That some plants produce fruits without seeds is a fact observed and recorded by the ancients, according to Sturtevant in 1890. These observers had their pet theories on how to produce seedless fruits, such as "fruits of all kinds may be grown without seeds by reversing the cion-rooting the top end of the cions", or by removing the pith from grapevines. While there were many others, we owe especially much of the early careful observations and scientific attempts to produce seedless fruits to Gartner (44), Munson (103, 104), Miiller-Thurgau (101, 102), Waite (154, 155), Noll (110), Ewert (31, 32, 33, 34), Winkler (159, 160) and Fitting (35, 36, 37). These men thought it possible to obtain varieties of apples, pears, cherries, plums, peaches, grapes and other fruits without seeds. They were interested in this matter for many reasons but mainly because seedless fruits were thouglht to be better and also because many varieties are self sterile, necessitating the planting of more than one variety in an orchard to insure a profitable crop. In 1902 Noll (110), recognizing the similarity between seedlessness in fruits and parthenogenesis, introduced the term "Parthenokarpie" to denote the seedless condition, and this term is now in general use, though sometimes the Germans use "Jungfernfruchtbildung" or "Jungfernfruchtigkeit". Although Noll considered that perhaps all seedless fruits should be included under this term, whatever the cause of seedlessness, he restricted it to denote fruits produced without pollination or other stimulation. Winkler (159) in 1908 defined parthenocarpy "as the production of fruits without or with empty seeds", and he differentiated between stimulative parthenocarpy in which a fruit is produced only after pollination or other stimulation, and vegetative parthenocarpy in which no pollination or other stimulation is necessary. Fitting used the term "autonomous" for vegetative and "aitionomous" for stimulative parthenocarpy. At present parthenocarpy seems to be used to denote production of fruits without fertilization; and to denote seedless fruits produced as a result of fertilization but with early