264 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



THE LAY OF THE ANCIENT 

 HYBRIDIST. 



BY P. E. BUCKE, OTTAWA. 



A comic scientific poem, read before the winter 

 meeting of the Fruit Growers Association at Toronto, 

 February, 1883. 



In the days of Columbus, so well known to fame, 



Who over to Cubd did gallantly pass, 

 There lived a botanical, physicist, man. 



Who did much to improve our whole garden "sass." 



He lived in the light of sunnier climes, 



Some thousands of miles from this beautifnl town : 

 He grew luscious greens for the sake of the dimes. 



And he met with a large and increasing renown. 



But selections and hybrids were chiefly his plans, 

 To secure the results which his mind had conceived, 



He didn't care much for old nature's poor shams ; 

 In the best that would flourish he only believed. 



He thought on this question by night and by day. 



In the old Alexandrian lib'ry he read 

 All those classical books which philosophers say 



Would addle one's fancy, or quite turn your head. 



In the study of Greek he made a long pause 

 Over Anaximander, that wonderful man, 



Who believed that condensation of air was the cause 

 Of the world bodies formed on an aeriform plan. 



His conceptions were clear, fundamental and bold. 

 The development theory he knew to be true. 



And by deepcosiuological knowledge he told 

 That the spheres when first formed were excessively 

 few. 



Heraclites, that sage was no myth to his mind : 

 In currents dame nature conceived, was his view ; 



The father of all was the struggle of kind, 

 Perpetual change making everything new. 



Empedoclese taught accidental conjuncture 

 Of forces which act and react, was the cause 



Of the first germs of life on this globular structure, 

 Which slowly developed by physical laws. 



That the forms which existed in ages of old 



Were produced out of matter which never has rest. 



And that those which survived were the fittest he 

 told, 

 To exist in the future as being the best. 



The conclusion he came to when study was o'er, 

 Was to "go it alone," as we say m this age ; 



Cut out a new road in the hybridist lore. 

 So that next generations might call him a sage. 



So he set himself down to steady hard work, 

 To cross a large fowl with a suitable viae, 



And he swore that his duty he never would shirk 

 Until mind and matter closely combine. 



To come at this wonderful comical trick. 



Of a miracle, chemical, monstrosity, 

 He thought liimself hoarse, and he got pretty sick. 



It haunted him so in the land by the sea. 



The pollen he chose was the yolk of an egg. 



Hard boiled and rubbed down into powder so fine. 



That it looked like the stuff which sticks to the peg. 

 Or the style of a flower on which the bees dine. 



A gourd was procured with a stamen whose cavern 

 Could swallow whole gravel and not mind the load. 



Into this our fecientist brushed in his pollen. 

 And waited results with the patience of Job. 



To his joy one fine day at the end of September 

 He passed by his goiird on his way to his swine. 



When he heard the "cheep, cheep," of a chick 

 young and tender, 

 And he knew it came from his hybridized vine. 



To say that he sprang twenty feet in the air. 



Would perhaps be a little o'erstepping the mark ; 



But surprise and confusion did raise up his hair, 

 And his sensitive organs gave him a rough jerk. 



But collecting his senses and looking around, 

 He found that his brain- box had led him astray. 



For the old " yallar " hen that was lost had been found. 

 Having made her a nest in the cool on the clay. 



Like Jonah, she hatched in the shade of her vine, 

 And brought out her cliickens in comfort and ease ; 



She never once thought of the science sublime, 

 Which grows drumhead cabbage on root of sweet 

 peas. 



The man of deep thinking was awfully sold. 

 Kept dark on his plans for improving the race. 



Lest his friends should combine, and turn him out in 

 the cold. 

 And his enemies give him a much wanner place. 



Stick closer to nature, you then may succeed 

 In developing something that's really some good ; 



But to cross a shanghai with a pumpkin indeed. 

 Would produce wings and giblets, but next to no 

 food. 



Note.— Anaximander,^ who lived 625 B. C, assumed 

 that out of infinity of matter through eternal revolu- 

 tions, numerous world-bodies came into being as con- 

 densations of the air, and that the earth, too, as one 

 of these world-bodies, issued out of a state originally 

 fiuid and afterwards aeriform. He also taught the 

 theory that the earliest living creatures on this globe 

 originated in water from the action of the sun. From 

 these creatures, later on, were develo)>ed the land in- 

 habiting i)lant8 and animals, which left the water and 

 adapted themselves to life on dry land. Man likewise, 

 gradually worked himself up from animal organism, 

 and, in reality, from fishlik*' aquatic animals. 



One hundred years later, Heraclites of Ephesus, 

 pro]>ouiided the principle that a great uninterrupted 

 process of development pervaded the whole universal 

 world, that all forms are involved in everlasting cur- 

 rents, and that struggle is "the father (if all things," 

 sei.ing th-it nowhere in the world exists absolute rest ; 

 that all standing still is but apparent, we are com- 

 pelled everywhere to assume a perpetual change of 

 matter, a const.int variation Ot fiirm. One form thrust- 

 ing out its predecessor, the new usurping the place of 

 the old. 



Later on, Empedoclese of Agrigent in Sicily, assum- 

 ed that the everlasting universal struggle was caused 

 by the laws of attraction and repulsion of atoms. He 

 also taught that purposive forms or organisms came 

 into existence through the accidental conjunction of 

 counteracting forces. Out of this great struggle the 

 living forms now existing have issued victoriously, be- 

 cause they were best prepared for the battle, and 

 therefore most capable of life. 



PRINxaP AT T5E STBAM PRESS ESTAS^ilSHllKNT QT COpP, CI/ARK 4 CO. COLBORNE STREET, TORONTO, 



