SECRET.UIY'S REPORT. 247 



it will maintain its pnrity and excellence without his constant 

 care and protection. 



So in vegetable physiology. However true the seed may be 

 to its kind, if its halnt of growth has ever been changed by 

 man, there is a constant tendency to revert to its original state, 

 without his continued care. In fact, these remarks apply more 

 particularly to those plants which have been taken out of the 

 category of species, and by long continued skill and labor, consti- 

 tuted into distinct and well defined varieties. The seed of 

 varieties so produced, is, indeed, strictly speaking, not natural 

 seed. It has a human element in it, and, unless this element 

 continues with it in its further propagation, preserving its purity, 

 and supplying its peculiar wants, it soon returns to its original 

 species. Take, for instance, the Brassica tribe of vegetables. 

 Into what a catalogue of varieties has this been trained by the 

 wants and tastes of mankind, and the seed of each is true to its 

 kind, if the conditions of its propagation arc complied with in its 

 cultivation ; but place any one of these varieties by the side of 

 the original species, on the cliffs of England, leavhig it to the 

 influences of nature alone, and not many generations will pass 

 before it will lose its acquired form and habits, and fall into 

 those of the species from which it was produced. 



Nature provides for species, — man's assistance comes in for 

 the formation and preservation of varieties. 



Let it be understood, then, in what we have to say in this 

 matter of raising seeds, that the seed and its cultivation go 

 together ; the one is the complement of the other. 



A complete history of the various fruits and vegetables amongst 

 us, would, probably, show that, in their propagation, the only 

 permanent reliance has been the seed. Other methods, such as 

 by cuttings, layers, grafts and buds are in constant use, but 

 these are all artificial, and tend to decay. We have no doubt 

 that the potato rot was the result, in i>art, at least, of long con- 

 tinued propagation by tubers, instead of the seed, and it is good 

 evidence of the truth of this opinion, that since the multiplica- 

 tion of new varieties by seed, the disease has, in a great measure, 

 disappeared. 



A good authority says that in grafting there is a gradual 

 progress to extinction, and the only renewal of an individual is 

 by seed. This has its illustration in pear culture. If we are 



