HYBRIDIZING. 261 



course. It may not be known to every one, tliat if the pips 

 and stones of the finest fruit be sown, the great bulk of the 

 produce ^vill have run back to the wild state ; and acres have 

 been sown and planted for nothing but to work as stocks 

 with the good fruits ; but as every good variety we possess 

 must have been raised from seed, it is impossible to form an 

 idea of the new and good varieties that might have been 

 among the stocks doomed to support other known kinds. 

 This is the fault we have to find with everybody who raises 

 anything from seed ; they do not examine their crops at 

 different times, to see if there be anything new among them. 

 In a field of peas, there may be some a week sooner in bloom, 

 — a most desirable quahty ; some immense bearers, — another 

 desirable point; others last longer green, and in yielding 

 condition, — an advantage by no means unimportant; how- 

 ever, they are all usually served alike — aU condemned to the 

 sack and the market. 



It is to be kept in mind, that some of our very best im- 

 provements in fruit, flowers, plants, and vegetables, have been 

 accidental ; that is, there was no merit belonging to the raiser, 

 who has sown seed as other people sowed it, and has dis- 

 covered among the produce a something new, and has made 

 the best of it. But how much the chances of obtaining these 

 things might be increased by proper means ! We may, with- 

 out difficulty, attribute all these changes to the crosses of 

 breeds ; and it is no bad study to consider, first, the good and 

 bad qualities of plants, flowers, vegetables, and fruits ; and in 

 the second place, to promote those crosses which are likely to 

 improve the new varieties. If, for instance, we have a gold- 

 pippin apple, which is, for a small apple, almost faultless, and 

 a ribstone-pippin, which is a fine large apple, equally faultless, 

 the natural conclusion is, that if we could effect a cross between 

 these two, we might obtain new ones, unUke either, but par- 

 taking of both, and combining two exquisite flavours in a 

 middle-si2;ed apple, or get the flavour of the ribstone in a small 

 table-apple, or the flavour of the golden-pippin with a larger- 

 sized, but equally handsome fruit. Again ; if we have an 

 apple of delicious flavour, and handsome appearance, like the 

 nonsuch, which will not keep, and a fine keeping apple, like 

 the russet, or the French crab, a cross here might produce a 

 handsome and high-flavoured apple, that would keep. In 

 short, we might obtain the good but opposite qualities of any 



