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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



May God be praised for this ever present 

 remedy for so many of our ills; and may he 

 give us grace and wisdom to make better 

 use of it. 



THE SEEDLESS APPLE BOOMED BY THE SCI- 

 ENTIFIC AMERICAN. 



The Country Gentleman bears down fully 

 as hard as I did on the Scientific American 

 in regard to the seedless apple. See the 

 following, clipped from its latest issue: 



We have noticed with sincere regret the article in 

 question regarding the seedless apple. This is evident- 

 ly written by some one interested in the promotion of 

 the company, or else by a man who is easily taken in by 

 the promoters. Many of the statements are copied al- 

 most verbatim from the prospectus circulated by the 

 stock company. This certainly looks suspicious, and 

 we think it fair to regard the article as not scientifically 

 authoritative, even if it does appear in a journal of high 

 scientific standing. 



Since the above was in print we find in 

 the National Fruit Grower, St. Joseph, 

 Mich., a write-up of the seedless apple. It 

 fills six columns (each 12 inches) and part of 

 the seventh. It is true, the article is a con- 

 tributed one, the writer living in England; 

 but after searching the Fruit Grower all 

 through I can not find a single line from the 

 editor to suggest that our experiment sta- 

 tions have pronounced the apple poorer in 

 quality than even the Ben Davis. This long 

 and misleading article booming the Spencer 

 apple is very careful not so say a word in 

 regard to its quality. The question natural- 

 ly arises. Is the National Fruit Grower (so 

 well gotten up) for the benefit of its pub- 

 lishers or for its snbscribei's— those who pay 

 their dollars for it? The same way with the 

 Scientific American. 



ANOTHER APPLE STORY. 



Something over twenty years ago a trav- 

 eling nurseryman sold me a dozen fruit- 

 trees. The man who ordered them had not 

 called for them, and as they were good-look- 

 ing trees at a reduced price I set them out 

 close by where a dwelling-house was built 

 later. I paid so little attention to the labels 

 that when the trees began to bear we did 

 not have any name for them. But the Po- 

 mological Department at Washington, after 

 receiving specimens, said that one of them, 

 a sweet apple, was Winter Paradise. As 

 the apple was corky and slightly bitter we had 

 a good deal of sport about our "Paradise" 

 apple. After it got to bearing it was al- 

 ways full; and as we considered them of no 

 use we gave them away to the boys and 

 neighbors. I think we put a few in the cel- 

 lar, but nobody seemed to notice them par- 

 ticularly. Last fall the tree was loaded, 

 and we talked about giving them to anybody 

 who would pick them. I finally directed one 

 of our men to pick a dozen bushels of the 



largest. The tree wa3 so heavily loaded 

 most of the apples were rather small. Then 

 I sold some of them for 30 cents a bushel. 

 We were getting 50 cents for all other win- 

 ter apples. While Prof. Green, of our Ohio 

 Experiment Station, was looking over our 

 apples I asked him why that should be nam- 

 ed " Paradise." He said it was something 

 he could not understand either. He added 

 they had some of them at the station, but 

 they were so bitter nobody wanted them. 

 I think he said they gave them to the hogs. 



Well, some time in January some of our 

 people were eating the Paradise apples. I 

 would not taste them because sweet apples 

 always make me sick. During the severe 

 zero weather our apples were frozen up as 

 hard as bullets, and they remained frozen 

 for three or four weeks. I said that, if we 

 kept the cellar dark and cool, and let them 

 thaw out gradually, they would be all right. 

 Well, some varieties were all right, and 

 some were not. The Winter Paradise came 

 through the best of any unless it was Rawle's 

 Genet. By the way, I consider the latter, 

 as it grows with us, even poorer than the 

 Ben Davis; but they may turn out better 

 after they are ripe. They are certainly not 

 ripe now, the latter part of March. Well, 

 about the last of February, while sorting the 

 apples over, I tasted one of the Paradise 

 apples just for fun; and. lo and behold! it 

 was not bitter a particle, but it was the 

 most juicy and luscious apple "I ever tasted 

 in my life." May be you have heard me 

 use the same expression before. In fact, 

 they were so exceedingly luscious I made up 

 my mind I would take the chances of being 

 sick, or, rather, that I would rather be sick 

 afterward, than to be deprived of the in- 

 tense satisfaction I was getting fi'om those 

 Paradise apples. I thought as I did when I 

 was off in that apple-orchard in Arizona, 

 that it could not be possible any thing that 

 " hit the spot " so exactly could be harmful, 

 and that it must be that God really intended 

 apples to be a large part of man's nourish- 

 ment. I ate just about as many as I want- 

 ed; and, wonderful to tell, I rested quietly 

 all night, and experienced no bad effect at 

 all in the morning. Mrs. Root suggested 

 that my excellent digestion just now might 

 stand it once, but it would not do to think 

 of following it up. If friend Terry reads 

 this I feel sure he will have a good laugh. I 

 can not understand it better than any one 

 else; but it is certainly true I ate those ap- 

 ples forenoon, afternoon, and a whole half- 

 dozen in the evening, when I got tired of 

 reading my magazines and papers, and no 

 bad results followed at all, but quite the 

 contrary. Now I know why our forefathers, 

 years ago, called it Winter Paradise. 



First, it is not good until winter is almost 

 over; and, second, if it was not in paradise 

 when God gave Adam and Eve that garden 

 it ought' to have been, according to my no- 

 tion. It was not the forbidden fruit, surely, 

 because bad results followed in that case, 

 but none at all from my Paradise apples. 

 As the rest of the family said they did not 



