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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



place in the flower of the Pea before expansion, ami therefore, in 

 order to secure a successful cross, the operator must let his work 

 precede this, and it will be necessary to operate two or three days 

 prior to the opening of the flower, and when the incipient blos- 

 som is about one-third its mature size. This is done by carefully 

 slitting up with a scissors' point the front of the keel petal and 

 removing the anthers before the pollen be shed, for should this 

 have taken place in the slightest degree, it will be well to abandon 

 the operation and recommence on another flower. The foreign 

 pollen of the desired variety can then be applied through the 

 opening made in the keel of the flower to be fertilised, either from 

 a camel's-hair pencil or by direct application of the ripened pollen- 

 bearing anthers to the upper edge of the carpel. This is best 

 accomplished by an easily acquired movement of the thumb and 

 finger of the right hand holding the pollen-bearing flower, the 

 keel of which, with its point inserted in the opening made in that 

 of the flower to be operated upon, may be drawn back over the 

 anthers, and the pollen will be delivered by a jerk or spring into 

 the desired position. I rarely use a camel's-hair pencil in cross- 

 fertilisation, as it brings considerable risk of introducing other 

 pollen or undesirable foreign matter in combination with the 

 pollen to be used. After the operation has been performed, it 

 will be desirable to pinch out the crown and all the flowers and 

 pods on the plant except those cross-fertilised. If in conducting 

 the operation care has been taken not to injure the organs 

 of fructification, and these are in ripe condition, and sufficient 

 pollen has been applied, the pod, if the weather be not too 

 wet or moist, will probably set, and in due course ripen its 

 complement of seeds. By means, however, of cross-fertilisation 

 alone, and unless it be followed by careful and continued selec- 

 tion, the labours of the cross-breeder, instead of benefiting the 

 gardener, may lead to utter confusion, because, as I have pre- 

 viously stated, the Pea under ordinary conditions is much given 

 to sporting and reversion, for when two dissimilar old or fixed 

 varieties have been cross-fertilised, three or four generations at 

 least must, under the most favourable circumstances, elapse 

 before the progeny will become fixed or settled : and from one 

 such cross I have no doubt that, by sowing every individual Pea 

 produced during the three or four generations, hundreds of dif- 



