152 President's Address. 



be assumed that native seeds produced, as they now do, a 

 percentage of early maturmg and consequently hardier 

 plants than the others, and that continuous seed reproduc- 

 tion from the hardiest, and hence most prolific, of these 

 first introduced plants and their successive progenies, has 

 resulted in the plants that are now reared from home- 

 grown seeds being earlier matured, and much hardier than 

 those grown from native seeds. 



Of plants that have long been the objects of artificial 

 selection the following may be instanced as bearing upon 

 the subject here treated of : — 



It is admitted that the wild pear (^Pyrus communis) and 

 the crab apple (P. Malus) are perfectly hardy natives of 

 Britain, and that our cultivated pears are merely improved 

 varieties of the former, and our cultivated apples of the 

 latter, obtained after very long-continued and careful selec- 

 tion of those kinds having the best flavoured and most 

 handsome fruit, varying in their times of ripening, so that 

 they can now be had in perfection throughout most of the 

 year. Quality of the fruit being thus the primary object 

 in view, little or no regard was paid by horticulturists to 

 the hardiness of the trees, provided the fruit was possessed 

 of first-class excellence; and in the event of not being 

 found suitable for orchard or open ground culture, a place 

 was allotted to it on the south face of a garden wall or 

 other exposure, where, under the influences of higher 

 temperature and better shelter, its growths and fruits were 

 fully matured. Orchardists, however, and other growers 

 for market, while also keeping size, beauty, and quality 

 in view when raising new varieties from seed, had other 

 requisites to consider, such as hardiness, fruitfulness, late- 

 ness in flowering, so as to escape spring frosts, wind-resist- 

 ing sturdiness of growth, &c. Hence the great diversity 

 that exists in the hardiness and other characteristics of the 

 cultivated varieties of Pyrus communis and P. Malus — a 

 diversity that I never saw more remarkably displayed than 

 in the past summer, when, in some of the Carse of Gowrie 

 orchards, I observed many varieties of pears and apples, 

 which had hitherto been deemed quite hardy, but which 

 were then almost fruitless, some being so much injured by 

 the last winter that they were unlikely to recover, while 



