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apply to you, hopinjr that you will be able to give us a remedy. Apples, pears, pluuis, 

 grapes, and berries of various kinds do well here until the ripening season approaches ; 

 hen a blight comes over them, and our flattering prospects are also blighted. 



Our winter-apples are so badly damaged from rot that we seldom think of saving any 

 for winter use. Many of our young orchards are just coming into bearing, and the pros- 

 pect is quite discouraging to our farmers when they consider the prevalence" of this destruc- 

 tive disease. Our climate has a damp and humid atmosphere, and is peculiarly adapted to 

 cotton. Any information which will tend to improve our winter-fruit will greatly benefit 



the eastern third of our State. 



» • 



In a subsequent letter to the Commissioner, dated October 8, 1873, 

 Mr. Steel gives tlie history of the apples alluded to, and forwards a 

 small package of them for examination. He says that the tree which 

 bore them was a graft from the Eochester nurseries, N. Y., and was 

 considered to be one of their best winter-apples. " Here they ripen in 

 August and September, too early to be kept longer than December. 

 The apple is known here as the ' Little Kusset.' We esteem it a fine 

 apple, but not a good winter-fruit. I have about forty trees from Eo- 

 chester, and there are several hundred in this county, but they all ripen 

 too early by one or two months. Apples, to keep in this climate, must 

 hang on the trees till November or the middle of October ; those that 

 fall earlier than this will not keep through the winter. If trees can be 

 procured which will hold their fruit till the first of November, we should 

 be pleased to be informed where they can be-obtained." 



The specimens of the Little Kussets, received from Mr. Steel, were 

 subjected to several experiments. Portions of their skin were ex- 

 amined under low and high powers of the microscope. The dotted 

 parts were found to be composed of clusters of circular spores of fungi 

 combined with very small portions of mycelium. Under excessive mois- 

 ture, and a morbid condition of growth, these .fungi would mature 

 rapidly, and produce fermentation in the apple, borne of the apples 

 were cut into halves, and submitted to a temperature of about 70° 

 Fahr. In a short time they dried up, and are now in a i)erfect state of 

 preservation, thus showing that although they will not keep when whole, 

 yet they may be preserved by allowing a portion of their superfluous 

 moisture to escape. Another portion of the apple was placed in a quart 

 bottle with a glass-stopper, ground to fit, and moisture was excluded. 

 The room in which this experiment was conducted was kept at an aver- 

 age temperature of 70° Fahr. The apple thus inclosed was in ten days 

 in a high state of fermentation. Portions of the rotting pulj) were 

 placed on a microscopic slide, divided into hundredths and thousandths 

 of an inch. 



Plate I, A B, represents such a scale, the larger division, A B, repre- 

 senting the one-hundredth of an inch, and the smaller subdivision the one- 

 thousandth of an inch ; 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, represent the cells of which 

 the apples are mostly composed. The granular dottings represent apple- 

 starch. The branching cellular structure represents the mycelium of a 

 fungus i)enetrating the cells. At 9, three small starch-granules are re- 

 presented in a line, and are confined within the division of the one-thou- 

 sandth of an inch. Some kinds of fruit, as the grape, under favorable 

 conditions will eliminate a suflicient amount of saccharine matter to 

 convert them into a candied condition while hanging on the vine, and 

 they are by this natural process preserved from rot. Other kinds, as 

 the apple, cannot be preserved in this way. Apples can be preserved 

 only for a limited time on the tree. Unripe apples are composed mostly 

 of cellulose cells, starch, organic acids, and water. During the process 

 . of ripening their starch is gradually converted into a liquid, which is 

 saccharine. The decay of apples really sets in when their starch begins 



