THE HORTICULTUR.\L SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



Certificates 



To F. R. Newbold, for a chrysanthemum, not yet in commerce. 



To Samuel Untermyer, for Cosmos Klondike. 



To H. J. Osterhaudt, for collection of seedling single chrysan- 

 themums. 



No representatives being present from the Cottage Gardens Co., 

 Mr. Untermyer or ^Ir. Osterhaudt to receive their awards, the 

 secretary was authorized to send them by mail. 



There being no further business before the meeting, the presi- 

 dent of the society, Mr. George T. Powell, delivered the lecture 

 announced, "The Relation of the Soil to Plant Life." The lec- 

 ture was as follows : 



THE RELATION OF THE SOIL TO PLANT LIFE 



In the development of a comparatively new country like ours, which has 

 made a most remarkable history in the growth of population and in w'ealth 

 in a short period of time — in this forging ahead in development, w-e have 

 overlooked some vital things; and we are now beginning to realize, that 

 in the making of phenomenal gains there is generally somewhere along 

 the line some corresponding loss with which to be reckoned. 



Our country represents an empire in territory with a soil which, while 

 greatly variable in character, seems practically inexhaustible in its fer- 

 tility. Yet in less than three centuries of production our population, of 

 above 90,000,000 of people, is confronted unexpectedly at this time with 

 an unusually high living-cost, and with rapidly increasing numbers of 

 consumers, and a decrease of the producing population of our rural 

 sections. Some most vital problems are now commanding our best 

 consideration. 



In the soil lies the basis of all life, vegetable and animal, and of the 

 continued growth of our country ; and for this reason, a general knowl- 

 edge of its origin, its character, its possibilities to meet the demands of 

 millions yet unborn, and of the necessity for a right understanding of the 

 conservaton of its plant food elements, becomes a problem of great 

 importance. 



From the earliest history of our country to the present time the general 

 treatment of the soil has been that of the most unintelligent, inexcusably 

 destructive and wasteful methods of abstracting its great wealth of food- 

 producing elements, without due regard to their right conservation, resto- 

 ration or improvement. 



One of the direct results of this unintelligent and, I may say emphat- 

 ically, wicked policy of soil-robbing, has been the dispossession of many 

 of its decimators, who mistakenly believed they owned it, and turning 

 them into our cities, there to make further demands for support upon the 

 soil that had disowned them. 



The soil has stored up in its every atom the life of the many ages that 



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