WHAT OTHERS SAY. 451 



PLANT INTERMARRIAGES. 



Nature seems to forbid these in the vegetable world, as distinctly 

 as reason, experience and sacred law join with her to forbid them in our 

 own world. Dr. Asa Gray, during his life, poured light on the many 

 and singular contrivances by which cross-fertilization is provided for 

 among plants, and he does not hide his light under a bushel, but gives 

 illustrations and explanations so clear- as to be plainly understandable 

 with the aid of the very sligtest acquaintance with botany. This use- 

 ful study is well worthy of attention, if only to afford a better apprecia- 

 tion of the mysteries and wonders of plant-life, which are really as inter- 

 esting as an Arabian Night's tale. But the study is worth more than 

 this. It is obviously an intent of the Creator that the plants that meet 

 us everywhere, and as to which we are continually asking, " What are 

 they for.^" should n^t merely be trampled underfoot, but should be made 

 subjects of examination. They are, like the rainbow, tokens of promise, 

 of hope, of resurrection, and of a brighter, happier world. 



Among the expositions which Dr. Gray gives of Mr. Darwin's de- 

 ductions from his wonderful stores of observed facts and test experi- 

 ments, the comparisons ingeniously made between the seedling plants of 

 exactly equal vigor and age, set in the same pot and same soil; one self- 

 or close-fertilized, and the other fertilized by pollen from a distant 

 plant — are especially notable. The difference in growth was always 

 in favor of the latter, and, in many cases, so great that it seems to 

 promise wonders in the way of improving varieties. All of us who are 

 dwellers in the country, know that wheat does not sport in varieties or 

 mix so freely as Indian corn. The blossom of wheat has been said by 

 experienced hybridists to be fertilized before it leaves the sheath, so 

 that, in case of this valuable grain, man's aid seems to be wanted, not 

 only through all the many perils and risks of its growth in the fields, but 

 for the infusion of vigor into the seed through a selection and convey- 

 ance of select and non- related pollen. We hear of but few cross-breeders 

 who have made wheat a successful subject of their useful skill. Yet it is 

 perhaps the plant, above all others in temperate climes, which promises 

 the greatest results and the most widespread advantages from efforts in 

 this line. W. 



