118 BOOK OF FRUITS. 



" Such being the mode in which the pollen 

 influences the stigma and subsequently the 

 seed, a practical consequence of great impor- 

 tance necessarily follows, viz. that in all cases 

 of cross fertilization the new variety will take 

 chiefly after its polliniferous or male parent ; 

 and that at the same time it will acquire some 

 of the constitutional peculiarities of its mother. 



" Thus ? the male parent of the Downton 



Strawberry Was the Old Black, the female a 

 kind of Scarlet ; in Coe's Golden Drop Plum, 

 the father was the Yellow Magnum Bonum, 

 the mother the Green Gage ; and in the 

 Elton Cherry the White Heart was the male 

 parent, and the Graffion the female. 



" The limits within w r hich experiments of this 

 kind must be confined are, however, narrow. 

 It seems that cross fertilization will not take 

 place at all, or very rarely, between different 

 species, unless these species are nearly related 

 to each other ; and that the offspring of the 

 two distinct species is itself sterile, or if it 

 possesses the power of multiplying itself by 

 seed, its progeny returns back to the state of 

 one or other of its parents," 



