THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



101 



poison to kill lice all with effect, but none so per- 

 lect as this. / M. T. 



Ellisburg, Jefferson co., Dec. 30, 1841. 



OF TJIE IttlPROVEMKNT OF UACES. 



From Liiuiley's HoiiicuUuic, 



What has been staled in ihc preceding chap- 

 ter, concerning the preservation oC the races ol 

 domesiicatcd plants, is in some measure applica- 

 ble to their improvement, because the very 

 means employed to preserve those peculiarities of 

 habit which render them valuable, will, (iom 

 time to time, be the cause of still more valuable 

 qualities making their appearance. There are, 

 however, other poinis ol' great importance on 

 which the gardener has dependence. 



A fixed improvement in the quality of the pro- 

 duce of a plant can only be obtained in one of two 

 ways; either (Z('rec^/(/, by accidental variations in 

 itself, or indirectlij, by the process of muling. 



Direct alterations in the qualiiy of seedling 

 plants often occur from no apparent cause, just as 

 those accidtyilal changes, called " sports," in the 

 color or form of the leaves, flowers, or fruit, of 

 one single branch of a tree, occasionally breakout, 

 we know not why. Of these things, physiology 

 can give no account ; but it is known that, when 

 such sports appear, they indicate a permanent 

 constitutional change in the action of the limb 

 thus affected, which changes may be sometimes 

 perpetuated by seed, and alwajs by propagation of 

 the limb itsell, when propagation is practicable. 

 It is in this way that many of our fruits have pro- 

 bably, and several of the Chinese chrysanthe- 

 mums have certainly, been obtained. It was 

 apparently thus that the nectarine emanated from 

 the peacb. It is possible that many new forms 

 of shrubs might be procured by keeping these 

 facts in view, and that climbers might be deprived 

 of their climbing habits ; for it is known that the 

 handsome evergreen bush called the tree ivy, 

 which grows erect, with scarcely the least tenden- 

 cy toclimb, has been proc-ured by propagating 

 the fruit-bearing branches of trees of considerable 

 age. 



But we are by no means destitute of the power 

 of procuring, with considerable certainty, improv- 

 ed varieties, by an application to practice of phy- 

 siological principles. In the last chapter has been 

 shown the importance of securing the production 

 of seed by plants in the most healthy state possi- 

 ble, because a robust parent is likely to afford a 

 progeny of similar habits to itself. In annuals, 

 however, this is apparently restrained within 

 narrower limits than in woody plants, from the 

 great difficulty of fixing anew peculiarity in the 

 Ibrmer, and the fiicility with which it may be ef- 

 fected in the latter case, by means of buds, cut- 

 tings, grafts, and similar modes of propagation. 

 The great object of the scientific gardener who 

 desires to improve the varieties of plants upon 

 principle will be, then, by artificial means, to bring 

 the parent from which seed is to be saved as near 

 as possible to that state at which he desires the 

 seedling to arrive. 



It is well known that the abstraction of fiuit 

 and flowers augments the vigor of the branches. 



or of the parts connected with them, and that the 

 removal from the Ibrmer of any part which takes 

 up a portion of the food employed in the support 

 of ihe flowers increases their efficiency. Thus 

 those varieties ol the potato, which will neither 

 flower nor fruit otherwise, may be made to do 

 both by slopping the developeinent of tubers ; and, 

 ontheoher hand, ihe size and weight of the 

 lubers thenreelves are increased by preventing ihe 

 formation of Howers and fruit. The course, then, 

 to take, in obtaining the largest possible tubers in 

 a new variety of the potato, would be, in the first 

 place, to effect that end temporarily, but during 

 several successive seasons, by abstracting all the 

 Howers and fruit, and by such other means as may 

 suggest themselves ; and then to obtan the most 

 perfect seed possible by a destruction of the lu- 

 bers during '.he season when seed is finally to be 

 saved. JVlr. Knight found, in raising new va- 

 rieties of the peach, that, when one stone contain- 

 ed two seeds," the plants these afforded were infe- 

 rior to others. The largest seeds, obtained from 

 the finest fruit, and from that which ripens most 

 perfectly and most early, should always be selec- 

 ted (^Hort. Trans.,}. 39); and, in his incessant 

 efforts to obtain new varieties of fruit of other 

 genera, he had reason to conclude that the trees, 

 liom blossoms and seeds of which it is proposed to 

 propagate, should have grown at least two years 

 in mould of the best quality ; that during that 

 period they should not be allowed to exhaust 

 themselves by bearing any considerable crop of 

 fruit ; and that the wood of the preceding year 

 should be thoroughly ripened (by artificial heat 

 when necessary) at an early period in the au- 

 tumn ; and, if early maturity in Ihe fruit of the 

 new seedling plant is required, that ihe fruit, 

 within which the seed grows, should be made to 

 acquire maturity within as short a period as is con- 

 sistent with its attaining its full size and perfect 

 flavor. Those qualities ought also to be sought 

 in the parent i'ruils, which are desired in the off- 

 spring ; and he (bund that the most perfect and 

 vigorous progeny was obtained, of plants as of 

 animals, when ihe male and fismale parent were 

 not closely related to each other. (See the 

 Horticultural Transactions, i. 165.) 



There are no processes known to the cultivator 

 so efficacioijs in producing new varieties as that 

 adverted" to in the last paragraph, that is to say, 

 muling or cross breeding; and it is to these 

 operations, more than to any thing else, that we 

 owe the beauty and excellence of most of our 

 garden productions ; more, however, 1 think, to 

 cross breeding than to muling. It was entirely 

 by the first of these processes that have been 

 so greatly multiplied and improved our fruits for 

 the dessert, and the gay flowers that adorn our 

 gardens. The pelargonium, the calceolaria, the 

 dahlia, Ihe verbena, and a thousand others — 

 what would they be bat simple wild flowers, with- 

 out the power of man exercised in this way? 

 "To the cultivators of ornamental plants," says 

 Mr. Herbert,* " the facility of raising hybrid 

 varieties affords an endless source of interest and 

 amusement. He sees in the several species of 



* See much the most valuable and practical account 

 of cross breeding and muling wiiich has been yet pub- 

 lished in regard 'o horticulture, in the AmaryUidace(£ 

 of the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, p. 335, et seq. 



