, too, with certain events, plants frequently acquired a sacred character, and occasionally their specific virtues enhanced their veneration. ”

“ In such cases, Nature, who abhors bare ground, is endeavouring to clothe it with useful vegetation.
The fights which are going on are of the most ruthless character. Many weeds are said to produce some 30,000 seeds in one year, and every plant which grows in a meadow is scattering thousands of seeds. But of course the number of plants remains much the same, so that 29,999 seeds are wasted (or the seedlings choked out) for every one that grows up! ”

“ In the vegetable kingdom, we see the trees and plants, sucking moisture from the earth and moulding it to their nature, increase in size and glory. In the animal kingdom, we see the beasts of the field cropping those plants which afford them nourishment, and avoiding these which are noxious. ”

“ The change in character and the increased usefulness of Sweet Peas have necessitated a revolution in the methods of culture. The freer growth and more robust habit demand greater space than was formerly allowed. Instead of crowded rows of attenuated plants, producing a meagre return of small flowers, poor in colour, it is now the practice to prepare the ground by deep trenching and liberal manuring, and to give every plant ample space for full development both in rows and in clumps. ”