applications of ingrafting. Sometimes a piece of bark may be used as a
patch. In the bracing of crotches in young trees, the two trunks may
be joined by uniting a small branch from either one, twisting them
together to form a bridge like a bolt; they can be made to grow
together, forming a solid union. Bolting the parts with iron rods, or
holding them together by means of chains, is the usual and commonly
the better method. The iron is not to go around a limb, however, for
girdling results; the rods or chains should be secured by bolts bored
through the wood and pulling against large heads or washers.
The usual repairs are easily made. When trees are badly injured, and
particularly when the tree is low in vitality, it may not be worth
while to engage in surgery. It may be better to plant a new tree.
Saving very old trees by the mending processes is not likely to be
satisfactory. The grower should transfer his affection to a young
tree. If the tree has had good care throughout its life, it probably
will not need much surgery in old age. The grower will be willing,
when the time comes, to take a photograph for memory's sake and to let
the tree come to a timely and artistic end.
XIV
CITIZENS OF THE APPLE-TREE
Many years ago, my old friend, the late Dr. J. A. Lintner, State
Entomologist of New York, compiled a list of 356 insects that feed on
the apple-tree. Later authorities place the number at nearly five
hundred species. It must be a good plant that has such a host of
denizens. The number of fungi is also large; and the tree often
supports lichens, algae, and other forms of life.
The apple-tree is not single in its denizens. No plant lives alone. It
has association with its fellows, perhaps contest for space and
nourishment. It provides habitat for many organisms, many of which
live on its bounty. I have never seen a bearing apple-tree that was
not a colonizing place for other living things. We accept these things
as matters of course, as being in place, living their part in nature.
Therefore, one cannot understand the apple-tree unless one knows
something of its citizenry.
Probably the most prominent citizen of the apple-tree is the
codlin-moth. Its larva is the apple-worm, the one that makes "wormy
apples," the burrows going to the core and out again. The insect is
native in Europe, but has been known in North America nearly two
hundred years, and is widespread in the apple countries of the world.
If one has screens in the apple cellar, one is likely to find small
moths on them in the spring, larger than a clothes moth, about
three-fourths inch in spread of the soft gray watered-silk wings. This
is the imago or mature form of the insect known as the codlin-moth (it
lives on codlins or apples). The larvae or "worms" were brought into
the cellar in the apples; some of them crawled out, spun themselves in
a cocoon and pupated; in due season the moth emerged, ready to lay the
eggs for other larvae. Ordinarily the fruit-grower does not see the
moth, for it is a small object amidst the foliage of apple-trees; the
larva or apple-worm he knows well.
There may be two or more broods of apple-worms, depending on the
length of the season. In the northern apple regions of North America
there is usually only one brood, with a partial second brood. The
first brood is hatched from eggs laid by moths that emerge in spring.
The moths come from larvae that have lain in cocoons all winter, hidden
under bark on the trunks and main branches of the apple-tree, in
crevices in nearby posts and fences, and sometimes in the ground. The
pupae are the transformed larvae or worms that left the apple of the
previous year, usually before it fell, and crawled down the tree to
find a place to spin the silken brown cocoons in which they wrapped
themselves to undergo the wonderful transformation.
So is the cycle complete: egg laid in early spring, mostly on the
leaves; larva hatched in about one week, crawling to the young apple
to feed, where it lives for perhaps a month; larva departed from the
fruit to form a cocoon and to remain quiescent till it pupates the
following spring (if there is no second brood) when it transforms into
a moth; the moth alive for one week or ten days, laying perhaps as
many as one hundred eggs or even more. If there is a second or third
brood, the pupa resurrects in ten days or so into the moth; eggs are
laid; larvae are hatched; pupae again are formed; and thus is the
process continued. But the winter stage is the larva, although perhaps
in store-houses the moths may emerge earlier and survive till spring.
The eggs of the first brood are commonly laid on the leaves and fruit.
The young larva or worm eats very little on the foliage. It usually
crawls into the blossom end of the apple. The young apple stands
erect, with the calyx open (Fig. 6); later the calyx closes and
protects the larva that hatched there, forming a good cover for its
operations (Fig. 7). The worm drives for the core, where it eats the
young seeds and burrows extensively; then, when nearly grown, it sets
out for the surface, eating a straight burrow; an opening is made
through the skin of the apple, but this exit is plugged until the
animal is ready to leave the place and to crawl down the tree to
pupate. The larvae of later broods may enter at the side of the apple,
where a leaf affords protection or where two fruits come together; but
the life-history is the same, varying in its rapidity.
This account discloses the vulnerable point in the life-history, if
one is to destroy the insects and to grow fair fruit; if poison is
lodged on the erect open-topped little apple, the young larva will get
it before he injures the fruit. If the application of the poison is
delayed until the calyx closes (Fig. 7), there will be small chance
of reaching the worm. The best way to reach the second brood is to
destroy all the first brood. The standard practice, therefore, is to
spray the trees soon after the petals fall, with the idea of
depositing arsenic in the blossom end.
But the season of egg-laying is long, often extending over a period of
three or four weeks, for the moths do not all emerge from the cocoons
simultaneously. It is customary, therefore, to spray again about two
weeks after the first application, with the hope of catching the young
worms on their way to the fruit.
There is no question about the efficacy of spraying. Its value has
been demonstrated time and again. The methods and the materials may be
learned from the experiment station publications in any State, wherein
the advice is kept up-to-date.
In the days before the perfecting of the spraying processes, the
codlin-moth was controlled by catching the pupating larvae. Taking
advantage of the habit of the worm to find lodgment under the bark on
the trunk, it was the practice to scrape the loose bark from bole and
large branches to destroy the hiding-places and then to tie a band of
cloth around the trunk. Under this band the worms were taken, as they
spun themselves up in the cocoons. This is a lesson taken from the
industrious woodpeckers, who, in the winter, search the trees for the
pupae and make holes through the flakes of bark to get them. The
scraping of apple-trees is not much recommended now for the reason
that this special necessity is passed, and because the better tillage
and care together with the soaking of the branches and trunk in the
spraying operation, tend to keep the tree vigorous and the bark
properly exfoliated.
So the worm in the apple has a delicate and interesting history. From
egg to imago the transformations proceed with regularity, and they are
marvelous. Had we not traced the sequence, no man could tell by
appearances that the larva, the pupa and the moth are one and the same
animal. They seem to have nothing in common. So is the egg stage as
different as the other three, but we are measurably prepared for this
epoch, since we know seeds so well; the egg and the seed are
analogous. That a moth in the air should come from a crawling worm in
an apple is indeed one of the miracles of nature. The worm leaves the
apple ere it falls; how the worm knows the time is again a mystery. By
some instinct, it is able to cognize a dying apple. The later worms,
either the lastlings from the early brood or the product of subsequent
broods, may remain in the apple when it is harvested, particularly in
an apple picked before it is quite mature and from which the worm has
not escaped.
The apple-worm ruins the crop by killing many of the fruits and by
blemishing the remainder. Seldom are there two worms in an apple. They
seem to respect each other's hunting-ground. From the worm's point of
view and from man's, one is enough.
If man has dominion and if he needs apples, then is he within his
rights if he joins issue with the insects. Yet is the insect as
interesting for all that. I think we should miss many of the
satisfactions of life, and certainly some of the disciplines, if there
were no insects. My apple-tree is a great place for a naturalist. Van
Bruyssel wrote a book on "The Population of an Old Pear-Tree." "When
certain blue spirits begin to flit about me," he writes, "I depart
from my study to go and read, in what I am allowed, even by my
clerical uncle, to call my book of devotions. The devotions I mean are
not in my book-case. No publisher, if he ever thought of such a thing,
could bring them out. They are a page of the book of Nature, opened in
the country, under blue sky, displayed at all season." What a
marvelous company Van Bruyssel found on his old pear tree; and what
inexhaustible worlds did Fabre discover in the lives of the spider,
the fly, the caterpillar, the wasps, the mason-bees and others!
Therefore we need not pause with the other four hundred and more
insect citizens of the apple-tree. Some of them, as the San Jose
scale, are not peculiarly apple-tree insects. My tree has another crew
of inhabitants, and to this company we may now have introduction.
The spots on the leaves and fruits are not deposits of dirt nor are
they caused by mysterious conditions in the atmosphere, as once
supposed, nor is it in the nature of leaves to be spotted and of
fruits to be scabby; nor are the one-sided dwarfed fruits merely
accidents. The organism responsible for these blemishes is less
evident than the codlin-moth; yet what fruit-grower knows the eggs of
the codlin-moth? But the organisms are as definite as are the insects;
no longer are the fungi things without form and without positive
cycles.
On the ground are apple leaves, shed in the autumn. On the leaves are
spots or lesions,--injured or "diseased"--infected with the apple-scab
fungus. Under a good microscope the investigator finds immature
fruiting bodies in these areas. In the early days of Spring, these
bodies or winter-spores mature. A rain discharges them in astonishing
numbers. Rising in the air (for they are incredibly light), these
spores lodge on the unfolding leaves and flowers of the apple, and
there begin to germinate, invading the tissue. The tissue is
penetrated and killed so rapidly that the practiced eye soon discovers
a "spot." The leaf, if badly infected, may not reach full size; it may
curl; it may die and fall; the tree thereby is injured.
From the fungus in the active diseased areas, another kind of spore
develops rapidly. It is the summer-spore, which may be produced in
prodigious numbers, and being discharged carries the disease
elsewhere.
All summer the process of spore-formation and distribution keeps up.
If conditions are favorable, the tree is invaded in foliage and fruit.
The flower-stems in the unfolding buds are attacked by the
winter-spores and the flower falls. The apples become spotted from the
invasion of the summer-spores, perhaps misshapen. Late infections may
not show at picking time, but develop on the fruit in storage. The
affected leaves are cast in the autumn, the winter-spores begin to
form, the snows come and hide the processes, in spring the spores
mature; and so does the round of life go on and on.
There are beautiful forms in these fragile fungus threads that eat
their way into the tissues of the host. There are fascinating
phenomena in the growth and reproduction. Even so and for all that,
man protects his tree by spraying it with poison, and thereby again
does he have dominion.
The spraying for apple-scab is with lime-sulfur to which may be added
arsenate of lead. This treatment, properly timed, may suffice also
for the codlin-moth. As the fungus may attack the flower-stems and
kill them, so is the first application made when the flower-buds open
and the stems begin to separate, but before the flowers expand; the
operator has a period of one to three days in which to spray. A second
spraying is given just after the blossoms fall, as for codlin-moth; if
the season is wet, a third application may be made ten to fourteen
days later; if the fungus seems to spread, a fourth spraying may be
applied in midsummer. These sprayings, variously modified, control not
only the codlin-moth and the scab fungus but also scale, blister-mite,
plant-lice, leaf-roller, case-bearer, bud-moth, red-bug and others.
In the tropics one sees trees bearing great burdens of orchids and
bromeliads and ferns and mosses, and one wonders at the strange and
exuberant population. Yet here is my apple-tree supporting epiphytes
and parasites and insects, protector and nurse of a goodly company;
and birds nest on the branches thereof.
XV
THE APPLE-TREE REGIONS
The northern hemisphere is the home of the apple, particularly Central
Europe, Canada, the United States. In certain regions in the southern
hemisphere the temperature and humidity are right for the good growing
of apples, mostly in elevated areas. In New Zealand and parts of
Australia, apple-growing is assuming large proportions. Their export
trade to Europe and parts of South America has come to be important
and undoubtedly is destined greatly to increase.
In Europe, where land is often limited and high in price, apple-trees
may be planted closer than in America, even in field conditions, and
more attention is given to pruning, heading-in, and the development of
fruit-spurs in the interior of the tree-top. I noticed this practice
in New Zealand, also. In these directions, the Europeans have much to
teach us in the careful growing of good apples. In Europe, the
definite training of the apple-tree begins in the nursery;
quantity-production, with standardization, is not there the aim.
In North America the general practice is to let the tree take its
course, reaching its full natural stature. The pruning is mostly
corrective, to keep the tree in shape and to prevent the top from
becoming too thick, rather than in the development of fruiting wood.
The consequence is that our trees become very large, specially in New
York and New England where they are long-lived. In the western
country, as we have learned, the apple-tree tends to be shorter-lived
and does not usually attain such great size. In the New York apple
country, orchards may be in good bearing at forty to sixty years from
planting, and individual trees may be productive much longer than
this. The trees come into good bearing in ten to fifteen years. In the
irrigated regions of the West, the trees may be expected to bear a
good crop two to five years earlier; to what age they may attain, in
large plantations, it is yet too early to state.
The commercial apple regions of North America are in Canada and the
northern United States, comprising about two or three tiers of States,
with important extensions southward into the mountains and in special
parts. The Southern States are not known as apple-growing country,
except in special restricted elevated areas, although there are
considerable plantations near the Gulf of Mexico.
The geography of apple-growing on the North American continent cannot
be better displayed than by copying the table of contents of the
larger part of Chapters III and II in Folger and Thomson's excellent
recent book, "The Commercial Apple Industry of North America:"
_Commercial Apple Production in Canada_
Nova Scotia
Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick
Quebec
Ontario
British Columbia.
_Leading Apple Regions of the United States_
Western New York
Hudson Valley
New England Baldwin belt
The Champlain district
New Jersey
Delaware
Shenandoah-Cumberland district
Piedmont district of Virginia
Minor regions in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia
Mountain region of North Carolina
Mountain region of Georgia
Ohio
Southern Ohio, Rome Beauty district
Minor regions in Ohio
Kentucky
Michigan
Illinois
Southern Illinois early apple region
Mississippi Valley region of Illinois
Ozark region
Missouri River region
Arkansas Valley of Kansas
Southeastern Illinois
Colorado
New Mexico
Utah
Montana
Washington
Yakima Valley
Wenatchee North Central Washington district
Spokane district
Walla Walla district
Oregon
Hood River Valley
Rogue River Valley
Other apple districts in Oregon
Idaho
Payette district
Boise Valley
Twin Falls
Lewiston section
California
Watsonville district
Sebastopol apple district
Yucaipa section
Wisconsin
Minnesota
The varieties of the South and the North, and largely also of the West
and the East, are prevailingly different. Canada has a set of apples
quite its own. These differences are marked when one visits
exhibitions in the various regions. Let the visitor who is a good
judge of apples in Michigan and Ohio attempt to judge them in an
exhibition in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, in the Province of
Quebec, in North Carolina, in Minnesota, in Oregon. He will be
impressed with the wonderful diversity, as well as the undeveloped
resources, of the continent.
Southward, apples do not keep well. There are no true winter apples in
the Southern States, outside mountain regions. A winter apple of the
North becomes a fall apple in the South. In fact, there are marked
differences in keeping quality within a single State. On gravelly
lands or warm slopes in the southern part of New York, the Northern
Spy may become practically a late autumn apple; in the northern parts
of the State it is a firm crisp all-winter keeper. In the winter
apple, the ripening process proceeds in storage. When the season is so
long that maturity is reached on the tree, the subsequent duration is
relatively short.
It is not to be inferred, however, that apples are to be grown only in
regions and soils naturally well adapted. Such adaptations should be
controlling in commercial plantations; but if man has dominion he
should be able to accomplish much in untoward or even in hostile
conditions. Even the city lot may be able to yield a harvest, if the
occupant of it is minded in fruits rather than in other things. Every
observant traveler has noted cases in which good results in the
rearing of plants and animals have been attained in places that no one
would choose for the purpose: the man has overcome his obstacles. I
was impressed with this fact in visiting a greenhouse in the Shetland
Islands. Cultivation has been carried far beyond the optimum regions.
The merit of the man's performance is measured in the excellence of
his result rather than in the quantity of it. The application of skill
is the highest test of ability in plant-growing, and this is often
expressed in the most difficult places.
Whatever may be the adaptability of any general territory to the
growing of apples in a large way, the probability is that a man of
resources and skill will be able to raise good apples for himself,
unless, of course, the region is prohibitive. The amateur may be a law
unto himself in many of these matters, delighting in the ingenuity
that enables him to overcome.
XVI
THE HARVEST OF THE APPLE-TREE
Finally the apple is ripe, a fair goodly object joyous in the sun,
inviting to every sense. Hanging amidst its foliage, bending the twig
with its weight, it is at once a pattern in good shape, perfect in
configuration, in sheen beyond imitation, in fragrance the very
affluence of all choice clean growth, its surface spread with a bloom
often so delicate that the unsympathetic see it not; and yet the rains
do not spoil it.
The apple must be picked. Do not let it fall. Probably it is over-ripe
when it falls; the hold is loosened; its time is up. Wormy apples may
fall before they are ripe; the worm injury, if it begins early, causes
them to ripen prematurely. A premature apple is not a good apple,
albeit the small boy relishes it but only because he may get his apple
earlier; in the apple season, when ripe fruits are abundant, the boy
does not choose the wormy one.
Pick the apple from the tree. It will do you good. It is ever so much
better than to pick it from a box on the market or out of a quart-can
in the ice-chest. You will feel some sense of responsibility when you
pick it, some reaction of relationship to its origin. We know that we
understand folks better when we see them at home.
In varieties that mature before winter, the apple is of best quality
when it ripens on the tree and is picked when fit to eat. In this
respect it differs from the pear. One reason why store apples are
usually poor is because they must be picked long before ripe to stand
shipment. In my experience it is most difficult to find a man who will
pick apples when ripe; he is usually possessed to pull them green,
thinking that if the fruit is full grown and has a red cheek it is
therefore ready to be plucked.
One would expect the best summer and fall apples to come from nearby
local orchards, but practically this is not the case because the
grower will not allow them to remain on the tree until they are fit.
Of course the really ripe apple will not keep long and it does not
stand rough handling, but this does not affect the fact that, for
eating, an apple should be naturally ripe. In every city, small or
large, a good trade can be built up for local ripe hand-picked fruit
of the first quality, in competition with the best commercial supply.
Winter apples are picked in the Northern States in October, sometimes
late in September. They are then full grown, but are hard and
inedible. The red varieties are full colored; the green ones show more
or less yellow. Light early frost does not injure them on the tree.
Usually they are placed at first in piles or windrows; and from these
piles they are barreled or boxed for market. If the choicest grades
are to be made, they should be taken to a packing-house.
The apple is an easy fruit to pick. The stem parts readily from the
spur or twig. Yet if the harvester is choice of his trees he will work
deftly rather than roughly, not to injure the bearing wood. The fruits
are placed in baskets as they are plucked, sometimes in a bag slung
over the shoulders but this is not the best way when the apples are
ripe. In the packing-house, the fruits are sorted into uniform grades
if they are for market.
The better the trees are tilled, pruned and sprayed, the more uniform
will be the crop, and particularly if the fruit is thinned on the
tree; yet the second-class and even cull apples will be many under
ordinary conditions. The purchaser, noting the price of extra-grade
apples, may not realize that he buys only the remainder in a long
process of grading, extending really over the season or even
throughout the life of the orchard. In all this time, the grower has
borne the risks of frosts and hail, insect and fungus invasions, lack
of help, and disastrously low prices. A finished product of high
quality is always expensive.
The usual apples on the open market are not the kind I have here tried
to describe. They are the product of indifferent orchards or of
careless handling. They are purchased for cooking; and the eating of
apples out of hand because they are attractive and really good is an
unknown experience with great numbers of our people. The polished
shiny apples of the fruit-stands are a delusion. The practice of
burnishing the fruits produces a most inartistic result, destroying
the natural bloom and violating the appearance of a natural apple. It
is one thing to clean a fruit if it is soiled (which is seldom the
case with boxed or barreled apples); it is quite another thing to rub
and furbish an apple as if it were a billiard ball or glass marble and
not a living object that grew on a tree,--it sets false standards
before the children. Yet all this is in line with much of our practice
whereby, in cookery and manipulation, we disguise our foods and show
our lack of appreciation of the products themselves.