land of fog, exhibited their hereditary habits.
in a dislike to a dry air and bright light.

The broad distinctions of habit limit the
cultivation of the cereals to climates suited to
them. Barley and oats, for example, though
destroyed by severe frosts, ripen in Lapland
and in Russia: while wheat, though it stands
severe winters, is hardly capable of ripening
north of St. Petersburg. Rye and buckwheat
both grow on soils too poor for the cultivation
of any variety of wheat except that coarse sort
called Spelt. Maize yields its enormous crops
on the rich soils in the plains of the Ohio, and
wherever the summer heat is a little greater
than in England. Cobbett's attempt to introduce
the cultivation of maize in England, and
his determination to exalt "Cobbett's corn"
over the potato was an unsuccessful fight
against the habit of a plant. The maize has,
however, advanced northward, while the vine
has retreated southward.

The distinguishing characters of plants manifest
themselves in minute peculiarities that
seem almost to resemble the personal
preferences and freaks of the nobler animals. Barley
requires a friable soil; wheat should be sown
on strong land. Melons grow best in hard
clayey earth, and cucumbers in soft soil full of
manure. Strawberries and many other fruits,
when potted, should have the earth rammed
hard into the pots. The habit and successful
cultivation of plants can only be learned by
practice and experience. A theorist without
practice and with only an abstract knowledge
of the advantage of light, air, "permeation of
moisture," and a deep seed-bed, would lose his
crop while he applied his knowledge.

The successful cultivation of farm crops is
an art which requires considerable skill, and in
horticulture many "difficult" plants require
extraordinary nicety of management. Habit
cannot be easily cast off; when once acquired, it
becomes persistent and follows the plant, even
when removed to new soils and climates. The
little moon-wort fern that grows on the Surrey
downs, sickens if removed to a sheltered spot.
In the sub-tropical climate of Alabama, native
plants do not awaken in spring, after their
brief winter rest, so soon as those introduced
from colder climates. Our white clover is
always the most advanced of the pasture grasses,
and much earlier than the Bermuda grass
which was brought from the valley of the
Ganges, where it flourishes in the full blaze of
the sun.

In the states of New York, Minnesota,
Michigan, and in the northern states generally,
"fall wheat" is sown early in September;
spring wheat is sown in May, and even as late
as June. The latter acquires an annual; the
former a biennial, character. If the autumn
wheat be sown in spring, it yields no seed; it
is unable to change its habit and to yield seed,
like a short-lived annual, two or three months
after sowing. Acclimatising is one of the
modifications of habit which occur in the
course of time, but it is found by experience
that this is a change which takes place slowly;
the habit of plants in this respect is peculiarly
inelastic. Sir Joseph Banks supposed that
wheat did not bring its seed to perfection in
our climate till hardened to it by repeated
sowings. Spring wheat from Guzerat, sown
in England with barley in spring, eared and
blossomed; but few of the ears brought more
than three or four grains to perfection; some
wholly without corn. Probably in this
and in other cases of acclimatisation, the
plant, though brought direct from a tropical
region, was in fact a native of a colder climate,
and soon resumed its original habit. It is the
habit of some plants to blossom at the low
temperature of our winter months, and to ripen
their seeds in March. The ivy-leaved speedwell,
which blossoms and seeds during spring
and early summer, had seeds full-sized and
fast maturing, on March 6th, 1869. The period
of flowering, the temperature at which seeds
and fruits ripen, the amount of moisture and
heat required to make seeds vegetate, and the
time of rest — all are determined by hereditary
habit.

The peculiarities of plants in affecting different
soils and climates have been the means of
clothing the surface of the earth with the varied
forms of vegetable life. Plants, like annuals,
differ much in the flexibility of their constitutional
powers, and habits of life. Mr. Darwin
points out that "an innate wide flexibility of
constitution is common to most animals." Man
is the principal witness to this fact. The rat and
mouse have also a wide range, living under the
cold climate of the Faroe and Falkland islands,
and on many islands in the torrid zone. The
elephant and rhinoceros, which are now tropical
or sub-tropical in their habits, were once
capable of enduring a glacial climate. The
goose has the most inflexible of organisations;
he cackles upon the common, and hisses at the
traveller's heels, generation after generation,
changing only from white to black and white,
and altering a little in size according to the
quantity of oats and barley-meal he receives
with his grass and water. The pigeon, that
pretty fancy bird, is extremely flexible, and
has been the object of high art. Plants are
less flexible than animals, as a rule; but there
are exceptions. The English crab, and that of
Siberia, are a single species, breeding readily
together, though so different in appearance and
in time of coming into leaf and blossom; the
great variation in their appearance has been
the effect of climate on successive generations.
The aloe is an example of an inflexible plant.
It is a native of a sub-tropical country and
impatient of frost, and it is unable to stand
forcing. It requires a greenhouse, but dies in
a hothouse. Geraniums, too, when forced
by artificial means in spring, in order to
produce shoots for cuttings, will only bear a
very gentle heat. Yet the maidenhair fern, a
native of Britain, rejoices in the heat and
moisture of a stove, where it grows rapidly to
a great size. Adaptation to any special climate
is a quality readily grafted on the constitution
of an animal, but not on that of a vegetable.