4 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ January, 
recent issue of tlie Gardeners' Chronicle (n. s. 
si., p. 717), tliat it is very desirable indeed 
that these fine strains should be improved not 
only by selection, which is a haphazard way, 
but by careful crossing. In every strain there 
are two classes of flowers—the thrum-eyed, in 
which the mouth of the tube is quite filled up 
with the anthers, and the stigma is quite con¬ 
cealed beneath them; and the pin-eyed, in which 
the anthers are set down in the tube, while 
the stigma protrudes from its mouth, or at least 
is even with it. The thrum-eyed flowers should 
be used as the pollen-bearers, and the pin-eyed 
flowers as the seed-bearers. The requisites are 
good shape and substance, with rich and decided 
colours ; the plant should be of good habit, with 
the leaves stout and set on rigid foot-stalks. 
Those who have been fortunate enough to obtain 
a good flower may yet have experienced 
much difficulty in obtaining seeds from it. The 
flowers will, no doubt, in such a case, be found, 
on a closer inspection, to be of the thrum-eyed 
character; but if a pin-eyed flower of the same 
colour, and possessing as nearly as possible the 
same properties, can be selected from the same 
batch of seedlings, there would be no difficulty 
in obtaining a plentiful supply of good seeds by 
fertilising the latter with the former. Every 
day about noon the pollen should be conveyed 
from the flowers of the one plant to the pro¬ 
truding stigma of the other. During the ferti¬ 
lising period the plants should be placed near the 
glass, in a moderately warm, airy house. The 
plants may be placed on any convenient shelf 
near the glass in a vinery, greenhouse, or other 
structure, not a warm close stove, to mature 
their seeds, which will ripen during the sum¬ 
mer, and when the pods show that these are 
ripe, they should be gathered and laid out to 
dry.—T. Moore, 
OUR FORCED-FRUIT INDUSTRY. 
S HE cultivation of Forced Fruits for the 
supply of the public is a matter of so 
much importance to those who are en¬ 
gaged therein, that any improvement which can 
be made upon the various modes of packing 
for market, so as to secure a more uniform 
exemption from damage in transit, will be 
welcomed, not only as an advantage to the 
producer, but also as a tangible benefit to the 
consumer. 
It is from this point of view that I admire 
the liberality and wisdom of Mr. Webber, of 
Covent Garden, in offering prizes for the most 
successful plan of packing grapes which have 
to be sent some distance by rail before they 
reach a market. 
The growing of choice fruits in this country 
is every year becoming less remunerative, owing 
to the increasing competition which it has to 
encounter through importations of foreign fruits. 
The object which British fruit-growers ought 
to have in view is high quality in their pro¬ 
ductions ; and they should be careful not to 
allow trade convenience to reduce that high 
quality to the level of foreign-grown fruit, 
which has to be gathered and packed before 
it has attained its full flavour. 
In an article upon packing Peaches in a 
contemporary, it is recommended that Peaches 
for market be gathered when “ quite hard to 
the touch.” Surely this is an astounding re¬ 
commendation to come from one who stands 
in the very front rank of British fruit-growers, 
a recommendation savouring far more of con¬ 
venience to the fruit-dealer, than adapted for 
keeping up to the highest level the standard of 
merit in our home-grown fruits. Although 
the system of gathering choice fruits before 
they are ripe has been recommended by 
Covent-Garden fruit-dealers for a good many 
years, I have always felt—convenient as it may 
be for the retailer’s purpose—that it strikes 
the most deadly blow that can be aimed at the 
profitable production of forced fruits in this 
country. 
There is a stage in the ripeness of all fruits 
when the flavour is most fully developed. In the 
case of the Peach, I have invariably found this 
to be attained when the fruit has been ripened 
upon the tree. Now, if this be so, it is right 
that the public should derive the fullest enjoy¬ 
ment from what, under any circumstances, 
must always be a costly dish in this country, 
and that the reputation of our liothouse-grown 
fruits should not suffer merely for the con¬ 
venience of the dealer. There is no other 
competing industry, that I am aware of, that 
could or would allow its productions to be 
lowered in quality—after all the expense of 
production has been incurred—simply for the 
convenience of the retailers of the goods. 
If Peaches be carefully handled, there is no 
