METHODS OF IMPROVING INDIGENOUS PLANTS. 
87 
they flower. The least striking of them may then be discarded, and those in which 
any visible improvement is manifest can be well cultivated for a year or two, and 
their seed again sown to be similarly dealt with. A measure of this nature will 
do much, in conjunction with the others we have described, to generate new and 
handsome varieties. 
Where there is more than one species of a genus which is susceptible of improve- 
ment, cross impregnation may be added to the above mode of increase by seeds. 
As an illustration, we will take Veronica spicata and V. chamcedrifolia, and imagine 
both of them placed in a somewhat nutritive soil, and shifted each spring for two 
or three years. At the end of that time, let the flowers of V. spicata be impregnated 
with the pollen of V. chamcedrifolia, and the issue will most likely be a very showy 
hybrid, with much of the habit of the female parent, and an approximation to the 
larger flowers of the other. To ensure the desired result, the process may be once 
or twice repeated on the same plant in ensuing years. 
Similarity in the hue of the flowers characterizes the tw T o species thus spoken of, 
and hence there would be no combination of colour. The white variety of V. spicata 
might, however, have been chosen for the experiment, and in different genera the 
transfusion of tints may be a more prominent object. Nor should the intermixture 
of properties by hybridization be restricted to two British species. If a native plant 
possess characters which, when added to those of some hardy exotic ally, shall 
yield an agreeable and ornamental hybrid, the amalgamation will be quite as 
rational and useful. 
Another way in which native species may be serviceably employed by the 
hybridist, is to impregnate the herbaceous sorts with the pollen of related but 
handsome species that are not quite hardy, thereby generating a hybrid which, with 
the better qualities of the exotic, combines a greater degree of hardihood. Thus, 
many of the tender Heaths might serve for fertilizing some of the hardier species, 
and a most delightful acquisition to our borders and pleasure-grounds would be gained 
in the hybrids to which such impregnation would give birth. Again, it is probable 
that the Chinese Primrose might be associated with the common Primrose or Cowslip 
in a hardy hybrid of great beauty ; the showy kinds of tender Anagallis might 
meet with a suitable connexion in A. tenella, and give rise to equally gratifying 
results ; Wahlenbergia {Campanula) pendula, with its noble flowers, is not perfectly 
hardy, but if hybridized with C. revoluta, or another native species, a splendid 
hardy hybrid might be expected ; the handsome greenhouse Oxalises might hybridize 
well with O. acetosella, and by two or three repetitions of the process, beget not 
only a hardy, but a finely-striped or mottled-flowered variety. In fact, we could 
go on enumerating numberless similar unions that might be easily effected, and 
would tend greatly to the advantage of the cultivator by enlarging his stock of 
hardy ornamental herbaceous plants, had we sufficient space to do so. 
Ere we pass away from the subject of hybridization, we must give a few 
examples in which we think benefit would arise from performing it on two native 
