TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 99 



other, and every one may have a different sexual union from every other. 

 Sheep's legs are alike; they are pairs. No two branches of a Bald- 

 win tree are alike. You know, when you send your boy into the orchard 

 to get scions, you say, ''Get the scions from the strong, thrifty branches, 

 exposed to the sun." Why did you do that? Because you feel that if he 

 gets scions from the inside of the tree, you will have a different type of 

 Baldwin apple than from the top of the tree. That means that every 

 branch in that tree is different from every other one. 



People say we should not prune our apple trees, because nature does 

 not prune. Nature is an indefatigable pruner. Our forest trees are 

 tall because she has lopped off the side branches, and this she does at all 

 times of year, without reference to sun or moon or shine. And she 

 prunes off those that are weakest, those that lie in the shade and at th* 

 bottom, and all these trees are tall and strong because of the struggle for 

 existence. So the whole philosophy of pruning rests on the fact that 

 there are differences in every tree. You do not begin at the outside of the 

 tree and take off every limb. Why not lop off the whole thing? You 

 practice selection. You could not practice selection if all the branches 

 v;ere alike. It is because they are unlike that you do practice selection, 

 and you take out the weakest or those which grow in the wrong place. 

 If, then, every limb and joint on a tree is unlike every other limb and 

 joint, and if every one of these limbs has a flower with two sexes of its 

 own, you can see that it is a very different problem to breed that plant 

 than to breed a sheep, and general rules that apply to one may not apply 

 to the other. 



Now, I wish to say that the greater part of all the vegetable produc- 

 tions we have at the present day are like those crops of apples I men- 

 tioned—they are discoveries. The farmer wakes up in the morning and 

 is energetic, and he goes out into the orchard, and discovers there is a 

 crop of apples. It was not his merit that they were there; and the great 2r 

 part of the varieties are discoveries by someone who finds a tree where 

 someone had thrown an apple or some bird dropped a seed. Still, we can 

 breed plants, and the first thing to do is to fix in our minds a definite idea 

 or aim of what we want to do. Now, a man can never make a successful 

 farmer, with any credit to himself, unless he steps out in the first place, 

 Avith the idea that he is going to work along definite lines; he must have 

 theories to work by, he must first of all fix in his mind certain ideals 

 which he wants to produce, and then he must know that these ideals are 



true. 



I wish to indicate two or three rules which we might follow, to find out 

 whether our ideals are true, when we are attempting to breed plants 

 In the first place, we should work along the line which nature has pointed 

 out in one particular direction. There are people who would like to pro- 

 duce tomatoes on the potato vine, and potatoes on the tomato plant, so as 

 to have tomatoes on top and potatoes on the bottom. Some persons have 

 grafted them, and vou have as a result a few tomatoes on top and a tew 

 potatoes on the bottom. Now,if a man wants more potatoes he would bet- 

 ter work with the potato vine, and so. too, with tomatoes. It is certainly 

 more sensible, and he will be more likely to obtain results in the future. 

 That is a verv homelv illustration, and yet I presume most of you have 

 not thought of it. People are always asking for the production of some 



