CHOOSING VARIETIES 19 



They were not discovered until large commercial plantings failed 

 year after year in spite of full blooming and favorable weather while 

 the trees were in flower. It was found that the failures occurred where 

 one variety was grown in a large block by itself, where the varieties 

 though growing near together bloomed at different times, where the 

 pistils of the flowers were defective, where the pollen was impotent 

 upon the pistils of flowers of the same variety in short, it was due 

 to self-sterility. 



Naturally this discovery has wrought great changes in the com- 

 mercial planting, especially of Pears, Plums, Kakis, Grapes and less 

 prominently of other tree fruits. Only the uninformed now plant 

 business orchards regardless of these discoveries. Commercial orchard- 

 ists are more and more particular to choose self-fertile varieties, 

 varieties that bloom simultaneously, that have perfect pistils and 

 potent pollen so as to insure profitable settings of fruit. In family 

 orchards the chances of good settings of fruit increase as the number 

 of varieties increase. This plan not only tends to insure good exchange 

 of pollen but to offset the possibility of inter-sterility impotency of 

 certain varieties upon each other. 



As varieties differ more or less in their behavior and time of 

 blooming in various parts of the country no satisfactory table can be 

 compiled without being unwieldly. To be on the safe side the tables 

 of blooming dates, sterility, etc., published by the agricultural experi- 

 ment stations and the United States Department of Agriculture should 

 be consulted prior to ordering nursery stock. It may be said that the 

 European are apparently t'he only Plum varieties that may be planted 

 in blocks of a single kind with practical certainty of success. Japanese 

 varieties are much less certain and American still less. If these are 

 to be grown trees of several varieties of their group should be planted 

 near-by. So also of other fruits. 



In case trees of a single variety or inter-sterile varieties have been 

 planted failures may be averted by grafting or budding properly chosen 

 varieties upon the trees so the proportion will be one to three or four 

 as a maximum. 



For draw cutting many people like the Virginian pruning saw 



