The Apple-Tree: The Open Country Books—No. 1Bailey, L. H. (Liberty Hyde)
Science
The Apple-Tree: The Open Country Books—No. 1
Bailey, L. H. (Liberty Hyde)
Apples
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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