RATIONAL FRUIT CULTURE. 15 



orchard of dwarf trees, this is easily managed, and is often 

 well worth doing. A smart boy will deal with a large number 

 in the course of a day. 



CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR FERTILISATION. 



If, however, the weather is so cold that there is actual 

 frost, the blossoms may be destroyed, while if it is very wet 

 or very hot the pollen may be rendered inefifective. There is 

 a right stage for the pollen, just as there is for the stigmas. 

 It is then said to be ripe. But if heavy rain falls at, or just 

 before, this stage, it may be washed away or spoilt, and it 

 cannot adhere to the stigmas if they lose their sticky secre- 

 tion as the result of wet. On the other hand, strong sunshine 

 quickly dries up the secretion and also the pollen — makes the 

 latter over-ripe, when it loses its fresh, bright-yellow colour. 

 For successful fertilisation, a dry, warm, but rather cloudy, 

 morning is the most favourable time. 



MYSTERIOUS FAILURES TO FRUIT. 



There is a more serious and, until lately, more mysterious 

 class of cases in which the failure to fruit is persistent. If 

 the weather is bad, or bees are few, there will be little or no 

 crop, but as these conditions rarely occur year after year, 

 the failure is only intermittent or partial. There are, how- 

 ever, not a few trees which seldom, if ever, bear a crop. When 

 these cases are tabulated, with the object of trying to find 

 the reason, one fact becomes apparent — ^that the failures are 

 almost invariably confined to isolated trees of certain varie- 

 ties. One of them, to give an instance, is the well-known 

 Pear, Williams' Bon Chretien. Dozens of correspondents 

 have written to say that they have had this Pear (and no 

 others) for years, and have not had a crop. One of thena 

 planted between two and three doZen of this variety, and 



