482 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. XV, No. 6, 
a circular space of ground about 10 feet in diameter. Unfor¬ 
tunately no fruits were weighed while the plant was grown in the 
greenhouse, but any increase in the size of fruit, as a result of the 
garden conditions, was so slight as not to be apparent. 
The second experiment was completed in order to determine 
the effect of a soil which contained very little plant nutriment 
that was available, upon the size of plant and fruit. Plant 10 of 
the F-3 generation (17-12-4) grew in the greenhouse to be about 
7 feet tall and possessed an average fruit of 2.22 grams. A cut¬ 
ting of this plant was grown in an eight-inch pot filled with pure, 
washed, desert sand which contained very little plant nutriment. 
An inch layer of normal pot-soil was added in the middle of the 
pot as it was feared the scarcity of nutriment would cause the 
plant to die before it reached maturity. The light temperature 
and moisture conditions were identical with both plant 10 and the 
cutting. The plant in the sand grew to be only 21 inches high 
and its average fruit weight was found to be .85 grams. The size 
of plant and fruit were reduced 75% and 61% respectively. This 
shows the effect of extreme lack of the essential nutritive sub¬ 
stances upon the size of the plant and fruit. 
In addition to the F-l plant grown in the garden, as described 
in the first experiment, a number of other plants of the parental 
and hybrid generations of this currant-pear cross has been grown 
both outside and inside the greenhouse. Any effect upon the 
fruit, as a result of greenhouse environment, would probably be 
shown by a decrease in size. So far as can be ascertained, however, 
from all the evidence new at hand, there was no appreciable 
difference in the size of fruits as a result of the different environ¬ 
mental conditions of the greenhouse and garden. 
Even if there were a small diminution in the size of the tomato 
fruit as a result of being grown in the greenhouse, this change of 
size would affect all plants in the same way and in the same pro¬ 
portion, and, as all the plants concerned in this problem are 
greenhouse grown, the accuracy of the ratio between the sizes of 
the parents and offsprings, which is the vital part of the thesis, 
would remain unimpaired. 
The average weight of the first ten fruits of a plant was com¬ 
pared with the average weight of ten fruits taken in the latter part 
of the fruit bearing period. A number of plants were examined 
in this manner and it was found that the fruits which ripened first 
were not larger than those which ripened later, nor was any cor¬ 
relation discovered between the size and time of blooming. The 
relation between the time of blooming and the size of fruit on a 
single cluster was examined and considerable data collected but 
no correlation was found to exist. 
