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STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 211 



Since horticulturists, as a rule, have abundant opportunities of learn- 

 ing how to lay out and care for grounds, and fixcilities for carrying out 

 their jjlans, that others have not, it seems as though they ought to take 

 the lead in this matter, and endeavor to make their places something that 

 they need not be ashamed of, at least ; and better yet, something that will 

 raise the standard of taste in their neighborhoods. Let each and every 

 one of them du what he can to improve his own place, and then his 

 example will be followed by many others when they see that there really 

 is something worth having in a place well laid out and taken care of. I 

 have no doubt that the investment will be found a source of pleasure and 

 profit in a pecuniary as well as in an aesthetic point of view, and more 

 than one home made beautiful and attractive by its influence. Let them 

 all do as some have done; plant trees for shelter, timl)er and ornament. 

 Let them interest themselves in the success of their customers, and render 

 themselves capableof giving them some advice and assistance in regard to 

 the arrangement of their grounds, so that they need not make any of the 

 gross blunders that common sense ought to teach tree-growers to avoid ; 

 and they will be doing what they ought to encourage landscape gardening. 



PLANT FOOD. 



liV J. COCHRANE, HAVANA, ILL. 



In my essay for the annual meeting of the State Horticultural Society, 

 last winter, I spoke at length of the Mechanical Structure of Plants, omit- 

 ting their chemical and botanical characteristics. 



I now propose to notice in detail some of the then omitted peculiari- 

 ties and distinctions in the organisms of a few characteristic individuals 

 in the vegetable kingdom. 



In order the better to understand the fine distinctions in the vege- 

 table world, I will preface by a few illustrations drawn from the animal 

 portion of organic nature. 



In doing this, I will confine myself as briefly as possible to the diges- 

 tive process, as illustrating the provident care of the Creator in providing 

 so minutely for the wants of all His creatures, and contrast the jjrocesses 

 by which food is stored up by plants and by animals for their future use. 

 Uniformity and variety constitute the prominent characteristics of the two 

 grand kingdoms of organic nature. Food taken by the animal creation 

 is stored in the stomach for the uses of the system. Some animals take 

 their food without mastication, and it is ground in the process of diges- 

 tion. Others are incapable of digesting unmasticatcd food ; some can 

 digest only animal food ; others only vegetable. 



We will notice familiar examples of each class. The division of or- 

 ganized nature into animal and vegetable, their fiirthcr division into gen- 

 era and species, is nut an arbitrary act of man, but a necessity found in 

 the order which exists in external nature, and by nature itself cast into 

 these grand divisions and subdivisions in the most perfect system and 

 order, which systematic distinctions are maintained through all time. The 



