Garden and Forest. 



[Number 202. 



Kieffer class. In Apples, Peaches, Plums, Cherries, Goose- 

 berries, Blaclcberries, Dewberries, there are no commercial 

 hybrids. The Strawberry is doubtful. Some of the Raspber- 

 ries, like Caroline and Shaffer, appear to be hybrids between 

 the red and black species. Hybrids have been produced 

 between the Raspberry and Blackberry by two or three per- 

 sons, but they possess no promise of economical results. 

 Among all the list of garden vegetables — plants which are 

 propagated by seed — I do not know of a single authentic hy- 

 brid, and the same is true of Wheat — unless the Carman Wheat- 

 Rye varieties become prominent — Oats, the Grasses, and other 

 farm crops. But among ornamental plants there are many ; 

 and it is a significant fact that the most numerous, most 

 marked, and most successful hybrids occur in the plants most 

 carefully cultivated and protected — those, in other words, 

 which are farthest removed from all untoward circumstances 

 and an independent position. This is nowhere so well illus- 

 trated as in the case of cultivated Orchids, in which hybridiza- 

 tion has played no end of freaks, and in which, also, every 

 individual plant is nursed and coddled. For such plants the 

 struggle for existence is reduced to its lowest terms ; for it 

 must be borne in mind that even in the garden plants must 

 fight severely for a chance to live, and even then only the very 

 best can persist or are even allowed to try. 



POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS. 



This list of hybrids is much more meagre than most cata- 

 logues and trade-lists would have us believe, but it is approx- 

 imately near the truth. It is, of course, equivalent to saying 

 that most of the so-called hybrid fruits and vegetables are 

 myths. There is everywhere a misconception of what a 

 hybrid is, and how it comes to exist ; and yet, perhaps be- 

 cause of this indefinite knowledge, there is a wide-spread 

 feeling that a hybrid is necessarily good, while the presump- 

 tion is directly the opposite. 



There is an old yet common notion that there is some pecu- 

 liar influence exerted by each sex in the parentage of hybrids. 

 It was held by certain early observers, of whom the great Lin- 

 naeus was one, that the female parent determines the consti- 

 tution of the hybrid, while the male parent gives the external 

 attributes, as form, size and color. The accumulated expe- 

 rience of nearly a century and a half appears to contradict this 

 proposition. There are instances, to be sure, in which this 

 old idea is affirmed, but there are others in which it is contra- 

 dicted. The truth appears to be, that the parent of greater 

 strength or virility makes the stronger impression upon the 

 hybrids, whether it is the staminate or pistillate parent. And 

 it appears to be equally true that it is usually impossible to de- 

 termine beforehand which parent is the stronger. The com- 

 mon little pear-shaped gourd will impress itself more strongly 

 upon crosses than any of the edible squashes and pumpkins 

 with which it will effect a cross, whether it is used as male or 

 female parents. Even the imposing and ubiquitous great 

 field-pumpkin is overpowered by the little gourd. Seeds from 

 a large and sleek pumpkin, which had been fertilized by gourd 

 pollen, produced gourds and small hard-shelled globular 

 fruits which were entirely* inedible. A more interesting ex- 

 periment with the handsome green-striped Bergen Fall Squash 

 showed a similar prepotency of the gourd. 



Uncertainty follows hybridization, and uncertainty also at- 

 taches to the mere act of pollination. Between some species, 

 which are closely allied and have large and strong flowers, 

 four-fifths of the attempts at cross-pollination may be success- 

 ful, but such a large proportion of successes is not common. 

 Even the most expert operators fail as often as they succeed 

 in promiscuous pollinating. In my own experience 234 pol- 

 linations of Gourds, Pumpkins and Squashes, mostly between 

 varieties of one species and including some individual pollina- 

 tions, gave 117 failures and 117 successes. But from all the 117 

 fruits, for some of them turned out to be seedless, and some 

 were destroyed by insects before they were ripe or were lost 

 by accidental means, a few more than half of the successful 

 pollinations — if by success we mean the formation and growth 

 of fruit — really secured us seeds, or but one-fourth of the 

 whole number of efforts, and this was considered a successful 

 experiment. Referring to a record-book where experiments 

 were made with many species, I find that a total of 312 efforts 

 resulted in 89 successes, 223 failures. 



And now the sum of it all is this : Encourage in every way 

 crosses within the limits of the variety and in connection with 

 change of stock, expecting increase in vigor and productive- 

 ness. Hybridize, if you are curious to know what nature will 

 do about it, but do it carefully, honestly, thoroughly, and do 

 not expect too much. Extend Darwin's famous proposition to 

 read hke this : Nature abhors both perpetual self-fertilization 

 and hybridization. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



New Orchids. 



AcAMPE Madagascariensis, Kranzlin.. — A small species in- 

 troduced from Madagascar by Messrs. F. Sander & Co., of 

 St. Albans. It is a Vaii da-like plant, with thick leathery 

 leaves, and a short capitate raceme of whitish flowers, with 

 the lip of a faint rose-purple tinge. It appears to be distinct 

 from A. Renschiana, Rchb. £, and is thus the second spe- 

 cies of the genus from Madagascar. — Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 November 21st, p. 608. 



Dendrobium X Leeanum, O'Brien. — A handsome species, • 

 introduced Denrobium PhalEenopsis, from New Guinea, by 

 Messrs. F. Sander & Co., of St. Albans. It is allied to D. 

 superbiens, Lindl., but differs in various particulars, nota- 

 bly in the larger, more open labellum, and narrower acute 

 petals. The sepals are white at the base, freckled with 

 rose above, while the petals are bright rosy crimson. The 

 lip is green at the base, with radiating reddish lines, the 

 front lobe and margins of the side lobes being of a rich 

 rosy crimson. The pseudo-bulbs are three feet long. It 

 was awarded a first-class certificate by the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society on November loth last. — Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 November 28th, pp. 640, 641 (t. 88). 



CoRYANTHEs LEUcocoRYs, Rolfe. — A handsome large-flow- 

 ered Coryanthes, introduced from Peru by Messrs. Linden, 

 L'Horticulture Internationale, Pare Leopold, Brussels, with 

 whom it flowered during June last. The bucket-shaped 

 part of the lip is of a beautiful rose-color, and the helmet 

 pure ivory-white, thus forming a very handsome contrast. 

 The sepals are striped and suffused with light brownish 

 purple on a pale yellowish green ground, and the petals 

 marked with light purple on a white ground. It is very 

 distinct from every other known species. — Liiidenia (t. 293). 



Cycnoches Peruvianum, Rolfe. — An interesting species 

 from Peru, introduced by Messrs. Linden, L'Horticulture 

 Internationale, Brussels, with whom it flowered during May 

 last. The male flowers only are at present known, and 

 these are closely allied to the corresponding sex of the 

 Mexican C. ventricosum, though quite different in color. 

 They are light green, with numerous small brown spots, 

 and a white lip, and are borne in a long pendulous ra- 

 ceme. — Lindenia (t. ^01). „ „ ,, 

 Kew. ^ ^ ' R. A. Rolfe. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



The Fruit Market. — We hear on all sides of a glut in 

 the English market of almost all kinds of fruits. It is one 

 of the peculiarities of this country that, while the market 

 wholesale prices of fruit and vegetables may be so low 

 that they scarcely pay the cost of carriage and packing, I 

 the consumer is compelled to pay the usual fancy prices. f 

 English garden-produce has to pass through too man)' 

 hands before it reaches the mouth. I priced to-day in 

 Covent Garden market American apples, Gravensteins and 

 Baldwins and Ribstons ; they were from twenty shillings 

 to thirty shillings per barrel ; grapes, fit to eat, were labeled 

 four shillings per pound ; pears, not absolutely rotten at 

 the core, threepence each, and so on. Then I read in my 

 morning papers of "a glut of apples in the market, the 

 Canadian crop alone being estimated at a million barrels." 

 But if I wish to purchase one of these barrels I must pay 

 from twenty to thirty shillings for it. A few weeks ago I 

 was informed by a market grower of grapes that he had 

 houses full of good grapes, for which he would be glad to 

 get anything over a shilling a pound, grapes, too, which I 

 should have to pay four shillings for. Possibly you man- 

 age these things better in America than we do here. It is 

 a mystery to me how growers for market get a respectable 

 living out of their produce in this country. Yet a consid- 

 erable number of them are unmistakably prosperous. The 

 best market-grape in England is Gros Colman, of which 

 there must be hundreds of tons grown in England alone. 



