98 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



green house the first two years. To day 17.000 feet of glass worked 

 to the best of our knowledge, isn't suffcient to supply the demand 

 for this class of goods, on the very site of the first building. The 

 business in the city of Portland was then a 16x24 affair as com- 

 pared with the present. Now increase the knowledge of these 

 things and more plants will still be used and more flowers called for. 

 I would suggest that we interest the children in plant growth. 

 Once impress a child's mind with a truth and it is fast, never to be 

 shaken off. So I repeat, interest the children, teach them the prin- 

 ciples of plant life and growth and the similarity ot plants to the 

 human family. The}' are very striking and one hour might be 

 pleasantly spent discussing them. Let the little ones grow up with 

 plants all around them, strew their paths with roses, for they will 

 find the thorny bush far too soon. Let botan}^ be taught in all the 

 school grades, not simph' a few weeks in the whole course. Let 

 societies give children plants to grow, offering premiums for best 

 grown specimens. 



Our own society took a good step last season in this way, and 

 although many plants returned were imperfect, still, good was done. 

 An interest was aroused in some of the children, that will continue 

 until Ihey are men and women grown. 



Much can be learned, too, by experimenting, trying to produce 

 new varieties. We breed horses and stock, for points and records 

 thus gained, make prodigies of new, their brains seeming active in 

 no other place than where the deep furrows have been made by 

 pedigrees. Just so can we breed plants for points with just as 

 positive results. The pedigree of a variety produced by artificial 

 fertilization may be just as correctly written as one for a trotter. 

 The field is large, the work interesting, expense trifling, and the 

 process can be accomplished by any careful person. 



Hybridization of plants is an interesting study and much valuable 

 information and pleasure as well may be gained by practicing the 

 art. Expensive tools are not necessary, nor is fancy stock neces- 

 sary. A pair of tweezers, a fine camel's hair brush, a tooth pick 

 and a clean piece of well sized white paper being all the tools there 

 is any need of possessing for ordinary work and all of these are not 

 positively demanded. While best results crown the efforts of the most 

 careful watcher, every one can derive pleasure and profit from it. We 

 take Geraniums that differ widely in respect to color, growth or habit 

 of bloom ; select one of them, usually the one of best style of growth, 



