52 THE SUBURBANITE'S HANDBOOK 



a work particularly adapted to these trees for the reason of their 

 coming into fruit so speedily, consequently by budding the product 

 of our cross fertilization we will be able to produce fruit in two 

 years, and judge of the success and value of our work, while under 

 ordinary conditions we are compelled to wait several years before 

 we can obtain results. 



Hybridization and cross fertilization consists of removing the 

 polen from the stamen of one flower and placing it on the pistil 

 of another blossom of the same species but different variety, and we 

 take the seeds of the fruit produced by that cross and plant them; 

 the trees that fruit will produce will bear fruit altogether dif- 

 ferent from either of the original parent's product, and may or may 

 not produce a continuation of the qualities of both. They may be 

 better or worse than either or both their parents, larger or smaller, 

 handsomer or less attractive, and at all events a new creation, due to 

 your skill and enterprise. Having procured after careful nursing a 

 tree of this hybridized stock, we are naturally anxious to know what 

 it amounts to, but it would take years waiting till that tree naturally 

 bore fruit, which might after all be worthless; or again, a really 

 valuable improvement upon any former product. In the one -case 

 you would dig it up and throw it away, or in the other, propogate it 

 to the limit and perhaps make a fortune out of it. All our valuable 

 fruits have been obtained in this way and the originators have been 

 paid large sums of money for the new variety. An instance of this 

 come to mind in the case of the celebrated Fay's Prolific Red Cur- 

 rant. Mr. Fay developed this currant by hybridization, and it was 

 so superior to other red currants that Mr. Joslyn, a nursery man, 

 took it in hand and paid Mr. Fay some $14,000 in royalties for it. 

 I give this from memory and may be subject to some correction. 

 Anyhow, a large amount of money was realized by the originator. 

 Now then, we have got a new variety of fruit tree raised and are, 

 of course, desirous to know what it will amount to, so we take a 

 bud from it, when the sap is flowing freely, and insert it into one of 

 the dwarf trees and cause it to develop into a fruit spur, and the 

 next season it will bear new fruit. 



The whole process is very simple and interesting and anybody 

 who has a love for flowers can practice the art successfully, for all 

 flowers are subject to the same rule. It was in this way the cele- 

 brated Mrs. Lawson carnation was produced, for which Mr, Lawson 

 paid $30,000. 



