The New Student's Reference Work/Apple

Apple, the name of a tree and of the king of fruits, the most important commercial pomological fruit in the world. It will grow in a variety of climates and soils; in the Old World its range is from Scandinavia south to the mountainous portions of Spain; in the New World, from New Brunswick to the mountains of Georgia, from British Columbia down to the mountains of Mexico. And in New Zealand and Tasmania the apple thrives. It has been in cultivation since prehistoric times. Notable reference is made to it in ancient literature; it is mentioned several times in the Bible; in the tale of Troy's fall the apple played a part; names and other evidence shows its extensive cultivation by the Romans; the folk-lore of Scandinavia and Germany abounds with stories of apple trees and golden apples.

The apple belongs to the rose family of plants, and is a native of southwestern Asia and adjacent Europe. The common apples are all modifications of a single species; while the crab apples have all been derived from another species. The number of varieties actually on sale in America during any year is not far from 1,000. North America is the greatest apple country of the world, and a full crop for the United States and Canada is said to be not less than 100,000,000 barrels.

Apples were early introduced in this country, and at first prized specially for cider. In the United States the apple is adapted to all portions save Florida, the lands immediately bordering the Gulf and the warmer localities of the southwest and Pacific coast. The most perfect apple region, Bailey considers, begins with Nova Scotia and extends to the west and southwest to Lake Michigan; other important regions are the Piedmont country of Virginia and the highlands of adjacent states, the plains region, the Ozark and Arkansas regions and the Pacific region.

While the apple thrives in a variety of soils, it reaches its best in a clay-loam. It is propagated both by budding and by grafting the sort desired on young seedling trees. Apples grown from seeds are very apt to revert to the wild type. Dread enemies of the apple are apple worm and apple scab. Spraying with poison is the means used to check their work of ruin.

There are several species of crab apple native to North America; the prairie, the wild (Coronaria), the narrow-leaved, and the oregon crab. The blossom of the wild crab-apple is of exquisite beauty and fragrance, and thickets of these trees now have place in many of our city parks. There is no wild flower more highly prized in this country, and for every region there is a crab-apple tree.

The common apple tree is rightly valued for its beauty as well as its utility. In the spring, when the rugged, sturdy trunk bears aloft its huge bouquet of fragrant bloom and freshest leaves, all pay homage—and here may be made declaration that beauty is excuse for the wealth of flowers, for not one tenth of the blossoms is needed to "set" all the fruit the tree could mature. A summer orchard, too, is very attractive, and decidedly attractive is the orchard in the season of ripened fruit. In winter the spreading bare branches and leaning tree stand out in full picturesqueness.

"Health to thee, good apple-tree,
Well to bear pocketfulls, hatfulls,
Peckfulls, bushel-bagfulls."

See Bailey's Cyclopedia of American Horticulture and Bailey s Field Notes on Apple Culture; Thomas: The Book of the Apple; McFarland: Apples.