24 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



But all this, liowever, may establish the conviction that if 

 good results have happened to us, they may as well bo pro- 

 duced by care. There is no limit to the new combinations 

 which can be devised and intelligently executed. But prior to 

 undertaking such an enterprise, so fraught with great possibili- 

 ties of advantage, a general knowledge of vegetable physiology 

 may be indispensable. This must be acquired, — it will not 

 come by instinct, — and acquired from books or by observation. 

 Then the special character of the particular species to be 

 worked, ought, of course, to be fully apprehended. Though 

 nothing is easier to effect, and nothing more difficult to prevent, 

 than the indiscriminate mixtures of vegetable varieties, scientific 

 hybridization contemplates something very different. The head 

 as well as the hand must have something to do with it. 



I do not care to hold out the idea that every venture of this 

 kind will be crowned with a great result. Some of the experi- 

 ments within my ownlimited experience, have excited more sur- 

 prise by failure, than others have by success. Two years ago, 

 I attempted to improve upon the well-known Green-flushed 

 melon, by combining with it the delicious, but tender Cassabar 

 melon, the seeds of which, came from the Patent Office ; and 

 this year, for the pains and precautions, which were as ample 

 as the case seemed to require, I raised — as far as fitness for the 

 table was concerned — something resembling a second rate ripe 

 cucumber. But, on the other hand, I have to-day placed on 

 your table a squash, which is a hybrid of the white pumpkin 

 (^potiron hJanc) and the bell-shaped squash (^courge en forme 

 de cloclie.~) The hybrid, in color and contour, resembles 

 neither parent, but yet bears the marks of both. In size, it is 

 eight or ten times as heavy as the larger of the two, and j\"eighs 

 eighty-five pounds. The quality has not been tested. If the 

 question arises, whence the deterioration in the one case, it is 

 answered by showing the increase in productiveness in the 

 other. Besides, I still have my original melons, and will man- 

 age, for the present, to be therewith content. I have a squash, 

 however, such as nobody else ever saw before, and I mean to 

 hold on to it, if it is as good as it is great. 



Some years of study and observation have convinced me that 

 the laws of vegetable hybridization are just about as well 

 understood as the laws for the transmission of mixed qualities 



