THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 319 



DOUBLE FLOWERS AND SEEDS. 



In Vick's Monthly we find the following: 



Perfectly douhlo flowers cannot produce seed, since all the reproductive 

 organs are converted into })elals. Semi-double or partially double flowers may 

 produce seed, and these flowers possibly may be self-fertilized or may be 

 fertilized by others partially double or by single ones, and in either case may 

 form seed, a considerable portion of which produce flowers more or less 

 double. Or single flowers fertilized by semi-double ones may produce seeds 

 capable of similar results. Unusually large and vif^orous plants are not par- 

 ticularly favorable for the production of seeds, but rather particularly unfav- 

 orable; plants of medium vigor, neither stunted or forced into rank growth, 

 are best. The raising of seeds that will produce double flowers is an art that 

 requires much experience to enable one to practice it successfully, and nearly 

 every kind of flower requires a peculiar and special treatment. 



WHEAT IS A FRUIT. 



The above question has been asked at a good many of our meetings, but 

 often the querist has worn a dissatisfied air upon getting the information which 

 the best authorities were able to give. The Gardener's Chronicle believes in 

 sticking pretty closely to the botanical definition. It quotes Webster's first 

 definition as follows : 



'•First is, whatever is produced for the enjoyment of man or animals by the 

 processes of vegetable growth," and remarks that it is clear that branches, 

 leaves, flowers, roots, tubers, seeds, perfumes, galls even, might be thus classed 

 as fruit, even as the Irishmen call the noble tuber, " the fruit at the root." 

 But for gardening purposes, and still more for botanical purposes, a little more 

 precision is necessary, else we might as well say that mother and child are 

 identical, and that the nail on the great toe of Hercules is equivalent to Her- 

 cules himself. The dictionary is, however, equal to the occasion. If we do not 

 like one meaning, we can try another. Here is one that will suit our pur- 

 pose — '• That part of plants which contains the seed." The dictionary at once 

 goes on to spdil that definition by extending it and making it so vague that it 

 ceases to be a definition at all; but we will stop at the "part of plant which 

 contains the seed" — we wull confine it to that, and not include anything out- 

 side the fruit, not being an integral part of it; nor will we include anything 

 inside of it which is not essentially a part of it. The fruit is that part of the 

 plant Avhich contains the seeds, and it is nothing else. 



What oddities botanists are ! They seem to reverse the natural order of things 

 — they leave on their plates the fruit, and they eat something which they say is 

 not the fruit. What is that something which they say is not the fruit? To 

 answer this question to his own personal satisfaction — not, that is, to be 

 depended on dogma and "I say so'' evidence, which is a kind of evidence 

 eschewed in science except where no other can be had — the reader should see 

 before him a flower of an apple or pear in the earliest stages of its growth, and 

 he should trace in other stages from this earliest condition to the ripe state, the 

 growth of the apple or of the pear. There are not many young gardeners who 

 have skill and patience enough to do this thoronghl}'. 



