60 THE POTATO 



be dusted on the pistil which is to be impregnated. 

 Care must also be taken that no other pollen is 

 allowed to get near that pistil. Some hybridizers 

 put a glass vase over the cross-fertilized plant, 

 and others follow the plan of tying a muslin bag 

 over t*he pistil for the same purpose. 



"One difficulty that often confronts the hybrid- 

 izer is that the plant he wants to use as a 'male' 

 may not be in bloom at the time that the plant he 

 wants to use as a 'female' is ready for the impreg- 

 nating process. Another difficulty is that, owing 

 to the 'apple'-bearing capacity having been almost 

 entirely bred out of the heaviest cropping varieties, 

 the plant may not produce any 'apples' though the 

 pistil has been duly impregnated. The taking off 

 of all the blooms but the one to be impregrrated has 

 a marked effect in the way of making the plant 

 produce 'apples.' Some hybridizers pick away the 

 growing tubers from the roots for the purpose of 

 causing the plant to expend its energy in the pro- 

 duction of 'apples' in place of tubers. With all 

 these devices, however, the hybridizer may pol- 

 linate twenty different blooms, and consider him- 

 self very lucky if he gets 'apples' on one or two of 

 them. When the 'apples' are full-grown they are 

 gathered and the seed washed out from the sur- 

 rounding juice, each 'apple' containing from 100 to 

 300 seed. 



"The seed are sown in fine rich mould in a green- 

 house in the early spring, and after they have 

 sprouted the young plants are planted out in the 

 garden or elsewhere. Each of these transplanted 

 plants will produce a few tubers, mostly all of small 

 size. The first year's seedlings are not invariably 

 of small size, however. Thus at the first show of 

 the National Potato Society at London in 1904 



