EFFECTS OF CULTIVATION. 97 



like all my other fruit trees, in Bermuda sod, and wishing to 

 compare the keeping qualities of my fruit with that of apples 

 grown on a well-cultivated Terry Winter, I wrote to Messrs. 

 Wayland and Reigel, large orchardists, of Pomona, Ga., tell- 

 ing them of the experiments I was carrying on and request- 

 ing them to send me by express, packed carefully, a few 

 Terry apples from a thoroughly cultivated tree. They 

 promptly sent me a small box with ten apples, nicely 

 wrapped in tissue paper, which reached here on December 

 10 last, three of which were already rotten. I left them as 

 they were, except one of the sound ones which I ate, placed 

 six of my sod Terry in the box, nailed it up and forwarded 

 it to Professor Connell, of Farm and Ranch, with request to 

 keep all until they rotted. At the end of five days he wrote 

 me that all the other Georgia apples had rotted and he had 

 exposed mine on a table in their hot office to see how long 

 they would keep. On February 9, just two months after, I 

 received the following letter from Professor Connell : " Dear 

 Sir, I wish to report on the four Terry apples which I have 

 kept under the most trying conditions of a hot office. All of 

 the specimens have shriveled badly and two of them are un- 

 sound, rot having begun at the core and worked outward. I 

 have twice added moist excelsior to the box to partially sup- 

 ply moisture, but I am satisfied that the conditions are en- 

 tirely too trying for any variety to withstand the strain, 

 because they shrivel up to nothing." Now, I had the Professor 

 make that test to see whether the brown rot bacteria, which 

 had destroyed the Georgia Terry in that room in five days, 

 could do the same for my sod apples. The result is a com- 

 plete vindication of my theory that the conditions in the flesh 

 of sod fruit are such as absolutely to preclude the possibility 

 of brown rot development, which always occurs on the skin 

 first, working inward; for, though my poor little apples grad- 

 ually withered away under the high, dry, confined tempera- 

 ture, finally succumbing to decay at the core, they resisted 

 the brown rot bacteria to the last and died with their armor 

 whole. 



I come now to the second effect of the destruction of the 



