74 THE APPLE-TREE 



ing crop is as choice and new as is the new year itself, 

 and one waits for it again and again. 



One hears of seedless and no-core apples, as also of 

 pears. The core is present but greatly reduced in size, 

 and the seeds may be few and small. I have also raised 

 practically seedless tomatoes. All these are infrequent 

 variations that may be propagated by asexual parts (cut- 

 tings, cions), but as yet none of them has any outstand- 

 ing value. 



The reader will now ask me about the water-core 

 apples, so much sought and prized by youngsters. The 

 water-core is not characteristic of a variety, although 

 occuring in some varieties more frequently than in others. 

 It is a physiological condition, supposed to be associated 

 with a relatively low transpiration (evaporation) so that 

 excess water is held in the fruit. In certain seasons this 

 condition is marked, and also in cloudy regions and often 

 on young trees that have an over-supply of moisture. Yet 

 such cores occur in old trees and sometimes with more 

 or less regularity. What the physiological inability may 

 be in such cases to dispose of excess moisture appears to 

 be undetermined. 



Now and then one finds a double apple, with two fruits 

 grown solidly together, two blossom ends and a single 

 stem. A seedling tree I knew as a boy bore such apples 

 frequently, sometimes a score of them among the crop of 

 the year. This, of course, is a malformation or terato- 

 logical state. Apparently two flowers coalesce to form 

 these fruits. On the tree of which I speak, the two fruits 

 were about equal in size, making a large, widened, edible 

 apple, but I have known of other cases in which a dim- 

 inutive undeveloped fruit is attached to the side of a 

 normal one. 



