STONELESS PRUNES 81 



Heredity will have its say, and the seed 

 armor will persist long after it has ceased to 

 be of real utility. 



THE STONE BECOMES AN INCUMBRANCE 



And yet it is easy to see that under conditions 

 of artificial cultivation, the stone is not merely 

 useless to the fruit; it is a positive incumbrance. 



In the first place it puts a tax upon the vitality 

 of the plant makes a strong draft on its ener- 

 gies. A plant is a manufactory for transform- 

 ing elements of the soil and of the air, under the 

 influence of sunlight, into grains, fruits, gums, 

 essential oils, and the like. 



Its capacity to produce any one of these is 

 more or less complementary to its capacity to 

 produce the others. 



When the cultivated plum produces a useless 

 stone, it has worked to no purpose; and the 

 energy that goes to build the stone might far 

 better have been utilized, even from the stand- 

 point of the plant itself, in the production of 

 fruit. 



For the perpetuation of any given race of 

 cultivated fruit plants now depend not upon the 

 character of its seed covering but upon the ap- 

 peal made by the pulp of the fruit to the palate 

 of man. 



