An interesting illustration of hybridization is shown by Mr. Knight, an English horticultural writer, who died about 1838. The following account was published in 1810:

"Blossoms of a small white garden pea, in which the males (anthers) had previously been destroyed, were impregnated with the farina (pollen) of a large clay-colored kind with purple blossoms. The produce of the seeds thus obtained were of a dark grey color, but these, having no fixed habits, were soon exchanged by cultivation into a numerous variety of very large and extremely luxuriant white ones, which were not only much larger and more productive than the original white ones, but the number of seeds in each pod was increased from seven or eight to eight or nine, and not unfrequently to ten. The newly-made grey kinds I found were easily made white again by impregnating their blossoms with the farina (pollen) of another white kind. In this experiment the seeds, which grew towards the point of the pod, and by position were first exposed to the action of the pollen, would sometimes produce seeds like it in color, whilst those in the other end would follow them.

"In other instances the whole produce of the pod would take the color of one or other of the parents; and I had once an instance in which two peas at one end of the pod produced white seeds like the male, two at the other end grey ones like the female, and the central seeds took the intermediate shade, a clay color".

When any desired change has been effected by this method, it is important to perpetuate such of the varieties produced as show a marked change in the line of improvement, either as regards size, quality or productiveness. This can only be done, or is best done, by continuous planting in the same kind of soil in a given locality and, so far as possible, under similar conditions of cultivation, more particularly in the use of manures. Improvement will ever follow selecting the best for seed, and giving the crop a generous and uniform treatment. Degeneration will as surely follow neglect in any of these particulars.

In the development of a new variety it matters not what it may be. Always select the best for seed purposes, and plant the product where it will not become contaminated by cross-fertilization with an inferior stock or strain. All kinds of garden vegetables, as well as grains or root crops, may be materially improved by the above-described methods. It is, moreover, a work both interesting and profitable.