130 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



gradually to increase or diminish the period of their growth as 

 they are carried south or north. This is finely illustrated in the 

 case of Indian corn, which, at the extreme north of its limits of 

 cultivation, ripens in about sixty or seventy days, while, in tropi- 

 cal regions, it requires from two to three times that period. A 

 musk-melon, brought from St. Thomas in 1848, was ripened 

 in 1849 with the utmost difficulty, even with the aid of a hot- 

 bed in the spring. 



In 1850 this melon ripened a little earlier. A winter squash, 

 as we should here call it, brought from the same place and at the 

 same time, did not ripen at all, and was irrecoverably lost. There 

 is a limit however, to the improvement of maturities which can- 

 not well be passed. In the very nature of vegetable progress, 

 there must be time for the plant to attain a considerable expan- 

 sion, to flower and set fruit. This fruit needs to attain to a certain 

 size, and then mature its secretions. To shorten any of these 

 processes must result in a small plant or small fruit, or poorly 

 elaborated fruit, or all these things. These things being so, and 

 our climate what it is, cucumbers cannot be cut for the table short 

 of about nine weeks, nor musk melons or tomatoes of about six- 

 teen or seventeen weeks. 



2. With perennial plants, however, the case is different. Their 

 period of growth is fixed at the time of their origin. Thus : 



a. An early York peach or red astrachan apple is always early, 

 compared with a Morris white peach or a Newtown pippin apple. 

 Nor does this period of maturity vary relatively or intrinsically 

 beyond the temporary influence of a particular season or soil. In 

 short, a perennial, found to be late or early in a particular climate, 

 remains unchangeably so. 



h. In 1848 I imported a potato from Bogota, in New Grenada. 

 It possessed great constitutional powers, and bore seed balls abun- 

 dantly; but its tubers were late, and no larger than small butter- 

 nuts. In five or six years I lost it by a gradual decline. In 1851 

 I imported eight other varieties of potatoes from South America 

 by way of Panama. They were supposed to have come from the 

 coast of Chili. Four of these sorts, bearing considerable resem- 

 blance to each other, were, from the beginning, entirely too 

 late, though bearing seed balls early and profusely. They ran out 

 the third vear. Of two other sorts, imported at the same time. 



