254 



A NEW SCIENCE. 



food supply for the plant. If the cultivator adds 

 food in fertilizers, so does nature, and nature's prac- 

 tice is far the more perfect. If man gives the plant 

 space in which to grow, so does nature by thinning 

 out the weakest in the inevitable crowding of indi- 

 viduals, or again through the law of divergence of 

 character, by virtue of which more plants of many 

 kinds can be grown upon a given area than of one kind. 

 If man tills, so does nature, by the annual mulch of 

 herbage. If man prunes, so does nature, by train- 

 ing and trimming the stem of the sapling into the 

 bole of the tree, and by suppressing ten buds to ev- 

 ery one that grows. Cultivation is but an empiri- 

 cism suggested by nature. " Man, therefore," says 

 Darwin, "may be said to have been trying an ex- 

 periment on a gigantic scale ; and it is an experi- 

 ment which nature during the long lapse of time has 

 incessantly tried." 



As man's efforts are intenser than nature's, so 

 his labors have given more marked results ; or, to 

 speak precisely, nature has yielded to his efforts. 

 Animals and plants have varied so widely from their 

 aboriginal ancestors, in many cases, as to be unrec- 

 ognizable as individuals of the same species ; and 

 yet there is every reason to believe that variation of 

 far greater extent and importance is possible. In 

 plants, the study of all this variation under culture 

 belongs to no science and has no name. Botany 

 does not claim it. Agriculture, in its restricted 

 sense, has taken to itself the study of soils and fer- 

 tilizers and domesticated animals. It comes more 

 closely within the knowledge and practice of horti- 

 culture than elsewhere, and it may therefore very 

 properly be called the Science of Horticulture. 

 When Lindley wrote of the "theory of horticul- 

 ture," some fifty years ago, he was disposed to refer 

 most of this matter to "horticultural physiology." 

 But systematic features are now fully as important 

 as physiological, and we are inclined to designate 

 this field of inquiry a science. 



The literature of the art of horticulture is volu- 

 minous. Progress has been rapid of late years, 

 and ample record has been made of every advance- 

 ment. But in its scientific aspects, horticulture has 

 a meagre literature. The science of horticulture 

 may be said to have begun with the labors and 

 writings of Thomas Andrew Knight, about the open- 

 ing of the century. Knight was long the president 

 and leading spirit of the Royal Horticultural Society 

 of London. Various contemporaries worked in sim- 

 ilar lines, and Dean Herbert made invaluable con- 

 tributions to the knowledge of plant variation 

 through his work in crossing and hybridizing the 

 Amaryllid lilies. Early in the century, Joseph Hay- 



ward wrote a treatise upon the science of horticul- 

 ture, and was, perhaps, the first to use and outline 

 the term. There were few important contributions 

 to horticultural science in the English language for 

 many years ; in fact, not until Darwin wrote " Vari- 

 ation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," 

 and " Effects of Cross and Self Fertilization in the 

 Vegetable Kingdom." Darwin never addressed his 

 work to the horticulturist, but his was the first suc- 

 cessful attempt to collate the scattered mass of ob- 

 servation of the variation of domestic plants in the 

 one case, and to present accurate, extended and« co- 

 ordinated experiences of the results of cross-fertili- 

 zation of vegetables in the other. Practical knowl- 

 edge of the results of cross-fertilization may almost 

 be said to date from the latter work. This knowl- 

 edge has been extended and epitomized in Focke's 

 "Die Pflanzen Mischlinge. " Darwin's two works 

 here cited may safely be counted the cap-stone of a 

 century of progress in science of horticulture. In 

 another branch of this science, a monumental work 

 has recently appeared in De Candolle's " Origine 

 des Plantes Cultivees." This book, with the discus- 

 sions which it has aroused, gives us a compendium 

 of the known ancestral forms of cultivated plants, 

 and is highly suggestive of future progress. 



This science of horticulture is many sided, a^id 

 sometimes ill-defined. The better part of it may be 

 expressed in the phrase, "Variation of plants under 

 culture and selection." In many cases, the effects 

 of the simplest operations of culture are not well 

 understood. The mere accident of variation in soil 

 may be found to modify plants, sometimes pro- 

 foundly. Sandy soils tend to produce high colors 

 and high flavors, in consequence of their greater 

 warmth. Peaches are nearly always richer in color 

 and flavor on such soils than on wetter and stronger 

 soils, other things being equal. Squashes often 

 show remarkable differences when grown upon dif- 

 ferent soils, and these differences can sometimes be 

 perpetuated for a time by seeds. The writer has 

 produced from the same parent squashes so dissim- 

 ilar, through the simple agency of a change of soil 

 in one season, that they might readily be taken for 

 distinct varieties. Peas are known to vary in the 

 same manner. The ends of a row of peas, sown 

 of the same kind, last year gave the writer marked 

 variations, due to differences in soil. Many well 

 known varieties are less distinct than were the two 

 extremes of this planting. Light soils also tend to 

 shorten the period of growth. Upon such soils 

 plants mature earlier, and are consequently hardier. 

 This is one of the earliest lessons which the fruit- 

 grower masters. It is not known if this character, 



