262 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[July, 
this region it is a winter apple hard to beat. It 
maintains its place in the orchards, notwith¬ 
standing the new varieties that have been intro¬ 
duced. It is grown upon almost every farm, where 
there is any orchard, and is more largely planted 
than any other variety. It is sure to be found in 
the cellars and in the stores as long as the old crop 
of apples lasts. The tree is vigorous and long- 
lived, frequently lasting a hundred years or more. 
There is no sign of decay in the variety. It is in 
its best eating condition in the spring months, and 
keeps well under favorable conditions until July. 
It comes up from the cellar now a large, plump ap¬ 
ple ; crisp, juicy, and high flavored, good enough 
for an epicure. It is safe to plant three-fourths of 
any orchard in this region with this variety. 
Connecticut. 
How Flowers are Fertilized. 
BY PROF. ASA GRAY. 
ARTICLE VI.—LAUREL. 
About this time, in the northern part of the coun¬ 
try, Laurel is in blossom, and the hills are gay with 
it through the Alleghany region, and the districts 
which it particularly affects. By Laurel we mean 
Kalmia; not Rhododendron, which flowers later, 
and which we rarely see 
much of, in the wild 
state, except in the 
mountain region from 
the southern part of 
New York, bordering 
Pennsylvania, to Geor¬ 
gia. Still less do we 
mean what is called 
Laurel in England, 
which is a cherry. In 
every country some 
broad-leaved evergreen 
gets the name, which 
belongs originally and 
rightfully to the classi¬ 
cal bay tree or Laurel, 
the Laurus nobilis, of 
the Mediterranean re¬ 
gion, which we here 
Fig. 1.— section of a never see, except the 
flower-bud of Kalmia leaves of it in our 
latifolia. boxes of dried prunes 
and figs, forming a layer over the top. Of our 
own Laurel, or Kalmia, there are two or three com¬ 
mon kinds. There is the Sheep-Laurel or Lamb- 
kill, common in open grounds, which has a bad 
reputation, as the common name implies. The 
flowers of this are smaller and come earlier, but all 
we have to say of the larger and far more showy 
species, Kalmia latifolia, or broad-leaved Laurel, 
apply to this as well. The flow-ers are a curiosity, 
on account of the singular arrangement of the sta¬ 
mens. There are ten of these surrounding a single 
pistil. But, instead of standing within reach of it, 
their anthers are lodged in as many pouches in the 
side of the corolla. When the crumpled bud, shown 
in section in figure 1, opens into the shape of a deep 
saucer with a narrow bottom, of which one half is 
given in figure 2, the anthers, being held fast in 
these pouches, are carried outward and downward, 
and the slender filaments are strongly bent, like so 
many bows. They are, indeed, bent bows. If with 
the point of a pin you lift an anther out of its pouch, 
the filament straightens elastically 
with a jerk, and even bends over 
the other way. By watching the ' 
flowers, or covering them with YAA 
gauze to keep off intruders, it is 
found that the anthers are never Y\ 
liberated of themselves, until the j\ 
corolla begins to wither; and by j I 
that time the filaments have lost JJ 
all their tension, aud do not fly up J] 
at all. All this, while there is the // 
stigma—a minute button at the top S/ 
of the long slender, upright style : 
how is it ever to get any pollen ? 
This case may be. commended 
to the special attention of those moreenlarged 
who believe that insects are of no 
great use to flowers, and that cross-fertilization 
does not amount to much. So far as we can see, 
without insects, or some such visitors, these flowers 
are doomed to sterility. An insect as large as a 
bee, in rummaging the flower, is quite sure to set 
the stamens loose. When we do it ourselves, we 
see what happens. As each is let loose, a charge of 
pollen is projected inwards and upwards, in the 
direction of the stigma. The apparatus is worth 
inspecting. There are the ten sprung bows ; upon 
the end which comes loose and springs up is the 
anther, composed of two oblong sacs (fig. 3), each 
open by a round hole at top, and within charged 
with pollen. Here is an exact equivalent to 
a child’s pea-shooter. The filament answers to 
the piece of whalebone ; the anther to a pair of bits 
of quill, or other short tubes attached to its sum- 
Fig. 4 .—a flower of kalmia, the stamens of 
WHICH ARE OUT OF THEIR SOCKETS, HAVING 
DONE THEIR WORK. 
mit; the pollen to the peas or small shot. A bee 
or wasp, probing the bottom of the cup of the blos¬ 
som, brings about the discharge. In each flower 
ten shots are fired at the stigma—none too many, 
indeed, for the mark is small and the distance con¬ 
siderable. Some pollen is likely to hit. Figure 4 
shows the appearance of the flower after all the 
shots have been discharged. 
This contrivance is most ingenious, but one 
would say superfluous. A far simpler and more 
effectual arrangement would be to have the stamens 
so placed that the pollen should fall upon the stig¬ 
ma, if that were the proper destination of the pol¬ 
len. This extraordinary structure in our Laurel 
flowers has been well known for more than a. hun¬ 
dred years, a thing to be wondered at, a strange 
“ freak of Nature.” At length we have the expla¬ 
nation of the riddle. An accumulation of instances, 
such as these articles have been illustrating, con¬ 
firm the happy suggestion that the pollen was 
meant, not for this stigma, but for some other, and 
under that suggestion even this curious case is 
clear. Having got the idea, the next thing was to 
see the actual operation. This was first observed 
by Prof. Beal, of Michigan, when a student at Cam¬ 
bridge. Bumble-bees were the principal visitors. 
“ The bee, remaining on the wing, circles for a 
moment over each flower, thrusting his proboscis 
all round the ovary at the bottom ; in doing this it 
jostles and lets off the springs, and receives upon 
the underside of the body and the legs successive 
discharges of pollen. Flying to another blossom, 
it brings its pollen-dusted body against the stig¬ 
ma, and commonly revolving on it as if on a pivot, 
while it sucks the nectar in the bottom of the 
flower-cup, liberates the ten bowed stamens, and 
receives fresh charges of pollen from that flower, 
while fertilizing it with the pollen of the preceding- 
one.”— Uow Plants Behave, page 34. 
An acute correspondent has sent us a list of flow¬ 
ers which, in his opinion, are adapted for self-fertil¬ 
ization, and are practically self-fertilized. Some of 
them are just those which we were intending to take 
up in due time, as capital instances to the contrary. 
The others we may perhaps take in hand next month. 
Market Gardening—Pluck vs. Capital. 
BY PETEll HENDERSON. 
A correspondent in Iowa, “ M.,” writes : “ I have 
read with interest, ‘ Gardening for Profit.’ I am 
gardening this year, on a small scale, at this place, 
by way of practice. Please answer the following- 
through the American Agriculturist? I have six 
acres of land within one mile of the market square 
of a town of 4,000 inhabitants. The ground is old, 
but has never been exhausted Competition is not 
great. I have a profession which will give me a 
living for myself and family in the use of half my 
time. I have brains enough to comprehend theory, 
and nerve enough to drive the practice. I have no 
capital, \ra.i pluck. Can I succeed as a market gar¬ 
dener under these circumstances ?” 
“ Pluck ” will not stand in lieu of capital in be¬ 
ginning a business, where horses, wagons, glass, 
seeds and manures are required. To be sure, credit 
may be obtained to get these things, but I have al¬ 
ways held to the opinion that no man has a right to 
ask credit of another if the business he is entering 
upon is an experiment, unless he can secure the 
creditor. All men that I have ever known, who 
have made the business a success, are those whose 
habits of industry and economy have enabled them 
to save a few hundreds or thousands of dollars, as 
the case may be, with which to begin. Capital—of 
not less than $500—and double that would be bet¬ 
ter, being a necessity in the case of “ M.”—our ad¬ 
vice would be to let gardening alone, until, by- dint 
of rigid economy, the necessary capital can be ob¬ 
tained ; I see no reason whatever why he may not 
then succeed, provided Tie does not attempt more than 
his capital will warrant. This caution cannot be too 
often given, as an attempt to do too much is one of 
the most common errors in this, as in many other 
branches of business. Every year brings instances 
where thorough culture of a small area gives most 
wonderfully profitable results. One of my old fore¬ 
men, Sylvester McAdam, cultivates, as a market 
garden, not more than five acres, on Jersey City 
Higlits, only about three miles from New York City 
Hall; yet in the face of the dullest season we have 
ever experienced, his net profits, from the cultiva¬ 
tion of these five acres in cabbage, lettuce, beets, 
and celery, have for the year ending April 1st, 1876, 
been nearly $5,000, or about $1,000 per acre ; while 
some of his neighbors, with three or four times the 
area under cultivation, have hardly paid expenses. 
Mr. McAdam gives special care to the cultivation of 
celery, and sold the greater part of his crop in 
March and April, at very high prices—most of it at 
$4 and $5 per 100 roots—his daily wagon loads, dur¬ 
ing the month of March averaging $150 each. 
What is true of vegetables is equally true of fruits. 
More extended views on this subject are presented 
in an article in the May No. of the American Agri¬ 
culturist, headed “ Gardening as a Business,” to 
which “ M.” and other inquirers are referred. 
-- -v y r -= -0- 1 —*pr-—- i ' ■ ■ 
Apples without Blossoms. 
Some nice apples were sent to us last fall from 
Maryland, from a tree which is rather famous in the 
region thereabout for bearing fruit year after year, 
but no blossom. We requested the most intelligent 
gntl obliging lady who sent the apples, to go to the 
