THE ANNUAL MEETING. 147 



the variability of cultivated plants in the above respects is clue first to their 

 being subjected to somewhat dissimilar conditions, and secondly to their 

 being often intercrossed," and say that it is only necessary to start with 

 a pure stock of any variety and absolutely prevent its being mixed with 

 any other in order to maintain its purity and quality. My only reply is 

 that of the boy who, when he hears one telling what can be done, but the 

 possibility of which he doubts, cries, "Let's see you do it." Every seed- 

 grower of experience has learned to his cost that there is an inherent ten- 

 dency to variation in all of our cultivated varieties, which will show itself 

 in spite of similar conditions and freedom from mixture of other sorts. In 

 one case a stock of peas was developed from a single plant on an island in 

 the St. Lawrence river, on which there was absolutely no other peas of any 

 sort grown, but this stock ultimately so sported from within itself as to have 

 the appearance of being a mixture of several varieties. Indeed all the descend- 

 ants of a species seem to be moving on in the same line of variation, even if 

 under the most dissimilar conditions. An illustration of this is found in our 

 common Zonale geranium, which after being cultivated for many years and 

 sporting into many different varieties, developed in the same year from three 

 distinct and entirely separate strains double varieties, a sport which was not 

 to be expected in a plant of the botanical character of the geranium, and one 

 which the plant had shown no tendency to produce before. Similar illustra- 

 tions are found in the almost simultaneous production of many varieties of 

 potatoes of the Early Kose type, and more recently in the numerous white 

 grapes of similar appearance developed among seedlings of the Concord, so 

 that we not only have the well recognized variability which is the result of 

 dissimilar conditions and intercrossing, but a tendency to variation indepen- 

 dent of these, along a line the course of which we are utterly unable to predict. 

 These sports as we call them are not the result of mere chance or the 

 product of a combination of circumstances not made before, but are sim- 

 ply one of the ways of God's working which even the scientist of our day has 

 not been able to formulate into a " natural law," and so take out of his hands 

 and relieve him of all responsibility for. I have called attention to some of 

 the less obvious difficulties in the way of securing good seed. There are many 

 others, such as the growing of the seed in the climate best adapted to it ; the 

 effect of different soils upon them ; the prevention of intermixing when in the 

 field or store ; the preserving them so as to retain their vitality, and a host of 

 others which, I can only assure you, one who undertakes to grow or handle 

 seeds upon any considerable scale will find far greater than he expected. I 

 should be glad to speak of some of these, but recent experience has taught me 

 that even on Thanksgiving day if "there is more to follow," it will not do to 

 take too much time for the first course, be it ever so good, and I give way to 

 the richer, more spicy articles that are to come. 



After Mr. Tracy closed, Mr. H. E. Hooker remarked at some length upon 

 the same topic, saying among other things that seedsmen had very great diffi- 

 culties to surmount. In the proportion that the type is refined the difficulty 

 of maintaining that type is increased. Long ago he had given up raising his 

 own seeds because he could not grow as good ones as the professional seedsman 

 would sell him. 



Prof. Daniel Putnam of the State Normal School next addressed the con- 

 vention upon 



