110 GOOD FKOM CEOSSING. Chap. XVII. 



Here follows the evidence of an English gardener: 5 '' "I have this 

 " summer met with better success in my cultivation of melons, in 

 " an unprotected state, from the seeds of hybrids (i.e. mongrels) 

 " obtained by cross impregnation, than with old varieties. The 

 " offspring of three different hybridisations (one more especially, of 

 " which the parents were the two most dissimilar varieties I could 

 " select) each yielded more ample and finer produce than any one 

 " of between twenty and thirty established varieties." 



Andrew Knight 51 believed that his seedlings from crossed varieties 

 of the apple exhibited increased vigour and luxuriance; and M. 

 Chevreul 5J alludes to the extreme vigour of some of the crossed 

 fruit-trees raised by Sageret. 



By crossing reciprocally the tallest and shortest peas, Knight 53 

 says : " I had in this experiment a striking instance of the 

 " stimulative effects of crossing the breeds; for the smallest variety, 

 " whose height rarely exceeded two feet, was increased to six feet ; 

 " whilst the height of the large and luxuriant kind was very little 

 " diminished." Mr. Laxton gave me seed-peas produced from 

 crosses between four distinct kinds ; and the plants thus raised were 

 extraordinarily vigorous, being in each case from one to two or three 

 feet Jailer than the parent-forms growing close alongside them. 



Wieginann 54 made many crosses between several varieties of 

 cabbage; and he speaks with astonishment of the vigour and 

 height of the mongrels, which excited the amazement of all the 

 gardeners who beheld them. Mr. Chaundy raised a great number 

 of mongrels by planting together six distinct varieties of cabbage. 

 These mongrels displayed an infinite diversity of character ; " But 

 " the most remarkable circumstance was, that, while all the other 

 " cabbages and borecoles in the nursery were destroyed by a severe 

 " winter, these hybrids were little injured, and supplied the kitchen 

 " when there was no other cabbage to be had." 



Mr. Maund exhibited before the Boyal Agricultural Society 65 

 specimens of crossed wheat, together with their parent varieties ; 

 and the editor states that they were intermediate in character, 

 " united with that greater vigour of growth, which it appears, in 

 " the vegetable as in the animal world, is the result of a first cross." 

 Knight also crossed several varieties of wheat, 56 and he says " that 

 " in the years 1795 and 1796, when almost the whole crop of corn 

 " in the island was blighted, the varieties thus obtained, and these 

 " only, escaped in this neighbourhood, though sown in several 

 " different soils and situations." 



50 Loudon's ' Gard. Mag.,' vol. viii., M ' Uebor die Bastarderzeugung,' 

 1832, p. 52. 1828, s. 32, 33. For Mr. Chaundy's 



51 ' Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. i. p. case, see Loudon's ' Gard. Mag.' vol. 

 25. vii. 18:11. p. 696. 



52 ' Annal. des Sc. Nat.,' 3rd series, " ' Gardener's Chron.,' 1816, p. 

 Bot., torn. vi. p. 189. 601. 



53 'Philosophical Transactions,' ^ ' Philosoph. Transact.,' 1799, d. 

 1799, p. 200. 201. 



