80 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Wednesday Evening Session. 



SEX IN FRUITS. 



This most important subject was opened by Prof. L. H. Bailey of 

 Cornell university, in the paper which is subjoined in full. He prefaced 

 the paper with remarks upon use of sex in nature, which is to vary and 

 revitalize races, both of men, animals, and plants. This also is the office 

 of flowers, which, more than subdivision or offshoots of individual plants, 

 produce variation of the product and consequent adaptability to new 

 environments. 



Since the demonstration of the value of sprays for exterminating the 

 insect and fungous enemies of fruits, the most important advance in 

 American pomology is the discovery that some varieties of fruit are unable 

 to fertilize themselves. Much of the failure of apples and pears and native 

 plums to set fruit, even when bloom is abundant, is unquestionably due to 

 too continuous or extensive planting of individual varieties; and it is safe 

 to expect that other fruits are also jeopardized by unmixed planting. This 

 knowledge, as soon as it becomes more extensive and exact, is sure to 

 modify greatly the planting of orchards. But the; re is also an important 

 philosophical side to the problem which I wish to suggest at this time. 

 Why ai"e varieties infertile with themselves? What relation does such 

 infertility bear to the evolution of varieties? Is it likely to increase or 

 diminish in future varieties? 



FIRST APPEAEANCE OF SEX. 



When sex first appeared, the individual was hermaphrodite, that is, the 

 two sexes were present in the same organism. The two sexes are opposed 

 to each other in their physiological evolution, however, the female sex- 

 elements being developed from the constructive or vegetative (anabolic) 

 changes within the organism and the male sex-elements from the destruct- 

 ive or dissociative (katabolic) changes. It is impossible, especially in 

 organisms of increasing complexity, that these opposed changes of the 

 organic structure can take place simultaneously, at least in equal degree; 

 and it therefore happens that even in the lowest hermaphrodite or bisexual 

 organisms the sexes develop or operate alternately, the individual being at 

 one time essentially male and at another time essentially female. In this 

 way it first came, no doubt, that self-fertilization was more or less prohib- 

 ited. Now, as the struggle for existence increased, every organism, whether 

 animal or plant, was obliged to dispense with every superfluous ambition 

 and to concentrate its powers upon those organs and functions which were 

 an absolute necessity to the prolongation of the life of the species. There 

 came a tendency in certain individuals to eliminate one sex and in other 

 individuals to eliminate the other sex; so in time there came to be male 

 and female, or a division of labor. But other advantages besides a mere 

 division of labor resulted from this disjunctive evolution. The male and 

 female individuals became unlike in other features than those of mere sex, 



