OCR Text |
Show Culture by Electric Light. In the botanical department of Cornell university there have recently been made some very curious experiments in the cultivation of plants under electric light. A number of flowers aud vegetables vege-tables have been placed where the rays of powerful ektctrio lamps fall upon them night and day, and their growth is compared with that of others of their own siiecies planted at the same time and under similar conditions except in the matter of light. The first and most noticeable effect of this t reatiuent is an enormously increased rate of growth. The nlnnls which lighted seem to work day and night, and to become especially luxuriaut in foliage. The vegetables shoot forward with great quickness, peas, for instance, which become in a few weeks two or three times as tall as their brethren living by common daylight; and the same thing is true of all the plants. When it camo to seeds or fruit of any sort, tho matter was entirely different. Hero the plants which had grown slowly and by daylight were ahead. It is true that the pea which grew by electric light camo to bearing much sooner than the other, but its hastily made pods had very fevv jieas, often oidy one, and those of an inferior quality. In every instance tho reproductive powers of tho plant seemed to have been mast strongly affected, being sacrificed to mere foliage and rapidity of increase in general size. Youth's Companion. |