BEES AND FB.UIT-GROWING 



few beetles. Let us now briefly review the investigations of 

 the experiment stations for the purpose of determining how 

 far the productiveness of domesticated fruits is dependent on 

 insect-pollination. 



About 1875 the Old Dominion Fruit Company planted near 

 Scotland on the James River, Va., an orchard consisting of 

 about 22,000 standard Bartlett pear-trees. Although they 

 always bloomed heavily and were snow-white with blossoms, 

 they never bore a full crop; one season, when about twelve 

 years old, they produced three-fifths of a peck per tree, whereas 

 they should have easily yielded four or five times that quantity. 

 Plainly there was something wrong; what was the trouble? 



Waite, who was the first in America to show that many 

 varieties of orchard-trees are self-sterile, visited this orchard 

 in 1892, and was able by experiment to answer this question. 

 He noticed that in some places where the Bartlett trees had 

 died out, they had been replaced by trees of another variety, 

 as Clapp's Favorite or Buff um. Around these trees the Bart- 

 letts were heavily laden with fruit. Mixed orchards in the 

 vicinity also bore well. He accordingly selected a number of 

 unopened buds and removed the stamens; and, after pollinating 

 a part of them with pollen from Bartlett trees and a part with 

 pollen from other varieties, enclosed them in paper bags. In 

 the orchard at large a week after the petals had fallen the young 

 pears all dropped off. Most of the trees were absolutely barren. 

 Of the flowers enclosed in bags not one pollinated with Bartlett 

 pollen had set fruit, while a large proportion of the crosses with 

 other varieties produced pears. As there were many pollinat- 

 ing insects present, it is evident that had there been other 

 varieties of pears scattered through the great orchard all of the 

 trees would have yielded well. The Bartlett pear is largely 

 self-sterile. (Fig. 115.) 



265 



