LAWN AND DOORYARD 



lective breeding, but the hybridizing of plants 

 that have such small and inconspicuous flowers 

 requires a good deal of skill. To such as wish to 

 undertake it, however, it may be said that the 

 process of cross-fertilization is in no wise differ- 

 ent in principle from that employed in the case 

 of other flowers. It will be necessary in many 

 cases to work with a magnifying-glass, and deli- 

 cacy of manipulation is essential. But if you have 

 acquired skill through practice on the larger 

 flowers of orchard and garden, the fertilizing of 

 the grasses will offer no insuperable difficulties. 



In particular, you may find interest in experi- 

 menting with some of the large ornamental 

 grasses, such as pampas grass, which may readily 

 be hybridized, and greatly developed as to size 

 and artistic quality of the plume-like flower heads. 

 Some of the pampas grasses bear the staminate 

 and pistillate flowers in separate panicles, and 

 hence may be cross-fertilized by merely dusting 

 one flower cluster against another. At the time 

 when the pampas grasses were more in vogue than 

 they now are, Mr. Burbank developed many inter- 

 esting varieties, using precisely the same methods 

 of hybridization and selection that have been de- 

 tailed in connection with the development of other 

 plants. 



Other grasses with which anyone may work, 

 and which give promise of results of vast economic 

 importance, are the familiar cereals, wheat, oats, 

 and rye. Here fertilization is difficult, as the 

 flowers are borne in closed receptacles; but, on 



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