62 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



SECOND DAY. 



MORNING SESSION. 



The Society met and was called to order by the President at nine 

 o'clock. 



Prayer was offered by Mr. S. G. Minkler. 



The Secretary then read the following communication : 



Champaign, III., Dec. lo, 1873. 

 Hon. M. L. Dunlap, President State Hortictdtural Society. 



Dear Sir — Allow me to extend to you, and through you to the members of the 

 State Horticultural Society, a most cordial invitation to attend the dedicatory exercises 

 of the new University building, to take place this afternoon, at one o'clock, in the audi- 

 torium, below the room in which you are in session. 



Yours, with very great respect, 



J. M. GREGORY. 



On motion, the invitation was unanimously accepted. 



Mr. Flagg stated that he had placed upon one of the tables a supply 

 of copies of Reports of the Industrial University, and invited each mem- 

 ber of the Society to take one. 



The Secretary called attention to a quantity of Reports of the State 

 Board of Agriculture, which had been sent by the Secretary of that Board, 

 Mr. A. M. Garland, for a like purpose. 



He also stated that he had bound copies of the Reports of the State 

 Horticultural Society, of Vols. II, III, IV, V and VI, which would be 

 sold at one dollar per copy ; the money could be sent him, and the book 

 would be returned by mail. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON BOTANY AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 



H. H. McAfee, of the Standing Committee on Botany and Vege- 

 table Physiology, presented and read his report, as follows: 



variations from parental forms in vegetable life. 



The enthuiasm of the amateur florist, as he witnesses the unfolding 

 of a flower with a new and desirable shade of variegation, or a greater 

 perfection of form tlian has been before attained, may be but little under- 

 stood or appreciated by those persons whose tastes and sympathies have 

 never taken the direction of floriculture ; and the exultation, almost 

 triumph, of the pomologist, whose labors have helped into being a new 

 fruit of peculiar excellence in some desirable direction, may be and is 



