532 



JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



with their own pollen, when the flowers opened I took pollen from 

 other varieties either by brush or by carrying the stamens with forceps, 

 and dusted it on the stigmas of the bagged flowers without emascula- 

 tion. The only variety that had all the flowers experimented upon 

 emasculated before the anthers shed their pollen was a * Cox's Orange ' 

 tree on which I tried pollen of nine different varieties of apple ; but in 

 two trials of ' Cox's Orange Pippin ' pollinated with its own pollen, 

 in neither case did fruit mature, and in five trials bagged and not 

 touched none set any fruit. Emasculation would therefore seem 

 unnecessary. 



For these trials I used some 200 muslin bags, most of them of 

 green colour and fine mesh, and about 100 paper bags as used by 

 bakers and grocers. The season being dry the latter answered quite 

 well and did not come ungummed. Green muslin bags were used for 

 the sake of the appearance of the garden. The only insects I found in 

 any of tbe bags to the best of my remembrance were caterpillars, apple 

 sucker, and aphis, and sawfly in the young apples, the eggs of which 

 must apparently have been on the flower buds when bagged. The 

 results seemed similar whether in paper bag or muslin bag. "With 

 the fruits experimented on I think very little pollen is blown about, 

 and none came through the muslin bags to affect results. Glazed, 

 transparent paper bags may be the very best of all to use, and if I 

 make further trials I propose using them to try and avoid possibility 

 of error. 



Gooseberries, Red, and White Currants. — Bags were placed over 

 small boughs of unopened blossoms, with the result that very few 

 fruits set, and those chiefly at the tip and at the base, where rubbed 

 by the bags. The pollen of gooseberries and currants is sticky and | 

 cannot be transferred from the anthers to the stigmas without! 

 mechanical means, and these plants are therefore dependent on insects | 

 to do this office for them in order to set fruit. They are self-fertile — 

 i.e. set fruit perfectly when pollinated with pollen of the same flower 

 or same variety. | 



Cherries. — On some ten varieties of cherries on which unopenedj 

 blossoms were bagged and left untouched, not a single fruit set; when! 

 pollinated with their own pollen several set, but none matured except j 

 on Morello cherries, whilst in the five cases in which I bagged andi 

 afterwards pollinated with pollen of another variety all set fruit. { 

 It appears necessary when growing cherries to have several varietiesj 

 for cross-pollination and to have plenty of bees to carry the pollen. ; 



Plums. — I made trials on eleven varieties of plums — viz. : ' Vic-j 

 toria,' 'Czar,' ' Bivers' Early Prolific,' 'Early Orleans,' 'Bittern,' 

 'Cox's Emperor,' 'Jefferson,' ' Denniston's Superb,' 'Pond's Seed- 

 ling,' ' Greengage,' and ' July Greengage.' Of those bagged and lefij 

 untouched, four varieties set fruit out of eleven, but only fruits of twa 

 varieties came to maturity — namely, ' Victoria ' and ' Czar ' — ancj - 

 these were not as large as others in the open, j 



Of those bagged and afterwards pollinated with tlieir own polleni : 



