136 TKANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



EVENING SESSION. 



Music. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE OX PLORICULTURE. 



BY MISS ALICE STEWART, HAMILTON. 



At first only such plants as were used for food were cultivated. 

 Later, those found to have medicinal qualities were given attention. 

 No thought of care was given to the Flora of that earliest of gar- 

 dens where all things useful and beautiful were gathered. 



The garden whose designer was supreme, and in which was first 

 centered home and happiness, is later given a greater — the greatest 

 interest to mankind as being the scene of the agonizing and cruci- 

 fixion of our Saviour. Surely it is hallowed ground. 



A garden: Where is the mind so narrow that can see in this 

 word — old as the creation itself — only the fruits and vegetables, 

 the value for the table, the profit and loss, while there clusters 

 around every plant so many tender associations? 



What blossoms are oldest, and who first cultivated them, we may 

 never know. 



Nature, with her customary prodigality, scattered them all over 

 this big. round world, and the seeds are now in the hands of such 

 industrious planters as the wind, birds, river and ocean currents. 



There is one kind of flowers to which but little attention has 

 been given for their floral value, and which is cultivated by our good 

 frieud the horticulturist. They are the blossoms of our fruit-bear- 

 ing trees. A cherry or plum tree, with its milk-white flowers, or an 

 apple, with its countless petals of white and pink, is "a thing of 

 beauty," and furnishes a hope which is sometimes crushed. But 

 even then, do not consider your work in vain, the flower-crowned 

 tree is not a cumberer of the ground. 



Besides, if the horticulturist would follow the process, as re- 

 ported by M. Beer as having been successfully tried in the Botanic 

 Garden of Vienna, his hope might have more to build upon. He 

 says, ''The process consists in touching the stigma of the flower, just 

 before it blooms. Avith a pencil dipped in honey, or, better still, 

 honey mingled with the pollen of the plant being operated on. The 

 process has succeeded admirably, it is stated, on fruit trees, and even 

 on certain particular branches of trees, which had never borne. On 

 portions thus treated, fruit formed in regular course, while other 

 parts remained in their normal condition." 



Darwin tells us that man originally sprung from the ape. This 

 theory, whether true or false, is a good one, for it shows us that cul- 

 tivation brings things nearer perfection. 



