We took your apples to the Missouri State Horticultural Society, at its annual meeting, at Jefferson City. The variety you call the Kentucky Red we know to be the Ben Davis, but the other varieties we could not identify. No one at the meeting could identify the Royal Red or the Schoolfield. Several pronounced the Thurman to be the Ben Davis also. It resembles it much in many respects, but we think it is not.

Reply #1

The answer to the first query seems easy enough. Nature is a wonderful alchemist, but cannot perform the miracle of making wine out of water. If the atmosphere around the vine, or the earth covering its roots is saturated with moisture, the sun will try, in vain, to elaborate sufficient sugar in the grape, or produce the true Falernian fire in the wine; but instead there will be the " earthy flavor' or something else that is " flat, stale and unprofitable," in the liquid falsely called wine.

In answer to your inquiry respecting the habit of vine roots that are not irrigated, I can only say that the penetrating deep into the arid and stony soil shows an instinct stronger than reason. The plant is evidently in search of water, and stretches down its long fibres to meet the slight moisture that rises by capillary attraction. I once knew an apple tree that stood in dry, stony ground, some fifteen feet from a foundation wall, that was sunk two feet in the ground. On the other side of the wall was a trough for watering stock, and the surface of the ground was always wet. A root from the apple tree, thirsting for water, started to find it. Reaching the wall it first turned up, but coming near the surface, it became conscious of a mistake and turned downwards again, pushing its way quite under the broad stone wall and coming up to drink just under the horse trough. Plants sometimes show more sense than people. You. may see a man climb walls and go around all sorts of corners to find a glass of whisky, but where did you ever find one digging under a stone wall to get a drink of water?