FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 81 



BEES AND HORTICULTURE. 



BY PROP. WALTER B. BARROWS, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



[On acconnt of illness Prof. Barrows was unable to be present, bnt we have fecared from him anabstract 



of the lecture he was to give.] 



The importance of bees to the horticulturist is not limited to the value 

 of the honey which they make; it even might be profitable to keep bees 

 without ever securing a pound of honey. For, without the visits of 

 insects many blossoms never would set any fruit, and since bees are by 

 far the most valuable of all insects for this service, it is of the utmost 

 importance to the fruit grower and gardener that an abundance of bees 

 should be within easy reach of his orchards and gardens. Bees visit 

 flowers to gather food, and this food may be either nectar or pollen; but, 

 whether one or the other is sought, the bee is sure to get more or less 

 pollen dusted over his hairy head, body, and legs, and to brush more or 

 less of it into the flowers which it afterwards visits. This pollen, 

 borne in the flower's stamens, is the fecundating or male powder of the 

 flower, and when dusted upon the receptive pistil, the female part of the 

 flower, the latter is said to be fertilized or pollinated, and the process is 

 known as pollination. In some flowers both stamens and pistils grow 

 near each other, and the pollen at the proper time is shed directly upon 

 the receptive pistil and perfect seed or fruit results. Such flowers are 

 called perfect and self -fertile; such, for example, are the flowers of the 

 quince. They are practically independent of the visits of insects. In 

 other cases only stamens may be produced in one flower and only pistils 

 in another, and some outside help, often from the wind or from some 

 insect, is needed to transfer the pollen from one flower to the other or no 

 fruit will result. Some varieties of strawberries bear such imperfect 

 flowers, and many a gardener has suffered serious loss because he did not 

 understand this fact. But some plants and trees, notably some varieties 

 of pears and apples, bear flowers which contain both stamens and pistils, 

 and the stamens produce plenty of pollen, yet often these trees set no 

 fruit. Such flowers probably are self-sterile, tliat is, their pollen is impo- 

 tent or powerless to fertilize their own pistils, though perfectly able to 

 fertilize those of other varieties; and on the other hand the pollen of 

 almost any other variety will usually act powerfully on them. Very 

 many of our best pears and most of our apples are thus self-sterile and 

 must be cross-fertilized in order to yield fruit; and since the pollen is not 

 well adapted for distribution by the wind those varieties are dependent 

 for pollination on insects, and very largely on bees. 



Experiments thus far have been confined mainly to pears and we are 

 now able to give provisional lists* of the varieties which are more or less 

 completely self-sterile or self-fertile. Those mainly self-sterile are: 

 Anjou, Bartlett, Boussock, Clairgeau, Clapp's Favorite, Easter, Howell, 

 Lawrence, Louise Bonne, Sheldon, and Winter Nelis. Those which 

 appear to be completely self-fertile are: Angouleme, Bosc, Buffum, Flem- 



* M. B. Waite, Pollination of Pear Flowers, BaU. 5. Div. Veg. Pathol., U. S. Dept. Agr. p. 54. 

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