286 
INACRO LEE: 
the shadow round it, and the green aureole—asif they were all 
revolving with great rapidity round a common axis. And what 
more likely than that this should be the case, since, as has 
already been mentioned, the are is revolving at the rate of 
450 revolutions per second at ¢he moment that it starts 
hissing ? 
As regards the carbons themselves, the only important 
modification of the zega¢zve carbon that appears to be due to 
hissing is the formation of the well-known ‘‘ mushroom” at the 
end of that carbon with a short hissing arc. This mushroom, of 
which a good example is seen in Fig. 5, is well named, not only 
because ofits shape, but also because of the rapidity of its growth, 
which is so great that, while it is forming, the carbons often have 
to be separated, instead of being brought together, to keep the 
length of the are constant. 
(Zo be continued.) 
HVBRIDISA TION. 
UR first duty, and a very pleasant one it is, is to welcome 
our foreign guests, our friends from across the sea, as I prefer 
to call them, to thank them for their presence here to-day, and to 
express a hope that their sojourn among us may be both agree- 
able and profitable. At the same time we regret that some, 
such as Dr. Focke, the historian of hybridisation, has not been 
able to preside over this meeting, as we had hoped he might 
have done. Nor can we at such a meeting do other than 
express our abiding regret at the loss, though at an advanced 
age, of the great hybridiser Charles Naudin. 
Our next duty is to thank the Council of the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society for this opportunity of meeting once more in 
these time-honoured gardens to discuss what I venture to think 
is one of the, if not the most, important subject in modern pro- 
gressive experimental horticulture. I use the words progres- 
sive and experimental because I believe that the future of 
horticulture depends very greatly on well-directed experiment. 
So far as the details of practical cultivation are concerned, we 
are not so much in advance of our forefathers. We have 
infinitely greater advantages, and we have made use of them, 
but if they had had them they would have done the same. We 
are able to bring to bear on our art not only the ‘‘ resources of 
civilisation ” to a degree impossible to our predecessors, but 
we can avail ourselves also of the teachings of science, and 
endeavour to apply them for the benefit of practical gardening. 
We are mere infants in this matter at present, and we can only 
dimly perceive the enormous strides that gardening will make 
when more fully guided and directed by scientific investigations. 
One object of this conference is to show that cultural excellence 
by itself will not secure progress, and to forward this progress 
by discussing the subject of cross-breeding and hybridisation in 
all their degrees, alike in their practical and in their scientific 
aspects. 
To appreciate the importance of cross-breeding and hybrid- 
isation we have only to look round our gardens and our 
exhibition-tents, or to scan the catalogues of our nurserymen. 
Selection has done and is doing much for the improvement of 
our plants, but it is cross-breeding which has furnished us with 
the materials for selection. 
A few years ago by the expression ‘‘ new plants ” we meant 
plants newly introduced from other countries, but, with the 
possible exception of orchids, the number of new plants of this 
description is now relatively few. 
The ‘‘new plants” of the present day, like the roses, the 
chrysanthemums, the fuchsias, and so many others, are the 
products of the gardeners’ skill. From peaches to potatoes, 
from peas to plums, from strawberries to savoys, the work of 
the cross-breeder is seen improving the quality and the quantity 
of our products, adapting them to different climates and con- 
ditions, hastening their production in spring, prolonging their 
duration in autumn.* Surely in these matters we have out- 
distanced our ancestors, 
But let us not forget that they showed us the way. 
” 
I do not 
1 Substance of the address by Dr. Maxwell T. Masters, F.R.S., delivered 
on opening the proceedings of the International Conference on ‘* Hybridis- 
ation,”’ Tuesday, July rz. 
* See some interesting observations of MacFarlane on the period of 
flowering in hybrids as intermediate between that of the parents, Gardeners’ 
Chronicle, June 20, 1891 ; and on the structure of hybrids, May 3, 1890. 
NO. 1551, VOL, 60] 
[JuLY 20, 1899 
propose to dilate on the share which Camerarius, Millington, 
Grew, Morland, and others, at the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury had in definitely establishing the fact of sexuality in plants, 
but I do wish to emphasise the fact that it was by experiment, 
not by speculation, nor even by observation, that the fact was 
proved, and I do wish to show that our English gardeners 
and experimenters were even at that time quite aware of the 
importance of their discovery, and forestalled our Herbert and 
Darwin in the inferences they drew from it. In proof of which 
allow me to quote from a work of Richard Bradley, called 
‘““New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, both 
Philosophical and Practical,” published in 1717, cap. ii. After 
alluding to the discovery of the method of the fertilisation of 
plants, he says (p. 22) :— 
“By this knowledge we may alter the property and taste of 
any /vuzt by impregnating the one with the /arzza of another 
of the same class; as, for example, a Cod/én with a Pearmain, 
which will occasion the Cod/zx so impregnated to last a longer 
time than usual, and be of a sharper taste ; or if the Weter 
Fruits should be fecundated with the Dust of the Swmmer 
kinds, they will decay before their usual Time ; and it is from 
this accidental coupling of the Fara of one with the other, 
that in an Orchard where there is Variety of 4ff/es, even the 
Fruit are gathered from the same 77ee differ in their Flavour 
and Times of ripening; and, moreover, the Seeds of those 
Apples so generated, being changed by that Means from their 
Natural Qualities, will produce different kinds of Fruit if they 
are sown. 
‘Tis from this accidental coupling that proceeds the number- 
less varieties of Fruits and Flowers which are raised every day 
from Seed. . . - 
“Moreover, a curious Person may by this knowledge produce 
such rare kinds of Plants as have not yet been heard of, by 
making choice of two //ants for his Purpose, as are near alike 
in their Parts, but chiefly in their /Vowers or Seed vessels ; for 
example, the Carnation and Sweet William are in some respects 
alike, the Marca of the one will impregnate the other, and the 
Seed so enlivened will produce a Plan¢ differing from either, as 
may now be seen inthe garden of Mr. Thomas Fairchild, of 
Hoxton, a plant neither Sweet Welliam nor Carnation, but 
resembling both equally, which was raised from the seed of a 
Carnation that had been impregnated by the Farzza of the 
Sweet William.” 
Here we have the first record of an artificially-produced 
hybrid, and you will remark that this was more than forty years 
before Kolreuter began his elaborate series of experiments. 
Fairchild was the friend and associate of Philip Miller, and of 
a small knot of advanced thinkers and workers who banded 
themselves together into a ‘‘ Society of Gardeners.” 
“He is mentioned,” says Johnson in his ‘‘ History of English 
Gardening,” ‘‘ throughout Bradley’s works as a man of general 
information, and fond of scientific research, and in them are 
given many of his experiments to demonstrate the sexuality of 
plants, and their possession of a circulatory system. He was 
a commercial gardener at Hoxton, carrying on one of the 
largest trades as a nurseryman and florist that were then estab- 
lished. He was one of the largest English cultivators of a vine- 
yard, of which he had one at Hoxton as late as 1722. He died 
in 1729, leaving funds for insuring the delivery of a sermon 
annually in the church of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, on Whit 
Tuesday, ‘On the wonderful works of God in the Creation ; or 
On the certainty of the resurrection of the dead, proved by the 
certain changes of the animal and vegetable parts of the 
creation.’ ” 
Fairchild was thus not only the raiser of the first garden 
hybrid, but the originator of the flower services now popular in 
our churches. 
We do not hear much of intentionally-raised hybrids from this 
time till that of Linnzeus, in 1759 (‘‘ Ameen. Acad.,” ed, Gili- 
bert, vol. i. p. 212). The great Swedish naturalist, having 
observed in his garden a Tragopogon, apparently a hybrid 
between 7. pratensis and 7. parvifolius, set to work to ascertain 
whether this;conjecture was correct. Ie placed pollen of 7: 
parvifolius on to the stigmas of 7. fratenszs, obtained seed, 
and from this seed the hybrid was produced. 
About the same time (that is, in 1760) Kolreuter began his 
elaborate experiments, but these were made with no practical 
aim, and thus for a time suffered unmerited oblivion. 
Some years after, the President of this Society, Thomas 
