As the result of recent botanical and soil investigations it
is thought that fruitful results may ensue from the making of a dictionary of plant language, with the translation of the word (that is, colour, mien or gesture) into its proper verbal plea. The weak hollow stalk may be saying : "Why don't you tighten the soil round my roots ? " - The colourless fruit may say : "Give me potash or my taste vanishes." The yellow leaf may be telling of the exhaustion of nitrogen in the neighbourhood. Of course the value of this method will depend on the precision of the knowledge ; but enough- has been already determined to create hope in a more intimate means of communication between a farmer or gardener and his vegetable friends ! It may he that in the future every grower will keep by him a tintometer (that ingenious device for fixing standards of colour) and a Rothamsted vocabulary. Who knows ?
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