46 New Plan of breaking Tulips. 



this very circumstance, indeed, brought him to London, in 

 search of some of those choice and difficult breeders, which 

 seldom fail to produce good flowers, when they do break, 

 " to try his hand upon;" such as the Rubens, Trafalgar, 

 Louis, Charbonier, Joie de Davey, Catafalque, Camuse, 

 Ponceau, &c. My chief object in addressing this letter to 

 you, is, to request, that you will give it publicity in that very 

 excellent work of yours, the Gardener's Magazine, for I 

 have no wish to confine this discovery to myself, but am 

 ready to disclose it to any one; observing moreover, that 

 one practical lesson is worth two printed ones ; yet the printed 

 one can easily be learned and put in practice by any person, 

 who knows the different parts of fructification belonging to a 

 flower. I confess, I am slow to place much faith in the 

 " miraculous" at any time, nor am I easily led away by 

 absurd and new-fangled notions, which have no foundation 

 either in truth or reason ; yet in this case, I am free to admit, 

 that I cannot withhold my belief, but that this plan will fully 

 answer the purpose intended ; and that it appears to me, upon 

 the whole, the most plausible, rational, and scientific ever yet 

 adopted. 



I am, Sir, &c. 



Thomas Hogg. 

 Paddington, September 20th, 1826. 



Fecundating the stigma of a healthy or unbroken flower 

 with the pollen of a diseased or variegated one, may proba- 

 bly communicate the disease or variegation to the parent as 

 well as to the offspring, and, if so, the application of this 

 principle to the breaking of tulips, or the variegation of other 

 flowers, may be considered as highly scientific. A bud from 

 a variegated jasmin or privet inserted in a healthy plant of 

 the same kind, will communicate variegation to the whole 

 plant ; and the same thing will probably hold good in many 

 plants both ligneous and herbaceous. Mr. Hogg, however, 

 has not told us in what way he proposes to inoculate the 

 required disease. In Gordon's Dictionary of Gardening, (Art. 

 Apple-tree, p. 10.) it is stated that variegation may be pro- 

 duced in any kind of tree by the following method : " Let 

 a servant, day by day, lay some quantity of corn or small 

 pieces of bread round the stem of the tree, and in two or three 

 days you will have as fine variegation, and as lasting, as many of 

 these boasted varieties." It will be taken for granted that we 

 have no faith in Gordon's doctrine. — Cond. 



