STATE HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 77 



letters, what short of a miracle must that be should the letters of a 

 poem or an essay thus fall in order, arranged by chance ? The com- 

 plexities of structure of one of the higher plants, such as those we 

 cultivate, is even more pronounced than that of the letters of a book. 

 What infinite possibilities for change in reproduction, yet what 

 closeness of observed similarity ! Each plant bears seed after its 

 kind, and from the seed the species is faithfully produced. Parents 

 and offspring do differ, but so little that we recognize without diffi- 

 culty one from the other. As a portrait painter must take thousands 

 of strokes with his brush to bring out the characteristic features 

 and expression of his subject, so must there be united in the plant 

 organism thousands of details by which, when put together in order, 

 we are able to recognize the general likeness between related indi- 

 viduals. 



Yet, however much we wonder at the facts of inheritance, we 

 know that it is a great law of life that like produces like, and 

 we further know that the potency of the phenomenon resides in 

 the substance called protopUti^m. All young seeds in their earliest 

 state consist of this substance alone. The cell wall develops from 

 it. The whole plant structure owes its origin and development to 

 the marvelous plastic material. No wonder that protoplasm has 

 been called the ''physical basis of life." In some way, we know not 

 how, the protoplasm of each specific animal or plant has impressed 

 upon it the peculiar characteristics of that species, or variety. On 

 this property depends the facts of continued identity of individual, 

 and the perpetuity of the species in reproduction. Under the mi- 

 croscope no difference can be detected in the protoplasmic substance 

 of an oak tree and that of the moss that grows on the bark of the 

 former. So far as our best investigations show the structural char- 

 acteristics of the life-substance, it is exactly the same in Ben Davis 

 and Early Harvest apple trees, yet each is stamped with peculiarities 

 never to be mistaken or confounded. 



Now, we must distinctly understand that life is a property of 

 solid rather than liquid matter. No true liquid lives. Protoplasm, 

 however soft, is never soluble in the living state. The coherence 

 of its particles is always sufficient to hold it together. It may have 

 the consistency of mucus, but never that of water. Hence, it is 

 impossible that living protoplasm should be carried through plant 

 tissues, with the ascending or descending sap. This latter soaks 

 through the cell walls or adheres to their surfaces. Only pure water 

 and truly dissolved substances can get through the cells of living 

 plants. If protoplasm passes at all from cell to cell it does so by 

 migratory powers wholly peculiar to itself ; and while it is now known 

 that it does, sometimes, reach through minute openings in the walls, 

 the distance thus traversed is exceedingly limited. This is why, when 

 two varieties are grafted together, each preserves its own peculiar- 

 ities. The simple fact that a cion obtains water and dissolved mate- 



