338 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



clusters had many abortive fruits, and showed every 

 gradation of loss up to 80 or 90 per cent. No clus- 

 ter was seen in which all the berries were abortive. 

 With the check vine perfect clusters were numerous, 

 and abortive berries were comparatively few. The 

 whole loss of fruit on the sprayed vine cannot be 

 computed by comparing the amount of perfect with 

 abortive fruit, because some blossoms must have 

 failed to form even abortive fruit, and some of the 

 abortive fruits dropped before the grapes were gath- 

 ered. It should be borne in mind, therefore, that the 

 total loss of fruit from the spraying is not repre- 

 sented in the following figures. A comparison of 

 the fruit of the two vines shows the following re- 

 sults : 



"1. Counting all berries, whether perfect or abor- 

 tive, the average weight of a berry from the sprayed 

 vine was 8.5 grains, and the average weight of a 

 berry from the check vine was 17.5 grains, showing 

 a difference of 106 per cent. 



"2. The amount of abortive berries was compared 

 with the perfect berries of each vine, and 60 per cent 

 of the fruit from the sprayed vine was abortive, 

 while but 21 per cent of the fruit from the check 

 vine was abortive." 



Halsted* has also made observations upon the 

 influence of weather upon pollination, and finds that 

 continued wet weather at blossoming time seems, in 

 most cases, to lessen the setting of the fruit. 



Special Bull. C, N. J. Exp. Sta. (1889), and Kept, for 1889, p. 230, and 

 Kept, for 1890, p. 330. 



