286 TRAISISACTIOKS OF THE NORTHERN 



Mr. Shepherd, whose head is silvered witli the snows of 70 winters, and who, 19 

 years ago, at this place, assisted in organizing the first horticultural society in the 

 State; spoke on the subject for over half an hour. Something was wanting to better 

 fit the great industrial army to battle with the new condition of things that the West 

 presented. The colleges did not supply it, and after long years of waiting the new 

 school was established, but it had not thus far come up to his ideas of what it should 

 be. He would make no war upon any other institution, for they all filled a place, but 

 this school was intended to give the sons and daughters of the industrial classes such 

 an education as the new condition of things demanded, and out of this grew the 

 university that should teach those branches of learning relating to the great industries 

 of the day. The farmer must know something of chemistry, of the geology of soils 

 of cUmate, of botany, of forests, and of correlative studies— in short, to make the 

 farmer a better farmer, and the mechanic a better mechanic; to elevate the man whose 

 sun-browned brow and hardy arms lay the foundation of wealth. 



He would educate the sons and daughters of toil, to raise them up and enable them 

 to master the situation for our new condition of things, and those that the progress of 

 the age throw in their pathway. 



Dr. "Warder spoke encouragingly of the prospects of the University. That we must 

 be patient, and success would crown the eflbrt. 



President Edwards stated that the latter proposition would please him as a trustee 

 for they needed the counsels of all well-wishers to practical education. 



The following motion was passed by a unanimous vote, the members rising. 



Whekeas, The Trustees of the ludustrial Uuiversit}' Iiave adopted a plan for a plantation of useful 

 forest trees, embraciug some thirty species, and to cover some seventj' acres, therefore. 



Kesolved, That we trust that the plan be carried out in full, at as earlj^ a day as possible, in order 

 to give the farmers of the State practical lessons in tree planting. 



Prof. Shaw spoke on the following subject: "Breath of the Ocean upon the Land, 

 or How Plants Grow." 



THE BREATH OF THE OCEAJT UPON THE LAND. 



We give the following brief synopsis of this lecture, presenting some of its leading thoughts, 

 ■without attempting to follow tliem into detail or show their close and Intimate relations to each other: 



The lecturer commenced by remarking that he had on one or two other occasions presented to the 

 horticulturists of Illinois some thoughts on the elements and conditions of tree growth surrounding 

 the roots of the trees, while lecturing upon the Geology of Horticulture or Soils. He then showed 

 them how the struggles of the rain-drop and snow-flake— forces of flowing water and moving glaciers 

 —had ]iroduced or ground out the soils and transported, mingled, and mixed them as we now find 

 them over the surface of the country. The dynamical forces acting upon surface geology were 

 shown to be simple, efi'ectual, and grand in their operations. He now proposed to pass over in 

 silence these earth elements round the roots or feet of the tree, and talk for an hour about the 

 elements which surround the top of the tree, and inquire as to the power which man has to control 

 and modify climate and atmospheric influences that aft'ect tree and plant growth. He suggested 

 that man's influence over nature might seem inflnitely small; the sunshine and the rain, the heat and 

 the cold, and the force of the straying winds might seem to mock his power; but even over these he 

 could exercise a controlling influence, as the lecturer proposed to show. 



Trees and plants, according to vegetable pliysiologists and agricultural chemists, derive a large 

 large iiortion of the elements making up their substance from the atmosphere. About nine tenths of 

 the tree are supposed to be thus derived, directly or indirectly, from the air. And when the plant 

 decays the most of it is returned back to the air again. The ligneous or woody fiber; the sugar, 

 starch, carbonic acid gas, and all the other elements which come from the air go back to the aii> 

 again; and the mineral elements derived from the soil go back to the soil again. Decomposition is 

 but a slow combustion; and the decay of vegetation sends off in gasseous form all that belongs to the 



