88 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The boy was sent to school till he was sixteen years old, when he was sent 

 to Amsterdam as a clerk in the counting house of his mother's brother, a banker of 

 that city He was kept pretty actively at work, and one night in particular did not get 

 to bed until after twelve o'clock. Just as he was about to he down the idea struck him 

 that a cup of tea would be a good thing. All the servants had retired, so the only 

 th ng to do was to make it himself. He did so, and then went to bed. The next niyht 

 he again had his tea, and after that took it regularly, waking from sleep punctually for 

 that purpose at twelve o'clock. Up to that time he had never been a tea-drinker, 

 though tie had occasionally tasted tea. Writing home to his mother he informed her 

 that he had taken to the custom of drinking tea, but had acquired the habit of taking 

 it at a very inconvenient hour, twelve o'clock at n ; ght. She replied, telling him 

 he had come honestly by the liking, as his father and grandfather had had exactly 

 the same habit. Previous to the reception of this letter he had never heard of the 

 peculiarity of the father and grandfather. 



But nowhere in the animate world is this principle developed to the 

 decree that it is in the vegetable kingdom; so there seems to be no pos- 

 sible variation which can not be fixed by resorting to it. By careful 

 selection of plants of any given type, and separating them from the influ- 

 ence of others, through successive generations, we can produce seeds that 

 are certain to develop plants which are practically identical. We say prac- 

 tically identical, but it is only practically, for even in the best fixed 

 strains there will always be plants which show some degree of variation; 

 and these in turn only need be selected and isolated to establish strains 

 showing each peculiar variation. 



With this view of the constitution and genesis of varieties in the case 

 of vegetables, it is easy to see that the permanence of any variety will 

 largely depend upon the minuteness and accuracy with which the original 

 ideal is defined, and the faithfulness with which that ideal is followed in 

 the selection or breeding of the seed. But how vague and indefinite are 

 the descriptions of even old and well-established varieties of vegetables! 

 How insufficient and unreliable, as a guide to intelligent selection! How 

 certain it is that with such an indefinite statement of the thing to be 

 aimed at, growers will unconsciously set up different standards for the sort, 

 and each select toward his own ideal. We shall thus have, growing up 

 in almost e^ery variety, strains differing more or less from each other, and 

 each having pre-eminently the merit that somebody considers most 

 valuable. 



1 What more natural than that each of these strains should be named, 

 and so we come to have any number of varieties springing from the same 

 source and hardly different enough to be distinguishable? Thus, of First 

 Early smooth, yellow peas, there were offered last year at least twenty 

 different strains, such as First and Best, Rural New Yorker, Maud S., and 

 Hancock, all alike in general character but each having some real or fancied 

 element of superiority, one beini? the best in evenness of growth, another 

 in evenness of ripening, a third in size of pod, etc.; and it does not seem 

 to me that there is any unfairness in such division of a sort into different 

 strains, or in a forceful presentation of the particular merits of each. The 

 only unfairness is in the exaggeration of such merit as it may possess, and 

 the claim that it has those which it does not. Nothing would do more to 

 improve the condition of horticulture, as regards vegetables, than a more 

 accurate and truthful description of the merits and faults of standard 

 varieties, and nothing would add more to one's enjoyment of his garden 

 and its products than more careful study of the peculiarities of the dif- 

 ferent kinds. No competent cook would think of cooking Rhode Island 

 Greening and Spitzenburg apples in the same way, and yet the difference 

 in character between the two is no greater than exists between varieties of 



