318 ESSENTIALS OF BOTANY 



flowers, as in the wheat or the apple, remove from the 

 cluster all the flowers that are not to be operated on. 



(2) Open the flower and remove the stamens by taking 

 hold of the filaments with fine forceps, or cut away all 

 the stamens at once, as shown in Fig. 222. Then cover 

 the flower or the entire twig with a paper bag until the 

 stigma is mature. 



(3) Pollinate the stigma with the desired kind of pollen. 

 This may be done with the finger tip, with a camel's-hair 

 brush, or other implement. It is safer to take pollen from 

 a flower that has been kept covered with a paper bag, to 

 keep off foreign pollen. 



(4) Cover the pollinated flower again with a paper bag 

 until the fruit has grown considerably. 



397. General Results of Hybridizing. — As already men- 

 tioned (Sect. 395), hybrids are likely to be extremely vari- 

 able. Not only may they differ from either parent, but they 

 may also be unlike each other. The differences include 

 such features as the form, size, and other characteristics of 

 the entire plant or of its roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, 

 and seeds. 



It is much easier to perpetuate new varieties in the case 

 of plants propagated by vegetative means than in those 

 grown from seed. If a desirable variety of potato is ob- 

 tained by hybridizing and then planting seeds from the 

 berries (" potato balls "), the hybrid can be grown with 

 certainty by planting tubers of the new variety. But if a 

 hybrid bean, pea, or wheat plant is produced, only a few 

 of its seeds will " come true to seed " ; that is, the off- 

 spring of the hybrid seeds will, many of them, be what 

 breeders call " rogues," or undesirable varieties, not closely 

 resembling their hybrid parent. Year after year, for several 



