FRUIT THAT KEEPS WELL 29 



part sometimes) left on a plate — something: which never 

 happened with the Baldwins (Fig. 7). Now this is exactly what 

 will take place in practically any household under similar cir- 

 cumstances. Multiply this case by twenty million to learn the 

 influence of quality on the consumption of apples in the United 

 States. Probably not all households would be quite as particular 

 about quality, but some would be more so. Given choice fruit, 

 and a family will easily use ten barrels in a year. FurnLsh them 

 with Ben Davis and they can get along with one barrel and not 

 feel the loss, at least not the reduction. There are various and 

 diverse reasons given for growing the varieties of low quality, 

 such as the Ben Davis apple. " It is a good tree," " it bears 

 large crops," " it has fine color and most people go by the eye 

 anyhow," and lastly and worst of all, '' it really isn't so bad in 

 quality and a slight lowering of the quality doesn't make much 

 difference in consumption." Now the writer wants to hasten to 

 say that he appreciates fully the importance of good tree char- 

 acteristics. But we must have quality also if we are going to 

 increase the consumption of fruit. Nothing, in the writer's 

 opinion, would so safeguard us against that day, so freely 

 prophesied, when fruit is to become a drug in the market, as 

 to grow nothing but varieties of reasonably high quality. 



7. Fruit that Keeps Well. — This point is of far less im- 

 portance since methods of storage have been so much improved. 

 One can afiford to grow the poorer keeping varieties because they 

 can be forced to keep in the refrigerated storage. There is cer- 

 tainly not the importance to very late keeping that used to 

 attach to such varieties as Roxbuiy Russet and Northern Spy, 

 which would hold on till other varieties were out of the way and 

 would then command fine prices. On the other hand, .good keep- 

 ing is still a very important characteristic, because it assists the 

 storage plant in preserving the fruit in good condition. When 

 the fruit is removed from storage the good keeper will *' stand 

 up " long after the poor keeper has gone to pieces. Moreover, 

 one variety may hold its color and attractiveness much longer 

 than another. The Gravenstein apple, for example, wall fade 



