K50 
Tht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 22, 1024 
Apples, Strawberries and Strangers 
Big Baldwin Apples 
R. HARVEY LOSEE of Dutchess Co., N. Y., 
sent us half a dozen Baldwin apples—one of 
w liich is pictured in exact size on this page. 
This was not the largest apple, but a fair average 
of the lot. Mr. Losee says he obtained buds from 
Mr. W. A. Teator—taken from a tree noted for pro¬ 
ducing large crops of big apples, and as he ex¬ 
pected, these buds carried the habit of the parent 
tiee. We may judge of the size, and the crop was 
r. good one. Mr. Losee believes that striking char¬ 
acteristics of this sort may be carried on through 
the bud. It is a question whether these tremendous 
apples are so desirable after all. They are seldom 
of line flavor, being usually coarse in texture and 
too dry for best quality. It is true that some cus¬ 
tomers demand big apples. This year we had Sut- 
ton and Wolf River for sale at one time, and several 
customers demanded the coarse, insipid Wolf River 
in preference to the sprightly Sutton. The best bar¬ 
gain, both in quantity and quality, is to be found in 
(he apple of medium size. They pack closely in the 
barrel and give us most “meat,” and they are also 
most likely to have the finest quality. But who 
shall undertake to tell customers what they ought 
to buy? If they demand “big” apples—let us have 
some of that kind. 
South Florida Strawberry Notes 
Having reported four exceptionally 
successful crops of strawberries in suc¬ 
cession, it is only fair to report last 
season’s crop, which comparatively at 
least was a partial failure. After a 
good Summer season for growing the 
plants, the cropping season was very 
adverse. First, instead of the favor¬ 
able showery weather we usually have 
during the latter part of October and 
early November, when the plants are 
set for fruiting, the weather was dry 
and windy; consequently the plants 
did not get a vigorous start. Later, 
through January, February and 
March, (he main fruiting period, when 
we usually have clear sunny weather, 
rain was so frequent and heavy as 
seriously to injure the fruit. The re¬ 
sult was that in this district most 
strawberry growers netted a loss. My 
own crop yielded only about 35 per 
cent of the average yield of the four 
previous seasons. 
There were nine and two-fifths acres. 
The total yield was 29,557 quarts, and 
gross sales amounted to $13,700.89. The 
previous season there were ten and 
one-fifth acres which yielded 76,425 
quarts and gross sales amounted to 
$28,135, That shows the yield to have been con¬ 
siderably less than half, and the returns a little 
more than half, per acre, of the preceding crop. 
The price was considerably higher and would have 
been higher still, but for the fact that berries in the 
central and west coast districts of the State were a 
good crop and of fine quality, and large quantities 
were shipped to Miami and came into competition 
with local berries. The early part of this past 
Summer was not very favorable for plant propa¬ 
gation so I am facing a plant shortage for this 
coming season. There will probably not be more 
than enough to plant six or seven acres. 
Florida. D. L. HARTMAN. 
Ben Davis as a Parent 
You ask why we use Ben Davis as a parent in 
producing new apple varieties. Ben Davis, like 
McIntosh, is very prepotent. Its characters pre¬ 
dominate in seedlings of almost any variety that it 
can be crossed with. There are some varieties like 
McIntosh, however, that are just as prepotent and 
when you cross the two there is the possibility and 
the probability that you will get an offspring with 
both good fruit and good tree characters. Of course, 
all we want out of old Ben is good tree characters, 
and nearly all of its seedlings are vigorous, pro¬ 
ductive and hardy. We use Ben Davis less in our 
crosses than McIntosh, because McIntosh has both 
.i splendid tree and splendid fruit. 
Curiously enough we get almost nothing worth¬ 
while in the way of offspring when we use Baldwin, 
Creeping. Northern Spy, Jonathan, Spitzenburg 
and a number of other splendid varieties as parents. 
Their offspring are exceedingly variable and usual¬ 
ly not worth much. Delicious, on the other hand, is 
usually a very good parent, and we have many 
seedlings with the typical Delicious fruit and a 
fairly good tree. One of the great things in breed¬ 
ing new fruits is to be able to select your parents. 
In all the hardy fruits that we work with about the 
first task is to find out what sorts have good char¬ 
acters and will transmit them to their offspring. 
Heredity is a great factor in breeding fruits as well 
as in breeding humans. u. r. hedrick. 
New York Experiment Station. 
A Stranger in a Strange Land 
Mr. Berrang’s “Notes from Oregon,” on page 1259 
form an interesting study of the psychology of a 
stranger in a strange land. I read those notes with 
much interest, much sympathy and some amuse¬ 
ment, because I,. too, have been a stranger in a 
strange land, and staid long enough to get over it. 
The great trouble with Mr. Berrang and his Phila¬ 
delphia traveling companion is, that quite uncon¬ 
sciously perhaps, they are more or less homesick. 
The stranger going into a strange land, is apt to 
allow his hopes and his fancy to outstrip his reason. 
He knows better, and yet his hopes and his fancy 
responding to his longing for a perfect environment, 
persist in portraying the new country for which he 
is bound as a veritable “Utopia.” The reaction from 
contact with the reality is inevitable. All the dis¬ 
advantages loom up more formidable than they real¬ 
ly are, because, in the first place, they were not 
properly discounted in advance, and secondly, be¬ 
cause of a lack of definite knowledge of how to deal 
with them to the best advantage. 
The advantages of the new strange land are 
strikingly less than had been anticipated and most 
of those that do exist are not fully apparent to the 
newcomer because of lack of definite knowledge of his 
new surroundings. To make matters worse from 
a psychological standpoint, all the formerly unap¬ 
preciated advantages of the old home and its en- 
\ ironments loom up with an almost irresistible 
appeal. 
I hold no brief for the section of country Mr. 
Berrang describes. I have never been there. No 
doubt the disadvantages he describes exist, but I 
am quite sure many of them will appear quite trivial 
to him as he becomes better acquainted with his new 
surroundings. Likewise with that acquaintance will 
come a knowledge of local advantages, not now ap¬ 
parent or temporarily eclipsed by a memory of the 
“fleshpots of Egypt.” After he has been there longer 
he will realize that the industrial depression he 
speaks of is only temporary for the section, unless 
he really has been so unfortunate as to settle in a 
locality that has been “developed” by boost, pure 
and simple, rather than by the lure of natural op¬ 
portunity. That unfortunate condition may apply 
to restricted localities, but the wonderful develop¬ 
ment of the Pacific slope as a whole, proves that 
whatever the handicaps may be, there are also won¬ 
derful natural advantages. 
Just to furnish emphasis for some of the points 
I have made, I may be permitted to relate some bits 
of my own personal experience. When I came to 
Florida nearly 16 years ago, I was dreadfully dis¬ 
appointed as to the natural scenery. Most of the 
]tietured glimpses of Florida landscapes that are 
familiar throughout the North are photographs of 
“beauty spots,” and while superb, and probably the 
rivals of any beauty spots in the world, unfortunate¬ 
ly these beauty spots are comparatively few and of 
limited area, when compared to the wide expanses 
of fire-scarred pine trees, accompanied by a monot¬ 
onous undergrowth of saw palmettoes. Somehow I 
took a violent dislike at first to those palmettoes. 
It seemed to me they Avere the very emblem of 
worthless soil and general desolation. Gradually 
with acquaintance that dislike has entirely disap¬ 
peared, and I now consider them rather ornamental, 
as I have come to realize how much more desolate 
the vast stretches of pine land would appear with¬ 
out them. 
From an industrial viewpoint I labored 10 years 
to no purpose to succeed with one crop, and have 
much more than made good that loss 
in the last five years with another. 
When I first came to Florida, an 
orange grove was a wonderful sight, 
but in less than a year I would have 
passed up all the orange trees in the 
State to ha\ r e a good look at an apple 
tree loaded with fruit. That attitude 
too has passed away. All of which 
goes to prove that no matter how in¬ 
teresting the observations may be, it 
is not safe for himself or others to 
trust the estimate of the advantages 
of any country to a stranger in a 
strange land. d. l. h. 
Florida. 
Decombing the Poultry 
FAMILIAR PRACTICE. — In re¬ 
regard to clipping off the combs 
and wattles of Leghorn cockerels and 
pullets, to avoid damage by freezing 
in very cold weather, 1 would say that 
in my younger days I used to breed 
game fowls, and it was the custom to 
cut off the combs and wattles of all the 
males. It was very easily done with a 
pair of sharp shears, and it did not 
seem very painful to the birds. Usually 
there would be but little bleeding; all 
we did to stop it Avas to pluck out a 
feather and press it doAvn on the comb. 
It Avas far more humane than to have the birds 
going around for days with combs all swollen up 
and painful, to turn black and finally fall off, as I 
have seen them do. That the possession of a comb 
has anything to do Avitli a hen’s laying I do not be¬ 
lieve. Our Winter temperature here in the Connec¬ 
ticut hills seldom gets loiver than from 4 to 10 de¬ 
grees beloAv zero, and in open-front houses our Leg¬ 
horns rarely have more than the tips of the points 
of their combs touched, and only a feiv have even 
that. A neighbor who usually carries about 75 cock¬ 
erels over Winter, to sell in the Spring, keeps them 
in an open-front house, but on very cold nights he 
drops a thin curtain, made of bran sacks, in front of 
the roosts. 
COMBS AND LAYING.—If I were keeping Leg¬ 
horns in a climate Avliere the cold reached 20 to 30 
degrees beloAv zero, I would try the clipping of 
combs and Avattles on both hens and cockerels. 1 
would consider it a humane thing to do; and I doubt 
if it would stop their laying, except temporarily, for 
a feAv days perhaps. You say that “some scientific 
men feel that the comb is in some AA'ay an organ liaA - 
ing a direct influence on egg production, and if that 
is so, of course the loss of the comb would have a 
bad effect.” Here I think they have mistaken an 
effect for a cause. The enlarged comb of the pullet 
about to lay is the effect, not in any Avay the cause, 
of her laying. All her organs are in good condition, 
she eats heavily, the sex instinct is aroused; it 
Avould be a wonder if her comb did not increase in 
size. There is another thing; when a man tries to 
lift a heavy stone he gets red in the face; that is. 
A Sizable Baldwin from Dutchess Co., N. Y. Fig. 597. 
