18911 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKERJ 
883 
SEED-BALLS ON POTATOES. 
Where Have They Gone To? 
What is the reason that we have no seed-bolls on 
our potatoes? We have a fine bloom, but no seed. I 
have only one kind, out of about 40 different varieties, 
that gives seed-balls. J. l. 
Walkerton, Ont. 
The aim in the development of the potato has been 
towards an increase in the number and size of the 
tubers, regardless of seed production. As a conse¬ 
quence, most varieties fail to yield seed at all in re¬ 
cent generations. This is merely a theory, but it is 
in accordance with other and well-established theo¬ 
ries of plant breeding. It is, as it appears to me, un¬ 
reasonable to expect a plant to produce equally well 
both above and below ground. When we aim at 600 
or 700 bushels of tubers per acre, we should not also 
expect a good crop of seed. 
When the tomato is grafted on the potato, we get 
but an indifferent yield of either tomatoes or potatoes, 
never a good crop of both. Some varieties of the po¬ 
tato yield an abundance of seed, and are cultivated by 
specialists to be used as “breeding” stock. These oc¬ 
casionally dribble out and get into the bands of 
planters, and then we hear of wonderful yields of 
seed. In a case that has recently come under my 
observation, a small plot of potatoes yielded an im¬ 
mense number of seed-balls, but a comparatively 
poor crop of tubers, and these of only ordinary 
quality. frederic cranefield. 
Wisconsin Exp. Station. 
DUE TO ROOT-PROPAGATION.—I have never 
made a critical examination of the stamens and pis¬ 
tils of the potato flowers, to determine whether they 
were defective in development or not, but have no 
doubt that the commonly accepted theory is correct. 
This is that the failure of the potato flowers to fer¬ 
tilize, and then to produce seed, is due to the weak¬ 
ness in development resulting from being propagated 
by extension, i. e., by the tuber and not by seed. It 
is found that in nearly all plants the longer they are 
propagated by tubers, division, cuttings, layers, graft¬ 
ing, budding, etc., the weaker becomes their power of 
seed production. New seedling varieties of potatoes, 
as well as of many other plants, produce seeds for a 
few years, and then become seedless. 
Amherst, Mass. s. t. maynard. 
LACK OP POLLEN.—The principal reason why our 
potatoes do not produce seed-balls, is that but very 
few varieties produce any pollen. Undoubtedly the 
reason for this is 'that continued growing from di¬ 
vision of tubers, which is the same as propagation of 
plants by cuttings, has affected the seed-bearing 
qualities of 'the plant, so 'that they produce no pollen 
with which to fertilize the bloom. This tendency is 
quite common in some plants, the banana and pine¬ 
apple being examples. I have found that a few va¬ 
rieties produce pollen quite freely, and wben these are 
planted in alternate rows with other sorts that do not 
as a rule ever produce a seed-ball, there will be quite 
a few balls upon the latter. 
Last Spring I furnished a friend in Michigan With 
a few tubers of ball-bearing varieties, and he writes 
me that he has been quite successful in using the 
pollen from these sorts in hand-fertilizing the blooms 
of several varieties, including R. N.-Y. No. 2 and Sir 
Walter Raleigh and others, and in every instance pro¬ 
cured seed-balls, showing quite conclusively that 
■when pollen is present most of our varieties will pro¬ 
duce seed. However, there are some varieties in 
which this lack of seed production has gone so far 
that only under the most favorable conditions do any 
blooms appear. Bliss Triumph, Read’s Early Pink¬ 
eye, Snowflake, and some others, seldom show any 
bloom, and only a few r even in the most favorable 
seasons. l. h. read. 
Wisconsin. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF IT.—It is rather common 
for plants that change their root system or tuber sys¬ 
tem to produce larger roots or larger tubers, to cease 
producing seeds, or a good crop of seeds. Quick-grass, 
while growing well and spreading by rootstocks, pro¬ 
duces little or no seed, but after the ground has be¬ 
come well stocked with rootstocks, so that the ground 
is choked and the plants are short, seed begins to be 
plentiful. In the stiffest kind of clay soil, this pro¬ 
duction of seeds is very apparent; at least, I have 
found it so here. Horseradish bears flowers year after 
year, but seeds are rare. The plants have “run to 
roots,” and these can spread and multiply well enough 
without asking any odds of seeds. Peppermint and 
spearmint in Michigan have long been multiplied by 
the spreading and creeping stems and rootstocks, and 
now no seeds can be found, not even enough to grow 
a few seedlings for the purpose of securing new varie¬ 
ties, hoping that some of them may prove more valu¬ 
able for producing oil. Matrimony vine (Lycium) is 
another example; species of Lycopus, also. Con¬ 
stant attempts have been made for many years past 
to improve potatoes, not to improve them for bearing 
more seeds, but to produce large tubers in abun¬ 
dance. I can remember when many sorts of good 
potatoes produced seed-balls in abundance, and some 
sorts now produce them in moderate quantity. 
Here may be a puzzle for some people: Why does 
toadflax continue to produce seeds in abundance, and 
yet spread all through sandy soil with numerous root¬ 
stocks? And why do strawberries continue to pro¬ 
duce good seeds in abundance, while they multiply 
prodigiously with runners? In the case of the straw¬ 
berry none of the numerous seedlings are saved for 
cultivation unless they bear good seeds, for such ber¬ 
ries are of poor quality or worthless. Had the fruit 
been attended to in the case of new sorts of potatoes, 
all sorts that failed to produce berries on the top 
would have been discarded, but no one cared for the 
berries. Man often improved plants for his use with 
only one point in mind; beets and turnips for the 
roots; cabbages for the heads of leaves; cauliflower 
for the stout flower clusters; egg plants for the enor¬ 
mous fruits; paying no attention to the color, size, and 
shape of the rest of the plant, provided it be healthy 
and sufficiently vigorous. w. j. beal. 
Michigan. 
BRED FOR TUBERS.—Why does the potato pro¬ 
duce fewer seed-balls now than formerly? I have 
often asked myself and others this same question, 
and have not yet received a fully satisfactory reply. 
I hope your inquiries will elicit one. My own idea 
may be expressed as follows: The potato is a highbred 
plant—comparable to the Jersey among cows. In its 
native haunts on the plateaus of South America the 
wllld potato reproduces itself in two ways, by seeds 
and by tubers. But man 'has always bred and selected 
the cultivated varieties with one end in view, the 
production of tubers. Both of these reproductive 
processes are exhaustive of the plant’s energies. In 
its vital economy, therefore, as it has been induced 
A WELLBRED HEIFER. Fio. 324. See Page 894. 
by man to turn more and more of this energy into 
the channels of tuber formation, it has had less and 
less to devote to the perfecting and sustenance of the 
reproductive parts in the flower. The evidence that 
I have at hand is that little if any cross-pollination 
occurs between potato blossoms. It was recorded 
over 50 years ago that some varieties of potatoes 
which were not self-fertile would bear seed when 
crossed with pollen from another variety. Waite’s 
observations on the apple have shown that self¬ 
sterility may increase with decreased vigor of de¬ 
velopment. It seems to me probable that in the se¬ 
lection of potatoes for tuber production alone the 
vigor of the flower organs has been so decreased as 
not only to increase their natural tendency to self¬ 
sterility, but also to sterility even when crossed. 
Vermont Exp. Station. l. r. jones. 
DOES THE FOOD FLAVOR MILK OR BUTTER? 
It seems remarkable that anyone should answer in 
the negative. Yet Prof. Waugh, In a recent number 
of your paper, doubts it, and presumes to ridicule the 
idea by suggesting that the odor gets into the pail 
from the outside. During the earliest settlement of 
this part of Illinois, the wild onions, or leeks, were so 
abundant along the creek bottoms, that for a few 
weeks during early Spring both milk and butter were 
often totally unfit to use, because the cows, all of 
which ran at large, got so much of the onions in 
their foraging. The Professor cannot lay this fact to 
filthy barns, because these cows never saw a barn. 
They were milked under the blue dome of the sky, 
and had the purest air that Nature could make, sur¬ 
rounding them both Summer and Winter. Another 
familiar example of similar character, is the influence 
food has upon the flesh and eggs of poultry. Give the 
hens one or two good feeds of onions, and the egg, 
or the carcass of the bird, is not fit to eat. Every¬ 
one who has tried eating the eggs of the duck must 
have noticed that often the eggs are not good. This 
grows out of the fact that ducks are such scavengers 
that everything edible that comes in their way, clean 
or not, finds its way into their crop. If, however, 
ducks are kept up and fed on clean food, and given 
clean water, the eggs are all right. The thing that 
gives the Canvas-back duck Its extra value is the 
desirable flavor imparted to it by the wild celery 
which it feeds upon. 
Changing the subject somewhat, I wish to offer an 
explanation as to why there is such a divergence of 
opinion as to the value of the Ben Davis apple. It is 
pretty generally known that there is such a thing as 
color blindness; that is, persons who cannot tell one 
color from another. It may also be knowm that there 
are persons who have a sound-deafness; persons who 
cannot distinguish between the different sounds as to ' 
quality, hence cannot tell one tune from another. 
Now it is equally true that the sense of taste is de¬ 
veloped to widely different degrees in different per¬ 
sons. I have known persons who cared very little 
about the special taste of different foods; if the food 
were clean, well-cooked and wholesome, one thing sat¬ 
isfying them as well as another Such persons 
are deficient in the taste sense. Such individuals 
would very naturally think that the Ben Davis apple, 
the Kieffer pear, or the Haverland strawberry were as 
good as any of their kind. Undoubtedly this is the 
scientific explanation of these differences in taste. 
Illinois. DR. A. W. FOREMAN. 
DO BEES FERTILIZE FRUIT? 
Some Facts About Pollen. 
In a recent issue of The R. N.-Y., M. V. Slinger- 
land makes an effort to show that bees are really neces¬ 
sary to the fertilization of fruits. Now, I desire to ask 
nim a question: Within the last three years, in our part 
of the country, the bees have nearly all died, and are a 
thing of the past, and yet we have full fruit crops as be¬ 
fore. How does he account for it? We have in the straw¬ 
berry, the perfect and imperfect blossom, and in planting 
nurserymen tell us to plant two or three rows of the 
latter to one of the former, to insure a crop. Now, ac¬ 
cording to Mr. Slingerland, I suppose that the bees come 
in as a third element, and carry the pollen from the per¬ 
fect to the imperfect, and this insures the crop. Nature 
doesn’t do business that way. If he will think for one 
moment, when he is about blooms of fruit trees or even 
plants, and catches the fragrance arising from the an¬ 
thers of the flowers, as the fragrance penetrates his 
nostrils so it penetrates within certain radius the atmos¬ 
phere, and in this way becomes the fertilizing element to 
the fruits of the trees and plants. w. s. y. 
Franklin, Ind. 
ANSWERED BY M. V. SLINGERLAND. 
W. S. Y. is certainly mistaken regarding the 
method by which Nature provides for the fertilization 
of fruit or any other blossoms. The pollen of a flower 
is always the fertilizing element, and Nature usually 
provides for cross-pollination; that Is, one flower is 
usually fertilized by the pollen from another flower, 
instead of by its own pollen. Pollen is usually car¬ 
ried from one flower to another either by insects or 
by the wind. In the case of strawberries, it is prob¬ 
ably done mostly by the wind, but all who have made 
any careful observations upon the blossoms of fruit 
trees unanimously agree that cross-pollination is 
largely the work of insects, most of which are bees. 
Usually the honey bee is the most frequent visitor to 
the blossoms, but there are many different kinds of 
wild bees Which also do the same work. However, the 
cross-pollination of fruit blossoms may be, and doubt¬ 
less Is, often accomplished by the wind. A graduate 
student, S. W. Fletcher, who has made very extended 
and careful observations here at Cornell University, 
tells me that for several hours after the blossoms of 
apple and pear open, the pollen grains are too sticky 
to be blown by the wind, and hence can only be car¬ 
ried to another flower by insects. He finds that if thcj 
blossom, after opening, is exposed to bright, warm 
sunshine for five or more hours, the pollen may be¬ 
come dry enough, so that the wind can carry it to 
other blossoms. Thus, usually fruit blossoms opening 
one day could not be pollinated by the wind until the 
next day or later, unless exposed to bright sunshine 
for at least five hours after opening. I think that if 
W. S. Y. will carefully watch the blossoms on his 
fruit trees next Spring, he will find that they are 
visited by many bee-like insects, and I doubt whether 
the honey bees will be entirely absent, although he 
states that they have about all died in his vicinity. I 
did not intend to convey the idea that honey bees were 
absolutely essential to the pollination of fruit blos¬ 
soms, but all of the evidence submitted by those who 
have made a careful study of the subject shows that 
these insects are very important factors in cross¬ 
pollination. 
To one at all familiar wlith the subject, the mere 
statement of W. S. Y.’s theory, that the “fragrance of 
the flower becomes the fertilizing element,” would be 
sufficient evidence of its absurdity. Pollen is always 
the fertilizing element, and it is rarely, if ever, fra¬ 
grant. The only way by which the fragrance of a 
flower has anything to do with its fertilization is that 
it may serve as an attraction for certain insects to 
visit it. The fragrance of a flower has no connection 
with the pollen, which comes from the anthers. The 
pollen dust, penetrating our nostrils, would produce 
oniy a mechanical irritation of our smelling organs. 
The fragrance of a flower, however, Is a volatile oil 
Which is secreted by the flower, probably mostly from 
its petals. 
