582 Lijidlei/s Guide to the Orchard 



mediate varieties by the intermixture of the pollen and stigma 

 of two different parents is, however, that which most deserves 

 consideration. We all know that hybrid plants are constantly 

 produced in every garden, and that improvements of the most 

 remarkable kind are yearly occurring in consequence." All 

 cases, however, of cross-fertilisation are subject to " a practi- 

 cal consequence of great importance ; " namely, that " the new 

 variety will take chiefly after its polliniferous or male parent ; 

 and that at the same time it will acquire some of the con- 

 stitutional pecuharities of its modier/' Mr. Sweet's experience 

 (p. 205, 206.) corroborates this position. " The limits within 

 which experiments of this kind must be confined are, how- 

 ever, narrow. It seems that cross-fertilisation will not take 

 place at all, or veiy 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 bj' seed, its progeny 

 returns back to the state of one or other of its parents. 



" Hence it seldom or never has happened that domesticated 

 fruits have had such an origin. We have no varieties raised 

 between the apple and the pear, or the quince and the latter, 

 or the plum and cherry, or the gooseberry and currant. On 

 the other hand, new varieties, obtained by the intermixture of 

 two preexisting varieties, are not less prolific, but, on the con- 

 trary, often more so, than either of their parents : witness the 

 numerous sorts of Flemish pears which have been raised by 

 cross-fertilisation from bad bearers within the last twenty 

 years, and which are the most prolific fi-uit trees with which 

 gardeners are acquainted ; witness also Mr. Knight's cherries, 

 raised between the mav duke and the srafiion, and Coe's golden 

 drop plum, raised from the green gage fertilised by the yellow 

 magnum bonum. It is, therefore, to the intermixture of the 

 most valuable existing varieties of fruit that gardeners should 

 trust for the amelioration of their stock." 



Considering varieties, whether those already originated, or 

 others which hereafter may be, in reference to their individual 

 merits or demerits, the editor remarks that the merits of any 

 given variety " may still be either ehcited or destroyed by 



* We suspect the possibility of originating hybrids is scarcely thus 

 limited. Mr. Campbell, gardener to the Comte de Vandes, raised foxgloves 

 from D. ambigua, whose onda were fertilised by the pollen of Gloxin/a spe- 

 ciosa; and they vary considerably from the mother, and assimilate re- 

 motely to the male parent. PoientiUa Russell/oTza is, we believe, an 

 instance of a hybrid whose anthers are sterile; i?hododendron Russellia/zM/w, 

 of one in which the sexual organs are perfect : so it is stated by iSIr. Sweet, 

 in his description of this hybrid, as we have noticed, p. 341. 



