DEGENERATIOX OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 91 



Mr. Hovey said that the Creator has endowed plants with the 

 power of perpetuation by grafting, which he has not given to ani- 

 mals. The camellia was introduced two hundred years ago, and 

 the Old White camellia is the same as ever. Varieties do continue ; 

 the Windsor pear is still good in England, though nearly two 

 hundred years old, and there is a tree of the old Summer Bon 

 Chretien at Mount Auburn as good as ever. 



George Hill said that he had cultivated hundreds of varieties of 

 strawberries and they have always degenerated and gone by, until 

 now he cultivates only one variety, the Sharpless. Tomatoes also 

 have run out ; the plants would blast. As good plants as he could 

 raise of the Boston Market tomato have blasted ; the newer 

 varieties are less subject to this disease. Hybrid vegetables will 

 degenerate unless they are carefully cultivated, and the seed is 

 carefully selected ; and this tendenc}' seems to be much stronger 

 than the tendency to improve. Old seed is better than new which 

 has been allowed to run back. 



Mr. Strong thought the deterioration of vegetables propagated 

 by seed might be due to close fertilization. What Mr. Hill had 

 said about the Boston Market tomato suggested this point. Dar- 

 win's view was that cross-fertilization always gave the strongest 

 plants. The effects of this method of propagation shoukl not be 

 confounded with those of grafting and budding. 



Mr. Hills said that many of our improved varieties are more ten- 

 der than the old ones, but the old varieties, once so highly prized, 

 would not taste so good now as they did when we had no better. 

 The further we get from a state of nature the tenderer they seem 

 to become. We have a cultivated class of children as compared 

 with those in the alleys of our large cities ; are the former de- 

 generated? It is the same with cows; the improved breeds are 

 more tender, but they are not running out. Grafting on seedling 

 stocks is surely changing varieties, though not perceptibly in one 

 year. 



Ihe Chairman of the Committee on Discussions announced that 

 •on the next Saturday Miss Sara J. Smith, of Hartford, Conn., 

 would read a paper on " Horticultural Education for Women." 



