ground. Sprouts arise. Some kinds sucker very freely. If earth is
mounded up around the sprouts, roots form on them and the sprouts may
be removed and treated as if they were seedling stocks. Usually the
mounding is not performed until the shoots have made one season's
growth. Gooseberries and some other plants are often propagated by
mound-layers. In the case of the gooseberry, however, it is desired
that the layer reproduce the parent--it may be Downing or
Whitesmith--and therefore it is planted without further manipulation.
But in the case of the apple, we do not want the layer to reproduce
the parent, for the parent would probably bear an inferior fruit since
it does not represent an "improved" or recognized variety; therefore
the layer is grafted or budded with the particular variety we desire
to grow as a dwarf tree.
Dwarf trees are grown in America, if at all, only in gardens, where
extra attention may be given them. Only high-class kinds should be
attempted on dwarfs, for the quantity-production of commercial apples
must be obtained by less intensive methods on cheaper lands.
Better fruits often are grown on dwarf than on standards, for two
reasons: It is usual to propagate only the best varieties on dwarf
stock; the little tree must receive extra care in pruning and in every
other way. Its bushel of apples must be choice, every one, to make the
effort of growing the tree worth the while. Under European conditions
where land is high-priced and labor has been relatively cheap, it is
possible (and common) to raise apples on dwarfs for market, as it is
profitable to terrace the hillsides with human labor; but in North
America the conditions are practically the reverse and the dwarf tree
cannot compete with the standard orchard tree.
The growing of a dwarf tree is essentially a gardening practice. It
requires great skill. The spurs are produced and protected to a
nicety. Every fruit may be the separate product of handwork. The
fertilizing, mulching, watering, are carefully regulated for every
tree. Often the trees are trained on cordons, espaliers, trellises or
walls. The individual fruits may be tied up or bagged. All this is
very different from the raising of apples by means of tractors and
other machinery, gangs of pruners and pickers, broadside extensive
methods, with highly organized systems of handling and marketing, in
all of which the money-measure is the chief consideration. It is for
all these reasons that the growing of a few dwarf apple-trees may
afford such intimate satisfaction to a careful man who prizes the
result of his skill.
The dwarfs are grown as little trees branching near the ground, headed
in at top and side and kept within shape and bounds. If they are of
the dwarfest dwarfs and not trained on trellis or wall (as they
usually are not in America), the fruit may be gathered by a man
standing on the ground, even from old trees. The dwarfs are planted
eight to ten feet apart when grown in regular plantation.
Be it said that certain kinds of stocks produce trees only semi-dwarf;
and in all cases if the tree is planted so deep that roots strike from
the cion, the top will probably outgrow the stock, being supplied in
part or even entirely by its own roots.
This brings us to a consideration of some of the kinds of dwarf
stocks, or dwarf races of the apple-tree. Be it said, in understanding
of the subject, that there are naturally dwarf forms of many plants,
and probably all ordinary plants are capable of producing them. Thus
there are very compact condensed forms of arbor-vitae, Norway spruce,
peach-tree. These have originated as seed sports and are multiplied by
cuttings. So are there dwarf tomatoes, dwarf China asters, dwarf sweet
peas, all coming more or less true from seeds, for these species (of
short generations) have been bred to reproduce their variations. The
inquirer must not suppose, therefore, that the races of dwarf
apple-trees are an anomally in the vegetable kingdom.
It is customary to speak of two classes or races of dwarf apple-trees,
the Paradise and the Doucin. The former kinds are the smaller, the
trees on their own roots sometimes reaching not more than four feet in
height at full bearing maturity. On the Paradise stocks, the grafted
apple-tree is very small; it is a true dwarf. The Doucin trees are by
nature larger, and apples grafted on them make semi-dwarf trees,
midway in stature between the real dwarfs and the common standard or
"free" apple-trees.
The case is not so simple, however, as this brief statement would make
it appear. There are many kinds of Paradise stock, as also of Doucin.
If one were to bring together living plants of all the kinds of
natural dwarfs and semi-dwarfs that could be found in nurseries and
growing collections, one would undoubtedly find a nearly complete
series, so far as stature of tree is concerned, from the very dwarf to
the full-sized standard tree. To say that a person is growing grafted
dwarf apple-trees does not signify how large the trees may be expected
to grow, for one may not know the particular kind of stocks on which
the variety is grafted. In fact, it is considered even in Europe,
where dwarf apples are chiefly grown, that the proper identification
of dwarf stocks is still a subject for careful investigation.
When the Paradise dwarfs first came into existence is undetermined.
They appear to have been known in the Middle Ages. The many races, as
the Dutch, French, Metz, Nonsuch, Broad-leaved, indicate an ancient
origin. We cannot be too certain what apple-trees were meant in the
early references to the Paradise apple. The fruits of the present
natural Paradise apple-trees are not sufficiently attractive to
justify us in considering them the "Tree of Paradise" or apple of the
Garden of Eden, which circumstance is supposed by some to account for
the name. "Paradise" was originally a park or pleasure ground, applied
also to the Garden of Eden, and later to horticultural gardens. John
Parkinson wrote his great treatise on horticulture, 1629, under the
title, "Paradisi in Sole Paradisus terrestris; or, a Choice Garden of
all Sorts of Rarest Flowers, etc." Now we use the word for gardens of
bliss.
The word Doucin, from the Italian, is supposed originally to have
designated apples of sweet flavor, but it now applies technically to a
class or race of semi-dwarf apple-trees.
For the purpose of this little book, however, the interest in the
dwarf apple centers not so much in the origin of the stock as in the
natural-history of the tree itself and the good skill of hand and
heart that one may expend in the growing of it. If one would come
close to a plant, knowing it intimately in every season, causing it to
respond to sympathetic treatment through a series of years, then a
garden collection of dwarf apples may satisfy the desire. It is too
bad that we do not have time to cultivate the dwarfs often in the
yards and gardens of North America. We are more familiar with the
raising of dwarf pears (which are grafted on quince stocks since there
is no similar race of natural dwarf pear-tree), but we do not give
them the thumb-and-finger care that is demanded for the choicest
results. The abundance of apples in the market should only stimulate
the desire of the connoisseur to have trees and fruits that are wholly
personal. The market produce can never gratify the affections.
X
WHENCE COMES THE APPLE-TREE?
If the dwarf apple-tree goes back to the Middle Ages and perhaps
farther, then whence comes the apple originally? No one can surely
answer. Carbonized apples are found in the remains of the prehistoric
lake dwellings of Switzerland. When recorded history begins, apples
were well known and widely distributed. The apple-tree is wild in many
parts of Europe, but it is difficult to determine whether, in a given
region, it is indigenous or has run wild from cultivation. Wild
apple-trees are common in North America, but no one supposes that the
orchard apple is native here.
Expert opinion generally considers that the apple is native in the
region of the Caspian Sea and probably in southeastern Europe. Perhaps
it had spread westward before the Aryan migrations. It had also
probably spread eastward, but it is not a cultivated fruit in China
and Japan except apparently as introduced in recent time. The apple is
essentially a fruit of central and northern Europe, and of European
migration and settlement.
It is a fertile retrospect to conceive of the apple as an attendant of
the course of Western civilization. Without voice and leaving no
record, it has nevertheless followed man in his wanderings, encouraged
his attainment of permanent habitations, succored him in his
emergencies. What the apple has contributed to sustenance can never be
known, but we are aware that it yields its fruit abundantly, that it
thrives in widely unlike regions and conditions, that the tree has the
ruggedness to endure severe climates and to provide food that can be
stored and transported. In the ages it must have stood guard at many a
rude camp and fireside. It would be fascinating to know what the
apple-tree has witnessed.
These early apples must have been very crude fruits measured by the
produce of the present day. But other food was crude and man was
crude. The North American Indians found the apple to be worth their
effort; remains of some of the so-called Indian orchards of the Five
Nations in New York persisted until the present generation. These were
seedling apple-trees, grown from the stocks introduced by the white
man. The French missionaries are said to have carried the apple far
into the interior, and early settlers took seeds with them. The
legends and records of Johnny Appleseed, sowing the seeds as he went,
are still familiar. My father, like other pioneers, took seeds from
the old New England trees into the wilderness of the West; the
resulting trees were top-grafted, some of them as late as my time; I
can remember the apples some of these seedling trees bore, the like of
which I have never seen again, probably poor apples if we had them in
this day but to a boy at the edge of the forest the very essence of
goodness. As early as 1639, apples had been picked from trees planted
on Governor's Island in Boston harbor. Governor John Endicott of
Massachusetts Colony had an apple-tree nursery in the early day; in
1644 he says that five hundred of his trees were destroyed by fire.
So the apple came early to be a standby on the new continent.
The apples of the colonists were not all for eating, but for drinking.
The butts and barrels of cider put in cellars in the early times seem
to us most surprising. Herein are suggestions of old social customs
that might lead us into interesting historical excursions. The oldest
book I possess on the apple is "Vinetum Britannicum: or, a Treatise of
Cider," published in London in 1676; it treats also of other beverages
made from fruits and of "the newly-invented ingenio or mill, for the
more expeditious and better making of cider." The gradual change in
customs, whereby the eating of the apple (rather than the drinking of
it) has come to be paramount, is a significant development; the use of
apple-juice may now proceed on another basis, on the principle of
preservation and pasteurization rather than of fermentation.
It is the custom to call the apple _Pyrus Malus_. This is the name
given by the great Linnaeus, with whom the modern accurate naming of
plants and animals begins. The nomenclature of plants starts with his
"Species Plantarum," 1753. Pyrus is the genus or group comprising the
pears and apples, and Linnaeus included the quince; Malus is Latin for
the apple-tree. Together the names represent genus and species,--the
malus Pyrus.
These statements are easy enough to make, but it is impossible to
demonstrate whether the common pomological apples are derived from one
original species or from two or more. Many technical botanical names
have been given in the group, but we need not pause with them here. It
is enough for our purpose to know that the natural-history of the
apple, as of anything else that runs to time immemorial, passes at
the end into obscurity. We seem never to reach the ultimate origins or
to find an end to our quests.
There are other apples than the common pomological orchard types.
There are the crabs. In general usage, the word "crab" designates an
apple that is small, sour and crabbed. Such apples are wildings or
seedlings. They are merely depreciated forms of _Pyrus Malus_, and
probably much like the first apples known to man. What are known to
horticulturists as crab-apples, however, are other species of Pyrus,
of different character and origin. We need not pause with the
discussion of them, except to say that the commonest kinds are the
little long-stemmed fruits of _Pyrus baccata_ (berry Pyrus), native in
eastern Europe and Siberia. These are the "Siberian crabs." The leaves
and twigs are smooth, and the calyx falls away from the fruit, leaving
a bare blossom end. These little hard handsome fruits are used in the
making of conserves. Certain larger crab-apples, in which the blossom
end is not clean or bare, as the Transcendent and Hyslop, are probably
hybrids between the true crabs and the common apple; this class
provides the main crab-apples of the markets.
When the settlers came to the country west and south of New England,
they found another kind of crab-apples in the woods, truly native. The
fruits were hard and sour, but they could be buried to ripen. The
trees are much like a thorn-apple,--low, spreading, twiggy, thorny;
but the pink-white large fragrant flowers are very different. The wild
crab-apple was called _Pyrus coronaria_ by Linnaeus, the "garland
Pyrus." On the prairies is another species, _Pyrus ioensis_; it yields
a charming double-flowered form, "Bechtel's crab." In the South are
other species. In fact, _P. coronaria_ itself may not be a single
species. These wild crabs run into many forms. In the northern
Mississippi and prairie country are native apples good enough to be
introduced into cultivation under varietal names. These are _Pyrus
Soulardii_, a species bearing the name of J. G. Soulard, Illinois
horticulturist. These crab-apples are probably natural hybrids between
_Pyrus Malus_ and the prairie crab, _P. ioensis_. Had there been no
European apple to be introduced by colonists, it is probable that
improved forms would have been evolved from the native species. In
that event, North American pomology would have had a very different
character.
There remains a very different class of apple-trees, grown only for
ornament and usually known as "flowering apples." They are mostly
native in China and Japan. They are small trees, or even almost
bushes, with profuse handsome flowers and some of them with very
ornamental little fruits. They have come to this country largely from
Japan where they are grown for decoration, as the cherries of Japan
are grown not for fruit but for their flowers, being of very different
species from the cherries of Europe and America. The common apple
itself yields varieties grown only for ornament, as one with
variegated leaves, one with double flowers, and one with drooping
branches. These are known mostly in Europe; but these forms do not
compare in interest with the handsome species of the Far East.
All these differing species of the apple-tree multiply the interest
and hold the attention in many countries. They make the apple-tree
group one of the most widespread and adaptable of temperate-region
trees. It will be seen that there are three families of them,--the
Eurasian family, from which come the pomological apples; the North
American family, which has yielded little cultivated material; the
East-Asian family, abundant in highly ornamental kinds. There are no
apple-trees native in the southern hemisphere.
The apple-tree, taken in its general sense, has a broad meaning. What
may be accomplished by breeding and hybridizing is beyond
imagination.
XI
THE VARIETIES OF APPLE
Every seedling of the pomological apples is a new variety. Some of
these seedlings are so good that they are named and introduced into
cultivation. They are grafted on other stocks, and become part of the
great inheritance of desirable apples.
It is to be expected that in the long processes of time in many
countries the number of varieties will accumulate to high numbers. No
one knows all the kinds that have been named and propagated, but they
run into many thousands. No one book contains them all, although some
of the manuals are voluminous. Varieties drop out of existence, being
no longer propagated; new varieties come in.
So the lists of varieties gradually change. A list of one hundred
years ago would contain many names strange to us. Thus, of the sixty
apples in "A Select List of Fruit-Trees" by Bernard M'Mahon, published
in "The American Gardener's Calendar," in 1806, not more than six or
eight would be understandable to a planter of the present day.
With the standardizing of practices in the commercial growing of
fruits, the tendency is to reduce the number of varieties to small
proportions; it is these varieties that the nurserymen propagate.
Here and there over the country are still trees of the extra-quality
but uncommercial varieties known to a former generation. If the
amateur now wants to grow these varieties, he must find cions as best
he can by patient correspondence, and graft them on his own trees.
When I planted an orchard twenty-five years ago, I found cions of
Jefferis here, of Dyer there, of Mother, Swaar and Chenango in other
places.
In the enlarged edition of Downing's "Fruits and Fruit-Trees of
America," 1872, are descriptions of 1856 varieties, of which 1099 are
American in origin, 585 foreign, 172 of origin unknown. The lists are
not only much smaller in these days, but the foreign element tends to
pass out. With the introduction of the Russian apples for the cold
North in the latter part of the past century, the importation of
foreign varieties practically ceased, as it ceased also for the pears
at an earlier date with the introductions of Manning, Wilder and
others. The epoch of the "testing" of varieties passed away, and with
it has gone an appreciative attitude toward fruits and even toward
life that constitutes a sad lack in our day.
About thirty years ago (1892) I compiled an inventory of all the
varieties of apple-trees sold in North America, as listed in the
ninety-five nurserymen's catalogues that came to my hand. The inventory
contains 878 varieties. In the present year, however, perhaps not more
than 100 varieties are handled by nurserymen in Eastern United States.
Probably the dealer and grower would consider even this small number
much too great. The highly developed standardized business of the
present day, aiming at quantity-production, naturally reduces the
variety of products, whether in manufacturing or horticulture, and
aims at uniformity. Under the influence of this leadership, we are
losing many of the old products, varieties of apples among the rest.
Why do we need so many kinds of apples? Because there are so many
folks. A person has a right to gratify his legitimate tastes. If he
wants twenty or forty kinds of apples for his personal use, running
from Early Harvest to Roxbury Russet, he should be accorded the
privilege. Some place should be provided where he may obtain trees or
cions. There is merit in variety itself. It provides more points of
contact with life, and leads away from uniformity and monotony.
The leading varieties of apples, that have become dominant over wide
regions, have been great benefactors to man. The original tree should
be carefully preserved till the last, by historical or other
societies; and then a monument should be placed at the spot. Monuments
have been erected to the Baldwin, Northern Spy, McIntosh and other
apples. We should never lose our touch with the origins of men,
events, notable achievements, outstanding products of nature.
I fear it is now a habit with many fruit-growers to minimize the
interest in varieties, placing the emphasis on tillage, spraying and
management of plantations. Yet, the only reason why we expend all the
labor is that we may grow a given kind of apple; the variety is the
final purpose.
In this little book we cannot discuss varieties at length. There are
special books on this fascinating subject. But we may have before us a
compiled list by way of interesting suggestion. The list is sorted
from the Catalogue of Fruits of the American Pomological Society,
1901, the last year in which the catalogue was published with quality
rated on a scale of 10. On such a scale, Ben Davis ranks 4-5; Baldwin,
5-6; Wealthy and York Imperial, 6-7; Rhode Island Greening, 7-8;
Northern Spy, 8-9; Yellow Newtown (Albermarle Pippin) 9-10. There is
no apple in the entire catalogue of 324 kinds (not including
crab-apples) rated wholly lower than 4 in quality except one alone and
this is grown for cider only, although several varieties of minor
importance bear the marks 3-4. Only two varieties are rated
exclusively 10, the Garden Royal, a Massachusetts summer-fall apple,
little known to planters, and the familiar Esopus Spitzenberg. Of
course judgments differ widely in these matters, as there are no
inflexible criteria for the scoring of quality; yet this extensive
list is probably our soundest approach to the subject.
The varieties in the catalogue of the American Pomological Society are
starred if "known to succeed in a given district" and double-starred
"if highly successful." North America is thrown into nineteen
districts for the purposes of this catalogue (which comprises other
fruits besides apples). For our purposes we may combine them into six
more or less indefinite great regions: n. e., the northeastern part of
the country, Delaware and Pennsylvania to eastern Canada; s. e., the
parts south of this area and mostly east of the Mississippi; n. c.,
north central, from Kansas and Missouri north; s. w., Texas to
Arizona; mt., the mountain states of the Rockies west to the Sierras,
including of course much high plains country; pac., the Pacific slope,
Washington to southern California.
Of the varieties starred and double-starred in these various
geographical regions there are 107; these are listed herewith. Of
course the intervening twenty years might change the rating of some of
these apples, other varieties have come to the front, and certain ones
of these older worthies are receding still further into the
background; but the exhibit is suggestive none the less.