116 



REMARKS ON HYBRIDISING. 



^nd narrow leaves, was inoculated at High- 

 clere by Azalea pontica, Mr. Gower found 

 that its seeds produced plants much more 

 like the male than the female parent. Ex- 

 ceptions, or apparent exceptions to this, do 

 no doubt exist, and hybrids could be found, 

 who are either half-way between their father 

 jind mother, or more like the mother than 

 the father ; but as far as any means of judg- 

 ing at present exist, these Avould seem to 

 be the exception and not the rule ; and 

 therefore the greater influence of the male 

 may be taken as a tolerably safe guide in 

 all experiments upon this interesting art. 



Some of the actual results of hybridising 

 have already been pointed out ; others will 

 suggest themselves to any one acquainted 

 with gardening. Let us now consider what 

 further may be hoped for. 



What further 1 Why, we have only 

 stepped over the border, and the whole field 

 of hybridising lies widely spread before us ; 

 jts boundaries are lost in the horizon, and 

 we shall find them still receding as we ad- 

 vance. 



In directing attention to this part of the 

 subject, we do not here propose to include 

 the plants cultivated by the farmer, but to 

 confine ourselves strictly to garden plants. 

 What agricultural applications hybridising 

 may have, will be found hereafter in the 

 other department of our Journal. 



The ends which it is hoped to gain by 

 all operations directed towards improving 

 the races of plants, are many. To increase 

 the size of flolvers, to improve their colour, 

 to approximate their form to some assumed 

 standard of perfection, to enlarge the foliage 

 as in esculents, to render tender plants har- 

 dy, to make barren races fertile, to improve 

 their flavor, by changing acidity or auste- 

 rity into sugary matter, to exchange early 

 for late varieties, are all results that have 

 been gained by hybridising, and which, 

 therefore, maybe gained again. We propose 

 to consider each of these points separately. 



How far the size of Jloioers may be thus 

 increased, can be judged of from the Eose, 

 the Dahlia, the Fuchsia, Pansy, Pelargo- 

 nium, and Cactus. All these plants are, in 

 their wild state, small-flowered ; cultivation 

 alone has increased them greatly, but cross- 

 ing has rapidly carried it further. By ino- 



culating the common Heartsease with the 

 large-flowered Pansy of the Altai moun- 

 tains, a degree of vigor was infused into 

 the former, which we could not have hoped 

 to obtain by any other means. In other 

 cases, as in that of the Dahlia, by observing 

 the first symptoms of a tendency to enlarge 

 in the natural seedlings, and then crossing 

 the best of them, the tendency has received 

 an immediate impulse,which has by degrees 

 brought about the enormous flowers we are 

 all familiar with. The flowers of Cereus 

 speciosissimus were inoculated with the pol- 

 len of Cereus grandiflorus by Messrs. Davis 

 & Co., of Wavertree ; and the imviediaie 

 result was a seedling from C. speciosissi- 

 mus, whose flowers were ten inches in dia- 

 meter. In prosecuting this branch of im- 

 provement, care should be taken to select 

 the finest possible flowers on both the father's 

 and mother's side, and to render them un- 

 naturally large by destroying all their neigh- 

 bors. The plants, too, should be in the 

 most robust health ; for we may be sure 

 that no point of constitutional vigor is to be 

 neglected in the parents, when a general 

 and permanent increase of it is desired in 

 their ofispring. It is moreover conformable 

 to the experience of the late Mr. Andrew 

 Knight, that even the plumpest seeds are 

 more likely to bring a fine seedling than the 

 weaker. 



Among the commoner plants to which at- 

 tention might be drawn under this head, 

 are not merely those which, like the Verbe- 

 na, the Petunia and the Cactus, are already 

 in the florist's hands, but others that have 

 yet gained little attention. Take the Cle- 

 matis, for example : our wild Traveller's 

 Joy is unknown in gardens, although it has 

 a fine foliage, and a great vigor of growth. 

 Why not cross it with C. florida or viticel- 

 la, or even flammula ? Clematis viticella 

 is a bad grower, but has beautiful blossoms ; 

 it, too, may be certainly improved by some of 

 the finer species. Then, again, the Minorca 

 Clematis, with its fine speckled blossoms, 

 is tender, and flowers very late ; what would 

 be the effect of an intermixture of it and 

 C. montana, which is so hardy and flowers 

 so early ? What a noble plant, too, is C. 

 azurea to work with ! It must not, how- 

 ever, be crossed with any of the red spe- 



