Apologies for the sound quality. Trace solemnly swears this is our last Zoom recorded episode.

In 1886, the US government decided it was time we cataloged every fruit. Lacking the ability to take color pictures, a small group of artists, led by a talented female painter, began to create a record of over 6,000 fruits.

Show Notes:

USDA Pomological Watercolors

United States Dept of Agriculture: Ag magazine article on pomological watercolors

Daily "old fruit pictures" bot on that site formerly known at twitter

Deborah Griscom Passmore's lovingly written obituary Page 1 of 4 and Page 4 of 4.

P.S. We mention a mangosteen and then never explain what it is. Mangosteen is an evergreen tree from Central Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, etc.) The ripe fruits are purple and considered a food and a medicinal item.

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Should we do a different one? Welcome, Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton. I'm here with my cozy cup of tea. And today we have with us Trace Kerr. Trace, tell us a little about yourself.

[00:00:13] Speaker B: I hate everything about that.

[00:00:15] Speaker A: Today we're going to be talking about muffin tops. We're never going to talk about that. We're never going to. I'll circle back. I'm going to try it one more time, but I'll do it properly and won't say Amy Bart like it's a question. I'm going to be decisive that that's my name. Okay.

Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:34] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about pomology.

I didn't think we were going palm P-A-M-P-O-P-O-M. Pomo.

Pomology.

[00:00:48] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah.

It's the science of fruit breeding and production.

[00:00:53] Speaker A: Most things I've heard of a little. I've never heard of that.

[00:00:56] Speaker B: Me neither. And the reason why I know about it, actually, we're not really specifically talking about that, but we are going to be talking about a whole bunch of paintings that were done in what Anson dubbed ye oldie seed catalog, volume one.

[00:01:12] Speaker A: I love that style.

[00:01:15] Speaker B: I do, too.

[00:01:15] Speaker A: My favorite tattoo artist also is an illustrator for botanical books and does a lot of that cool stuff. Anyway, side road.

[00:01:23] Speaker B: Let's get to these botanicals. I am going to send you a couple to look at. I'm going to text them to you. Did the pictures come through? Have you seen them?

[00:01:36] Speaker A: Yes. They're amazing.

The first apple. You all out there, look them up too. It looks like you could pick it up. And it's a screedoesn't it? Does 7497 hand drawn pictures.

[00:02:18] Speaker A: Wow. How many different artists?

[00:02:21] Speaker...

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