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130 FBUITS IN THEIR SEASON.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
¦ - - A » Vi. Data. Respecting Dates. Th...
that the difference lay , a discovery' far beyond that of the ancient writersbut had acted on this knowledgein their fecundating
process , , for centuries before botanists had gained , equal insight into the physiology of plants , and while what is now an elementary
principle of science was generally looked on as but the dream of poetry . Pontanus , an Italian poet of the fifteenth century , embodied
in glowing verse the loves of two palms growing in his time ; : whereof the one , planted in the wood of Otranto , never bore fruit
until it grew , Calypso-like , so to overlook the neighboring trees that it could gain a view of the other tree at Brindisi , fifteen
leagues distant , when one quickening glance sufficed to make it burst forth into abundant fruitage ; an illustration of the "
Sentiment of Flowers" now coolly prosified by the scientific assertion that it had simply grown tall enough to catch the Brindisi pollen
borne upon the breeze . Linnaeus mentions another instance , of a palm at Berlin which had flowered for many years , but never
perfected , fruit until some blossoms , sent by post , from a staineniferous tree flowering at the same time at Leipsicwere applied to itwhen
fruit was- at once matured , and a specimen , of the offspring , , raised from the seed thus obtainedwas then fiourishing in Linnaeus's own
, garden . The Swedish botanist , Hasselquist , when travelling in 1749 , was so anxious for further information upon this subject , that
his first question on reaching Smyrna was concerning the nature and habits of a plantwhichas he expressed it" botanists do
, , , not the yet trees know , and ; " the but mode his desire of inducing to be fructification shown the distinction , was thwarted between by
the _joerversity of his interpreter . On arriving next year in Alexandria , he wrote to Linnaeusthat the first thing he had done there
, had been to visit the date-palms , which form the principal ornament and principal wealth of the country , and to make inquiries respecting *
his them being . The alread Arab y aware gardener of the to whom distinction he app of lied sexes was , say astonished ing that all at
Franks who had hitherto come there had considered what was told them on this subject as either a fable or a miracleand gratified at
, such a proof of his interest in the favorite tree , readily showed him the whole process of fecundation as already here detailed .
Pistilliferous trees largely preponderate , one male sufficing for 400 or 500 of the other sort , but , perhaps , it may be in some
measure to this . disproportion that the necessity for human intervention between them is due . That this is . necessaryis proved by
, the fact that in the year 1800 , when the Turks and the French were so busied with warfare that the only field labor carried on
was that of the field of battle , the neglected palms blossomed , indeed , as usual , but entirely failed to produce a harvest . But yet
worse evils than naere neglect have occasionally been suffered by the palms in time of warfor they have sometimes been
wan-, tonly cut down by invaders , and an instance is on record of this
having once occurred during a civil war in Persia , when . all the
130 Fbuits In Their Season.
130 FBUITS IN THEIR SEASON .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1861, page 130, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041861/page/58/
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