FRUIT BLOSSOMS 
405 
tree of the Imperial variety set fruit. The 
almost total failure of these trees to ma¬ 
ture fruit shows that bees are a necessity 
for distributing the pollen, and that with¬ 
out them the orchards would be largely un¬ 
productive and unprofitable. 
But when a single tree of the French 
prune was enclosed in a tent with a hive of 
bees, 19.4 per cent of the blossoms set fruit, 
which was some 6 per cent higher than the 
average of the orchard, and shows that the 
bees very tlioroly performed the work of 
pollination. This variety is evidently self- 
fertile provided there are insects present to 
distribute the pollen properly. When a 
single Imperial prune tree was enclosed in 
a tent of netting together with a colony of 
bees, 3.02 per cent of the blossoms set 
fruit. As this variety is largely self-ster- 
ile, it was a surprising feature of the ex¬ 
periment that enough flowers were stimu¬ 
lated by the numerous visits of the bees to 
produce a satisfactory commercial crop. 
Possibly, it is partially self-fertile occa¬ 
sionally. This has been observed to be true 
in the case of the apple. According to the 
Oregon Experiment Station: “Some varie¬ 
ties of the apple have been found to be 
self-sterile three years out of five, and self- 
fertile the other two.” When a French 
and an Imperial prune tree were inclosed 
in the same tent together with a colony of 
bees, cross-fertilization was observed to be 
beneficial. In the orchard the results of 
three years showed that French trees close 
to the Imperials yielded better than those 
farther away. It would appear from 
these experiments that prune trees are al¬ 
most wholly dependent upon bees for pol¬ 
lination.—Hendrickson, A. H., “The Com¬ 
mon Honeybee as an Agent in Prune Polli¬ 
nation’/ Univ. Cal. Pub., Nos. 274 and 279. 
POLLINATION OF THE ALMOND. 
The almond (Prunus Amygdalus ) can be 
grown only in limited areas in California, 
as it is injured by frost. While there are 
orchards of 100 acres or more, the average 
orchard consists of about 30 acres. At 
Dunham eight colonies of bees were placed 
in a five-acre orchard. As a result, 9,500 
pounds of almonds were harvested, or near¬ 
ly a ton per acre, while the other orcharas 
in the district averaged only about 300 
pounds per acre, and some even less. The 
oi’chardists of that locality were so strong¬ 
ly convinced of the importance of bees that 
200 or more colonies could have been placed 
in groves at once. 
THE POLLINATION OF THE CHERRY. 
The cherries belong to the same genus 
(Prunus) as the plums, and the structure 
of the flower is similar. Cultivated cher¬ 
ries are popularly divided into two groups, 
the sour cherries and the sweet cherries. 
The sweet, heart, mazzard, bird, and Big- 
arreau are varieties of Prunus Avium, a 
species found wild in Asia; while the sour, 
pie, and morello cherries are varieties of P. 
Cerasus, also an Asiatic species. The two 
groups hybridize. 
The sweet cherry (Prunus Avium) is in 
bloom five or six days. The stigma and the 
anthers mature simultaneously; but, as the 
flowers are usually pendulous and the sta¬ 
mens diverge from the pistil, self-pollina¬ 
tion rarely occurs. Common visitors are 
honeybees and wild bees, and their value in 
pollination is well illustrated by the follow¬ 
ing experience. The crop of a sweet-cherry 
orchard in 1912 was 13 tons. To secure 
cross-pollination, the owner in 1913 cut 
branches from seedling cherry trees at 
blooming time and placed them in buckets 
of water thruout his orchard. In addition, 
several colonies of bees were placed in the 
orchard. With no better season and with 
the trees only one year older, the crop was 
39 tons. 
Among the orchard trees of Oregon the 
cherry ranks fourth in importance, being 
surpassed only by the apple, prune, and 
pear in the order named. A poor cherry 
crop affects the income of many persons. 
The rapid increase in the area planted with 
cherries has been followed by complaints 
that in spite of the heavy bloom there was 
not sufficient fruit to be profitable. In 
some instances the new orchards have never 
paid expenses, while old orchards have be¬ 
come less productive. Altho sorely per¬ 
plexed by these conditions the cherry-grow¬ 
ers, unfamiliar with the mutual relations of 
flowers and insects, have been slow to be¬ 
lieve that lack of proper cross-pollination 
is the chief cause of the failure of their 
trees to set fruit. But the cherry orchards 
of a decade ago were of small size and 
mixed varieties; while recently orchards of 
