l.'VJ Americdu Horticxdinnil Society. 



pruning shows a fatal lack of adaptability, if not a lack of hardiness. Here 

 let it be noted, the use of the word "hanliness" instead of "adaptability" has led 

 to )?rcat confusion of thoiiiiht. A tree native in a i'<>Ider climate may nat- 

 urally be supposed hardier if we mean by this belter able to endure exces- 

 sive cold. But for that very reason it is likely to prove unadapted to a hotter 

 or a dryer climate, for excessive summer heat is as fat^il a.s excessive winter 

 cold. 



It is the unlikeness of conditions lb u c iu>es the plants of one clime to 

 fail in a dillerent one, and God has not matle any two disUint regions alike, 

 as was so forcibly pointed out by the great Humboldt near a century ago. 

 History shows no instance of successful acclimatizing on a large scale except 

 by nature's method of variation by seedling productions to meet changed 

 conditions. No man is better qualilieil to spe:Uc on this subject than Charles 

 Darwin. Of the relations between the plants of Europe and America, he 

 says: " On this view we can understand the relationship with very little 

 identity between the productions of North America and Europe— a relation- 

 ship which is highly remarkable, considering the distmce of the two areas 

 and their scperation by the whole Atlantic ocean." And again : " When we 

 compare the now living productions of the new ami the old worlds, we tind 

 very few identical species, but we find in every great clas.s many forms which 

 some naturalists rank as geographical races, and others as distinct .species, 

 and a host of allied or representative forms which are ranked by all natural- 

 ists as specifically distinct." 



It is not necessary to heap up evidence, of which all modern bot^inical 

 science is full on this and cognate points pertinent to our inquiry. Dirwin 

 has shown conclusively that crosses are stronger than s'-lf-fertiliznl i)lants, 

 but our nursery methods of propagation by buds are, in their result?', the 

 very essence of in and in breeding a species of incest repugnant on phy- 

 siological grounds to all 1 tws human and divine. 



D.irwin and others have also pointed out how in nature new and im- 

 proved species, better able to withstand new dilhcnlties, have continually 

 crowded to the wall older ones. Says Professor Gray : " A series of plants 

 propagated by bud only must have a weaker hold of life than a series pro- 

 duced by seed. How and why the union of two organisms, or g'-neraily of 

 two very minute portirais of them, should re-enforce vitality, we do not know, 

 but this must be the m*^aning of sexual reprotluction." Mark well the worda, 

 " re-enforce vitality — by the the use of two organisms," for right tliere, unless 

 I greatly mist;ike, is the seminal idea— the key that in worthy hands will 

 unlock the castle of all our difHculties. 



For two generations the nurserymen of America have neglected the 

 vitid process of natural propagation. Now, like m tny another prodigal, hav- 

 ing exhausted the patrimony gathered by the fathers, they are unhappy. 

 An inspection of Downing or Warder will reveal the princijial origin of our 

 noblest apples as chance seedlings in the older settled states, in the primi- 

 tive days when millions of seedlings grew to maturity among the hills. 



