PROPAGATION BY SEEDS. 35 



attention to the subject, that this curious principle of 

 vegetable economy holds true, at least in so far as re- 

 gards fruit-trees. 



The late Mr. Knight, to whom this ingenious theory 

 is due, conceived the idea of supplying the lack of fine 

 old varieties by semination. It further occurred to him, 

 that advantage might be taken of that tendency which 

 plants exhibit on repeated sowings, to adapt themselves 

 to the climates in which they are raised, so that trees of 

 warmer countries may thus become habituated to colder 

 regions. He therefore devoted much of his attention 

 to the production of improved and robust varieties; and 

 his zeal and labors have been rewarded by the Acton 

 Scott Peach, the Ingestrie and Downton Apples, and 

 many others, in almost every sort of hardy fruit. Mr. 

 Knight entertained the opinion, deduced, we may pre- 

 sume, from experiment, that more is to be expected from 

 hybrid varieties, than from the mere reproduction of 

 old kinds; he therefore had recourse to the nice opera- 

 tion of dusting the pollen of one kind on the pistil of 

 another. He opened the unexpanded blossom of the 

 variety destined to be the female parent of the expected 

 progeny, and with a pair of fine-pointed scissors, cut 

 away all the stamens, while the anthers were yet un- 

 ripe, taking care to leave the style and the stigma un- 

 injured. When the female blossom, thus prepared, 

 came naturally to expand, the blossoms of the other 

 variety destined to be the male parent were applied. 

 Mr. Knight has often remarked in the progeny a strong 

 prevalence of the constitution and habits of the female 

 parent : in this country, therefore, in experimenting on 

 pears, the pollen of the more delicate French kinds, 

 such as Crasanne, Colmar, and Chaumontelle, should 



