nual meeting held at Manhattan, in 1870, and continued under reëlection until the annual meeting in 1874, at Emporia. He filled the chair with distinguished honor to himself and great satisfaction to the members. The increasing infirmities of age led him to decline reëlection in 1874. He continued to attend the meetings as often as his health would permit, and to the last manifested an abiding interest in the success of Horticulture. To the last he remembered his friends who have been associated with him in the work to which he devoted almost exclusively the latter years of his life. At the ripe age of nearly eighty-two years, he has gone to his rest, leaving behind him, in the trees which he has planted and the counsel which he has been able to give to the tree planters of the great Western Plains, a monument more enduring than brass.

RESOLUTIONS,

Adopted by the Board of the Kansas State Horticultural Society on receipt of the announcement of the death of Dr. William M. Howsley, March 7, 1880, at Central City, Nebraska. Whereas, In the providence of God, our honored and beloved friend and co-laborer in the cause of Horticulture, Dr. William M. Howsley, has just been called to his final reward; and

Whereas, During his long and eventful life he has so constantly manifested his devotion to the cause of Horticulture, by his arduous work in connection with the National, State and local organizations, by his unceasing and painstaking investigations and experiments, involving often great personal sacrifice, and by the use, even up to the last days of his life, of his ever-ready pen; and

Whereas, He has from the beginning been an active member, and for four years President, of the Kansas State Horticultural Society: therefore, be it

Resolved, That we gratefully recognize the distinguished and disinterested services of our deceased friend and brother, and hold his untiring and unyielding devotion to the interests of fruit and tree culture and home adornment as in the highest degree worthy of emulation.

Resolved, That while we mourn his departure as of a chief fallen, and cherish his memory as of one whose highest ambition was to make the world brighter and better, we would fully acknowledge the beauty and power of that faith which our dear brother cherished through so many years, and by which he was enabled to look beyond the pleasures and sorrows of earth, to unending joys in the paradise of God.

Resolved, That we hereby extend our heartfelt sympathy to the bereaved companion of our deceased brother, to his children and other relatives, in this, their hour of deep

sorrow.

Resolved, That the Secretary be hereby instructed to forward to the bereaved friends an authentic copy of these resolutions.

OF THE

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

NINTH SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING,

HELD AT BELOIT, KANSAS,

TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY, JUNE 17-19, 1879.

[NOTE. This Society will not be held responsible for individual opinions.-SEC'Y.]

The Society assembled in the Opera House, at Beloit, on Tuesday, June 17, 1879, at 2 o'clock P. M., and was called to order by the President, Prof. E. Gale.

The session opened with prayer by the Rev. E. N. Thomas, of Beloit.

COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS.

The President announced as a committee of arrangements, Messrs. E. A. Taylor, Rev. Jas. Lawrence, and F. Wellhouse, who reported as the subject for consideration during the opening session, "Reports from delegates present on the indications for a crop of fruit, and present condition of trees."

H. E. VAN DEMAN, Allen county: Apples, peaches and pears are almost a failure; cherries, light; blackberries, very light crop-most of the canes winter-killed; strawberries, about half a crop; other small fruits, very light; grapes promise an abundant crop. Peach trees are making a fine growth; service-berry, productive and hardy.

HON. WELCOME WELLS, Pottawatomie county, (near Manhattan:) Apples will be one-fourth of a crop in my locality, peaches and plums nearly a failure. Pears, one-fourth of a crop; varieties fruiting, Flemish Beauty, White Doyenne, Seckel. Small fruits, excepting raspberries, light. Turner Raspberry has been quite satisfactory until within a few years; think it will succeed with proper treatment.

J. W. ROBSON, Dickinson county: Apple orchards in my county are too young to fruit. Peach crop very light, cherries a fair crop, strawberries and gooseberries very light, Doolittle raspberry very heavy, and the McCormick a fair crop. Kittatinny blackberry is carrying some fruit; the growth of

canes is good. Grapes are very promising. Fifty per cent. of the fruit trees planted the past spring will fail. Do not attribute the cause of failure to a lack of vitality. Where trees were watered, and the bodies wrapped at time of planting, they have failed the least.

G. C. BRACKETT, Douglas county: I am quite sure, from the evidence, that the failure of trees planted the past spring is clearly due to a weakened condition of the tree, and this condition existed before they were taken from the nursery row. Such a drouth in the subsoil as prevailed during last autumn and winter, and followed by intensely low temperature in the winter, cannot fail to produce disastrous effects upon even our most hardy classes of trees and plants. We found this spring its effects most clearly indicated in the blackberry and peach. The canes of the former were generally dead to the snow line, and trees of the latter were in variable conditions. In some counties the trees were dead, and in others a very low condition of vitality prevailed. It was not drouth, nor the intense cold of winter alone, that produced such a condition, but the two combined brought on the injury. Trees cannot withstand an extreme of cold, with an absence of sufficient moisture to supply the daily evaporation. So, whenever the ground is lacking in proper moisture, you may well tremble for the safety of your trees and plants at the approach of an extreme of cold.

J. M. SHEPPERD, Abilene: I can only speak of my prospects. Apples will be a fair crop, considering age of the trees-four to nine years. Peaches scarce; blackberries are a failure in fruit this year.

F. WELLHOUSE, Leavenworth county: Apples, very light crop. The Rawles Genet fullest; a few Winesaps and Northern Spys. Pears, very light; have not been able to find any peaches-trees are injured; strawberries, half a crop; raspberries, fair crop; gooseberries, light crop; blackberries, failure. Tree-planting, the past spring, has not been fully successful. Losses will be twenty-five per cent. Do not believe that trees can safely pass through an extreme degree of cold in a dry soil. Grafts failed from the injured condition of cions used.

G. Y. JOHNSON, Douglas county: Apples-a fair crop of Rawles Genet; Ben Davis promising; Winesap bloomed full, but blossoms were defective, showing a weak condition of vitality in tree- no crop. I have a fine seedling, which has set a full crop; Grimes's Golden is a constant bearer. Pears, plums and blackberries failed; strawberries, very light crop; currants, light; raspberries, fair crop; service-berry, a full crop. My pear orchard was planted on an old stable yard. It made a very strong growth (four to six feet) during the last season. I became frightened, fearful of the blight, and planted the grounds thickly with sunflowers. The orchard escaped the blight.

E. N. THOMAS, Beloit: Peach orchards are succeeding in this locality. Raspberries, a full crop; native varieties are more productive than the Doo

little, and a much larger berry than the McCormick. Blackberry canes were winter-killed, excepting a few which were protected with trees; those bloomed and set a full crop, which was ruined by the recent hail-storm.

HON. WELCOME WELLS: Drouth is generally the cause of death to trees and plants in winter, and not the intense cold.

H. E. VAN DEMAN: I am satisfied that trees were in a weakened condition when spring opened, and such condition rendered them liable to failure in transplanting.

E. C. TRACY, Franklin county: Apples will be one-sixth of a crop. Varieties carrying the most of the crop, Rawles Genet, Rome Beauty, Cooper's Early White, Missouri Pippin. Trees appear healthy. There will be no peaches. Trees over six to eight years old were generally dead or dying when spring opened. Pears scarce. Blackberry canes, wherever protected with snow, are fruiting. Raspberries failed; strawberries and cherries, light crop. My cherry orchard of sixty Early Richmond trees fruited heavily in 1878, dropped their leaves in July following, re-blossomed in autumn, and when the spring of 1879 opened, two-thirds of the trees were dead. Age of trees, eight years. Grapes promise a heavy crop.

PROF. E. GALE, Riley county: I am clearly of the opinion that trees were injured by the dry condition of the surface and subsoil during the past autumn. Such a condition of the ground could not supply the moisture necessary to meet the natural evaporation of trees, and from such exhaustion under such conditions followed a weakened vitality, and a consequent failure in the past spring's transplanting. The injury became apparent in the unnatural color of the cambium layer.

J. W. ROBSON: Plants extract from the soil the elements needed for their support. These elements exist largely in combination with water, which becomes, in the transmission of food to the plant by absorption, an indispensable agency. If the supply of moisture fails, then the plant fails in its food supply, and dies from starvation.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS.

The committee of arrangements reported as hours for opening sessionsMorning, at 9 o'clock; afternoon, 1:30; evening, 8. Hours for adjourning— Morning, 12 M.; afternoon, 6; evening, 10.

On motion, the report was adopted.

Adjourned.

TUESDAY EVENING.

President E. Gale in the chair. Exercises opened with a paper by J. W. Robson, of Cheever, chairman of the Committee on Botany and Vegetable Physiology.

FUNCTIONS AND STRUCTURE OF ROOTS.

BY J. W. ROBSON.

These are the parts of the plant on which it is chiefly dependent for the supply of the moisture which its growth requires, and they serve to fix it in the earth. That they absorb or suck up fluid with great rapidity, may be easily shown. Take any small plant that is growing in the soil, and immerse its roots in a tumbler of water: if the plant be exposed to the light of day, and especially if the sun shine brightly upon it, the water will disappear very much faster from the glass, than from one exposing the same surface, placed in the same circumstances, but without the plant; and if the specimen continue to grow and flourish, it will take up many times its own weight of water in a short period. Experiments made with four plants of spearmint, grown during fifty-six days with their roots in water, and themselves weighing all together but 403 grains, were observed to take up 54,000 grains, or about seven pints of water. Of the water thus absorbed, a small proportion only is retained within the plant, serving as a part of its food. The greatest part of it is sent off again from the leaves, by a process termed exhalation, and the rapidity of absorption is in part governed by the rapidity of exhalation. The latter is nearly checked by the absence of light, and accordingly, plants are found to absorb but little in the night, or in a dark If we examine the roots of any common fruit tree, we shall find that they subdivide and spread beneath the ground, very much upon the same plan as the branches above. Moreover, it will be seen that from the sides and extremities of these underground branches there proceed a number of delicate fibrils, and if the extremities of these be carefully examined, they will be found to be much softer than the rest of the structure. Now these fibrils are the true roots, and their soft, succulent extremities, which are called spongioles, are the parts by which alone they absorb or suck up fluid. This is easily proved. If a growing radish be carefully removed from the ground, and the fleshy portion be bent in such a manner that it can be covered with water, whilst the leaves and the tuft of fibers at the point of the root are not immersed, it will be found that the whole of this large surface does not absorb moisture enough to keep the plant alive. But, on the other hand, if this tuft of fibers be only so far immersed in the water that their points may touch it, while the rest of the root is above the surface, the plant will continue to flourish for days.

room.

The fact is, that this absorption takes place with the greatest rapidity