GARDENING. 105 



fjuence of great importance," namely, theit "the new 

 variety will take chiefly after its polleniferous or male 

 parent, and that at the same time it will acquire some 

 of the constitutional peculiarities of its mother. The 

 limits within which experiments of this kind must be 

 confined are, however, narrow. It seems that cross- 

 fertilization will not take place at all, or very rarely, but 

 between different species, unless these species are near- 

 ly 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 by seed, its progeny re- 

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



'Hence it seldom or never has happened that domes- 

 ticated 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 va- 

 rieties, obtained by the intermixture of two pre-existing 

 varieties, are not less prolific, but on the contrary often 

 more so than either of their parents; witness the 

 numerous sorts of Flemish pears, which have been rais- 

 ed by cross-fertilization from bad bearers within the last 

 twenty years, and which are the most prolific fruit trees 

 with which gardeners are acquainted; witness also Mr. 

 Knight's cherries, raised between the May duke and 

 the graffion, and Eve's golden drop plum, raised from 

 the green gage fertilized 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.' 



To cause bad bearers to be prolific, the means are, 

 *1. By ringing the bark. 2. By bending branches 

 downwards. 3. By training; and 4. By the use of 

 different kinds of stocks. All these practices are in- 

 tended to produce exactly the same effects by different 

 ways. Whatever tends to cause a rapid diffusion of 

 the sap and secretions of any plant, causes also the for- 

 mation of leaf buds instead of flower buds; and on 

 the contrary, whatever tends to cause an accumulation 

 of sap and secretions has the effect of producing flower 

 buds in abundance.' Ringing, by tending to prevent 



