108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



What wonders this art has already accomplished in the pro- 

 duction of new and improved varieties in the vegetable king- 

 dom ! How much it has done for the potato, the turnip and 

 other vegetables, producing varieties of great excellence. 



We have not yet fixed the exact limits within which hybrid- 

 ization may be effected, but we have learned some of the laws 

 which control the process. Others yet remain to be discovered, 

 and which bring to the pursuit a zest more fascinating than the 

 games of chance, and with infinitely better results. But let us 

 continue to sow the seeds of their best fruits, whether fertilized 

 by themselves or by the hand of man. The former often pro- 

 duce good fruits, and with those which have been impregnated 

 by the wind or insects, the ^chance for variation is much in- 

 creased ; but the union, by cross-fertilization, of the properties 

 of two good parents, doubles the chance of obtaining a superior 

 variety. 



It is not necessary to be the possessor of a large garden to 

 produce many new varieties of fruit. Some of the most suc- 

 cessful experiments of this kind have been made in city gardens 

 and grounds of small extent, as in the case of Dr. Brinckle's 

 raspberries. Dr. Kirtland's cherries and Dr. Wylie's grapes. 

 How often do we hear of seeds, sown by the delicate hand of 

 woman in her flower-pot, which have vegetated and produced a 

 fruit that has caused after-generations to rise up and call her 

 blessed. Neither is the time that must elapse before the produc- 

 tion of a new seedling fruit so long, as has been generally sup- 

 posed. In some soils and climates, like that of California, seed- 

 ling fruits often come into bearing in five or seven years ; and 

 even here in New England the period of fruiting may be greatly 

 accelerated by grafting into dwarf stock or the limbs of bearing 

 trees ; and we have known the grape, in one year, from the 

 seed, produce fruit, by inarching the baby seedling on a strong 

 vine. 



The doctrine that scions taken from seedling stocks and 

 grafted into trees, however strong and healthy, will not yield 

 fruit earlier than the mother plant, although held by so emi- 

 inent a savan as Mr. Knight, President of the London Horti- 

 cultural Society, has been proved to be fallacious ; and numer- 

 ous instances have occurred under our own observation where 

 seedling pears have been grafted on bearing trees, and have 



