August 6, 1904. 
The Gardening World 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
“ The Lily it is pure, and the Lily it is fair.”— Burns. 
Weekly Prize 
FOR 
Short Articles. 
The Proprietors of The Gardening World 
will give a casli prize of Ten Shillings for 
THE BEST PARAGRAPH, Or SHORT ARTICLE, Sent 
by readers during the week. The Editor’s 
judgment must be considered final, and he will 
be at liberty to use any of the contributions 
. sent in. The paragraph, or article, must not 
> exceed one column in length, but the value, 
< rather than the length, of the article will be 
considered in making the -award. Competitors 
may send in items of news or comments on 
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deners or growers of plants, fruits, or flowers ; 
successful methods of propagating plants 
usually considered difficult; or contributions 
ON ANT SUBJECT COMING WITHIN THE SPHERE 
of gardening proper. Letters should be 
addressed to The Editor, marked “ Competi¬ 
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The following Coloured 
Plates have appeared in 
recent numbers :— 
July 4— APHELANDRA AURANTIACA 
KOEZLII. 
August 1.— BORONIA HETEROPHYLLA. 
September 12.— SIX NEW DAFFODILS. 
October 3 — LILIUM AURATUM PLA- 
TYPHYLLUM SHIRLEY VAR. 
November 14.— ROSE MME. N. LEVA- 
VASSEUR 
January 2— HYBRID TEA-SCENTED 
ROSE IRENE. 
January 30. — TUBEROUS BEGONIA 
COUNTESS OF WARWICK. 
February 27. -A FINE STRAIN OF 
GLOXINIAS. 
April 2. — WISTARIA MULTIJUGA 
RUSSELLIANA. 
May 7 -CACTUS DAHLIA DAINTY. 
June 4.— CACTUS DAHLIA SPITFIRE. 
July 16.— ROSE LADY BATTERSEA. 
Back numbers may be obtained from the 
publishers, price 2Jd. post free. 
This week we present a Half-tone 
Plate of 
ROSE ELECTRA. 
Next week we shall give a Half-tone 
Plate of 
PYRUS SPECTABILIS. 
The prize last week in the Readers’ 
Competition was awarded to “ James P. 
Dickson,” for his article on “ Celsia 
arcturus,” p. 610. 
Views and Reviews. 
Seedless Plants. 
During recent years plant raisers have 
been very busy trying to raise seedless fruits 
of various kinds. We cannot consider this a 
new idea, although recently the hybridists 
have been directing their attention to it more 
actively. The D. Landreth Seed Company, 
of the United States, have been calling atten¬ 
tion to -the matter in one of their publica¬ 
tions, and “The Weekly Florists’ Review” 
also quotes some facts concerning tkei same. 
From time to time we have been recording 
seedless fruits as they have arisen, or have 
been discovered, and on the present occasion 
we intend calling attention to various things 
which have come under onr notice in the way 
of seedless plants. A few of them that we 
shall mention are new, while others, although 
they have been seedless for centuries pro¬ 
bably, will be more or less forgotten. 
We have no' intention of bolding forth the 
idea that seedless plants would in all cases 
be an advantage; indeed, we think it differs 
in different cases, as we shall indicate pre¬ 
sently. Our contemporary says that the 
seedless condition of plants under contemplar 
tion would concern the nurseryman rather 
than the seedsman. If all plants were to 
give up the production of seeds, we should 
have no necessity for seedsmen, and the busi¬ 
ness of the seedsman would be gone. We 
fail to see, however, that this would be an 
advantage to either party. There are a large 
number of plants, both fruits, flowers and 
vegetables, where it is decidedly an advan¬ 
tage that they should bear seeds. 
In the first place, our opportunities for 
raising new varieties and improving upon 
existing ones would entirely lapse if the 
plants failed to produce seeds. We could dis¬ 
pense with them most easily, perhaps, in the 
case of fruits, but even then we cannot over¬ 
look the fact that improvements amongst 
fruit are still desirable. Those who hold the 
Darwinian theory believe that the constitu¬ 
tion of plants would become entirely played 
out in the course of time, provided we were 
unable to raise new varieties from seeds. 
There is the question of Ribston Pippin and 
other old Apples, which many are inclined to 
think have been worn out, but this state¬ 
ment, we fancy, requires a little modification. 
The advantage of seeds will be very 
evident to the National Potato Society and 
all concerned with the development of the 
noble tuber and the maintenance of the con¬ 
stitution of cultivated varieties. The same 
applies to Tomatos. Both these species of 
plants were considered rather liable to be¬ 
come deteriorated, and in the case of the 
Tomato to lose its identity in the course of 
one or two decades. This, of course, applies 
to plants raised from seeds, but so delicate is 
the constitution of the plants, or, rather, so 
liable is it to become deranged, that we fail 
to see how it could be kept in a healthy con¬ 
dition for any lengthened period if raised 
from cuttings, as it should have to be if the 
plant failed to produce seeds'. 
We may point, however, to a number of 
plants which have been successfully cul¬ 
tivated for centuries apparently without any 
deterioration of their constitution or capar 
bility to produce fruits. A very good in¬ 
stance of this is the Banana, the tons which 
reach our markets having no seeds in their 
fruits. The plant is, of course, increased 
from suckers which it freely produces, and 
tliis must have been going on for centuries in 
the history of man, as far as we can deter¬ 
mine. The Sugar Cane had apparently 
almost reached the same condition. At all 
events, we were repeatedly told that the 
Sugar 'Cane produced no seeds. This infor¬ 
mation probably came to us from the cul¬ 
tivated fields of the cane, where the latter 
would be usually cut down for sugar-making 
before it reached the flowering stage. Even 
when it reached the flowering stage, however, 
it was some time before cultivators dis¬ 
covered the presence of fertile' seeds. Since 
they took to raising new varieties from seeds 
it has been proved, how r ever, that the Sugar 
Cane is still capable of producing fertile 
seeds. 
The Pineapple is another good instance of 
a widely cultivated tropical fruit which does 
not in. certain varieties produce seeds. There 
are 1 , however, other varieties which do retain 
their fertility, to some extent at least. It 
may be that the Banana, Pineapple and Sugar 
Cane were naturally losing the power to pro¬ 
duce seeds when taken in hand by cul¬ 
tivators. This might, have been brought 
about by the plants occupying the same areas 
for centuries without finding much space to 
colonise fresh ground by means of seeds. 
They had at the same time developed the 
capability of vegetative iepi eduction by 
means of suckers, which cling on tenaciously 
to the situations occupied by them. 
In history we have evidence that the Grape 
is one of the oldest of cultivated plants, and 
