394 Report of the Department of Horticulture of the 



good keepers. A group belonging to the 'South and West and of 



small importance in any of the apple districts of New York. 



Arkansas, Oliver, Winesap, 



Arkansas Black, Paragon, Winter Paradise. 



Kinnaird, Stayman Winesap, 



Yellow Bell flower group. — Medium to large apples, characteris- 

 tically oblong conic, predominantly yellow, with a large somewhat 

 remarkably open core. Flesh firm, crisp, aromatic and of high 

 quality for culinary purposes. Somewhat general in distribution 

 throughout the State but inclining to the southern and warmer 

 districts. 



Yellow Transparent group. — Early summer apples, of medium 

 size and characteristically thin skin and tender flesh. Russian. 

 Adapted to all New York districts. 

 Breskovka, Red Transparent, Thaler, Yellow Transparent. 



STRAINS OF APPLES. 



As dividing the species into groups of varieties helps in deter- 

 mining adaptations and, therefore, what to plant ; so, the division 

 of the variety into strains may be helpful if the strains are real 

 and not fanciful — as proves so often to be the case. Strains arise 

 through bud variations, long known to fruit-growers as sports, but 

 recently dignified by De Vries as mutations. Strains so arising, 

 in apples, in particular, usually differ from the parent variety in 

 one or at most but a few characters. Color of fruit seems to be 

 the character which is in a mutating condition in apples; 

 and nearly all of the strains of this fruit differ from the 

 parent only in color. The touchstone which Nature uses in creat- 

 ing new characters in plants has not yet been discovered and there 

 are no known means whereby a variety may be made by man to 

 sport or mutate. 



