184 Cincinnati Uorticullural Society — Proceedings. [April, 



while the former is more succulent. Mr. P. also states that in Eng- 

 land and our Northern States it degenerates in character, but sug- 

 gests that in this region it may prove a valuable addition to our 

 esculents. The seed was forwarded from C. W. Dabn'EY, Esq., 

 American Consul General for the Azores. Mr. Foote also stated 

 his experience as confirmatory of Mr. Pomeroy's statement of the 

 tendency of the Portuguese Onion to degeneracy in northern 

 climates. 



The Corresponding Secretary likewise presented a package of seeds 

 from the Patent Office, which was placed in the hands of the Council 

 for distribution. 



Mr, Hatch presented a resolution touching the printing of the 

 papers read and communications received on interesting and scien- 

 tific subjects, in an annual pamphlet, wliich, on motion of Mr. Foote, 

 was laid on the table for two weeks, and then to be made the special 

 order of the day. 



The special order being announced as a treatise on " The Seed," 

 by Mr. Ward, he said that he would, for the present, prefer to 

 offer some further views on the matters presented at the last meet- 

 ing by Mr. Cary. This being assented to, Mr. Ward proceeded to 

 say that the views he had previously presented were not submitted 

 as original, but as the doctrine accepted by all phytologists, especially 

 the French and Germans. The lower animals, such as the polypus 

 have close analogy to vegetable life. The polyp, with its five tent- 

 acles, is a perfect structure of its kind, from the original another 

 would shoot forth, having also its fine tentacles, and this, if separat- 

 ed from the parent, would continue to grow as a perfect, independ- 

 ent structure. So, he claimed, the bud must have an individual 

 vitality, independent of the mother plant. To the mother plant it 

 has a structural relation, but not a functional relation ; and as the 

 polyp, when separated from the parent trunk asserts its individual 

 vitality and grows on, so the bud, separated from the parent stem, 

 would put forth its own functional vitality and grow on. He thought 

 that we would encounter great physiological difficulties to assume, as 

 Mr. Gary's doctrine did, that the bud is but the fragment of another 

 plant, and not itself a phyton. He considered that Professor Cart 

 laid too much stress upon the idea of the descending axis ; that he 

 accepted the idea too literally in magnifying the importance of the 

 tap rotO" 



