STANDISH AND NOBLE 33 



perfection, if at all. At Highclere, the seat of the Earl of 

 Carnarvon, are large masses of Altaclarense and Russel- 

 lianum, 10 to 12 feet in height, which for the last two 

 seasons were well covered with flower-buds. Had the 

 weather been favourable they would have formed magnifi- 

 cent objects ; but unfortunately this was not the case, and 

 the whole were completely destroyed by frosts. 



" Knowing that the many disappointments of this char- 

 acter were exercising a retrograde movement in the taste 

 for hybrid Rhododendrons as they were then constituted, 

 about twelve years ago we commenced a series of ' cross- 

 ings,' with the view of remedying the great defects so 

 apparent in the earliness of blooming and susceptibility 

 to frost. In this we have been perfectly successful. By 

 crossing the American species again with the first hybrids, 

 such as Altaclarense, &c., we have still retained the rich tints 

 of the Indian kinds, with all the hardiness of the American ; 

 and what is of equal import, the results of such crossings 

 are the production of varieties which have a tendency 

 to bloom in a very young and dwarf state, and sufficiently 

 late in the season to escape spring frosts, producing their 

 flowers from the middle of May till the latter part of June. 



"As so little is known in connection with the nature and 

 effect of hybridising amongst plants, we shall take this 

 opportunity of endeavouring to describe, with reference to 

 the Rhododendron, some of the peculiarities which a very 

 extended practice has presented to us. We find that, 

 analogous to what is observed in the animal kingdom, the 

 wider the cross the more healthy the progeny, and that 

 breeding ' in and in ' produces weak and deteriorated 

 constitutions. We have a remarkable instance of this in 

 a batch of hybrids raised from R. caucasicum album (that 

 being a hybrid), fertilised by its own pollen. The plants 



C 



