4G4 Report of the Department of Horticulture of the 



apples is a peculiarity of the species. Good cultivation, an ample 

 supply of food at all times, careful attention to pruning and train- 

 ing, proper control of pests and systematic thinning, are all means 

 which can be used to some extent to circumvent Nature. 



Leaving now the formation of fruit buds, let us see what can 

 be done to control the development of fruit buds. 



Blooming, the prelude of fruiting, had little significance to the 

 fruit grower until the discovery was made that many varieties of 

 several fruits were unable to fertilize themselves and that failures 

 of fruit crops were often due to the planting of infertile varieties. 

 The knowledge obtained by experimenters in this field has to some 

 degree modified the planting of all orchard fruits. Pollination 

 and fertilization are events which take place in blossoms that 

 must be reckoned with by fruit growers. 



It. is necessary to distinguish between pollination and fertiliza- 

 tion, terms supposed by many to have the same meaning. Pollina- 

 tion is the dusting of the stigma, the female organ of a flower, with 

 pollen, the male element. Fertilization is the process in which 

 the male cell unites with the female cell. Fertilization takes 

 place only after pollination, but a flower may, of course, be 

 pollinated and fertilization not take place, a fact always to be 

 remembered. Fruits set and develop, for most part, only after 

 fertilization. The young fruits when first formed have but a 

 slight hold upon life. Unfavorable influences, no matter how 

 slight, may cause them to perish. Fertilization gives the tiny 

 fruit life, and enables it to hold upon the parent plant through 

 nourishment drawn to supply the embryo which has been formed 

 in the seeds. Thus fertilization usually, not always, determines 

 whether a fruit is to develop or to drop. Shortly after blooming 

 time, we have the fruit " drop," resulting for most part from 

 a lack of fertilization. 



But fertilization does not insure the complete development of 

 fruit. Even after a perfect union of male and female cells, so 

 far as it can be determined, much fruit drops in every orchard 

 and without regard to whether the trees bear few or many blossoms 



Crops of many varieties of several fruits do not set because 

 of the infertility of the blossoms — that, is, with many fruits 

 pollen may be produced in abundance, seemingly perfect in ap- 

 pearance, and potent on the pistils of other varieties, but which 

 may wholly fail to fertilize the ovaries of the variety from which 



