1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



351 



importance. Our Society has been foremost in the 

 field of reform in this work, but there is much yet 

 to be done. We should have a system of rules 

 consistent with our science, regulated by common 

 sense, and which shall avoid ostentatious, indeco- 

 rous, inappropriate and superfluous names. Such 

 a code your committee have in hand, and I com- 

 mend its adoption. Let us have no more Gener- 

 als, Colonels or Captains attached to the names of 

 our Tuits ; no more Presidents, Governors or titled 

 dignitaries; no more Monarchs, Kings or Princes; 

 no more Mammoths, Giants or Tom Thumbs ; no 

 more Nonsuches, Seek-no-furthers, Ne plus ultras. 

 Hog-pens, Sheep-noses, Big Bobs, Iron Clads, 

 Legal Tenders, Sucker States or Stump-the-Worlds. 

 Let us have no more long, unpronounceable, ir- 

 relevant, high-flown, bombastic names to our 

 fruits; and, if possible, let us dispense with the 

 now confused terms of Belle Beurre, Calebasse, 

 Doyenne, Pearmain, Pippin, Seedling, Beauty, 

 Favorite, and other like useless and improper titles 

 to our fruits. The cases are very few where a 

 single word will not form a better name for a fruit 

 than two or more. Thus shall we establish a 

 standard worthy of imitation by other nations; 

 and 1 suggest that we ask the coriperation of all 

 pomological and horticultural societies, in this and 

 foreign countries, in carrying out this important 

 reform. 



As the first great national Pomological Society 

 in origin, the representative of the rpost extensive 

 and promising territory for fruit culture of which 

 we have any knowledge, it became our duty to 

 lead in this good work. Let us continue it, and 

 give to the world a system of nomenclature for our 

 fruits which shall be worthy of the Society and 

 the country^a system pure and plain in its diction, 

 pertinent and proper in its application, and which 

 shall be an' example, not only for fruits, but for 

 other products of the earth, and save our Society 

 and the nation from the disgrace of unmeaning, 

 pretentious and nonsensical names, to the most 

 perfect, useful and beautiful productions of the 

 soil the world has ever known. 



Every year brings additional proof and confir- 

 mation of our predictions in regard to the wonder- 

 ful progress and facilities for fruit culture in this 

 western hemisphere. This impresses me more 

 and more strongly with the duty of giving a right 

 direction to one of the most important sanitary 

 and benevolent industries of our land, and as far 

 as possible, controlling the recommendation of the 

 host of new fruits of little merit, which are being 

 constantly brought to notice ; and while com- 

 mending and disseminating all good vai^eties, let 

 us, if possible, restrain the flooding of our country 

 with those of inferior quality and little value. Let 

 us use our utmost exertions to discourage and re- 

 strain the outrageous deceptions, which every re- 

 turning season brings, by new fruits sent forth with 

 the highest praises, as if superior to anything be- 

 fore known, but which in a few seasons are found 

 no better than many old kinds, if as good. The 

 plea of ignorance cannot be urged in extenuation 

 of such practices, while the means of information 

 are as accessible as they are now. Such decep- 



tions no honest or honorable man would practice. 



PRODUCTION OF NEW FRUITS. 



It is now more than thirty years since I first 

 called the attention of this Society "to the great 

 impotance of producing fruit from seed, in order 

 to originate and obtain such varieties as might be 

 adapted to the varied climate and sections of our 

 ever-increasing and immense territory. And now, 

 again, in fulfillment of my promise never to cease 

 doing so, I beg to ratify and enforce what I have 

 said in my former addresses. 



It has long been known that varieties raised on 

 our own soils, and in our own localities, are gener- 

 ally better suited to our various regions than those 

 from foreign lands ; and although we have some 

 varieties from abroad of great excellence and wide 

 adaptation, there are, comparatively, onlv a few- 

 out of the thousands of foreign kinds which we 

 have proved in the last fifty years, that now re- 

 main in general cultivation. This fact is now o-en- 

 erally acknowledged, and hence thousands of our 

 pomologists are engaged in this most interestino-, 

 beautiful and praiseworthy employment of raising 

 American kinds. Formerly the accessions to our 

 catalogue were from the Old World ; now they are 

 mostly of American origin, and so it will continue 

 to be in future time. These are benefactions not 

 only to our country, but the world. He that origi- 

 nates a new and valuable fruit, suited to general 

 cultivation, is as much a benefactor of mankind 

 as he who discovers a new principle in science 

 which increases the comfort and happiness of our 

 race. 



Natural fertilization, as I have told you before, 

 unaided by the hand of man, is as old as creation, 

 but the knowledge of manual fertilization, the 

 ability of man to assist nature in the process of 

 improvement, seems to have been mostly with- 

 held from us until the present age. Wonderful is 

 this fact, but it is not more so than the unlimited 

 extent to which it may be carried by the genius 

 and sagacity of him who would cotiperate with 

 nature in this enchanting labor. 



Strange, indeed, that this art should have been 

 held in suspense for so many ages, not until our 

 own time to be brought into practical use. But, 

 thanks to the Disposer of all temporal concerns, 

 it has now come as the harbinger of a progress 

 which is to revolutionize and improve the fruits of 

 the earth while time shall last. Thanks, too, to 

 Knight, Herbert, Lindley, Darwin, Gray, and 

 other teachers of later times, for the lessons of 

 wisdom, which have encouraged us to prosecute 

 this most noble work. 



The process of fecundation was known far back 

 in the centuries of the past, but not for the pro- 

 duction of new and improved varieties of plants. 

 From the days of Pliny to the present time, the 

 custom of suspending the blossoms of the date 

 palm over the trusses of the fruit-bearing trees, 

 was known to be necessary for the production of 

 fruit. So Tournefort and Linnaeus understood the 

 sexual order of plants ; but we have no facts to 

 show, so far as I know, that either of these writers 

 had a knowledge that the crossing of different 

 species and varieties would produce from the seed 



