The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1905-06-01

mission. Since the recent outbreak of
| the pipe dreamer's advertising began,
| several seedless apples have been re-
ported from different parts of the coun-
| try. The whole seedless apple question
had it's last previous turn in this coun-
| try only fifteen years ago, when it was
fully exposed by Professor l.. H. Bailey
and other eminent pomologists. AS a
matter of fact this freak of horticulture
was well known to all the old botanists
and pomologists. Duhameps magnifi-
cent work on fruit trees, published in
plate of the fruit and blossoms, with
two pages of Descriptive text. An ear
| lier picture and description appears in
Bauhins Historia in 1852
emitting hundreds OF other references
to seedless and bloomless apples, the
record of Pliny may be quoted, who
named the apple "a conditione castrati
seminis, quae spadonia appellant Bel
gae' among those familiar to the Ro-
mans at the beginning of the Christian
era. Thus it will be seen that we must
all agree with Solomon when he said
there was nothing new under the sun
except possibly the crop of suckers
which hobs up in every generation
Some amusing things emanate from
fruit growers and inspectors. One
man two or three years ago recon-
mended boring into the trees affected
with fungOus diseases and putting in
quantity of sulphur. This was to
be securely plugged so the sulphur
would not run out when it "dissolved".
Had this man learned that sulphur is
insoluble in water he might have seen
the fallacy of his procedure. If the
tree should stand there and the plug
not rot the sulphur would be there
"undissolved" after a hundred years.
A man once got up in an institute
where I was, and said that the copper
in copperas might do plants some
good. Now as matter of fact there
is no copper in copperas. Copperas is
the sulphate of iron. Then why is it
called copperas? Because of its de-
rivation from the Latin through the
Spanish and French and denoted a
certain kind of cOlOring matter
I was once in a Farmers Institute
where a good man and true gravely
asserted that he Once had cling
peach tree which was surrounded with
free stone peaches and after few
years it began to bear freestone
peaches and continued to do so as
lOuS DIS IL llV0u. f10 Cdll0u ILLS d IO-
markable case of cross OllenatiOn, or
cross "pollenization" as he called it.
He was perfectly sincere about the
matter and said he could prove it. The
good man was evidently mistaken. Had
he not been, such a feat would put
Luther Burbanks in the shade and
make him feel very small. But have
just read a certificate of nursery in
spection and it now lies before me,
which for wonderful feats takes the
cake. 1t reads as follows, names omit
ted: "This is to certify that I have
examined the nursery of -of--,
and found the trees to be the best
ever saw. All varieties true to name.''
How any man can go into nursery or
thousands of trees and certify that
all are true to name is too much for
me. Next!
N. McAuley, Of Tacoma, asks the
following question: GAS editor of
The Ranch will you be kind enough
to publish in its columns the best way
to make cider vinegar?" I take it
for granted that friend McAuley wants
information as to the necessary steps
to make homemade" cider vinegar.