The apple-tree starts life fresh and vigorous. It grows rapidly. The shoots are long and straight. The wood is smooth and fair and supple. The leaves are usually large. It is good to see the young trees acquire size and take shape.
Room in the ground and in the air is ample with the young apple-tree. It is free to grow. Probably the ground was newly prepared and tilled when the tree was planted; at least, a hole was dug and fine good earth was placed about the roots. Probably insects had not found permanent encampment on the tree. It had been well pruned, so that it carried the minimum of superfluous and competing parts.
But in time the difficulties come. The tree probably slows down. It becomes too thick of branches. The land is not tilled. It is not manured. Insects and fungi make headway. The tree overbears. As the years go on, the tree is thrown into alternate bearing, one year a crop too heavy, one year a crop too light. The tree becomes broken, diseased, gnarly, unshapely.
We have seen that the fruit-spur in bearing is likely to make a leaf-bud for the next year's activities rather than a flower-bud. It is assumed that the making of aflower-bud requires more energy than the making of a plain leaf-bud; if this is true, there may not be energy enough to carry a flower-cluster and to make a new flower-bud at the same time. But if the tree is in proper vigor, is well fed, protected from noxious organisms, not allowed to overbear, it should have sufficient energy to make a crop every year, frosts and accidents excepted. It is assumed, of course, that self-sterile varieties have good pollinizing varieties near them; it is always well to plant two or more kinds near together. Whether the continuity of bearing is exhibited on the same fruit-spurs or whether there may be an alternation in the spurs on the same tree, is of no moment in this discussion. It is enough to say that there is no reason in the nature of the case why an apple-tree should bear only every other year; it is probably a question of nutrition.
The first essential to continued health and vigor is to start with a strong unblemished tree. It is to be planted before its vitality is lessened by exposure and hard usage. The more direct the transfer from nursery to orchard, the better. It is to be placed in good ground, well drained and deeply spaded or plowed. The apple-tree thrives on many kinds of land, but light sand, hard clay, and muck are equally to be avoided. "Good corn land" is commonly considered to be good apple land. Certain soils and regions are particularly adaptable to commercial apple-growing, but the amateur may plant quite independently of this fact. The observant man notes the many conditions under which the apple-tree may be grown with satisfaction.
If the land is not uniformly prepared, then the hole dug for the tree should be larger than demanded byspread of roots, and the earth fined in the bottom of it. Trees should be planted when perfectly dormant, preferably in spring, at least in the northern parts.
The roots should be cut back to sound unsplintered wood, and very long roots may well be shortened. The reader is aware that roots have no regular order or arrangement as do the buds from which branches arise. It is not necessary to try to shape the root-system to any formal regularity.
As a good part of the root-system is destroyed when the tree is dug, so is the top reduced to insure something like a balance. Half or more of the top, on a three-year-old tree, is cut away, the long growths being shortened to perhaps three or four good buds. If limbs are left to form the framework of the future top, they should be alternate with each other at some distance apart so that weak crotches do not form.
The tree is planted snugly, the earth being filled among the roots so that no air-holes remain. The tree is shaken up and down to settle the earth densely. Once or twice in filling, the earth is packed with the feet. The purpose is to keep the tree firm and stiff against winds, and to give all its roots close contact with the earth. Properly planted, so that it will not whip or dry out, the tree gets a hold quickly and begins to grow strongly. The first start-off of the tree is important.
Apple-trees are held in vigor by plenty of room. For the standard varieties in regular orchards, the recommended distance either way is 40 feet, or 35 x 40 feet. Some varieties may go as close as 30 feet; and in regions (as parts of central and western North America) in which the trees are not expected to attain such great size as inthe eastern country, the planting may be even less than this of the upright-growing kinds. The spaces between the trees may be utilized for a few years with other crops, even with other fruits, as peaches or berries. Orchardists sometimes plant smaller-growing and early-bearing varieties of apples between the regular trees as "fillers," taking them out as the room is needed. Of course all kinds of double cropping require that extra attention be given to the tilling and fertilizing of the plantation.
The general advice for the growing of strong apple-trees is to give the land good tillage from the first and to withhold other cropping after the trees come into profitable bearing. Clean tillage for the first part of the season and the raising of a cover-crop in the latter part, to be plowed under, is a standard and dependable procedure. Trees live long in continuous sod and they may thrive, but they may be expected to show gains under tillage. Vast areas of apple plantings are in sod, but this of itself does not demonstrate the desirability of the sod practice. Allowing trees to remain in sod usually leads to neglect.
There is a modification of sod-practice in some parts of the country that gives excellent results, under certain conditions. The grass is cut and allowed to lie, not being removed for hay. Manure and fertilizer are added as top-dressing, as needed. This method is known as the "sod mulch system." It is not a practice of partial neglect, like the prevailing sod orchards, but a regular designed method of producing results. Its application can hardly be as widespread as clean tillage, on level lands.
It is a common opinion that hillsides and more or less inaccessible slopes should be planted to apples. Thismay be true in the sense that apples will grow on such areas and that such plantations are better than fallow land. In fact, many such lands are profitable in orchards. When they do not allow of tillage, easy spraying, and economy in harvesting, however, they cannot compete with level orchards.
To maintain the health and energy of the apple-tree, the land should be enriched. This may be accomplished by the application of animal manures, chemical fertilizers, or cover-crops, or preferably by a combination of these means. Not many persons possess sufficient farm manures to supply the general crops and the apple-orchard; but every application the orchard receives is all to the good. Five to ten tons of good stable manure to the acre annually is a good addition for an orchard in bearing. This may be supplemented by cover-crops and bag fertilizers in years in which the manure is not available. Experiments are yet inconclusive on the fertilizing of apple-trees, but it is fair to assume that on most lands, particularly on old lands, the addition of chemical fertilizer is advantageous. A bearing apple-tree may receive two to eight pounds of nitrate of soda (depending on its size and on soil) applied to the full feeding area of the roots, five to nine pounds of acid phosphate, two or three pounds of muriate of potash; always ask advice.
The pasturing of orchards is often defensible and sometimes even desirable. If the trees are growing too rapidly, they may be "slowed down" by seeding to grass for a time; and pasturing with hogs, and possibly with sheep, may afford a way of keeping the area in condition and of adding fertilizer. Sheep that do not have access to drinking-water and salt gnaw the trees. Hogs root upthe ground and thereby provide a rude kind of tillage. If animals are fed other food in the orchard, the fertilizer increment will be considerable.
In house-lot conditions, the apple-tree usually receives sufficient food if the land is well enriched for garden purposes; but trees in sod should have liberal top-dressings of fertilizer every year and of stable manure every other year.
The apple-tree should have a good supply of moisture. Planted on banks and in hard places about buildings, it may suffer in this respect. The land should be so graded that the rainfall will not run off. In orchard conditions, the moisture is conserved by the addition of humus to the land, and by thorough judicious tillage; and in dry regions it is supplied by irrigation.
The energy of the apple-tree, and its ability to produce, is conserved by holding all diseases and noxious insects in check. The means at the command of the apple-grower are now many. No longer is the man helpless, nor does he need to appeal to the moon or to "atmospheric influences" for reasons. The natural histories of fungi and insects, that do so much damage, are now a part of common understandable knowledge. To acquire at least a working understanding of the commonest of these subjects is in itself a great satisfaction and gives one a sense of dominion. The good books and bulletins are sufficient to keep one well informed. All these organisms are tenants of the apple-tree, and from the naturist's point of view alone they are not to be overlooked.
It is not to be inferred that all apple-trees will yield equally well with equally good treatment. There isdifference in trees as there is in cows. We may not know why. But even so, it is our part to do the best we can: this is our privilege.
The tillage and care of plants lessen the struggle for existence. So is the apple-tree protected from the crowds, from contest for moisture and food, from insects, and from the competition within itself. Thereby is it able to express all its possibilities. Even the dormant potentialities may be wakened, and the plant makes a wide departure from its native state. This is not an original state of sin, but a state of repression in which it is held in a world that is full of so many things beside apple-trees. I may till my orchard ever so well, manipulate the trees ever so promptly, yet if the plantation then is allowed to run to neglect the processes of depreciation gain the mastery; the struggle for existence is restored.
To keep one's apple-tree in the pink of perfection is as joyful an enterprise as to do anything else well. It is only the well-conditioned tree that yields its glorious harvest year by year.
If the seeds of a Baldwin or Winesap apple are planted, we do not expect to get a Baldwin or Winesap; we shall probably raise a very inferior fruit. The apple has not been bred "true to seed" as has the cabbage and sweet pea. To get the tree "true to name," of the desired variety and with no chance of failure (barring accident), is one of the niceties of horticulture. This is accomplished with great precision and despatch.
The apple-tree is started from the seed. It cannot be grown freely by means of cuttings, as can the grape and currant. In commercial practice the seeds are collected mostly from cider mills or from pomace. The seeds may be washed from the pomace, allowed to dry, and then mixed in sand, charcoal, sawdust or other material to prevent dessication and kept until spring, when they are sown. Or, if the land is not so wet in winter that the seed will drown or be washed out, the seed in the pomace (not separated) may be sown in autumn. The seeds are sown in drills, after the manner of onions or turnips, one to two or even three inches deep. They germinate readily in the cool of spring, and the plants should reach a height of twelve inches and more the first year.
If these plants were grown directly into bearing trees,it is probable that no two trees would produce the same kind of fruit. Some of the fruit might be summer apples, some of it winter apples, some red, yellow or striped, some of it flat, oblong or spherical, most of it sour but perhaps some of it sweet. Probably every kind would be inferior to the parent stock or to standard varieties, although there is a fair chance that a superior kind might originate from a field of such plants.
Therefore, it is not the variety (that is, the top) that is wanted in the raising of these numerous plants, but merely the roots, on which desired varieties may be grown by the clever art of graftage. Yet not even all the roots may be wanted, for the growing plants may differ or vary in their stature and vigor as well as in their fruit. The discriminating grower, therefore, discards the weak and puny treelings at the digging time; or if the weak plants seem still to have promise, they may be allowed to grow another year before they are dug for the grafting.
This digging time is the autumn of the first year, when the plants have grown one season. They are then to be used as "stocks" on which to graft Baldwin, Winesap or other varieties. The growing of these apple stocks is a business by itself. Formerly, most of the stocks used in North America were imported from France, where special skill has been developed in the growing of them and where the requisite labor is available. But now the stocks are grown also in deep rich bottom lands of the Middle West, as in Kansas, where, in the long seasons, a large growth may be attained.
The methods of graftage of the commercial apple-tree are two—by cion-grafting whereby a bit of wood with two or three buds is inserted on the stock, by bud-grafting(budding) whereby a single bud with a bit of bark attached is inserted under the bark of the stock.
Cion-grafting is practiced in winter under cover. The stock is cut off at the crown and the cion spliced on it, or the root may be cut in two or more pieces and each piece receive a cion. The union is made by the whip-graft method (Fig.16). The cion is tied securely, to keep it in place. The piece-root method is allowable only when the root is long and strong, so that a well-rooted plant results the first year. The cion is a cutting of the last year's growth (as of No. 1, in Fig.14). However accomplished, the process is to supply the cion with roots; it is planted in another plant instead of in the ground.
16. The whip-graft before tying.16. The whip-graft before tying.
The cion-grafts are now planted in the nursery row in spring. The cion starts growth rapidly, only one shoot being allowed to remain; this shoot forms the trunk or bole of the future tree. At the end of the first season, the little tree is said to be one year old, although the root is at least two years old; at the end of the second year it is two years old; the tree is sometimes sold as a two-year-old, but usually a year later as a three-year-old having a four-year-old root. In fact, however, the root and top may be considered, in a way, to be of the same age, particularly if only a piece of the root is employed, for the cion grew on its parent tree the same year the root was growing in the nursery.
The tree grew from the seed but it is no longer a"seedling" or a "natural;" it is now a grafted tree, destined to produce a named recognized variety of apple, maybe York Imperial, maybe Jonathan. We find seedling trees in old fields, in fence-rows, and in woods. These have grown from scattered seeds and have come to fruit without the arts of the propagator. They bear their own tops or heads, rather than the heads that a thrifty horticulturist would have put on them. Now and then such a tree produces superior fruit; then a discriminating pomologist discovers it, names it a new variety, and propagates it as other varieties are propagated. Thus have most of the prized varieties originated, without knowledge on the part of man of the ultimate processes. But now with the accumulating knowledge of the plant-breeder we hope to be able to foresee and probably to produce varieties of given qualities.
17. A "bud" before tying.17. A "bud" before tying.
Bud-grafting is practiced in summer. The young trees, obtained from the grower of apple stocks, are planted regularly in nursery rows in spring, the top having been cut back to the crown so that a strong vigorous shoot will arise. In July and August or September, when this shoot is the size of a lead pencil and larger and the bark will peel (or separate from the wood), a single bud is inserted near the ground (Fig.17). This bud is deftly cut from the current year's growth of the desired variety; it grows in the axil of a leaf (Fig.15). The leaf is removed but a small part of the stalk or petiole is retained with the bud to serve as a handle.A boat-shaped or shield-shaped piece of bark is removed with the bud. This piece, known technically as a "bud," is inserted in an incision on the stock, so that it slips underneath the bark and next the wood, with only the bud itself showing in the slit; it is then tied in place.
The stock on which the bud is inserted has a two-year root, and the root is entire. For this reason, budded trees are usually very large and strong for their age when compared with piece-root trees grown under similar conditions of climate, tillage and soil.
The bud does not grow the year it is inserted in the stock; it is dormant until the following spring, as it would have been had it remained on its parent branch; but soon after it is inserted it attaches itself fast to the stock: it is a bud implanted from one twig to another. The following spring, if the operation is successful, the bud "grows," sending up a strong shoot that makes the trunk of the future tree. The top of the stock is cut away; in the merchantable tree, the bend or place may be seen where the stock and cion meet.
As in the case of cion-grafting, we now have a top of a known variety growing on the root of an unknown kind. The tree is sold at two or three years, counting the age of the top; and of course the tree is no longer called a seedling, and it produces its implanted variety as accurately as does the cion-grafted tree. Equally good trees are produced by both cion-grafting and bud-grafting.
The apple-tree is now "propagated," and is ready for the planting. Great hopes will be built on it, and the tree will probably do its part to justify them. Nobody knows how a bud from a Baldwin tree holds the memory of a Baldwin or from a Winesap tree the memory of aWinesap. Neither does anyone know why of two seeds that look alike one will unerringly produce a cabbage and the other a cauliflower. So accustomed are we to these results that we never challenge a twig of apple or a seed of cabbage: we assume that the twig or the seed "knows." Nor have we yet approached this question in our elaborate studies of plant-breeding. Here is one of the mysteries that baffles the skill of the physiologist and chemist, yet it is a mystery so very common that we know it not, albeit the life on the planet would otherwise be utter confusion.
We have learned that many kinds of apples and apple-trees may come from a batch of seeds. Differences are expressed in the tree as well as in the fruit. In fact, stature is usually one of the characteristics of the variety. Here I open Downing's great book, "The Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America," and find the description of a certain variety beginning: "Tree while young very slow in its growth, but makes a compact well-formed head in the orchard," and another: "Tree vigorous, upright spreading, and productive." We know the small stature and early bearing of the Wagener (wherefore it is often planted in the orchard as a filler), and the great wide-spreading head of the Tompkins King with the apples scattered through the tree.
Now it so happens that in the course of time certain great races of the apple-tree have arisen, we do not know just why or how. There is the race or family of the russets and of the Fameuse. So are there several races very small in stature, remaining perhaps no larger than bushes. If we were to propagate any of the ordinary apples on such diminutive stocks, we should have a "dwarf apple-tree."
The dwarf apple, then, is not a question of varietybut of stock. Any variety may be grown as a dwarf by grafting it on a plant that naturally remains small, although some varieties are more adaptable than others to the purpose.
If seeds of the natural diminutive apple-tree are sown, a variety of trees and apples may be expected. The fruits would probably be inferior. Probably the stature would vary between different seedlings. If we are to get the effect of dwarfness, we must be sure that the stock is itself really dwarf. Therefore, to eliminate variation and also because seeds of natural dwarf apples may not be had in sufficient quantity, the stocks are propagated by layers rather than by seeds.
The diminutive tree, when well established, is cut off near the 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. Onlyhigh-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 withinshape 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 applesgrafted 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, "Paradisiin 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.
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 attainmentof 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 treeswere 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 applePyrus 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 timeimmemorial, 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 ofPyrus 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 ofPyrus 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 calledPyrus coronariaby 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. coronariaitself 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 arePyrus Soulardii, a species bearing the name of J. G. Soulard, Illinois horticulturist. These crab-apples are probably natural hybrids betweenPyrus Malusand 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 Americanfamily, 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.
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 thatthe 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 reducesthe 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 theCatalogue 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.
Arkansas—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.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 succeedingcrop 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 itPyrus 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 asPyrus dioica(the diœcious 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 greatcommercial 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 stationscannot 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 fructicetumin perpetuumfor 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?
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 diverseapples 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.16explains 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 concurrenceof 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 orbranch 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.
18. The cleft-graft.18. The cleft-graft.
19. The cleft-graft after waxing.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.