366 The Journal 
Institution in a house where they were 
strictly isolated from insects, some of 
the commoner plums, cherries and 
apples can be classified!as follows: 
PLUMS 
Self-Sterile 
Coe’s Golden Drop 
Coe’s Violet 
Self- Fertile 
Denniston’s Superb 
Early Mirabelle 
Reine Claude Violette Weyedale 
Myrobalan (red) Grand Duke 
La Prune Giant Jefferson 
Reine Claude d’Althan 
Pond’s Seedling 
Washington 
Early Greengage 
Old Greengage 
Ickworth Imperatrice 
Late Transparent 
Curlew 
Prune d’Agen. 
Monarch 
Early Transparent 
Reine Claude Bavay 
Prince Englebert 
Early Favourite 
Gisborne’s 
Oullin’s Golden Gage 
Golden Transparent 
Victoria 
Czar 
Pershore 
Magnum Bonum (red) 
Magnum Bonum (white) 
Kentish River’s Early Set only 
Warwickshire Drooper __ Prolific about 
Damson var’s Stint 1% 
Mallard when 
| selfed 
CHERRIES 
Self- Fertile 
Morello 
Late Duke 
Self-Sterile 
Black Heart 
White Heart 
Elton 
Kentish 
Big Frogmore Early 
Big Gaboulay 
Early Rivers 
Guinge d’Annonay 
Black Tartarian 
APPLES 
Stirling Castle Northern Greening 
Baldwin Lord Hindlip __ 
Washington Cox’s Orange Pippin 
Bramley’s Seedling 
Parthenocarpic: 
Lord Derby 
Duchess of Oldenburg 
It will be noticed that on the whole 
the self-fertile varieties correspond with 
the best croppers; this, however, though 
general, is not always the case, for 
Rivers’ Early Prolific, which is usually 
a great cropper, is from a practical view 
self-sterile, setting only about 1% of its 
flowers when self-pollinated. May Duke 
cherry behaves in a similar manner. 
I think it will be found that some 
varieties of plums are better pollen- 
izers for certain varieties than others; 
of Heredity 
when the Old Greengage and the Early 
Greengage are crossed together only 
about 8% of their flowers develop 
fruit. For several years I observed a 
large block of two varieties of green- 
gages, and although they produced 
flowers in abundance they never carried 
a fair crop of fruit; owing to this they 
have been destroyed. I think that 
certain definite varieties of plums may 
prove to be the best pollenizers for the 
self-sterile gages. Cross-pollination has 
indicated this, and I have seen green- 
gages, carrying good crops, growing 
beside Victoria plums. 
If the flowers of self-sterile varieties of 
plums and cherries are not pollinated at 
all the fruit falls very soon, a few days 
after the petals, whereas if the flowers are 
self-pollinated the carpel swells up to 
the size of a culinary pea before it 
falls, but fall it will, and it is not until 
about three weeks after pollination that 
a self-sterile variety can be distinguished 
from a self-fertile one. 
These self-pollinated fruits, of self- 
sterile varieties, tend to fall more 
quickly after a touch of frost, much to 
the consternation of the grower, who 
thinks that he has lost a high percentage 
of his crop from this cause. The careful 
observer will, however, notice many 
fruits falling on both self-fertile and 
self-sterile varieties, at times when 
there has been no frost; it is due in the 
former case solely to lack of pollination, 
and in the latter to the lack of fertilisa- 
tion as well. 
BEES AND NECTAR 
It will be seen that it is very important 
to know one’s varieties and in most 
cases to avoid planting large blocks of 
the same variety. It should be borne 
in mind that all the different trees of 
the same variety, which have of course 
been propagated vegetatively from one 
individual, are so far as self-sterility is 
concerned, but one individual—no bene- 
fit is derived by interpollination be- 
tween such trees. It is known that 
bees have a wide-working radius, 
half-a-mile at least, and often they 
go further afield. It might therefor 
be argued by some on this account that 
there can be no objection to large blocks 
