52 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1885. 



Wilson's Albany. But when I employed such a distinct male variety 

 as the Peabody for supplying the pollen the effect upon the size and 

 form of the berries was very marked and readily seen. The long 

 neck and deeply ribbed or coxcomb shape of the Peabody were 

 characteristics that would be readily transferred by fertilization if any 

 can be, by such a process. By employing varieties like the Peabody 

 and Triomphe de Gand to supply pollen for such pistillates as those 

 named, the influence can readily be seen to extend far beyond the 

 seed, as we know theoretically that it must, but perhaps rarely noted, 

 because in ordinary horticultural operations we do not seek scientific 

 truths with as much zeal as we do marked values and profits. It is 

 to be presumed that every practical horticulturist must hav« observed 

 that where pollenation fails in the strawberry, the receptacle or fruit 

 upon which the seed rests or in which it is imbedded fails to enlarge 

 or continue growth, and if all the pistils of the flower escape pollena- 

 tion, not only the entire fruit withers away, but also the flower-stalk, 

 even down to the very roots of the plant. I refer now to pollenation 

 as distinct from fertilization, and use the terra as an equivalent of 

 cohabitation in the animal kingdom, which does not necessarily 

 extend to or result in impregnation. Simple pollenation may cause a 

 responsive action, resulting in the ripening of the pistil, and yet the 

 effect of the pollen may fall short of actual fertilization, hence the 

 frequent occurrence of false or imperfect seed among all of our 

 cultured fruits, and sometimes, but less rarely, among the wild ones. 



I became so fully convinced at the time referred to, that the 

 influence of the pollen in the strawberry did extend, under favorable 

 conditions, so far beyond the seed that it often changed the form, 

 color and flavor of the fruit that I referred to the subject in the Small 

 Fruit Culturist, published in 1867, pages 44 and 45, and from which 

 I beg to copy a paragraph or two, as some of our horticulturists 

 appear to have overlooked what I said on the subject at that time. In 

 speaking of the usual practice of planting staminate and pistillate 

 varieties in alternate rows, I said : " I would suggest whether it is 

 not possible that variations may have been made on growing plants 

 by the influence of the pollen from the different varieties. It is gen- 

 erally supposed that no effect is produced except on the seed, but as 

 it is most conclusively proved in animal physiology that the female 

 retains the effect of the first impregnation in her system for years, may 

 not the same be true of plants, and the admixture or deterioration of 

 one, and the improvement of another kind growing in close pi'oximity 

 be caused by the absorption of qualities each from the other." After 

 referring to the effect of non-pollenation of the pistils I said further : 

 " If the strawberry seed was large enough to be readily examined we 

 should probably see a difference in color and form, just as we notice in 

 mixed varieties of corn. In the latter we can see that the influence 

 of cross-fertilization extends further than the seed, because its re- 

 ceptacle (cob) is often changed beneath the kernel to a color similar to 

 that of the variety which produced the pollen." About the time I 

 wrote the "Strawberry Culturist," 1862, I called the attention of 

 several of my acquaintances to this subject of the influence of the 



