26 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



In the apple, the ripened seed vessel, or core, is surrounded by the thickening 

 calyx of the flower, which increases in size after the petals of the flower fall, 

 and surround the fruit proper, which we call the core, and this thickened 

 calyx is what we use as the fruit of the apple and pear and quince. In the 

 strawberry, the end of the stem on which the fruits are borne, swells up and 

 carries the collection of little fruits up, borne on its outer surface in little 

 depressions. We call this edible part the fruit, while the botanist calls the 

 seed vessels that contain the seeds, the true fruit. The edible part of the 

 strawberry is merely the swollen receptacle which bore the flower. 



In our Indian corn, each grain that we call a seed is a separate fruit, 

 the result of the ripening of the ovary of the pistil, which is the silk. For 

 every grain on the cob is the result of a single female flower, and each grain 

 has its own silk, and if each silk does not get pollen from the tassel, or male 

 organ, there is no grain formed. Hence we can easily see why a single stalk 

 of corn standing in a field seldom makes a perfect ear. In the field the great 

 cloud of pollen that floats all around and covers the ground insures the fertili- 

 zation or impregnation of every silk. The cereal grains then are ripened 

 fruits and not mere seeds. In a state of nature the plant simply stores food 

 enough to insure the growth of the plantlet for a while after germination. 

 In cultivation the effort is to increase this store that it may be made use of by 

 man for food for himself and domestic animals. Nature is content with mere 

 reproduction ; we want something else. Hence to keep plants up to a greater 

 production of useful material, it is necessary that we should accumulate the 

 desirable qualities by constant selection of those that show the greater ten- 

 dency to make what we want. Nature is perfectly content with a wild crab 

 apple. It has all the power of reproduction, and is more hardy and vigorous 

 than the highly developed apple, since it is the survival in the struggle with 

 other plants of like character, while the plants we would choose have developed 

 a certain desirable character for our use, but have in other respects gotten less 

 able to survive in a struggle with wild plants. So we have paid attention 

 to the accumulation of a desirable growth of the edible portion of the apple, 

 and have bred it away from the original wild crab into something we want. 

 But turn it back to the unaided forces of nature and it will soon revert to a 

 form adapted to survive and the fruit will become less and less desirable to 

 man. 



We find, then, that the more we refine a plant and fit it for our use the 

 more it needs the fostering care of man, and the less able it is to take care 

 of itself. 



The wild potato of Peru and Arizona makes small underground tubers, 

 simply enough to keep a portion of the plant with buds and capable of grow- 



