196 GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



or male organs, while the silk and ear are the pistillate 

 parts. Such plants are called monoecious. In other in- 

 stances, as spinach, the flowers which contain the stamens 

 are not found upon the same individual plant with those 

 that bear the pistils. These are called dioecious plants. 



Cross breeding, where both sexes are united in the same 

 blossom, is accomplished by removing the stamens and 

 dusting the pistil with the pollen of a different variety, a 

 simple process; but from the resulting seed a new variety, 

 partaking somewhat of the qualities of both parents, will 

 be produced. Care is required in the process. A blossom 

 must be selected not fully expanded, and all the anthers 

 be cut out and removed. Protect the blossom with a 

 loose bag of gauze to keep off the bees. As soon as the 

 blossom is fully expanded, collect on a camel's-hair pencil 

 the pollen from a full-blown flower of the variety selected 

 for the male parent, and apply it to the stigma or point 

 of the pistil. Success depends upon the careful extraction 

 of the anthers before they are advanced enough to ferti- 

 lize the pistil, the application of the pollen when in perfec- 

 tion — that is, in a powdery state, upon the stigma while 

 still moist — and the prevention of natural fertilization 

 from pollen carried by insects or by the wind. Cross 

 breeding often takes place naturally. If different varie- 

 ties of corn are planted near together, often three or four 

 kinds and colors of grain will be found upon one ear from 

 natural intermixture. 



But there are limits to the power of crossing plants. 

 Those between two varieties of the same species, as be- 

 tween two kinds of corn, or two varieties of the pear, are 

 common enough, and these are fruitful and produce per- 

 fect seeds. In the same genera, also, certain nearly allied 

 species are capable of fertilizing each other; the offspring 

 in this case is called a hybrid, and does not always pro- 

 duce perfect seeds. Thus the different species of the 



