6 TEANSACTIONS ^OF THE ILLINOIS 



fruit is easily seen, tasted, and tested, although it may and does 

 change, it is so gradual that we become educated to it. 



It is difficult to get into the seed and grasp the latent power 

 that will stamp the plant or tree with long or short life. Yet expe- 

 rience teaches it is there. 



It is difficult to look into the inner life of trees and see their 

 constitution weakened by coalescing with short-lived roots. And it 

 is still more difficult to see a scion cut from a tree thus weakened 

 sending down its defects to others still to be grown. Yet, if it was 

 in animal life, few of us would doubt its being done. 



The wondrous thing called protoplasm, the real germ of life, 

 biologists know no essential difference between it in plants and in 

 animals. 



While in animal life, notably the horse, we pay every attention 

 to hereditary descent, so much so that a pedigree is kept, showing a 

 long line of ancestors noted for durability, etc., yet in plant life, in 

 propagating pears and apples, th^ Professor, in effect, says we 

 "confidently proceed" to do no such thing. Think of getting a 

 pedigree of seed from a cider-mill. What a wind-broken, blear- 

 eyed, blinkey-eyed, raw-boned, knock-kneed, splinter-shanked record 

 they would have. 



Yet they are the chaps you and I buy, after the nurseryman 

 has "confidently proceeded to put a head on them," and made them 

 look presentable. Is it any wonder they freeze to death in winter 

 and starve to death in summer? 



C. N. Dennis, in his article, says: " Vaughan condemns the 

 procuring of seed from cider presses," and answers: "Who does or 

 can know anything about the hardiness of a seedling until it is 

 tested," etc. 



I apprehend Judge Vaughan was striking at the whole system 

 of obtaining seed from imperfect fruit, not whether a particular seed 

 might or might not produce a hardy seedling. 



Again Mr. Dennis says: " A good stock is good, even if it did 

 come from a cider mill." With all due respect to everybody, Diay 

 we not with equal propriety say a good pig is good even if its sire 

 was a hazel splitter and had a consumptive cough. And " who does 

 or can know anything about " the quality of his progeny until they 

 are tested. But do thoughtful men take chances in that direction? 



Surely those men know the kind of fruit that is taken to the 

 presses. Are the ones that grow on thrifty twigs out in the open 

 air, who blush at being kissed by the god of day, while the bloom of 

 rosy health mantles their cheeks, — are they the ones that are 

 dumped by the cart load at the cider presses? Are they not the 

 ones that, for some reason, have not come to perfection? Perhaps 

 the scab has marred their beauty, or they are dwarfed in size by a 

 brother's greed; or have grown in the shade and been rendered 



