230 NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



our common garden fruits should be experimented with. 

 Cover a clump of strawberries before the buds open, and 

 count the blossoms ; leave a similar clump uncovered, 

 and compare the fruit. In the same way cover a small 

 branch of plum, peach, quince, pear, cherry, and apple. 

 This has been done for some of our fruits, with the 

 result that not only are more fruits generally found to 

 "set" on the exposed branches, but the fruit is often 

 larger, plumper, and richer in quality, and the seeds are 

 large and well developed, while those in self-pollinated 

 fruits on the same tree are small and often abortive, i.e., 

 without kernels. When these experiments are made, the 

 fruits may be saved, preserved in formalin, or may be care- 

 fully drawn to exact size for the school collection. The 

 seeds may also be preserved to show that, in times past, 

 a honeybee possibly assisted in the production of those 

 seeds that have given origin to many of our improved 

 varieties of fruit. ^ 



The study will naturally irradiate into the more general 

 subject of the value of insects in cross-pollination. What 

 other insects are seen about the fruit blossoms .'' Are 

 other insects numerous at this season 1 With all of our 

 native bees — bumblebees, hornets, wasps — the queens 

 alone survive the winter. Comparatively few of the other 

 blossom-seeking insects live through the winter, and many 

 of these do not come out of their winter quarters in time 

 for fruit bloom. Here we have the one efficient insect 

 which carries over the winter an army of workers, ready to 



1 " The Pollination of Pear Flowers," Merton B. White, United States 

 Department of Agriculture, 1S94. See also "Pollination in Orchards," 

 Bulletin iSi, Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, 1900. 



