Presidenfs Address. 149 



and leaf-buds, get materially injured by the succeeding 

 winter frosts. Confirmatory proof of these averments, as 

 well as highly interesting and useful cultural information, 

 may be obtained by carefully selecting a number of trees 

 or other plants belonging to the same, as well as to 

 difi'erent species, and recording the dates at which their 

 buds were burst, when their leaves attained to full size, 

 time of flowering, fruit or seed ripening, the completion of 

 their autumn growths, as well as the autumnal tinting and 

 falling of their leaves, which observations should be con- 

 tinued over at least three seasons. 



V. Chance opportunities for the selection of hardier 

 varieties or forms, which happen after such plant destructive 

 winters as 1879-80, should be taken advantage of, when 

 they occur, for selecting such plants as have retained their 

 vitality, when others of the same kind that had been reared 

 from seeds under exactly the same circumstances have 

 either been entirely killed or severely injured. Such 

 selections can now, as well as in the next two or three 

 planting seasons, be readily made in " nursery breaks " of 

 Araucarias, Deodar Cedars, the large -coned Cypress of 

 North-West America, and other important trees, as well as 

 of such shrubs as Arbutuses, Aucubas, Hollies, Ehododen- 

 drons, Eoses, Sweet Bays, &c. 



VI. Natural selection of Plants, — The trite saying that 

 " All the trees of the w^ood do not grow alike," has 

 reference to the commencement, completion, and time 

 requisite for maturing their annual growths, and to the 

 relative lengths or bulk of the same, in the members of 

 any given species, as well as to trees forming a mixture of 

 many kinds. Take, for instance, any kind of tree or other 

 plant having an ordinary range of natural habitats, and 

 ascending from the lower to the higher of these. Those 

 requiring most time for making their growths will gradually 

 disappear as the altitudes become less suitable for their 

 maturation, leaving in the upper regions only such as have 

 been best able to perfect their growth and ripen their seeds 

 for the continuance, or, it may be, the extension of the 

 species in the highest and most inclement parts ; hence, if 

 seeds or roots are there gathered, it may ])e fairly assumed 

 that plants grown from them will be found much hardier 



