74 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



joining together from time to time of those cells. Why is it, 

 that, for instance, in the flower of the apple-tree there should 

 come up a central organ that holds the seeds, and then, when 

 the time comes for those seeds to be fertilized, there should 

 appear another organ, right by the side of it, in the same 

 flower, bearing another kind of cell, — the pollen that must 

 fertilize each seed before it can grow? It is a wonderful 

 structure, as all of us are aware. But see what power this 

 structure gives us. Here we have one plant developed in 

 one line, and another in another. By taking some of those 

 cells of pollen, and passing them to the pistil of the other 

 plant, we are able to get the characteristics of the two plants 

 in their young. What a wonderful power that gives us! 

 We see among the higher animals that their association and 

 parental relation is a source of great enjoyment, as, in the 

 human family, it is the source of the greatest enjoyment, the 

 highest and noblest we have. But why should sexual rela- 

 tion prevail among the plants ? We have one characteristic 

 in a plant, and we want another. We might go on and de- 

 velop that indefinitely, and never get the one we want. But, 

 just as soon as we find what we can do by taking the pollen 

 of one plant and carrying it to another, we seek for a plant 

 which has the characteristic we wish, to combine with the one 

 we have. We fertilize one plant with the pollen of the 

 other ; and then, by careful selection and cultivation, we are 

 likely to get just the qualities combined that we want. 



In my judgment, there are very many agencies that have 

 ^n influence upon the germs of our seeds when they are 

 formed, that we do not now understand. The fact that seeds 

 that look just alike, and were raised in the same place, give 

 us much different results, is not always owing to the soil. I 

 have no doubt that those germs are wonderfully sensitive, far 

 beyond any thing we have ever dreamed of. There are many 

 things in our experiments that lead me to suppose this. I 

 believe, also, that the action of this pollen is very much more 

 far-reaching than has generally been supposed. 



I have here some specimens of corn which I have been 

 experimenting upon this year ; and the first specimens I show 

 you will illustrate the point which I made in regard to the 

 variation of plants. Tliis is the small rice-corn. These ears 

 which you see in my hand — three white and three red ones 



