PAXTON’S 
HORTICULTURAL REGISTER, 
DECEMBER, 1836. 
r HORTICULTURE. 
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF GRAPES BY CROSS IMPREGNATION. 
Ever since the practicability of impregnating one plant with the 
qualities, forms, and colours of another by a manual transference of 
the pollen has been discovered, many valuable results have been accom¬ 
plished in the obtainment of many improved fruits, and flowers, and 
culinary vegetables. A few pears, several strawberries, a good many 
apples, and a multitude of gooseberries, have been added to our lists; 
even new varieties of the pine-apple have, by these means, been pro¬ 
cured ; and there is no knowing to what length the art of cross impreg¬ 
nation may yet be carried, more especially in the further improvement 
of our cultivated fruits. 
There have been fewer attempts to improve our stock of grapes than 
of other descriptions of fruit. True it is, we have already a very 
numerous list, amounting, perhaps, to nearly, if not quite, three-score 
varieties of the cultivated grape. The principal part of these have been 
obtained, at different times, from foreign countries ; and it is probable 
that several have been obtained from seeds ripened in this country, or 
from imported fruit, the seeds of which vegetate readily, and without 
any particular care. We remember once seeing a fine birth of seed¬ 
ling vines which had sprung up on a gravel walk from seeds thrown 
out of a housekeeper’s room-window, but which were destroyed as 
weeds. 
But, however readily vines may be raised from seed, it does not 
follow that superior varieties may be so obtained, or even so good as 
VOL. v.— no. lxvi. S h 
