DESCRIPTION. 23 



adverse seasons. The number of fruits on the tree affects the 

 size — the fewer the fruits the larger. A change of stock in- 

 fluences the size. Thus pears are larger on quince stocks, and 

 apples larger on Paradise stocks than on their own roots, though 

 the trees are dwarfed. Cultivation, as would he expected, 

 greatly modifies fruits — the better and more frequent the culti- 

 vation the larger the fruit. Lastly, soil has an important effect. 

 Some fruits grow largest on clay, others on loams, others on 

 sandy soils, etc. In nearly all cases, the richer and the more 

 nearly virgin the soil, the larger the fruit. 



The Colob. — The colors of fruits range from white through 

 shades and tints of yellow, orange, red and purple, the latter 

 sometimes approaching blue in plums and black in grapes. The 

 various colors are designated by the names in common use, but 

 the manner in which the colors are arranged or laid on suggests 

 a number of terms peculiar to the several fruits. Thus the 

 colors of a fruit are said to be uniform or solid or self-colored 

 when one color prevails ; striped when stripes of color alternate ; 

 streaked when the stripes are long and narrow; blushed or 

 bronzed when the color is broken through without stripes; 

 splashed when the stripes are short and abruptly broken; 

 blotched when there are several colors without order; clouded 

 when the colors shade into each other ; stained when the tints are 

 very light ; mottled when marked with irre^lar spots ; spotted 

 when spots are somewhat uniform; dotted when spots are very 

 small. 



It is usually difiB.cult to give the exact colors of small fruits. 

 The colors are nearly always solid and in tints and shades hard 

 to distinguish. Light, medium and darh, qualifying tints and 

 shades must frequently be used. 



Dots are valuable distingaiishing characters because of their 



