Excerpt from American Agriculturalist, Volume 38, June 1879.

Growth Under Difficulties—Bottled Apples

We know that apples are canned or bottled, but this is after they have been quartered and cooked. Some one, probably an inventive boy, tried to bottle a whole raw apple, and the engraving shows how he succeeded. A droll looking apple, and you will no doubt ask how it was done?

The apple was put into the bottle while still small enough to pass through the neck of the ink bottle. But the apple was not to be bound down and limited to the size of the glass prison into which it had been thrust. The strong wall of glass was burst open and the growing fruit has forced its way out on one side in a singular manner, while a portion has literally overrun the mouth. If the bottle had been larger there would have been simply a change of shape to correspond to the form of the bottle.

These examples are interesting, and teach the power which a tender but growing substance can exert. This shows us how we can, to a certain extent, control nature, and on the other hand, how every living thing is striving to reach a definite end, and will succeed under ordinary circumstances, but when molested, as in the case of the bottle and the apple, will approach as near as possible to the regular established form.

To bottle apples alive, you must use larger bottles or have smaller apples, or the result will not be any more successful that the one in the engraving.

Editor's Note: This is a reprint of an article published in 1879. It describes what was recommended in accordance with the knowledge and practices of the day. While reading it, please consider this fact.