76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that better pay and more honor for their teachers would be a 

 wise economy. 



That our alma mater may bear as brave and glorious a part 

 in the struggles of coming years as in the past must be the heart- 

 felt wish of every graduate of the Oswego Normal and Training 

 School. 



DECAY IN THE APPLE BARREL. 



BY BYRON D. HALSTED, Sc. D., 



RUTGERS COLLEGE. 



Tj^RUITS decay and everybody knows it, but how this rotting 

 -L takes place is less evident. Grandfathers told our parents 

 that it was due to the weather, and some of them may have held 

 to the notion that the moon had a remarkable influence upon 

 the keeping quality of various fruits. The perfection of the 

 microscope and its more general use as an aid in seeing the minute 

 things which surround us upon every side have led to a deeper 

 comprehension of decays. It is the purpose of this article to show, 

 if possible, some of the facts connected with the rotting of our 

 apples, realizing that what holds true concerning one kind of fruit 

 applies almost equally well to others. 



Let us in the first place take a survey of the normal subject, 

 or, in other words, of a healthy apple. It is made up of five seed 

 cavities which occupy the central portion of the fruit and con- 

 stitute the core. Outside of this is the edible portion called the 

 flesh, consisting of cells of small size filled with liquid substances. 

 A tough layer covers the outside, which is the skin, and bears the 

 coloring substance that determines whether the apple is green, 

 red, mottled, or striped. At one end of the fruit is the stem, or, as 

 found in the barrel, this former means of attachment to the 

 branch of the tree may have been broken away or pulled from 

 the fruit a matter of no small consideration when the question 

 of decay is concerned. This end of the apple is known to the 

 horticulturists as the "cavity," and varies greatly in diiferent 

 sorts, sometimes being deep and narrow as in the Winesap and 

 Pearmain, and broad and shallow in the Greening and Peck's 

 Pleasant. 



The opposite end of the apple bears the name of " basin," and 

 contains the remnants of the blossom sometimes called the eye 

 of the fruit. This part of the apple is likewise deep in some 

 varieties, and shallow and open in others. This is the weakest 

 point in the whole apple as concerns the question of the keeping 

 quality of the fruit. If the basin is shallow and the canal to the 

 core firmly closed, there is much less likelihood of the fruit decay- 



