ILLINOIS HORtlCULTURAf. SO(*IETV. 235 



complete, and never will be. There is, then, ;is much need of investi- 

 gations to demonslrale new facts, as that known facts be taught. We 

 never should be satisfied to know so little as we do about botany. So 

 it is our bounden duty to make use of the best means in our power to 

 build up the science. And what is the best means.' The patient, care- 

 ful investigations of such men as are naturally and by the taste fitted to 

 study, and seek out new facts. If such men can and will, for the love 

 of science, carry on the w ork, very well ; but if the work is not done by 

 amateurs, then the expense should be borne by all, as the knowledge will 

 be for the benefit of all. 



At present, there is no system which has worked so well for the ad- 

 vancement of specific knowledge as the experiment stations of Europe ; 

 and, in my opinion, the tiirn- is ri|)(' when the same thing should be. 

 attem])ted here. ' 



The great universities which the national benefaction has built up 

 seem to be, for several reasons, not the places where this work can best 

 be done ; and what we need for this work is not a school first, and a few 

 field experiments incidentally, but the experiments first and as the prin- 

 cipal matter, and then students to observe the progress of the experi- 

 ments as an incidental consideration. How much there is in relation to 

 plant growth that we need to know, it is hardly necessary to indicate to 

 a horticultural society. The whole subject of plant-breeding, or intel- 

 ligent control of offspring of plants, offers a magnificent field — a field as 

 yet hardly touched, except by amateur observers. 



In your 'IVansactions of former years, as well as in the Transactions 

 of the State Horticultural Society, and also the State Horticultural Soci- 

 ety of Wisconsin, 1 have endeavored to draw attention to some of the im- 

 portant and generally neglected questions in vegetable physiology, which 

 are yet only suggestions to the inquirer, and which need and deserve 

 investigation. The horticulturist is shamed by the greater progress made 

 in the art of breeding by the stock-raiser. He has, by intelligent selec- 

 tion, bred the horns nearly off his i)iirhams, while he has furnished them 

 with a better digestive apparatus, and a carcass containing the minimum 

 of waste, lie has bred the nftse nearly off the ])ig, and made him a i)i'r- 

 fect laboratory for the i^roduction of the hydrocarbons. He has called 

 into being the wonderful divergence of forms in the pigeon, dog, and 

 sheep. And all this has been done with design, intentionally. But what 

 have we done in the way of breeding.' Not very much, we must ac- 

 knowledge. 



True, friend Peffer, of Pewaukee, Wis., has proven some things, and 

 he seems to have reason to believe that his experiments have taught him 

 how to secure definite results at will. For instance, he has provecJ tiial 

 by raising five generations of peaches, the parents of which were subject- 

 ed to the vicissitudes of Wisconsin winters, the hardiness, power of resis-. 

 tance has increased, so that it takes many degrees lower of the thermom- 

 eter to kill his fruit buds than sufficed to destroy those of the first 

 generations. He claims, further to have learned the nature of the char- 

 acters implanted by the respective parents in cross-breeding. 



