70 CULTURE OF THE SWEET PEA 



pollen in the bud stage, the selection has 

 to be made carefully. The buds being se- 

 lected, the keel is split open with a sharp 

 knife and all the stamens are carefully re- 

 moved. The stigma is carefully examined 

 to see that no pollen has been deposited 

 accidentally. Then pollen is carefully 

 gathered from the other parent and depos- 

 ited with a fine camel's hair brush on the 

 stigma of the flower from which the sta- 

 mens have been removed. The artificially 

 pollinated blossom is now wrapped in a 

 paper bag which is securely fastened to ex- 

 clude all possibilities of further pollina- 

 tion. It is necessary to make a large num- 

 ber of such crosses to obtain results, as it 

 often happens that a large per cent of the 

 flowers thus crossed fail to set seed. The 

 seeds from the successful crosses are care- 

 fully gathered and planted separately the 

 second year (figs. 2 and 3) . No particu- 



