io74 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1882. 
fully, in bags of the finest gossamer gauze, several 
clusters of Ledger-buds, and, as the buds opened 
into blossom, I fertilized them with officinalis and 
succirubra pollen, by means of a fine hair-pencil. 
After destroying the unopened buds, I replaced the 
gauze covering. In one case I opened the buds before 
they burst and cut out tne stamens aud fertilized with 
officinalis pollen. In all cases the blossoms set and 
produced fruit. Other clusters of blossom enclosed 
in the gauze and not fertilized failed to set one-third 
of their blossoms, and in some cases not a single 
blossom set. On an officinalis tree, I selected two 
clusters ; covering as before, one 1 fertilized with 
Ledger pollen, the other I left alone. 
The blossoms so fertilized became fruit and were 
totally ditferent from any of the other capsules on 
the tree, being larger and. rounder. 
In this one case, unfortunately, an accident hap- 
pened to the seed before it was ripe. 
The others have been sown and are now tiny seed- 
lings. What form they may take remains to be seen, 
but I am convinced that the blossoms were crossed, 
and what I did with a hair-pencil could, I cannot 
doubt, be done by the antennae of an insect. I do 
not suppose that such crossing goes on to any very 
great extent, for, as a rule, the different varieties 
are planted separately, and in some degree differ in 
their blossoming seasons, besides there being but few 
insects to carry the pollen. 
So far the hybrid battle has been fought on the 
question of a particular, though varyiug, form being 
or not being a mixture of succirubra and officinalis, 
but are the anti-hybridists prepared also to discover 
in the Ledger-succirubra and Ledger-officinalis hybrids 
new varieties ? 
Amongst the Yarrow Ledgers there are three or 
four splendidly grown trees which, when young, had 
all the velvety bloom and other characteristics of a 
Ledger, but are now obviously a cross with succirubra. 
One of them at 3 years of age, analyzed by Howard, 
gave 4^ per cent sulphate. In time to come this 
hybrid will oust the succi-officinalis hybrid, as it is 
quite as robust and much richer. There are also at 
Yarrow two or three specimens of the Ledger-officinalis 
hybrids : they also as young plants, and their suckers, 
shewed their Ledger parentage, and of this hybrid 
I have two specimens here, rising 3 years of age. I 
consider this to have the officinalis strain in it, be- 
cause, firstly, its leaves are intermediate between 
Ledger aud officinalis ; secondly, because its growth 
at 3,000 feet (thocgh very good) is not so great as 
at 4,200, where it rivals any cinchona in size ; and 
thirdly, because my specimen here is now blossoming, 
a precocity which a pure Ledger, free from officinalis 
taint, would never be guilty of. Its blossom has much 
of the droop of the Ledger with some of the colour 
of officinalis. I wish I could convert Mr. Smith to 
my ideas of hybrids as easily as he did me to his 
ideas of grafting. After seeing his grafts and getting 
a lesson, I found no difficulty, even though it was 
the wrong season, in succeeding, and two months old 
grafts have now a 2-inch sprout on them. If the 
stock be pliant enough, I think bending over and 
pegging it down sends the sap into the scion suffici- 
ent! v, while preventing any danger from bleeding. 
So far, I have been more successful in my outdoor 
grafts than in those under glass. With coolies as 
operators, it is probable that indoor grafting iwill 
have the advantage of being more easily superv sed, 
but that, I think, is its only advantage. — Yours faith- 
fully, THOS. NORTH CHHISTI E. 
P.S. — From Saturday's paper, just to hand, I am 
glad to tee that Mr. Forbes Laurie now agrees with 
tun about hybrid bed often reverting to other types. 
J. think be i» right as to there being hybrids and 
hybrids. The present rush for any plant or feed 
that has the slightest claim to illegitimacy will end 
in disappointment. 
MR. J. BAGRA'S IDEAS ON HYBRIDIZING, 
SPORTING AND GRAFTING. 
April 24th. 
Dear "Observer," — I am very much interested, 
and edified from the perusal of your article ou 
cinchona, in your issue of the 21st iust., ami also 
Mr. Smith's letter on grafting and hybridity. 
1 have been a semi-practical working botanist since 
I was 14 years old, and am now turned 40 years. I 
might thus almost claim the right to cross swords 
with such an authority as Mr. Smith— a man for 
whom I have the greatest esteem as an agriculturist 
in all its branches. But as I write this in all good 
faith, agreeing with him on the whole, and only in 
the hope that any hint I give may be useful to him 
or to someotheis, I trust he will not hit me in the 
eye next time we meet, because I see fit to dilfer 
with him on some points of interest. 
In the first place, grafting in Uva has not been a 
success in my experience, and would require more care 
than we bestowed on the few trials, and for open-air 
I should advise the succirubra stocks to be planted 
first in a long bed, say 4 feet wide by any length at 
9 inches apart, and when at proper siz>-, say 15 or 18 
inches high and £ to i an inch diameter, they are 
ready for the grafting process. To shade the bed with 
coir matting — double, if it is considered necessarj — 
and for grafts never to take side branches but suckers, 
either from the good tree or stools after coppicing 
of approved varieties, the process as described by 
Mr. Smith is quite correct. Only I should break out, 
the top or cut it.* This would naturally send the sap 
more to the graft. In the case of old stools i. e, 
trees that have been cut down, I find the excessive 
flow of sap is very apt to kill the grafts before they 
can take a hold; so on the whole I quite disapprove 
of this system. The reason why I object to side 
branches for grafts is that they seldom take the upright 
form but go off in unhealthy branches without any 
leader. Now as to hybridizing. I expect Mr Smith would 
be more correct, if he refern d rather to the animal 
than the vegetable kingdom. In it we can get "'mules" 
but nothing further : and, if he will only consider and 
ask himself where our improved varieties of cabbage, 
Iurnips, oats, apples, pears, peaches- &c, come from, 
t think, with the beautiful flowers that botanists 
have raised, he must give way and admit that hy- 
bridity is not only possible but common in all plants 
: of the same genera ; and the cinchona— let it be 
succirubra, officinalis or any other variety — is still a 
cinchona, and, although a hermaphrodite, is as sensitive 
to contamination from other varieties within reach 
as a patch of seed turnips. I could give crucial 
instances in my own experience, in which I am per- 
fectly satisfied of the fact, but have not space at this 
time. As to the sporting theory, I don't like the 
name ; in fact I am as much opposed to it t as is 
Mr. Smith to the hybrid. In a seedling of any kind. 
I should put it to hybridizing in some shape. A 
branch o a plai t or tree taking new colour in leaf 
o flower a sport, and may be perpetuated by- 
cuttings or grafts, always liable to return to the 
original.— Yours very truly, J. BAGRA. 
* Mr. Christie's suggestion to bend and peg 
down the top of the stock plant seems preferably 
—Ed. 
t The " Columbine," petunias, &c, sport in a 
manner the twist marvellous. while in Java the 
Lantana is "a rhing of beauty," with rich orange, 
pale yellow, rose pink and snow white blossoms op 
the same bush— Ep. 
