On Hybridizing. 115 



seed-bearers, however, need no such protection, although it must be considered to 

 forward rather than retard our aims.* 



It is now many years since I first took up this branch of culture ; I have reaped 

 some reward, and am still sanguine of greater success. I started a tyro with little 

 knowledge in store, and had to pay for learning by the way. The first and second 

 years of my practice I gathered the seeds promiscuously during winter, seizing every 

 pod that appeared large and plump, whether ripe or green. The production of these 

 sowings was a motley group, among them some good double Roses, and many very 

 brilliant-coloured single and semi-double ones ; but nothing worth bringing before 

 the public no star of the first magnitude. 



The subsequent year I took one step farther and kept the seeds of each group 

 separate, to ascertain to what extent the offspring departed from the parent in 

 external characters. This was done for two years, and enough of the plants raised 

 from these flowered to afford a little insight into the probable results. 



According to the statements of M. Boitard, there is scarcely any limit to the 

 variation of Roses produced from seed. He affirms that M. Noisette, a French 

 cultivator, has never sown seeds of the Chinese Roses (R. INDICA) without raising 

 some Scotch Roses (R. SPINOSISSIMA) from them. He states "This fact is not 

 supported by a solitary occurrence, but has been frequently observed by that 

 cultivator, and is further attested by the evidence of M. Laffay, who has raised 

 seedlings on an extensive scale, often as many as 200,000 in a single year." 



It were easy to conceive a mistake occurring in the gathering, storing, or sowing 

 of the seeds ; but when the facts have been noticed repeatedly, and by different 

 individuals of known probity and great horticultural attainments, the evidence, we 

 think, must be deemed conclusive. 



Thousands of seedlings have been raised here, and I have been searching them 

 through to see if anything corroborative of the above statement can be brought 

 forward. I find the variation of character greater than I had expected, and many of 

 the seedling plants approach nearer to the wild forms than to those from which the 

 seeds were gathered. The offspring of all kinds does not vary in the same degree. 

 The plants raised from seeds of the Chinese and Tea-scented are generally Chinese or 

 Tea-scented ; but twice from separate sowings have I found among them a single 

 plant resembling in every particular of leaf and growth the Dog-rose, but which 

 unfortunately has in both cases been destroyed by my workmen before flowering. 

 Seedlings from the Bourbons seem to be Bourbons, Hybrid Bourbons, and Hybrid 



* Since penning these remarks, I have raised from one sowing Moss Princess Alice and Hybrid Bourbon 

 Vivid, both superior varieties in their day. From another sowing I also raised Beauty of Waltham and Duke of 

 Edinburgh, in every respect first-class Roses, Princess of Wales, Red Rover, Lord Clyde, and many other sorts 

 useful for garden decoration. My most recent efforts have produced Crown Prince, Duke of Albany, Ella Gordon, 

 Florence Paul, Lord Bacon, Magna Charta, and several other promising varieties which are looked forward to by 

 many with great interest. 



