12 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 27. 



NOTES ON AGBICULTUBE (IF.) 

 ARTIFICIAL POLLINATION OF SQUASHES. 



Mr. L. C. Corbitt in his Bulletin (No. 

 42 South Dakota Experiment Station) upon 

 squashes observes that in Dakota there is 

 an abundant production of flowers of the 

 squash plants, but ' an almost complete 

 failure of fruit.' For two years he has 

 been experimenting to find the cause and 

 concludes that the failure is due to an 

 absence of insects capable of transferring 

 the pollen from the male to the female 

 flowers. In their absence it is further de- 

 monstrated that profitable crops of squashes 

 can be growTi by resorting to artificial polli- 

 nation. Tliis pollination is best effected in 

 the early morning and consists in touching 

 the stamens of a male flower, picked off and 

 held in the hand to the large fleshy stigmas 

 of the pistillate flowers, which are, of course, 

 left on the vines. It was found that 62 per 

 cent, of the flowers thus treated produced 

 fruit, while practically none will grow if 

 left dependent upon nature for the ti'ansfer 

 of the pollen. 



PEANUT CULTURE. 



The Office of Experiment Stations of the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture has 

 reached the 2.5th number of its Farmers' 

 Bulletin, and Mr. Handy in this issue con- 

 denses a large mass of facts upon pea- 

 nut culture and uses. It is onlj' within a 

 few years that the peanut has become an 

 important crop in this country, the climate 

 of the Atlantic seaboard and the Missis- 

 sippi Valley proving very congenial to it. 

 Peanuts desire a fine soil, kept loose and 

 free from all weeds. After the vines are 

 lifted, the growers stack them for two 

 weeks, when the pods are removed, 

 placed in bags and stored in well ven- 

 tilated sheds. The larger portion of the 

 crop is sold by street venders, while 

 some are used in extracting a peanut 



oil. The peanut is an interesting plant 

 in that the pods mature underground 

 while the ordinary pea does not. 



SOME PLANTS THAT LOOK LIKE THE RUSSIAN 

 THISTLE. 



In Bulletin ISTo. 39 of the Illinois Experi- 

 ment Station, Mr. Clinton, the assistant 

 botanist, brings out by means of text and 

 engravings, some of the plant rogues that 

 resemble the Russian Thistle, mentioned in 

 a late issue of Science. 



Among those of special mention are the 

 winged pigweed ( Cycloloma atri-plicijolium 

 (Sp.) Coult.), one of the plants of the 

 Plains. It is easily distinguished from the 

 Eussian Thistle by its flat leaves of the 

 ordinary sort. In the autumn thife plant 

 by breaking away from the soil at the root 

 becomes one of the noted ' tumble weeds.' 

 Another species of weed quite closely re- 

 lated to the last, and likewise a ' tumbler,' 

 is the Amarmitus albus L. It is not confined 

 to the West, but may be found in manj' an 

 Eastern neglected field. This Amaranth 

 has a first cousin that is spinose (A. spinossu, 

 L.), and for this reason is easily mistaken 

 for the Eussian pest. Somewhat more remote 

 as regards botanical relationship is the 

 Horse Nettle (Solanum Carolinense, L.), 

 which is akin to the tomato, egg plant and 

 potato. It has yellow pickles and berries. 

 The Texan horse nettle or ' sand bur ' is 

 even worse than the last, to which it is 

 closely related. It is Solanum rostratum, 

 Dun. Of course, it would be a fault of 

 omission not to mention the Canada 

 Thistle in this connection, as it is one 

 of the most despised of the prickly 

 weeds. There is a prickly lettuce (Lac- 

 tuca Scariola, L.), common in the West, 

 that is like the Eussian intruder, but 

 easily distinguished from it bj^ the flat 

 leaves, which are polar, and the species is 

 a compass plant. 



Byron D. Halsted. 



