1867.] SECRETARY'S REPORT. 21 



'No startling discoveries have been made during the past year, within the 

 wide domains of that Science to which the Society is devoted. Yet investiga- 

 tion has been steadily prosecuted, and new and clearer light thrown upon many 

 problems that have hitlierto perplexed the pomologist. There can scarcely be 

 a member of this Society, for instance, who has not had his hopes highly ex- 

 cited by the exceeding profusion of bloom upon his trees in the early Spring. 

 To a most remarkable extent was this the case, the present year. Yet how 

 keen the disappointment to find so few of those blossoms fecundated 1 How 

 much inferior the actual fruition to the original promise I An examina- 

 tion of some of these flowers, of the Duchesse more particularly, under the 

 microscope, by Mr. Thomas P. James, Botanist of the Pennsylvania Horticul- 

 tural Society, disclosed the fact that " they were very weak in their organiza- 

 tion ; although apparently perfectly hermaphrodite ; that the stamens were 

 evidently feeble, the pollen limited in quantity, and the entire flowers in a low 

 state of vitality." Professor Horatio C. Wood, Lecturer on Botany in the 

 University of Pennsylvania, after a similar examination, concluded that the 

 " female organs are defectively organized, and that the pollen grains are not 

 well developed." He deems it " highly probable that the appreciable want of 

 strength is associated with a similar, but less apparent, degradation as regards 

 quality ; and that there is a consequent want of power in the germinal matter, 

 both of the pollen and ovary, which is the real cause of the sterility." He 

 then inquires if it " is not probable that the source of the trouble is to be 

 found in the excessive production of blossoms? Of all the various life-func- 

 tious of the plant, the process of seed-producing is, par excellence, the exhaus- 

 tive one. It is well known how it often cripples or even kills a previously vig- 

 orous tree. Further, the period in the reproductive process, the worst for the 

 plant, in which it eats up its life-capital fastest, is that in which the blossoms 

 are perfected, the pollen shed and the ovule impregnated." And sums up with 

 the conclusion that " if, as seems most probable, weakness of the sexual organs 

 is the cause of sterility, and this weakness is dependent upon excessive blossom- 

 ing, the remedy would appear to be found in some check to that excess." Of 

 the best practical method of applying such check, he adds that it is not within 

 his province, neither is he competent to judge. But it may be pertinent to 

 mention here, that Dr. E. S. Hull, of Alton, one of the most skilful pomolo- 

 gists of Illinois, finds it for his interest to thin out the clusters of buds, after 

 formation ; without sufferin? them to continue the process of exhaustion. 

 And this minute and apparently toilsome task he performs, not for amusement, 

 nor to a small extent, but to his great profit, and upon hundreds of trees. Imi- 

 tators of his industrious example would doubtless derive equal advantage from 

 the practice. 



The Pear-Blight is, perhaps, the most grievous curse inflicted upon the pomo- 

 logist. No satisfactory explanation ever accounted for it : no remedy for it waa 

 ever discovered. Under these circumstances, the theory of Mr. Berkmans, ap- 

 proved, as he asserts, by the assured test of success, and certainly supported by 



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