INFLUENCE OF FOLLEN ON VARIETIES. 189 



know only the alphabet of horticulture could realize its impor- 

 tance. "When 30ung he heard of the thorn as a stock for the pear, 

 and knowing some vigorous thorn trees he grafted on« with the 

 White Doyenne or St. Michael, and the fruit was very inferior. 

 While there is much that is occult in the influence of the stock and 

 graft on each other, it seemed to him that a poor stock must affect 

 the scion. 



Caleb Bates asked why it should be thought strange that straw- 

 berries are changed through the influence of pollen, when it is 

 known that corn changes the first year? He had a curious instance 

 of this ; he planted a field of corn, in which black kernels 

 appeared, caused by black corn which his brother planted a mile 

 away. 



Mr. Wood said that the same argument had been advanced in 

 Michigan. It would appear that the influence of the pollen ought 

 to show the first year in vegetables as well as in strawberries. 



Mr. Hadwen said that corn is as much a myster}- as fruit. He 

 has grown red and yellow corn in the same field for ^ears without 

 intermixture. 



Mr. Wood said that the general theory had been that seeds 

 would show variation, but not in the year when the pollen was 

 applied. He had a bed six or eight rods long of the Sharpless 

 strawberry, and next to it a bed of the Charles Downing, and in 

 that part of the latter bed nearest the Sharpless, for a space 

 twenty feet wide, he picked more cockscombed specimens than in 

 all the rest of the bed. 



Mr. Bates said it is a fact that some varieties of corn do not mix 

 and some mix very readil}'. He planted Whitman corn and an 

 early kind near b}- to see if he could not get an improved early 

 kind ; the}' mixed thoroughly. Some kinds of sweet corn will not 

 mix. He has Russet apples grafted on Hightop Sweeting trees, 

 which are longer in form and milder in flavor than others. 



William H. Hunt had grown strawberries for many j-ears, and 

 had used staminate to fertilize pistillate varieties ; among other 

 staminate varieties the Sharpless, but he did not think he could 

 detect its influence. He saw no change in the Manchester. He 

 thinks there is some influence, but that its extent has been much 

 exaggerated. He had had manj' instances where corn mixed. 



Edward L. Beard spoke of the alleged means of destroying 

 ca)iker worms and other insects which had lately been mentioned 



