The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1904-05-01

tnaC the same treatment JIdJ u6 az
corded to his "pedigreed stock" would
make fine strawberries out of scrub
stock. So while we may receive his
teaching on his hobby with grain
or two of salt, we may be greatly bene
fitted with his methods of culture, use
of fertilizers and his whole process
of caring for his plants.
By the way, the man with hobby
is very apt to be a useful man. He
is a man who does something. He
may carry his hobby too far but his
enthusiasm marks him as man who
makes things go. Such a man is to
be preferred to the drOne who never
does anything or is content to follow
implicitly in the footsteps of others.
Inventors are nearly always consid-
cred cranks till they make success
of something and then they are re-
puted to be men of genius. A man
with a hobby never stops. While
others laugh and scorn he goes ahead
he can't stop. story illustrative
of this is told as follows: A man
visiting an asylum for the insane saw
an old friend riding hObby-hOrSe
"You are riding your hobby, said
his friend. '*'No, I am not" said the
insane man, ''this is my hobby-horse
and not my hobby what is the diff
ference, inquired his friend 'Just
this" replied the ratified man, when
l ride my hobby-horse, l can stop
when I want to, but when I ride my
hobby, I can't"
John F. Spencer, of Grand Valley,
Colorado, has developed seedless
apple and quite an ado has been made
over the occurrence. There is moth
ing remarkable nor very valuable
about this. l have seen many seed
less apples. The Red June apple often
bears a second crop of apples and they
are always seedless. The same is
true of the Maiden's Blush. 1t is
hardly proper to call these apples a
second crop for there are not many
of them. Sometimes limb or a
sprOut will have some seedless apples
on it. Now if CRAFTS are taken from
such limb or sprout the result be a
seedless apple tree. But will such
apples be of much, if any, value? That
is extremely doubtful. The cause for
such seedless apples is that the flower
has no stamens-it is imperfectly
emasculated. If it does not deterior-
ate it will be a wonder. Allowing,
however, that it will not, we can not
grow other kinds seedless, unless we
can find some way to make other vari-
cites seedless. That has not been
done yet and may never be done. Are
we willing to give up our Grimes
Golden, Jonathan, Spitzenburg, and
so on for a seedless Ben Davis or
sour and seedless Seeding? Hardly.
The seeds of the apple are not much
in the way anyhow. They are not dis
tributed through the meat of the ap-
pie as in the case of some other
fruits. I am not at all enthusiastic
over this so-called discovery. Then
what is the poor boy at school going
to do when he has no apple to eat
but has to wait around for the core
of the apple in the hands of the more
fortunate boy? When he asks for the
core is he to hear the heartrending
reply, Jimmy, there amt going to
be no core to this apple?" Perish the
thought!
Recently in taking the bands off our
apple trees in order to kill the winter
larvae of the codling moth, many of
the cocoons were found to be empty.
Why this? l don't fully know. Some
we know had been picked open by the