488 IMPOETANCE OF CEOSSING. 



and vigorous progeny was obtained, of plants as of animals, 

 when the male and female parent were not closely related to 

 each other, (See the Horticultwral Transactions, i, 165.) 



There are no processes known to the cultivator so efficacious 

 in producing new varieties as that adverted to in the last 

 paragraph, that is to say, muling or cross-breeding; and it 

 is to these operations, more than to anything else, except 

 accident, that we owe the beauty and excellence of most of our 

 garden productions ; more, however, I think, to cross-breeding 

 than to muling. By cross-breeding is meant the intermixture 

 of varieties ; by muHng or hybridising, that of species. It was 

 by the first of these processes that have been so greatly multi- 

 plied and improved our fruits for the dessert, and the gay flowers 

 that adorn our gardens. The Pelargonium, the Calceolaria, 

 the Dahlia, the Verbena, and a thousand others— what would 

 they be, but simple wild flowers, without the power of man 

 exercised in this way ? " To the cultivators of ornamental 

 plants," says Mr. Herbert,* " the ' facility of raising hybrid 

 varieties affords an endless source of interest and amusement. 

 He sees in the several species of each genus that he possesses 

 the materials with which he must work, and he considers in 

 what manner he can blend them to the best advantage, looking 

 to the several gifts in which each excels, whether of hardiness 

 to endure our seasons, of brilliancy in its colours, of delicacy in 

 its markings, of fragrance, or stature, or profusion of blossom; 

 and he may anticipate, with tolerable accuracy, the probable 

 aspect of the intermediate plant which he is permitted to 

 create : for that term may be figuratively apphed to the 

 introduction into the world of a natural form wl4ph has 

 probably never before existed in it. In constitution the mixed 

 offspring appears to partake of the habits of both parents; 

 that is to say, it will be less hardy than the one of its parents 

 which bears the greatest exposure, and not so delicate as the 



• See much the most valuable and practical accounts of cross-breeding and muling 

 ■yirHch haTe been yet published in regard to horticulture, in the AmarylUdaceoe of Dean 

 Herbert, p. 335, et seq., and in the,sarie author's papers published in the fowrnal of 

 the SorticidPwraZ Society, vol. ii. pp. 1 and 81. See also a most important memoir 

 upon the same subject by Gtertner, translated by the Key. M. J. Berkeley, in the same 

 work, vol. v., p. 1S6, and vol. vi., p. 1. 



