JANUARY. 21 



IMPROVEMENT AND PRESERVATION OF SPECIES. 



BY A. R. P. 



Mr. Editor, — You have often set forth in your Magazine 

 the advantages, which may result from careful hybridization; 

 and the gratifying results of thus changing the qualities of 

 vegetable life are seen every year in the new and valuable 

 varieties exhibited. That the combination of the properties 

 of two plants of the same genus, will often produce a variety 

 surpassing, in every desirable point, both the parents, is a 

 familiar fact ; and, as a fact, has very wisely and properly 

 stimulated an amount of experimenting from which horticult- 

 ure will derive unquestionable benefit. Of course, to be of a 

 reliable character, or to come properly under the head of hor- 

 ticultural science, all this must depend upon the skill to de- 

 vise, and care to carry out the experiments. We have no 

 right to claim any credit for accidental modifications, how- 

 ever advantageous. 



But this very facility of procuring new varieties may tend 

 to a neglect of the method of improving existing ones. We 

 do not mean that any one will be so insane as not to perceive 

 that good culture must be the basis of successful hybridiza- 

 tion, in so far as the vigor, to say the least, of the offspring, 

 must depend upon the vigor of the parents. Our point is, 

 that vigor, secured by culture, does more than communicate 

 itself through the seed. Culture develops the proper or pe- 

 culiar qualities of the parent ; and if, for instance, it be desir- 

 able to secure a hybrid, combining the good quality of one 

 pear, with the great size of another, it is particularly desira- 

 ble that by all the methods known to cultivators, each tree 

 should not only be thrown into its most vigorous condition, 

 but reach the highest development of its kind, before the fer- 

 tilization of one by the other takes place. This can scarcely 

 be done in one generation. 



Like produces like, we say. And varieties of vegetable 

 life have a faculty of improvement, quite analogous to animal 

 life ; a tact, that is, for civilization. But for this, the original 

 types would have remained fixed as they were. Under this, 



