BRAINS OF PLANTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 227, 18 September 1908, Page 4

BRAINS OF PLANTS.

SULEJS'TISTS INTJSKJibIiy i XHEOltlt. Oiiee agum a Darwin is presidoiil of tlio JJi'iiiiih AiJjoeuitioii, and.at lii)*} meetinga.tDublin,- wiiieii uponed on September t was to deliv-ur a revolutionary address. It is t'lie jubilee oi' the first aaiiouaecna'iit oi what we call Darwinism, and Air Francis Darwin, u aun ol Cnarles Darwin, -luis gone i-i'Llu-r than any oi his predt-'ceaHor.s. Sunk: years ago lie got into hot water with men ol jrcieiK'o lor talking of the imnd una intelligence ol' phuiis. * iiu-L he lias the coinage of lua convictions, and will maintain the theory, illustrated especially by the cliurbing plants and the re*ponse of plants to the inlluenee ol' lights, that plants can remember and so develop habits. iMr Francis Darwin lias done much original work on tne movement of plants of all sorts, and the examples he will describe go to show that tlic hop and the bryony "have at least hardly less intelligence and memory than the lowest animals.

But the most noteworthy papers will not be contributed by the presidents of the various sections, except perhaps ia the new section, which is to' be devoted to agriculture, in which the problems of intensive cultivation and small holdings will take a prominent part. U is passible that in this section one of the grm discoveries of the meeting may be disclosed. It concerns the microbes of the soil. The problem has been studied persistently of late years, . hvre and in Germany and America, and 1 now it has been discovered by an English student that certain microbes distil an active poison into the soil. TUey poison the wells, so to speak, for their followers; and this, not the exhaustion of the land, prevents the farmer growing, • for example, two crops of clover consecutively on th* same field.