AGRICULTURAL HEAD-WORK. 25 



in animal life ; and that is not saying much. Uncertain as the 

 results sometimes seem, there is yet considerable precision in 

 the operation of all obvious rules. Common sense will tell 

 every one to employ only rugged parents from which to raise a 

 progeny. It will also go farther, and present, as material 

 points, the general influence on the offspring of the size, struc- 

 ture and form, the desirableness of quality, the period of 

 ripening, productiveness and acclimation of the parents. In 

 greater or less degree, all these may modify the result. It is 

 stated, and my own observation rather confirms the statement, 

 that quite uniformly the shape of a hybrid, from two equally 

 vigorous plants, will be taken principally from the pistillate 

 variety, while the quality is more directly dependent upon the 

 staminate side. Freedom of bearing, and period of maturity 

 are less uniform, and attributable with less regularity to either 

 parent. Thus, a large, long, and dry late pear, (pistillate,) 

 hybridized by a small obovate and juicy, early pear, (staminate,) 

 would be more likely, I think, to produce a juicy pear of the 

 shape of the first, than a dry pear of the shape of the second ; 

 but I should make no calculation as to period. To settle 

 upon any fixed and determinate rules, we need more carefully 

 noted observations. And these the head-work of a- skilful 

 manipulator must supply. 



But, labor of this kind need not be limited to artificial 

 hybridization. It is desirable to be putting the natural com- 

 binations more constantly to the test by raising all practicable 

 products from seeds. Every farmer can well afford to be 

 always carrying forward one experiment, at least, of this kind. 

 I saw in a garden, last spring, a thousand rhubarb plants, to say 

 the lea?t, raised from a single sowing three years before. They 

 occupied but a small space alongside the wall, and nearly every 

 one was better worth raising than nine-tenths of the plants 

 bought at the nurseries — cuttings from giant stocks. But, and 

 this chiefly interested me, there were six or eight plants which 

 were worth all the rest, and which will take their place, as 

 soon as disseminated, among the rarest productions of the day. 

 The stalks were nearly as large as a man's wrist, and as succu- 

 lent and tender as large. 



I have, sometimes, in this light, felt like regarding the disas- 

 trous potato rot of 1848, as not altogether so unmixed a 



4 



