PULLING OFF POTATO BLOSSOMS.
The Boston Cultivator, speaking of this process, says: “As the qualities of the potato-ball or apple differ considerably from the root or tuber, it may be that the juices destined to nourish the balls will not, on removing the blossoms, go to increase the roots. This view is not unreasonable.”
We do not suppose the theory to be, that the sap tending to the bloom and ball returns to the root. But, simply, that there will be so much less food to be prepared, and therefore so much less exhaustion to the vegetable economy. It is well known that the filling out and ripening of seeds is eminently exhausting to the plant. It has long been the custom of florists who wish show-flowers, to refuse their bulbous plants leave to bloom for one season, plucking off the bud, that they might be so much the stronger for the next year’s blooming.
But we suppose the truth to be this. The sap is prepared in the leaf and enters the distributing vessels of the plant. It is conveyed to every organ; each part, receiving its portion, modifies it by a farther chemical action peculiar to itself. Thus in the case of an apple-tree. The elaborated sap which goes to the leaf, the alburnum, the liber, the blossom, the fruit is the same in all; but the fruit gives it a still further elaboration, by which it imparts the peculiar properties belonging to it, in distinction from the
tissues; so of the bark, the blossom, etc. If, then, the seed-vessels are removed, so much less elaborated sap is consumed as they would have required; and this, or at least, portions of it, are given to the other parts of the vegetable economy.
BLADING AND TOPPING CORN.
No one performs these operations for the benefit of the ear, but to obtain fodder, and it is then justified on the ground that the corn is not harmed by it. The sap drawn from the root does not flow straight up into the ear and kernel, but into the leaves or blades. The carbonic acid of the crude sap is decomposed, oxygen is given off and carbon remains in the form of starch, sugar, gum, etc., etc., according to the nature of the plant. When sap has by exposure to light undergone this change it is said to be elaborated.
It is only now that the sap, passing from the upper side of the leaf to a set of vessels in the under side, is reconveyed to the stem, begins to descend, and is distributed to various parts of the plant, affording nourishment to all. But when the fruit of every plant is maturing, it draws to itself a large part of the prepared sap, which, when it has entered the kernel, is still farther elaborated, and made to produce the peculiar qualities of the fruit, whether corn or wheat, apple or pear. It is plain from this explanation that a plant stripped of its leaves is like a chemist robbed of his laboratory, or like a man without lungs.
If corn is needed for fodder, let it be cut close to the ground when the corn has glazed. The grain will go on ripening and be as heavy and as good as if left to stand, and the stalk will afford excellent food for cattle. Sheep are fond of corn thus cured, and will winter very well upon it. In husking out the corn, the husk should be left on the stalk for fodder.