ON THE QUINCE 
day than the common quince was in the time of 
the Romans. 
In hybridizing this peculiar fruit with the com- 
mon quince I worked with an open mind, anxious 
to see what result the experiment might bring 
forth. 
The pollen of the common quince was appliea 
to the pistils of the Chinese species. Pollenation 
was successful; the appearance of the young seed- 
lings grown the following season left no doubt of 
that. A glance showed that a certain proportion 
were hybrids, and even when they first broke the 
soil they presented much larger cotyledons of a 
different color from those of either parent. 
These seedlings were carefully planted in open 
ground at Sebastopol with some uncrossed seed- 
lings of the Chinese quince in the same row for 
comparison, the hybrids, however, being given the 
choice of soil and location. 
We have previously learned that hybrids usu- 
ally grow more vigorously than uncrossed seed- 
lings, but the case of these quinces proved a very 
notable exception to this rule. At the end of two 
years the Chinese quinces of pure stock ranged 
from eight to twelve feet high, while the hybrids, 
which had been given more room and the best soil, 
were dwarfs only six inches high, some of them 
even less, 
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