Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1905 — A SEEDLESS, CORELESS, BLOOMLESS APPLE. [ARTICLE]

A SEEDLESS, CORELESS, BLOOMLESS APPLE.

Everyone is familfar with the seedless or navel orange, but the seedless apple is a new fruit on the market. This marvelous improvement in the common apple, fulfilling in letter as well as in spirit the jest of the schoolboy, who proclaimed that “there ain’t going to be no core,” would seem to indicate that the new apple will eventually monopolize the markets of the world, for reasons which the appended data clearly point out. By way of illustration, it ma\ be said that the seedless and core less apple follows closely the analogue presented by the seedless orange, and is in fact a prototype of the latter. When the seedless orange was introduced to the pub lie, it was regarded in the light of a horticultural wonder, for if there were no seeds, by what uncarin' method was their kind propagated? Shrouded in a mystery such as this, it required some little time for the matter-of-fact virtues to impress themselves and the real merit of the fruit to become known; but once eaten, its subtle qualities were forgotten, and its advantages were quickly appreciated, and from that day to this the old-fashioned variety, with its multiplicity of seeds, has suffered severly, having been almost driven from the market, and left all but out of the race. Now let us ascertain the real difference between the two verities of oranges, as the comparison will serve a useful purpose when the old and the new species of apples are being similarly considered. The reason seedless oranges are universally preferred to those that contain ovules is not because any saving was effected, but simply that the seeds are in the way. The ordinary apple presents a wholly different aspect, for the seeds are inclosed in a hard pocket that represents at least one-fourth of the apple, and which cannot be utilized in any way as an article of food, whereas in the seedless variety these disagreeable features are entirely eliminated. Still, what is more to the point of economy, apples without seeds are also wormle6S, for it is well known to growers tbfTt worms in apples obtain their sustenance not from the meat, but from the seeds; hence it is evident that if a worm was hatched in a seedless apple, it could not live.

The beginning of the seedless apple dates back only a few years, and therefore its necessarily brief. All the credit for the propagation of tbe apple thus far belongs to Mr. JohnF. Spencer, of Grand Junction, Col., who, struck with the success of the seedless orange, believed that similar results could be obtained with apples.

After several years’ experimental research he succeeded in producing five trees that bore seedleßs, coreless, and wormless apples, and from this little group there has budded two thousand more trees, which at present constitute the entire seedless abple stock of the world; and from these two thousand trees all the rest of tbe world most be supplied. It is estimated that these will have produced abont three hundred and seventy-five thousand nursery trees by the fall of 1905, and that the following year at least two

million five huudred thousand trees will furnish the supply. There are many striking peculiarities in the developement of the seedless tree, as well as in the fruit. As an instance, it may be cited that the tree is blossomless; and while there is a stamen and a very small quality of pollen, exactly as in the blossom of the ordinary apple tree, yet the blossom or flower itself is pissing. The photograph shows wie only bloom, flower, or blossom that ever appears on the seedless apple tree. The only thing that resembles a blossom comes in the form of several small green leaves that grow around the little apple to shelter it. It is this lack of blossom that makes it almost impossible for the codling moth to deposit its eggs, and this practically insures a wormless apple. As it is the blossom of the common apple tree that is attacked by cold and frost, the seedless apple tree is immune, and the late frosts that play havoc with the apple grocer’s purse by denuding his orchard may now become a thing of the past, and at the same time prevent worry and increase profits. The seedless apple tree has a hard, smooth bark, and may be grown in any climate; the meat of the new apple, like that of the seedless orange, is very solid, and in both there is a slightly hardened substance at the navel end. Through long development this has almost disappeared in the orange; and while it is more or less prominent in the seedless apple, it has been materially reduced on the last generation of trees, and all sizes tend to show that it will grow smaller with successive generations, as the navel end of the orange has grown smaller. The apples, which are of a beautiful dark-red color with yellow strawberry dots, are of a goodly size and have a flavor similar to the Wine Sap. —A. F. Collins, in Scientific American.