SOME RESULTS IN HYBRIDIZATION OF BEARDED IRIS 
BY 
M. A. Jd. BLISS (F. à. H. S.) 
There are three methods of plant breeding, and by each good results 
may be, have been obtained. By saving and sowing the seed from 
some exceptional flower and, in the case of annuals, with careful and 
continuous selection for some years, races of new and beautiful flowers 
have been produced. A somewhat more definite method consist 
in collecting together the finest varieties procurable, including, 
where possible, new species, and either hand fertilizing at random, or 
Ri allowing them to be cross fertilized by insects. Among the great 
number of seedlings that can be thus obtained, there is always the 
possibility of some few occuring which by a rare combination of 
characters will prove to be of exceptional merit, or even quite new 
departures. This may be called the extensive method. Then there 
is the third method, — the intensive method, — of selecting the 
parentsand making each cross-fertilization with a definite aim. And 
this in the long run, if records are kept, is productive of the widest 
and most far reaching results, for each step forward that is made can 
be used intelligently for still further improvements, an increasing 
knowledge of the material worked with, is gained; and possibilities are 
not only suggested, but the way of obtaining them is indicated. 
When, therefore, one proposes to take up the cross-breeding 0° 
any flower with the object of improving it for the garden, it is well 
to have some definite aims. Not that these aims which one start 
with will necessarily be our final or only aims. Far from it. For 
as the work progresses the horizon ever widens and possibilities 
appear which at first we could hardly have thought of, and aims 
that in our ignorance seemed possible have, with the experience 
gained, to be abandoned as unattainable, or, at least, modified and 
limited. Itis, indeed, one of the charms of plant breeding, that you 
launch out into the unknown, along a road the end of which you cannot 
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