As soon as the anther is emptied of the pollen the stamen begins to grow, and to push up the husk of the anther away from the embryo seed; and by the time the ear is seen the husk is well-nigh out of the scales which inclose the seed, but stops not there nor till the husk is dangling from a white thread far off from the entrance to the seed-case; and when all dangers are thus provided against, the farmer congratulates himself if the weather is propitious, for his Wheat is in blossom! "I do not know an instance 'of the natural crossing of varieties.' My own experience of variable plants was given last week, and I do not exactly comprehend what is meant by natural varieties, for all the so-called varieties in cultivation have been artificially obtained either by a change of cultivation, or by crossing with pollen such kinds or species as would sport from seeds under cultivation. These kinds I call variable plants, their own progeny being constantly variable in aspect, and just as variable when the pollen of another flower is applied to them.

It is a difficult thing for a gardener to see or comprehend the meaning of what botanists call varieties, or natural varieties of plants, because there is no limit, or sign, or any other indication in their outward aspect to distinguish them from the oldest species on record, and there is nothing in the botanical structure of even a variable seedling to distinguish it from a genuine species. Professor Henslow proved that point long since in his comparative anatomy of a cross-bred Foxglove, or some such plant. I do not know of one plant that is a cross between any two plants in a wild state, I do not know that any one has obtained a true cross in any of the pea-flower plants - papilionaceous plants, nor yet any reliable cross among all plants of the Composite order. I know one thing on which many, if not most gardeners, put a great stress or value in knowing - that is, the condition under which plants that are fit subjects for garden decoration are found in their natural habitats; but that knowledge is of little practical value, or may prove to be a hindrance to the proper cultivation of particular plants for some time, and yet might be the means of suggesting why and how plants may be, or have been, induced to cross in a wild state, or have sported into variations without crossing.

That one thing needful is proved to be of so little value by the well-known fact that very many garden plants, or their immediate ancestors, did not, and do not at the present day, occupy those regions in the wilderness which were best suited to their natures. Their positions or habitats, as we say, are more often the result of necessity, not of choice. A plant that would thrive and be luxurious on the sea coast, on the plains, or in valleys in beds of alluvium, or in the shelter of high ridges, or precipitous rocks, can find no foot room in such luxury from the natural competition of more powerful neighbors, as was the case not many ages since among ourselves in the midst of civilized life; and from this competition the weaker plants must always go where they can vegetate and live a quiet life without rank or luxury - in the highways and byways of the savage wilderness, and in time they become the alpine and sub-alpine species of that part of the world from sheer necessity. They may even become sterile from a long course of the starving principle.

But now recover one of them from impending fate, give it to a florist or a fancy gardener who is above the vulgar prejudice, in his belief that all plants in a wild state must, of necessity, occupy the places best suited for their natures, and he will soon tell a different version how the matter really stands, and might have stood in the wilds, if the plant could get admission to those parts for which its constitution was formed to enjoy. The plant is found to be a luxuriant grower, not at all like a mountain plant, or a rock plant, or ridge or the bare-places-of-the-earth-kind-of-looking plant one might expect from the description of its habitat. After a round of cultivation has brought it to that point from which it fell, from the competition in foreign parts, it begins to seed; and if it, or any of its seedlings, sport for joy, why, a new race is born into the world, as has been the case at every revolution of the order of things since the world began to be clothed as it is now; or if it comes true from seeds, another flower of the same kind which has already been civilized, as it were, may cross with it or by it, and a generation of gentry is forthwith on the stage of the florists, or of that of the competition tent.

But suppose the wild plant had found a place suited to its nature in the struggle with stronger plants, and that it inherited the property of sporting or of crossing with another, may we not believe that a new plant, or new race of plants might thus result by such natural means, as by the artificial process of the home cultivator? That is as far as the experience of gardeners and cross-breeders can account for natural crossing in a wild state.

"The artificial crossing of pea-shaped flowers is easy enough. All that. the operator has to do is to split open the bottom part of the keel-petal or united petals with the point of a pin: that relieves the stamens, which may then be extracted, and the pistil is free also to receive foreign pollen. Mr. Knight made an experiment for getting early Potatoes to seed by planting them on a ridge, and when the plants were ready to bloom he washed away the soil of the ridge to prevent them making young tubers, and so force the whole strength of the plants or roots into the stems and foliage, to see if that would force them to seed. Another form of that experiment is applicable to all bulbs and tubers which form roots on the flowering-stems, as the Japan Lilies and others do. Pot such bulbs or tubers with the neck of the bulbs just at the surface, and when the stem is an inch or two put an empty pot over it, introducing the stem through the hole at the bottom of the pot, then earth up the stem, and when it roots and fills the upper pot separate from the bulbs, then cross it".