Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/165

Rh The second specimen of this kind was a Mcintosh apple from the experiment station orchard. In this case the larger portion of the surface was of the normal red color of the variety, but a segment of about one third of the surface was very light in color, faintly streaked with pink. The two sections of the surface were clearly marked off from each other, though the lines of demarcation were not quite so sharp and regular as in the specimen already described. The light-colored segment covered approximately two carpels of the core, although the open nature of the Mcintosh core made it more difficult to determine that point accurately in this apple than in the other. Each part of the core contained four seeds. Two of these were abnormal and will be described farther on in this paper.

A poorly colored apple of the Arkansas variety received from White Salmon had a brownish red band extending from stem to calyx, covering a fifth of the surface. On the opposite side of the apple was a similar streak, but only about an eighth of an inch wide. The dark portion included one carpel containing a single seed, while the remainder of the fruit contained but one good seed. A Winesap from the Yakima Valley had on the lighter-colored side a deep red stripe covering about an eighth of the surface and including one carpel. This portion of the core contained one seed while there were seven seeds in the remainder of the fruit. A Rome grown at Pullman had half of the surface of a nearly solid red color, the remainder being green with red splashes. The lighter portion contained three seeds and the dark part two. A second specimen of Rome from Pullman had a dark area covering two carpels, an area of moderately light color, also covering two carpels, and a still lighter portion covering one carpel which was seedless. The other portions contained three seeds each. The seeds from the differently colored portions of all these apples were saved separately and planted in the hope of obtaining some light in regard to the significance of such abnormalities.

Turning from freaks of color, we will next consider some apples of abnormal structure. The doubling of fruits or the multiplication of parts is a variation of less common occurrence in the apple than in some other species. Certain varieties of the plum, for example, ordinarily produce a fairly large proportion of double fruits. These result from the presence of two complete pistils in a single blossom. Analogous cases of polycarpy occur in the apple, though less frequently than in the stone fruits. Apples having six carpels have come under my notice in the Grimes, Rome, Gano, Delicious, Chelan and Yellow Newtown varieties, and I have observed blossoms of the Golden Sweet having six pistils. The Yellow Newtown seems especially prone to this kind of variation and a number of specimens were found the past season containing six carpels, and in one instance a fruit with seven carpels was noted. The