STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 163 



direct discussion, it is proper to state that a fruit in the botanical 

 sense is any ripened ovary and its contents. The pod, with the 

 included seeds of a garden pea, is a true fruit, and so is a tomato 

 and a cucumber; but the horticultural usage of the term is much 

 more limited. This does not even include all edible fruits, for 

 the three examples just given are called vegetables, while other 

 true fruits, like wheat and buckwheat, are known as grains. In 

 this article the term fruit is used in a sense closely similar to the 

 usual horticultural interpretation, meaning all true fruits, or 

 fruit-like structures, which are eaten by man and animals for the 

 substances they contain, outside of the seeds themselves. This 

 includes apples, peaches, plums, cherries, grapes, blackberries, 

 raspberries, strawberries, melons, squashes, tomatoes, egg 

 plants, &c. Even the red pepper is probably to be included, 

 though I am not aware what animals feed upon them in their 

 natural state. 



Our task will be simplified if we consider the third proposition 

 first. A little thought will suffice to show that the production of 

 edible fruits cannot be essential to the production of seeds, for 

 the vast majority of the seeds of plants are natural without such 

 accompaniment. In fact, seeds borne within fleshy fruits must 

 usually be separated from the pulpy mass, in order to insure their 

 germination. They are usually destroyed if allowed to remain 

 within this fermentable substance until decay takes place. It 

 may have been supposed by some, that edible fruits were first 

 produced directly for the good of man or the animals which fed 

 upon them ; but this explanation is no longer acceptable to 

 modern thought. In nature, everything is thoroughly selfish. 

 Plants have no interest in animals, save as the latter, can serve 

 their own purposes. Animals have no benevolent tendencies 

 toward plants, and never care at all for them, except as their 

 own interests are subserved. Why, then, should wild fruits be 

 developed? The fleshy part is not useful towards the perfection 

 of the seeds, neither can it serve any other directly useful office 

 for the plant. The facts in the case give us the best answer. 

 When grapes or strawberries are swallowed by birds, the seeds 

 pass the digestive processes unharmed, and are scattered far and 

 wide over the face of the earth. The fruits of the Crab Apple 

 and hawthorns are devoured by deer, cattle, &c, and the seeds, 

 in a similar manner, are safely scattered over wide areas. Those 

 •of pumpkins and squashes, in their wild conditions, secured dis- 

 semination in the same manner. In accordance with this idea, 

 we find that fruits only become edible when the seeds reach 

 maturity. Before this time, they are not only uninviting, but are 

 hidden among the foliage by taking its tint of green ; but when 

 the seeds mature, they color up so as to be conspicuous, soliciting 

 attention. This method of securing the dissemination of the 

 seeds, though resulting in the same thing, is by no means 



