268 
Garden Work 
CHAPTER XI 
Hybridization and Crossbreeding 
This is one of the most interesting and most important 
operations of gardening. What patience and perseverance 
one must have to carry on such fine work! Nature must 
be understood before we can hope to be successful in it. 
But what an opportunity there is for those who will take 
it up thoroughly and intelligently! 
The vegetable garden contains magnificent vegetables, 
many of which were first found by the wayside, or on the 
waste land by the sea, looking very small and insignificant. 
The fruit garden is full of luscious fruits, which have 
all been derived from trees and bushes containing insig- 
nificant fruits, often with disagreeable tastes. 
The flower garden . — It is here, perhaps, that to the 
ordinary observer the greatest strides have been made. 
When we think of some of the plants and flowers as they 
once were, and see what they are now, we marvel at the 
improvement, not only in colour and form, but in size. All 
this speaks of the careful work, perseverance, and fore- 
thought of others. But the work is not yet finished! 
Every season there are produced vegetables of greater 
excellence, new varieties of flowers, and occasionally a new 
variety of fruit. Those who endeavour to raise the standard 
of our fruits must have the greatest amount of patience, as 
it takes many years before the young seedlings will fruit 
at all, and then many of them may be worthless, and others 
require further hybridizing to bring up some quality in 
which they are deficient. This may mean another wait 
