124 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



able botany. Who have written on science, or the theory of horticulture? 

 iSuch men as Dr. Lindley, President Knight, J. J. Tliomas, and Dr. J. A. 

 Warder, who are good botanists. Who suggest the most intelligent and valu- 

 able horticultural experiments? Lindley, Knight, Darwin, and other noted 

 botanists. In Morton's Cyclopsedia of Agriculture, nearly one-fourth of the 

 text consists of descriptions by botanists of useful and ornamental plants. In 

 similar works devoted to horticulture, a much larger portion must be prepared 

 by a botanist. The preface of the cyclopaedia above named contains these 

 words: "The comparative quality and productiveness of the different kinds 

 of Avheat, barley, oats, and the different root-seeds, together with the successive 

 introduction of new species from other countries, have so connected the re- 

 searches of the botanist with the iuterest of the farmer that to no science, 

 historically speaking, is the agriculture of this country so deeply indebted as 

 to botany. I have shown, and will further show, that the statement is also 

 true with regard to improving our cultivated plants by crossing and hybrid- 

 izing, and the study of their physiology. If men knew the structure and uses 

 of roots they would not carry trees in the sun on a windy day, for miles, 

 without any covering. This is often done. A knowledge of vegetable physi- 

 ology teaches a person the effect on a plant of flowering, of seeding, of high, 

 culture, or poor culture, of root-pruning, of pruning the top, of pruning at 

 different seasons of the year. It teaches how to manage plants to produce 

 flowers, and how to manage them to grow without flowering. Geographical 

 botany teaches us, if the soil and climate are known, where a plant thrives, 

 how to treat a new plant in a strange country. . Here, however, come in the 

 value of experience, experiment, and reason. Plants are not always found in 

 a wild state where they will thrive best. This is true of many of our weeds, 

 and of quite a large number of our plants in cultivation. Considerable 

 knowledge of botany is needed in the care of an arboretum, or a plantation of 

 forest trees for producing timber or fruit. As well might a man try to be a 

 surgeon without a knowledge of anatomy as a forester without his botany. 

 Many gardeners come to this country from Great Britain and the continent of 

 Europe, where the climate is very unlike our own. If they are ignorant of the 

 science of botany, and have only learned by experience, as an apprentice learns 

 a trade, they are most sure to fail in America till they begin and learn tlie 

 trade over agaiu. If a gardener is well grounded in a knowledge of the prin- 

 ciples of plant growth he will very soon become master of his new situation, 

 no matter where he may go. 



For want of a little botany results are often attributed to wrong causes, as to 

 improper soil, when something else is the matter. For the same reason many 

 worthless experiments have been made, wasting time and money. A knowledge 

 of botany often enables one to explain why trees blossom but do not bear fruit; 

 why certain varieties of strawberries will not bear when planted by themselves; 

 why cucumbers and melons often fail to bear when planted in greenhouses or 

 in hotbeds. A knowledge of botany suggested to our friend, W. W. Tracy, 

 that he might increase his crop of squashes by artificially fertilizing the flowers. 

 It is now a well established belief with our best horticulturists that artificially 

 crossing and hybridizing plants, which are selected with some purpose in view, 

 is the surest way to produce new and improved varieties. 



Professor Tracy, in his lecture on ''Progress in Horticulture," four years ago, 

 showed us that horticulture had advanced but very little in the past 150 years, ex- 

 cepting in two respects : The greatest of these was due to the botanist, who made 

 a systematic effort to originate new varieties, as above mentioned. The second 



