ILLINOIS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 283 



investigated for ourselves, we might feel excused from expressing any 

 direct opinions. But, unless stupidly indifferent to the tendency of 

 scientific tliought, we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that the 

 whole current of scientific research is irresistibly leading to an aban- 

 donment of the old ideas for the more grand and beautiful philosphy of 

 Evolution — as much more grand and inspiring to the scientific mind 

 than the traditional notion of a special creation as our present ideas 

 of a boundless universe transcend the former notions of a fixed earth, 

 for whose purpose all the heavenly bodies were made to subserve. 



I repeat, if we have not investigated for ourselves, when we see 

 such men as Sir Charles Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall, Lesquereau, the Eng- 

 lish naturalist, Prof. Owen; the French naturalist, Carl Vogt ; the 

 world-wide botanist. Dr. Hooker ; the great American botanist. Dr. 

 Asa Gray, abandon their old opinions as untenable, and accept the doc- 

 trine of evolution, when we see these views are advocated, and pass un- 

 disputed before the most scientific bodies of Europe and America, as 

 was the case at the late meeting at Dubuque, we might at least feel 

 that this subject is worthy of something more than burlesque. But I 

 have said more than was intended — may I be pardoned if I have said 

 too much. 



Let me drop a closing thought. How grand is the whole scheme 

 of creation, when we can view all life as but a revealing, or mode of 

 operation of the forces and laws that are inherent in nature — ever pass- 

 ing through interchanges between organic and inorganic bodies ! 



When we conceive of the production of all the beauties of the 

 universe through the operation of inherent laws, is not this a higher es- 

 timate of the being in whom laws originate, than to suppose all things 

 to have been created by an act of arbitrary power.'' What is the whole 

 system of nature but the highest possible manifestation of Divine Intel- 

 ligence.'' What are all the laws that relate to mind or matter, but ex- 

 pressions of the attributes of that Being whose life pulsates through a 

 boundless universe, and scintillates in every human soul.-' 



Mr. R. Douglass, from the committee on timber culture, read the 



following : 



TIMBER-PL.-VNTING. 



Having determined for what pur])ose timber is most likely to be 

 in demand, in the locality where the plantation is about to be 

 formed, whether for fuel, agricultural implements, cabinet work, build- 

 ing purposes or for railroad ties, bridge timber and fencing material, the 

 next consideration will be the kinds best adapted to the soil. 



As our subject is timber-planting, we will suppose that the above 

 points have already been decided. 



The time is very near at hand when forests must be planted on a 

 large scale in this country, to replace the native forests, which, in the 

 opinion of the most careful observers, can not last, at the longest, over 

 a quarter of a century. But these remarks are intended more for 



