1526 
Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 13, 1924 
ical revolutionary change in our system of gov¬ 
ernment should have been submitted to the peo¬ 
ple themselves who now enjoy the powers here 
sought to be given to Congress. Congress, how¬ 
ever, voted down an amendment providing 
that the people be consulted through popular 
State conventions, directly elected upon the 
express issue, without confusion with the many 
other matters involved in the election of State Legis¬ 
latures. This deliberate act of Congress in refusing 
to consult the people upon such a radical constitu¬ 
tional change directly involving the rights of the 
people themselves, should cause the State Legisla¬ 
tures to delicately refrain from ratifying it. It 
caused the Massachusetts Legislature to provide an 
advisory referendum to the people of Massachusetts 
on November 4 last, when they rejected it by a vote 
of “ayes” 247,221, “noes” 696,119. This considerate 
action of the Massachusetts Legislature, in refusing 
to act on this proposal without consulting the peo¬ 
ple, might well be followed in other States. Indeed, 
the question has been seriously asked, How can mere 
State Legislatures grant to Congress an unlimited 
power which they do not themselves possess? And 
was not the alternative provision in the amending 
clause (Article V) for consulting the people directly, 
through their sovereign State conventions, intended 
as the sole means of adopting an amendment such 
as this one? However that may be, legally, there 
can be little doubt that, morally, mere Legislatures 
should hesitate to grant away to Congress the sov¬ 
ereign rights of their constituents without directly 
consulting them. Of course if the people of the 
United States desire an omnipotent Congress oper¬ 
ating a great centralized bureaucracy at Washing¬ 
ton, they, are entitled to have it. But surely they 
are also entitled to be directly consulted in its 
making. 
LEGISLATIVE ACTION.—Fortunately, so far, 
there has been no blind stampede to ratify this rad¬ 
ical constitutional change. On the contrary, it looks 
as if it were going to be subject of serious debate 
before being hastily added to our Federal compact. 
Perhaps the rather hasty action over the ratification 
of the eighteenth and nineteenth amendments has 
brought its necessary reaction. At any rate, in addi¬ 
tion to the Massachusetts voters, three State Legis¬ 
latures, those of Georgia, Louisiana and North Car¬ 
olina, have already rejected it after full debate, and 
in the only State which has so far ratified, Arkansas, 
the vote was very close, 45 to 40 in the lower house, 
and 15 to 13 in the State Senate. The Legislature 
of Iowa in special session after it was proclaimed 
postponed consideration till next January. The 
result of the popular vote upon it in Massachusetts 
has attracted the attention of the whole country. 
These six are the only States which have so far had 
it before them for ratification or rejection. 
COST OF ENFORCEMENT.—Think of the enor¬ 
mous expense involved in enforcing such a Federal 
amendment as this. It would require a Federal bu¬ 
reau, with practically despotic powers over the 
family life of the American people, with multitudin¬ 
ous agents in every county, municipality, township 
and borough in the land, besides special directing 
agents, to co-ordinate enforcement. Do the already 
overburdened Federal taxpayers desire any such 
new Federal expenditure? If not, they better let 
tueir State Legislatures know their views concern¬ 
ing it. Its fate will probably be determined in Jan¬ 
uary next, when about 40 State Legislatures will 
pass upon it. 
USE OF DESPOTIC POWER.—The claim of the 
proponents of this measure that we ought to trust 
Congress not to abuse or drastically exercise the 
power proposed to be granted, is rather worse than 
no answer at all. It assumes the American people 
have lost their political sense, and are willing to 
trust despotic power over their family life, which they 
desire never to be exercised, to the consideration and 
delicacy of all future Congresses. The responsibil¬ 
ity of the individual member of a State Legislature, 
who is asked to determine whether Congressional 
power over the family life of his constituents is to 
be granted for all time, is of a very grave and seri¬ 
ous nature. It now seems probable, therefore, that 
many other Legislatures will follow the example of 
that of Massachusetts, and refuse to pass upon this 
measure without first consulting, by advisory refer¬ 
endum, the mothers and fathers of the persons to be 
affected. Such action would certainly meet with 
general approval. 
SENATORS IN OPPOSITION.—A number of very 
able Senators vigorously opposed the passage of this 
proposal through Congress, among them Senators 
Wadsworth of New York, Borah of Idaho, Moses of 
New Hampshire, Reed of Pennsylvania, Reed of Mis¬ 
souri, Bruce of Maryland, Bayard of Delaware, 
Smoot and King of Utah, Edwards of New Jersey, 
Fletcher of Florida and Overman of North Caro¬ 
lina. The debate in the Senate was very illuminat¬ 
ing, and is readily accessible to any State legislator 
who wishes to inform himself fully before voting 
on this measure. s. e. b. 
Here’s Another Seedless Apple 
M r. S. I). WHITNEY of Franklin Co., N. Y., re¬ 
cently sent us what he calls a seedless apple. 
There is one tree which produces apples of small to 
medium size, but while these apples have a large 
seed cavity there are never any seeds. The picture 
shows one of these apples cut through the center. 
A New Seedless Apple. Fig. 636. 
The cavity is unusually large, but there were no 
seeds whatever. The apple would be of little or no 
value as a commercial fruit, being of poor appear¬ 
ance and very ordinary quality. It is a novelty, 
though, in its seedless character. Every now and 
then such apples appear, usually as chance fence- 
corner seedlings. Many readers will remember the 
Spencer Seedless apple of some years ago. An at¬ 
tempt was made to introduce it, with much horn¬ 
blowing and red fire. Among other stories told about 
it was one to the effect that the Queen of England 
demanded a baked seedless apple for breakfast every 
morning—a good addition to the usual fried bacon 
and toast. The R. N.-Y. showed that this apple was 
a poor quality and appearance and not worth plant¬ 
ing except as a “novelty,” and it dropped out of 
sight. 
The Montreal Fameuse Apple 
I AM sending you some of our Montreal Fameuse 
apples. In spite of the great popularity of the 
McIntosh the old Fameuse is still the favorite with 
many in this locality, especially among our French 
Canadians, who say “La Pomme Fameuse est tou- 
The Montreal Fameuse Apple. Fig. 637. 
jours fameuse” (Fameuse apple is always famous). 
So far no one has been able to trace the origin of 
the Fameuse apple. Probably the seeds were brought 
over by the early French settlers, or it was like 
Topsy, it just growed. As far back as I can remem¬ 
ber the three most popular apples were the St. 
Lawrence for September, which is still hard to beat; 
the Fameuse for early Winter, and the little Pomme 
Grise for mid-winter. The St. Lawrence is the only 
one whose origin can be traced; it grew in the gar¬ 
den of the late John Molson, on the corner of Sher¬ 
brooke and St. Lawrence Main street. In the early 
seventies the remains of the original tree were there 
with one living branch. The Pomme Grise is now 
replaced by the American Golden Russet. The Bour- 
assa, another russet apple much thought of, and the 
Canada Reinette, are hard to be found. 
Fourteen years ago our Fruit Growers’ Associa¬ 
tion, with a grant from our Provincial government 
to cover expenses, started demonstration work 
among several of our orchards in the Province of 
Quebec. I will mention the results in one of these 
orchards in the Correy Hill region, Huntingdon Co., 
bordering on Northern New York, belonging to J. 
Waddell. We had a graduate of MacDonald College 
looking after this orchard under the supervision of a 
committee of three, who looked after all the demon¬ 
stration orchards. We selected a block of from 80 
to 100 Fameuse trees out of the orchard, which was 
well cultivated, fertilized with barnyard manure and 
chemical fertilizers, pruned and thoroughly sprayed 
with lime-sulphur on one part, and Bordeaux mixture 
on the other; also seeded with Crimson clover for a 
cover crop about the beginning of July. The result 
■was the first year a good growth of wood and dark 
green foliage. The second year the crop averaged 
4 V 2 barrels of apples to the tree, 90 per cent clean. 
Every year the crop went on increasing. The crop of 
1922 averaged seven barrels to the tree, showing 
fruit buds on the branches for a crop the next year. 
The average price paid for No. 1 Fameuse the past 
five years is .$7 per barrel, net to the grower. 
The reason why the Fameuse is so scarce is that 
the severe Winter of 1917-18 destroyed nearly all the 
orchards in the Ottawa Valley and on the Island of 
Montreal. The Correy Hill region did not suffer so 
much from that severe Winter. One advantage the 
Fameuse has over its progeny, the McIntosh, is that 
it clings better to the tree, while the McIntosh, if 
not picked at once when it is well colored and ripe, 
if there comes a breeze the crop will be on the 
ground. The growers find it quite safe still to plant 
Fameuse as well as McIntosh, with some of the early 
bearing varieties as fillers. I am sorry the apples 
are over-ripe; they were kept in too warm a place. 
Quebec. r. bbodie. 
R. N.-Y.—A picture of one of these Fameuse apples 
is shown at Fig. 637. The fruit reached us in good 
condition, and gave the exquisite quality of this va¬ 
riety. 
That Egyptian Wheat Story Again 
T HE daily papers have been printing stories of a 
great wheat yield in Washington. It is said 
that the original seed came from a tomb in Egypt, 
where it had lain for thousands of years. Now it 
seems to have regained its old vitality, “and then 
some,” for it yielded over 48 bushels per acre on a 
Washington farm. Every few years this venerable 
old fake starts its rounds in the papers. Usually 
after all this free advertising some seedsman kindly 
offers to sell the seed at a good price. We gef in 
ahead this year with the truth about it in the fol¬ 
lowing note from Dr. Wm. A. Taylor of the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture at Washington: 
The Department has not yet secured seed of the wheat 
mentioned, so we are unable to identify the variety. 
The story of the wheat seed being found in Egyptian 
tombs is a very old one, and usually is applied to the 
type of wheat commonly known as Alaska. Since wheat 
is not known to retain its viability longer than 20 years, 
it is probable that any wheat which has been ob¬ 
tained from Egyptian tombs and which grew upon plant¬ 
ing had been placed there but a short time before. Most 
of the stories in which the seed is supposed to have 
been found in Egyptian tombs are entirely erroneous. 
The yield reported on Mr. Johnston’s farm of 48.6 
bushels per acre is not an unusual one for the Puget 
Sound section of Washington. A fairly authentic yield 
of 117 bushels per acre was reported in Island County, 
Washington, in 1895. The varieties of wheat adapted 
to the humid conditions in the Pacific Northwest, al¬ 
though they produce high yields there, are not produc¬ 
tive in any other part of the United States. The wheats 
of that section also are nearly all soft and of poor 
bread-making quality. Consequently, anyone who at¬ 
tempts to grow varieties of wheat adapted to the Puget 
Sound section of Washington, in other localities, prob¬ 
ably will be doomed to disappointment. The wheats 
which the Department has obtained from Egypt are very 
poorly adapted to this country. 
We seem unable to get any definite answers to the 
question about prices for boarding hired men recently 
asked. This is a pertinent question, and should be 
fairly answered, but no one seems to have figured the 
matter out carefully. 
Recently a reader sent us a sample of fern with 
“brown spots” on the under side of the leaf. This 
reade:' had tried washing with soap and other things 
but still the brown spots persisted. They were the 
natural spoi^ejw “seeds” of the fern ! 
