328 THE ORCHID REVIEW: (NovempEr, rgrt. 
SELECTION OF PARENTS. 
Many of us have been. emphasising the need of using the finest possible 
varieties for hybridising, and so far, so good; but this is not saying the 
last word in the matter. To my mind, it isa much more important thing 
when you use a good flower to make sure it also has good ancestry behind 
it. Because out of poor parents is occasionally flowered a good thing, that 
stray good thing is not the flower to use. When I began to interest myself 
in poultry breeding, a friend—well learned in such matters—said to me, 
“You must choose your strain. Better use a moderate thing from a good 
strain than a good thing from a bad strain.” And it is the same with 
Orchids. We hear sometimes that someone has flowered a batch of ‘should 
be”’ White Cattleyas, some coming white and some coloured. I should be 
extremely sorry to use one of these “‘ white” flowers to go on with to make 
a further white hybrid. I know too well what would happen in the next 
generation ; and it would not be “ White” seedlings. But cross together 
two good white flowers, each having come from home-raised seedlings, where 
every seedling has come true white, and I do not see how you could possibly 
get anything but white from such a strain, though there will still be 
differences as to shape and form. Of course the result would be the same 
from two imported white-flowered plants, if one could be sure they really 
were white ; but it seems almost impossible to be certain, unless they have 
been proved by hybridisation, and that means such a waste of time if they 
should prove untrue—as I think it has been pretty well proved that if there 
is the faintest colour it will show itself in the next generation, and probably 
be very prominent there. Several such cases have been recorded, and we 
have heard of others. 
With coloured hybrids, of course, we have to be careful in another way, 
choosing two well-coloured flowers, with well-coloured, good-shaped flowers 
again behind them, and even then, with all our care, we know Nature will 
have the last word, and pop a few rascals into the batch. But, following 
this plan, surely each generation should be better than the last, and contain 
fewer bad things. 
I was much struck with a paragraph in the Evening News some weeks 
back on heredity. It said: ‘Sarah Siddons was a contemporary of 
Caroline, the least dignified of all our Queen Consorts. Some mischievous 
Fairy gave the sovereign Duke of Brunswick a daughter, who should have 
followed a caravan in plush and spangles. Mrs. Siddons was the child of a 
poor hairdresser, turned strolling manager, and she had the port and 
countenance of Sovereignty. Heredity has many puzzles left unexplained.” 
EMILY THWAITES. 
23, Christchurch Road, Streatham Hill. | 
