FLOWERS 



'35 



but no stamens, or very few stamens, and there is 

 not pollen enough to fertilize all of the blossoms, 

 and when such a variety is planted it is necessary 

 to plant near it some variety that produces many 

 stamens and therefore pollen enough to fertilize 

 both varieties in order to be sure of a crop. Those 

 strawberries which produce flowers with only pis- 

 tils are called pistilate varieties, while those with 

 both stamens and pistils are called perfect varieties 

 (Fig. 78). In planting them there should be at 

 least one row of a perfect variety to every four or 

 five pistilate rows. 



We have learned that certain varieties of plums 

 cannot be fertilized by pollen from the same variety, 

 and to make them fruitful some other variety must 

 be planted among them to produce pollen that will 

 make them fruitful. This is more or less true of 

 all our fruits. Therefore it is not best generally to 

 plant one variety of fruit by itself. Not knowing 

 this some orchardists have planted large blocks of 

 a single variety of fruit which has been unfruitful 

 till some other varieties have been planted near 

 them or among them. 



A knowledge of the necessity of pollination is 

 very important to those gardeners who grow cu- 

 cumbers, tomatoes, melons and other fruiting plants 

 in greenhouses. Here in most cases the pollination 

 is done by hand. 



We noticed that nature provides that most of the 

 flowers shall be cross pollinated. This is particu- 

 larly true of the flowers of the fruit trees, and for 



