HEREDITY IX PLAKTS. 69 



1st. Just as the flowers are opening. 2.1. Ten days later, 

 and so on at intervals of ten clays. Sometimes six or 

 seyen sprayings are beneficial. 



CHAPTER XII. 

 Heredity in Plants. 



Breeders of horses, horned cattle, sheep and swine, 

 acknowledge that merit or demerit is inherited, and it is 

 the same with plants ; they can be improved by selection 

 and cross breeding, as the sexes are almost as distinctly 

 developed in vegetables and flowers as in animals, and, 

 with a few exceptions, present themselves to our notice 

 in three forms, viz. : 



Sexes in Plants. — First — Bi-sexual, in which both 

 sexes are i^resent as part of the flower, as seen in the 

 fully developed pistil and stamens of the apple and pear, 

 the cabbage and radish. 



Second — ^lonoecious, in which the sexes are fonnd 

 in distinct flowers produced by the same plant, as in 

 corn, melon, cucumber, squash. 



Third — Dioecious, in which the sexes are borne on 

 distinct i)lants, as asparagns and spinach. 



Remote Parents of Cultivated Varieties. — The 

 cabbage grower of to-day would scarcely recognize, in 

 the coarse wild cabbage of the seashore of Denmark, the 

 parent of our improved varieties ; nor the celery lover 

 the bitter plant, as found in its native habitats; nor 

 the epicure in watermelons the bitter, indigenous melons 

 found covering whole districts in Africa. Tlie present 

 development in plants is the result of heredity in selected 

 specimens. The original individuals of every garden 

 vegetable and every garden flower were caught, tamed 



