WILD FRUITS OF FARM 



19 



varieties, the best of which offer proper 

 materials for selection. 



Wild fruits, like the cultivated, fall chiefly 

 in three categories: core fruits (pomes), 

 stone fruits (drupes), and berries. The 

 structural differences between pome and 

 drupe are indicated in the accompanying 

 diagram. The apple is the typical core 

 fruit (pomus = apple; whence, pomology). 

 The seeds are contained in five hardened 

 capsules (ripened carpels), together forming 

 the core, surrounded by the pulp or flesh of 

 the apple, which is mostly developed from 

 the base of the calyx. The calyx lobes 



J J Fig. 4. Diagrams of 



persist at the apex of the apple, closed £ t ™!f^Sw W (0) ' and 

 together above the withered stamens and 

 style tips. The plum is a typical stone fruit: the single 

 seed is enclosed in a stony covering that occupies the 

 center of the fruit and is surrounded by the pulp. The 

 term berry is used to cover a number of structural types 

 which agree in little else than that they are small fruits with 

 a number of scattered seeds embedded in the pulp. 



If, with the coming of improved varieties of cultivated 

 fruits, the wild ones have ceased to be of much importance in 

 our diet, they still are of importance to us as food for our 

 servants, the birds. The birds like them. Nothing will do 

 more to attract and retaiii a good population of useful birds, 



than a plentiful supply of wild 

 fruits through the summer 

 season. Who that has seen 

 /_" ' j J/cf&$ orioles pecking wild straw- 

 berries or robins gormandizing 

 on buffalo-berries or waxwings 



Fig. 5. Wild chokecherry (Prunussp?) ,,+_:„„:_„ Q ■mnnn+ain och ran 

 and nannybarry (Viburnum lentago). Stripping a mountain asn, Can 



