CITRUS CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA — POLLINATION. 41 



Results of Experiments. — These experiments and observations 

 are valuable, showing — 



(1) That the Washington Navel is without staminal devel- 

 opment of pollen. 



(2) That it fruits without the aid of foreign pollen. 



(3) That pollination would not increase its fruitfulness. 



(4) That the pistillate, or female quality, exists in the 

 capacity to produce seeds, but is modified and fails to impress 

 its growth and transmit to it its own characteristics. 



(5) That the readiness of the pistil to respond to artificial 

 pollination, and its absence from seeds where an abundance of 

 free foreign pollen has been distributed, show a weakness in 

 the pistil to exude the adherent solvents to attach the pollen 

 germ and excite germination, or a weakness of the nectaries to 

 furnish sweets to attract the natural insect aids. 



(6) That the capacity of the Navel to produce pollen is an 

 inherent weakness of the staminal impulse in the tree and is 

 not dependent upon climatic conditions. This removes the 

 Navel from the varieties that can be modified by germinal 

 changes in the embryo or seed, and classifies it with those 

 varieties which will show modifications by adaptation in their 

 bud development only. That if the same inherent bud quali- 

 ties were possessed by the parent trees of Florida and Cali- 

 fornia, unfruitfulness of the Navel variety may be expected to 

 appear in the orchards of California. 



Adaptability. — The great questions of profitable and success- 

 ful orange culture in California are the adaptability of each 

 variety to an area that will produce, as far as possible, a perfect 

 fruit, and the selection of such groups of qualities that will 

 meet a market demand during the season. 



That one principal variety, like the Washington Navel, can 

 fulfill these conditions is impossible. Several well-chosen 

 varieties will meet the market demand. 



If a relatively sweet orange for the early market is desired 

 we should choose one in which the processes of fruit growth 

 hasten the period of ripening, as in the Washington Navel 

 and Homosassa — one the great seedless orange of California, 

 and the other a modified staminal type. This caution should 

 be given as to the Navel and all seedless varieties. 



There is a subtle and delicate citrus quality that must be 

 associated in all the qualities of an orange. It can only be 



