STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 6l 



different plants, beyond which they can not be grown successfully. 



Dr. Falconer, of the botanic gardens at Calcutta, in referring to the 

 change of habit of the apple trees of India, where they become fastigiate, 

 attributed this result to the heat of the climate. May not the light of a 

 sub-tropical sky have exerted an influence upon these trees? 



Crossing is well known to be a prolilic source of variation, and in 

 the hands of the florist this force has been made to produce the most 

 wonderful results, when aided by his selection ; so that we have single 

 flowers made double, self-colored made parti-colored. Entirely new 

 colors have been introduced, and the size, habit, and productiveness of 

 plants have been wholly changed from those first observed in a natural 

 condition. The gardeners have their secrets, as to different methods of 

 treatment, which they may not be always willing to communicate. Per- 

 haps it is not best that we should attempt to scrutinize too closely the 

 mysteries of the potting-shed ; but some of us are so selfish and so grasp- 

 ing for knowledge, that we do not like to see others, as selfish, who try 

 to retain the secrets of the craft, which we should rather claim as belong- 

 ing to the facts of science. 



Pallas attributes all variations to the results of crossing. This mingling 

 of plants would very naturally be looked upon as a source of variation; 

 but if the members of a species be alike, how shall we cross different 

 kinds without transcending the limits of the species, and thus producing 

 hybrids, and these are more or less infertile.? But if the parents be alike, 

 whence comes the variation? That plants do cross in their natural con- 

 dition, as well as when under the conditions attendant upon civilization, 

 is a well-established fact. The pollen is constantly earned from one flower 

 to the pistils of another, and this is especially effected by insects; nay 

 they often carry it from one plant to another. There are some curiously 

 formed ffowers that never become impregnated by their own pollen, even 

 when artificially applied by man, and his efforts have enabled him to 

 obtain fertile hybrids between plants that are considered distinct species. 



Mr. Salter, an eminent florist, who has been very successful in the 

 production of varieties, assures us that the great difficulty in producing 

 variations is to get the first break from the natural character. This once 

 effected, the variations in the successive crops of seedlings goes on. You 

 have witnessed this in the Petunia since Buist's "hybrids" were produced 

 in 1836, when we had only the white and the purple species, from which 

 have descended the greatly varying flowers of the present day. 



On the contraiy, an observation made within your own State, by our 

 excellent friend, Douglass, does not confirm this in the case of seedlings 

 of tlie oak-leaved mountain-ash, nor from the weeping variety of the same 

 plant. From these trees he has saved the seeds, and grown seedlings in 

 immense numbers, but among them all he has never observed one that 

 had a heterophyllous leaf, nor a weeping habit. With slight exceptions, 

 they all possess the normal characters of the species. 



Bud Variation. — This is a curious mode of change in the habit and 

 characters of plants that is a source of many of the variations in our 

 plants. When we study the intimate relations and correspondences 



