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HTBUIDIZIXG. 



introducing a greater variety of tints, in improving the habit of growth, and 

 in combining in one plant the perfections of many. 



We have no doubt that a few hints on the process by which these results are 

 attained will be interesting to some of our readers at the present season ; and we 

 offer them the more readily, that the operation is of the simplest character, and 

 may be performed by any intelligent person, and upon almost every description 

 of plant. 



If a blossom of any plant — one of the Lily tribe for example — be examined, we 

 observe (in this instance) at the bottom of the flower a green triangular body, 

 surmounted by a column one or two inches long, and terminated by an enlargement 

 which, at a certain period after the expansion of the flower, will be found covered 

 with a clammy secretion. These central organs are the gernien, or immature seed 

 vessel, with its style and stigma. Around them will be found six stamens, also 

 arising from the bottom of the flower, each consisting of a filament, or stalk, and an 

 anther, or case, borne at the summit, containing a coloured substance (the pollen), 

 destined to the fertilization of the ovules or young seeds contained in the germen. 

 When the flower first opens, the anthers will be found plump and smooth ; but in a 

 short period they will be observed to split longitudinally, and become mealy in 

 their appearance, from the escape of the pollen. 



These pollen-grains, when brought into contact with the neighbouring stigma, 

 protrude a number of extremely minute tubes, termed pollen-tubes, varying in size 

 from jjjjjg to jjjgjj of an inch in diameter, and including within them a portion of the 

 contents of the pollen grain, which consists of a semi-fluid matter, termed the 

 focdla. These tubes, which appear to be formed from the inner membrane of the 

 pollen grain, are believed to penetrate the loose tissue of the stigma, and to pass 

 down the style to the ovary, where they exert their fertilizing influence on the 

 young ovules. The purpose of this paper being, however, entirely practical, we 

 purposely avoid all further reference to the different theories promulgated on the 

 manner in which impregnation is affected ; it is sufficient to show that, unless the 

 pollen reaches the stigma, no perfect seeds will be ripened — an assertion easily 

 verified by cutting out the anthers of the Lily, or any other flower, as soon as it 

 expands, when the seed-vessel will be found to wither away ; and if, in some few 

 cases, it does become considerably developed, it will either yield no seeds, or only 

 such as have no reproductive power. If, however, after the stamens are removed, 

 others from a flower of the same, or of another species, are dusted on the stigma, 

 the seed-vessel will swell, and eventually ripen its seeds, exactly as in the case of 

 those blossoms from which their proper stamens had not been artificially removed. 

 In this consists the whole art and mystery of cross-breeding. But simple as the 

 actual conveyance of the pollen of one species to the stigma of another may be, 

 certain precautions are necessary to success, and if we desire to control the result, 



