TRANSACTIONS OF NORTHERN ILL. HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 331 



ExPERi.MENTAL HORTICULTURE. — 111 this you will acknowledge that 

 I have touched upon an important subject. When we see how little we 

 know in the various departments of horticulture, and how much there is 

 to be learned, and when we see what slow, awkward and uncertain work 

 in this line we are doing, we naturally look for some concentrated and 

 systematic mode of operation. The Experimental Farm presents itself 

 as the very place, opened with a professor already in that department, 

 ready and anxious to co-operate with the horticulturist, and to inquire 

 what experiments shall first be made. We hardly know what variety of 

 apples to plant, and few will agree, for want of knowledge, and with our 

 varied experience. If we have measured and recorded the product of 

 various trees, few of us have yet a standard of quality ; and our markets 

 are less appreciative of quality than we are. 



With the hedge, it is generally admitted that the Osage is the plant 

 for the country south of Sterling, and a short distance north of this ; but 

 it is very uncertain what to plant further north. 



In regard to timber, we are in greater dark. True, it is said that we 

 had better platit something than nothing. I will liken this to your Trea- 

 surer, who, if he had kept his accounts so that he can not tell which item 

 is debtor and which credit, and is called on to show the balance, he can- 

 not do it. Better show some balance than none at all. So we have been 

 working in horticulture. Professor McAfee says the people of Ste- 

 phenson county have spent at least $40,000 for hedge plants, and much 

 more for labor on them, and yet more in vexation and hu mbuggery , with 

 not a mile of good Osage hedge, but a little Willow, and the best is Lom- 

 bardy timber wall. Our account with fruit trees is a better success, and a 

 far greater loss for the want of experiment. $100,000 each, in a hundred 

 counties equals ^^10,000,000, and this is about the sum, probably, that 

 has been expended in this State for unprofitable varieties, for the lack of 

 information which experimental orchards, vineyards, and gardens would 

 give. And now we are recommending nearly every tiling that comes 

 d\c>x\^, for trial. In this way, what will it cost this State to try the Rus- 

 sian varieties which our Agricultural Department is sending out? We see 

 the necessity of going immediately into this experimental work — one ex- 

 ]»erimenting for all ; and although the result will not be correct for all, it 

 will be a guide, to some extent. 



Let us come up higher in this experimentation. We have done com- 

 paratively nothing in originating new fruits from seed. Here is a nice 

 piece of work that may be done towards perfecting our trees and fruit — 

 propagating from seeds. This will require more time, care, and patience 

 than most of us have to spare ; but why not take the apple tree and breed 

 it as the cattle men do cattle ? Our apples seem to have all the variation 

 that cattle do, and are as susceptible of change. What is it that causes 

 the apple to be sour or sweet, red or yellow, large or small, of early matu- 

 rity or long keeping — the tree thrifty or scrubby, healtliyor diseased, ten- 

 der or hardy? Have they inherited tiiese qualities from their ancestors? 

 Or have they not departed from their ancestors — from their good old 

 mother — on a "sport?" If so, let us continue the "sport," and sport 



