PACKAGES, TRAINING, POLLINATION 95 



was degenerating or "running out," since it had become 

 less fruitful under cultivation. With unusual independ- 

 ence of observation, the youthful botanist proved that 

 the real reason for this degeneracy was that the male 

 plants, being unfruitful, had been gradually weeded out 

 of gardens, leaving the female plants without pollinizers. 

 This had escaped attention, since most of the plants of the 

 Hautbois are apparently hermaphrodite, but in female 

 plants the anthers bear little or no pollen, and in male 

 plants the pistils do not function. Duchesne also ob- 

 served that these conditions existed in the Chili straw- 

 berry, but to a less degree. When his observations were 

 published he was reprimanded by his former teacher, 

 Linnaeus, who intimated that what Duchesne really had 

 seen was blossoms that had been made abortive by 

 frost ! 



Following Duchesne's discovery, French gardeners 

 practiced mixed planting to advantage with both the 

 Hautbois and the ChiH. No application was made of 

 it outside of France for over fifty years. The accuracy of 

 Duchesne's observation was first verified in England by 

 Michael Keens, a gardener of Isleworth, in 1809. In 

 1817 he said : ^ "There are many different sorts of Haut- 

 boys; one has the male and female organs in the same 

 blossoms and bears very freely ; but that which I most 

 approve is the one which contain the male organs in one 

 blossom and the female in another. These bear fruit 

 of the finest colour and of far superior flavour. In select- 

 ing these plants, care must be taken that there are not 

 too many male plants among them ; for, as these bear no 

 fruit, they are apt to make more runners than the females. 

 I consider one male to ten females a proper proportion 

 1 Trans. Royal Hort. Soc, Vol. II (1818), p. 396. 



