136 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



that it would be able to collect any food, no matter how liberally it was 

 provided with roots, and so the roots are temporarily dispensed with and 

 the necessary food to sustain it until established in its new home is stored 

 in or about the plant itself. 



Now, a plant is like a young child, in that its food must be in a liquid 

 form — it can use no other, and all jDlant food is like milk, unstable, and 

 soon becomes unfit for use. When we have to carry a motherless baby a 

 long distance, we wisely provide and take with us some condensed milk 

 which will keep indefinitely, but which, by the use of a little water and 

 heat, is converted into available food. This is just what is done in the seed. 

 The two leaflike bodies referred to are thick because they are crowded full 

 of condensed plant food which will keep indefinitely if kept dry, but which 

 under the influence of water and heat is changed into a form in which the 

 plant can readily use it and thus be sustained until it has made roots of its 

 own. 



But seeds are produced in pods or fruits which follow flowers, and so are 

 very different from plants. I have a plant at home called bryophillum. 

 If I cut off one of its large leaves and lay it on the ground in a warm and 

 moist place, it will form first buds, then leaves, and then roots at each' 

 notch along the edge, and we can cut away the original leaf and have as 

 many separate plants as there were notches. Now, if we take a leaf like 

 that of the basswood, cut off the two projecting sides, let it form along 

 each edge first buds, then leaves, and in the place of roots, as did the 

 bryophillum, let it store in the leaves some plant food and enclose them in 

 a protecting envelope; now let the leaf be doubled up and the edges grow 

 together, and we have, you see, simply a pea-pod full of peas. [As Mr. 

 Tracy talked he illustrated what he was saying by cutting out of paper 

 representations of leaves and making in them the changes referred to, 

 thus giving a clearer idea than can be conveyed by mere description.] 



I assure you, my friends, that while I have not used botanical terms, nor 

 given you a scientific description of seed formation, I have given you the 

 essential truths in regard to it, and I have not exaggerated in the least the 

 intimate connection of the seed with the plant that bore it. I have not 

 magnified in the least the truth that a seed is [not may become] a distinct 

 individual, with similar potentiality and limitations of development to 

 those of the young of the highest animal. Why, then, should we not talk 

 of seed-breeding, just as we do of animal-breeding? If the colts sired by 

 Hambletonian can be depended upon to grow up into faster trotting horses 

 than the sons of some slow moving "plug," why can't we expect that the 

 seed from a corn plant that produced two large handsome ears, will grow 

 into plants giving more and better corn than that from some scrawny 

 plant, which gave only one little nubbin? I don't need to ask the ques- 

 tion, for it has been demonstrated, not only by theory but by practice, that 

 they will. I know of an instance where a man sat down and wrote out a 

 description of the ideal corn plant — the ^ize of the stalk, the breadth of 

 the leaves, the character of the husk, the ear, the grain. Then he went 

 out to find it. He spent a whole day and found only a few ears which 

 were up to the minimum excellence he decided he would accept. These 

 were planted and carefully bred, with the result that, five years later, he 

 was enabled to show twelve plants in a continuous row, all of which were 

 as good or better than the best of those it took him a day to pick out five 

 years before. Are our best animal breeders able to show any better or 

 more reliable results of their work? 



