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THE APPLE-TREE
THE OPEN COUNTRY BOOKS
A continuing company of genial little books
about the out-of-doors
Under the editorship of
L. H. BAILEY
1. The Apple-Tree L. H. Bailey
2. A Home Vegetable Garden Ella M. Freeman
3. The Cow Jared Van Wagenen, Jr.
Others about weather and the sky, scenery,
camps, recreation, quadrupeds, fishes, birds,
insects, reptiles, plants, and the places in the
open.
The Open Country Books--No. 1
THE APPLE-TREE
BY
L. H. BAILEY
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1922.
FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY
NEW YORK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Where There is no Apple-Tree 7
II. The Apple-Tree in the Landscape 10
III. The Buds on the Twigs 15
IV. The Weeks Between the Flower and the Fruit 19
V. The Brush Pile 27
VI. The Pruning of the Apple-Tree 36
VII. Maintaining the Health and Energy of the Apple-Tree 41
VIII. How an Apple-Tree is Made 48
IX. The Dwarf Apple-Tree 54
X. Whence Comes the Apple-Tree? 60
XI. The Varieties of Apple 66
XII. The Pleasant Art of Grafting 79
XIII. The Mending of the Apple-Tree 85
XIV. Citizens of the Apple-Tree 89
XV. The Apple-Tree Regions 97
XVI. The Harvest of the Apple-Tree 102
XVII. The Appraisal of the Apple-Tree 107
[Illustration: 1. The home apple-tree]
THE APPLE-TREE
I
WHERE THERE IS NO APPLE-TREE
The wind is snapping in the bamboos, knocking together the resonant
canes and weaving the myriad flexile wreaths above them. The palm
heads rustle with a brisk crinkling music. Great ferns stand in the
edge of the forest, and giant arums cling their arms about the trunks
of trees and rear their dim jacks-in-the-pulpit far in the branches;
and in the greater distance I know that green parrots are flying in
twos from tree to tree. The plant forms are strange and various,
making mosaic of contrasting range of leaf-size and leaf-shape, palm
and grass and fern, epiphyte and liana and clumpy mistletoe, of grace
and clumsiness and even misproportion, a tall thick landscape all
mingled into a symmetry of disorder that charms the attention and
fascinates the eye.
It is a soft and delicious air wherein I sit. A torrid drowse is in
the receding landscape. The people move leisurely, as befits the world
where there is no preparation for frost and no urgent need of
laborious apparel. There are tardy bullock-carts, unconscious donkeys,
and men pushing vehicles. There are odd products and unaccustomed
cakes and cookies on little stands by the roadside, where the turbaned
vendor sits on the ground unconcernedly.
There are strange fruits in the carts, on the donkeys that move down
the hillsides from distant plantations in the heart of the jungle, on
the trees by winding road and thatched cottage, in the great crowded
markets in the city. I recognize coconuts and mangoes, star-apples and
custard-apples and cherimoyas, papayas, guavas, mamones, pomegranates,
figs, christophines, and the varied range of citrus fruits. There are
also great polished apples in the markets, coming from cooler regions,
tied by their stems, good to look at but impossible to relish; and I
understand how these people of the tropics think the apple an inferior
fruit, so successfully do the poor varieties stop the desire for more.
There are vegetables I have never seen before.
I am conscious of a slowly moving landscape with people and birds and
beasts of burden and windy vegetation, of prospects in which there are
no broad smooth farm fields with fences dividing them, of scenery full
of herbage, in which every lineament and action incite me and
stimulate my desire for more, of days that end suddenly in the
blackness of night.
Yet, somehow, I look forward to the time when I may go to a more
accustomed place. Either from long association with other scenes or
because of some inexpressible deficiency in this tropic splendor, I am
not satisfied even though I am exuberantly entertained. Something I
miss. For weeks I wondered what single element I missed most. Out of
the numberless associations of childhood and youth and eager manhood
it is difficult to choose one that is missed more than another. Yet
one day it came over me startlingly that I missed the apple-tree,--the
apple-tree, the sheep, and the milch cattle!
The farm home with its commodious house, its greensward, its great
barn and soft fields and distant woods, and the apple-tree by the
wood-shed; the good home at the end of the village with its sward and
shrubbery, and apple roof-tree; the orchard, well kept, trim and
apple-green, yielding its wagon-loads of fruits; the old tree on the
hillside, in the pasture where generations of men have come and gone
and where houses have fallen to decay; the odor of the apples in the
cellar in the cold winter night; the feasts around the fireside,--I
think all these pictures conjure themselves in my mind to tantalize me
of home.
And often in my wanderings I promise myself that when I reach home I
shall see the apple-tree as I had never seen it before. Even its bark
and its gnarly trunk will hold converse with me, and its first tiny
leaves of the budding spring will herald me a welcome. Once again I
shall be a youth with the apple-tree, but feeling more than the
turbulent affection of transient youth can understand. Life does not
seem regular and established when there is no apple-tree in the yard
and about the buildings, no orchards blooming in the May and laden in
the September, no baskets heaped with the crisp smooth fruits; without
all these I am still a foreigner, sojourning in a strange land.
II
THE APPLE-TREE IN THE LANDSCAPE
The April sun is soft on the broad open fenced fields, waking them
gently from the long deep sleep of winter. Little rills are running
full. The grass is newly coolly green. Fresh sprouts are in the sod.
By copse and highway the shad-bushes salute with their handkerchiefs.
Apple-trees show tips of verdure. It is good to see the early greens
of changing spring. It is good to look abroad on an apple-tree
landscape.
As to its vegetation, the landscape is low and flat, not tall. There
is a vast uniformity in plant forms, a subdued and constrained
humility. A month later the leafage will be in glory, but that also
will have an aspect of sameness and moderation. Perhaps the actual
variety of species will be greater than in many parts of the abounding
tropics, and to the careful observer the luxuriance will be as great,
although not so big; but as I look abroad I am impressed with the
economy of the prospect. It comes nearer to my powers of assimilation,
quiets me with a deep satisfaction; the contrasts are subdued, the
processes grade into each other imperceptibly in the land of the
lingering twilight.
In this prospect are maples and elms and apple-trees. The maples and
elms are of the fields and roadsides. The apple-trees are of human
habitations and human labor; they cluster about the buildings, or
stand guard at a gate; they are in plantations made by hands. As I see
them again, I wonder whether any other plant is so characteristically
a home-tree.
So is the apple-tree, even when full grown, within the reach of
children. It can be climbed. Little swings are hung from the branches.
Its shade is low and familiar. It bestows its fruit liberally to all
alike.
The apple is a sturdy tree. Short of trunk and short of continuous
limb, it is yet a stout and rugged object, the indirectness of its
branching branches adding to its picturesque quality. It is a tree of
good structure. Although its limbs eventually arch to the ground, if
left to themselves, they yet have great strength. The angularity of
the branching, the frequent forking, the big healing or hollow knots
with rounding callus-lips, give the tree character. Anywhere it would
be a marked tree, unlike any other.
The bark on the older surface sheds in short oblong irregular scales
or plates that detach perhaps at both ends and often at the sides,
clinging by the middle until the curl loosens them and they fall to
the ground. These plates or chips are more or less rowed up and down
the trunk and on the larger branches, yet the apple bark is not ridged
and furrowed as on the elm. The bark is not checked in squares as on
old pear-trees nor peeling as on cherries. In dry weather, the loose
old bark is dark brown-gray, often supporting gray lichens, but in
rain it is soft and nearly black, yielding pleasantly to the touch. In
the forks, the bark is not so readily cast and there the chips may lie
in heaps. On the young limbs and small trunks the bark is tight and
close, not splitting into seams or furrows with the expansion of the
cylinder but stretching and throwing off detached flakes and chips.
Under the chips various insects hide or make some of their
transformations. There the codlin-moth pupates. The old remains of
scale insects may be found on the exterior. In the furrows about the
dormant buds the eggs of plant-lice pass the winter.
To destroy these breeding and hiding places, many careful
apple-growers scrape away the loose bark, being careful not to expose
the quick living tissue; and on the younger wood the eggs of aphis and
other pests, as well as cocoons and nymphs, are destroyed by vigorous
winter spraying. The regular spraying of apple-trees, in the different
seasons, more or less sterilizes the bark. Many forms of canker, due
to fungi and bacteria, invade the bark, making sunken areas and scars,
often so serious as to destroy the tree. All these features are
discoverable in the apple-tree.
The trunk of the apple-tree is short and stout, usually not perfectly
cylindrical and not prominently buttressed at the base. In old trees
it is usually ribbed or ridged, sometimes tortuous with spiral-like
grooves, often showing the bulge where the graft was set. The wood is
fine-grained and of good color, and lends itself well to certain kinds
of cabinet work and to the turning-lathe for household objects; it
should be better known.
[Illustration: 2. The apple-tree in the landscape]
If left to itself, the tree branches near the ground, making many
strong secondary scaffold trunks; but the plant does not habitually
have more than one bole, even though it may branch from the very base;
it is a real tree, even though small, and not a huge shrub. In the
natural condition, the trunk often rises only a foot or two before
it is lost in the branches; at other times it may be four or six feet
high. Under cultivation, the lowest branches are usually removed when
the tree begins to grow, and an evident clean trunk is produced. In
Europe and the Eastern States, it has been the practice to trim the
trunk clean to the height of four or six feet; but in hotter and drier
regions the trunk is kept short to insure against sun-scald; and with
the better tillage implements of the present day it may not be
necessary to train the heads so high.
In old hill pastures, in many parts of the North, one sees curious
umbrella forms and other shapes of apple-trees, due to browsing by
cattle. A little tree gets a start in the pasture. When cattle are
turned in, they browse the tender terminal growth. The plant spreads
at the base, in a horizontal direction. With the repeated browsing on
top, the tree becomes a dense conical mound. Eventually, the leader
may get a strong headway, and grows beyond the reach of the browsers.
As it rises out of grasp, it sends off its side shoots, forming a
head. The cattle browse the under side of this head, as far as they
are able to reach, causing the tree to assume a grotesque hour-glass
shape, flat on the under part of the head, with a cone of green
herbage at the ground. Sometimes pastures are full of little hummocks
of trees that have not yet been able to overtop the grazers.
The winter apple-tree in the free is a reassuring object. It has none
of the sleekness of many horticultural forms, nor the fragility of
peaches, sour cherries and plums. It stands boldly against the sky,
with its elbows at all angles and its scaly bark holding the snow.
Against evergreens it shows its ruggedness specially well. It
presents forms to attract the artist. Even when gnarly and broken, it
does not convey an impression of decrepitude and decay but rather of a
hardy old character bearing his burdens. In every winter landscape I
look instinctively for the apple-tree.
We are so accustomed to the apple-tree as a part of an orchard, where
it is trimmed into shape and its bolder irregularities controlled,
that we do not think it has beauty when left to itself to grow as it
will. An apple-tree that takes its own course, as does a pine-tree or
an oak, is looked on as unkempt and unprofitable and as a sorry object
in the landscape, advertizing the neglect of the owner. Yet if the
apple-tree had never borne good fruit, we should plant it for its
bloom and its picturesqueness as we plant a hawthorn or a locust-tree.
In winter and in summer, and in the months between, my apple-tree is a
great fact. It is a character in the population of my scenery,
standing for certain human emotions. The tree is a living thing, not
merely a something that bears apples.
III
THE BUDS ON THE TWIGS
Now the buds begin to break. The firm winter-buds swell. Their scales
part. Tips of green appear. Tiny leaves come forth, neatly rolled
inward, growing as they expand, the stalks lengthening. Resurrection
is astir in the tree.
Several leaves issue from every bud. From some buds arise only leaves;
from others a flower-cluster emerges from the leaf-rosette, showing
faint color even before it expands. Very close together and tight
these unopened little flowers are packed as they emerge; if we had
looked at them with a lens as they lay in the bud in the long winter
we should understand why; now they escape their bonds and rapidly grow
as they are delivered, yet at first pressed together by head and stem
in their soft gray wool.
Thus are there two kinds of buds on the twig of the bearing
apple-tree,--the leaf-buds (sending forth leaves only), and the
flower-buds (bearing both leaves and flowers). And if we wish to
analyze more closely, we discover two kinds of leaf-buds,--those that
send forth a rapidly growing shoot bearing the leaves, and those from
which the leaf-cluster remains practically sessile on the branch.
These latter, or the strongest and best of them, will probably give
rise to short fruiting spurs and the others to elongated leafy
branches.
Before me as I write is an apple limb more than three feet long. It
has been a vigorous grower, for it is only three years old. The years
can be readily made out; there are two sets of "rings" separating
them. You may see these rings on all young apple limbs. They represent
the scars of the scales of the past terminal buds.
Three years ago my shoot was sent off from its parent branch; that
year it grew but four inches, bearing leaves on its sides, in the
axils of which developed buds for the winter and at the end a larger
terminal bud. Let us call this shoot 1918. Two years ago (1919),
whilst I was in a distant land, the terminal bud gave rise to a shoot
nineteen inches long; two buds near the end of the 1918 shoot pushed
out clusters of leaves and made spurs about one-half inch long; all
the other buds, five in number, remained dormant, and now they are
dead and are rapidly becoming mere scars. Last year (1920) the
terminal bud of 1919 gave rise to a shoot fifteen inches long; three
buds at the base of this two-year (1919) shoot remained dormant;
fourteen buds produced spurs. It is now the spring of 1921; the 1920
shoot has four dormant buds at its base, ten rosettes of leaves from
the other buds, and a pushing terminal shoot.
On my branch this year, therefore, are 5 plus 3 plus 4, or 12 dormant
buds of all the years; 2 plus 14 plus 10, or 26 spurs; 1 terminal bud
continuing the onward growth.
[Illustration: 3. The bloom of the apple-tree]
It is evident that the last two years were good ones for my apple
limb, for the growths were long (19 and 15 inches) and most of the
buds produced spurs. The result is evidenced also in the fact that the
limb is this year laden with potential bloom. On 1918 the two spurs
bear flowers, one of them only a single bloom and the other five
blooms. On 1919 twelve of the fourteen spurs are bearing flowers in
the following numbers: 5 flowers, 5, 5, 7, 5, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 = 63
flowers. On 1920 are no spurs bearing flowers, but the terminal bud
(as is frequent on vigorous young trees) bears five flowers. Here,
therefore, on this yard of three-year-old twig are seventy-four
blossoms.
But there will not be seventy-four fruits; some of the flowers are
small and weak; others, as the petals fall, show unmistakable signs of
failing. A few of them show the plump form of an embryo apple: I think
there are a score of such promises. But I know that others will fail
later from physiological causes, and others probably from onslaught of
insects or disease or from accidents. If six fair fruits mature on a
branch like this, the crop will be good; and probably the branch would
not have vigor enough to set as many fruit-buds the following year or
to bear as many fruits.
It is good to watch the opening of the apple bloom: pink buds swelling
and puffing out each day, the woolly stems elongating, the five
overlapping incurving petals spreading and growing big, the stamens,
about twenty, straightening up and lengthening their filaments that
are attached on the flower-rim; the big light yellow anthers shedding
pollen; the five green styles in the center. In some flowers the
styles do not develop, and we have one reason why many flowers are
sterile.
The flower-clusters differ much among themselves, in size of parts,
number of flowers, color; on some trees the flowers appear in advance
of most of the leafage, but usually they are coincident with the
leaves. Sometimes the flower-stems or peduncles are branched, bearing
two or three flowers, and in that case there may be a small green leaf
or bract where the fork arises. The placing of the petals in the bud
at the epoch of expansion may differ in two flowers on the same tree.
One petal may stand guard outside the others and free from them, both
edges uncovered, while the remaining petals are spiral with one edge
under and one edge over; or there may be two guard petals, one on
either side; or sometimes all the petals may be spiral, one margin
out, one margin in; in some cases all the petals stand free as the
flower is expanding, with no margin interlapping. Sometimes one petal
is missing, and again the petals may be six.
This infinite variety within the bonds of so great regularity lends a
subtle charm to natural objects, that is wholly absent in man's
perfected machine-work. Man aims at uniformity, two and two alike;
nature aims at endless difference, every object or even every member
of an object having its own character. Much of man's energy is
expended in trying to overcome the diverseness of nature.
Gradually and slowly the flower balloons enlarge and puff themselves
up, the petals standing together at their tips; all the variety is
united into a harmony of exuberance, color and form; then one day
there is a shower of genial rain, a warm sun, birds in the air, bees
released, grasses soft and lush, and behold! the apple-tree is in
bloom,--a great heavenly mound of white and pink exhaling a faint
delicious breath. Then the pulses stir, the dogs bark at the edges of
the wood, the fields call, the scented winds lead on forever.
IV
THE WEEKS BETWEEN THE FLOWER AND THE FRUIT
The petals expand broadly, usually losing most of their pink. The
blade is oblong and rounded at the end, at first cupped and then
nearly flat, three-fourths of an inch long, narrowed at the base into
a short stem-like part and usually hairy there, the edges perhaps wavy
but entire. The expanse of the flower may be one and one-half to two
inches. The brush of stamens, erect in the center, sheds its pollen
and the anthers collapse.
Then the petals fall, like flakes of snow, borne often by the wind.
There remain the stout woolly flower-stems an inch or more long and
bearing minute dry bracts, with the young fruit at the summit topped
by the five recurving woolly sepals and the pencil of stamens and
styles. The bloom being gone, the flowering system of the apple is
thenceforth little observed. Not until the fruit begins to color do we
come back to the apple-tree to look at it closely; yet in these
intervening weeks some of the most interesting transformations take
place, and on the exact observance of them depends to a large extent
one's success in the rearing and saving of a good crop of apples.
Here is the flower of the apple-tree (Fig. 3). It is a comely
blossom, fragrant and pinky white, flatly spread to the sky, carrying
the spirit of the cool of the spring. What concerns us now, however,
is the cluster of stamens and pistils in the center, for these organs
are directly concerned in the production of the fruit. The petals soon
fall, but the remains of these interior organs persist, even unto the
ripening of the fruit.
The anther is attached at the back of its base or middle to the top of
the filament in the suture separating the two large cells. These
anther-cells split along the outer margins, releasing the
pollen-grains.
[Illustration: 4. Longitudinal section of the flower.]
In the center of the ring of stamens are the five style-branches,
which are united at the base into a short hairy column; the column is
borne on the ovary, which is sunken deep into the receptacle or stem
(Fig. 4). It is down these style-branches that the pollen-tube passes
on its way to the ovules or embryo seeds. The top of the style is
expanded into a cupped stigma on which are many glutinous points. One
can observe the browning and ripening of the stigma after pollen has
been deposited by wind, bees or other agencies. When the ovules are
fertilized, the forming fruit enlarges regularly unless it meets with
misfortune or is crowded out for lack of room and nourishment.
If one cuts across the ovary or embryo fruit below the recurving
sepals, one will see under a lens that it is neatly five-celled (Fig.
5). In each cell are two ovules; these, if all goes well, will ripen
into ten seeds. These five cells comprise most of the diameter in the
cross-section: but as the ovary enlarges and the young fruit grows,
one may see that the inner part comprising the cells begins to have a
character of its own and to be differentiated from the surrounding
flesh.
[Illustration: 5. Cross-section of the ovary.]
The "blossom" falls. In reality only the petals fall. What is left is
well shown in Fig. 6. Here remain the upstanding stamens with the
empty anthers, and in the center one could see the five styles if the
specimen were in hand. Here also are the calyx-lobes, widely spreading
and even recurved. The photograph for Fig. 6 was taken May 3. On May
17 another cluster was photographed from the same tree (Fig. 7). Three
of the flowers have produced sturdy young apples. The stems or
pedicels have become stouter, and they begin to spread. Note that the
calyx now is closed, the old stamens protruding, a circumstance that
will have special significance when we become acquainted with the
codlin-moth. Note also that one flower has failed, and remains as it
was two weeks earlier; it will soon fall. The young apples begin to
take shape. They show a glow of red on the cheek. They are fuzzy all
over. One of them is already injured on one side, having been stung by
a curculio or other insect: there are keen senses about the
apple-tree.
[Illustration: 6. May 3--When the petals have fallen]
[Illustration: 7. May 17--When the young fruits begin to show]
Two weeks later (May 31) still another cluster was taken from the same
tree (Fig. 8). Here are three fruits erect on their stems; one of them
is more than an inch in diameter either way, sturdy and unblemished;
another shows deformity due to insect puncture; the third remains
small and presently will drop. A scar in the leaf-axil marks the
failure of another flower. Four blossoms were in this cluster, but
only one fruit now has a chance to come to uninjured maturity, and two
have already failed. The big apple has now lost most of its fuzziness
and begins to assume a delicate "bloom" on its surface; the smallest
one--the one that soon will perish--still holds some of its fuzz. A
section of this smallest fruit discloses empty cells; apparently it
was not fertilized.
[Illustration: 8. May 31--The success and failure]
[Illustration: 9. June 14--The one big apple]
Another two weeks have passed. It is June 14th. From the same tree is
taken the photograph, Fig. 9. Here is a big apple, 1-1/2 inch in
diameter; and there is a dead shrivelled fruit that dropped when I
touched it. Of the several flowers in the cluster, all have failed but
one. This one fruit has now passed the danger of the blossom-end
infection by the codlin-moth and it has no blemishes. The many whitish
spots characteristic of the variety are now conspicuous all over the
surface. The ribs begin to show. There is a faint blush on the upper
side. The fuzz has disappeared and the bloom is becoming evident. The
calyx is tightly closed, although the tips of the sepals are spread
widely. The stem is stout. The weight of the apple inclines it nearly
to the horizontal. Yet this good apple is not symmetrical; one side is
larger than the other. I cut it crosswise and find two cells on the
larger side developing two strong seeds each, whilst those on the
smaller side have a single seed each and one of these seeds is small
and perhaps would not have matured. The fleshy part of the apple,
outside the core, now occupies about as much of the diameter as the
core itself and much more than one-half the bulk of the fruit.
Already my apple, now half grown, shows many of its distinctive
characteristics.
Yet another fortnight has come and gone, and it is June 28th. It has
been good "growing weather." Summer is here, full-orbed, regal,
bringing the abundance of the earth. Here are two stout apples hanging
on their stems (Fig. 10), for they are now too heavy to be held erect.
The larger fruit is a trifle more than two inches in diameter. The
feature spots are now still more prominent on these apples, the ribs
more pronounced, the blush against the sun more warm. Both these
fruits, from one spur, will mature; but the smaller one will be
blemished, for the apple-scab fungus has established itself on the
crown and about the calyx. Already the growth is checked in that area,
and the apple looks flattened. There is no evidence in either apple of
codlin-moth invasion. The adjoining spur, not clearly shown in the
photograph, is barren; it gave no flowers this year, and it shows no
indication of a blossom-bud for next year. The leaves are thick and
vigorous, yet they bear marks of insect injury and one of them has
been extensively skeletonized. On the whole, however, the fruits have
the mastery, and they now make a brave show.
[Illustration: 10. June 28, and the apples have taken their form]
July has passed this way. Tomorrow it will be August. The odor of
apples is now in my tree. There are big striped apples on the ground,
plucked by the wind, the hold loosened by bugs for they too have felt
the fullness of July. Three apples, one of them three inches through
and two and one-half inches high, and the others nearly as big, hang
at the level of my eyes. You may see them in Fig. 11. Here rises again
my boyhood spent in an orchard now passed away, as father and mother
have passed, as playmates have fallen one by one, the old place
holding only memories. Here is my boyhood because the earth is always
young and repeats her miracles for the children by my side as it did
for me so many many years ago. Yet the miracles are greater now than
they were then. They have more meaning. Now are they part of some
great order. They are not separate. Without moving my feet, I lay my
hands on apples, Virginia creeper, asparagus, marigold, sweet sultan,
oxalis, plantain, crab-grass, white clover, all growing securely in
one place, and everyone like unto itself alone. Here is the
everlasting miracle before my eyes, and all miracles are mysteries.
Once I thought I should understand such things when I was "grown up,"
but I find myself still a boy.
[Illustration: 11. July 31, and the apples are getting ripe]
These three apples on the last of the days of July look fair and
sound, partly hidden in the leaves, the deep red colors covering them
in broad splashed stripes and relieved by light dots. Yet when I raise
the leaves or when I lift the apples apart, I find the burrows of
insects. They know that these apples are good. It is astonishing how
nature covers up the wounds, how she conceals the sore places, and how
fair she makes everything look. Were it not that she covers the
depredations of man, the earth would not long remain habitable by him.
Summer is ended. Today the sun is on the equator, and we are at the
equinox when nights are equal to the days, as the word testifies. The
harvest is over. The apples are no more. Yet the tree still is active
and preparing for another year (Fig. 12). The spurs are now thick and
stout, bearing sturdy hard leaves. The bud in the center is a big
one, already recognized as a fruit-bud: here is the promise of
speckled, furrowed, striped apples next August. Thereby I learn that
it is not enough to be good to the tree in the year in which I desire
its fruit: I must begin the year before, and the year before that, and
even back at the time when the tree is planted; and if the tree at
planting-time is not a good tree, it will be at a disadvantage perhaps
all its life long.
[Illustration: 12. September 22, and the buds are formed for the next
year's crop]
Finally the apple is ripe and ready. At the stem end is the "cavity,"
a depression, deep or shallow, according to variety, in which the stem
is set. At the blossom end is the "basin," also with the
characteristics of the variety as to depth and width and contour, in
which the calyx-lobes persist, and inside the calyx are the remains of
the dead stamens and styles; the calyx may be "closed" or "open," the
character being a mark of the particular variety.
Cut the apple through the center lengthwise (Fig. 13); note the curved
outline of the core (the pistil) extending half or more across the
fruit; if you do not see this outline, cut an apple until you do;
carefully open the five cells or compartments and within the parchment
walls find the two seeds attached by their points which are directed
toward the stem end; perhaps one of the seeds has failed, but probably
a cavity marks its place; perhaps both seeds have failed; perhaps the
cell has more than two seeds.
[Illustration: 13. The apples in section]
Cut an apple cross-wise: note the five radiating cells of the core,
the number and attachment of the seeds; note the ten points, imbedded
in the flesh, marking the outline of the core. Cut an apple cross-wise
above the core and beneath it; note where these points vanish and try
to harmonize them with the core-outline as seen in the lengthwise
section; probably you will discover why you may not see the
core-outline in all the lengthwise sections you make. Before you leave
the fruit, note whether single seeds in a cell are the same shape as
the two seeds in a cell.
The flesh outside the core-outline is interpreted to be stem structure
rather than pistil structure. Sometimes an apple bears a scale-like
leaf on its exterior, suggesting that the outer part of the fruit is
stem. The older morphologists interpreted the apple flower to comprise
a hollowed calyx (calyx-tube) inside which is the pistil and on the
rim of which are the petals and stamens. The structure now is regarded
as a hollowed receptacle or stem (hypanthium), with the pistil inside,
the petals and stamens on its rim. We noted in the flower that the
ovary part of the pistil is solidly imbedded in this receptacle, but
that the five styles are free. The pear and quince are of similar
structure, but the peach, plum and cherry are simple ripened pistils.
Here, in this chapter, we have discovered some of the epochs in the
life of the apple. Usually we let the imagination run only to the
mature fruit, thinking of the harvest, but in all the weeks before the
harvest the apple has been growing and taking form. As these weeks
have not been blank to the apple-tree, so shall they not be blank to
me.
V
THE BRUSH PILE
Today I visited the brush pile back of the orchard. Here the trimmings
of the winter are placed, waiting to be burned when dry. How many are
the archives that will be destroyed! Here are histories in every bud
and twig and scar, of the seasons, of the accidents and deaths, the
records of the tree as there are records of families.
These records are not written in numbers or in letters, nor yet in
hieroglyphs; yet are they understandable. Alphabet is not needed, and
the key is simple.
From the brush pile of records I took one. I must describe it in part
by a picture (Fig. 14). On the living trees at this writing the petals
mostly have fallen and the leaves are nearly full grown. This branch
was cut in winter. It has lain in the snow and rain, putting forth no
flowers or leaves. Yet we can read it.
It is May, 1921. The terminal shoot is obviously of 1920; we shall
name it No. 1. It is a foot long, smooth and glossy, terminating at
the base (_o_) in a "ring" and at a short stub or branchlet. If we
count the buds on all sides of the shoot and at the tip we find them
to be 13. The largest one is at the tip, and they are mostly
successively smaller toward the base. Apparently the growth-energy was
expended in the upper parts of the twig, making large full buds. In
fact, the three or four lowermost buds are scarcely developed and
would not grow unless the limb were broken off above them; they are
dormant buds.
[Illustration: 14. A three-year record.--In a leisure hour, trace the
history of these parts; it will open your eyes.]
Looking along the shoot, I find that every six buds stand in the same
line: the sixth bud is over the first, seventh over the second, eighth
over the third. If I were to fasten a string to bud No. 1 and wind it
around the stem to my left, passing over every bud until I had reached
the sixth, I should find that it had made two circuits of the stem
(passed twice around it) and had passed over five spaces between buds.
This is the leaf-arrangement or phyllotaxy of the apple-tree,
expressed by the fraction 2/5. The space between two buds is
two-fifths of a diameter, and two circuits (ten-fifths) must be passed
before a bud comes over the one from which we started. The 2/5
leaf-arrangement obtains on cherry, peach, apricot, pear, raspberry
and many others; but a very different order is that of the linden,
grape, currant, lilies, elm, maple.
We cannot understand this simple unbranched terminal twig (No. 1)
until we know what took place last year. A year ago, in the spring of
1920, a terminal bud that had formed in 1919 expanded and gave rise to
this rapidly growing shoot. By the end of May or early June this shoot
had grown to twelve inches long, for the growth in length on the twigs
of trees is usually completed that early. This shoot bore leaves on
the 2/5 arrangement; in the axil of every leaf was a bud, the
strongest buds being with the strongest leaves at the middle and top
of the shoot; in the autumn of 1920 these leaves fell, but the buds
remained, persisted the winter, and were ready to "grow" in the early
spring of 1921. We see them on No. 1 (Fig. 14).
[Illustration: 15. The growing shoot, with a bud in each axil, and a
spur on last year's growth.]
In 1921 these buds on No. 1, then, would have grown. New leaves would
have come from the bud itself; in fact, the winter buds of the apple
are packed with miniature leaves and sometimes with flowers as well.
The shoot coming out of the bud may remain very short, constituting a
"spur," or grow with long internodes, making a slender twig. Fig. 15
shows a branch with new elongated growth, _b_ to _a_, and a shoot or
spur (_c_) arising from a bud of the previous year. Note the "ring,"
or division beyond _b_, marking the turn of the year.
It will be noted in Fig. 14 that the buds are of two shapes and sizes,
such as _a, a, a_, representing one kind and _b, b_, the other kind.
The former, small and pointed, are leaf-buds; from them will arise a
shoot bearing only leaves. The latter, _b_, large and rounded and
usually more fuzzy, are flower-buds (fruit-buds): from them will arise
a short shoot bearing leaves and a cluster of flowers; and we hope
that at least one of the flowers will set fruit.
We are now ready to resume our lesson with the branch before us. We
have identified the slender terminal part, No. 1, as the growth of
1920. We are now to account for all the remaining buds and branchlets.
If No. 1 grew in 1920, then the main shoot of No. 2 grew in 1919, from
the point _o o_. It is also one foot long. Near its base are four
small buds that remained dormant in 1920. There are nine branches
(_d_) of various lengths besides the terminal shoot No. 1, all of
which grew in 1920, for they are naturally a year younger than the
main axis from which they arise; these branches are the same age as
No. 1, with buds that would have produced shoots in 1921. But the
terminal buds of eight of these lateral shoots (all but the lowermost)
bear blossom-buds at the end; note their size and shape. Had not the
branch been cut, these buds would have bloomed in 1921; the eight of
them would have produced probably forty to fifty flowers; perhaps two
or three good fruits would have resulted. Note that two of the lateral
branches or spurs are short and weak: these would soon perish. The No.
2 branch has a dead end (_e_); in some way the terminal bud was
destroyed, and No. 1 sprang from a lateral bud beneath it, changing
the direction of growth.
If No. 2 grew in 1919, then No. 3 grew in 1918. It also grew about one
foot in length, showing that the conditions in the three years must
have been very uniform. There are remains of five dormant buds at its
base. There are seven side branches. As the main axis is three years
old, so these lateral shoots are two years old; they are the same age
as the axis No. 2. The lower one (_s_) grew less than an inch in 1919,
and made a fruit-bud; in 1920 it blossomed and one fruit set as is
shown by the square scar at the end; as the scar is small and the twig
weak, we are safe in assuming that the apple was very small or else
did not mature. A bud formed at the side of _s_ to continue the growth
of the spur next year (1921), but it is a leaf-bud; apparently there
was not sufficient energy to bear flowers and to make a fruit-bud; so
there would have been no more fruit on this spur earlier than 1922:
thus do we see that the alternate bearing of the apple-tree may have
some of its origin in the fruit-spur.
The side spur _f_ produced a terminal blossom-bud in 1919. In 1920 six
flowers opened,--I could count the scars. One of the flowers produced
a fruit, as I tell by the square scar at the end; the thickened stem
also indicates fruit-bearing. The side bud in this case is a
fruit-bud, but it is small and weak and is probably incapable of
producing a fruit. There are no strong leaf-buds to take up the work,
and this spur (_f_) would probably soon have died, as also would spur
_s_.
The side shoot _g_ grew to _h_ in 1919 and made a flower-bud. In 1920
this bud gave blossoms and one fruit resulted; the scar is prominent
and there is an enlargement of the tissue indicating that the fruit
probably attained good size; in 1920 also, two side spurs were formed
each with weak blossom-buds, also a terminal shoot (beyond _h_) with
leaf-bud at the end.
The other shoots have similar histories: the long shoot _i_ bore a
fruit-bud at _k_ in 1919 and a fruit in 1920; in 1920 it also made
three lateral shoots and a terminal shoot, with flower-buds
terminating two of them. Shoot _l_ bore flowers at its point in 1920
but did not carry the fruit to maturity; it also made two side growths
and one terminal growth, all terminated by flower-buds, to be blown in
1921. The shoot _m_ is a short spur that made a flower-bud in 1919 and
in 1920 carried three little fruits for a time and made a flower-bud
in 1920. Shoot _n_ remained very short in 1919, making a terminal
leaf-bud; in 1920 it grew two inches and made a weak flower-bud.
If shoot No. 3 grew in 1918, then No. 4 grew in 1917; but the branch
is severed and I cannot trace the record farther. We could trace the
family history many years if we had the unpruned tree before us.
Here, then, in my yard-long manuscript are forty bud-records on the
main axis, counting the terminals on No. 2 and No. 3. I can find
record of 144 buds on the side shoots. This makes a grand total of 184
buds. There is a total growth in length of 108 inches, or 9 feet. Each
of the buds that has already "grown" has produced an average of
probably ten leaves, or say 340 leaves in total. If there were an
average of five flowers to the cluster, then about 150 flowers would
have been carried on my branch, with the potentiality of 150 fruits;
but in fact not more than three or four maturing fruits would have
been produced in these years: and I should think this a good
proportion as blossoms and apples go. Certainly the branch has done
its part. There have been three eventful years.
I would not have my reader to suppose that one may always distinguish
leaf-buds and fruit-buds at a glance. I may be mistaken in some of the
above determinations, but they are essentially correct for I have the
twig before me. In some varieties of apples the differences between
the two kinds of buds are less marked. The certain way is to dissect
the bud: one may then see what it contains.
It now remains to determine how the branch was placed in the tree. It
must have been upright or very nearly so, for the main axis is
essentially straight and the branchlets are about equally developed on
all sides; moreover, there is no indication in the bark that one
exposure was the "weather side." The big twig _i_ apparently found a
light and unoccupied space into which to develop, but its extension is
not greatly out of proportion. I suppose, however, that my branch was
not topmost in the tree; there is no indication in very long growth or
strong upward tendency of the branchlets to mark the branch as a
"leader."
Years ago I became fascinated with the study of knots and knot-holes
in the timber of wood-piles. They are excellent records of the events
in the life of trees. In print I have tried to show what they mean. I
also worked out the life-histories of twigs and published them in
nature-study leaflets and elsewhere. Hundreds of children were
interested in the twigs and buds, finding them unusual, every one of
them a different story, and yet not difficult to read. These lessons
gave meaning to trees and seasons. Such observations have always meant
much to me, even when made in the most casual way in the midst of
constraining activities. And now in this later day I come back to a
bare twig with all the joy of youth. The records of the years are in
these piles of brush.
VI
THE PRUNING OF THE APPLE-TREE
We have found that not all the buds grow. We also know that some of
the spurs and shoots perish, not alone from accident but from defeat
in the struggle to live. The chances of success are relatively few.
The pruning process begins early in the life of the tree, and it
continues ceaselessly until the end.
To the apple-tree in the wild, strict pruning is the assurance of
success. No tree can reach maturity unless more parts perish than are
able to live. The young forest tree has branchlets and leaves along
its side and at the top. All these perish as the trunk rises, often
leaving marks on the bark, curls in the wood, and knot-holes large and
small. Thousands of perished buds and branches are the price of a
straight bole and great clear sheets of boards. Yet these perished
parts bore their burden in their day and time, and contributed to the
ultimate success: there could have been no tree without them.
Any tree-top discloses the pruning in action if one looks intently.
Part of it is recorded in the buds that never put forth a leaf; more
of it in little shoots left behind; and there are large and small
limbs, dead and dying, yellowing apparently before their time, hanging
on till the last hold is broken. Were it not for the benevolent
processes of decay, the ground would be strewn with the fallen parts
accumulating through the years.
In nature, the great result is to yield abundant quantity of seeds,
that the species may propagate itself after its kind. Man may desire
fruits relatively few, but large of size and excellent of quality,
without spot or blemish; this means greater opportunity and care to
the single fruit. Pruning is essential, to converge the energy of the
plant into fewer branches, to give the fruits space and light, to
increase the efficiency of measures for the control of diseases and
insects. Part of the pruning consists in removing certain branches,
and part of it in eliminating the fruits themselves by the careful
process of thinning.
The pruning of nature is fortuitous. The tree has the irregularity and
abandon of the picturesque. The pruning of man is for a different end,
and it produces the comely well-proportioned tree of the orchards. The
tree becomes a manipulated subject, comforting to the eye of the
thrifty pomologist.
Branch-pruning is essentially the removal of superfluous
branches,--those that crowd, that cross each other, that are so placed
as to be profitless, that are in the way, that are injured or
diseased. For the most part, the branches should be removed when they
are small; but it is not possible to foresee all that may be needed in
the training of the tree and, therefore, the frequent advice to prune
only with a hand-knife cannot be followed. One needs a sharp
pruning-saw and sometimes a chisel on a long handle. Usually it is not
necessary to remove branches more than an inch or one and one-half
inch in diameter if pruning is carefully practiced every year; but
sometimes even well-pruned trees must be shaped, corrected and
improved by the cutting of larger branches.
Pruning is usually best performed in early spring. The branch should
be cut close to the main limb or trunk and parallel with it, leaving
no stub; the healing process is then likely to proceed more rapidly.
The wound should be smooth and clean, without breaks, splinters or
splits; the knot-holes in logs and trunks are usually the consequence
of long "stubs" and torn injured parts. The tree is to be left
shapely, with a uniform distribution of branches, plenty of
fruit-bearing wood, easy to spray and from which to pick the fruit, of
the form characteristic of the variety.
In all the usual customary pruning of the apple-tree, dressing of the
wounds is not necessary. It is much more important to give the added
attention to the proper making of the wounds and the thoughtful choice
of the parts to be removed. Wounds two inches and more in diameter may
be protected with good paint, so that they will not check and
therefore not hold water, until the callus covers them. Good judgment
in pruning is more profitable than recipes to repair damage.
Fruit-pruning, or thinning, is the removing of so much fruit, when it
is small, as will allow the remainder to mature to its best and
constitute a maximum yield; it reduces the quantity of inferior fruit,
lessens the number of culls and the labor at packing time, conserves
the energy of the tree by preventing the maturity of great numbers of
seeds, diminishes diseases and pests. The overloading of the tree not
only imposes a heavy tax on its vitality but is likely to break the
limbs and to work much physical damage.
Thinning may consist in removing part of the fruit in the cluster (in
the case of varieties that tend to mature more than one fruit from
each flower-cluster), in picking all the fruits from certain clusters
or pairs of clusters, or in cutting away some of the fruit-spurs
before blossoming time.