1 66 Terms Used in Describing Fruits. 



assume various shades of yellow, olive, brown, red, purple, and 

 nearly black, as the season advances, and as they become bare and 

 are exposed to the sun and weather. For this reason, in describing 

 the color, the terms must be relative, and can only be correctly 

 applied by a comparison at the time with the color of other sorts. 

 During winter, and early in the spring, the shoots of most trees 

 become so much darker than at other times, that it is only by practice 

 and by placing the different sorts side by side, that accuracy may be 

 attained. Skilful culturists will readily distinguish, by a glance at 

 the color of the shoots, many of the kinds they cultivate ; but the 

 peculiar cast is hard to describe in words, in the same way that it is 

 impossible to describe the handwriting of an individual, so as to be 

 known from fifty others, although many can, at a glance, know the 

 penmanship of hundreds of different persons. A few of the most 

 strongly marked cases, however, present peculiarities of color, which 

 form useful points of distinction. No one, for instance, could easily 

 mistake the yellow shoots of the Bartlett and Dix pears, for the 

 dark brown or purple of the Tyson and Forelle ; or the light green- 

 ish cast of the Bough and Sine Qua Non apples, for the dark color 

 of the Northern Spy, or dark brown of the Baldwin ; nor the downy 

 or greyish appearance of the Ladies' Sweeting and Esopus Spitz- 

 enburgh, for the clear shining brown of the Gravenstein and Red 

 Astrachan.* 



3. The buds sometimes afford distinct characteristics. As exam- 

 ples, the large, compact, and projecting buds of the Summer Bon- 

 chretien, always contrast strongly with the smaller, more rounded, 

 and softer buds of the Madeleine. Buds are large on the Swaar and 

 Golden Sweet, small on the Tallman Sweeting and Rhode Island 

 Greening. 



4. The leaves, in a large number of instances, are of use in dis- 

 tinguishing different varieties. 



They are even (not wrinkled), as in the Bartlett pear and Baldwin 

 apple (Fig. 197). 



Waved, as in the Tallman Sweeting and Beurrd d'Aumalis pear 

 (Fig. 198). 



Wrinkled, when the waves are shorter and more irregular, as in 

 Green Sweet (Fig. 199 . 



Flat, as in the Madeleine and Skinless pears (Fig. 200). 



* Nearly all shoots are more or less downy at first, but the down disappears as they grow 

 older. Hence the term must be used relatively. In plums, the smooth, or downy shoots, 

 afford in most cases good distinctive points. 



