84 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



man to his own taste. The people love to have men call on them at their own homes 

 and give them lessons in Horticiilture, take their orders and money too, and this is the 

 wa}' they knock the middle men^ 



111 our own orchards, young trees that have never borne fruit, 

 appeared to be but little injured by the winter, while the older bearing 

 trees of the Cherry, Pear, Plum and Peach were either killed outright or 

 left in an enfeebled, dying condition. 



Among Apple trees, the Ladies' Sweet, Talman Sweet, Red Astra- 

 chan, Snow, Northern Spy, Striped Pearmain, Bellflower and Winesap 

 appeared to be but little affected. The Rawles' Janet suffered less than 

 varieties supposed to be more hardy. The Fall Pippin suffered severely. 

 Early Harvest was not much injured. 



All of which is respectftillv submitted. 



L. C. FRANCIS. 



DISCUSSION ON BOTANY AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 



Mr. McVVhorter — I will ask Mr. McAfee to explain a little more 

 fully his essay as to data. 



Mr. McAfee — I do not know that I am able to give you a great 

 many facts, although I have seen a great many. One that occurs to me 

 at this moment is this : A verbena seedling, producing fine flowers, with 

 longitudinal strips of red and white, spread over a large surface of ground 

 last season, and there appeared a bunch of buds in a natural leaf, and 

 when they were opened they were dark crimson. The side-shoots that 

 naturally came out produced light trusses of flowers of the same color as 

 usual. The flowers from that particular part, during all the rest of the 

 season, were of the same color — crimson — entirely different from the rest 

 of the plant. The plant, I am sorry to say, was not taken up and pre- 

 served. There is no doubt in my mind about that being a bud sport. 



I think I could have gone into my garden last season and found a 

 hundred floral sports. I noticed one gladiolus — it was planted, and had 

 six eyes. These each produced a spike of flowers, one of which spikes had 

 flowers of entirely different color and marking from the others. Every 

 flower in the whole spike was the same, but it was so different to those on 

 the other spikes, that it was not simply a variation of the flowers, but 

 it was a sport, and could not have been any^thing else. 



These are the only instances last season that I clearly recollect ; but 

 I remember that my wife and myself noticed several. 



A well known instance, that has led to the consideration of the 

 subject, is the variation (ff the peach into a different fruit altogether — the 



