and great grandparents. Their peculiari- 
ties will be seen cropping out here and there 
down through many generations. 
Plants have love iiiatolies and affini- 
ties. They receive pollen from one plant 
and reject it from another. They give evi- 
dence of enjoying the presence of some 
plants while others are repulsive. Like the 
human family different varieties have de- 
cided preferences for certain localities and 
environment and one variety will not thrive 
on a soil destitute of some particular kind 
of plant food while another would flourish 
there grandly. 
The seeds are the eggs of a plant. 
Take a hen's egg and keep it at the right 
temperature twenty-one days and out pops 
a chicken. Take an acorn (egg of the oak 
tree) and place it in moist warm earth and 
soon up springs the great oak. The impor- 
tant point is we must have a full under- 
standing of the fact that when a plant 
bears fruit, it is breeding or multiplying its 
species and the fruit develops only as a 
receptacle for the seeds to grow in and the 
size and quality of the fruit depends on the 
stamina of the seeds. 
In the beginning God commanded both 
animals and plants to multiply and replen- 
ish the earth and to secure obedience to 
this command he endowed both alike with a 
passion, which, unless restrained leads to 
destruction. Every physician knows the 
chief cause of idiocy and insanity ; every vet- 
erinary knows the source of scrubs that 
infest our barn yards and thoughtful horti- 
culturists are fast learning that exhaus- 
tion in seed bearing is the great cause of 
unfruitfulness in plants. 
The sexual organs of the plant contain 
the counterpart of all those found in the 
animal and the glands for secreting the 
vital dust (pollen) are as perfect as those of 
the animal for secreting the "vital fluid" 
(see engravings on first page). 
Impotency or inability to fruit is 
brought on by excessive use of the sexual 
organs which in the plant are even more sen- 
sitive than those of the animal. Since the 
development of fruit depends on the stamina 
of the seeds, if the male plant is vigorous and 
the organs of the female strong and healthy 
the seeds will reach great perfection and the 
pulp or fruit will be large in size, brilliant in 
color, firm in texture and rich in flavor. 
In fruiting, then, everything depends on 
the breeding ability of the plants. 
Pollen exhaustion corresponds to what 
is medically known as seminal weakness in 
the animal. A large and luscious berry 
never grew on a seminally weak plant; a 
small and gnarly berry never grows on a 
seminally strong plant, or one possessed of 
high potency of pollen, and with vigorous 
pistils properly supplied with nourishment 
and placed in congenial surroundings. 
(Showing- lack of potency in pollen.) 
As an evidence that excessive pollen 
bearing destroys fruitfulness I submit that 
when an apple orchard gives excessive 
bloom, when every twig is loaded with blos- 
soms we notice that the crop is not only 
small but the apples are small and gnarly. 
The tree has not sufficient strength to im- 
part potency to so much pollen and the pis- 
tils are not impregnated with enough vital- 
ity to secure the development of fruit. The 
largest crops of fine fruit always come from 
moderate bloom. 
When an orchard bears an excessive 
crop it is usually barren the following year 
and will be succeeded by light crops for sev- 
eral years, but if the limbs are shortened in 
and thick clusters cut out to remove surplus 
buds, thus preventing exhaustion it will 
bear a large crop annually. Grape growers 
understand this and the successful vineyard- 
ist never leaves a surplus of buds to exhaust 
the vines. The same holds true in raspberry 
and blackberry culture. 
Strawberries propagate in two ways, 
first, sexually or by seeds and asexually or 
by buds (runners). Variation is very great 
when propagated by seeds. Of the many 
thousand seedlings introduced the number 
really worthy of culture is very few and not 
one in ten thousand has proven superior to 
the old favorite varieties, hence, when we 
do find a superior plant we multiply it by 
buds or runners. 
Bud variation. In looking over the 
berry field or orchard you may find fruits 
which vary in form and general character- 
istics and buds or runners may be selected 
from these for propagation and perpetuated 
if desirable. Many new varieties have been 
originated in this way and others greatly 
improved by selecting those which vary in 
the right direction. 
A PEDIGREE PLANT. 
A Pedigree Plant is one possessing full 
fruiting vigor and has every good quality of 
its variety in the highest perfection, which 
has been accumulated by continuous selec- 
