J9I4 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 7 J 



In general the season of the greatest 

 movement of fruits is (varying with 

 locality): Pears, August to October; 

 peaches, June to September; plums and 

 prunes, September to October; cherries, 

 June to July; grapes, August to Novem- 

 ber; strawberries, March to July; rasp- 

 berries, blackberries and currants, 

 June to August; cranberries, September 

 to October; pineapples, May to June; 

 oranges (Louisiana), October to Feb- 

 ruary; oranges (California), November 

 to March, and oranges (Florida), De- 

 cember to March. 



Value of Fruits 

 It is a matter of painful knowledge 

 to everyone that the production of 

 foodstuffs has not kept pace with the 

 demand, the result being increased 

 prices. But there is a wide variation 

 in the rate of increase of value of the 

 difl'erent farm products, and this ex- 

 ceeds in nearly all cases the rate of 

 increase in the population. 



TABLE XIII— PRICES OF FARM PRODUCE 

 Averiitje Xalue Per Unit Increase 

 Increase in Pro- 

 Crop— Unit 1909 1S99 Amount Pet. cluction 



All crops 66.6 83.0 



All cereals 7C.5 79.8 



Hav & forage, 



ton $8.45 $6.11 $2.34 38.4 70.2 



Potatoes, bu. 0.42 0.35 0.07 18.8 69.2 

 Small fruits, 



quart 0.07 0.054 0.016 30.1 19.8 



Orchard 



fruits, bu. 0.65 0.39 0.26 65.3 68.2 



Nuts, lb 0.07 0.04 0.03 46.5 128.1 



Population .... ... 21.0 



Fruit An Antedote for Booze 



In the December American Magazine 

 Henry Detmers writes a little article 

 entitled, "A New Cure for Drink." Mr. 

 Detmers says that he has been in the 

 saloon business for twenty years. He 

 is not a drinker himself and none of his 

 sons drink. Out of his experience he 

 recommends the following cure for the 

 liciuor habit: I found early in my ex- 

 perience that as a general rule — there 

 are exceptions, of course — a regular 

 consumer of fruit was not a very good 

 customer in my business. On the other 

 hand, a typical "booze fighter" seldom 

 touches fruit. I always kept some 

 apples behind the bar for my own use, 

 and I often experimentally offered one 

 to a "star customer," who almost in- 

 variably refused. The more 1 looked 

 into this matter the more firmly I be- 

 came convinced that these two habits 

 clash. Not caring to have my boys 

 acquire the one, 1 inoculated them with 

 the other, and I have found that the 

 fruit-eating habit early acquired acts as 

 a perfect antidote to the liquor habit. 



1 mention apples especially because 

 they are something like bread, one 

 never tires of them, which is more 

 than can be said of peaches, pears and 

 oranges. And apples, thanks to cold 

 storage, can be had every day of the 

 school year. Why shouldn't the apple 



habit be cultivated in the public schools 

 at public expense? School trustees 

 could advertise for bids to supply the 

 school. Then by means of a push-the- 

 button contrivance placed at the boys' 

 and girls' exits, each child could get his 

 apple as he marched out to play at 

 recess time. Two apples a day would 

 do the work. Children have a veritable 

 craving for fruit. 



Please understand 1 have no ax to 

 grind. I do not own a single apple tree. 

 I have never claimed to have discov- 

 ered that fruit juices act as a liquor 

 antidote, although I have talked it for 

 twenty-flve years. Some three years 

 ago an article appeared which claimed 

 a Nebraska physician as the discoverer 

 of the theory. The good doctor and I 

 will never quarrel over it. He can have 

 the glory. I do not need it. I am only 

 too glad to see that my views have 

 gained some scientific backing. 



If you remove the desire for drink, 

 the liquor question will solve itself, 

 and while poverty may not be banished, 

 the general welfare of the people will 

 be much improved, and even if my 

 scheme is never adopted, 1 will feel a 

 thousand times repaid for my pains if 

 I can only convince the mothers of our 

 country, those who have the means to 

 do so, that to implant the fruit habit in 

 their children is the best assurance for 

 a temperate life. 



The Development of the Apple from the Flower 



By O. M. Osborne, Head of Horticultural Department, State Normal School, Lewiston, Idaho 



THE development of the apple from 

 the flower is a very complex bio- 

 logical process. The study of this 

 development has been entirely limited 

 in the past to the field of botany. It is 

 now, however, demanding a close and 

 careful study from all of the horticul- 

 turists throughout the world, for it has 

 been found that the size and shape of 

 the fruit, the yield per acre and the 

 time for spraying are all dependent 

 upon environmental conditions (hiring 

 blossoming time that are to a great ex- 

 tent under the control of man. To un- 

 derstand these environmental condi- 

 tions, let us begin with the flower itself. 

 In plate 1 is a longitudinal section of 

 a fully opened blossom. If each part is 

 carefully studied it will be found that 

 every one has an important part to play 

 in the formation and development of 

 the fruit. Although not constituting 

 any part of the fruit and although drop- 

 ping off within a few days, the beauti- 

 ful white and pink petals serve as an 

 attraction for the honey bees which 

 visit the flower to obtain the nectar 

 from the nectar glands. The nectar 

 glands are not shown in this cut, but 

 they lie at the base of the petals on the 

 inner side. After nectar has undergone 

 a partial digestion inside the bee it be- 

 comes honey. 



While climbing about the flower to 

 reach the nectar the bee brushes 

 against the stamens or the male parts 

 of the flower, l-'rom the little sac-like 

 enlargements or anthers at the top of 

 the stamens it receives a deposit of a 



powdery substance called pollen (the 

 fecundating cells). You are likely 

 familiar with the sight of a bee laden 

 with pollen. If the little winged crea- 

 ture is closely examined it will be 

 found that it carries the pollen in little 

 collecting baskets formed of stiff hairs 

 on the tibia of each hind leg. Under a 



Sftyn^O 



low-power hand lens it can be seen 

 that the pollen catches onto other parts 

 of the bee's body. Now when the bee 

 rises to fly to a second flower (and it 

 visits only one kind of a flower on a 

 single trip) it may brush off a little 

 pollen on the top of the stigma of the 

 first flower, Ijut since the stigma is 

 raised above the stamens, as shown in 

 the accompanying diagram, the chances 

 are not as great as when the l)ee alights 

 on a second flower. When it alights on 

 the second flower it is almost certain 

 to brush off a little pollen upon it, due 

 to Ihe stigma being situated above the 

 an fliers, as shown in the diagram. The 

 l)ollcn so deposited adheres readily on 

 account of a sticky substance upon the 

 stigma. Hence the flower invites 



through its friend, the bee, cross-pol- 

 lination, and aims to prevent self-pol- 

 lination by having the stigmas located 

 far above the anthers, as before men- 

 tioned. Without the aid of the bees 

 but very little, if any, pollen would ever 

 reach the stigma, for the pollen of the 

 apple is a triflle sticky and, unlike that 

 of the corn tassle, ragweed and several 

 other familiar plants which are pow- 

 dery, it cannot be distributed by the 

 wind. 



After the pollen has been deposited 

 upon the stigma each individual grain 

 begins to expand, due to the food and 

 the stimulus present in the sticky 

 sugary substance on the stigma. Soon 

 each grain sends out a tube called a 

 pollen tube, which penetrates the fop 

 of the stigma and grows down through 

 the style to the ovary, where it reaches 

 the ovules shown in the diagram. It 

 here penetrates a very minute opening 

 at the apex of the ovule, called the 

 micropyle, and transfers a male nu- 

 cleus into the egg cell within the ovlue. 

 Tlie male sexual nucleus there unites 

 with the female nucleus of the egg cell 

 and completes tlie process of fertiliza- 

 tion. From this union develops a cell 

 containin.g jirofoplasm, the nirtogenous 

 living substance of which the most 

 rapidly-growing parts of plants are 

 mainly composed. Each little ovule in 

 which this pollination took place grad- 

 uallx develops into an apple seed. The 

 (lifl'ercnt stages of this seed develop- 

 ment are shown in the series of plates 

 No.s. I, III, V and VI. 



