THE BUDS ON THE TWIGS 17 



year laden with potential bloom. On 1918 the two spurs 

 bear flowers, one of them only a single bloom and the 

 other five blooms. On 1919 twelve of the fourteen spurs 

 are bearing flowers in the following numbers : 5 flowers, 

 5, 5, 7, 5, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5=63 flowers. On 1920 are no 

 spurs bearing flowers, but the terminal bud (as is 

 frequent on vigorous young trees) bears five flowers. 

 Here, therefore, on this yard of three-year-old twig are 

 seventy-four blossoms. 



But there will not be seventy-four fruits ; some of the 

 flowers are small and weak; others, as the petals fall, 

 show unmistakable signs of failing. A few of them show 

 the plump form of an embryo apple: I think there are 

 a score of such promises. But I know that others will 

 fail later from physiological causes, and others probably 

 from onslaught of insects or disease or from accidents. 

 If six fair fruits mature on a branch like this, the crop 

 will be good ; and probably the branch would not have 

 vigor enough to set as many fruit-buds the following 

 year or to bear as many fruits. 



It is good to watch the opening of the apple bloom: 

 pink buds swelling and puffing out each day, the woolly 

 stems elongating, the five overlapping incurving petals 

 spreading and growing big, the stamens, about twenty, 

 straightening up and lengthening their filaments that are 

 attached on the flower-rim ; the big light yellow anthers 

 shedding pollen; the five green styles in the center. In 

 some flowers the styles do not develop, and wc have one 

 reason why many flowers are sterile. 



The flower-clusters differ much among themselves, 

 in size of parts, number of flowers, color; on some trees 

 the flowers appear in advance of most of the leafage, but 



