LUTHER BURBANK 
the apple is a well-developed fruit. There are 
varieties of almost every supposable size and color 
and flavor and degree of early or late ripening, 
as the case may be, and of keeping quality. Yet 
it would be going much too far to say that nothing 
remains to be done. There are plenty of oppor- 
tunities for the plant developer in dealing with 
this fruit, as I shall attempt to show in a moment. 
But before taking up that aspect of the matter 
in detail it will be worth while to clarify the sit- 
uation by a few words of comment as to the eight 
thousand varieties of apples that make such an 
imposing array on the pages of the cataloguer. 
VARIETIES VERSUS INDIVIDUAL TYPES 
The average purchaser and consumer of fruit 
probably has very vague notions as to what is the 
real status of the particular variety of apple that 
especially appeals to him. 
He finds his favorite fruit—be it Baldwin or 
Northern Spy or Greening or Gravenstein or what 
not—in the market year after year at a given sea- 
son. He sees that each fruit is always of approxi- 
mately the same size, and color, and flavor. The 
differences between the named varieties are so 
radical that they could not possibly be overlooked. 
A greening apple, for example, bears much less 
superficial resemblance to a snow apple than it 
bears to a quince; and the average purchaser 
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