48 Variation of Plants under Cultivation. 



One must also refer to the variation of habit in plants. In 

 many garden plants there has been a great effort made to reduce 

 the height of flowers so as to make them more suitable for garden 

 purposes. This has been greatly adopted with annuals, so that 

 there are few popular species in cultivation of which it is not 

 possible to obtain dwarf, compact strains of seed. Now that so 

 many perennial plants are being- raised from seed the process is 

 at work with them also. Given time and unremitting care, it is 

 difficult to say to what length these changes might not be carried. 

 Cultivated vegetables show their effects, and they have not 

 reached iinality any more than the flowers, which I have mainly 

 dealt with to draw your attention to the subject, as well as because 

 they are more familiar to myself. 



HYBRIDI8INO. 



Before turning to a few final observations, you will, perhaps, 

 think for a few minutes upon the great question of hybridising 

 and cross-fertiHsing flowers. Many as have beea the changes 

 effected in plants by their aids, one feels confident that these are 

 but the preludes to immeasurably greater results in the time to 

 come. If we look at the Begonia as we know it ; the Clematis ; 

 the Fuchsia ; the Gloxinia ; the Pansy ; the Viola ; and the many 

 other flowers which have been taken up by the plant hybridiser, 

 we are amazed at the changes which have taken place within 

 comparatively few years. Artificial hybridisation is the most 

 powerful weapon which has been put into the hand of the 

 gardener to effect variations in his plants, and, as yet, we have 

 only crossed the threshold of the changes it is destined to make. 

 It has its limits, doubtless, but when we see what it has done, 

 and think of the hundreds, nay thousands of genera which man 

 has never touched, we cannot but foresee that a vast prairie of 

 work, and not a field alone, lies before us. What its limitations 

 are we cannot yet tell. I had, last summer, a curious illustration 

 of these in seeing through the garden of a skilled hybridiser who 

 has for a few years been working on some plants he had taken in 

 hand. Among them were some Liliums, among which we have 

 a few good hybrids. One species was pointed out to me which 

 had been fertilised about three years before with the pollen 

 from another. Not only did the Lilies not produce seeds, but 

 they are only gradually recovering from the disturbance caused 



