PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 205 



fibre in different latitudes, but he believed that the seed from all 

 of these latitudes brought here would produce the same result. 

 He had been in the habit of attempting to acclimate plants by 

 gradual exposure ; but upon placing them out of doors at once 

 the result was the same. Take a tender seed from the latitude 

 of New Orleans, and plant it fifty miles to the north of New 

 Orleans; take a seed from that and plant it fifty miles further 

 north, and so on until you reach this latitude, and then it will be 

 just as tender as when it started. There are no facts demonstrat- 

 ing the reverse yet made known. 



Mr. Carpenter referred to the change in Mediterranean wheat, 

 and in Poland oats, in being brought to this country. He 

 believed it required a series of years to produce the change 

 here, and inferred that if carried back an equal length of time 

 would be required before they would return to their original 

 character. 



Prof. Mapes was of opinion that it would return the very first 

 year ; that plants never carried back, even temporarily, to their 

 original location, the changes which had taken place in them 

 abroad, 



Mr. Fuller expressed the opinion that acclimation does not 

 take place in plants, although they may be said to become 

 naturalized when carried into a new locality where they flourish. 

 One reason for the belief that plants become more hardy upon 

 being carried northward, probably is that we are able to select 

 the hardy plants at the North, and to cultivate from them. If 

 we could make the same selection at the South, the same effect 

 would be produced. 



Mr. Carpenter. — The hand of nature has not distributed upon 

 the earth its shrubs and trees, and given each its locality. They 

 have been carried from one locality to another in various ways. 

 Birds, for instance, sometimes carry seeds five hundred miles or 

 more from their native place. The wild pigeon is annually 

 carrying seeds from the South to the North, and from the North 

 to the South. 



Mr. Pardee. — There seems to be only one real point of differ- 

 ence of opinion here, whether a plant carried back to its original 

 locality will return at once to its original characteristics, or only 

 after a series of years. The great practical question seems to 

 me to be, not what they v,\\\ become when carried back, but 

 what they will become when brought here. 



