08 
[May 15. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
to do so by any other means; and I have thus seeded 
a few plants which are counted as absolutely barren in 
our books, and by the best breeders. How is it that an 
over luxuriant tree, not a bad setter, after producing a 
full compliment of blossoms, sets badly? The true 
answer to this question would explain liow I, by giving 
a sudden check at this time to a supposed barren plant, 
obtained seeds from it. Our March blossoms bad such a 
check at the proper time this spring, and failed so far— 
therefore, a sudden check at the right time will not 
alone effect a setting of the blossoms, it must be accom¬ 
panied by a dry state of the atmosphere. It was the 
continued wet and mugginess of the atmosphere which 
deranged the setting of the blossoms. The pollen dust 
which causes this setting is as dry as tinder, and as 
small as anything can be; rain or damp makes it no 
better than a paste, and a strong wind playing among 
the trees in blossom cannot disperse it. Bees were busy 
among the blossoms as often as they could be this spring, 
but they too failed in scattering all the blossoms; and it 
would be interesting to know if they were enabled to 
make use of the damp flour or pollen, this season, for 
their side panniers, which they carry home on their 
thighs. 
Now, what I wish to effect in reference to this pecu¬ 
liarity in a large division of the vegetable kingdom, and 
to take advantage of it for the flower-garden, is to induce, 
if possible, an increased interest in the production of 
superior varieties of flowers from plants now supposed to 
be altogether barren. I have done so myself repeatedly; 
and as far back as fourteen years ago, I hinted the same 
doctrine in Loudon’s Gardeners Magazine, in an article 
on crossbreeding, suggested by Dr. Herbert’s large work 
on bulbs. Before that time the principal field for my 
experiments in crossing, or in setting flowers without 
crossing them, was among bulbs, and with them and 
their kindred vegetation (Endogens), the more vigorous 
they are at the time of flowering, the more sure they are 
to seed, and the easier to force them to make seeds if 
they are lazy to do so under cultivation. But in getting 
to the next field (Exogens), and applying the same rules 
as with bulbs, I was baffled at every step; that is, in 
every step where some difficulty existed about getting a 
plant to seed at all. The doctrine I then broached in 
the Gardeners Magazine was in these words : “ What¬ 
ever process may be found applicable for the production 
of seeds (in different cases) in Endogens, I apprehend 
the converse will be a sure guide for Exogens. The 
former may, probably, require an excess of development 
so to speak ; the latter an over exertion of their vegetative 
powers." An obscure phrase, certainly, but it means 
this: to make them fruitful, stimulate Endogens, to 
which bulbs belong, but stint Exogens at the time of 
flowering. Now from that day to this, I have tried 
experiments both ways every year, without meeting with 
a single instance to controvert this doctrine. Then let 
us suppose that we have two plants from which we 
desire to obtain a cross seedling; both of them being 
very shy to seed even by their own pollen, and more so 
by the pollen of each other, if they are bulbs, or belong 
to that division of plants now "called Endogens, but 
formerly Monocotyledons; if there is any way of over¬ 
coming their unwillingness to seed, it is by a strong 
stimulus, such as better soil, more of strong water, 
and increased moist heat. On the other hand, if they 
are Exogens, as Geraniums, Fuschias, Honeysuckles, 
Clematis, or any of our hardy fruit trees, a sudden check 
as they are coming into flower is the surest way to catch 
them in the humour of uniting “ for better, for worse.” 
All our best bedding Geraniums are unfortuately very 
shy to seed; Lady Mary Fox, Diadematum Unique, 
Querdfolium, Sidonia, rink ivy-leaf, Mangle’s variegated, 
and many others, under ordinary good culture, never 
produce a seed, but some of thepi are not quite barren, 
nevertheless; and as each of them belongs to a different 
section of the family, and, perhaps, the best in those i 
sections, it would be quite a triumph to get them to j 
produce seeds. I have obtained a seedling from Diade - j 
matum, and only one, but it is the very best of all the , 
reddish ones, and I call it Diadematum regium, making 
the fourth Diadematum,—rubescens and bicolor, with the 
old Diadematum, being the other three. Of all the 
variegated Geraniums, taking in the Golden Chair and 
Flower of the Day, Mangles variegated is by far the best 
for general use. I have been striving these ten years to 
get it to seed under all kinds of experiments, and I have 
just succeeded. Last year I seeded two plants of it, 
but a great loggerheaded fellow, who was trimming the 
border, cut off one of the seed stalks, the only one on 
that plant, long before the seeds were half ripe. From 
the second plant I got three seeds* two of which are up, 
and one of them is variegated. If this one turns out a 
breeder, I shall forget all the time and trouble, and 
forgive the big man who deprived me of a double 
chance. 
Now as to the ways of stinting such plants to cause 
them to seed. If they are in pots, let them get pot- 
bound, so much so, that there will hardly be anything 
in the pot but roots. A pot four or five inches in 
diameter will sustain a plant of any of these Geraniums 
seven or eight years—perhaps double the time; that is 
one way. When the flower-buds are ready to open, 
withold water till the leaves flag down, then water, and 
let the leaves droop a second, and a third time, and as 
long afterwards as the plant keeps in bloom. A north 
window in a dwelling-house is the best place for this, 
the second best experiment; and the third, is to plant 
out your shy breeder full in the sun, in the open ground, 
some cold day about the end of this month ; let the ball 
be kept entire, and be rather dry at the time, and if the 
border is moist, the plant will take no harm for three 
weeks, and in that time, and all through June, keep 
dusting it with its own, or with the pollen of another 
sort. I am of opinion that the kind of treatment given 
for the three previous years has some influence on these 
experiments ; but of this I am not quite sure. Of the 
starving system I am quite certain. The only cross¬ 
breed plant from the Scarlet Currant that has yet ap¬ 
peared, was obtained by the writer fifteen years since. 
A great many experiments on that plant during the 
previous five years failed, and the way I succeeded at 
last, was by transplanting at the moment the first few 
flowers opened, the roots being so severely handled, 
that I had to screen the plant from the sun for three 
weeks, and water it regularly all the time. It was from 
that experiment, and two others like it, that I then com¬ 
bated a general opinion, which was even entertained by 
Dr. Herbert, the best and most scientific cross-breeder 
that ever lived, that well-feeding a plant all the time the 
seeds were ripening, would have influence on the seed¬ 
lings themselves; a very plausible, but a most erro¬ 
neous theory which has no foundation in fact. I never 
crossed a Ribes since; but it is very strange that no one 
has taken up the Ribes family to cross from. If I was a 
young man beginning the world, I could make a fortune 
out of that one single genus, and so 1 could from apples, 
pears, cherries, plums, and, indeed, all our hardy fruits, 
for I am quite convinced that all that philosophy has 
advanced on the subject of improving our fruits is 
entirely wrong. I am equally certain that no one has 
yet explained how to cross Wheat, Barley, and Oats, or, 
indeed, any of the grasses; all of them are Endogens, 
and, although I never attempted to cross any of them, 
1 am almost sure, to make the best of them, they must 
be over-fed previously to their time of flowering, if, in¬ 
deed, we allow them to have flowers at all. Farmers, and 
writers on agriculture, talk and write about their wheat 
being in flower at such and such times, but I very much 
