Addresses — Plant Development and Training. 215 



for agriculture, in its broad sense, is both an art and a profession — 

 but he must be a close observer of nature as well. If to this he 

 add the faculty of investigation and the will to experiment, so 

 much the better for himself, and especially his fellow men. 



Time will not permit following this matter further, except to 

 touch some of the points connected with fertilization, breeding to 

 type, cross breeding, and hybridization. 



Fertilization is simply giving the power of reproduction, whether 

 it be of a given variety or by the admixture of varieties. 



Breeding to type is the endeavor to so order the fertilization 

 that tne produce shall follow some given type that may be wanted. 



Cross breeding is the bringing together of two individuals of the 

 same genus or tribe, but with distinct characteristics. 



A hybrid is the product of two varieties belonging to the same 

 order, but distinct from each other; as, among animals, the 

 horse and the ass, or cattle and buffaloes; or, among plants, two 

 species distantly related. With animals, however, we have noth- 

 ing to do at present. Plants, as animals, may be hybridized, thus 

 forming distinct families, or they may be cross bred upon those of 

 the same genus; or, the branches of a family may be kept pure and 

 unmixed, if care be taken in the fertilization and selection. This, 

 however, is more the province of the experimenter or seedsman, 

 than the ordinary cultivator. The embryo of a plant being once 

 fertilized with the pollen of the same variety, is thereafter incapa- 

 ble of taking up and assimilating with a kindred variety a beauti- 

 ful example of the means used by nature to keep families and 

 species distinct. 



But nature has gone further. According to Darwin, one of the 

 most persevering, acute and laborious investigators, we have every 

 reason to believe that blossoms upon which the pollen of kin- 

 dred species have fallen — and the embryo of which would be fertil- 

 ized thereby, if no other contact were had — have the power of 

 rejecting this, if soon thereafter they receive the pollen of their 

 own individual species. It is also a fact that hybrid species are 

 exceedingly infertile, until, through succeeding generations of 

 care, the characteristics are fixed. In fact, true hybrids are entirely 

 infertile, the exceptions being so rare as to be always occasions of 

 surprise. 



Plants have the habit of intermixing in a very variable degree. 



