100 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 
hardly fail to get some gay-coloured ones amongst 
them, and by saving liis own seeds in future, and only 
gathering it from those flowers he most admires, he 
may easily keep himself in good stock of them for 
the rest of his life. I may also mention that I have 
resolved on treating two-thirds of my stock of cine¬ 
rarias as annuals, that is, raising so many of them 
every year from seeds, instead of propagating any 
but the very best sorts, for many of them are so de¬ 
bilitated from one cause or another, that it is an up¬ 
hill work to increase them in quantity by the usual 
modes of cutting and dividing the old plants. 
Hybridizing. —In the introductory remarks on 
this subject, at page DO, we have seen that one 
family of mammals, (as naturalists term all annuals 
that suckle their young,) have sprung from two indi¬ 
viduals ; and that during successive generations the 
present characters, constitutions, and habits of the 
different- races of the human family were stamped on 
them bv local circumstances and other causes. Some 
of the most eminent naturalists believe that all the 
other animals have, in like manner, branched out 
from a few original types; and, like man himself, 
owe their present conditions to the influence of 
climates and various causes. And it is as firmly 
believed by others that the different races, or families, 
of plants have had a similar origin, that is to say, 
have passed into those endless variations, for which 
they are now so conspicuous, from a few original 
types. When we see that we ourselves are permitted 
to add new forms to those already in existence, by 
the means pointed out to us by the light of science, 
or rather by the Hand that made them, we may well 
pause before we can gainsay or dissent from these 
views. But whether these ideas be right or other¬ 
wise, they will not much affect the views of cross¬ 
breeding, which I wish to explain to the uninitiated 
by referring to them. All that I want to explain is, 
that plants aro divided by nature into families, many 
of which, like the human family, have assumed dif¬ 
ferent aspects in different countries and localities 
from their progenitors; but that no outward appear¬ 
ance will warrant us beforehand to say whether or 
not the different members of any one family will 
interbreed with each other. All that we are certain 
of is—and that is not yet fully admitted by some— 
that no plant, and probably no animal, is allowed to 
cross with another plant or animal not originally 
of the same stock or type; and that all the cases 
that have been advanced to the contrary by different 
naturalists are only so many verdicts against their 
own classifications. It is true that many analogies 
can be traced between the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms; and I am persuaded, from what little 
acquaintance I have with the subject, that all the 
confusion which now exists, as to the powers and 
effects of cross-breeding, both in the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms, have arisen, and are perpe¬ 
tuated, from the fact that naturalists have drawn 
their conclusions on these matters more from these 
analogies than from actual facts. I am, also, equally 
satisfied that, among plants at least, all the facts 
that we have yet ascertained respecting the power 
of cross-breeding in any family are little better than 
blind guides in assisting us to experiment on the 
members of a different family; and, therefore, that 
every step in the progress of cross-breeding must be 
arrived at by actual experiments rather than by the 
closest analogies; and that any reader of The Cot¬ 
tage Gardener is as likely to arrive at a just con¬ 
clusion, step by step, in any family of plants, as the 
most consummate philosopher. Let us, therefore, 
take up the subject with the two-fold view of increas¬ 
ing the gaiety of our window favourites, and of 
recording facts from which, at some future period, a 
correct theory of cross-breeding may be constructed. 
To understand the simple process of fertilising, or, 
as we may call it, crossing one flower with the dust 
of another, it is necessary to understand the different 
[tarts of a flower. If we look at a geranium flower, 
for instance, we see some flowers open and some in 
bud; those in bud are enclosed in a green covering, 
and only the tips of the flower leaves peeping out at 
the point: that covering is the first part of a flower, 
and is called the calyx , a word of Greek origin, signi¬ 
fying a cover, so it is very easy to remember. Some 
people call this “ the flower-cup,” but it is more of a 
saucer than a cup, and we of The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener will take things in their right meaning, and 
call the calyx a saucer, and the flower a cup, because 
the flower when wide open sits in the calyx like a 
tea-cup in its saucer. Now, take one of these wide 
open flowers of that same geranium, and inside, in 
the middle of it, you will see a lot of reddish oblong 
bodies, called anthers, all held up at different lengths 
on the top of whitish threads, called filaments, from 
filam, the Latin for a- thread. These anthers open 
with two slits on one side when they are quite ripe, 
and a yellow dust is seen inside these openings; this 
dust is called pollen , and is the most wonderful thing 
in the economy of the vegetable kingdom. The dust, 
or pollen, is finer than the finest flour, and yet a 
good magnifying glass will shew that it consists of 
many small particles of different forms, but always 
of the same form in the same plant. You would 
trobably think I was drawing on the imagination if 
were to say that one of these anthers contained 
more than a thousand grains of pollen ;—what shall 
we say, then, when it is clearly made out that a 
thousand multiplied by ten thousand, and that ten 
times over, would come nearer the truth ? Each in¬ 
dividual grain out of these numberless thousands is 
endowed with a power that can produce the largest 
oak tree in England. The hee gathers this pollen 
from the flowers, and is the yellow balls you see 
them carrying into the hive on their hind legs ; and 
if we could make a calculation of the number of 
pollen grains a single bee could gather in one day, I 
should not be surprised if it should turn out that the 
whole would exceed that which could originate a 
forest larger than any we have in this country. The 
pollen, therefore, is the father of all plants and trees. 
Each pollen grain contains matter smaller than 
pollen, and is the substance which is the fecundating 
principle in the vegetable kingdom. In the very 
centre of the same geranium flower we have been 
looking at, you will see one little thread called a 
style, coming up by itself, and when it is ripe it 
di vides at the top into five little horns. These little 
horns are the stigma, and this stigma in each flower 
is the mother of all seeds it produces. It is of 
different forms in different plants, but by its style 
it is in all cases found to be attached to the little 
nursery where the seeds come to maturity, or, in 
other words, to the seed vessel. Thousands of con¬ 
jectures are afloat as to how the pollen fertilizes the 
seeds; but philosophers are loath to admit anything 
they cannot well explain, and they have been puzzling 
their heads for an age to account for this simple 
process; so simple, indeed, that a child can under¬ 
stand it, if he is first told that a circulation of the 
juices of all plants, and in all parts of a plant, is 
constantly going on, and more so when they are in 
a growing state; part of this circulation goes on 
