ILLINOIS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 323 



lusts. Hfe was not placed in the halls of State, or on the thrones of cities and empires that he might 

 be honored, obeyed, and worshiped by the coming countless millions of earth. 



Contrary to the received notions of a mistiiken world, we see the Great Father choosing for His 

 firstborn sou the position of Gardener. In the new, vast, and glorious realms of Ihe new-made 

 earth the first study of Man is to be of plants. "And the Lord God planted a Garden eastward lu 

 Eden, and tliere He ])ut the man wlu)ni He had made." Put him in tlie Garden of Eden "to dress 

 it and to keep it." Tluis, not only honoring labor by the judgment and choice of the Creator, but 

 honoring above all other labors and pursuits the cultivation, training, and study of plants. 



The science of plants is naturally divided into two departments— Physiological Botonj' teaches the 

 laws which govern plant growth; Systematic Botany relates to the collection and classification of 

 plants, according to fixed rules ot habit and structure. Other members of your committee are better 

 versed in the latter department than myself; I shall, therefore, confine my observations to the former. 

 Plants are usually stationary in their habits, penetrating the earth with their roots, and pervading 

 the air with their stems, branches, leaves, and flowers. Plants absorb the materials of growth 

 from the earth by means of their roots, and from the air by means of their leaves. The functions of 

 tlie roots and leaves seem to be reciprocal, and are performed in obedience to certain laws of 

 co-relation and compensation. The health, power, and ability of the one depends upon similar 

 conditions in the other. The leaves and roots arc connected, in the living plant, by a circulating 

 fiuid called the sap, which permeates the cells of the stems, roots and branches, from the smallest 

 fibre of rootlet to the extremest bud. Earthy nourishment is taken up by the spongioles and root- 

 lets, conveyed by tlie sap in its upward circulation through the albumen or sapwood, to the leaves, 

 by means of air and sunlight. This sap is modified and elaborated into material lit to add to the 

 growth of the plant, and in its descent it is, in the healthy plant, thus transformed; and thus, from 

 day to day, the plant grows— becomes larger in all its parts. This reciproc.il and related action of 

 the leaves and rootlets, makes to the intelligent cultivator a practical suggestion, viz: that there 

 should be maintained in all plants a correspondence of size or force— a balance of power— between 

 the roots and branches; between the rootlets and leaves; and, in view of this suggestion, it woiUd 

 appear contrary to the laws of plant growth, to suddenlj- and materially disturb tliis balance of 

 power. Top pruning and root pruning are both violations of the laws of plant groAvth, when the 

 plant has, in all its previous life, been subject only to normal influences. Yet, among cultivated 

 plants whose characters are largely artificial, we often find pruning a necessary means of restoring 

 the equality of forces. In removing or transplanting a tree, the roots are badly cut, and the rootlets 

 wasted and lost. To restore the balance of power between tlie top and root, we should lop off 

 branches to correspond. That which, in one case is a violation, becomes in another a necessary 

 process in doctoring ;i sick patient. 



A tree in a staie of nature springs from the seed, or other germ of plant life; sends its roots into 

 the soil and top into the air, in natural proportions; and, if the location is a genial one, as to soil 

 and climate, the plant develops itself and performs the functions of its existence, without much 

 need of man's intervention. Trees never disturbed in root, need but little top pruning; and if but 

 little top pruning when young, they are likely to need it less when old. One violation of nature 

 b«gets and calls for another; and these violations and counter violations have become so common 

 among many of our fruit trees and plants, that they may be considered quite as much artificial as 

 natural productions; and that man who is the best doctor of trees and plants, is the most successful 

 fruitgrower. This is especially true, when trees and plants are troubled with insect, fungous, and 

 climatic disturbances, which in thousands of ways, both known and unknown, still further violate 

 the laws of plant life. 



Some trees and plants, in a state of nature, though healthy, and, though producing seeds and 

 fruits in quality and quantity quite suflicieut for the wants of reproduction, are, when reduced to 

 cultivation, quite unsatisfactory for the requirements of man. We want more fruit, and better 

 fruit; and, in our eflorts toward these ends, we have in a thousand ways threatened and endangered 

 the existence of the plants. We have planted, manured, cultivated, transplanted, hybridized, 

 budded, grafted, layered, top-pruned, root-pruned, girdled, dwarfed, and mangled in untold ways; 

 have changed from clime to clime, from valley to hill-top, from marsh to upland, from sandy 

 drought to undrained clay, from the fertile margins of protected streams to sterile gravel, on bleak 

 prairie knolls. All this we have done to obtain the luscious fruits of our gardens and orchards. 

 Quality of fruit and fruitfulness has everywhere been the object. This is sometimes attained tem- 

 porarily, by threatening the life of the tree. Man, seeing this, acts on the suggestion, and hence 

 Jias his hands full of sick patients— almost too sick to bear fruit at all. 



Take the case of the apple tree: The nurseryman plants the seed to obtain roots. At the end of 

 one or two summers the roots are taken up, trimmed, top and bottom; deprived of all fibres and 

 side roots; then cut into small pieces, whittled and split into shape, and sidiced on to scions of 

 strange varieties. At the opening of spring they are set into the earth, in order to produce new 

 homogeneous living plants. That which was bottom in the seedliug, is set at the same depth of 

 that which Avas collai-; and that which was a twig in the apex of the tall orchard tree, is now 



