372 FllLITS: Chap X 



provided with stamens, the tree requires artificial fertilisation ; and 

 the girls of St. Valery annually go to "fuire ses pommes," each 

 marking her own fruit witli a ribbon; and as different 2;)ollen is 

 used the fruit ditfers, and we here have an instance of the direct 

 action of foreign pollen on the mother plant. These monstrous 

 apples include, as we have seen, fom-teen seed-cells; the pigeon- 

 apple,''^ oa the other hand, has only four, instead of, as with all 

 connnou apples, five cells; and this certainly is a remarkable 

 difference. 



In the catalogue of apples published in 1812 by the Horticultural 

 Society, 897 varieties are enumerated ; but the differences between 

 most of them are of comparatively little interest, as they are not 

 strictly inherited. No one can raise, for instance, from the seed of 

 the Ribstou Pippin, a tree of the same kind ; and it is said that the 

 " Sister Eibston Pippin " was a white semi-transparent, sour- fleshed 

 apple, or rather large crab.'"^ Yet it was a mistake to suppose that 

 with most varieties the characters are not to a certain extent 

 inherited. In two lots of seedlings raised from two well-marked 

 kinds, many worthless crab-like seedlings will appear, but it is now 

 known that the two lots not only usually differ from each other, but 

 resemble to a certain extent their parents. We see this indeed in 

 the several su!)-groups of Russetts, Sweetings, Codlins, Pearmains, 

 Eeinettes, ctc.,^' which are all believed, and many are known, to be 

 descended from other varieties bearing the same names. 



Fe us (Pyrus communis). — I need say little on this fruit, which 

 varies much in the wild state, and to an extraordinary degree when 

 cultivated, in its fruit, flowers, and foliage. One of the most 

 celebrated botanists in Europe, M. Decaisne, has carefully studied 

 the many varieties;"* although he formerly believed that they were 

 derived from more than one species, he now thinks that all belong 

 to one. He has ai'rived at this conclusion from finding in the 

 several varieties a perfect gradation between the most extreme 

 characters ; so perfect is this gradation that he maintains it to be 

 impossible to classify the varieties by any natural method. M. 

 Decaisne raised many seedlings from four distinct kinds, and has 

 carefully recorded the variations in each. Notwithstanding this 

 extreme degree of variability, it is now positively known that many 

 kinds reproduce by seed the leading characters of their race.'-"^ 



■-^rr.twoerries {Frayaria). — This fruit is remarkable on account 

 of the nximber of species which have been cultivated, and from 



"5 ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1849, p. des diverses Varie'tds,' in ' Mem. de 



2i. I'Acad. Imp. de Lyon,' torn, ii., 1852. 



"" R, Thompson, in 'Gardener's pp. 95, 114. ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 



Chron.,' 1850, p. 788. 1850, pp. 774, 788. 



'' Sageret, ' Pomologie Physiolo- '* ' Comptes Rendus,' July 0th, 



gique,' 1830, p. 263. Downing's 1863. 



'Fruit Trees,' pp. 130, 134, 139, &c. »' 'Gardener's Chronicle,' 1856, p 



Loudon's 'Gardener's Mag.,' voL viii. 804; 1857, p. 820 ; 1862, p. 1195. 

 p. 317. Alexis Jordan, ' De I'Origine 



