FRUIT IMPROVEMENT 91 



the brilliant color that purchasers of fruit in the 

 market usually find so attractive. But there is 

 no reason why pears of various brilliant and at- 

 tractive colors should not be developed just as 

 colored apples have been. 



Our native crab apple is dull greenish brown 

 or dull red, and unattractive in color even when 

 ripe. Of course, this is not the direct progenitor 

 of the cultivated apple, but it obviously belongs 

 to a closely related strain, and it shows us the 

 apple in a state of nature and gives us a clue 

 as to what qualities of fruit are advantageous to 

 the apple itself, and what ones have been bred 

 into the stock to meet the demands of the fruit 

 developer. So the fact that the wild crab apple 

 is dull in color suggests that the variously pig- 

 mented coat of the cultivated apple is an artificial 

 product, not primarily beneficial to the plant it- 

 self, that man has developed through selection, 

 just as the bees have helped to make the beauti- 

 ful colors in flowers. 



It is not unlikely that the relatively thin skin 

 of the cultivated apple, coincidentally developed, 

 makes pigmentation desirable, to protect the tis- 

 sues of the fruit from too much sunlight. The 

 fact that many apples redden where exposed to 

 the sun and remain green where protected by 

 the shadows of a branch or leaf, suggests this. 



