225 
WHAT FRUIT TO GROW. 
The following chapter contains a carefully-selected list of 
fruits which have either been proved to be successfully grown in the 
S.W. division of Western Australia, or are known to thrive in other 
fruit-growing countries bearing, with ours, strong features of 
similarity as regards those natural conditions which are congenial 
to fruit trees. 
The letters E., M., and L. mean early, medium, or late respec- 
tively, and 5., A., and W. denote suminer, autumn, and winter; F. 
and C., freestone or clingstone. 
PLant BREEDING. 
Until a few years ago the art of man had seldom been directed 
towards improving our cultivated plants. Seeds were collected of 
varieties exhibiting special features deemed worthy of reproduction 
and improvement. These were planted under favourable conditions 
and received the benefit of careful cultivation; the rest was left to 
Providence. Under such circumstances, a great many of our 
choicest select seedlings, varieties of fruit trees, and plants have 
originated; a great many more are the result of chance seediings. 
This process, however, is, if at times efficacious, somewhat empirical, 
and some of our more modern fruit growers have of late brought 
their commercial genius to bear in selecting and in mating varieties 
embodying special features which, when blended together, would 
approach closer to the ideal they have set themselves to create. Time 
is thus saved, and if the result does not always come up to that 
ideal, it often constitutes a subject which is worth putting to the 
test, and which is finally adopted or rejected by either the breeder 
himself or by the cultivator. 
This is effected by the process of cross fertilisation or of 
pollination. For so doing something must be known of the struc- 
ture of the flower. Inside the corolla, which is formed of the 
variously-coloured petals, are the organs of fructification of the 
plant. These consist of a jistil, so called because it somewhat re- 
sembles a pestle, and which includes an inflated tip or stigma which 
receives the pollen, a style or miniature tube which conveys the 
pollen to the ovary, which in the course of development becomes 
the fruit. They also consist of thread-like bodies called stamens, 
which are the male organ of flowers and surround the jpistil. These 
organs secrete the pollen or fecundating dust which is contained in 
little capsules called anthers. 
The appliances necessary for cross-fertilising plants are a pair 
of long-pointed scissors, a pair of tweezers, a magnifying glass, and 
paper or gauze bags. 
