316 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



evolution, it follows as a matter of course that we have not yet reached the 

 end of it. nence the horticulturist must never rest and be thankful with 

 present attainments. "Forgetting the things which are behind, reaching for- 

 ward to those that are before," must ever be his motto; "From good to better, 

 from better to yet better still, and on towards unattainable best," his watch- 

 word. Our material is plastic, not fixed. Forms, colors, statures, siaes, sub- 

 stances, qualities, products, all go to be altered, changed, enhanced, improved. 

 This is our first, most valuable, and far-reaching lesson from Darwin's teach- 

 ing. Well learned it will show that the best of us are only on the threshold 

 and not on the top stone of our victories over nature. Plant life and its 

 powers are a great deep in which each of us has been dropping his short line, 

 with which we may have drawn a few prizes. It remained for Darwin to 

 reveal to us how fathomless and wide was the great sea of life from which we 

 have all been trying to filch our finished products. 



With this expansion of our vitws of the nature of the plants we cultivate 

 will come larger knowledge of new and more rapid ways and means of produc- 

 tion. 



DISTINGUISHING PEARS BY BLOSSOM. 



Prof. W. J. Beal said before the American Pomological Society that he found 

 upon examining carefully the flowers of above, thirty varieties of pears that the 

 stamens were generally twenty in number for each flower, and were of four 

 different lengths; the longest in any one flower being about one-third longer 

 than the shortest. The longest and oldest stamens form the outside row, and 

 the shortest the inside row. The latter are attached a little farther down the 

 calyx tube than any of the others. The two rows of intervening stamens are 

 between the extremes in their length and places of attachment. The set of 

 shortest stamens are placed opposite the lobes of the calyx. There were twenty- 

 five each in two flowers examined. In one flower I counted twenty-seven. In 

 several varieties it was not an uncommon thin^ to find twenty-one, or twenty- 

 two, or twenty-three, or twenty-four stamens, in which cases no definite order 

 could be made out in regard to their lengths or places of attachment, though 

 they varied in these respects. In some varieties the filaments are short; in 

 others, long; in some, stout; in others, slender. 



The stamens of the Kirtland pear were the longest of any seen. The longest 

 set of these were nine millimeters, or about three-eighths of an inch. The 

 shortest stamens seen were those of White Doyenne. These were five milli- 

 meters, or about three and one-half sixteenths of an inch, or about five-ninths 

 as long as those of the Kirtland. The anthers of different varieties vary some- 

 what in size. The styles of apples unite at the base, forming a stem or stipe. 

 The styles and the stipes of flowers of difierent varieties of apples differ in 

 length and diameter. Some are very densely covered with wool or hair; isome 

 are perfectly smooth. Between these, in different varieties, we find all inter- 

 vening stages. 



The styles of pear blossoms for a short distance at the base, perhaps one- 

 sixth to one-tenth of their length, are firmly pressed together, but they readily 

 separate. In most cases this portionof the styles is slightly hairy. In somecases 

 it is perfectly smooth. The longest styles seen were those of Amire Joannet, 

 and were a trifle over one decimeter, or six and one-half sixteenths of an inch 



