BEAUTIFUL EXPERIMENT.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 32, 7 February 1877, Page 3

BEAUTIFUL EXPERIMENT.

. A French horticulturist, to study the physiology of the vegetable kingdom, conceived that the smallness of certain plants— the violet, .for example — was, owing to an atmpspKeric pressure, too greaffor its delicate organs. Having carefully resolved this idea into form, he determined to test the correctness of it 1 by' some satisfactory experiment. He prepared a small-baloon of as light material as was consistent with the necessary quality of durability, and this he made perfectly tight so as to prevent the escape of any gas with which he filled it.'' To this he attached a strong, silken cord, 1,200 metres long, or say 4,000 feet. Attached to the balloon,, irpf lace of a basket, was a pot of earth, m ■^Meh^rere planted Parma violets, just springing from the root. The result has been wonderful. In the thin air which the delicate violets breathed at that height — for flowers do breathe m their own delicate way — they throve marvellously, the blossoms enlarging to five times the size attained at the earth's surface. This beautiful experiment, after about two months of judicious trial, rewarded the ingenious and scientific horticulturist by. presenthim Avith violets as large as roses, something probably never before seen on earth. .