MONGREL PLANTS. PEDIGREE PLANTS. 
Just a quart of berries in each. The difference in herries grown from common or mongrel plants 
and thoroughbreds is well illustrated by this photograph. The difference in size, productiveness and 
quality is very great, and it is this that gives you the command of the market. People will take a great 
deal of trouble to get such berries as are seen on the right, and in the family garden they afford a 
world of delight. 
building organism to work. We know this 
because whenever fertilization fails no fruit 
flesh develops. If you should set an acre of all 
pistillate varieties they would bloom full and 
you would think a great crop was in sight, 
but you would soon see the flowers drop of? 
and no berries could be found. The banana, 
pineapple, naval orange and some other fruits 
have no vital seeds and they are regarded as 
freaks. They have rudimentary seeds which 
stimulate into activity the fruit flesh glands 
and I call especial atcntion to the fact that all 
these seedless fruits never suffer from over 
bearing, but if sustained by manuring and til- 
lage will bear just as good crops the year fol- 
lowing. The amount of fruit depending mere- 
ly on the capacity of the trees. 
The especial and important point for you to 
note is that the developincnt of fruit not only 
depends on conception, but upon the potency 
or vigor of the consolidated life germ for 
wherevc- the vitality of these two life germs 
(father and inother plant) is low, the berries 
V ill be numerous but always small and defi- 
cient in quality. 
We know the violent passion for breeding 
possessed by animals and the fact that all 
stock breeders limit them so that they will not 
become seminally exhausted for in this case 
the offspring would be very inferior in all re- 
spects. 
Thi-3 seminal exhaustion takes place in 
plants in identically the same way. Now take 
a vigorous and heavy fruiting raspberry field. 
Omit the annual pruning for one year and see 
what a splendid crop you will get. Now, 
prune it and manure it and next year culti- 
vate it as much as you please and see what 
light crops of berries you will get for several 
years to follow. If you prune closely, of 
course it will gradually recover, but for want 
of restriction this one year you would lose 
heavily on succeeding crops. 
You notice in the orchard when it blooms 
so full, when every twig is loaded with blos- 
soms, that the fruit is always inferior and 
heavy crops will not occur again for several 
years which may be attributed to pollen ex- 
haustion; but if you properly restrict it by 
pruning or cutting off surplus buds, so it will 
not become seminally weak, it will bear good 
crops of fine fruit every year. Every grower 
of grapes knows that he must cut oft fully 
five-sixths of his wood and buds every season 
to get high grade fruit and this is always done 
in the winter or early spring before excessive 
pollen secretions take place. "Bearing itself to 
death," is a common expression among fruit 
growers, but few persons understand the waste 
of body of both plants and animals arising out 
of excessive breeding. All our physicians un- 
derstand why we liave so many deformed per- 
sons, mentally and physically, and why we 
have to maintain so many prisons for the 
vicious and asylums for mentally weak per- 
sons; and the veterinary can explain the 
source of the miserable scrubs which infest 
our barnyards. The whole is explained in two 
words; viz., excessive breeding. 
The strawberry plant left to itself throws its 
whole energies into this sexual function of 
seed production and consequent fruit and grad- 
ually its seed organs waste away until its fruit 
is small and inferior and then we say it has 
run out. 
It is only within the last few years that 
strawberry growing has been made profitable. 
At first the grower fruited his beds several 
years until it needed renovation and manuring 
and then he fitted new land, went to the old 
bed for plants and after repeating this once or 
twice he got little fruit and gave up the busi- 
ness in disgust. 
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