40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



BREEDING AND RAISING GARDEN SEEDS. 



BY WILLIAM W. TRACY, D. SC, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



It gives me great pleasure to speak here, especially as in 

 my younger days I lived not far from Boston. I am well 

 aware that I am addressing a gathering of the best-informed 

 horticulturists of the country, yet I want to speak first of 

 some of the conditions and general principles underlying 

 modern seed growing, not for the sake of giving information, 

 for you all know of them possibly better than I do, but rather 

 as a foundation for what I am to say. 



All plants when subjected to the modifying influences of 

 cultivation, or as a result of cross-fertilization through the 

 flowers, tend to assume distinct forms, which, when of value 

 for any particular purpose, or adapted for any special con- 

 dition, may be developed into garden varieties of great prac- 

 tical value. Such varieties, in the case of plants propagated 

 asexually, as, for instance, the Concord grape and the Bald- 

 win apple, consist of parts of a single original plant, in- 

 creased possibly through many propagative generations, but 

 always retaining the potentialities, limitations and tendencies 

 of the original plant, — indeed, are but a part of it ; and in 

 some of our courts it has been decided that a tree which as 

 far as can be discerned is identical in every particular with 

 the Baldwin cannot properly be called by that name unless it 

 is such a part of the original tree. Neither does the charac- 

 ter change ; it was immutably fixed in the original tree, — 

 indeed, in the seed from which it was developed. The Bald- 

 win of fifty years ago, of to-day, and of fifty years hence, is 

 identical in inherent character. 



Variation may occur as the result of different environment, 

 but we have only to interchange the different conditions to 



