FUNCTIONS OF MALE PLANT. 367 



who search for the unproductive male plants at the time 

 of flowering, and with a short-sighted economy, unchecked 

 by that knowledge of the functions of vegetable life which 

 every farmer ought to possess, at once extirpate them as 

 useless incumbrances of the soil. 



The ordinary functions of the male organs of a plant 

 are to prepare the pollen or fertilizing substance, which, 

 alighting on the stigma of the female organs, effects their 

 due impregnation. In dioecious plants, as the hop, where 

 the flowers containing the reproductive organs are on 

 different plants, the functions are the same, though, being 

 separated, they are carried out in a somewhat different 

 manner. Although there are some instances known to 

 botanists which tend to show that plants may be impreg- 

 nated even though the pollen has not access to the stigma, 

 we have no good reason to believe that hops come under 

 this exceptional condition, but rather that the presence 

 of the male plant is necessary to the full reproductive 

 powers of the female, the female cones having the power 

 of increasing after the ovule has been fertilized by the 

 small portion of pollen falling over it. 



As experiment is generally more valued than precept, 

 especially by merely practical men, the result of one 

 undertaken specially to this end, with hops raised from 

 seed, and in their fourth year, may be adduced in support 

 of the opinions expressed. In a small plantation where 

 the male and female plants were growing intermingled on 

 the ground, a bushel was collected at the proper time, 

 weighed, and found to be 361bs.; a like quantity picked 

 at the same time from cuttings, with the male plants left 

 in certain proportions, gave a weight of 35 Ibs. ; whereas 

 the same measure obtained from plants from which all the 

 males had been carefully extirpated, weighed only 22 Ibs. 

 Strong confirmatory evidence is given also on this point by 

 the author of the essay referred to. Besides the great 



