OF DWARF FRUIT TREE CULTURE. 



53 



\/<$\i\r\l i-> 



Strawberry Blossom 

 Perfect and Pistilate 

 A Male. B Female 



Pistil 



"Female Organ" 

 Fig. 52 



As there are many little details to be observed it may be well 

 to give a cursory sketch of the natural fertilization of flowers. The 

 flower, as every one is aware, is the foundation of the fruit or seed 

 and consist of organs for fertilization. Th stamen is the male organ 

 and produces the polen, which is the fertilizing ingredient. The 

 pistil is the female organ, and at a certain state of its development 

 becomes receptive for the polen, and unless that polen comes in con- 

 tact with the pistil just at that time there can be no fertile seed pro- 

 duced. Now we have perfect and imperfect flowers, or uni-sexual 

 and bisexual; in some cases, as the strawberry, we have both per- 

 fect and imperfect. The perfect plant has both stamens and pistils ; 

 the imperfect plant has no stamens, and consequently bears no fruit, 

 unless a staminate plant is growing near it, and the bees and other 

 insects or wind carry the polen from one place to the other. Corn 

 and all nuts have two classes of flowers on the same plant, but dif- 

 ferently located. The tassels on the top of the plant of corn are the 

 male flowers, while the silk is the pistil, and at the receptive period 

 the polen is shaken off by the wind and drops on the receptive silk, 

 and the kernel is produced. Now when this polen falls on the re- 

 ceptive pistil it is carried down to the ovary and the pistil then with- 

 ers away and the seed is developed in due course. 



In hybridization and cross fertilizing the following conditions 

 must be observed: 



