VOL. XLVIII NO. 2066 
NEW YORK, AUGUST 31, 1889. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS, 
*2.00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the Year 1889, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the Office or the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 
A ROSE BUSH—PLEASANT VALLEY, 
CALIFORNIA. 
N PJeasant Valley, four or 
five miles from Vacaville, in 
one of the best fruit regions 
of California, Mr. E. K. 
Thurber owns extensive or¬ 
chards. It is a region of 
great^beauty, with grand 
oaks in^the valley, and well- 
timbered mountains shelter¬ 
ing the warm hill-slopes 
where the earlier fruit grows. 
The very first fruit that goes 
from California to New York is raised in this 
locality. The illustration, Figure 218, shows 
a rose vine which covers an arbor in Mr. 
Thurber’s garden ; a magnolia tree shows 
partly at the right, and the Vaca hills are in 
the background. The rose is from a single 
stem, some 15 years old, and entirely covers a 
large arbor. If I remember correctly, it is a 
large white climber, either the old Devonien- 
sis or the La Marque, and its size and long 
blooming season make it notable in the val¬ 
ley. It receives no irrigation. Mr. Thurber 
is a prominent member of the California 
Fruit Union, and a very enterprising horti¬ 
culturist, who has introduced many new varie¬ 
ties of fruit in the Vacaville district, and has 
originated several promising varieties. 
C. h. s. 
Ijvrlmdiurxil. 
SEXES IN THE CASTOR-OIL PLANT. 
The inflorescence of the castor-oil plant, 
the arrangement of the male and female 
flowers and the way in which pollenation is 
effected, are curious and interesting. In the 
corn plant the male flowers are borne upon 
clusters of slender spikes, which we call the 
tassel. Below, growing from the axils of one 
or more leaves, is the female flower in a many- 
rowed spike having a very long, slender pis¬ 
til called the silk. The male and female 
flowers are thus separated all the way from 
two or three to 10 feet, according to the va¬ 
riety planted and the fertility of the soil. 
Corn pollen is quite heavy so that when ripe 
and being shed it will fall from the tassel di¬ 
rectly down upon the silk, if there is no air 
stirring to waft it elsewhere. It often happens, 
depending upon the variety of corn and the 
season, that the silk and tassel do not mature 
at the same time. Sometimes the pollen is 
ripe before the silk appears outside of the 
husk; sometimes the silk is receptive before 
the pollen is mature. 
In such cases a given plant must depend 
upon pollen from some other plant or plants, 
or we shall have grainless cobs. Or, in case of 
a deficiency of pollen, the cobs will mature 
only those kernels the silks of which were 
pollenated. Probably insects have very little 
to do with carrying the pollen from the tassel 
to the silk. The wind accomplishes this most 
effectually. 
Now let us examine the castor-oil flowers. The 
illustration, Fig. 219, page 575, is accurately 
drawn from nature. It shows two racemes, in 
different stages of maturity, of hybrid plants 
produced by crossing Ricinus Afncanus upon 
R. Gibsonii last year. The prickly-looking flow¬ 
ers at and near the top are the female flowers, 
each with its red plumous, two to six-parted 
stigmas. The male buds resemble in shape 
grains of buckwheat, producing as they bloom 
the roundish, fine, floury masses of anthers, as 
shown. Lowermost upon the loft raceme are 
two male buds just opening, as if they were 
strawberry flowers just setting. An inch or 
so above is a single male flower in full bloom. 
On the right raceme are one male bud just 
breaking open and three in full bloom. It 
will be seen that the male flowers are below 
and the females on top, just reversing the po¬ 
sition of the sexes on the corn plant. How is 
it, then, that castor-oil flowers bear such an 
A ROSE BUSH, PLEASANT VALLEY, CALIFORNIA. 
From a Photograph. 
Fig. 218. 
