BEAL ON RELATIONS OF BOTANY TO AGRICULTURE. 95 



bv a liorticiiltui-ist of inv ac(inaintante. The reseinblaiu-e of the fniit 

 of the one to the seeds of the other deceived him into thinking the union 

 practicable. 



The botanist ah>ne is competent to i)]an and perfect a botanic garden 

 or arboretum and give instructive h'ssons on these subjects. 



No one, excepting a systematic botanist, would be competent to visit 

 foreign countries to select new plants worthy of cultivation. Syste- 

 matic botany is not only essential in identifying, describing and classi- 

 fying i>lants, but it is well e(]uipped with all the necessary parapher- 

 nalia in the way of technical terms and methods to perform the task 

 of describing in an exact manner, all "artiflciaT' forms that have been 

 bred or selected. I mean the numerous sorts of cabbages, beets, apples, 

 pe-ars, gooseberries, wheat, corn, oats, and many others. The time has 

 already come for more accurate and complete descriptions of varieties 

 and races of vegetables than have yet been written. 



Cultivated varieties of strawberries are usually described by the fruit, 

 with a few references to the leaves and possibly to the length of tlie 

 stems. The botanist who had never compared the runners, the inflor- 

 escence and the flowers in detail, will be surprised to find that in them 

 we have vtM-y marked ditterences which could well be illustrated and de- 

 scribed. Twenty-eight years ago or more, I discovered this fact and 

 described some varieties, though the descriptions were never published. 

 I have described 150 varieties of apples by a careful examination of 

 inflorescence and flowers, in most cases making drawings to equal scales. 

 There are now so many varieties of cultivated fruits, that we need to 

 make use of all the good characters that can be found to aid in making 

 complete characterizations. I have many times made the statement 

 that no variety of fruit can now be called well described, unless the pecu- 

 liarities of inflorescence and flowers are considered in connection with 

 every other characteristic feature. 



A knowledge of systematic botany will enable a teacher or the w'orker 

 in horticulture to group his information, thus greatly aiding the memory 

 and shortening the process of giving or receiving instruction. He learns 

 that plants known as cucurbits have monoecious flowers, which must 

 be pollinated by insects, wind or by hand; that they love heat, are senti- 

 tive to frost, that similar insects prey upon many of them. The garden 

 plants known as Crucifera^ have many peculiarities in common, well 

 understood by botanists, such as a pungent, watery juice, the seeds 

 starting early, the young ]»Iants enduring some frost, and in many cases 

 the same insects trouble numerous species. He learns that seeds of the 

 Unibellifera^ have a low vitality and are slow to germinate. These are 

 but a few examples out of many which could be given. 



(The reader who desires to j)ursue this subject further is referred to 

 Rep. Mich. Pom. Soc. 1873, Proc. Amer. Pom. Soc. 187J) and 1881, Amer. 

 Naturalist, 1886.) 



The botanist understands why some varieties of strawberries, apples 

 and other fruits frequently fail to "set fruit." and in some instances 

 he can prescribe a remedy. Strawberries sometimes fail because the 

 flowers of an isolated variety are all pistillate — and destitute of good 

 stamens. Ajiples fail to set, sometimes^ because the pollen is poor, or 

 l>ecause of unseasonable rains which prevent insects or the wind from 

 transporting the i)ollen from one variety to another. 



