30 NEW AMERICAN ORCHARDIST. 



successfully cultivated in a more southern climate, or, 

 what is equivalent, in the confined and warmer atmosphere 

 of cities. Those varieties, therefore, which no longer suc- 

 ceed with us, may yet continue for a while to flourish in 

 the middle regions of the Union, arid especially in the in- 

 terior, beyond the limits and influence of those cold east- 

 ern breezes from the Atlantic, which, rising with the 

 diurnal appearance of the sun, visit us so regularly and 

 constantly at stated seasons. 



There are some, however, who dissent from these opin- 

 ions and conclusions opinions which the continued ex- 

 perience of the ages, present as well as past, seems only 

 the more abundantly to confirm. They do not, indeed, 

 deny the fact of the destruction, but they deny the cause. 

 In their attempts to sustain the credit of the old fruits by 

 rendering them immortal, they would ascribe their deteri- 

 oration to some supposed alteration of climate, and not of 

 ours alone, but of the climate of all those countries where 

 the same proofs of their mortality have appeared. 



We await the proofs of such changes ; meanwhile, in 

 their absence, I believe all will agree, that in adopting this 

 theory, we adopt the safest course. 



Mr. Knight and some others in England, and the Comte 

 de Coloma of Malines, have succeeded in raising some new 

 and valuable varieties of fruit from the seeds obtained by 

 hybridism or cross fertilization. In describing the princi- 

 ples and modes of practice of this art, I have had recourse 

 to Phillips, to Knight, and especially to Lindley and M. 

 Fries Morel, to all of them collectively. The same prin- 

 ciples are alike applicable to trees of ornament and to 

 flowers. But we are authorized in asserting, that this is 

 not the mode which has been so generally adopted by Dr. 

 Van Mons and others in Belgium, and that the mode by 

 which so many new and very extraordinary varieties of 

 fruits have been there produced, differs essentially from 

 this which I am now about describing. 



The outer circle of the slender threads or filaments, 

 which rise around the centre of the blossom or flower, are 

 called the stamens, or males, and the central are called 

 pistillum, pointals, or females. 



The stamens bear at their summit a small ball, called the 

 anther , which contains the fertilizing powder called the 

 pollen. 



