256 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



some important blemish.. One race of animals is strong, bony, 

 and long-legged ; another is plump, small-boned, weakly, and 

 of diminutive stature ; a third is light, active, carries no flesh, 

 and of delicate constitution ; and more ad infinitum, have 

 peculiar characteristics. There is the strength of one, the 

 beauty of another, the strong constitution of a third ; and some 

 desirable property may be found in each and all. The judi- 

 cious mixing of these qualities has produced the splendid races 

 of animals which this country breeds. In horses, sheep, cattle, 

 dogs, poultry, and even rabbits, the most extraordinary im- 

 provements have been made, but it excites no wonder. We 

 see them, admire them ; we hear that this is one breed, and 

 that is another, and there our admiration is at its height, 

 without moving our curiosity or wonder. Few, however, think 

 what very similar means are used to produce improvement in 

 flowers and plants ; few know that there are various races of 

 vegetables with just such difierences ; that branches, as it were, 

 of the same families have their peculiarities, some very desi- 

 rable, others the reverse, and that by crossing the breeds of 

 these different subjects, we effect improvements that are most 

 important. We are not going into the discussion of whether 

 or not the term " hybridizing " is properly descriptive of the 

 process by which plants are improved, because it wouM be 

 out of place here. The word is commonly used to express a 

 mixing of the breed of plants; but strictly speaking, it should 

 be applied only to that kind of cross which, like the horse and 

 the ass, produce a mule, — ^where in fact the breed stops, nature 

 permitting no further deviation. It is well known that the 

 mule, which is a complete cross between the fleetest and the 

 most enduring of animals, is a most valuable beast. But hy- 

 bridizing is accepted too generally in flowers and plants, and is 

 applied to the mere crossing of two plants of the same family, 

 as a scarlet and a white azalea or geranium, or other plant, 

 differing perhaps in colour or habit. For our own part, we 

 have always regarded the easy crossing of two differently 

 habited plants, and the produce of which in turn bore seed, 

 as a proof that they were of the same family ; and there is 

 no stronger proof that those who classed the rhododendron 

 and azalea together, were right, than the fact that a plant like 

 neither, and yet bordering on both, is produced, and it seeds 

 as freely as the parents. However, we accept for the present 

 the word hybridizing to mean the crossing of races, whether 



