SUMMER MEETING. lOT 



box. A few Red Astrakans. The Maiden Blush sold in the same 

 market at $3.50 a barrel. The best seller and the best bearer was the 

 Maiden Blush. Our gross sales of that year from those few trees was 

 over $150. 



Since then we have worked and watched those trees, and planted 

 and cultivated other trees and vines on the place ; and year after year 

 we have marketed the Maiden Blush in St. Louis at from $3.75 to $3.60 

 per barrel, usually between July 25 and August 15. This variety of 

 apples ripens in that locality in just the right time — between the har- 

 vest apples and the fall apples, and they always sell for top prices. 



The Maiden Blush makes a beautiful, large, full tree, and is a 

 prolific bearer. The apples are of a pale yellow or cream, with the 

 tell-tale blush or red on one side — usually the side toward the midday 

 sun when ripe. 



It is a great sauce and pie apple, and cooks beautifully. Is also 

 good baked and makes delicious preserves or jelly. 



H. B. Geer, Nashville, Tenn. 



Fruits as a FdocI. 



The term fruit in botanical language signifies the seed with its sur- 

 rounding structures in progress to or arrivedat maturity. In a popu- 

 lar £«nd dietetic sense it has a more limited signification, and refers in 

 a general way only to such products when used in the manner of a 

 dessert or food. Botanically wheat, peas, beans, etc., constitute fruits, 

 but popularly the term is restricted to articles like apples, pears^ 

 plums, grapes, berries, etc. 



Fruits consist of two parts : the seed and what is technically called 

 the pericarp. The latter comprises that which surrounds the seed, and 

 is composed of the epicarp — the external integument, or skin ; the endo- 

 carp, or putanum — the inner coat or shell ; and the sarcocarp, or 

 mesocarp— the intermediate part, which generally posseses a more or 

 less fleshy consistence. It is this portion of the fruit which form the 

 edible part. 



Fruit is formed from modifioations of the leaf, and in the early 

 stages the fruit is green and exhibits much the same chemical composi- 

 tion as the leaf. It is only as the fruit advances that the special 

 characteristics become developed. At first, like other green parts of 

 the plant, it absorbs and decomposes the carbonic acid of the atmos- 

 phere under the influence of light — liberating oxygen and assimilating 

 the carbon. As it approaches maturity it loses its green color, be- 



