STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 65 



who advised beginning with the wilding, and from its seed producing 

 successive generations, in tlie hope of reaching improvement, or approach- 

 ing toward perfection. Tiie experiments made in this State many years 

 ago by Mr. Brayshaw did not yield encouraging results. 



Reference has already been made to the Duke of Argyll, and his 

 admirable treatise upon '' 77/c Reign of LaivT Allow me, before taking 

 my seat, to present to you his conclusion to the chapter devoted to the 

 consideration of Law in Creation : 



"It is the great mystery of our being, that we have powers impelling 

 us to ask such questions on the history of creation, when we have no 

 powers enabling us to solve them. Ideas and faint suggestions of reply 

 are ever passing across the outer limits of the Mind, as meteors pass 

 across the margin of the atmosphere, but we endeavor in vain to grasp 

 or understand them. The faculties of both reason and of imagination 

 fall back with a sense of impotence upon some favorite phrase, some 

 form of words built up out of tlie materials of analogy, and out of ibe 

 experience of a Mind, which, being finite, is not creative. VV'^e beat 

 against the bars in vain. The only real rest is in the confession of 

 ignorance, and the confession, too, that all ultimate physical truth is 

 beyond the reach of science. It is probable that even the nearest 

 methods of Creation, though far short of ultimate truths, lie behind a 

 veil too thick for us to penetrate. It is here surely, if it is anywhere in 

 the sphere of natural investigation, that the man of science may lay 

 down the weapons of his analysis, and say : ' I do not exercise myself 

 in great matters, or in things which are too high for me.' 



"There is at least one conclusion which is certain, namely, this — that 

 no theory in respect to the means and method employed in the work of 

 creation — provided such theory takes in all the facts — can have the 

 slightest ctlect in removing that work from the relation in which it 

 stands to the attributes of will. All such theories are, and can only be 

 ' simply questions of how the Creator has worked.' This is the confession 

 made in respect to Mr. Darwin's theory, by one of the most competent of its 

 supporters (Mr. Wallace). Creation by Law, Evolution by Law, Devel- 

 opment by Law, or, as including all those kindred ideas, the Reign of 

 Law, is nothing but the reign of Creative jForce^ directed by Creative 

 Knowledge^ worked under tbe control of Creative Power^ and in ful- 

 fillment of Creative Purpose." — Reigti of Law., Argyll.^ p. 272. 



In conclusion, with my thanks for your patient attention, 1 can only 

 express my regrets, that, having undertaken the treatment of a subject, it 

 has been found so extensive that it has been impossible to do more than 

 enter upon the threshold. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. WiER — In the spring of 1862 I received cions of a Russet apple 

 from France. One of these cions I grafted mto a Willow twig apple 

 tree, planted the spring before. Tiie graft was forgotten, and left to 

 work out its own salvation. Being in the centre of the top, and not so 



7 . 



