8th.—Of the various buds which are beginning to open, none advance so rapidly as those of the peach blossoms. On the 14th of February I first observed a little streak of red at the tops of a few; they are now quite opened, and looked very pretty last week, when the ground was slightly covered with snow.
I must tell you a curious thing about buds. Early in January we had some little branches and twigs of several trees brought in, that we might see the state of the buds; and I put a few into a jug of water in my room, that I might examine them at leisure. Very soon afterwards, I perceived that the buds were beginning to swell; their scales gradually separated, and now there are some horse-chestnut leaves quite opened out, and displaying the beautiful manner in which they, and the embryo flower, were folded up and preserved within those scaly cases in the winter. I thought it very extraordinary that they should have been supported merely by water; but my uncle says that the principal nourishment of all plants is derived from water. The famous botanist Du Hamel reared an oak tree for eight years in water only; and a willow planted by Van Helmont in a pot, increased fifty pounds in weight in five years, though the earth, which had been accurately weighed, was only diminished by two ounces.
In my collection of branches there were some of lilac and of pear; and on each of these, the buds, which were hard, little greenish knobs when first put in the water, have now burst open and disclosed their cluster of miniature flower-buds.
We have all been most philosophically employed in dissecting and examining leaf-buds of various trees: for my own part, I think that I can distinctly see in most of them, that they proceed from the wood; and in some I could plainly trace the little communication that connects the wood and the bud. But my uncle says we must continue to study this subject for years before we can venture to form a decided opinion.
I intend to keep my branches in water as long as possible, that I may see what happens at last. On the living trees out of doors no leaf-bud has yet attempted to unfold its scales.
9th.—As we walked in the sheltered kitchen-garden this stormy day, Miss Perceval remarked what an alteration soil, climate, and culture can produce in the external characters of plants; and for remarkable instances of this, she says, we need not go farther than the kitchen-garden.
“There,” she said, “we find cabbage, cauliflower, kale, brocoli, and turnip-rooted cabbage; but who could ever imagine that all these were from the same original species? Nothing, however, is more certain than that they are all varieties produced by the cultivation of a plant which grows wild on the sea-shores of Europe, and which, in its external appearance, is as different from any of those, as they are from each other. These alterations become so strongly fixed by habit, that they continue in the plants that spring from the seeds of each variety; they are liable, however, again to degenerate into each other; and it is only by the art of gardening that they are preserved distinct, or that fresh varieties are produced.”
Miss Perceval made me examine the several young crops of cabbage of different kinds which had been sown at short intervals, during February and the beginning of March, that they might be ready for use in succession; and I find that, although she is such a great botanist, she does not at all despise the knowledge of garden vegetables and of their cultivation. Indeed, she says, that it is being but half a botanist, not to have a general knowledge of all the useful vegetables, with the principles of their cultivation, and their times and seasons.
Among the few plots of cabbage now in leaf, we found some rows of the large-ribbed species, in which there appeared to be several varieties; and in trying to make out the differences, I perceived an odd tail or appendage to some of the leaves. When I made Miss P. take notice of it, she was surprised, and said she had never before observed a similar circumstance in the growth of any cabbages. This curious appendage, which grows from the back of the principal rib, in its substance is like the foot-stalk of the leaves; and at the end it dilates into a sort of hollow cup like a funnel, with something of the appearance of the nepenthes, or pitcher plant.
11th.—I asked my uncle, after dinner what were those older causes, which he told us had produced such infinitely greater changes in the structure of the earth’s surface than any that are now going on.