194 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ August 28, 1884. 
brilliant colour. This exhibitor has long had a reputation for possessing 
one of the very finest strains of these plants in cultivation.—W. K. W. 
A FEW HINTS ON POMOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 
By E. LEWIS STTJRTEVANT, M.D., Director New York Agricultural Experimental 
Station, Geneva (in Transactions of the American Pomological Society). 
The term Horticulture embraces both the fruit garden and the kitchen 
garden within its meaning, and although it is difficult to define just 
exactly what is a fruit and what is a vegetable in the ordinary acceptance 
of the word, yet the discussions at our Horticultural Society meetings 
rarely pass the lines from one to the other as established by common 
custom. The American Pomological Society recognises as fruits the 
Apple, Apricot, Blackberry, Cherry, Currant, Gooseberry, Grape, Mul¬ 
berry, Fig, Pomegranate, Nectarine, Orange, Lemon, Peach, Pear, Plum, 
Quince, Raspberry, and Strawberry. Downing, in his book on fruits 
(edition of 1866), adds Almonds, Berberries, Melons, Nuts, and Olives to 
the list, yet we doubt if the classifying of Melons as a “fruit” is gene¬ 
rally followed, and Berberries and some Nuts are scarcely yet sufficiently 
improved to be propagated in many varieties. 
Accepting the American Pomological Society’s list as including the 
vegetable species which are pomologically to be classified as fruits, we 
can at once see a feature common to all which separates them from vege¬ 
table fruits, and this is the method of propagation. The entire list, as 
named, are propagated by grafts, layers, offsets, or divisions, and each 
variety is the representative of but a single variation. In vegetable fruits 
we have propagation by seed. This difference is, it will be noted, a fun¬ 
damental one. Using the popular language, our vegetables are the 
resultant of a heredity trained through annual selection ; cur fruits are 
the resultants of a single selection from variation, or rather the prolong¬ 
ation of a noted variable. The fruit is the continuation of an individual ; 
the vegetable is the reproduction through successive generations. 
The practical methods in the fruit garden and the kitchen garden are 
based on these differences. The seeker after new varieties of vegetables 
accumulates variations, produced by cross-fertilisation or otherwise, 
through a process of careful selection or rejection, or both combined, 
aud gains stability with each generation of trial. The fruit-originator 
secures variation through the planting of numerous seed, oftentimes of 
cross-fertilised seed, and when perchance a desirable variety is obtained 
this chance product is retained, and the individual is disseminated. 
The effect of these methods of selection are the securing in the one 
case a trueness to type from seed, in the other case a variability from 
seed. The tendency in the one case is through repeated selections to 
accumulate the heredity of successive generations of plants ; in the other 
case but the keeping distinct of an accidental type. “ Like produces 
like,” is the axiom of the vegetable grower ; “ variation produces varia¬ 
tion,” is the axiom of the fruit-grower : hence the one uses seed to retain 
his variety, the other uses the scion, sucker, offshoot, or slip. 
In view of these differences which exist, continued improvement of 
our fruits and vegetables are to be sought by different methods of pro¬ 
cedure. In the vegetables we can take advantage of the empirical law 
of inheritance at corresponding ages, and can exercise selection as varia¬ 
bility becomes defined at an early or later stage of growth, and can thus 
hope to change the period at which differentiation begins to show between 
varieties of the same species ; we can seek correlations between parts, 
and when such are detected we can use this knowledge to govern our 
attempts to influence changes in the invisible by changes produced in the 
visible ; we can influence changes in the plant through excessive condi¬ 
tions of soil and culture, through position of the seed, &c., and through 
selection and rogueing of numerous seedlings fix the variations which 
occur ; we can hybridise or cross-fertilise, and by after-selection exercised 
on the seedlings, gradually reduce to a common type or separate into 
various divergent and desired types. In the vegetable, in a word, through 
the rapid succession of generations, we are enabled to conveniently apply 
in practice the laws of breeding, whereby varieties become assured on the 
one hand, and the reproduction of varieties from seed become secured on 
the other. 
In our pomological fruits, pe7' contra^ the succession of generations is 
BO delayed that the patience of the grower is, as a rule, unequal to the 
task of methodical procedure. The present system of obtaining new 
varieties of fruits is to cross-fertilise in order to secure variation in seed¬ 
lings consequent upon a known parentage, and then through the growing 
of very many plants to select for propagation the occasional one which 
possesses qualities desirable for use—a process in its nature uncertain, in 
its results unsatisfactory, its whole theory being based, not upon the 
definite knowledge of any one series of laws influencing growth, but upon 
the general law of probability as applied to series of events happening 
from ill-detined causes. 
It seems proper at this stage of horticultural progress to ask ourselves 
the question whether pomology does not admit of more systematic 
attempts at improvement than at present exercised ; whether the know¬ 
ledge already possessed of vegetable physiology does not admit of a 
practical and definite application ; whether methods which have been 
found adequate in the vegetable garden may not be found to possess value 
for the fruit garden. 
Selection through successive seedlings seems scarcely applicable to 
the most of our fruits, as requiring too long a period for its testing, and 
as the generations required to secure trueness of reproduction by seed of 
a variable from a succession of variables is as yet unknown. The most 
satisfactory way, to our present knowledge, seems to be to meet the 
problem indirectly, and to seek through the study of correlations to 
change the product of the seedling in a definite direction through our 
own manipulation of factors capable of being observed and selected. 
There are, doubtless, many correlations which may be utilised, but the 
most promising one at present offered to our attention is that relation 
which appears to exist between the quality of a fruit and the abundance 
of the seed, or the proportion of the seed to flesh. 
A most careful summary of what is known regarding seedless fruits 
and a careful examination into the general relations that exist between 
the seeding and product of many plants justify a quite strong statement 
that as plants are relieved from the natural necessity of maintenance of 
their species, and selection is exercised towards improvement, the seed 
decreases as tenderness of flesh or pulp is attained, until finally in many 
cases the seeds become notably diminished in number, or wholly or in 
part abortive. Otherwise expressed, as in natural selection the seed is 
an essential motive of the plant existence, the energies of the plant are 
directed throughout generations of existence towards the improving of 
its chances either through the multiplication of its seed, the securing of 
the dispersal of its seed, or through a gain in vitality, resistance, or ger- 
minative force. Under domesticated conditions this natural motive 
becomes weakened, and through man’s selection and protection the motive 
of the plant is to administer to the desires or caprice of man as directed 
by man’s interference, and hence improvement is gauged according as 
the plant departs from the natural motive to conform to the new moti/e. 
Assuming our reasoning and explanation to be based on a true obser¬ 
vation of facts, it becomes of importance to ask ourselves how we can 
apply to practice. The answer comes of itself :— 
Select seed from fruit containing less seed than the average for its 
kind for use in trials. 
Cross-fertilise small or few-seeding varieties of a kind with pollen 
from varieties of a similar character, and from the produce select the few- 
seeded specimens for continuous plantings. 
Continue this species of selecting according to correlations as far as 
possible through successive generations of seedlings. 
As fruit plants are improved they are changed, through the with¬ 
drawal by man from natural conditions to artificial conditions. Their 
progress and existence are dependent upon a new set of factors, protec¬ 
tion having taken the place of the natural necessity of the struggle for 
existence, the survival of the most fit having given place as a law to the 
survival of the most useful. Hence the domesticated plant is a different 
plant from the wild plant, having secured correlative adaptations to a 
new set of conditions. Accordingly we must note as an observation 
familiar to all, that domesticated and highly improved varieties quickly 
suffer from neglect, or, in other words, cannot at once react to the new 
set of factors which come into action when man’s care is withdrawn. 
We should not say that the Pickerel is less vigorous than the Shad because 
he dies when removed into salt water, neither should we say that the 
plant habituated through generations of culture to the conditions of cul¬ 
ture is less hardy than the wild plant when transferred to the conditions 
under which the wild plant succeeds. Vigour must be relative as between 
equally improved varieties, under conditions for which they have been 
both fitted, and as improvement carries the plant further from the motives 
which govern the wild plant, so correlatively must the plant become con¬ 
formable to the motives of domestication. This reasoning offers explan¬ 
ation of the fact that difficulties in horticulture keep pace with improve¬ 
ment in horticulture, and we must expect as horticulture improves the 
quality of its produce, so the skill required of a horticulturist will become 
more pronounced. 
These considerations enable us to assert with some degree of positive¬ 
ness that horticultural progress can be in two directions :— 
First, in the way of the greatest improvement in quality of fruits for 
the purpose of the skilled grower, the amateur, or the specialist. 
Second, in the way of securing great vigour of plant with fair or 
mediocre quality of fruit for the purposes of the careless grower and the 
commercial grower who supplies the demands of uncritical consumers. 
For the one purpose, selection through correlation may avail to secure 
speedy success ; for the other purpose, selection from plant growth-habit 
may avail. For the best results, however, the union of the two methods, 
whereby we may hope to secure sufficient quality with sufficient vigour 
as an immediate result, with allied progression of the two properties in 
the continuation of efforts founded upon the rigorous application of the 
art of selection and rejection. 
WATSONIAS. 
The Iris family yields us a large number of handsome plants, and 
not the least beautiful amongst them are the varied and brilliant Wat- 
sonias. Irises, Ixias, Sparaxis, and Gladioluses are familiar inmates of 
our gardens and houses, but Watsonias do not at present occupy such a 
prominent position, at least in English gardens. We are familiar with 
these flowers, because like many other similar plants, large quantities 
are grown in some of the warmer districts on the Continent, whence 
flowers are dispatched to our markets in considerable numbers, and are 
occasionally also seen at London exhibitions. The fact is, that though 
Watsonias will grow out of doors satisfactorily in warm borders in the 
south of England, they will not produce pleasing results unless they can 
be so favoured in position, and probably a few injudicious attempts to 
establish them in unsuitable places have brought them into bad favour 
with some cultivators. In a cool house, however, such as a greenhouse, 
conservatory, or even in a cool frame, where they can be secured from, 
frost, and not exposed to heavy cold rain, which does them the most 
injury, they will give but little trouble, and yield a profusion of flowers 
