506 On the probable cause of the Russet in Apples. 



ceeds a shower at the time the fruit is wet, injures the skin, 

 occasions small cracks, which when viewed through a magni- 

 fying glass, resemble the cracked surface called the network 

 of a melon. If the injury is greater, the surface turns nearly 

 black in spots or patches. A further injury occasions the 

 crack to become deeper, and enters the solid flesh of the 

 Apple ; but if this happens in an early stage of growth, the 

 surface of the crack becomes dry and hard, and if the injury 

 is done when the fruit is nearly ripe, it rots. These accidental 

 injuries of the skin in the early part of the growth of the 

 fruit, nature patches up in the way we see, but this new sur- 

 face is never like the original skin, it allows the aqueous por- 

 tion of the pulp of the fruit to escape more freely by evapo- 

 ration, hence there is a little shrinking in the part where it 

 happens, and the juices become richer by a kind of inspissa- 

 tion. Cider and Perry made from small cracked and spotted 

 fruit, if a fine autumn succeeds a cool showery Summer, is 

 always of better quality than after a hot Summer when the 

 fruit is larger, and as regards appearance, better ripened. 

 I was much inclined to make these remarks to you when I 

 read the paper, page 63 in the Fifth Volume of the Horti- 

 cultural Transactions, as I imagine the different characters 

 Apples assume in different seasons may be owing perhaps to 

 their being more or less russetted. At least I have in no in- 

 stance, after artificial impregnation of Apple blossoms with 

 the pollen of others, ever obtained any resemblance in form 

 or colour to the Apple I took the pollen from, and I have on 

 the average of the last 16 years, artificially impregnated 

 20 to 30 blossoms each year. I have given the pollen of the 



