STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 9]^ 



strawberries, peaches, pears, etc., is shown. It will be noticed 

 that in grapes no cane sugar is presented ; the sweet principle is 

 entirely glucose. Of course fruits vary greatly in the amount of 

 sugar they contain. These examples are presented as the results 

 of anah^sis made with the view of obtaining general or approxi- 

 mative results. Whilst it is possible to increase the saccharine 

 principle, and also to modify the hydrated malic acid constituent 

 in fruits, it is entirely beyond our power to change the fixed nature 

 of vines, shrubs, and trees b}- an}" methods of cultivation or fertili- 

 zation 3'et discovered. I know of nothing more wonderful in nature 

 than the persistenc}' with which vegetable structures adhere to their 

 original bent or design. Trees producing sour apples, pears, peaches, 

 or vines producing astringent grapes, cannot be turned aside from 

 their laboratory work, unless hy the introduction of scions, or the 

 employment of the knife in other wa^'s. 



"We all know that two trees growing side b}' side, from the same 

 soil, breathing the same air, and precisely alike in external and 

 internal structure, will grow fruit totally dissimilar in chemical con- 

 stituents and physical appearance. If a 3'oung sour apple tree is 

 cut off low in its trunk, and scions of another kind inserted, it is 

 changed only above the point where they are placed. The chemical 

 reactions below continue true to their original instinct, and if fruit 

 comes from a sprout it is charged with the acid juices of the parent 

 tree. 



We thus have the bewildering fact brought before us that sap 

 circulating through one portion of a tree culminates in the pro- 

 duction of excess of acid in the fruit ; while in another there is 

 found an excess of sugar. It is not unusual to observe a newly set 

 scion bud, blossom, and bear fruit the first year. The apple may 

 weigh ten times as much as the frail scion which held it up, and 

 supplied the nutriment necessary' for its growth, but the little twig 

 transplanted to an alien limb, will set up a laboratorj^ of its own, 

 and from the strange juices brought to it, will manufacture fruit 

 entirely dissimilar to its companion fruits growing in close prox- 

 imity. An example of this nature was afforded in my orchard, 

 when from a scion having a surface for cell action of only nine 

 square inches, a sweet apple was grown weighing seven ounces, and 

 affording from its juices ninety- three grains of fruit sugar. 



We have, however, still more wonderful examples of fruit chem- 

 istry in apples which in their own structure exhibit sectional differ- 



