THE HYBRIDIZATION OF THE CAMELLIA 

 JAPONICA AND ITS VARIETIES, 



WITH THE TREATMENT OF THE OFFSPRING. 



[By Marshall P. Wilder, Esq., President of the Massachusetts Horticuhural Society.] 



The following remarks have been prepared in compliance with a request 

 of the Committee of Publication, to furnish an article on the cross-breeding 

 of plants ; but more particularly to give some account of the method of 

 practice, and the results of my experiments in the production of hybrid 

 varieties from this beautiful family of Flora. 



In treating of this branch of vegetable physiology, I do not expect to 

 promulgate any new theory in explanation of the process by which nature 

 carries on this part of her secret handiwork, or of the laws and principles 

 upon which an All-Avise Providence has based the mysterious system of 

 the re-production of the races of beings and plants. 



My earliest experiments were pursued more as a matter of recreation 

 than as a scientific study, and although in many instances quite satisfactory, 

 still it is to be regretted, that from causes which could not be controlled, 

 by one busily engaged in other avocations, some of them need farther 

 confirmation. I shall not, therefore, pretend to lay down any fixed rules, 

 from which there caji be no departure under any circumstances or treat- 

 ment, but simply refer to such as are well established in my own mind, 

 and which, it is believed, Avill by similar process produce like results. For 

 the success attendant on these efforts, I am largely indebted to the researches 

 of the late Rev. Mr. Herbert, of Spofibrth, England, puljlished many 

 years since, in a article on " Crosses and Hybrid Intermixtures." (See his 

 AmarylHdacese. ) 



The Reverend gentleman to whom I have alluded, in his investigations 

 into the structure and functions of vegetables, discovered in his experiments 

 with the Camellia, that, " single floivers, or those raised from single ones,''^ 

 were the best as breeders, or seed bearers ; and that, for the production of 

 fine double flowers, it was important that the pollen, used for impregnation, 

 should be borne on a petaloid anther, thus becoming petaloid pollen ; and 

 further, that this was still better, if from a double flower. Another precau- 

 tion was to prevent the plant making any new wood, by cutting out the 

 young shoots as fast as they appeared, thereby forcing as much nutriment 

 as possible to the newly formed germ. 



Practising on these suggestions, and believing that every change effected 

 by cross-fertilization is a remove from the normal form, and therefore more 

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