The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1905-05-13
TEE CONTINUOUS CREATION.


me Independsnt. n. r.
When Emerson delivered his lecture on
Farming he announced as the specific glory
of the farmer that in the division of labors it
was his part to create. But even Emerson had
no foresight to anticipate that evolution of
agricultural life which has come about since his
death. and which has been categorical modestly
as Plant-Breeding. The phrase means that that
cross-breeding which before Darwin's day
brought about improved cattle and horses is
now creating improved fruits and vegetables.
It was held until recently that species were
fixed and immutable; that they were as they
always had been. and always must be. Darwin
taught US better, and opened the first door of
evolution.
To secure new sorts in the vegetable kingdom
we have learned is always possible; and that we
can mix the good qualities of two or more spe-
cies in all sorts of permutati0ns. Thousands of
seedlings are thus produced by Nature. and
thousands more, with greater accuracy, by our
supervision. The chances are that everyone
who owns garden hoes up and destroys cross
.breds of more value than the varieties he care
fully cultivates. One may hardly put down his
foot in the country without treading out of ex-
istence the germ of some superb new fruit. The
real horticulturist becomes fascinated with the
possibilities around him. and he laments most
of all that he has not land room to allow every
new berry or terminating tree to develop. until
it shows what it is worth.
Charles Downing used to say that without
doubt more Seckel pears, Green Gage plums,
and Northern Spy apples-that is, fruits of this
grade-had been destroyed than had been res
cued from destruction. Think what we may
have already lost under the hoe. but think more
cheerfully how many grand things we may yet
create" The work of the farmer is more and
more modifying itself to this business of Great
ing. The Concord grape and the Delaware came
about by accident, but these stimulated Rogers
carefully to pollenize some hardy grapes with
pollen from his dollhouse stock, and 10 nearly
one hundred sorts of new grapes enriched the
world. The Herbert, the Gaertner, the Salem,
the Lindley. marry the rich lusciousness of the
Black Hamburger to the hardness of the Con-
cord.
1t was a little before 1850 that Rev. Mr.. Good
rich, of Central New York, stimulated by the
rottng of the potato crops, and the Irish famine,
began scientific efforts to create new sorts that
would be rot-proof. He gave us the Goodrich
Early, the Calico. and the Cuzco. Then Bresee
created the Early Rose and since that time not
less than one thousand new sorts of value have
C Cees on a. FAST as that Of Creation We shall
never get the best potato nor the ideal apple.
simply because we have learned that what we
are to aim after Is betterment, not perfection.
The reason that progress was not achieved
faster by natural selection was that nature mad
in view entirely different ends from ourselves.
She prefers dull-l0oking fruits, because they
can be more easily hidden from rodents and
attic. She prefers multitude to quality, be-
cause in that way she secures more seeds ana
surer propagation. She prefers th0rns in order
to protect her acquisitions. Human folk select
for their gardens and orchards the very sorts
1eai s Scientific OT pant-brsedins is accom-
plished at every step only by the application Of
mind and by personal supervision.
Where work creates 1t becomes poem and
passion. It is hardly forty years since plant
breeding became scientific; but already. the
number of new varieties is difficult to catalog-
much more difficult to test and compare. State
experiment stations have become absolute ne
cessities in order to eliminate the poorer novel;
ties. Thousands of farmers are growing dis-
wish to link their lives and names with some
thing new and better. This is q new kind of
what it inherits. The ideal farmer is the one
who becomes q c0-creat0r with Him who
'splanted q garden eastward, in Eden" 1t is
Of land to give the world nobler berry or vege-
table. The man who started the Cuthbert rasp-
berry was as much human benefactor as a re-
We have a dozen men just now worthy of
world applause and statues in hall OF fame
for their creative energy. Mr.. Burbank has be-
has received. His name is as familiar in Egypt
and Japan as it is in New York or Boston.
However, he is by no means alone 10 TINS superb
most humble and common. Mr.. Munson, OF
Texas; Mr.. Thompson, of Virginia; Mr.. Beaver,
of Kentucky are workers along the sane ine:
Secretary of Agriculture. James Wilson. has
organized the forces of the American nation on
conceived. He has in the field an army of CO.
operators, trained to increase the wealth OF the
country so fast that the extravagance OF politi-
clans cannot keep pace with them. He Is dean
of the Cabinet in more senses than one.
MIR. Burbank is q prophet as well as creator.
He says that s still in it's earliest
infancy; that science sees better grains, NUS
fruits and vegetables: -,
sin new forms, sizes, colors and fiavors with
more nutriment and less waste and with every
injurious and poisonous quality eliminated, and
with power to resist sun, wind, rain. frost and
destructive fungus and insects pests; fruits
coffee, tea spice, rubber, off, paper and timber
trees; and sugar. starch, color and perfume
plants"
and ten thousand more are within the reach OF
the most ordinary skill in plant breeding. he
insists that there Is no good reason for contlnu-
ing to produce poor fruit but that better trees,
producing better fruits, with regularity and
certainty, can be secured by the art OF man.
When plants coTH gfan or any fSos
seeds is wrapped up not only power OF repro,
duction, but vast power OF FORMULATION and
evolution. All CnlS, says MT. outDduks u uOC
only for our time or race alone, but is benef-
cent legacy for every person who shall ever in
habit the earth. Today, with the progress made
in turning weeds into fruit-bearing plants.
grasses into grains, wild thorns into Northern
Spys and Pippins, the earth easily feeds fifteen
hundred millions of people, and cheerfully looks
forward to vast multiplication Of that number;
whereas the earth, before agriculture began its
work of progressive evolution. could not sup
port population of fifty million.
"Thus with better and still better fruits, nuts,
grains and flowers will the earth be transformed.
mans thoughts be turned from the base destruc-
will lift him to higher planes of action-toward
that happy day when man shall offer his brother
man, not bullets and bayonets, but fairer flowers,
richer grains and better fruits"
In this way the wizard of horticultural progress
links moral and physical results and foreshadows
a world ranaWed hY AGRICULTURAL prOgresS.