Addresses — Plant Development and Training. 217 



monstrosities continually succeeding each other. As it is, through 

 scientific cultivation and perseverance, we are constantly improving 

 and refining both plants and animals. 



As a rule, we would not advise the ordinary cultivator to attempt 

 the creation of new sorts. They may do much, however, by culti- 

 vation and selection, in keeping varieties not only intact and pure, 

 but in improving the yield and quality. It is better for the farmer 

 and gardener to leave this to those seedsmen whose peculiar prov- 

 ince it is to follow this branch of agriculture. With the seed of 

 many of the garden plants in cultivation, which hold their vitality 

 unimpaired for years, the amateur cultivator may retain them pure, 

 by saving seeds of one season planted entirely separate from oth- 

 ers of kindred species to be used from year to year so long as they 

 retain their vitality in perfection. 



Discouragement has often resulted from not properly studying 

 adaptation to climate and soil. Such tender apples as the Rhode 

 Island greening and Newton pippin will not answer expectations 

 in high latitudes. It is a good plan in buying trees to leave the 

 selection to the nurseryman, if he be competent and trustworthy, 

 advising him of the locality, soil, exposure, etc., that he may choose 

 the sorts .accordingly. . 



Let us now look at some of the forces and elements that go to 

 develop vegetation. 



Air, heat, and moisture, are alone necessary to the germination 

 of seeds. Life, air, heat, and moisture, are essential to the growth 

 of the plant above ground, and heat, moisture, and the organic and 

 inorganic constituents of good soils, are absolute requirements 

 necessary to the sustenance of the plant below the surface, by 

 means of the roots. 



Plant force is made up of heat, light, electricity, and affinity. 

 The elements of plant light are oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, car- 

 bon, etc. The nutritious grains, and the deadly vegetable poisons, 

 are made up by forces acting upon the same elements. They are 

 composed, decomposed, recomposed, and acted upon by the forces 

 of nature, in a manner so subtle that many of the processes are 

 beyond our comprehension; and yet, from what we do know, we 

 have every reason to believe that they are all accomplished by pro- 

 cesses at once as simple as they are beautiful. 



From the rudimentary vegetation of mosses and lichens, strug- 



