PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL. MEETING. 135 



Mr. Augustine: I would suggest that when you Michigan people send 

 'down to southern Illinois your peaches in exchange for our good Ben Davis 

 apples [laughter], you do not put better ones on top than in the bottom. 



Mr. Tkacy: And when you send up the Ben Davis apples, please do not 

 put worse ones on top than are all the way through ! 



Mr. Williams of Douglas was doubtful if our fruit can be packed as is 

 California fruit, without doubling the cost of packages. 



Mr. J. F. Whitmire: California fruit is bought and shipped by great 

 companies, and they know it does not pay to ship culls. If ours were so 

 sent, the brands could be depended upon, but they can not be when the 

 shipping is done by so many individuals. 



Mr. MuNSON: The Grand Eapids commission men repack and "stufP" 

 in the worst possible way. I brand my fruit, and warrant it, and find the 

 practice pays. 



SEED BKEEDING. 



BY ME. W. W. TRACY OF DETROIT. 



Among the common misconceptions and ignorant notions regarding hor- 

 ticulture, there are none which result in greater loss and more unprofitable 

 labor than those concerning seeds. To many people, seeds are a necessary 

 addition to the soil in order to secure a crop, much as yeast is necessary in 

 bread-making. We can not get on without it, but it makes little difference 

 what we use if it will only work — will come up. Few people look upon a 

 seed as simply a young plant with just as clearly defined possibilities and 

 limitations of development as a young calf or colt. Many who would not 

 expect a calf from a little yellow scrub cow, giving but a quart or two of 

 thin, blue milk, to grow into as good and rich a milker as one from a well- 

 bred Jersey, do seem to think that seed from one red beet is just as good 

 as that from another, and should grow into just as crisp and tender beets. 

 A great many of the horticultural failures grow out of this misconception 

 of what a seed really is, namely, a young plant, packed with infinite wis- 

 dom for transportation. Let us examine the pumpkin seed. We tear off 

 the outer protecting covering and find just a soft inner lining, and those 

 two oval bodies which resemble leaves and would be easily taken for them, 

 differing only in being thickened and white instead of green. Between 

 these is a little bud, made up of perfect but minute leaves, all mounted on 

 a tiny stem; but, you say in triumph, that is no plant, there is no root — how 

 can you have a plant without roots? What are roots for? To hold the 

 plant in place and collect food for it. But for one purpose, that of recov- 

 ering bare spots from which all vegetation has been swept by storm or fire, 

 we don't want a stationary plant; we don't want roots. Again, as to food, 

 ^while our plantlet is in transit to its new home there is little probability 



