Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/693

Rh and vegetable products depends on the number of domestic species and on the number of specialized varieties within the species.

M. I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire had shown, at the time of founding the Society of Acclimatation, that most of our animal and vegetable products had come to us through that process as the prime source. While no one could deny the advantages that had been derived from it in the past, some were skeptical as to its utility in the future. But, as M. Quatrefages has said, man is constantly developing new wants; so that the luxury of the evening becomes the necessity of the morrow. He reminds us that the turkey was first imported as a fancier's bird, and the dahlia as an eatable plant; and I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire spoke of the guinea-pig, which the experimental physiologist has found so valuable, as useless.

I begin the list of the recent trophies of acclimatation with the great Australian eucalyptus, a few seeds of which planted in 1856, in Provence, produced good trees, showing that the species could be grown on the Mediterranean littoral. It is now at home in Corsica, Algeria, Italy, and Spain, and is distinguished by the properties of rapid growth, making marshy places sanitary, and having a hard wood impregnated with a peculiar essential oil, the presence of which insures its durability. The industrial cultivation of the bamboo was begun in 1861 in the Basses Pyrenées, under the direction of M. Garique. The plantation of four hectares is now very remunerative. Following M. Garique's example, the Southern Railway Company is using the bamboo to fix the taluses of its embankments and adorn its lines. The military administration contemplates using it also on the taluses of its fortifications, where it will have the further advantage of making the works difficult of access. By cutting the stems on a slanting line the ground can be converted into a tract of stiff, sharp stubble that no one will be able to walk over. This has been done in Tonquin.

The Stachys affinis, to which M. Pailleux has given the name crosnes as a common name, is a labiate plant, allied to sage and mint, and is cultivated in China and Japan for its eatable tubercles. Specimens of it received by the Société d'Acclimatation in 1882 were cultivated by M. Pailleux, who finds that the tubercles, cooked about as beans are cooked, have the flavor of the artichoke, and possess the advantage of offering a fresh vegetable in December, January, and February, when such foods are scarce. Thus, in less than ten years, an edible plant has been imported, experimented upon in cultivation, experimented upon in consumption, and definitely acclimated.

The soja, a kind of oleaginous pea from China, which, not