HYBRIDIZING. 259 



common pains in crossing two plants of a different nature, to 

 produce a race between them ; while others content them- 

 selves with placing the plants together, and leaving I»[ature, 

 and her little assistants — bees, flies, and other insects — to 

 convey the pollen of the one to the pistil of the other ; and 

 each will in many cases be successful. The fuchsia mixed 

 directly; every conceivable variety of form, from the two 

 or three inch tube fulgens and its varieties, to the smallest of 

 our diminutive kinds, has been produced, and the fuchsia 

 now presents us with a dozen, or perhaps rather more, beau- 

 tiful varieties, which would be enhanced in value by the 

 entire destruction of the thousands which differ so little from 

 one another as to become mere weeds. 



Eut let it be borne in miad that the real object of this 

 artificial impregnation, so generally called hybridizing, is to 

 produce something between trv^o extremes, and that this is 

 the more profitably employed among the useful fruits and 

 vegetables. If, for in'stance, we could procure a Eussian 

 cauliflower that would stand all weathers, but a coarse one, 

 and perhaps too strong for English palates, it would be an 

 object worthy of our labour to cross the hardy coarse sort 

 with our more dehcately flavoured, tender, and handsome 

 varieties : the chances are that we might be rewarded with 

 a hardy race of good vegetables, and various grades between, 

 because so far as hardiness is concerned, the parent, or seed- 

 bearing plant, takes the lead. We might, in such a case, find 

 nineteen out of twenty as coarse as the kind the seed was 

 saved from, and the improvement but small and confined to 

 few ; but as all such work requires time, the improvement, 

 however small, must be regarded, and the work persevered in 

 another season. The best of the plants, though only a little 

 better, must be seeded from, or impregnated again with the 

 best cauliflower, and the produce tried again.. This is the 

 way to benefit by what is called hybridizing. Very few per^ 

 sons trouble themselves to raise grape vines, but if there was 

 a determination to obtain new kinds of grapes, the best way 

 would be to grow in pots such kinds as would, if mixed well 

 in any proportion, make new and better kinds, partaking of 

 the best qualities of two. For instance, the muscat of Alex- 

 andria is large and dehcious ; its only drawbacks are its 

 lateness and its colour ; the black Hamburgh is a sj)lendid 

 colour, but, beyond sweetness, it has little to recommend it j 



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