144 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



On Other Fruits.— Geo. W. Lawton, Lawton; II. C. Sherwood, Watervliet; Emmons 

 Buell, Kalamazoo. 



On Plants. Flowers, etc. — Wm, Saunders, Ontario ; W. J. Beal, Lansing; A. C. Glid- 

 den, Paw Paw ; Mrs. P. Collar, Adrian. 



On Resolutions— ~E. W. Cottrell, Detroit ; S. B. Mann, Adrian ; W. W. Tracy, Detroit. 



The first address of the evening was by Mr. W. W- Tracy, of Detroit, on 



DIFFICULTY OF MAINTAINING PURE AND GOOD SEEDS. 



It may seem an unwarranted waste of the time of an audience like this to 

 attempt to define a seed, but I think I can better present some of the difficul- 

 ties in the way of maintaining good seeds if I first say a few words concerning 

 what I conceive a seed to be. If you had visited me in Detroit last summer, 

 and been charmed by some variegated-leafed shrub, I might have promised to 

 send you a plant, and in fulfilling the promise this fall I had carefully packed 

 a plant, my little boy, who sometimes asks questions, might have done so in 

 this way: " Why, papa, what made you wait so long before sending the plant 

 to Mr. Smith? It was the leaves he liked, and now they are all gone he won't 

 care for it; besides, you have cut off most all the branches, and what makes 

 you pack up the roots so carefully and leave the top all open." It would take 

 but a few words to explain to him that the leaves while active kept up an in- 

 cessant demand for water and food, which must mainly be collected by the 

 roots from the ground, a work they could not do if separated from it ; that the 

 leaves, although essential to growth, were not essential to mere existence; that 

 wrapt up in the buds were tiny new leaves ready to take the place of the old. 

 So I waited until now and cut off most of the stem to make it easier to send 

 the plant. Again, the roots even in a comparatively dormant condition could 

 not endure the changes of temperature and moisture that would be harmless 

 to the rest of the plant, so I must take pains to carefully protect them, but 

 may leave the branches exposed. In something of the way my boy would then 

 look at the package I had made, I look at a seed, simply as a plant packed for 

 transportation. I waited until the leaves were reduced to a minimum ; the 

 seed contains only the two embryo leaves ; I cut off all but a small portion of 

 the stem ; in the seed the stem is a mere rudiment. I, of necessity, cut off 

 the greater portion of the roots, and those that I saved gave me by far more 

 trouble to pack than did the rest of the plant. The Creator cuts off the root 

 entirely and supplies its place by a quantity of food stored in or around the 

 plant to sustain it until it can form fresh roots in its new home. I wrap my 

 plant in soft moss and then pack in some firmer material to prevent injury 

 while in transit. The seed has a soft and pliant inner coat and a hard and 

 firm exterior casing to protect it. Beyond the fact that the seed plant is 

 packed by Divine hands, with infinite wisdom and skill, while mine is more 

 clumsy human work, I can see but little difference between my awkward package 

 and the beautiful seed. One is as capable of development under, and its future 

 life depends as much upon favorable circumstances as the other. Each is 

 equally separated from the plant that produced it; the future life of each 

 must be the development, under favorable or unfavorable circumstances, of its 

 inherent nature. The seed is as entirely and completely a distinct and self- 

 contained individual, with all its characteristics and limitations fixed and im- 

 mutable, as is the babe when placed in its father's arms. You admit this here, 

 but practically you, and the great mass of people beyond you, do not believe 

 it. To most people the seed is mere inert matter, which it is essential, it is true, 

 to add to the soil in order to produce a crop, but which has nothing of the living 



