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STUDIES IN THE POLLINATION OF 



INDIAN CROPS. I. LIBRARY 



NEW YORK 

 BOTANICAL 

 BY OARUEN 



ALBERT HOWARD, C.I.E., M.A., GABRIELLE L. C. HOWARD, M.A., 

 Imperial Economic Botanist ; Second Imperial Economic Botanist ; 



AND 



ABDUR RAHMAN KHAN, 



Second Assistant to the Imperial Economic Botanist 



[Received for publication on 16th June, 1919.] 



I. Introduction. 



The methods of pollination and the occurrence of cross-fertilization are 

 matters of the first importance in the improvement of crops in India. On 

 accurate information on these subjects depends the choice of the methods of 

 improvement to be adopted, the testing of the new varieties obtained as well 

 as the growth and distribution of seed to cultivators. The earlier results 

 obtained in this direction at Pusa were published towards the end of 1910 in a 

 paper entitled The economic significance oj natural cross-jertilization in India^ 

 which dealt more with the occurrence of natural crossing in the field than 

 with the detailed study of the flower and of its pollination. Since that time, 

 the work has been continued in much greater detail and a number of other 

 crops have been investigated. The facts connected with the flowering, pol- 

 lination and fertilization of gram {Cicer arietinum L.), safflower {Carthamus 

 tinctorius L.), and Indian mustaii\\{Brassica juncea H. f. & T.), were incorpo- 

 rated in papers dealing with tlie general botany of these crops published in 



1 Hem. of the Dept. of Agr. in India {Botanical iSeries), vol. Ill, 1910, p. 281 



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