324 HOW CROPS GROW. 



lived than their progenitors. For this reason hybrids 

 are much valued in fruit- and flower-culture. 



Some genera of plants have great capacity for produc- 

 ing hybrids. The Vine and the Willow are striking 

 examples. The cultivated Vine of Europe and Western 

 Asia is Vitis vinifera. In the United States some 

 twelve distinct species are found, of which three, Vitis 

 riparia, Vitis cestivalis, and Vitis labrusca, are native to 

 New England. Nearly all these kinds of grape cross 

 with such readiness that scores of new hybrids have been 

 brought into cultivation. "The kinds now known as 

 Clinton, Taylor, Elvira, Franklin, are hybrids of V. 

 riparia and V. labrusca. York-Madeira, Eumelan, 

 Alvey, Morton's Virginia, Cynthiana, are crosses of V. 

 labrusca and V. cestivalis. Delaware is a hybrid of V. 

 labrusca, V. vinifera, and V. cestivalis. Herbemont, 

 Rulander, and Cunningham are hybrids of V. cestivalis, 

 V. cinerea, and V. vinifera. The vine known in France 

 as " Gaston-Bazille " is a hybrid of V. labrusca, V. cesti- 

 valis, V. rupestris, and V. riparia."* The foregoing 

 are "spontaneous wild hybrids." The "Bogers Seed- 

 lings," including Salem, Wilder, Barry, Agawam, Mas- 

 sasoit, etc., are examples of artificial hybrids of V. vin- 

 ifera and V. labrusca. 



Hybridization between plants is effected, if at all, by 

 removing from the flower of one kind the stamens 

 before they shed their pollen, and dusting the summit 

 of the properly-matured pistil with pollen from another 

 kind. Commonly, when two plants hybridize, the pollen 

 of either will fertilize the ovules of the other. In some 

 cases, however, two plants yield hybrids by only one 

 order of connection. 



The mixing of different Varieties, as commonly hap- 

 pens among maize, melons, etc., is not hybridization, 



*Millardet in Saclis's Lectures on the Physiology of Plants, 1887, p. 786 



