SEPTEMBER, 1914.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 223 
eal HYBRIDISATION AND SELECTION. | ie | 
Bo as of the meetings of the Royal Horticultural Society 
will be aware how comparatively few of the novelties that appear, even 
among the well-known showy groups, are not to be considered improve- 
ments on existing kinds, and thus fail to catch the eye of the Orchid 
Committee, and the number that never appear there must be still more 
numerous. The question is, how far this condition of things could be 
avoided by a more rigid selection of the parents, and a few hints as to how 
to avoid these disappointing results would be interesting to amateurs, who 
have little room to spare, but who like to make a few experiments in 
hybridising. AMATEUR. 
There are two or three difficulties where the facilities for raising 
seedlings are not great, and one is that the choice of parents is somewhat 
limited, and most of the promising crosses have already been made. On 
the whole the most certain chance of sticcess would be to repeat existing 
crosses with specially good parents, using a plant of known reputation as 
the seed bearer, and, if necessary, obtaining pollen of some choice variety 
from a friend or from some of the nurseries. By this means one would be 
sure of good results, with the possibility that some of the seedlings would 
possess special merits. Another method would be to follow up some 
particular line of work where improvement seems possible, and the 
difficulty here seems’ to be that work of this kind takes a long time before 
results are obtained. The work, however, is fascinating, and it is now 
possible to obtain seedlings of known parentage and grow them on until 
they flower. A correspondent suggests that amateurs might initiate a 
system of exchange of seedlings among themselves, which certainly has 
- possibilities, for occasionally more seedlings are obtained than can be 
grown on to flowering size. 
With respect to certificates, it may be said that the standard of quality 
is constantly being raised. Again, they are often exhibited at their first 
time of flowering before they have reached their full development. The 
number of inferior forms that are never heard of can only be judged by 
those who are engaged in the business, but we have seen some of them 
before their final disappearance. Unless hopelessly bad, they are often left 
to flower a second time, because one cannot always judge them from the 
first flower. Recent work consists largely in recombining existing hybrids 
along definite lines, and here a considerable amount of reversion is inevit- 
able. In fact selection is the only method of improvement, and there is no 
Foyal road to success.—Ep. 
