424 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



Having been properly fertilized, the ovary develops and forms the fruit, 

 and the ovules become fully developed seeds. 



Botanists are not agreed as to whether the influence of the pollen is con- 

 fined to the ovules or extends to the ovary walls and receptacle. "While 

 many are convinced that the effect of a cross can be noticed in a strawberry, 

 orange or apple, others are equally sure that the ovules or seeds are alone 

 influenced. 



Very often some peculiarity will appear in a fruit, and it is very easy to 

 account for it by attributing it to a cross. On the other hand, in the experi- 

 ments of Prof. Bailey, and similar ones conducted at the Ohio and Iowa 

 stations, when the plants were artificially crossed and foreign pollen 

 excluded, no result was noticeable the first year, indicating that the effect of 

 the pollen did not extend to the ovary or receptacle. 



When Crookneck squashes are fertilized with pollen from a "White Bush 

 vine the result is, to all appearances, Crooknecks; but if the seeds of these 

 squashes are planted the fruits produced will resemble neither parent, but 

 will possess characteristics of both. The fruits will be white, and in some 

 cases will be flattened nearly as much as the White Bush, but generally will 

 have a thick neck, shorter than a true Crookneck. They will be ridged or 

 scalloped like the Bush, with the warty appearance of the Crookneck. 



In 1887, at the College, White and Yellow Bush, Yellow, Orange and 

 Green Crooknecks and several other varieties of squashes were planted and 

 allowed to pollenize each other. In the fall, seeds of nineteen squashes were 

 selected, and when planted in 1888 gave some wonderful results. The 

 seeds taken from a single squash produced vines no two of which bore fruit 

 that was anything alike. Thus, the seeds from a very crooked Orange 

 Crookneck produced one vine that gave fruits that approached the White 

 Bush, another evidently a cross with Yellow Bush, a third whose fruits 

 were dark yellow, nearly smooth, and approaching the Crookneck form, and 

 others all the way from a straight-necked fruit to the very warty and 

 crooked form of the original squash. This would indicate that the pollen 

 from a number of plants might share in fertilizing a single pistil, and as 

 the fruits on any given vine resembled each other in form and color it is an 

 additional proof that the pollen affects only the ovules. 



Seeds, or matured ovules, are miniature plants. They are of various 

 shapes and sizes and consist of two covering or seed coats, and a nucleus 

 made up of the embryo, with its endosperm or food mass. The outer coat, 

 or testa, is firm and often hard and thick, and may be smooth, ridged, 

 roughened or marked in various ways. Sometimes it is provided with 

 hooks, awns, hairs or winged expansions which aid in the distribution of the 

 seeds. The inner coat, or tegnum, is generally thin and dry. 



The embryo consists of the radicle, from one end of which the root 

 develops, while at the other are one or more seed leaves, or cotyledons, and 

 a bud, or plumule, which gives rise to the stem. 



The endosperm is generally starchy or oily, and is placed in the seed for 

 the purpose of nourishing the young plantlet during germination. Some- 

 times the embryo is largely developed and the food mass is stored within the 

 seed leaves, as in the squash and bean. 



When seeds are fully ripe, nature provides in various ways for their dis- 

 tribution and planting. Some are thrown several feet by the bursting of 

 the fruit or the contracting of the receptacle ; others fall into streams, and 



