72 THE GEAPE CULTUEIST. 



CHAPTEE IX. 



HYBRIDIZING AND CROSSING. 



THESE are operations that should demand the attention 

 of every one who undertakes to produce new varieties. 

 If these are artificially performed, improvements are more 

 certain than if we depend wholly upon the natural varia- 

 tions occurring in vines grown from seeds which have not 

 been influenced by artificial fertilizing. 



Many of our best varieties of grapes as well as other 

 fruits owe their superiority in a great measure to the 

 careful manner in which the flowers of the parent plant 

 were fertilized. 



The two words hybridizing and crossing are used indis- 

 criminately by many writers in this country who follow 

 the European custom of calling every plant that shows a 

 mixture of two varieties a hybrid. This is an error which 

 we should avoid, for although the mode of operation is in 

 both instances precisely the same, the results are entirely 

 different. 



A hybrid grape, properly speaking, is a mixture of two 

 distinct species, not of two varieties of the same species. 

 For instance, if we should take an Isabella grape, which 

 belongs to the Vitis Labrusca species, and the common 

 frost grape ( Vitis cordifolia), and by fertilizing the one 

 with the other produce a plant with the characteristics of 

 both parents, we should then have a proper hybrid. But 

 if we should fertilize the Isabella with the Concord we 

 would have a cross between two varieties of the same 

 species. Hybridizing, then, is the mixing of two species, 

 and crossing or cross-breeding (as it is termed) is the 

 mixing of two varieties. 



