HYBRIDIZING. 263 



are employed. The visits of flies and other insects to many 

 different flowers in a day, occasion very many crosses that a 

 man could not even think of. But we are naturally impatient, 

 and therefore use the means which are at hand, by performing 

 the work ourselves, whenever we have a distinct object in view. 

 Let us suppose that our object is to obtain a yellow moss-rose. 

 The most natural conclusion we should come to would be this : 

 that the parent, or seed-bearing plant should be a moss-rose 

 that is not too double ; and that we should procure all the 

 yellow roses that yield pollen, and with these impregnate the 

 moss — some with the yellow briers, some with the yellow 

 China, or tea kinds, — in fact, some with every yellow rose we 

 could render subservient to our purpose, and so multiply our 

 chances of success. Impregnate all these yellows with the 

 pollen of the moss. If this were well done, the chances would 

 be in favour of producing something very new, one way or 

 the other. But there would be every probability of the moss- 

 rose seeds producing more mosses than the seed of the yellow 

 kinds, because the parent will produce mostly plants of its 

 own habit; and that the chinas, briers, and other yellow roses, 

 would produce similar families to their own, but various 

 modifications of the moss colours. The blooms are not so 

 numerous on the rose but that we might carry on this arti* 

 ficial impregnation easily; but if we desired to fertilize any- 

 thing on which flowers were very numerous, as the cauliflower 

 or brocoli, our plan would be to grow the plants that we desired 

 to cross close together, and leave tlie work of impregnation to 

 the bees, flies, and other insects, and to the wind, which is a 

 mighty agent in these operations. 



In lilies, amaryllis, tulips, and many other subjects where 

 the fl.owers are of a manageable size, artificial imjDregnation 

 has been carried on to a considerable extent ; and we have 

 now a very extensive collection of very beautiful hybrids — so 

 called — but which bear seed, and therefore are not such crosses 

 as in animals are called hybrid. However, in flowers and 

 plants, the result of a cross between two of the same family is 

 60 called, and we are to be understood as meaning such, when 

 we use the term. It is only when these hybrids become so 

 varied and so numerous as to be kno^vn as seedling varieties, 

 that the term is dropped. 



Just now florists are anxious to obtain a fine race of yellow 

 picotees, although none but white-grounds are esteemed at 



