26 Production of New Varieties 



valuable. Other bunches, prepared at the same time, upon the 

 same vine, and supplied with pollen at the proper time, were all fer- 

 tilized, and produced full and perfect bunches. The Logan and 

 Taylor's Bullitt both set their fruit unevenly and imperfectly, and 

 produce usually small, straggling, and unhandsome bunches. When 

 fertilized in the manner above stated they have produced handsome 

 and compact bunches, the only ones of that character upon the vines. 



" Seedlings almost uniformly indicate their parentage by their 

 foliage. That of hybrids with the foreign vines is usually deeply 

 lobed ; often having much more the form of the foreign than the 

 native leaf, although grown from the seed of the native parent 

 Some have foliage intermediate or resembling both in some degree. 

 Also, in the crosses between natives, some resemble one parent and 

 some the other. Others again seem a mixture of both." 



An easier process is to plant them in close contact, so that the 

 fruiting branches may intermingle. Out of a large number of seed- 

 lings thus obtained, there is a chance of a fair portion of them being 

 crosses. It was in this way that Dr. Kirtland produced the seed of 

 all his new and excellent varieties of the cherry.* 



When a cross is obtained between two different species, instead of 

 between mere varieties, it is termed a hybrid. But while varieties 

 of the same species intermingle freely, the operation rarely succeeds 

 between fruits of different species. The gooseberry, currant, and 

 black currant, species of the same genus, and nearly related, have 

 never produced a hybrid. Neither has any ever been obtained 

 between the apple and the pear, or the pear and the quince. But 

 different species of other plants, as the Heaths, and some of the 

 Cacti, intermingle freely. The Rhododendron will fertilize the 

 Azaleas, and the Red Cedar has been made to inoculate the Ameri- 

 can Arbor-vitae, though both these examples are between plants of 

 different genera. Hybrids are frequently sterile ; or if they possess 

 the power of reproduction by seed, the progeny returns to the state 

 of one or the other of its parents. 



* The interesting fact that fruit trees which grow alone and distant from any other sorts, 

 are more apt to reproduce these sorts from seed with but little variation, than seeds from the 

 same sorts in mixed orchards, shows to what extent the spontaneous crossing or mixture of 

 varieties may be constantly going on in such orchards. 



