Vol. LaIV No. 2878. 
THE SPENCER SEEDLESS APPLE. 
A Plain Story of the Fruit. 
Some weeks ago we printed opinions from various 
men who are recognized as fruit authorities regarding 
the Spencer Seedless apple. At that time only one of 
the writers, Prof. L. R. Taft, had actually seen the apple, 
and we tried to make this fact clear. The R. N.-Y. can¬ 
not afford to be unfair or unjust to any man who is 
attempting to introduce a new fruit or any novelty in 
merchandise, and so we were glad to examine samples 
of the new apple. 
bor a time after the publication of our former notes 
little was seen hi the papers about the fruit. Then the 
newspapers began to print stories about it. Most of 
these were in the nature of news items giving accounts 
of the “wonderful new fruit,” with enthusiastic stories 
about its great future. 1 he Scientific American dis¬ 
cussed it at some length—just as if dozens of farmers 
during the past 50 years have not found such apples 
growing in fence corners and on roadsides! Later such 
notes as the following were brought to our attention: 
Representing the Spencer Seedless Apple Co., J. I. McDon¬ 
ald, the assistant manager of the company, came to* Franklin 
County on Wednesday for the purpose of taking the initia¬ 
tive in interesting the farmers of this section. It was Mr. 
McDonald's purpose to look up a site for a nursery. It is 
not improbable that a meeting of agriculturists will be held 
in a short time to take up the matter of raising the apple. 
This apple, it may be said, has come like the seedless 
orange, and like the orange it promises to monopolize the 
markets of the world.—Chambersburg (Pa.) Spirit. 
It would appear from this that the company in¬ 
tends to follow the plan so popular with creamery 
and cannery promoters—that is, organize stock com 
panies for the propagation of Seedless apple trees. 
Another report comes from Virginia: 
Within a few days a deal will he closed by the Spencer 
Seedless Apple Company for a farm of about 100 acres, 
near Winchester, on 10 acres 
of which 150.000 trees from 
southern Michigan, Indiana 
and northern Ohio will he 
planted at once. And within 
four years, if promises of the 
management hold good, “there 
ain't going to be no core,” and 
the seedless apple will take 
its place with the pitless plum 
and navel orange. This com¬ 
pany will not put apples on (he 
market. Its purpose is to only 
sell trees, and after the first 
crop is out the seedless apple 
will be common property, as 
there will he nothing to pre¬ 
vent those who buy trees now 
from selling either trees or 
buds, as they please. It is 
understood that a number 
of Winchester and Frederick 
County men have bought stock 
in the new company.—Mar- 
tinsburg (W. Va.) World. 
About the middle of Feb¬ 
ruary we received a call 
from Mr. W. C. Scheu, the 
general manager of the 
Seedless Apple Company. 
He produced several speci¬ 
mens of his apple, which 
he said were “not so good as they were three 
months ago,” and cut one open to show that 
there ain t no core.’’ A photograph of this apple 
just as Mr. Scheu cut it is shown at Fig. 103. 
Beside it is a good picture of an entire apple—exact 
size. Mr. Scheu found fault because The R. N.-Y. had 
abused the apple. We handed him a file of the paper, 
and asked him to point out the abuse or injustice. He 
finally found a line in which we alluded to “a so-called 
seedless apple. In answer we split open the very apple 
he presented as a fair specimen and found the seed 
pictured at Fig. 102! He then said that a few of the 
NEW YORK, MARCH 25 , 1905 . 
apples did have one or more seeds. We now under¬ 
stand that perhaps 10 per cent of the apples show seeds 
or indications of them—some located at the top of the 
fruit as shown in the picture. 
As to the quality of the “seedless apple,” Mr. Scheu 
cut slices for several people, who all pronounced it in¬ 
ferior, ranking with Ben Davis in flavor. We hap¬ 
pened to have a basket of Palmer Greening on hand, and 
SPENCER “SEEDLESS” APPLE WITH A SEED. Fig. 102. 
asked Mr. Scheu to sample one in connection with 
his own .fruit. He was then asked this question: 
After tasting these two apples, what argument can 
you give as to why a man should plant your trees in 
preference to Palmer Greening, Baldwin, Northern Spy 
or other proved varieties? Why should a man pay one 
dollar or more for a tree of this inferior fruit, when 
THE SPENCER SEEDLESS APPLE, NATURAL SIZE. Fig. 103. 
trees of good apples can be bought for 20 cents or 
less?” 
A fair synopsis of his answer follows : 
“ I his is the best evaporating apple because the core 
is small. It contains 25 per cent more ‘meat’ or flesh 
than any seeded apples. It is a good keeper. It is a 
‘novelty.’ By means of this fruit and the knowledge 
our company possesses we shall be able to produce 
‘seedless’ strains of all the finer varieties now in culti¬ 
vation !” 
We are quite willing to leave such statements with 
our readers. Our object is to give the facts, but we 
?1 PER YEAR. 
cannot conceive how anyone who knows the taste of 
a good apple could be induced to buy more than one 
specimen of the “seedless” in any market where other 
apples are sold. The following statement by Dr. Van 
Fleet is fair and conservative: 
The Spencer Seedless Apple. 
As will be seen in Fig. 102, a single seed was 
found in one specimen in an extra or adventitious core 
near the blossom end of the fruit. The others were 
entirely free from seeds, though the usual woody car¬ 
pels or core divisions, as shown in the sectional views, 
were not only present, but strongly developed. The 
apples are rather small in size, round and smooth in 
form, dull red in color, with many light dots. The 
calyx is very large and open, and the basin is wide 
and deep, extending almost to the core. The flesh is 
white and firm, quality very ordinary; about on a par 
with Limber Twig, and scarcely as good as Ben Davis. 
The claim made by the promoters that the Spencer 
Seedless apple contains 25 per cent more apple sub¬ 
stance than other varieties of the same size is scarcely 
borne out in the specimens examined, as the substance 
lost by the large open calyx basin would quite offset 
any gain in the spaces normally occupied by seeds. 
A pome or apple-like fruit is, botanically, the en¬ 
larged and softened flower stem overgrowing the ovary 
or true fruit, made up of woody or bony carpels (core¬ 
plates) and seeds. In the Spencer and other seedless 
apples the seeds alone are absent, but the objectionable 
core is present as usual. Unless the seedless variety 
should possess in addition unusual good quality or 
other valuable attributes it is not easy to see why it 
should be particularly desirable except as a curiosity. 
We are told the Spencer apple promoters expect to 
develop seedless varieties of commercial apples, such as 
Winesap, Jonathan, Bellflower and Gano. This can 
only be done by the usual 
breeding methods of cross- 
pollenization and careful 
selection of succeeding gen¬ 
erations. While it is with¬ 
in the range of possibility 
that seedless varieties re¬ 
sembling to some extent 
our present successful com¬ 
mercial apples may in time 
be secured such result is 
most uncertain, and likely 
to require Indefinite time. 
After this statement of 
the facts we can have no 
objection if readers de¬ 
cide to buy the seedless 
apple trees and plant them. 
They must decide for them¬ 
selves whether this “nov¬ 
elty” is novel enough to be 
worth five times as much as 
a tree of known good qual¬ 
ity. If, however, the Spen¬ 
cer Company intends to 
operate on the plan fol¬ 
lowed by creamery and can¬ 
nery sharks we do not hesitate to advise our readers 
against entering such enterprises. There is nothing in 
sight to warrant the claim that this apple is to “monop¬ 
olize the markets of the world.” Who would believe 
such a claim if made for the Kieffer pear? Yet Kieffer 
is as likely to drive Bartlett, Bose, Clapp and the other 
good ones out of business as this seedless apple is to 
dispose of Baldwin, Northern Spy or other standard 
sorts. We would not join a stock company for the 
propagation of this fruit. The apple is not high 
enough in quality to make any impression in the market 
and it cannot live on the “noveby” feature alone. 
