64 



VEGETABLE GARDENING. 



Such plants as melons, cucumbers, squashes and onions and 

 most other plants with conspicuous flowers, are pollenized hy 

 insects to whose bodies the pollen becomes attached and is thus 

 carried from one flower to another. This pollen is not light and 

 powdery as in corn and many other plants but is rather heavy. 

 It is obvious then that the direction of the wind has little effect 

 in crossing such plants. It is generally agreed that different 

 varieties of plants pollenized by insects should have at least 1,000 

 feet between them to prevent mixing, but which will often occur 

 to some extent even with these precautions. The greatest care 

 should be taken to keen stock seed from being mixed. 



QUESTIONS— CHAPTER V. 



1. How are seeds tested? 



2. How are seeds cured and stored? 



3. What is meant by stock seed? Specialties? Humbuors? Novel- 

 ties? 



4. Illustrate the law that the constant tendency for cultivated 

 plants is to vary widely from the original form. 



5. Illustrate the law that the qualities of the parent are more 

 liable to be transmitted than the desirable qualities of a few individual 

 fruits. 



6. Why is it a poor plan to select seed from plants remaining 

 in the garden late after the best specimens have been gathered? 



7. What is meant by cross and self pollination? 



8. What is the effect of cross and self pollination? 



9. How can the mixing of varieties be prevented? 

 10. How are plants pollenized? 



