American Pomology. ApplesWarder, J. A. (John Aston)
Science
American Pomology. Apples
Warder, J. A. (John Aston)
Apples
It were an interesting and not unprofitable study to trace the various
sources and routes by which fruits have been introduced into different
parts of our extended country. In some cases we should find that we
were indebted for these luxuries to the efforts of very humble
individuals, while in other regions the high character of the orchards
is owing to the forethought, knowledge, enterprise, and liberality of
some prominent citizen of the infant community, who has freely spent
his means and bestowed his cares in providing for others as well as
for his own necessities or pleasures. But it is to the intelligent
nurserymen of our country that we are especially indebted for the
universal diffusion of fruits, and for the selection of the best
varieties in each different section. While acting separately, these
men were laboring under great disadvantages, and frequently cultivated
certain varieties under a diversity of names, as they had received
them from various sources. This was a difficulty incident to their
isolation, but the organization of Pomological Societies in various
parts of the country, has enabled them in a great measure to unravel
the confusion of an extended synonymy, and also by comparison and
consultation with the most intelligent fruit-growers, they have been
prepared to advise the planter as to the best and most profitable
varieties to be set out in different soils and situations.
Most of our first orchards were planted with imported trees. The
colonists brought plants and seeds. Even now, in many parts of the
country, we hear many good fruits designated as English, to indicate
that they are considered superior to the native; and we are still
importing choice varieties from Europe and other quarters of the
globe.
The roving tribes of Indians who inhabited this country when
discovered and settled by the whites, had no orchards--they lived by
the chase, and only gathered such fruits as were native to the soil.
Among the earliest attempts to civilize them, however, those that
exerted the greatest influence, were efforts to make them an
agricultural people, and of these the planting of fruit-trees was one
of the most successful. In many parts of the country we find relics of
these old Indian orchards still remaining, and it is probable that
from the apple seeds sent by the general government for distribution
among the Cherokees in Georgia, we are now reaping some of the most
valuable fruits of this species. The early French settlers were famous
tree-planters, and we find their traces across the continent, from the
St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. These consist in noble pear and
apple trees, grown from seeds planted by them, at their early and
scattered posts or settlements. These were made far in advance of the
pioneers, who have, at a later period, formed the van of civilization,
that soon spread into a solid phalanx in its march throughout the
great interior valley of the continent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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