12 HINTS ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR 



towards the same result viz., the development of characters 

 or qualities which are useful to man, and the suppression wholly 

 or partially of all those we do not require. Culture means 

 change, and change means motion ; culture then means motion 

 towards a superior standard of excellence. M. Naudin points 

 out that motion is the transition of living organisms, as in plants, 

 from one equilibrium or balance of characteristics, or state of 

 repose, to another, and its course is begun by a breaking down 

 of those characters which are weakest or which possess the least 

 fixity ; hence it follows that change in that direction becomes 

 easier, inasmuch as the stronger characteristics have a better 

 opportunity of progressing after the barriers which hitherto 

 restrained them or kept up the equilibrium are destroyed or 

 partially so by culture or hybridism. Given almost any variety 

 of vegetable, fruit, or flower, and by the due regulation of its 

 food i.e., moisture, light, heat, and air it is in the cultivator's 

 power to change it in size and flavour or in the period at which 

 it arrives at maturity, and seedlings from it will also to a certain 

 extent perpetuate the characters which culture has developed 

 in the parent. To prolong the season of fruits, vegetables, 

 and flowering or decorative plants, both early and late races 

 are desirable ; and if late-ripening varieties have the additional 

 merit of being good keepers, so much the better or more useful 

 do they become. A good constitution, especially in the case 

 of hardy plants, is a great consideration, since this in general 

 means increased hardiness, and easier, less expensive, and more 

 extensive culture ; one of the greatest of all drawbacks to the 

 more general culture of Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots, choice 

 Plums, and many other fruits in our climate being the preva- 

 lence of late spring frosts, which often in a single night destroy 

 the fruit prospects of a whole season. Both English and French 

 cultivators experience the effects of late frosts, although the 

 latter rarely lose a crop, simply because they go to great 

 trouble in sheltering their trees during the blooming season. 

 Cheap as are glass structures at the present day, every one with 

 a garden cannot obtain them ; but by cross-breeding, our 

 nurserymen might soon supply these cultivators with hardier 

 and later-blooming varieties than those now generally grown. 

 Cross-breeding is, however, not the only way in which we may 

 obtain earlier or later varieties of our fruit-bearing or orna- 

 mental trees ; for a tree or even a portion of a tree a branch, 

 twig, or even a single bud is not unfrequently so affected by 

 temperature, light, and other correlative causes, as to be earlier, 

 later, or otherwise different from its fellows. Fruit from the 

 " tops of the trees on the sunny side " is well known to be 



