arch 7, 1903. 
fHE Gardening World 
GENERAL NOTICES. 
I We would earnestly urge secretaries of societies to notify us as far in advance as possible a 3 to dates of meetings, shows, etc. We de3ire to do all in our power to have tlie-ie 
■Mi iiately represented in the columns of Ihe gardening world. 
We respectfully request °tir readers, when they write to persons or firms advertising in this paper, to mention that their advertisement was seen in Th ; Gardening W-tid 
T 1 will thereby not only oblige this paper, but the advertisers. ™ 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
“Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.”— Pope. 
/i ( 
) ) 
Weekly Prize 
<j for \ 
Short Articles. 
Ihe Proprietors of The Gardening World , 
will give a cash prize of Ten Shillings for ) 
THE BEST PARAGRAPH, or SHORT ARTICLE, Sent ) 
by readers during the week. The Editor’s ( 
judgment must be considered final, and he will j 
be at liberty to use any of the contributions ) 
sent in. The paragraph, or article, must not <■ 
exceed one column in length, but the value, ? 
rather than the length, of the article will be < 
considered in making the award. Competitors S 
may send in items of news or comments on ; 
news; hints of . practical interest to gar- ( 
deners or growers of plants, fruits, or flowers ; ( 
successful methods of propagating plants ( 
usually considered- difficult; or contributions ) 
ON ANY SUBJECT COMING WITHIN THE SPHERE ) 
of gardening proper. Letters should be <■ 
addressed to Thf,. Editor, marked “Competi- < 
tion,” and posted not later than Friday night S 
to ensure insertion in the issue of next week. 
Photographic 
Competition, j 
A Prize of Two Guineas will be awarded for \ 
the best photograph, sketch, or water-colour S 
drawing sent in for reproduction by readers ) 
before February 28th, subject to the following ) 
conditions:—(1) That the Editor’s judgment ( 
must be final. (2) That the photograph, sketch, ( 
or drawing be accompanied by the following ) 
particulars: (a) The name of the subject, (b) ( 
the name and address of the competitor, who 
must be the actual photographer or artist, (c) ( 
when and where the subject was taken or j 
drawn. (3) That the competitor is the owner ^ 
of the copyright. (4) That the photograph, ) 
sketch, or water-colour drawing has not been < 
used in any other publication. (5) That the \ 
Editor is at liberty to use any of the photo- ) 
graphs, sketches, or drawings. Extra prizes of ) 
Five Shillings each will be awarded to any / 
subjects the Editor decides to use other than ( 
that awarded the first prize. Letters must be ) 
addressed to the Editor, marked “Photograph.” ) 
The Editor will not be responsible for the return ^ 
of photographs, but if stamps be sent an effort ; 
will be made to return unsuccessful contribu- l 
tions. ( 
Views and Reviews. 
Mendel’s Law Applied to Orchid 
Hybrids. 
Captain C. C. Hurst, F.L.S., F.R.H.S., lias 
been giving a considerable amount of atten¬ 
tion to hybrid Orchids, with the view of de¬ 
termining how far Mendel’s Law will apply 
in that case ; and the result of his researches 
so far have been given in different volumes 
of the “ Journal of the Royal Horticultural 
Society.” A pamphlet on the subject, re¬ 
printed from a recent number of . the 
“ Journal,” has been sent us by the author, 
and this embodies his most recent researches 
on the subject. Mendel’s original experi¬ 
ments, it would appear, were carried out 
with garden Peas, but it seems to us that the 
question of pedigree was largely unknown 
beyond the fact that, only two species were 
originally employed in the raising of the 
various garden forms. Since the improve¬ 
ments have been made there must have been 
a great deal of intercrossing during many 
generations, and it is hardly likely that any 
complete or reliable record of these crosses 
and the parentage has been kept. 
We think it, therefore, a more reliable 
attempt, in order to find out anything defi¬ 
nite, to begin with something from which 
the question of pedigree has been eliminated. 
To illustrate this last statement, we may take 
the case of species which have been grown for 
an unknown number of generations in a wild 
state, and fairly definite as to Specific charac¬ 
ters owing to the fact that they have not 
been crossed with other species. When such 
fixed species are employed in crossing we 
usually get something fairly like what we 
should have expected. In other cases, how¬ 
ever, some of the progeny appear much more 
like one of the parents than the other, and 
in such a case we have been accustomed to 
consider the dominant parent as the most 
potential, owing to its character having been 
fixed for a much longer period of time. This 
might be illustrated by mentioning the fact 
of a cross between some garden plant and 
some recently-introduced species. The more 
recently-introduced parent would show itself 
more decidedly in the progeny than in the 
case of the garden plant, whose stability may 
have been disturbed by inter-crossing and 
seed raising. We have also been accustomed 
to discussions amongst gardeners, who have 
defined that the seed parent is usually re¬ 
sponsible for the form of the progeny, and 
the pollen parent for the colour of the flowers, 
but we fear that this could hardly be borne 
out by results even in garden cultures. 
Mendel s theory was that if two species 
were crossed together, about half the re¬ 
sultant seedlings would be intermediate be¬ 
tween the parents ; the other half would be 
about equally divided between the parents — 
that is, as far as external likeness is con¬ 
cerned. His formula would be represented 
by A + 2 A a + a. Mr. Hurst has been apply¬ 
ing this law to Orchids with the view of test¬ 
ing whether it would demonstrate the 
reliability of Mendel’s Law or otherwise. 
He gives a long list of hybrid Orchids, in 
which he sums up the total of 2,281 specific 
characters and 2,267 intermediate characters, 
and on this assumption they would seem to 
hear out the truth of Mendel’s Law. It 
seems to us, however, that numerous as are 
the hybrids of Orchids in cultivation, in most 
cases the number of seedlings raised between 
any two parents would be far too few to place 
any reliance upon them as to the percentage 
of the progeny which resemble one or other 
parent, or were exactly intermediate. The 
number of seeds in each pod of an Orchid is 
usually very great, and sometimes even enor¬ 
mous, as in the case of Cattleya, the pod of 
which has been reckoned to contain one 
million seeds. Now the number of seedlings 
raised even out of that is infinitesimal, and 
we imagine that the seedlings which do 
make their appearance are most often the 
stronger ones, which survive the treatment 
they receive where weaklings would be 
likely to fail. The various specimens which 
he has been able to examine, as well as the 
figures and descriptions, have enabled him 
to cast up a number of figures which seem to 
bear out Mendel's Law fairly well. It seems 
to us, however, that something more definite 
or reliable would be obtained by sowing 
seeds of plants which can be raised in con¬ 
siderable quantity^ and with a fair amount of 
