LUTHER BURBANK 
In particular it should be understood that the 
staminate flowers of the walnut usually bloom and 
shed their pollen from one to four weeks before 
the fruit-bearing nutlets appear. 
One would naturally suppose, under these cir- 
cumstances, that the pollen would all be lost and 
that there could be no crop. But, in point of fact, 
the pollen appears to retain its vitality for a long 
time, and even where it has been shed some weeks 
- before the ripening of the pistillate flowers, there 
may be a full crop. The hand-pollenizer must 
bear in mind this tendency of the two types of 
walnuts to mature their flowers at different times. 
Still, as already suggested, the pollen appears to 
retain its vitality, and ultimately to be able to 
effect fertilization even though applied some time 
before the maturation of the pistils. 
In France the early spring frosts are likely to 
be very destructive to the ordinary walnuts, and 
the French nut raisers have come to depend largely 
on the Franquette, a variety already referred to. 
While this variety is in some respects inferior, it 
has the one supreme quality of not blossoming 
until the season of spring frosts is over. It blooms 
perhaps four weeks later than ordinary varicties. 
This ensures a good crop from the Franquette 
variety, even in years when others have been dam- 
aged by the frost, so that the average production 
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