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IRISH GARDENING. 



DECEMBER 



"IRISH GARDENING." 



an illustrattd monthly. 

 Offices— 53 Upper Sackville Street. Dublin. 

 Subscription. — 3/ per annum, post tree. 



Editorial. — All Editorial Communications, copy, anJ photographs 

 should be addressed to " The Editor." 



Business Communications.— All letters regarding Subscriptions, 

 Advertisements, and other business matters must be addressed to 

 " The Manager." 



Pure-Bred Seeds. 



By Professor James Wilson, M.A., B.Sc. 



IF there is one thing more than another we 

 should like to impress upon horticulturists 

 it is the necessity for having pure seeds — 

 that is, seeds that will produce the plants they 

 are bought to produce, and the need for hav- 

 ing pure seed is becoming greater and greater 

 every year. Nowadays we almost live upon 

 hybrids ; upon things that are new, and when 

 every producer of a new variety is rushing into 

 the market with his product, so as to reap the 

 financial benefit of his work, it is becoming 

 more and more urgent that we look closely into 

 the probability of the seed we buy producing 

 what we want. Not only must the horticul- 

 turist do this, but the seedsman must do so also. 

 Indeed, it is more incumbent upon the seeds- 

 man than upon the horticulturist, for he is likelj- 

 to suffer the greater loss if he does not do so. 



Our hybrids — our new plants — are all the 

 blending of one or more varieties. We have 

 known for many years that it is not the habit of 

 a hybrid to breed true, and that the elimination 

 of the wastrels has to be carried on for many 

 years before they do so, that even in some 

 cases they are never eliminated. 



We now know why hybrids do not breed 

 true, and knowing this the method of eliminat- 

 ing the wastrels becomes simple and clear. It 

 is not to be accomplished by the mere annual 

 rogueing. Given time that method may suffice, 

 but between the hurry of producers to sell and 

 hurry of horticulturists to have the new plants 

 in their gardens, the thing must be done with 

 such system as we now know to be possible, 

 which will achieve its purpose with all the 

 greater speed. 



The system really begins and ends with the 

 producer, and depends upon Mendel's law of 

 heredity. Our efforts to get pure seed affect 

 the retail seedsman first of all, then the whole- 

 sale men, but through them, eventually and pro- 

 perly, they reach the producer of new varieties. 



Let us imagine a case. A producer of new 

 varieties sees two plants of the same species, 

 one with a desirable colour of flower, the other 

 with a desirable shape of leaf, and he wishes 

 to get these two desirable characteristics com- 

 bined in the same plant. He crosses the two 

 original plants, and perhaps he finds both desir- 

 able characteristics combined in the progeny. 

 But he must not assume these progeny will breed 

 true again. He will find some of them breed- 

 ing true for the flower, some for the leaf; but, 

 unless by some very lucky chance, he cannot 

 expect ordinary rogueing to give him a race 

 that will he freeof reversions to the parents with 

 which he first started. He must cross his hybrids 

 again with one or other of his original plants 

 before he can say for certain that they are pure. 



Take the case of the flower. In the first 

 cross the undesirable flower was apparently 

 obliterated, although it afterwards turned up 

 again. If he now crosses the desirable flower 

 in his hybrid with the flower which was appar- 

 entl}' obliterated, and he finds again that the 

 same flower is obliterated, his hybrid is pure, 

 and will continue to breed as desired. If some 

 of the undesirable flower turns up, his hybrid is 

 not pure. 



We have taken a ver\- simple case ; but all 

 our hybrids work very much in the same way, 

 and all can be made pure before they leave the 

 breeder's hands. Hence, our suggestion that 

 the horticulturist should insist upon pure seed, 

 and that by pressing upon his seedsman he 

 should eventually bring pressure to bear upon 

 the original producer. The effect would be 

 not only to bring more pleasure to the horti- 

 culturist but more satisfaction and greater 

 pecuniary gain to the producer. 



Professor W. Bateson, F. R. S.. the well-known 

 Cambridge biologist, celebrated for his researches in 

 matters relating to heredity, has accepted the director- 

 ship of the John Innes Horticultural Institution at Mer- 

 ton. Surrey. This institution has been established under 

 the conditions set forth in the will of the late Mr. John 

 Innes. of Merton, which provides for the carrying on of 

 a horticultural research station imder the direction and 

 control of three trustees, acting in concert with 

 represenlativesof the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, 

 and London, or other bodies interested in the advance 

 of agriculture or horticulture. The appointment of 

 Professor Bateson as the first director is a good 

 beginning, and is an indication that the council intends 

 the work to be carried on upon sound, scientific lines, 

 and to keep always in view the bearing of its research 

 upon the practical problems in horticulture. 



