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No one has ever succeeded in hybridizing the wolf and the jackal, nor do our dogs show any more tendency to revert to the jackal than to the wolf. They meet their tropical relative with as much animosity as is proper, or at least customary, in the intercourse of allied yet distinct species.
Georgeson through hybridizing the cultivated berries with the wild native berry which grows luxuriantly at many places in Alaska. On reaching the Cathedral a street turns northward along which one finds, at the right, on the little knoll in the town, among the scattered spruce trees, the spot where formerly stood the tea houses of the Russians.
These are Mr. Veitch's calculations in a rough way, but there are endless exceptions, of course. Thus his Loelia triophthalma flowered in its eighth season, whilst his Loelia caloglossa delayed till its nineteenth. The genus Zygopetalum, which plays odd tricks in hybridizing, as I have mentioned, is curious in this matter also.
Mr. Burbidge suggested at the Orchid Conference that gentlemen who have plantations in a country suitable should establish a "farm," or rather a market-garden, and grow the precious things for exportation. It is an excellent idea, and when tea, coffee, sugar-cane, all the regular crops of the East and West Indies, are so depreciated by competition, one would think that some planters might adopt it. Perhaps some have; it is too early yet for results. Upon inquiry I hear of a case, but it is not encouraging. One of Mr. Sander's collectors, marrying when on service in the United States of Colombia, resolved to follow Mr. Burbidge's advice. He set up his "farm" and began "hybridizing" freely. No man living is better qualified as a collector, for the hero of this little tale is Mr. Kerbach, a name familiar among those who take interest in such matters; but I am not aware that he had any experience in growing orchids. To start with hybridizing seems very ambitious too much of a short cut to fortune. However, in less than eighteen months Mr. Kerbach found it did not answer, for reasons unexplained, and he begged to be reinstated in Mr. Sander's service. It is clear, indeed, that the orchid-farmer of the future, in whose success I firmly believe, will be wise to begin modestly, cultivating the species he finds in his neighbourhood. It is not in our greenhouses alone that these plants sometimes show likes and dislikes beyond explanation. For example, many gentlemen in Costa Rica a wealthy land, and comparatively civilized have tried to cultivate the glorious Cattleya Dowiana. For business purposes also the attempt has been made. But never with success. In those tropical lands a variation of climate or circumstances, small perhaps, but such as plants that subsist mostly upon air can recognize, will be found in a very narrow circuit. We say that Trichopilias have their home at Bogota. As a matter of fact, however, they will not live in the immediate vicinity of that town, though the woods, fifteen miles away, are stocked with them. The orchid-farmer will have to begin cautiously, propagating what he finds at hand, and he must not be hasty in sending his crop to market. It is a general rule of experience that plants brought from the forest and "established" before shipment do less well than those shipped direct in good condition, though the public, naturally, is slow to admit a conclusion opposed by
I have visited a number of the leading nurseries of Europe, tested their products in various ways, and made some experiments on the unavoidable conditions of hybridizing and on their effect on the ensuing generations.
Darwin taught us to expect that species which can rarely hope to secure a chance of reproduction will learn to make the process as easy and as sure as the conditions would admit that none of those scarce opportunities may be lost. And so it proves. Orchidaceans are apt to declare that "everybody" is hybridizing Cypripeds nowadays.
This house is devoted to the hybridizing of Cypripediums; I choose that genus for our demonstration, because, as has been said, it is so very easy and so certain that an intelligent girl mastered all its eccentricities of structure after a single lesson, which made her equally proficient in those of Dendrobes, Oncidiums, Odontoglots, Epidendrums, and I know not how many more.
Sander and named after the Superintendent of his hybridizing operations. Catt. dolosa has two leaves, L. Dayana one; the product has two and one alternately. Sepals and petals are alike in colour, rosy crimson, veined with a deeper hue; lip brightest crimson-lake, long, broad and flat, curving in handsomely above the column, which is closely depressed after the manner of Catt. dolosa.
La France, which is classed as a Hybrid Tea, because it is the result of hybridizing one of the hardier varieties with a pure-blooded Tea variety, is one of the finest Roses ever grown. It is large, and fine in form, rich, though not brilliant, in color, is a very free bloomer, and its fragrance is indescribably sweet.
The careful grower wishes to save every seed, for he has a feeling that if one is lost, that one may be the choicest of all. Crossing or Hybridizing.