Teacher's Leaflet. 1171 



seeds when ripe are large, about a quarter-inch long, half as wide, oval, plump, 

 pointed, with a brown outer shell and delicate inner skin, covering a white meat 

 which separates readily into two parts, between which, at the point, may be seen 

 the speck of a germ. 



*rhe entire core, with the flesh immediately surrounding the seed-cells, is marked 

 off from the rest of the pulp by the core lines, faint in some varieties but very 

 distinct in others. In our native crab apples this separation is so complete that 

 when the fruit is ripe one may with proper care pick the core out and leave a 

 clearly defined globular cavity in the center of the fruit. 



Extending from stem to basin, through the center of the apple, is a bundle of 

 fibers, five in number, and one is attached to the inner seam of each carpel or 

 seed-cell. Often these threads may be seen with the unaided eye, particularly 

 in those apples in which the carpels split at the inner seam when ripe, as the 

 Tompkins County King, whose seeds, in the fruits which are kept till late winter, 

 will " rattle in their boxes," so that they may be clearly heard when one of the 

 big red apples is shaken beside the ear. Sometimes the seed-cells are very close 

 to the stem, as though the core were attached to it; then it is called a sessile core; 

 if it is in the center of the fruit, the core is called median; if nearest to the blossom- 

 end, it is called a distant core. Other bundles of fibres or veins pass through the 

 flesh about half-way between the core and the skin. Delicate as they are, so that 

 one never observes them in tasting the fruit, they show clearly as a second core 

 line, when by good luck one can cut exactly through them from stem to blossom- 

 end; they terminate at the point in the calyx tube where the stamens were attached 

 when the apple was but a blossoming promise; in the transverse section of an 

 apple they show as ten faint dots, placed opposite to each outer point and inner 

 angle of the star in the center formed by the carpels. 



Apples, even of the same variety, differ much in yield and quality according 

 to the soil and climate in which they grow, and horticulturists have made a study 

 of the kinds best suited to different localities. Fruit-growers of the West and the 

 East have each their favorites. Nowhere does the Fameuse or Snow Apple do so 

 well as in the St. Lawrence Valley, while Virginia's Albemarle Pippins are so 

 exquisite in beauty and flavor that they sell in the London market for several 

 times the price of fine oranges. New York State has always stood in the front 

 rank as a producer of fine fruit and some of the finest and most widely valued 

 varieties of apples, as the Esopus Spitzenburg, Northern Spy and Newtown Pippins, 

 originated on her soil. But too often, in passing through the country, one sees 

 neglected and, of course, unprofitable orchards, with soil untilled, trees unpruned 

 and scale-infested, and yielding scanty fruit fit only for the cider mill and the 

 vinegar barrel. The writer hopes that by the time the boys and girls who study 

 this lesson arrive at an age to have orchards under their care and control that 

 there may not be found such an abused group of trees in the State. 



References. — " Apples of New York," published by the New York 

 State Department of Agriculture. Fanners' Bulletin 113, " The Apple 

 and How to Grow It," distributed free by the Department of Agriculture 

 at Washington, D. C. " Popular Apple Growing," Greene, Webb 

 Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minn. " The American Apple Orchard," 

 Waugh, Orange, Judd Company. 



