COMMON GARDEN PLANTS 111 



from the garden of a sailor's widow, and no one 

 has ever found the Hubbard squash in any other 

 country except as introduced from this stock. It 

 was never known where the sailor obtained the 

 seeds that produced it. 



Reference has been made to the ease with 

 which the various squashes may be hybridized. 



It is necessary to grow squashes of different 

 species at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile 

 or there is danger that they will be cross-fer- 

 tilized and the strains rendered impure. So of 

 course the plant developer has no difficulty in 

 effecting almost any cross he may wish. It is 

 only necessary to take pollen from one flower 

 and deposit on the pistil of another to have rea- 

 sonable assurance that the cross will be effected. 



But the results of such hybridizing are usually 

 altogether disconcerting. The hybrid progeny 

 seem to branch in every conceivable direction. 

 A gardener of mine declares that hybridized 

 squashes "go crazy," so widely varying are their 

 forms and so little subject to prediction. More- 

 over, it is exceedingly difficult to fix any new 

 type thus developed or to restore an old type 

 thus disturbed by crossing. 



Even if the hybrids do not vary greatly in the 

 first generation they may become entirely chaotic 

 in the second. 



