CHAPTER III. 



SYNOPSIS OF THE EXPERIMENTS. 



In tbis synopsis it is the purpose to give the results of all the work 

 in a compact and accessible form. Every exi^eriment recorded in my 

 notebooks has been iucluded in order that the reader may have all the 

 data now in possession of the writer and may draw his own conclu- 

 sions. In some cases the work on a particular tree seemed to have no 

 value on account of some disturbing factor, but to enable the reader 

 to judge for himself all has been given. The number of trees experi- 

 mented on was 144, belonging to thirty- eight varieties. The nomencla- 

 ture adoptedisthat of the Catalogue of Fruits of the American Pomo- 

 logical Society, and the names which do not occur in the catalogue are 

 according to Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. The data 

 given under each tree relate to the clusters, flowers, and fruits, as 

 explained on pp. 29 and 30. As before mentioned, the per cents are com- 

 puted throughout on the basis of the number of flowers. This is obtained 

 by multiplying the number of clusters by 7.5, the average number of flow- 

 ers per cluster. Therefore if twenty clusters set twenty fruits the per cent 

 will not be given as 100, but as 13.3, since the twenty clusters contain 

 about one hundred and fifty flowers. Of course these per cents are 

 only ai^proximately correct, but this method of computation was neces- 

 sary in order to bring the bagging experiments into comparison with 

 the hand-pollinations, in which latter case the flowers were necessarily 

 counted. One fruit to a cluster, or 13.3 per cent, is ordinarily a very 

 satisfactory yield, and on trees which bloom heavily one-half this per 

 cent is often more than enough and necessitates thinning the fruit for 

 the best results, except in cases of small-fruited varieties. 



Varieties of Peaes Studied. 



• The tables which follow give the data of the work on each tree, with 

 explanatory notes. The varieties follow each other in alphabetical 

 order. All the numbers which refer to crossed fruits, or those which 

 may have been crossed, whether hand-j)ollinated or exposed to insect 

 visits, are put in bold-face type, so that the results of cross and self- 

 pollination may be readily contrasted, 



35 



