Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1869 [PAGE 255]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

241

way as the Eomans did of old, plunder the neighbors, and carry off w h a t they have. This is robbery. The second is trade—but great profits in t h a t Iirection naturally imply cheap buying and high selling, which has a tinge )f cheating in it that we know by experience never proved beneficial to the character of a people. The third and the only honest way for a people to acquire wealth is agriculture and industry—we must grow and manufacture vhat we want, and so much more to exchange for the necessary products of )ther soils and climates." America has indeed followed Franklin's opinion; she is under full headway to establish her grandeur on the broad honest basis of agriculture and ndustry. ORCHARD F R U I T S . A LECTURE BY DR. E. 8. HULL, OF ALTON, ILL. OR [GIN OF ORCHARD FRUITS. To grow orchard fruits you must have orchard trees, and to grow either or ioth successfully, requires a knowledge of the laws of vegetable growth, "hese laws are so complex as to require careful observation, much time and hought. I t is not our purpose to enter into a full explanation of these laws, nd yet reference to some of them will be necessary in order that we may :now how to modify their effects on our trees and on our fruits. All our trees bearing improved fruit have been brought to their present andition by reproduction from one or other of the wild or unimproved speies to which they belong. If we carefuily compare the wild or uncultivated *ee with one of their descendants, we shall at once be struck with the change hich has been effected. The wood, the leaves, the fruit, how changed ! One ready to ask, can it be possible that such large and luscious fruits as Haw1 or Beurre Bosc pears could have descended from the harsh fruits of the lorny trees indigenous to the European and Asiatic forests. The apple, too, hich has been called the k i n g of fruits, once existed only in thickets in the me countries with the pear, as a thorny, compact tree, whose fruit was aall, and of a quality not better than the fruits of our native crabs. From lese, and from similar beginnings, all our improved fruits were derived, his great change was produced in the simplest manner, viz : mainly by stimating the growth. In this way an enlargement in the leaves, and a slight crease in the size of the wood cells, was effected. From trees thus wrought xm seeds sprang up ; these in turn being subjected to similar treatment, in ie next and succeeding generations were further removed from the wild type, itil at length the small, compact and thorny branch has been turned to Le much smoother and larger, the fruit of which is of the highest excelnce. How great the change is which has been effected, will best be understood hen we state that among all the species of fruits which are now grown in ir orchards, not one of them, when in their wild state, could at all compare quality with our persimmon. But all this has not been done without to

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