"If you talk to the plants, they will grow faster and the effect is even better if you're a
woman." Researchers at Royal Horticultural Society carried out an experiment to find
that the voice of a woman gardener makes plants grow faster.
     The experiment lasted a month and by the end of the study scientists managed to
discover that tomato plants grew up two inches taller when women gardeners talked to
them instead of male.
     Sarah Darwin was the one making the plants registered the best growth. Her voice
was the most "inspiring" for plants than those of nine other gardeners when reading a
passage from The Origin of Species. The great-great-granddaughter of the famous
botanist Charles Darwin found that her plant grew about two inches taller than the plant
of the best male gardener.
     Colin Crosbie, Garden Superintendent at RHS, said that the finding cannot yet be
explained. He assumes that women have a greater range of pitch and tone which might
have a certain effect on the sound waves that reach the plant. "Sound waves are an
environmental effect just like rain or light ,"said Mr Grosbie.
     The study began in April at RHS Garden Wisley in Survey. Scientists started with
open auditions(听力) for the people who were asked to record passages from John
Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream and
Darwin's The Origin of Species.
     Afterwards researchers selected a number of different voices and played them to
10 tomato plants during a period of a month. Each plant had headphones connected to
it. Through the headphones the sound waves could hit the plants. It was discovered that
plants that "listened" to female voices on average grew taller by an inch in comparison to
plants that heard male voices.
     Miss Darwin said, "I think it is an honor to have a voice that can make tomatoes
grow, and especially fitting because for a number of years I have been studying wild
tomatoes from the Galapagos Island at the Natural History Museum in London."