8 4 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is not designed that apples in their natural state should keep for 

 long, and all attempts to preserve them in the fresh condition 

 through the winter and far into the succeeding spring are a tri- 

 umph against Nature only to he won by the person who is con- 

 versant with the methods of his microscopic opponents. The use 

 of fungicides in the orchard while the fruit is growing will insure 

 more and fairer specimens, thus filling a larger number of barrels 

 with apples that are less subject to attack after harvest. This, 

 with careful handling to avoid bruises when picked and housed, 

 together with a dry storage room, should all bring a full reward. 

 Fig. 7 shows an apple in the last stages of dissolution, overrun 

 inside and out with a diminutive forest of fungi. It is the seed- 



Fig. 7. — Apple Mold. 



time, so to speak, with the host of species each vying with the 

 others for the last particle of the apple, the seeds only being 

 left behind ready to grow into trees when suitable circumstances 

 obtain, provided the vital spark does not expire before the favor- 

 ing condition arrive. The pulp that has been destroyed is large- 

 ly man's product developed by him through long years of selec- 

 tion and culture, and for which the orchard is planted and pre- 

 served. Nature wants more apple seed ; man desires more and 

 better pulp. Nature claims that the pulp of the wild apple is 

 only to secure the wider dissemination of the seed, and to the 

 orchardist, middleman, and consumer she speaks in her emphatic 

 way that " if you would exact of me extra-fine pulp, you must at 

 the same time employ the best devices of your high civilization 

 to preserve it from your omnipresent and active competitors, the 

 insidious germs of decay." 



