HORTICULTURAL RESEARCH 281 



counties : it is hardly to be expected, however, that any one 

 who takes so much interest in the problems of fruit-culture 

 as to found a station of this sort would establish it on other 

 people's property or anywhere remote from his own observation. 

 Owing to the specialisation to which fruit-growing has given 

 rise, it is a distinct advantage that a general experiment station 

 should not be connected with any particular fruit-growing 

 district : an independent central station, affiliated to subsidiary 

 stations in fruit-growing districts for the study of local problems 

 is, perhaps, the ideal arrangement. It must also be remembered 

 that exceptionally favourable conditions of soil, climate or 

 situation are just as disadvantageous for such stations as are 

 the reverse. 



The scientific worker is rarely open to the accusation of 

 ignoring popular beliefs and traditions, for in many cases it is 

 found that these have a solid substratum of truth ; but the well 

 containing this truth is often very deep and requires a deal of 

 clearing out before anything of value is reached. Such beliefs 

 are common with horticulturists, who, as a class, must be 

 reckoned amongst the most conservative of men, ready to 

 adhere to whatever they have been taught in youth, as if it were 

 the accumulated wisdom of ages which no facts or demonstration 

 can upset. With them it is authority, not direct experiment, 

 which must settle disputed points ; a man who has grown trees 

 from boyhood, whose father has grown them before him, is a 

 prophet amongst the people, however limited his intelligence 

 may be. Of this spirit of opposition to inquiry and progress, 

 we have, not unnaturally, experienced the full force, for the 

 Woburn Farm directed its attention, in the first place, to 

 investigating the foundations on which horticultural practice 

 in various particulars was laid and the results in many cases 

 have not been favourable to accepted views. 



Reproduction of Fruit-trees 



Problems connected with the planting of trees were amongst 

 those to which our attention was first attracted. There are two 

 methods by which a tree reproduces its species in nature, the 

 one by bearing flowers which become fertilised with pollen 

 from the same or from a similar tree, thus producing seed which 



