AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



cultivators, gives importance to the production of improved va- 

 rietie*s. 



This is most commonly effected by careful and long-contin- 

 ued SELECTION, to which high culture should be superadded, 

 in which we continually choose the most perfect or earliest 

 plant, or fruit, or pod from which to obtain our seed. 



Upon this latter principle rests the old familiar rule of tak- 

 ing for seed the cucumber or melon growing nearest to the 

 root, etc. This rule, however, is seldom rigidly adhered to, and, 

 if it were, would naturally tend to produce an earlier but small- 

 er-fruited variety than the original. 



Perhaps the most promising course for improvement is to 

 choose the second, and generally finer fruit for seed ; or, if the 

 object be simply to avoid depreciating the variety, the whole 

 crop, being left ungathered from the first, will yield satisfac- 

 tory seed. Unless, indeed, it should happen that from pecul- 

 iar circumstances the plant makes a very extended or a sec- 

 ond growth, in which case the earlier product alone should be 

 permitted to seed. 



New and improved varieties are also sometimes obtained by 

 careful and intelligent INTERMIXTURE, in which we aim to 

 combine the. desirable qualities of both the old varieties in the 

 new one we expect as the product. This valuable result is 

 also sometimes effected accidentally. In such intermixture the 

 general rule is that the product will have the form and ap- 

 pearance of the fertilizer, with the character or peculiarities 

 of the fruit-bearing plant. To illustrate this : Very early peas 

 are generally small. Suppose we desire to produce a variety 

 in which the seed should be larger, but the crop not materially 

 later. Then, on the general rule given, we may fertilize the 

 cedo nulli with the Spanish dwarf, and expect to accomplish 

 our purpose ; but if we fertilize the latter with the former we 

 ought not to expect success, though it is not inconceivable that 

 we might succeed, from the accidental concurrence of certain 

 occult causes or combinations connected with the previous proc- 

 esses through which these varieties may have passed in ar- 

 riving at their present state. 



Intermixture is effected only between kinds that blossom at 



