Drugged to Life

It is but a few weeks since successful experiments in acceleration of plant growth by artificial light were announced (TIME, Nov. 5). Now we have the next step: etherizing them to make them grow. Prof. David Lumsden, of the Federal Horticultural Board, found out that if a "shot of dope" is given to a plant either by inhalation or a hypodermic needle, exactly the,contrary of the effect of ether on human beings is produced. Instead of putting plants to sleep it can produce overnight perceptible fresh green shoots from rose bushes dug out of frozen ground in midwinter. Kept indoors on the ether diet, they grow and bloom weeks ahead of the usual flowering time. Still more miraculous, they are found to be immune to all the ordinary plant diseases that hamper indoor rose culture. A very small quantity of ether does the trick--about a tablespoonful in an air-tight chamber containing 27 cubic feet, or a cubic centimeter injected into the stem. The method is most successful with woody plants like the rose or lilac. All the latent buds or shoots are stimulated, instead of the few preponderant ones which develop naturally. This may lead to great economy in the cultivation of tuberous plants, such as dahlias and potatoes. Plants could be grown from small pieces of the tubers, etherized. There is apparently no depression on plant life like the after-effects of ether on animal life.

Further work with electrification of plants, by Prof. R. B. Harvey, of the University of Minnesota, has convinced him that glassed-in commercial greenhouses will be eliminated in the future by underground rooms heated and lighted entirely by electricity at a moderate cost.