zxcvbob wrote:

sherwindu wrote:
Bill,
I am not trying to be a 'smart alec' or a 'mister know it all', but this father does have
other easy choices. He can plant a stone fruit seed, which has a much better chance
of coming out with decent tasting fruit. He can plant a raspberry shoot from one of his
neighbor's bush. Giving the kid the false hope that he will get a tasty apple after nurturing his
tree for many years will most likely disappoint him.

He just needs to set the kid's expectations for a nice big tree that
will bear yucky apples eventually. The entire top of the tree can be
replaced later by grafting/budding the scaffold branches later if they
want to.

Why bother? If he wants to graft something, he can buy a rootstock
and get several years headstart on getting his first apples.



If he "wins the lottery" he might get a good apple and he can name it.

If the fruit is small and sour, it might make good jelly, pickles,
and/or pies.

Now the kid has to learn all about canning and baking.



The tree is unlikely to survive the first year anyway, why not give it a
chance?

If he takes care of it, the tree has a good chance of surviving the first year.
That's why people take the trouble to plant stone fruits from seed. From
a plant standpoint, this seed is very capable of reproducing another tree.



If he has room for it, he can also plant a good semi-dwarf grafted tree
and it will bear in about 3 years.

Why not do it right the first time.



Bob

On 9/25/05 1:45 AM, in article , "sherwindu"
wrote:


Have you ever done anything for the sheer joy and adventure of it? Or is
your life that regimented?

That pip is a gamble - it might produce good fruit, nice spring fragrance,
or better yet an adult that loves gardening.

My grandfather was just slightly better off than the average subsistence
farmer, but he encouraged me to plant a few pips along the way.

Cheryl

sherwindu wrote:

zxcvbob wrote:


sherwindu wrote:

Bill, I am not trying to be a 'smart alec' or a 'mister know it
all', but this father does have other easy choices. He can plant
a stone fruit seed, which has a much better chance of coming out
with decent tasting fruit. He can plant a raspberry shoot from
one of his neighbor's bush. Giving the kid the false hope that
he will get a tasty apple after nurturing his tree for many
years will most likely disappoint him.

He just needs to set the kid's expectations for a nice big tree
that will bear yucky apples eventually. The entire top of the tree
can be replaced later by grafting/budding the scaffold branches
later if they want to.


Why bother? If he wants to graft something, he can buy a rootstock
and get several years headstart on getting his first apples.


For the experience.


If he "wins the lottery" he might get a good apple and he can name
it.

If the fruit is small and sour, it might make good jelly, pickles,
and/or pies.


Now the kid has to learn all about canning and baking.


You said that like it was a bad thing.


If he has room for it, he can also plant a good semi-dwarf grafted
tree and it will bear in about 3 years.


Why not do it right the first time.


And the right thing is to throw away the seedling that the kid already
has grown and tell him that he shouldn't have wasted his time?

The father is not proposing that they plant an apple seed and grow their
own apples. You are purposely overlooking the fact that they already
have a little apple tree. He has to set the kid's expectations
appropriately low without killing the enthusiasm.

-Bob

In article ,
says...


Bill wrote:

In article ,
says...
Bill,
I am not trying to be a 'smart alec' or a 'mister know it all', but this father does have
other easy choices.

Yes, he does.

He can plant a stone fruit seed, which has a much better chance
of coming out with decent tasting fruit. He can plant a raspberry shoot from one of his
neighbor's bush. Giving the kid the false hope that he will get a tasty apple after nurturing his
tree for many years will most likely disappoint him.

Now see, you can say there is a high probability that the fruit will
be worthless. What you can't say is that there is a 100% certainty of
it.

There's also a good chance that the seeding wouldn't survive the first
winter.


By the way, I am not clairvoyant about how these apples will turn out. Just ask any
orchardist in the business if it is profitable to plant apples seeds. These people do look
for new apples (sometimes called 'sports'), but they do it scientifically, mixing known
varieties, and they do get a very low success ratio. Occasionally an amateur will 'stumble' on a
chance mutation, but this rarely happens.

See, you just said it happens. Yes rarely, but it does happen.

There is little doubt that it
is possible to grow an apple from a seed, but unlike vegetables, the result is much less
than what is expected.

Maybe, maybe not. Do you think that maybe, by the time the tree is old
enough to bear fruit, that the child will have grown enough to
understand that it was a slim possibility that the fruit would be
worthwhile in the end? And that the lesson to be learned is that
without trying, you'll never know for sure?

Why don't you tell the kid to stand in front of a speeding car, so he can fully
learn what it means to be runned over. He may survive the experience, but
without trying, you'll never know for sure.


Straw man. Stick a fork in you, your done.




Besides the name for a fruit tree that puts out crappy or no fruit is
'ornamental'.

WRONG!

There are specific cultivars of trees like a flowering pear that fall under the
classification of an ornamental tree, or one that never produces ANY fruit.

Ornamental trees that produce fruit: Mexican Fan Palm, California Fan
Palm, Ginko Balboa, California Pepper Tree, Buckeyes, etc., etc.

Above varies from barely palatable, unpalatable, to poisonous, to no
fruit male Ginko Balboa .


As far as I know, there is no official name for a tree that puts out bad fruit
or a fruit tree that fails to produce any fruit.

See above, you were wrong to begin with, you're wrong now.

You may have the last word, if you feel the need. I'm done with this
thread.


Bill

I said:


Besides the name for a fruit tree that puts out crappy or no fruit is
'ornamental'.

You said:



Ornamental trees that produce fruit: Mexican Fan Palm, California Fan
Palm, Ginko Balboa, California Pepper Tree, Buckeyes, etc., etc.

Besides the name for a fruit tree that puts out crappy or no fruit is
'ornamental'.

Above varies from barely palatable, unpalatable, to poisonous, to no
fruit male Ginko Balboa .


My comment:


As far as I know, there is no official name for a tree that puts out bad fruit
or a fruit tree that fails to produce any fruit.
Your comment:

See above, you were wrong to begin with, you're wrong now.

My comment:

I guess you missed the fact we were talking about FRUIT trees.
Although the trees you mentioned put out some kind of fruit, they
are not considered fruit trees.

I still think you are misusing the word 'ornamental' as it pertains
to fruit trees.

Here is what 'answers.com' describes about fruit trees:

"A fruit tree is a tree bearing fruit — the structures formed by the ripened ovary of a flower
containing one or more seeds. However, because all trees of flowering plants produce
fruit (essentially all trees except tree ferns and gymnosperms), the term in horticultural usage applies to
trees providing fruit as human food."

Here is what that same source says about ornamentals:

"Something that serves as ornamentation, especially a plant grown for its beauty."


Another words, the trees you mentioned are not commonly referred to as fruit trees. Also, commonly known
fruit
trees that do not produce fruit are not called ornamentals. There are many reasons why these common fruit
trees do
not produce fruit, which is usually a seasonal thing, like biennial producers. Some of these trees do not
receive the
proper pollination, and thus produce no fruit. That doesn't make them ornamentals.





You may have the last word, if you feel the need. I'm done with this
thread.

Thanks for the opportunity to set things right.



Bill

Right or wrong, I don't see what all this has to do with the original thread.
Trying to catch me on a technicality doesn't make your argument any stronger.

Sherwin