This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... Almonds on the Stem The pMure suggest* the tough leathery character of the seed-covering that makes us the almond fruit. Unlike Its allied stone fruits, the almond has been selected for the seed Itself, not for the pulp that surrounds It. Mr. Burbank has shown that the pulp may also be made attractive through hybridizing and selection, as we shall see. ing the effect of hybridizing hundreds of other species, it is interesting to make inquiry as to why the first generation hybrids of the plum and almond showed such anomalous diversity. I am inclined to think that the answer may be found in the assumption that either one parent or the other was itself a hybrid. Perhaps both parents were hybrids. The fact that almonds are known to cross with the peach and the nectarine-- to which reference will be made more at length presently--lends color to this assumption. And of course there is no question that the Japanese plums are largely hybridized. In a word, then, the hybrids produced by cross-pollenizing the Japanese plum and the almond were probably in reality second generation hybrids having the strains of other species than the almond and the Japanese plum in their veins. Be this as it may, the facts as to the curious diversity among the plum-almond hybrids have more than passing interest. It should further be recorded that the diversity in size was matched by the wide range of diversity in minor characteristics. The bark and leaves varied extensively among the different hybrids; on some trees the buds were round and plump, and on others long and sharp. Many of the trees produced somewhat abundant blossoms, and the individual blossoms varied widely in color and in size. But there were other trees that produced no blossoms whatever under any...