HYBRIDISING AND CROSS-BREEDING. IO3 



the seeds was intermediate between that of those of the two 

 parents.* Another instance is quoted from a French pamphlet 

 in the ' Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London ' 

 (new series, 1866), vol. i. p. 51, from which it appears that one 

 of the objects with French wine-growers is to obtain Grape-juice 

 of a deep colour ; and a Grape named Le Teinturier is remark- 

 able as having coloured juice, but is not a prolific bearer. The 

 idea of crossing this variety with Aramon and other prolific 

 wine Grapes having pale juice occurred to M. Bouschet, and 

 he succeeded in raising a race of Grapes with coloured juice ; 

 but a more important result from a scientific point of view was 

 obtained from these experimental attempts. The berries of 

 the pale-juiced varieties fertilised with pollen from Le Tein- 

 turier yielded coloured juice the first year, while others 

 on the same bunch (but unfertilised by that variety) re- 

 tained their original character. Yet another case, but this 

 time a rather doubtful one, occurred' in Mr J. Watson's 

 nursery at St Albans, where a Cucumber plant bore a globular 

 fruit, exactly like a Melon in form, together with normal 

 Cucumbers. This is figured and described in the ' Gardeners' 

 Chronicle,' October 4th, 1873, P- I 335j ano ^ i supposed to. 

 have been brought about by the accidental fertilisation of a 

 Cucumber flower by pollen from some Little Heath Melons 

 growing in close proximity in the same house. At a meeting 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, Mr Thos. 

 Meehan made the following highly interesting and important 

 observation : " Mr Arnold, Paris, Canada, determined to 

 observe the effect of cross-fertilisation on Indian Corn (Zea 

 mays), and to this end he procured a brown variety, with a 

 circular dent on the apex, and from this he raised one plant. 

 The first sets of flowers were permitted to be fertilised with their 

 own pollen, in order to test whether there was any reversionary 

 tendency in the plant or the pollen of any other variety in the 

 vicinity. The ear which Mr Meehan laid on the table was the 

 result, every grain being like its parents. The Corn or Maize 

 plant produces two ears on each stalk. As soon as the '. silk ' 

 pistils of the second ear appeared, the pollen, in a ' tassel ' :of 

 the common yellow Flint Corn (a well-known American variety 

 with yellow grains) was procured, and set in a bottle of water, 



* It is quite possible, and indeed highly probable, that Maximowicz has 

 here attributed to the action of foreign pollen a result which is due to 

 specific variation. Nearly all Lilies are very variable in habit, and but 

 little reliance can be placed on the form of any fruits, unless grown and 

 compared in large quantities. Professor Dyer has, moreover, pointed out 

 that L. bulbiferum in the Kew Herbarium bears fruit like that of L. 

 davuricum, as described by the Russian botanist. 



