^2 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



such improvements. We need the improved stock for planting. 

 Some trees live a century before they reach young manhood. 



Persimmons, pawpaws, huckleberries, elderberries, hawthorns, 

 and hosts of other native fruits, are well worth improvement, 

 and might be utilized not only for human food but for hogs, 

 sheep and poultry. 



Mr. Frank Rabak, of the Department of Agriculture, has 

 recently shown that the black sage (Ramona stachoides) , a wild 

 California plant, and the swamp bay tree (Persea pubescens) , 

 of the southeastern United States, both contain a fairly high 

 percentage of camphor and could be utilized for the manufac- 

 ture of this valuable product. Doubtless these plants could, by 

 breeding, be adapted to cultivation and the percentage of camphor 

 increased. 



The value of improving native plants has been strikingly dem- 

 onstrated by the amelioration of our native grapes. The attempts 

 of our early ancestors in America to grow European grapes uni- 

 formly met with failure, and finally, as a last resort, attempts 

 were made to cultivate the native wild types. The marvelous 

 success achieved, which has resulted in the production of a large 

 number of fine varieties and established vine growing in the 

 eastern and central United States, is one of the important achieve- 

 ments of our many-sided national history. 



The same was true in the case of the gooseberry. The European 

 varieties failing to succeed here because of the mildew, the 

 small-fruited native species were introduced into cultivation, and 

 the size of the fruits has been more than quadrupled in the 

 improved sorts. Plums, raspberries, blackberries, and the like, 

 furnish other illustrations of interest. 



The native wild beggar weed (Desmodium tortuosum) has 

 been introduced into cultivation in Florida, and without breed- 

 ing improvement of any kind has in a few years won a perma- 

 nent place in southern agriculture. 



It may be argued that the improvement of our native plants 

 would be too slow to justify attempts in this direction. I should 

 answer that nothing is too slow which will pay. Nations bond 

 themselves for hundreds of millions of dollars to carry on a 

 war of the present, which bonds their children must pay some 

 time in the future and for no compensation except to maintain 

 the pledged honor of the nation. While breeding is slow when 

 judged from the get-rich-quick standpoint of modern Chicago, 

 it is not slow when compared with the life of a nation and from 



