252 PRACTICAL COURSE IN BOTANY 



Experiment 91. What is the use of the rind to the fruit? — 

 Select two apples of equal size, peel one, and weigh both. After 12 to 24 

 hours, weigh them again. Which shows the greater loss in weight? 

 Leave peeled and unpeeled fruits in an exposed place and see which is 

 the more readily attacked by insects. Which decays the sooner ? What 

 are some of the uses of the rind ? 



282. What is a fruit ? — Horticulturally and commercially 

 the distinction between a fruit and a vegetable depends very 

 much upon the use we make of it — whether as food, or as a 

 mere gratification of the palate. Broadly speaking, those 

 fruits that are lacking in sugar, as the tomato and cucum- 

 ber, are classed as vegetables. Botanically, a fruit is any 

 ripened seed vessel, or ovary, with such connected parts as 

 may have become incorporated with it ; and hence, to the 

 botanist, a boll of cotton, a tickseed, or a cocklebur is just 

 as much a fruit as a peach or a watermelon, 



283. Classification of fruits. — For convenience of de- 

 scription, fruits are classed as : 



(a) Dry or fleshy, according as they have a more or less 

 hard and bony, or soft and fleshy, texture. 



(b) Dehiscent, or indehiscent, according as they open at 

 maturity in a regular way to discharge their seed, or remain 

 closed until the covering wears away or is burst by the germi- 

 nating embryo. 



Fleshy fruits are very seldom dehiscent, though some few, 

 as the balsam apple and the chayote, or one-seeded squash, 

 discharge their seed when mature. The banana and some 

 other fleshy fruits, when peeled, separate along regular lines, 

 and in this respect behave very much as if they were fleshy 

 pods. 



284. When is a fruit ripe ? — A fruit is ripe horticulturally, 

 when it is good to eat ; it is ripe botanically, when it has set 

 its seed. Many of our choicest table fruits, such as the pine- 

 apple, banana, and most varieties of fig, seldom are botani- 

 cally ripe, since they rarely produce perfect seeds. 



It is the constant effort of the horticulturist to develop 



