ACCLIMATING PLANTS. 79 



Mr. Ilovey added that he imported many years ago, several dark 

 red rhododendrons for the purpose of hybridizing and securing 

 seed, but though they grew well enough in summer they died down 

 every winter. He protected some of them until large enough to 

 furnish seeds, but the plants raised from them all disappeared 

 after one of our very severe winters. He believed in selection and 

 improvement, and said that we must follow up improvement with 

 regard to earliness, hardiness, and foliage. The province of the 

 Society is to encourage improvement in the right directions, and 

 not to follow the fallacy of acclimation. We should keep quite 

 distinct the principles of improvement and acclimation. 



The Chairman said that he had no facts to add to what had been 

 stated, but he was very glad to listen to the particulars of the 

 method by which Dr. Waters improved his corn. He did not 

 agree with the sweeping assertion that there is no such thing as 

 acclimation, and thought the orange tree and the Canary bird 

 did not prove it. It is bej^ond reason to expect that such tropical 

 products will ever adapt themselves to our climate. The question 

 is whether there has been the slightest improvement, and he saw 

 no reason why we might not witness some slight modification, as 

 in the human race. Some things that verge upon hardiness may 

 accommodate themselves to our climate. 



Mr. Wilder thought that the progeny of species now verging on 

 hardiness might adapt themselves, but said that the Cryptomeria 

 Japonica and the Sequoia, which were almost hardy enough for our 

 climate, gradually died out. EUwanger and Barry had a clump of 

 the Sequoia which formed the only exception to his statement 

 with regard to that tree, that he knew of in the north. There are 

 very few in Europe, and those at Rochester barely escaped. 



The Chairman said that a single instance of successful acclima- 

 tion would prove more than any number of failures. 



Mr. Wilder had yet to learn of a single instance. If there had 

 been one effected by the Paris Garden of Acclimation, he had never 

 heard of it. 



Edward S. Rand, Jr. said that his experience agreed entirely 

 with that of Mr. Wilder and Mr. Hovey. He never had a single 

 plant acclimated, and never knew the progeny of a tender plant 

 fertilized by itself prove hardy, but if we could hybridize a hardy 

 plant with a tender one, we should bend our efforts in that direc- 

 tion, and he cited as a most valuable result from such a union the 



