stigmas will receive acceptable pollen to enable the plant to perpetuate its kind. At any time in summer, or even in fall, examine the apple trees carefully to determine whether any dead flowers or flower stalks still remain about the apple; or, examine any full-blooming plant to see whether any of the flowers fail. 153. Keep watch on any plant to see whether insects visit it. What kind? When? What for? 154. Determine whether the calyx serves any purpose in protecting the flower. Very carefully remove the calyx from a bud that is normally exposed to heat and sun and rain, and see whether the flower then fares as well as others. 155. Cover a single flower on its plant with a tiny paper or muslin bag so tightly that no insect can get in. If the flower sets fruit, what do you conclude? 156. Remove carefully the corolla from a flower nearly ready to open, preferably one that has no other flowers very close to it. Watch for insects. 157. Find the nectar in any flower that you study. 158. Remove the stigma. What happens? 159. Which of the following plants have perfect flowers: pea, bean, pumpkin, cotton, clover, buckwheat, potato, Indian corn, peach, chestnut, hickory, watermelon, sunflower, cabbage, rose, begonia, geranium, cucumber, calla, willow, cottonwood, cantaloupe? What have the others? 160. On wind-pollinated plants, are either anthers or stigmas more numerous? 161. Are very small colored flowers usually borne singly or in clusters? 162. Why do rains at blooming time often lessen the fruit crop? 163. Of what value are bees in orchards? 164. The crossing of plants to improve varieties or to obtain new varieties.—It may be desired to perform the operation of pollination by hand. In order to insure the most definite results, every effort should be made rightly to apply the pollen which it is desired shall be used, and rigidly to exclude all other pollen. (a) The first requisite is to remove the anthers from the flower which it is proposed to cross, and they must be removed before the pollen has been shed. The flower-bud is therefore opened and the anthers taken out. Cut off the floral envelopes with small, sharp-pointed scissors, then cut out or pull out the anthers, leaving only the pistil untouched; or merely open the corolla at the end and pull out the anthers with a hook or tweezers; and this method is often the best one. It is best to delay the operation as long as possible and yet not allow the bud to open (and thereby expose the flower to foreign pollen) nor the anthers to discharge the pollen. (b) The flower must next be covered with a paper bag to prevent the access of pollen (Figs. 208, 209). If the stigma is not receptive at the time (as it usually is not), the desired pollen is not applied at once. The bag may be removed from time to time to allow of examination of the pistil, and when the stigma is mature, which is told by its glutinous or roughened appearance,
