HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 



teur should so restrict himself, but suggests 

 various instruments: A pair of jeweler's for- 

 ceps, or pincers, a jeweler's eyeglass, a small 

 but powerful microscope, a sharp knife, a saucer 

 for holding the pollen, a soft brush for sifting 

 or dusting the pollen from the saucer to the 

 stigma of the plant to be fertilized. 



Whenever it is necessary, he makes use of 

 any or all of these, or of other devices of his 

 own making, but chiefly he pollenates by 

 securing the pollen upon a watch-crystal and 

 placing it upon the stigma with his finger-tips. 

 The main object is to see that the pollen from 

 the one flower gets onto the stigma of the 

 other flower. The fertilizing, or fructifying, 

 Nature will do herself if man has done his 

 work well. 



Sometimes there are flowers which Nature 

 has in her own good ways made extremely 

 difficult to pollenate, flowers for which strange 

 devices and curious contrivances and traps are 

 prepared by Nature in order to get certain in- 

 sects, — and only those, — to enter the flower 

 at just the right time and there to hold them 

 captive until they deposit the pollen they have 

 gathered from another flower. Of such plants 



