3ia 



HARDY FRUIT GARDEN. 



admit that natural hybridisation may have been 

 going on since the first tree in each of these 

 cases came into existence ; but how came they 

 to exist in the first instance? If nature has 

 been sporting in this way for so long a period, 

 she will, no doubt, continue to do so till the end 

 of time. If she has done so in the case of our 

 fruits and culinary vegetables, may she not have 

 been doing so in the case of all other plants and 

 trees ? and, therefore, may not hundreds of these, 

 recognised now as species at least, have been so 

 produced ? Is not the same law going on yearly 

 in the case of nine-tenths of what are called our 

 improved vegetables ? for it is certain that even 

 that proportion is not produced by actual ai-ti- 

 ficial cross-breeding ; and the same thing is also 

 going on in the case of our improved fniits. By 

 what other means were the Hawthomden, Clay- 

 gate pearmain, scarlet-nonpareil apples, &c., pro- 

 duced ? The former, now in the last stage of 

 decay, was a foundling in the garden from 

 whence it takes its name ; and of the two latter — 

 the one was found wild, in a neglected hedge- 

 row, at Claygate, near Claremont, and the other 

 in the garden of a petty public-house in the vil- 

 lage of Esher, and within a, mile and a half of 

 each other. Many other instances could be 

 given in support of this sportive freak of Dame 

 Nature's. As these fruits are amongst the most 

 valuable of theii- kind, we need not despair of 

 being provided with still more improved fruits 

 to the end of time, and that without the inter- 

 vention of artificial means. 



The weeping ash, set down as a sport of this 

 kind, appears to be cvu'sed with that sterility 

 which some attribute to mules and hybrids, as 

 it produces no seed capable of reproducing itself 

 in its pendant form. But the truth is, the origi- 

 nal weeping ash, from which we presume eveiy 

 plant of the kind in Europe has been derived, is 

 a female tree, so that, when the original or any 

 of its progeny has produced seeds, it has been in 

 consequence of their flowers having been fecun- 

 dated by those of some male tree in its vicinity. 

 The Moccas Court weeping' oak is more fortu- 

 nate, as it produces from seeds almost all the 

 young plants with drooping branches. What- 

 ever may have been the origin of the golden 

 pippin apple and green gage plum, they, as al- 

 ready remarked, produce plants from seed in 

 general differing as slightly from themselves as 

 the produce of a crab-apple or wild plum dif- 

 fers from the trees that produced them. The 

 seeds of the cultivated cabbages and pease are 

 well known to produce a progeny in all respects 

 like their parents. Well may we say with the 

 Psalmist, "0 Lord, how wondrous are thyworks ! 

 in wisdom hast thou made them all." 



However diversified opinions may be upon 

 the subject of hybridising, or cross-breeding 

 among plants, of the vast importance of it none 

 can doubt. Those interested in the matter should 

 consult the valuable papers by the late Dean of 

 Manchester, the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert; 

 Mr Thwaites' interesting remarks in the "Annals 

 of Natural History," i. N. S., p. 168; or Lind- 

 le3r's works, &c. &o. 



The former of these talented writers spent 

 a long lifetime in the study of this particular 



department of vegetable physiology, and arrived 

 at conclusions of themselves original, if not sub- 

 stantially correct; but as to their correctness, for 

 ourselves, we have not a shadow of doubt. This 

 opinion is greatly strengthened by the declaration 

 of Professor Lindley, who says of the paper from 

 which the following quotation is taken, " tliat it 

 is the best paper we possess upon the practical 

 ■value of the facts elicited by hybridising." " I 

 will therefore state briefly and humbly," says 

 the Dean, " what is the general basis of my sur- 

 mises as to the diversification of vegetables, to 

 which that of animals must be in a certain de- 

 gree analogous. We know that four races of 

 men have branched out of one stock — the white, 

 the black or African, the brown or Asiatic, and 

 the red, with various subdivisions of aspect 

 amongst them; and we know nothing of the 

 mode or time in which those diversities arose. 

 Revelation and history are equally silent on those 

 facts. They must have occm'red very early. 

 We are equally in the dark as to the races of 

 dogs. Old writers allude to difierent kinds of 

 dogs, and we do not know when or how any one 

 of those we possess originated ; and the same 

 may be said in respect to the origin of languages. 

 From these facts I draw this inference, which 

 seems to me incontrovertible, that a course of 

 change was in operation in the early ages after 

 the Deluge, which had ceased, or was greatly 

 diminished, before the era at which our know- 

 ledge of events began to be more precise, and 

 handed down by wi-iting. I shall be told that 

 these different races of men breed freely together, 

 and that these dogs intermix and produce 

 mongrels also, and we see thereby that they 

 are only varieties of one kind. Granted : I 

 entertain no doubt of their having respectively 

 descended from one pair of created individuals. 

 But how do you prove to me that the cat, lynx, 

 tiger, panther, lion, &c., did not descend from 

 one created pair 1 I am rather inclined to think 

 that they did (but this is only surmise), and 

 even the horse and the ass from one created 

 pair ; and I am quite unable to believe that the 

 several sylvise of the wren family, some of which 

 can with difficulty be distinguished except by 

 the proportions of their quills, and which have, 

 nevertheless, very diverse habits, notes, and 

 nests, were created separately and specially ; 

 and when I look to the vegetable races, I am 

 still more unwiUing to assent to the assertion, 

 that every plant which this or that botanist has 

 called a (fistiuct species, or even a distinct genus, 

 had a special creation in the period before the 

 sun and moon shone upon this world, when God 

 created vegetables. Upon what authority is 

 such an assertion made ? Upon none but the 

 dictum of those who are pleased to inculcate it. 

 Upon what ground is it made ? Upon none 

 that wUl bear investigation ; — upon a rash as- 

 sumption that everything cross-bred is sterile, 

 and that, if the offspring is sterile, the parents 

 are thereby proved to have been descended seve- 

 rally from the Creator. In the first place, the 

 fact is even false as to animals. Bufibn records 

 an instance of the fertility of a mule. I have 

 seen that which I am satisfied was a hybrid be- 

 tween a bitch and a fox which was the father of 



