56 



might be increased in size to advantage and the value of many grapes 

 and smah frnits would be enhanced by greater size. 



Xot always, but often, undue size in any variety is accompanied 

 by inferior quality. This is especially true if size has been brought 

 about l)y irrigation on rich land in which case the fruit may actually 

 be said to be "bloated.'' The water and food are not properly as- 

 similated, and the highly flavored solids of the normally grown fruit 

 are diluted or adulterated with water. This is the condition of 

 much of the western fruit which because of size and color is elbow- 

 ing the less showy and less bulky eastern product to the rear. So 

 too, extra large specimens of tree or small fruits in this region in 

 which size is attained by high feeding or by such abnormal practices 

 as ringing, usually lack in quality. From all this we must conclude 

 that mere size is about the least needed quality for a good fruit. 



The dispute as to whether color is more desirable than quality 

 is just as warm as the one over size and quality. Each has stout 

 advocates and while both are necessary in a first-class market fruit, 

 why there should be any question about the supremacy of quality 

 over color, is unanswerable. We grow fruit to eat. What a para- 

 dox to grow that which is unfit to eat provided only that it have high 

 color. Here again western fruit has a decided advantage over 

 that from the East, for the question of color is largely one of cli- 

 mate. The fruit from the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast 

 is certainly more highly colored than that grown east of the Missis- 

 sippi. The sunlit West must ever produce fruits of brilliant hues 

 for, like the complexion of Shakespeare's dusky Aloor, the color of 

 fruits "is but the burnished rays of the burnished sun.'' Yet we of 

 the East make a fetish of color and often times laud it as being 

 quite equal or even more desirable than quality in a first-class va- 

 riety, not only a mistake in judgment, but an advertisement for the 

 fruit of our western competitors. 



Just now the fashion is for red apples and pears though red 

 is not necessarily handsomer than any other color and certainly does 

 not make the fruit taste better. But fashions in colors of fruits 

 change in markets and countries just as fashions in colors of dresses 

 or coats or hats or ties change. At one time russet apples or pears 

 were in great demand. In some markets Yellow Newtowns, or 

 Bellflowers, or Rhode Island Greenings are still preferred. Some 

 markets like white fleshed peaches ; others, the yellow fleshed. The 

 value of a black or a red or a yellow skin on a sweet cheery depends 

 upon the market to Avhich it is sent. Color is for most part quite 

 aside from the intrinsic value of any of these fruits else we should 

 not have dift"erences and changes in fashion. A hungry man should 

 be as truly thankful and should say grace with just as much unction 

 over a Yellow Newtown as over a Jonathan or a Spitzenburg. 



Is high quality associated with intensity of color? A popular 

 fallacy associates quality with color. Some say high quality is cor- 

 related with low color, hence the oft repeated phrase, "handsome 

 but poor" ; others say high quality goes with high color. Baldwin 

 apples grown in sod are most brilliantly colored. Nine out of ten 

 people will choose the highly colored fruit as the best flavored, but 

 it needs only a taste to convince to the contrary. The tilled fruit 



