178 THE ROSE. 



natural crossing or J ybridization takes place. 

 Thus, by simply gathering and sowing the seeds 

 of one variety, like General Jacqueminot, it has 

 been possible to produce a large number of dis- 

 tinct kinds of great value. This, as stated above, 

 has been the practice up to the present time, but 

 it is a practice on which we should no longer ex- 

 clusively depend ; on the contrary, for the roses 

 of the future we should mainly rely on artificial 

 crossing and hybridization, or, in other words, on 

 manual fecundation. 



Laffay, who raised most of the Hybrid Ee- 

 montants of value that were sent out previous 

 to 1850, is understood to have produced many, 

 or the most, of them, by crossing varieties of the 

 Bourbon Kose with the old crimson Rose du Roi. 

 Yibert, Hardy, and some other of the French 

 rosarians, are also credited with having produced 

 many of their most beautiful sorts by manual 

 fertilization, but as no record has been kept of 

 the varieties used as parents, the result of their 

 work is of no use to the hybridizer of the present 

 day further than it affords proof that definite 

 results are more certain from artificial than from 

 natural crosses. 



