DECAY IN THE APPLE BARREL. 



77 



ing than when it is deep, and the evident opening connects the 

 center of the fruit with the surface. 



For its own protection the perfect apple has a continuous 

 layer of skin over its whole surface. The stem has not been re- 

 moved from its cavity, but remains of its full length, for there is 

 a place naturally provided for its separation from the branch 

 which bore it. Such an apple is the rare exception as found in 

 the barrel. At the market or in the storeroom of the consumer, 

 instead of being without 

 blemish upon the surface, 

 there are small specks as 

 large as a pin-head, or 

 smaller, which dot the skin 

 in patches. A portion of 

 the surface of an apple 

 with these specks is shown 

 three times magnified in 

 Fig. 1. Sometimes one 

 needs to look for a long 

 time to find a fruit entirely 

 free from these specks. 

 Under the compound mi- 

 croscope these dots are re- 

 solved into a thin layer of 

 interwoven threads, with 

 their free ends radiating 

 from a central point. This 

 is one of the low forms of plant life belonging to the molds, and 

 grows from microscopic cells called spores, which in the economy 

 of the mold serves the purpose of seeds. These spores are pro- 

 duced in great abundance, and, being carried by the air, alight 

 upon the fruit and there germinate and grow into a colony or 

 speck which is all the time feeding upon the substance obtained 

 from the skin of the apple. 



The second defect in apples, as seen in the barrel, is the one 

 known to fruit-dealers as the " scab." To the eye this is recog- 

 nized by the rough-coated patches, often circular in outline, that 

 are present upon the skin. There may be several of these spots, 

 and, by their borders becoming confluent, one half or less of a fruit 

 may be thus rough coated and more or less dwarfed, making the 

 apple one-sided. This scab is due to a mold which, under the 

 microscope, is as different in its real structure from the specks 

 above mentioned as the two are unlike in general appearance. If 

 it will add anything to the value of this popular article, the 

 botanical name of the species of mold causing the apple scab may 

 be given as Fusicladium dendriticum, Fl. It is as much a distinct 



Fig. 1. — Apple Specks. (Magnified.') 



