IV 



THE WEEKS BETWEEN 

 THE FLOWER AND THE FRUIT 



The petals expand broadly, usually losing most of 

 their pink. The blade is oblong and rounded at the end, 

 at first cupped and then nearly flat, three-fourths of an 

 inch long, narrowed at the base into a short stem-like 

 part and usually hairy there, the edges perhaps wavy 

 but entire. The expanse of the flower may be one and 

 one-half to two inches. The brush of stamens, erect in 

 the center, sheds its pollen and the anthers collapse. 



Then the petals fall, like flakes of snow, borne often 

 by the wind. There remain the stout woolly flower- 

 stems an inch or more long and bearing minute dry 

 bracts, with the young fruit at the summit topped by 

 the five recurving woolly sepals and the pencil of stamens 

 and styles. The bloom being gone, the flowering system 

 of the apple is thenceforth little observed. Not until the 

 fruit begins to color do we come back to the apple-tree 

 to look at it closely ; yet in these intervening weeks some 

 of the most interesting transformations take place, and 

 on the exact observance of them depends to a large 

 extent one's success in the rearing and saving of a good 

 crop of apples. 



Here is the flower of the apple-tree (Fig. 3). It is a 



19 



