68 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



varieties. In such blossoms the female organ, called the pistil, occu- 

 pies the center of the flower. After it is fertilized this develops into the 

 berry or fruit. Immediately surrounding the pistil are the male organs, 

 the stamens, which are thread-like and tipped with tiny yellow sacks. 

 Some vines produce none but male blossoms ; that is to say, the stamens 

 are well developed but no pistil is found. These, of course, are never 

 cultivated, for they never can bear fruit. There are vines, on the other 

 hand, whose blossoms have a well-developed pistil, but the stamens are 

 short and curl down and back toward the stem of the blossom as soon 

 as the flower opens. Among the well-known kinds that have such short 

 stamens may be named Barry, Black Eagle, Brighton, Essex, Eumelan, 

 Gsertner, Lindley, Marion, Massasoit, Merrimack, Salem, and Wilder. 



It will be remembered that classes I and II, as given above, contain 

 self-fertile varieties only. It is a remarkable fact that not one of these 

 kinds has short oi' recurved stamens. So far as I know there is no 

 variety of grape which has short stamens that is able to set fruit satis- 

 factorily alone. It is safe to say, as a rule, whenever a grape is planted 

 which bears short or recurved stamens it should be planted near some 

 other variety, in order that its blossoms may be properly fertilized. 

 Otherwise it will be likely to produce imperfect clusters or utterly fail 

 to set fruit. 



But one fourth of the self-sterile grapes named above in class IV have 

 long stamens, while in class III, that includes the grapes which of them- 

 selves can form only imperfect clusters, four fifths of the varieties have 

 long stamens. So we see that long stamens are not a sure indication 

 that a variety is self-fertile, although all the self-fertile grapes that we 

 know invariably have long stamens. 



Reviewing briefly the points noted in this essay, we observe: 



1. Before setting any untried variety of grape in a commercial vine- 

 vard it should be determined whether such varietv is able to set fruit 

 when standing alone. 



2. One great hindrance to the impi-ovement of our cultivated grapes 

 by hybridizing them with choice European, or Old World, varieties, lies 

 in the fact that so many of these hybrids prove to be partly or com- 

 pletely self-sterile. 



3. Grapes with short stamens are, so far as we know, wholly or partly 

 self-sterile. 



4. Self-sterile varieties may fruit satisfactorily when they are planted 

 near other kinds of grape — so that their blossoms may become fertilized. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Reid: I suppose there must be some gentlemen present who have 

 noticed something with regard to this matter of fertile and sterile bloom 

 in their orchards of plum and pear in this county, and some of them 

 should be able to tell us concerning it. 



Mr. B. Gebhart: I have not taken particular notice of it; still, I have 

 noticed that there are better and larger crops of some pears if they 

 are mixed with certain other varieties, while in cases where they stand 

 alone, perhaps in the same soil, they do not seem to produce fruit. 



