iSo State Horticultural Society. 



In plants each parent is generally both male and female, with variations 

 in every limb. The element of chance is therefore lOO to one against 

 exact reproduction, even when tlu' most scientific methods are followed." 

 Prof. Bailey made 312 eii'orts to cross different varieties; 223 refused to 

 cross or yield seed, 89 gave results, but none of them were of any 

 practical value. He agrees with Darwin that nature abhors hybrids, yet 

 in her own way and time produces valuable varieties. Man's work con- 

 sists in selection of the fittest, and destruction of the unworthy. 



Verlot, the French naturalist thinks variations are purely accidental 

 in the first initial movemient. Man must take the hint, and by selection 

 get a distinct variety. 



Carrieres, another authority, says plants begin all deviations from 

 the normal, by what we call an "accident," the cause of which is un- 

 known to science. We can do little toward producing variations, but 

 varieties most often spring up spontaneously. Our work is to take ad- 

 vantage of and improve them by continual selection. 



These authorities are quoted on the scientific phase of the question, 

 to show the fallacy of supposing that nurserymen have some magic 

 power to create new things. Indeed new creations are less liable to ap- 

 pear in a nursery than in ordinary gardens and farms, where nature is 

 allowed much of her own way, and where the commercial spirit has not 

 crushed out all sympathy with everything, but the almighty dollar- If 

 we approach this problem for the purpose of making money we shall 

 fail ; but if we produce peaches that bear every year, from June to No- 

 vember it will double the value of every home by increasing family at- 

 tachment for its fruits. The plant breeder must have no time tO' make 

 money, and live above the commercial spirit. Truth and beauty must be 

 the first and final aim. If money comes, it is all right, but if like other 

 inventors and discoverers, he lives and labors in poverty, let the 

 consciousness of usefulness be his sufificient reward. The discoverer of 

 a new fruit differs from the expert cultivator, who simply compels plants 

 to do better work temporarily, while a superior plant may double prod- 

 ucts for all time, in all places, for everybody. Burbank suggests possi- 

 bilities of improvement in cereals showing that if every ear were made to 

 produce but one grain more, it would increase our annual products 50,- 

 000,000 bushels. 



I am not here to assert that seedlings will bear more regularly than 

 budded fruit, for I do not think budding alters the nature of the tree. 

 There are seedlings that seldom bear, and thousands of seedlings are 

 worthlessi when they do bear. What I advocate is the selection, and 

 propagation of varieties that do bear, and the best that bear. It is but a 



