Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-11-18
Dr. Cutting ON the Track of Fact
About Apples.

Dr. Cutting ON the Track of Fact
About Apples.
We used to hear years ago of trees that
bore sour apples and sweet apples on tine
same branch, and also of apples that were
sour on one side and sweet on the other side,
but such fruit was denounced by high scien-
tifc authority as having no right to exist, nor
a possible chance of existence Whoever
professed to have known of such irregular
conduct in an apple tree was ridcued and
discredited. Our efficient secretary of the
Board of Agriculture and curator of the
state cabinet DIR. Hiram A. Cutting of Lunen-
burg, was one whose misfortune it was to
discover such an apple tree, ten or fifteen
years ago, and to communicate the fact to
the papers, for which he was abused by the
scientists generally, and his character for
truth and veracity impeached and his intelli-
gence questioned by the Smithsonian Insti-
tuition. Having neglected to preserve the
proof of his discovery, the doctor waited for
the next seasons fruit from the anomalous
tree, to vindicate himself and show the pro-
fessors how little they knew of some things
of which they assumed certain knowledge
But the tree failed to bear the singular fruit
again, for it died during the winter, and so,
according to the Waterman, from which we
obtain the story, the doctor was left without
the anticipated evidence with which he would
have silenced the SCOTS and jeers of the un-
believers, and so the reputation of the apple
family for orderly lives has ever since remain
ed unimpeached.
But during all these years the doctor has
had his eyes on them, convinced that what
had happened in the orchard in Lunenburg
had happened before in some place, and
would somewhere happen again. This fall
the doctors patient vigils were richly re-
warded. On an apple tree in the orchard of
Seth Griffith, South Hero, he learned that
there was incontestible confirmation of his
discredited arraignment of the apple race for
gross Irregularities. Visiting the tree he
found it laden with apples part of which
were very sour, part very sweet, and third
part were half sweet and half sour. Speci-
mems of this hybrid fruit were shown at the
Watchman Office and examined and tested by
many witnesses. The specimens exhibited
were picked from cluster at the end of a
limb. The sour apple was similar in shape,
aze and color to a Greening, but very tart ;
the sweet was smaller, of golden color and
very sweet. The specimen in which these
two qualities were united was a curiosity.
The fine line of demarkation between the
sweet and the sour was clearly defined the
sweet and the sour sections were of the color
and quality of the all-sweet and all.sour spec
linens, and the difference was as marked OF
each side close to the dividing line as in the
remotest portions. Furthermore, as the all
sour was larger than the all-sweet, this dis
tinction was also maintained in the mongrel
the sour section being relatively larger thar
the sweet section. These apples were repre-
sentatives of the entire product of the tree
which was about equally divided between
these three varieties In this feature, how
ever, the product of the tree has not beef
uniform some years there will be NOR
sweet than sour, or giee Uersa, and in tn
mixed speoimes there will be sweet or sou
section larger or smaller than a quarter sho
into the body of the apple. DIR. Cutting ha
bought the fruit of this tree, and, intrenche
behind conclusive verifcation of his origina
statement and theory of these anomalous pre-
ceedings in the apple family, he will cor
vince all skeptics of the facts by producin
irrefragable proof The tree is a graft, tn
parent tree bearing fruit of similar character
istics These facts seem to DIR. Cutting I
refute some Of the pet theories of pomologisi
as to the unchanged character of reprodut
ton in the fruit kingdom,-a matter whic
we leave them to fight out. The facts aboy
detailed are indisputable.