86 



Bulletin 393 



Osterwalder (1907 a) examined the seeds in fruit that had fallen from 

 the tree. He found that sixty-five per cent of these contained embryos, 

 while about seventy-five per cent of the seeds in the fruit that remained 

 on the tree contained embryos. 



Relation between number of seeds and size of fruits 



MuUer-Thurgau (1898) has studied the relation between the number of 

 seeds and the size of berry in the grape. For eighteen varieties of grapes 

 he finds the following averages: 



Weight of flesh of 100 seedless grapes, 42.8 grams 

 Weight of flesh of 100 i -seeded grapes, 144.0 grams 

 Weight of flesh of 100 2-seeded grapes, 209.3 grams 

 Weight of flesh of 100 3-seeded grapes, 253.9 grams 



He also presents data indicating that a similar relation exists in the case 

 of apples and pears, and his results are substantiated by Ewert. The 

 general law, that the more are the seeds the larger is the apple, is illus- 

 trated by the figures in table 40. These data were obtained in 19 15 from 

 trees in the experiment station orchard at Cornell. 



TABLE 40. Number of Seeds and Size of Fruits 



This relation, being based on averages, will naturally not cover all 

 cases. During preliminary observations, few-seeded apples were found 

 which were as large as many-seeded fruits, and not infrequently even 

 larger. Further study showed that in a number of cases the relatively 

 small fruit with many seeds was associated with a small spur. This sug- 

 gested that the vigor of the spur, as determined by its weight, might be 



200 



