172 



IS FERTILIZATION NECESSARY? 



pecting to see him choke ; at length, how- 

 ever, he cleared his throat sufficiently to 

 give utterance to his words, when looking 

 at a man who stood before him, watching 



his delighted and distorted countenance, he 

 exclaimed, "If you will believe me, sir, it 

 is the first 1 have tasted this year ! "* 



S. G. p. 



IS FERTILIZATION NECESSAHY ? 



BY SENEX, NEW-YORK. 



A. J. Downing, Esq. — Bear Sir : I perceive 

 in the controversy respecting the strawber- 

 ry, it is considered by both parties, that 

 perfect stamens and pistils are necessary to 

 the production of fruit. If by the fruit, 

 however, we understand simply the fleshy 

 receptacle in which the seed, (whici: is 

 really the fruit) is imbedded, I cannot con- 

 ceive what the development of the sex- 

 ual organs of the plant has to do with its 

 formation. 



The size of all fleshy fruits depends upon 

 a monstrous development of the receptacle, 

 as in the strawberry, or a similar develop- 

 ment of the cellular tissue, by which the 

 seeds are surrounded, as in the apple ; and 

 there is no doubt that this development 

 causes the sexual organs of the plant to be- 

 come sterile. In many vegetables, also, 

 the monstrous development of the tissue of 

 the stem, root or leaves, can only be ob- 

 tained by preventing them bearing seed ; 

 and every horticulturist will perceive, upon 

 a moment's reflection, that very many of 

 his highly prized productions are obtained, 

 directly or indirectly, in this way. 



I have no doubt you have eaten many ex- 

 cellent fruits in which you may have ob- 

 served that there were no seeds, and yet the 

 fruit was fully developed : for instance, the 

 Pine Apple, the Banana, the Bread-fruit, 

 the Pear, Apple, Cherry, Plum, Peach and 

 Barberry ; indeed nearly all our cultivated 

 fruits produce seeds but very sparinglj^, 

 and very often not at all. From the above 



you will see that good and perfect fruit can 

 be obtained without impregnation, and simi- 

 lar instances are to be found in the animal 

 kingdom ; thus hens lay eggs without im- 

 pregnation, which are equally as large and 

 good for domestic purposes as those which 

 are impregnated ; and also capons, and in- 

 deed all our domestic animals, become lar- 

 ger when castrated, as there is then a great- 

 er development of their cellular tissue, etc. 

 I think, if cultivators will reflect on the 

 above hints, they will find that their failures 

 in obtaining good crops are owing to some 

 other causes than the absence of stamens 

 and pistils, and are to be found in the un- 

 suitableness of the soil, manures, climate, 

 or the like. As to their being dioecious, 

 that is sheer nonsense ; there is not a dioe- 

 cious plant in the order EosaceaB, to which 

 the Strawberry belongs. The genus Clif- 

 fortia, which is dioecious, was once placed 

 in the order, in the tribe Sanguisorbea ; but 

 this tribe is now, I believe, made a separate 

 order. Writers should be careful to use 

 words in their strict sense ; and if the word 

 dioecious were thus used, it would meari that 

 Hovey's Seedling strawberry bore flowers 



* We should rather incline to call this an instance of the 

 sailor's coarse appetite, than his taste Indeed, no word is so 

 much misapplied as the latter. W'e consider a taste, by which 

 we mean a. nice sense cf discrimination, as the result of good 

 natural organization, joined to a familiar acqtiaintance with a 

 great variety of the different objects on which the taste is to 

 be exercised. Tlius no man could be said to have a fine 

 taste in pictures, who had never seen any thing better than the 

 daubs of a village sign painter To go lower, we believe 

 M. SoYER would not give a person credit for any taste in 

 cookery, who had never eaten anything except "plain boiled 

 and roasted ;" and we should cerlanily deny any one the 

 right to claim a taste in fruits who does not know by heart, 

 at least all the finest standard varieties — Ed. 



