78 



FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



For instance, some strawberries are 

 called 'pistillate," having a pistil but 

 no anthers, a female organ, but no 

 male organ. In some flowers the male 

 and female organs are placed at dif- 

 ferent parts of the plant, as for in- 

 stance in corn, where the male organs 

 are at the tassel and the female organs 

 at the ear. In these plants the pollen 

 furnished is so plentiful as to scatter 

 in all directions and, as in the case 

 of the ragweed, cover the clothes of 

 people when they tread among them. 

 It 'was at first thought that flowers 

 which possess both male and female 

 organs were easily self-fertilized, that 

 all that was necessary was for the pol- 

 len to fall from, one upon the other, 

 especially when it was noticed that the 

 anthers were usually placed higher 

 than the , stigma. But experiments 

 made have proven that if blooming 

 trees, such as peach, cherry, plum, pear 

 or apple, are covered with light gauze 

 to exclude all Insects during the period 

 of blooming, very few blossoms are 

 producers of fruit. In some experi- 

 ments, as for instance in a test made 

 by the Florida Experiment Station in 

 1S9S, and recorded in the American 

 Bee Journal of that year, two isolated 

 peach trees were tested comparatively, 

 one being covered with gauze, the 

 other left open to Insects. The one 

 produced not a single fruit, the other 

 was covered with fruit. This is not a 

 lone experiment, for it has been tried 

 many times. It is also w^ell known that 

 when fruit bloom takes place in un- 

 favorable, cool, cloudy, or rainy wea- 

 ther, there is little if any production 

 of fruit. Then sometimes fruit will 

 be found on the sheltered side of a 

 tree where bees have had occasion to 

 work, while the other side, exposed to 

 strong wind, has failed. 



But when flowers are incomplete, 

 when a certain kind of strawberry, 

 for instance, has blossoms bearing 

 only pistils, the conditions are still 

 more strenuous for the agency of out- 

 side forces and not only must those 

 forces be present but other plants of 

 the .same species, with pollen -bearing 

 anthers, in profusion, must be present 

 in sufficiently close proximity. 



Now let us see how bees and other 

 insects serve in this connection. 



Honeybees and many of the hyme- 

 noptera feed their j-oung upon a mix- 

 ture of pollen and honey. The worker- 

 bee is provided, upon the third or 

 rear pair of legs, with a cavity which 



enables it to carry quite a load of pol- 

 len. Many persons who see it thus 

 loaded imagine that it is wax that it 

 carries; but wax is a product of di- 

 gestion, made of honey. The pollen is 

 gathered while the bee visits the flow- 

 ers. In some flowers it is so easily 

 shaken off that the minute hairs which 

 cover the body of the insect become 

 sprinkled with it. The bee then 

 brushes itself with the front and mid- 

 dle legs and forces. the pollen into the 

 pollen basket, where it is packed b5' 

 repeatedly pressing it. This proceed- 

 ing may be easily watched by anyone 

 while bees are upon flowers that yield 

 any quantity of pollen. It is easy to 

 understand that, during these maneu- 

 vers inside the corolla of a blossom, 

 particles of pollen are shaken or 

 rubbed onto the stigma of the flower 

 and fertilization takes place. But this 

 is not all. As a rule the anthers of 

 each flower are a little ahead of the 

 pistils in development. So it often 

 happens that, when the pollen is fit 

 for fertilization, the female part of the 

 blossom is not yet ready. But as the 

 bee goes from one blossom to another 

 the pollen carded by her serves for 

 other blossoms which are nearer ma- 

 turity. Thus cross-fertilization is ac- 

 complished, with greater fertility as a 

 result, since it is well-known that no 

 beings in the world are as successful 

 in close inbreeding as in cross-breed- 

 ing. Not only is the pollen carried 

 from one blossom to another, but from 

 one plant to another, from one tree 

 to another. Thus are pistillate straw- 

 berries fertilized and made to bear 

 fruit, provided there be other straw- 

 berries bearing" anthers in close prox- 

 imity. It ie also because of this agency 

 of bees that there is a hybridizing of 

 fruit and the explanation is furnished 

 of why peaches true to their kind 

 cannot be reproduced from the pit us- 

 ually. The pollen from unbudded trees 

 is carried by insects and bees most 

 especially to the flowers of the budded 

 varieties and, if seeds were planted, 

 inferior fruit would be the result. It 

 is a fact wo;rthy of notice that the 

 fruits which are nearest in condition 

 to the original wild kinds are the most 

 profuse bearers of pollen. In order to 

 secure improved varieties as does the 

 great Luther Burbank, it becomes nec- 

 essary to resort to artificial fertiliza- 

 tion. 



To make sure of the need of insects 

 in the fertilization of our fruit trees 



