I 



Joint Convention. 179 



claim that wlien we get a hardy variety we can raise it again the 

 same as at first, but this is very doubtful unless we have the right 

 elements and conditions in the air, climate and soil. It seemed 

 to him that tlie reason why the red raspberries gave way to black 

 caps and these in turn to blackberries, was a change in the condi- 

 tions essential for the perfect growth of each from favorable to 

 unfavorable. "What these conditions are we cannot tell. Scientific 

 men can, by the aid of chemistry, tell us the composition of the 

 soil necessary to produce any particular crop, the different ingre- 

 dients in it, but they cannot tell us the exact conditions that will 

 secure success in raising it. 



Mr. J. C. Ford was not willing to admit that these results 

 were produced by changes in climate at all. Pie had traveled 

 through the region where Atr. Dore lives, and had noticed that 

 where fires had run through these forests and killed the pines, 

 oaks came in immediately, not in one instance alone, but in 

 many. The pine forest was succeeded by a forest of oaks. The 

 climate had not changed but the soil had. Tlie pine had ex- 

 hausted certain elements in the soil essential to the perfect devel- 

 opment of another forest of pine; but the conditions were 

 favorable for the growth of oaks and they came in in succession. 

 We see the same in forests of other kinds, one variety follows 

 another as the soil and climate are fitted for them. In his opin- 

 ion that is the trouble with the wheat. Twenty years of crop- 

 ping has exhausted or greatly reduced the requisite elements in 

 the soil. 



He thought there was no such thing as spontaneous genera- 

 tion, but that the birds scattered the seeds of the berries as 

 stated by Mr. Harris. These seeds dropped in the forest and 

 were protected from the influence of the sun and the air, and re- 

 mained dormant until the timber was removed by fires or by 

 clearing up the land. Then the sun came in and the conditions 

 were favorable to their growth and they started up at once. The 

 fact that in all parts of the country we see the same class or 

 order of vegetation existing in similar conditions of soil also 

 proves that it is the quality of soil that governs the succession 

 of crops and of timber growth. Take the little swales and the 



