REPORTS OF AUXILIARY SOCIETIES. 299 



INGHAM COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



OFFICERS FOR 1886. 



President — L. H. Bailey, Jr. # 



Secretary — C. B. Stebbins. 



The society has held some excellent meetings, but in the absence of any re- 

 ports, the following extracts from addresses given before the society are here 

 appended : 



HORTICULTURE A SCIENCE— AN EXTRACT. 



PROF. BAILEY, BEFORE INGHAM COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



We must correct ourselves if we entertain the notion 

 that horticulture has to do simply with securing the best and largest products. 

 It inquires about the means as well as after the ends. It seeks for the why as 

 well as the how. The why is science; the how is practice. Ever since Thomas 

 Andrew Knight began to demand why grafts live and vary and why insects 

 fertilize flowers, horticulture has been a science; and although that science is 

 nearly a century old, it is still mainly known as an art. Why are trees smaller 

 and rounder, fruits better and colors in tenser as we go northward ? Why do 

 plants germinate quicker and at lower temperatures in cold countries? Why is 

 the apple hardy and the fig tender? Why do latent characters sometimes ap- 

 pear in offspring? Why are small plants most fertile? Why do plants become 

 variegated and why is variegation contagious? Why does the Kittatinny black- 

 berry rust when many others do not? Why does the apple succeed as a root- 

 graft when the pear does not? Why are some flowers white and others yellow 

 on the same plant? Why do potatoes run out? WTiy do American straw- 

 berries vary, while European ones do not? Why do cuttings taken in the fall 

 become calloused on the wound? Why do plants lose their poisonous properties 

 when taken northward? Why do cuttings of the yew require two years in 

 which to root? Why does the sassafras lose much of its characteristic aroma 

 when grown in England? Why do some plants take from hard wood cuttings 

 and others only from soft wood cuttings? Why do some seeds require two 

 years in which to germinate? Why does not the rye plant vary? Why do 

 leaves of the purple egg plum escape the leaf-killing fungus more than those of 

 most other varieties? Why does not the horse-radish produce seeds? Why do 

 peach trees sometimes bear nectarines? Why does the Canada egg plum fail 

 to grow on the peach while most other varieties succeed on it? In short, why 

 do plants grow? Every plant in your garden is an interrogation point. Try 

 the experiment for one half day this spring of asking yourself all that you do 

 not know about the plants you meet, and I will guarantee that you will have 

 laid out work enough for a lifetime if you should attempt to answer your ques- 



