206 American HortlonUural Society. 



We further express our disapproval of the political resolutions on the tariff" 

 adopted at San Jos«?, for the reason that it was an improper (juestion to l)e pre- 

 sented or passed on by the Society. Signed by T. V. MrNsoN, 



J. ( . KlDI'ATH, 



Abbott Kinney, 

 C. C. Brown, 

 W. G. Vkal, 

 Ross Leweks, 



J. B. DURAND, 



U.K. Bradbury, 

 H. B. Francis, 

 Preston Kider. 



The following paper on hybridization was then read l)y Dr. 

 Ridpath : 



HYBRIDIZATION. 



BY PETER HENDERSON, OF NEW YORK. 



In plants, as in animals, " the selection of the fittest," a^j Darwin terms it, 

 is indispensable to get at the best results. It is a curious fact, however, that 

 in many kinds of plants that the higher types of perfection that are obtained, 

 the individuals are less fertile. Last season we were fortunate in getting an 

 unusually tine strain of fringed double and single petunias, and though we 

 operated on nearly one thousand plants that were grown in seven and eight- 

 inch pots, tilling a green-house twenty by one hundred feet, yet it t<K)k one 

 man from June to November to get one ounce of hybridized double seed, so 

 that this ounce of double petunia seed cost us in actual labor alone about 

 $250. 



Our plan of hybridizing was the usual one of removing the undeveloped 

 stamens from the single flowers, so that there could be no possibility of self- 

 fertilization, and then applying the pollen from the finest double flowers. 

 Done carefully in this way, we are safe to expect at least 75 per cent, of 

 double flowers. 



We have the same meager results of seeding fruiii the new strain of 

 mammoth verbena, again showing that the higher the type the greater the 

 sterility. We planted out twenty thousand seedling plants of verbenas, cov- 

 ering nearly four acres, and only got some four pounds of seed, or about one 

 pound from each acre. Seedlings of the ordinary strain of verbena would 

 have given from five to ten pounds of seed per acre. I may here state a 

 fact not generally known, that seedling plants of verbenas produce seed 

 much more freely than plants made from cuttings. In 1S8() we set out over 

 twenty thousand mammolli verbena plants, matle from cuttings, for the pur- 

 pose of obtaining seed, and obtained less than half a i)ound from the whole 

 1 ot. Of course, in such a flower as the verbena, hand fertilizing by the 



