NEW VARIETIES— HYBRIDIZATION. 195 



It should be distinctly understood that while several per- 

 fect-flowering plants may be placed under the sash with a 

 pistillate, the pollen of only one of these can fertilize a pistil. 

 Mixing pollen from different kinds will never produce in a 

 seedling the qualities of three or more varieties. The seed- 

 Img is the product of two kinds only. Inclosing the plants 

 in a frame insures that all the pistils are fertilized by one or 

 the other of the perfect- flowered varieties that are so fine as 

 to promise a better combination of excellence than yet ex- 

 ists. The appearance of the seedling will probably show 

 which of the kinds formed the combination, but often there 

 would be uncertainty on this point, I think. 



Mr. E. W. Durand, who sent out the Black Defiance, 

 Great American, Beauty, Pioneer, and several others, claims 

 that the ^- true method is to propagate by pairs, each parent 

 possessing certain distinctive features." " My course," 

 he writes, in a paper read before the N. J. State Horticul- 

 tural Society, '' is to select my pistillates after years of trial, 

 subject them to severe tests, and place alongside of each such 

 a staminate as I think will harmonize and produce a certain 

 desired effect. Another pistillate plant, of the same variety, 

 is placed far away from the last, with a different staminate, 

 and so on, till I exhaust the staminates or perfect- flowering 

 kinds that I wish to test with that pistillate variety. Of late 

 years, I have used but two or three kinds of pistillate plants, 

 and they are a combination of excellence. I never show 

 them to my most intimate friends, and the public know 

 nothing about them. The years of trial and experiment 

 necessary to produce such plants must necessarily discour- 

 age a beginner ; yet it is the only course that will lead to 

 success." 



I think that Mr. Durand takes too gloomy a view of the 

 subject, and I can see no reason why any one starting with 



