Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Popular Treatise on the Physiology of Plants for the Use of Gardeners or for Students of Horticulture and of Agriculture
We are able, also, by certain methods of cultivation, to change the colour of ?owers, or to cause them to double by a transformation of stamens into petals, or by the formation of new whorls of leaves. We can cause hard roots to become thick and succulent, as in the beets, and hard fruits to become large and juicy by an increase of their softer tissues (apples and pears); and we may therefore consider ourselves able to a certain degree to modify the characters of the vegetable organisms, and to partially change their normal development.
A plant must not, therefore, be looked upon as an unchange able organism, restricted to a definite form, but as a plastic organism, capable of further modification in all its parts. Its usual shape can be altered as if it were made of wax, and it can be remodelled within certain limits. This remodelling of the form of a plant is, however, only possible if the gardener understands how to regulate the conditions of its life, so that without damaging the whole, t.e., the life of the plant, the functions of the various organs may be increased beyond the normal amount or reduced below the usual limit in favour of some other organ. To effect these changes, it is naturally essential to possess an insight into the various processes which make up the life of a plant, and to understand how they are affected by various external conditions - in fact, to possess a knowledge of vegetable physiology.
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