Review!} and Ewfraets .— HortiovUnrey 
113 
likely to produce a valuable variety, than if both sorts were selected from one 
place; if a larg^e apple is desired moderately sweet, select two large apples for 
the purpose, the one as sweet as possible, the other acid. If a small variety is 
required, resort to two small ones for that purpose; but in all other respects 
let dissimilarity be an invariable guide, both in flavour, habit, &c. 
“The power of procuring iniertnedkite varieties, hy the iiiterinixtnre of the 
pollen and stig-nia of two diflerent parents is, however, that which most deserves 
consideration. We all know that hybrid plants are constantly pro{inc(‘<i in every 
garden, and that improvements of the most remarkabb^ kind, are yearly occurring 
inconsequence. Experiments are, however, it may be supposed, sometimes mad(' 
without the operator being exactly aware, either of the precise nature of tiie 
action, ti)which he is trusting’ for sncc(’ss, or of the limits within which his <'xp(‘- 
riments should be confined. 
“Cross-fertilization is (^fleeted, as every one knows, by the iietion <)f the polien 
of one plant upon the stigma of another. Tlie nature of this actio:*, is higlily 
curious. Pollen consist of extremely minute hollow halls or bodies; tiu'ir cavity 
is filled with fluid, in which swim particles, of a ligure varying from sphei ica! to 
oblong, and liaving an apparently spontaneous motion. The stigma is composed 
of very lax tissue, the intercellular passages of whieii have a greater diatneter 
tiian the moving particles of the pollen. 
Wijen a grain of pollen comes in contact witli the stigma, it bursts and dis¬ 
charges its contents among the lax tissue upon which it has fallen. The moving 
particles descend through the tissue of the style, until one or more of them, finds 
its way, by routes specially destined by natitre for this service, into a little open¬ 
ing in the integuments of the ovulum, or young seed. Once deposited there, the 
particle swells, increases gradually in size, separates into radicle and cotyledons, 
and finally becomes the embryo—that part which is to give birth, when the seed 
is sow’ii, to a new indivi<lual. 
“Such being the mode in which the pollen influcnce.s the stigma, and subse¬ 
quently the .seed, a practical consequence of great importance necessarily 
follows, viz. that in all cases of cross-fertilization, the new variety will take chiefly 
after its poliniferoiis, or tnale parent; and that at the same time it will acquire 
some of the constitutional peculiarities of its mother.* Thus the male parent of 
the Downton Strawberry, was the Old Black, the female, a kind of Scarlet; in 
Coe’s Golden-drop Plum, the father was the Yellow Magnum Bonum, the mother 
the Green Gage ; and in the Elton Cherry, the White Heart was tlie male parent, 
and the Grafllouthc female. 
“The limits within which experiments of this kind miist be confined are, how¬ 
ever, narrow. It seems that cross-fertilization will not take place at all, or very 
rarely, between difllu’ent species, unless these species are nearly related to each 
other; and that the offspring of the two distinct species, is itself sterile, or if it 
possesses the power of multiplying itself by seed, its progeny returns back to the 
state of one or other of its parents. Hence it seldom or never has happened, that 
domesticated fruits have had such an origin. We have no varieties raised be¬ 
tween the Apple and the Pear, or the Quince and the latter, or the Plum and 
Cherry, or the Gooseberry and Currant. On the other hand, new varieties, 
obtained by the intermixture of tw'o pre-existing varieties, tire not Ic.ss prolific, 
but, on the contrary, often more so, (ban <‘iiher of their ]):ircnts; witness the 
numerous sorts of Flemish Pears, which have been raised l)y cross-fertilization 
* la early <'rosspH between <listinct specie.*:, this is I'nrt cnlaily 'iianifest; l)Ut In Sliosc of 
r.ariotips Ion-;- (lonicr.ti<'atcrl. it is less apparent; the d'.sth'.cti .ns between the ; areiits thi'ni- 
b.elve.5 being le.ss fixe l, and less clearly marked. 
Vor..I, No.3. Q 
