I9I4] 



/. Arthur Harris and Ross Aiken Gortner 



197 



of fruit woiild follow lipon variations in fertility would be osmotic 

 in nature. For a final answer to these questions one should carry 

 out series of determinations upon immature fruits with various 

 numbers of seeds. This we have not as yet been able to do. In the 

 nieantime it may not be out of place to call attention briefly to cer- 

 tain negative results which we have obtained with practically ripe 

 fruits of apple and pear. 



These pomes are well adapted to such studies. An abundance 

 of fruit can be obtained from a single tree, the seeds are not too 

 many and are easily counted, the weight of the individual fruits is 

 conveniently large, and their juice is easily expressed and analysed. 

 Our materials were drawn from a single apple tree, apparently a 

 seedling, and from a single pear tree producing medium sized fruits. 

 Thus in so f ar as homogeneity can be assured by having all the fruits 

 dealt with from the same individual tree, our materials are beyond 

 criticism. 



The samples were frozen before the sap was expressed.^ The 

 calculation of the constants of the juice was carried out according 

 to the conventional formulae, correction being made for the under- 

 cooling in the case of the freezing point depression. 



TABLE I 



Relationship hetween number of seeds and weight of fruit in pears 



Statement of results. The first question to be solved: Is 

 there, in apples and in pears, a correlation between the number of 



2 Gortner and Harris: Notes on the Technique of the Determination of the 

 Depression of the Freezing Point, Plant World, 17, 49-53; 1914. 



