APRIL. 183 



An incidental protection may sometimes be afforded by 

 saving the seed of plants which happen to blossom when 

 other varieties of the same species are not in bloom. Thus 

 no difficulty will be found in securing the earliest and latest 

 sorts of all vegetables. It may also be enough, with several 

 kinds, simply to select the first fertilized blooms as being 

 quite likely, to say the least, from position and a diminished' 

 tendency to hybridize, to be sufficiently pure. In this class 

 I should be free to place the pea, bean, carrot, fee, though 

 with these it would not be difficult to apply the directions 

 yet to be given in more material cases, or for choice varieties. 



Indeed, as a general rule it may be said, that the first ma- 

 tured fruits of all hermaphrodite varieties are most likely to 

 produce vigorous and pure seed. So a good gardener should 

 always save the seeds for the next year before he begins to 

 regale himself, or others, with the results of his care and skill. 

 It is poor economy, in this respect, to leave the latest radish, 

 or the latest lettuce plant to mature the seed, which the first 

 would have produced earlier and better, because in a more 

 favorable season. 



But more than this care is requisite in other cases, when 

 especial reference is to be had to propagating the variety in 

 all its particular properties. Such plants may be divided into 

 two classes, — those in which the stamens and pistils are uni- 

 formly found in one blossom, or cluster of blossoms, and those 

 in which distinct and separate, and sometimes remote, blos- 

 soms contain the two organs. 



As to the first, the hermaphrodite, it is generally only 

 necessary to protect the blossoms from all contacts, by wind 

 or insect, with the pollen of blossoms from other trees or 

 plants. But it would be prudent in such cases to observe 

 that the pistil is fecundated by pollen from its own stamens ; 

 but ordinarily, as I have said, nature will not fail in effecting 

 the work. In the second class, we must not only protect the 

 blossom, in both parts, but we must also add mechanical 

 agency to supersede those means upon which the fertilization 

 is usually dependent, and which our protection has cut off. 



For the necessary protection, fine lace bags will be found 



