FRUITS 



253 



those parts of a plant that are useful to man, while in a state 

 of nature the plant seeks to develop such parts as best serve 

 its own purpose in the struggle for existence. The plants 

 most useful to man have, as a general thing, been subjected 

 to a long course of artificial breeding and selection. They 

 are forced developments, often monstrosities, from the plant's 

 point of view, if we could conceive of it as capable of having 

 an opinion. Nature is continually striving to reclaim them; 

 and if left to themselves, they must 

 either obey " the call of the wild," 

 or die out. 



285. Seedless fruits and vegeta- 

 bles. — As the seed is the most 

 important thing to the plant, the 

 edible parts in wild fruits are, as a 

 rule, subsidiary to its development. 

 In a state of nature, fruits will gen- 

 erally wither and drop from the 

 stem, if for any reason they have 

 become incapable of perfecting their 

 seed. It is only in a few kinds, limited to those which can 

 successfully propagate themselves by other means, that the 

 production of seed does not take place. Among cultivated 

 species, however, where propagation is carefully provided 

 for by man, the seed is of less importance, and sterile vari- 

 eties that might soon die out under natural conditions, con- 

 tinue their existence indefinitely under his fostering hand. 

 The seeds of edible fruits are, as a general thing, both indi- 

 gestible and unpalatable (21), and hence the efforts of the 

 horticulturist are directed largely to getting rid of them, or 

 to very greatly reducing their size and number in proportion 

 to the edible parts. 



286. How seedless fruits arise. — The perfecting of seed 

 requires a great consumption of food and energy on the part 

 of the plant, and when it is led, for any reason, to expend 

 an unusual amount of force in some other function, — as 



Fig. 366. — a seedless cit- 

 range, hybrid between the or- 

 ange and the lemon. 



