Bailey (Sweet)--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Baker--n.e.
Baldwin--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., s.w., pac.
Beach--s.e.
Belle Bonne--n.e.
Ben Davis--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Bietigheimer--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bledsoe--s.e.
Blenheim--n.e., n.c.
Blue Pearmain--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bough, Sweet--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bryan--s.e., mt.
Buckingham--n.e., s.e., n.c.
Canada Reinette--n.e., n.c., mt.
Clayton--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Clyde--n.e., n.c.
Cogswell--n.e.
Cooper--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Cracking--s.e., n.c.
Doyle--s.e.
Early Pennock--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Esopus (Spitzenburg)--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Ewalt--n.e., s.e., mt.
Fallawater--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Fall Harvey--n.e., mt.
Fall Jenneting--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Fall Orange--n.e., s.e., n.c.
Fall Pippin--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Fanny--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w.
Farrar--s.e.
Foundling--n.e.
Gano--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Gilbert--s.e.
Golding--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Gravenstein--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., s.w., pac.
Hagloe--n.e., s.e.
Hoover--s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Hopewell--n.c.
Horse--n.e., s.e., n.c.
Hubbardston--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w.
Hunge--s.e.
Huntsman--s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Isham (Sweet)--n.c.
Jacobs Sweet--n.e.
Kent--n.e., s.e., n.c.
Kernodle--s.e.
Lady Sweet--n.e., mt.
Lankford--n.e., s.e.
Lawver--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Lilly (of Kent)--n.e.
Lowe--s.e.
Lowell--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
McAfee--n.e., s.e, mt.
McCuller--s.e.
McMahon--n.e., n.c., mt.
Magog--n.e.
Maverack--s.e.
Milwaukee--n.c.
Minister--n.e., s.e., n.c.
Monmouth--s.e., n.c., mt.
Newell--n.c.
Nickajack--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Northern Spy--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Northwestern (Greening)--n.e., n.c., mt.
Oconee--n.e., s.e.
Ohio Nonpareil--n.e., s.e.
Ohio Pippin--n.e., s.e., n.c.
Ortley--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Paragon--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Patten (Greening)--n.c.
Pease--n.e.
Peck (Pleasant)--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Peter--n.c.
Pewaukee--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Porter--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Pumpkin Sweet--n.e., s.e., n.c.
Quince--n.e., n.c.
Ramsdell (Sweet)--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Red Astrachan--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Rhode Island (Greening)--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Ridge (Pippin)--n.e.
Rolfe--n.e.
Rome--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Stark--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Starkey--n.e., s.e.
Stayman Winesap--n.e., s.e., n.c.
Sterling--n.e., n.c.
Summer King--n.e., s.e.
Swaar--n.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Taunton--s.e.
Titovka--n.e., mt.
Tompkins King--n.e., s.e., mt., pac.
Twenty Ounce--n.e., s.e., s.w., mt.
Utter--n.c.
Vanhoy--n.e., s.e.
Virginia Greening--s.e., mt.
Washington (Strawberry)--n.e., s.e., mt.
Watson--s.e.
White Pippin--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Wine--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Wistal--s.e., s.w.
Wolf River--n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Yellow Bellflower--n.e., s.e., s.w., mt., pac.
Yellow Newtown--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Yopp--s.e.
York Imperial--n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
There are many odd varieties of apple not found in any list but about
which questions are likely to arise. One of these is the
Sweet-and-Sour. There is an old ribbed variety of this name, the ribs
having an acid flesh and the furrows sweetish; it is little known and
of no special value. Apples are sometimes found that are sweetish on
one side and sourish on the other. The reasons for this kind of
variation are no more understood than are those responsible for
variance in color or shape or durability. One yet sometimes hears the
pleasant fable that sweet-and-sour apples are produced by splitting
the bud when the tree was propagated.
The Surprise is a small whitish apple with light red flesh. It is
indeed a surprise to bite into such an apple, but it has little merit.
It is an early winter variety.
One is frequently asked about the Sheepnose apple, particularly by
older people who remember it from early days and who deplore its
infrequency in these latter times. The sheepnose shape--long-conical--is
an infrequent variation, as apples go, and apparently none of these
forms chances to have sufficient merit to keep it in the lists. The
name is often applied to the Black Gilliflower, an old apple more than
three inches long, dark red, of light weight perhaps because of the
large core, ripening late in autumn to midwinter. It seems to be
specially prized by children, perhaps in part because of its unusual
shape and in part by its aromatic fragrance; but it is not a high-class
apple, and is now little seen. With the Rambo, Vandevere, some of the
russets, Early Harvest, Jersey Sweet and other old worthies, it
probably will pass away unless rescued here and there by the amateur.
To the lover of choice fruit nothing is old; every succeeding crop is
as choice and new as is the new year itself, and one waits for it
again and again.
One hears of seedless and no-core apples, as also of pears. The core
is present but greatly reduced in size, and the seeds may be few and
small. I have also raised practically seedless tomatoes. All these are
infrequent variations that may be propagated by asexual parts
(cuttings, cions), but as yet none of them has any outstanding value.
The reader will now ask me about the water-core apples, so much sought
and prized by youngsters. The water-core is not characteristic of a
variety, although occurring in some varieties more frequently than in
others. It is a physiological condition, supposed to be associated
with a relatively low transpiration (evaporation) so that excess water
is held in the fruit. In certain seasons this condition is marked, and
also in cloudy regions and often on young trees that have an
over-supply of moisture. Yet such cores occur in old trees and
sometimes with more or less regularity. What the physiological
inability may be in such cases to dispose of excess moisture appears
to be undetermined.
Now and then one finds a double apple, with two fruits grown solidly
together, two blossom ends and a single stem. A seedling tree I knew
as a boy bore such apples frequently, sometimes a score of them among
the crop of the year. This, of course, is a malformation or
teratological state. Apparently two flowers coalesce to form these
fruits. On the tree of which I speak, the two fruits were about equal
in size, making a large, widened, edible apple, but I have known of
other cases in which a diminutive undeveloped fruit is attached to the
side of a normal one.
Perhaps the oddest of them all is the "Bloomless apple." It is said to
have no flowers. In fact, however, the flowers are present but they
lack showy petals and are therefore not conspicuous. The bloomless
apple is a monstrous state, the cause of which is unknown. Now and
then a tree is reported. It was described at least as long ago as
1768, and in 1770 Muenchhausen called it _Pyrus apetala_ (the
petalless pyrus). The flowers have no stamens, and apparently they are
pollinated from any other apples in the vicinity. In 1785, Moench
described it as _Pyrus dioica_ (the dioecious pyrus, sexes separated
on different plants). The ovary is also malformed, having six or seven
and sometimes probably more cells, and bearing ten to fifteen styles.
The resulting fruit has a core character unknown in other apples but
approached in certain apple-like fruits, as the medlar. The fruit has
a hole or opening from the calyx (which is open) into the core; and
the core is roughly double, one series above the other. The fruit, in
such specimens as I have seen or read about, has no horticultural
merit; but it is a curiosity of great botanical interest. It appears
now and then in widely separated places, the trees probably having
originated as chance seedlings. The fruits from the different
originations are not always the same in size and form, but the flowers
apparently all have the same malformed character.
The apple is preeminently the home fruit. It is not transitory. It
spans every season. In an indifferent cellar I keep apples till apples
come again. The apple stands up, keeps well on the table. Children may
handle it. In color and form it satisfies any taste. Its rondure is
perfect. The cavity is deep, graceful and well moulded, holding the
good stem securely. The basin is a natural summit and termination of
the curvatures, bringing all the lines together, finishing them in
the ornaments of the remaining calyx. The fruit adapts itself to the
hand. The fingers close pleasantly over it, fitting its figure. It has
a solid feel. The flesh of a good apple is crisp, breaking, melting,
coolly acid or mildly sweet. It has a fracture, as one bites it,
possessed by no other fruit. One likes to feel the snap and break of
it. There is a stability about it that satisfies; it holds its shape
till the last bite. One likes to linger on an apple, to sit by a
fireside to eat it, to munch it waiting on a log when there is no
hurry, to have another apple with which to invite a friend.
Now I am not thinking of the Ben Davis apple or any of its kind. I do
not want to be doomed to one variety of apple, or even to half a dozen
kinds, and particularly I do not want a poor one. There are enough
good apples, if we can get them. The days of the amateur fruit-growers
seem to be passing. At least we do not hear much of them in society or
in many of the meetings of horticulturists. There may be many reasons,
but two are evident: we give the public indifferent fruits, and
thereby neither educate the taste or stimulate the desire for more; we
do not provide them places from which they can get plants of many of
the choicest things. Yet on a good amateur interest in fruits depends,
in the end, the real success of commercial fruit-growing. Just now we
are trying to increase the consumption of apples, to lead the people
to eat an apple a day: it cannot be accomplished by customary
commercial methods. To eat an apple a day is a question of affections
and emotions.
We have had great riches in our varieties of apples. It has been a
vast resource to have a small home plantation of many good varieties,
each perfect in its season. The great commercial apple-growing has
been carried to high perfection of organization and care. More perfect
apples are put on the market, in proportion to numbers, than ever
before,--carefully grown and graded and handled. I have watched this
American development with growing pride. The quantity-production makes
for greater perfection of product, but it does not make for variety
and human interest, nor for high-quality varieties. We shall still
improve it. Masterful men will perfect organizations. The high
character and attainment of the commanding fruit-growers, nurserymen
and dealers are good augury for the future. But all this is not
sufficient. Quantity-production will be an increasing source of
wealth, but it cannot satisfy the soul.
The objects and productions of high intrinsic merit are preserved by
the amateur. It is so in art and letters. It is necessarily so. A body
of amateurs is an essential background to the development of science.
The late Professor Pickering, renowned astronomer, encouraged the
amateur societies of star-observers, and others. The amateurs in the
background, disinterested and unselfish, support appropriations by
legislatures for even abstruse public work. The amateur is the
embodiment of the best in the common life, the conservator of
aspirations, the fulfillment of democratic freedom. I hope pomology
will not lag in this respect. In all lines I hope that professionalism
will not subjugate the man who follows a subject for the love of it
rather than for the gain of it or for the pride of it. In
horticulture, when we lose the amateur, who, as the word means, is the
lover, we lose the ideals.
Naturally, the nurseryman cannot grow trees of all the good apples
that may be wanted. The experiment stations cannot maintain living
museums of them, for their function is to investigate rather than to
preserve. Arboretums are concerned with other activities. Is there not
some person of means, desiring to do good to his successors, ready now
to establish a fructicetum _in perpetuum_ for the purpose of
preserving a single tree of at least one hundred of the choicest
apples, to the end that a record may be kept and that amateurs may be
supplied with cions thereof?
XII
THE PLEASANT ART OF GRAFTING
If I procure cuttings of a good apple, what shall I do with them that
they may give me of their fruitage?
The cuttings will probably be dormant twigs of the last season's
growth. They may not be expected to grow when placed in the ground.
They are therefore planted in another tree, becoming cions. The case
is in no way different in principle from the propagating of the young
tree in the nursery, of which we already have learned. The nurseryman
works with a small stock, a mere slip of a seedling one or two years
old. The grower would better not attempt the making of nursery trees.
It is better for him to purchase regular nursery trees and to graft
the cions on them; or he may put the cions in any older tree that is
available.
I have spoken of my own collecting of certain dessert apples. I
"worked" them on young Northern Spy trees, purchased when two or three
years old; they were grafted after they had stood a year in the
orchard. These Northern Spy trees, used in this case as stocks, were
regularly grown by nurserymen. The Northern Spy was chosen because of
its hardiness and straight, clean, erect growth, making it a vigorous
and comely stock. Weak-growing varieties are usually rejected for this
purpose. Some growers use Oldenburg as stock, and there are other
good kinds.
From the young stock, the old head is to be removed and a new head
(the new variety) grown in its stead. The tree, therefore, will be
combined of three kinds of apple,--the root of unknown quality; the
trunk or body under a varietal name; the top, of the variety desired.
Any number of different kinds of apple wood may be worked into the
tree if the tree is large enough. If the operations are well performed
so that there are no imperfect unions, and if the pruning is
judicious, the tree may be grafted many times, in whole or in part.
I have said that my father brought apple seeds from New England and
that the resulting seedlings were top-grafted. One of these trees was
early top-worked to "Holland Pippin," which seldom bore. It stood in
the yard near the smoke-house, where it found abundant nourishment. It
grew to great size. In time I became a grafter of trees for the
neighborhood, and often as I returned at night would have cions of
different kinds in my pockets. It became a pastime to graft these
cions in the old tree. More than thirty varieties were placed there.
It was with keen anticipation, as the years came, that I looked for
the annual crop, to see what strange inhabitants would appear in the
great tree-top. I do not remember how many of these varieties came
into bearing before the tree was finally gathered to the wood-box, but
they were a goodly number, probably more than a score. I used often to
wonder how it was that the nutrients taken in by the roots of the
Vermont seedling and transported in the tissues of the Holland Pippin,
combined with the same air, could produce so many diverse apples and
even pears (for I had pears in that tree) each with the marks and
flavor proper to its kind. The little cions I grafted into the tree
were soon lost in the overgrowth, and yet all the branches that came
from them carried the genius of one single variety and of none other.
And I often speculated whether there were any reflex action of these
many varieties on the root, demanding a certain kind of service from
it.
The cions (sometimes still called "grafts") are cut in winter or early
spring, when well matured and perfectly dormant. Placed in sand in a
cool cellar so they will not shrivel, they are kept until grafting
time, which is early spring, usually before the leaves start on the
stock. The cions may be placed on the tree by several methods, but
only two are commonly employed,--the whip-graft and the cleft-graft.
The former is adapted to small stocks, the size of one's finger or
smaller; it is the method employed in root-grafting in the nursery,
and Fig. 16 explains it.
The requirement is to cause the cion and stock to grow together
solidly, making one piece of wood. The growing plastic region is
associated with the cambium tissues underneath the bark. It is
necessary, therefore, to bring the "line betwixt the wood and the
bark" together in the two parts, and to hold the junction firm and
also well protected from evaporation until union takes place. The
method of putting the parts together, the form of whittling, is a
matter of convenience and practice.
The case was put in this way by old Robert Sharrock, "Fellow of
New-College," in his "History of the Propagation and Improvement of
Vegetables by the concurrence of Art and Nature" (I quote from the
second edition, Oxford, 1672): "Grafting is an Art of so placing the
Cyon upon a stock, that the Sap may pass from the stock to the Cyon
without Impediment." Batty Langley, in 1729, gave this direction in
the "Pomona": "The Stocks being cleft, you must therefore cut the Cion
in the Form of a Wedge, which must always be cut from a Bud, for the
Reasons aforesaid; and then with a Grafting-Chizel open the Slit, and
place the Cion therein, so that their Barks may be exactly even and
smooth."
Still earlier (1626) did William Lawson, in "A New Orchard and
Garden," set forth the rationale of the practice in his Chapter X, "On
Grafting," in this wise: "Now are we come to the most curious point of
our faculty: curious in conceit, but indeed as plaine and easie as the
rest, when it is plainly shewne, which we commonly call Graffing, or
(after some) Grafting. I cannot Etymoligize, nor shew the original of
the word, except it come of graving and carving. But the thing or
matter is: The reforming of the Fruit of one Tree with the fruit of
another, by an artificial transplacing or transposing of a twig, bud
or leafe, (commonly called a Graft) taken from one tree of the same,
or some other kind, and placed or put to, or into another tree in due
time and manner."
If the whip-graft is to be below the ground, it is sufficient to tie
the parts tightly with string and cover with earth; if above ground,
wax is applied over the string to prevent drying out. On the small
shoots of young trees, the whip-graft is often employed, but it is not
used in large trees.
The cleft-graft is shown in Fig. 18. The trunk or branch is cut off;
two cions are inserted in a cleft made with a knife. The "stub" is
covered with grafting-wax (Fig. 19). Cleft-grafting is the usual
method for the orchardist.
[Illustration: 18. The cleft-graft.]
[Illustration: 19. The cleft-graft after waxing.]
In either kind of grafting, the cion carries about three leaf-buds. If
"wood" (cion-shoots) is scarce, only one bud may be taken, but this
reduces the chances of success. One bud may not grow, or the young
shoot may be injured. The lowest bud is usually most likely to grow;
it pushes through the wax.
In young trees set for the purpose of top-working, the trunk may be
cut off at the desired height and two cions inserted. The entire top
is then removed at once; this is allowable only on young trees.
Probably the better practice is to graft the main small side limbs and
the main trunk or leader higher up. Usually it is better to leave some
of the branches on the tree, not removing them all till the second or
third year.
In old apple-trees, the main branches are grafted, where they are an
inch or two in diameter. Care is taken so to choose the branches that
a well-shaped free-headed tree will result. Only a small part of the
top is removed the first year, and three or four years may be required
to change the top all over, the old branches being removed as the new
ones grow. In about three years, or four, the grafts should begin to
bear,--about as soon as strong three-year-old trees planted in the
orchard.
Any variety of the pomological apples will grow on any other variety,
but apples do not take well on other species, as does the pear. The
pear may be made to grow on the apple, but the graft is short-lived
and the practice is not recommended. Boys may graft indiscriminately
for practice, but grown-ups, having arrived at the unfortunate age of
discretion, must operate only on those kinds known to succeed when
joined. I have never known a boy who did not want to graft anything,
as soon as his attention was called to the operation. The boy does not
take it for granted: he wants to try.
XIII
THE MENDING OF THE APPLE-TREE
Many accidents overtake the apple-tree. The hired man skins the tree
with the harrow; fire runs through the dry grass; hard winters shatter
the vitality, and parts of the tree die; borers enter; rabbits and
mice gnaw the bark in winter; loads of fruit and burdens of ice crush
the tree; wind storms play mischief; bad pruning leaves long stubs,
and rot develops; cankers produce dead ragged wounds; fire-blight
destroys the tissue; a poorly formed tree with bad crotches splits
easily; grafts fail to take, and long dead ends are left; the tree is
injured by pickers; vandals wreak their havoc. All these accidents
must be met and the damages repaired. The surgeon must be summoned.
We must first understand how a wound heals on a tree. Note any
wound,--knot-hole on the trunk, place where wood has been removed. The
exposed wound itself does not heal; it is covered and inclosed by
tissue built out from the edges or periphery of the wound. This tissue
is like a roll. It is the callus. Eventually the tissue meets in the
center, and the lid is thereby put on the place, and it is sealed. The
exposed wood has died, if it is the cross-section of a branch or a
deep wound, and it remains under the callus a dead body. If the wood
has not started to decay in the meantime, the place is safe, but too
often invasion has begun before the process is complete, the rot
disease finally extends to the heart of the tree, causing it to become
hollow. If the center of the wound falls in, the callus cannot cover
it, and an open sore remains. In these cavities birds may sometimes
build.
Therefore there are two points for the surgeon to consider in respect
to the wound itself--whether it is so placed on the tree that the
callus forms readily; whether the wound is kept healthy during
exposure.
All ragged tissue being removed, deep-wound surfaces should be kept
aseptic. For ordinary cases, white-lead paint with plenty of linseed
oil is a good protective from the germs of decay. On old wood, no
longer active, creosote is good, perhaps followed by coal-tar.
Usually, however, paint is quite sufficient. Small exposures usually
receive no dressing. When the fresh surface wood is exposed by removal
of bark, it is necessary to keep the tissue from drying out, and
antiseptics are usually not applied. Bandaging with cloth is the usual
practice, after the wound is cleaned and trimmed.
The repairs fall into two classes,--those that require merely removal
of injured parts and treatment of the wounds, and those that demand
the ingrafting of new wood.
We have learned, in the discussion of pruning, that long projecting
ends of severed branches do not heal. The branches to be removed
should be cut back close to the larger branch or to the juncture with
another. In repairing injured trees, all projecting parts that do not
have life in themselves must be removed. All wounds should be left
smooth, without splinters or hanging bark. Decaying wood is to be
removed, and the area cleaned out and disinfected.
The nature-lover may find much to interest him in the observation of
knot-holes as he comes and goes. Every knot-hole has a history; this
history usually can be traced by one whose eye is keen and who becomes
practiced in connecting cause with final result. One prides oneself on
the ability to work out the obscure cases. An old neglected apple
orchard thereby affords much entertainment.
If a very large branch breaks off, the remaining part is cut back to
fresh hard wood; antiseptic is applied; the other part of the tree may
be shortened-in to aid in restoring the proportion or balance.
Deep cavities caused by rot are cleaned out, disinfected with bordeaux
mixture, gas-tar, or other material, and the place filled completely
with cement.
In some cases, new wood is added in the form of cions of last year's
twigs. Such cions may be set around the edge of a stub, thrust between
the bark and the wood, to start new branches where an important one
was broken off. The cions are cut wedge-shape (much as those in Fig.
18) and a bandage is tied around the stub to hold them in place; the
exposed parts are covered with grafting-wax. The operation is
performed in spring.
Sometimes cions are used to bridge a girdle. Usually a girdle heals
itself if the injury does not extend into the wood, and if it is bound
up to prevent drying out; but when the injury is deep and the exposed
wood has become dry and hard, the cions may be used. The cions are
somewhat longer than the width of the girdle. The edges of the girdle
are trimmed to fresh tight bark; cions are cut wedge-shape at either
end; the ends are inserted underneath the bark at bottom and top of
the wound; edges of the wound are securely bandaged; entire work is
covered with wax. The cions are many, so close that they nearly touch.
The buds on the cions are not allowed to produce branches. This
process is known as bridge-grafting.