Trove Tuesday

Apple and Pear Varieties - where have they all gone?

So here we go again with something from the local paper in 1927. This time it is a list of prizes available at the Somerville Show in March 1927. It was a really long list but what struck me was the number of apple and pear varieties that they were offering prizes for.
So here's the list.... how many varieties can you find for sale these days? How many varieties have you even heard of?

APPLES
Reinette de Canada
Five Crown
Jonathan
Emperor
Cox's Orange
Chandler
Stone Pippin
Gravenstein
Rome Beauty
Munro's Favourite
Duke of Clarence
Delicious
King David
Granny Smith
Tasma or Democrat
Alfriston
Stewart's Seedling
Sturmer

PEARS
Ganzell's Bergamot
Beurre de Capimont
William Bon Chretien
Vicar of Winkfield
Keiffer's Hybrid
Black Akan
Broom Park
Madame Cole
Beurre Bosc
Beurre Clairgeau
Howell
Winter Nelis
Winter Cole
Beurre d'Anjou
Packham's Triumph

Of course the district was a big producer of apples and pears, that's why there are so many cool stores around the place. Not that they are being used for their proper purpose any more.

Anyway here is the link to the article listing the prizes available and also the link to the list of prize winners (if you are interested). I have to tell that they are very long lists and it's not just apples and pears, there are prizes for a few (very few) vegies, flowers, fancy work (embroidery), cows and horses.

Prize List: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/74990954
Winners: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/74991068

TROVE TUESDAY

For some time now I have been participating in a project for my local library correcting the OCR text for historic issues of the local newspaper which has been scanned into the Trove database.

I have been assigned 1927 and have just finished correcting the issue for 18 March 1927 of the Frankston & Somerville Standard. Occasionally you find something that just tickles the funny bone, like when the scanning software reads Frankston as Prankston - that's a bit of a favourite. Perhaps Frankston could have some sort of practical joke festival!

The other thing you notice is the way the meanings of words have changed over time, for example the word "gay". When I was growing up gay meant bright and happy - now you couldn't use the word in that context at all. So imagine my surprise when I saw the following headline in the paper,
When Our Town Goes Gay
in relation to the Traders' Picnic. And then they also used the word further down the article when describing the crowd.

Here is a link to the article which describes in detail, the day of the Traders' Picnic.

 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/74990842

Happy reading.