134 



THE FIRST BOOK OF FARMING 



With some plants we find that not only are the 

 pistils and stamens in separate flowers but the stam- 

 inate and pistilate flowers are placed on different 

 plants. This will be found true of the osage orange 

 and the willow. 



In many flowers that have both stamens and pis- 

 tils or are perfect flowers the stigmas and pollen 

 ripen at different times. 



With some varieties of fruit it is found that the 

 pistils cannot be fertilized by pollen of the ^ame 

 variety. This is true of most of our native plums. 

 For example, the pistils of the wild goose plum 

 cannot be fertilized by pollen of wild goose plums 

 even if it comes from other trees than the one bear- 

 ing the pistils. They must have pollen from an- 

 other variety of plum. 



VALUE OF A KNOWLEDGE OF THE FLOWER 



Many times it happens that a farmer or a gar- 

 dener wants to start a strawberry bed and buys 

 plants of a variety of berries that have the reputa- 

 tion of being very productive. He plants them and 

 cultivates them carefully, and at the proper time 

 they blossom very freely, and there is promise of a 

 large crop, yet very few berries appear and this con- 

 tinues to be the case. Not satisfied with them he 

 buys another variety and plants near them, and after 

 that the old bed becomes very productive. Now 

 why is this? It happens that the flowers of some 

 varieties of strawberries have a great many pistils 



