162 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



tree, and to ns«it is a great pleasure to watch its growth and devel- 

 opment, so elaborate in every part, its leaves corresponding to the 

 lungs in the animal kingdom, and breathing the carbonic acid por- 

 tion of the air thrown off by animal respiration which is poison to 

 animal life, so that a proper balance is maintained in the elements 

 of the atmosphere, by the animal retaining the oxygen and throwing 

 off the carbon, while the plant absorbs the carbonic ])ortion and 

 throws off the oxygen. How wise and beautiful are the harmonious 

 provisions of nature! 



Casualties aside, with proper relations of life and health, men and 

 animals, trees, etc., would live to a good old age. But, alas ! when 

 the laws of life are unobserved, or when epidemics sweep over us, 

 how sad the change ; decay and death follow. Disease has entered 

 our orchards and nearly completed its work, and unless soon — yes, 

 very soon, — arrested, the once thrifty orchards of Central Illinois 

 will have become a thing of the past. We are, indeed, standing 

 upon the borders of an awful gulf that is swallowing up aU our 

 apple orchards, and we ask, is there nothing stable, nothing abiding, 

 on which poor, weak, helpless man can fasten to arrest this? Has 

 thp glory of our orchards departed forever? Is there no hope? 



Can not man, with the aid of the mighty inventions and dis- 

 coveries God has given him, be able to investigate and ascertain, by 

 the help of the microscope, the cause of this disease? Man's power 

 seems almost unlimited, when we look at the marvelous progress of 

 science and art for the past fifty years. From the needle to the 

 elegant sewing machine, operated by hand, steam or electricity. The 

 progress from the scythe and cradle to the perfected steel mower and 

 self-binding harvester. From the oar and sail boat or vessel to the 

 majestic steamboats which cover our rivers and lakes, and steamships 

 bridging the Atlantic in six days, moving over the placid waters, or 

 riding the angry billows like a thing of life. The lightning is made 

 to do man's bidding, in carrying messages by telegraph and tele- 

 phone ; even so we can, under favorable circumstances, recognize the 

 voice of a friend one thousand miles off ; in lighting our towns and 

 cities so brilliantly and beautifully ; the recently perfected electric 

 automatic phonograph, which grasps and puts on record the lecture, 

 sermon, speech, or conversation of the hour, and preserves it for the 

 future, repeating it when desired ; and, finally, man has chained the 

 lightning to his chariot, as now seen in many of our electric street 

 cars. This progress is seen in improved means of travel, from the 

 slow stage, canal and flat-boat, to our swift steam cars, running from 

 twenty to sixty miles per hour on 150,000 miles of railroad in the 

 United States ; enough to belt the earth six tiroes. How wonder- 

 ful ! And nearly all of this progress in the last fifty years, even 

 since my birthday, and during the lives of many of us assembled 

 here. 



