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ITS HISTORY, VARIETIES, AND CULTIVATION.

ILLUSTRATED,

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By D. T. PISH
( Author of “ Pruning, Grafting, and Budding Fruit Trees” " Bwlbe and Bulb Culture
“ Budding Rosea,” <fcc.)
PRICE ONE SHILLING.
London :
THE COUNTRY” OFFICE, 32, WELLINGTON STREET,
STRAND, W.C.
■
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ADVERTISEMENTS.
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“ The advantages of procuring seeds direct from the growers cannot he
overestimated.”
SEEDSMEN TO THE	SEEDSMEN TO THE
QUEEN.	jgf	PRINCE OF WALES.
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POPULAR COLLECTIONS OF VEGETABLE SEEDS.
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These Assortments include the best and most popular kinds.
The Seeds have been carefully grown at our Seed Farms, and
have been proved to be of first-rate growth and pure stocks.
FOR FULL CULTURAL DIRECTIONS SEE
OJLZR/TZEZR/S VADE MECUM,
THE
HANDSOMEST AND MOST USEFUL WORK FOE AMATEURS
AND GARDENERS YET PUBLISHED.
Gratis to Purchasers.
THE QUEEN’S SEEDSMEN.
HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON.VARIETIES.
5
Then in growing apples for profit, selection, not collection, should he
kept strictly in view. Find out by observation or experience what sorts
thrive best and sell for most money in any given locality, and grow
chiefly these. Those who grow apples chiefly for their own pleasure
or amusement, or merely to supply their own tables with apples
from the July of one year to the August, or later, of the next—thus
making not only the new and the old crop meet, but overlap by several
months—will, of course, grow a considerable collection, and choose
seyeral of no great merit, beyond their being in season at some particular
time. But the commercial grower finds it to his interest to confine
himself to a comparatively few sorts, and to be specially chary of bad
keepers. Even in private establishments the fashion has set in strongly
in favour of selecting the best only, and growing a half dozen or a
dozen of trees of one sort, instead of as many different varieties. Where
apples used to be grown by varieties in fifties and hundreds we often find
them now by only dozens or scores. The reduction has been effected by
a system of rigorous selection, which has left only the best for that
locality or district.
It, however, by no means follows that the best for Kent or Devonshire
are also the best for Lancashire or Durham, and hence the importance
of a large variety to choose from, and also of hybridisers and horticul-
turists growing and raising new varieties specially suited for different
localities. This, in fact, will be the next great advance in apple culture,
and the probability is that, before many more years have elapsed, each
county or group of counties will have its apples classified and named,
and as generally recognised as belonging to it or them as the native
floras of different districts are known and correctly described now.
Varieties.
Having written so much about the importance of selection, we now
proceed to give brief descriptive lists of some of the best and most
generally serviceable varieties of dessert and kitchen apples that do
well over the greater part of England. In regard to this division of
apples into two classes, it must be admitted that it is somewhat arbi-
trary, for the Orange, Kibston, and Golden among the Pippins, Reinette
du Canada, and others, are among the finest of all apples for cooking;G
THE APPLE.
while Bess Pool, Blenheim Pippin, Cellini, Alfriston, and many others,
generally reckoned among kitchen apples, are often much relished for
dessert. So diversified are tastes in these matters that we have known
the Nonsuch preferred for eating to most of the dessert varieties. Still,
though the two classes may overlap, as it were, and many in each are
almost equally good for either purpose, yet there are some capital kitchen
apples, such as the Beefings and the Yorkshire Greening, that no one
can eat uncooked. The converse, however, does not hold good, and in
general terms it may almost be affirmed that for most purposes the
better the apples ' to eat raw the better also when cooked, and the
less sugar will be required. It is forgetfulness of the latter fact that
has rendered dessert apples unpopular for cooking purposes. The
tarts, &c., have been rendered insipid by being sugared twice, once and
sufficiently by nature, and again by art. On the contrary, such fine
dessert apples as the Ribston, Blenheim, Sturmer, Wormsley, and King
of the Pippins, most of the Pearmains, Reinette du Canada, Golden
Reinette, Dutch Mignonne, and Boston, and other Russets, have sugar
enough, or in excess, for all culinary purposes without any addition; and
by the use of these and other dessert fruit for cooking the expense of
sugar is saved and the flavour of the apples is far superior. For even
the flavour of many of the kitchen apples is lowered, and not unfre.
quently utterly ruined, by the amount of inferior raw sugar employed
to give them the required sweetness. It is cheaper as well as better
to grow sugar sufficient in superior varieties of fruit than to purchase it
from the grocer.
It must, however, be admitted that dessert fruits are not equal for
sauce to such well-known sorts as the Keswick Codlin, Alexander, Haw
thornden, Lord Suffield, Cellini, Beauty of Kent, Nonsuch, or, best of
all, perhaps—where it is warm enough for it, or where a portion of
south or west wall or orchard house could be given up to its culti-
vation—the Calville Blanche. This is as white as cream, and when
cooked and whipped with it almost equals it in appearance and flavour.
I.—Dessert Apples,
The following are twelve good dessert apples for general use, ripening
throughout the season:
/	Red Astrachan.—Delicate and richly-flavoured, bright and showy fruit,
of good size; one of the most useful of early apples. In season August
to September.
Kerry Pippin.—An excellent early apple, of brisk flavour and bright
golden colour. September to October.VARIETIES.	7
King of the Pippins.—An excellent bearer, good medium-sized showy
apple, of a brisk flavour. October to January.
Cox’s Orange Pippin.—One of the finest and handsomest of all dessert
apples. October to January.
\ Bibston Pippin.—A universal favourite, in season from October to
May, perhaps unprecedented in this latter respect, as well as unrivalled
for excellence. The tree, however, is more given to canker than many
other sorts. October to May.
Cla/ygate Pearmain.—Has most of the best qualities of the Ribston
Pippin, but grows and thrives better in most localities. November to
March.
Cockle Pippin. — Medium sized, richly flavoured, capital bearer.
January to April.
Old Golden Pippin.—This is such a general favourite that it ought
to have a place in a first dozen. It is not only of excellent quality,
but has a sort of semi-classical reputation, which renders it always
welcome at the dessert. The tree and its produce, which never seemed
more plentiful than now, are also a vigorous protest against the theory
of the wearing out of species or varieties. December to March.
Beinette du Canada.—A large handsome apple, varying in colour
from green to bright red, and lasting in season from November to
April, very useful and good. November to May.	y
Northern Spy.—Highly aromatic, large, and tender. December to
May.
Scarlet Nonpareil.—Highy-flavoured, showy fruit, one of the most
attractive and useful of all the rich-flavoured family of Nonpareil.
January to March.
Sturmer Pippin.—A brisk and richly-flavoured medium-sized dessert
fruit, lasting in season from February to June.
Those who have room for twenty-four varieties may add the following
twelve :
Early Margaret.—A fine-flavoured, white-fleshed variety, full of juice
and flavour, but soon gets mealy; so best eaten off the tree. August.
/ Bed Quarrendon.—Under medium size, bright scarlet, crisp and sweet,
one of the best of all summer apples, and the most beautiful on the
table. August.
Irish Peach.—A very distinct and beautiful dessert apple, perhaps
better known as the Early Crofton. The colour is yellowish green, the
flesh white, full of juice and high-flavoured. August.
Pine Apple Busset.—A very fine-flavoured, highly-perfumed, yellow
fleshed apple. September to October.
Golden Beinette.—Fruit rather small, colour yellowish red streaked8
THE APPLE.
with red, and quality of the highest, one of the very best and most
useful dessert apples. October to January.
Sam Young.—Very highly flavoured, tender, and juicy; colour yel~
lowish, with russet spots. November to February.
Boston Russet.—Resembling somewhat in general character, and also
in flavour, the Ribston Pippin. January to April.
Duke of Devonshire. — Crisp, juicy, high-flavoured, medium size.
February to May.
Pearson’s Plate.—Rather small, but handsome, excellent dessert apple,
December to March.
Keddlestone Pippin.—Beautiful yellow or golden colour, specked with
russet, flesh juicy and highly aromatic. A general favourite.
Allen’s Everlasting.—A good deal like the Sturmer Pippin, and an
equally useful and excellent variety; one of the best late dessert apples.
May and June.
Lord Burghley.—A first-rate dessert apple ; fruit medium-sized, golden
yellow. In season from December to May.
Those who have space for three dozen of dessert apples may add the
following :
Cornish Aromatic. — Medium size, rich, juicy, and excellent. In
season December.
Mother Apple.—Rather tender, juicy, melting, and rich. October to
November.
.Ingestrie Red.—Very pretty bright red next the sun on a yellow
ground, the flesh pale yellow, the flavour brisk and sparkling, like the
Golden Pippin in quality.
Ingestrie Yellow or Golden.—This is also a first-rate dessert apple, and
is in season from the beginning of September to the end of November.
Court Pendu Plat.—Flesh yellow, flavour somewhat acid, a most
useful late apple. In season from November to April.
Dredge’s Fame.—A good-sized handsome dessert apple, greenish silver
in colour, mottled with pale red next the sun; flavour highly aromatic,
rich, and sugary. In season from December to March, and good for
cooking as well as dessert.
Lamb Abbey Pearmain.—A fine medium-sized apple; flesh yellowish
green, crisp, juicy, and sweet. In season from December to April; one
of the most useful late dessert apples.
Early Nonpareil.—A most useful dessert apple, with all the good
qualities of the Nonpareil. October to December.
Winter Strawberry.—This is a most useful dessert apple of a pleasing
colour, yellow striped with red, of medium size, and a most pleasant
brisk aromatic flavour. In season from November to March.VARIETIES.	9
The Summer Strawberry.—Ripens in September, and is a showy, rather
small apple, striped yellow and red, with a brisk and pleasant flavour.
Stamford Pippin.—A good-sized apple of a yellow and orange colour,
with a sweet pleasant flavour, a first-rate dessert apple, in season from
December to March, and also one of the finest apples for choice pies
and puddings.
Small’s Admirable.—Above medium size, of a bright yellow colour,
flesh yellow, sweet, with a dash of acid that gives it a pleasing relish;
one of the finest dessert apples, also admirable for cooking through the
winter months of November and December.
In the case of dessert apples a greater variety may be desirable, and we
shall therefore briefly describe another two dozen good dessert apples,
swelling our list to sixty sorts. No doubt beyond this there are many
other apples almost equally worth growing. But we hope at least that
those who select from or grow these sixty will not be disappointed.
Early Julien.—A pretty medium-sized excellent early variety. Flesh,
crisp and juicy, yellowish, white with a brisk aromatic flavour. August.
Dutch Mignonne.—Fruit rather large, handsome orange colour; one
of the finest and most prolific varieties. December to April.
Golden Harvey or Brandy Apple.—Fruit small russety, flesh compact,
firm, rich, and highly aromatic. This is a valuable little apple for
dessert, and also for stewing in syrup, to be served as a sweet. The
solidity of its flesh enables it to keep its form when treated in this way.
Bradd/ick’s Nonpareil.—Medium-sized, Jgreen ground colour, brownish
next the sun, yellow flesh, rich and sweet. December to March.
Holbert’s Victoria.—A small fruit of excellent quality ; flesh yellow,
juicy, rich, and vinous. December and May.
Joanneting or White Juneating. — The earliest of all dessert apples,
coming in at the end of August; is generally liked for its crisp and
pleasant flavour. It should, however, be eaten off the tree, as it soon
becomes mealy when gathered.
Melon Apple.—A. fine large fruit, with soft, juicy, and rich flesh.
February.
Sykehouse Russet.—A very useful apple. The flesh is richly flavoured,
of a greenish yellow colour. In season from December to January.
Golden Nonpareil.—Rather smaller than the old Nonpareil; flesh fine,
rich, and sugary, and of the highest flavour.
Lodgemore Nonpareil.—Medium size ; deep yellow, with a blush of red
on one side ; flavour rich; flesh juicy, crisp, and firm ; one of the finest
as well as latest of its class. February to June.
Tunstall Green-street.—Medium size, deep golden in colour, red striped
where exposed to the sun, flesh firm, juicy and rich, the flavour resembling10
THE APPLE.
the Eibston Pippin. An excellent dessert apple, continuing in season
till the end of May.
Spring Ribston Pippin.—One of the finest late apples, keeping good
till June.
Bull’s Golden Reinette.—Eesembling the Blenheim Pippin, but more
highly coloured, and therefore a most handsome dessert apple of the
highest flavour. December and January.
Golden Winter Pearmain.—Medium size, rich yellow ground colour,
streaked with red next the sun, yellowish coloured flesh, juicy, aromatic,
and sweet. October to January.
Worcester Pearmain.—New, brilliant scarlet, flesh tender, juicy, and
sweet; one of the handsomest and most useful, either for dessert or
kitchen use. Said to bear as freely as Lord Suffield. In season from
August to Christmas.
Gooseberry Pippin.—Small, pale yellow, changing into orange when
exposed to the light, very sweet, with a peculiarly rich vinous flavour;
one of the richest apples in cultivation. November to February.
Packhorse.—Bather small, yellowish in colour, the flesh being of the
same colour as the outside; juicy, rich, and sweet. November to March.
Scarlet Crofton.—Yellow and red, medium size, crisp, juicy, and sweet.
October to December.
King George, or Borsdoffer.—A highly popular German apple of high
quality ; a sure cropper, the tree being at once hardy and a late flowerer.
November to January.
Clay gate Pearmain..—A first-rate dessert apple. In season from
November to March. Found wild in a hedge in Surrey.
Court of Wick.—This is a fine apple, somewhat resembling the Golden
Pippin in quality and appearance. October to March.
There is another and superior variety of this apple, called Morris’s
Court of Wick, which has much more colour than the original, and is
likewise superior in quality.
Summer Golden Pippin.—An early variety of a well-known favourite,
ripening in- August.
Wormsley Pippin.—Large pale green, of excellent quality, either for
dessert or kitchen use ; one of the finest apples in cultivation. Septem-
ber to October.
Winter Quoining (or Queening).—A very bright coloured, almost red
apple, flesh greenish yellow, a colour almost always associated with high
flavour. In season from November to May. One of the most useful late
apples, either for dessert or culinary purposes.
VARIETIES.
11
II—Kitchen Apples.
The following twelve kitchen apples are arranged in order of time
for use:
Lord Suffield.—Very large, white, soft, excellent for sauce and tarts,
being of superior flavour. August to September.
Alexander.—Very large and showy ; a good apple if used before it gets
sleepy. September to December.
Cox’s Pomona.—Very superior large apple, of excellent quality. October.
Cellini.—Perfect in form, size, colour, quality; no better kitchen apple
from October to January.
Mere de Menage.—‘Large and good. October to March.
Blenheim Orange or Pippin.—One ©f the finest and most useful of all
kitchen apples. November to February.
Bess Pool.—A first-rate late-cooking apple, lasting from December to
April.
Dumelow’s Seedling or Wellington.—Firm, large, and somewhat acid,
one of the most valuable kitchen apples. November to March.
Warner’s King.—Large, handsome, and good. November to March.
Alfriston.—Very fine, large, white-fleshed apple, lasting in season from
November to April.
Norfolk Beefing.—Large and good flavoured, excellent keeper, and most
useful for baking whole and preserving. November to July.
Norfolk Greening.—Medium size, good flavour, rather acid, keeps till
April or May.
Those who desire to have a longer list can add the following dozen :
New Hawthornden.—Very large, extraordinary bearer, and excellent for
sauce and cooking. December and January.
Duchess of Oldenburgh.—A very handsome red striped apple, of excel-
lent cooking properties. September.
Nonsuch.—Fine, sparkling, juicy apple, unequalled for sauce and cook-
ing, and much liked by many for eating off the tree when quite ripe.
September and October.
Manks Codlin.—One of the finest and most useful of all kitchen apples.
Golden Noble.—Large, handsome, and good. September to November.
Betty Geeson.—Large, valuable culinary apple. December to March.
Bedfordshire Foundling.—One of the finest and most useful kitchen
apples, continuing in season from November to March.
Brabant Bellefleur.—This is a large, round, pale yellow, red-streaked
apple, of th’e highest cooking quality, and also useful for dessert.
November to April.r
12
THE APPLE.
Gloria Mundi.—One of the finest kitchen apples; in season from the
end of September to January, and generally a free bearer.
Rymer.—One of the finest kitchen apples, in season from October to
March.
Lewis’s Incomparable.—Large and fine, like London Pippin, a capital old
apple, of medium size, a great bearer, and of excellent quality. October
to January.
Northern Greening.—Medium size, a fine sub-acid apple, in season from
November to April.
A Third Dozen of Kitchen Apples may consist of the following:
Lemon Pippin.—Medium size, almost of the colour and form of a lemon,
hence its name ; firm in flesh, and briskly acid, excellent for cooking,
and also good for dessert. October to April.
t*”	Peasgood’s Nonsuch.—A fine showy kitchen apple, said to combine the
good qualities of the Blenheim pippin and a Nonsuch; flesh tender, juicy,
and sweet. September to November.
'Red Hawthornden.—This is another new kitchen apple of a green-
yellowish colour, with a flush of red next the sun. August to September.
Lady Henniker.—A very sweet and excellent newly-introduced kitchen
apple; the ground colour is yellow, with streaks of crimson next the sun;
flesh fine in the grain, highly flavoured, with a pleasant perfume. In sea-
son from October to February, and useful for dessert as well as excellent
for all kitchen purposes.
D. T. Fish.—The Gardener’s Chronicle thus describes this fine new
apple : “ Large, roundish, flat at both ends, irregular, and obtusely angu-
lar, eye small, half closed, set in an evenly-formed shallow basin, stalk
short, thin, and level with the base of the fruit; skin smooth, of a uni-
form clear straw-colour, with small specks of russet, and on the side where
the sun strikes it, slightly flushed with crimson; flesh tender, juicy, and
with a fine pleasant sub-acid flavour. A very handsome, and excellent
kitchen or sauce apple, in use from November till January. Well worthy
of cultivation.” To this we may add, that it is also useful when large
apples may be required on the dinner table.
Nelson Codlin.—Large and handsome, juicy and sweet. October to
January.
Carlisle Codlin.—Above medium size, of good quality, early. August
to December.
Kentish Fillbasket.—Very large roundish fruit of superior quality; a
first-rate kitchen apple. November to January.
Winter Majeting.—A fine large green apple of an agreeable sub-acid
flavour. The tree grows freely, and hardly ever misses a crop ; one of
the most useful kitchen apples. November to March.
VARIETIES.	13
Tower of Glammis.—Very large and excellent, brisk, crisp apple.
November to February.
Forge Apple.—Rich golden yellow, mottled, with crimson on the side
exposed to the sun ; an excellent bearer, and the fruit tender, juicy, and
sweet. October to January.
Jolly Beggar.—Large pale yellow, tender and juicy ; an extraordinary
cropper. October to December.
There are, of course, many other varieties of kitchen apple, a few of
which, such as Hoary Morning, may be named in our lists of trees suit-
able for the orchard. But in a general way one dozen varieties may be
more useful than three, and three dozen is sufficient for the largest gar-
dens ; and it might only embarrass our readers to give a longer list of
names.
Ill—Apples for Particular Purposes.
Kitchen Varieties Suitable for Orchards, and which, when planted at good
distances, will generally grow into fine trees : Alexander, Beauty of Kent,
Bedfordshire Foundling, Gloria Mundi, Dumelow’s Seedling, Golden
Noble, Kentish Fillbasket, Blenheim Pippin, New Hawthornden, Lady
Henniker, D. T. Fish, Keswick Codlin, Manks Codlin, Nonsuch, Round
Winter Nonsuch, Flower of Kent, Hoary Morning, London Pippin, Nor-
folk Beefing, Striped Beefing, Rymer, Tower of Glammis, Waltham
Abbey Seedling, Yorkshire Greening, Monstrous Leadington, Royal
Russet, Cellini, Duchess of Oldenburgh, Cox’s Pomona, Fearn’s Pippin.
Dessert Varieties most Suitable for Orchard Culture: Adams’ Pearmain,
Bess Pool, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Devonshire Quarrendon, Golden Reinette,
Golden Winter Pearmain, Kerry Pippin, Cockle Pippin, Hughes’ Golden
Pippin, Reinette du Canada, Pearson’s Plate, Royal Pearmain, Ribston
Pippin, King of the Pippins, Scarlet Nonpareil, Court Pendu Plat,
Wormsley Pippin, Maclean’s Favourite, Cornish Aromatic, Cornish Gilli-
flower, Early Red Margaret, Sam Young, Red Astrachan, Winter Quoin-
ing, Sykehouse Russet, Scarlet Crofton, Court of Wick, Gravenstein,
and Joanneting.
In many of the colder districts of the country some of the finer dessert
apples, as well as such fine kitchen sorts as the Calville Blanche, and
most of the many other varieties of Calvilles, of which there are now
a good many, do best on a warm southern or western wall. Indeed, so
much are some of our finer varieties improved by the extra shelter and
warmth thus provided, that it would be difficult to recognise them as the
same varieties grown in the open air. The Ribston and all the varieties
of Golden Pippin, most of the Nonpareils, several of the finer Pearmains,r
14
THE APPLE.
the Golden Busset, Margil, Bavelston, and Newtown Pippin, Mother and
Melon Apples, can only thus be brought to the highest perfection.
For Cordons, among the finer varieties to grow are the following:
King of Pippins, Duke of Devonshire, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Lodgemore
Nonpareil, Scarlet Nonpareil, Northern Spy, Betty Geeson, Cox’ s. Golden
Drop, Bibston Pippin, Belle Dubois, Beinette du Canada, Holbert’s
Victoria, Pitmaston’s Golden Pippin, and in warm situations Beinette
Grise, Beinette de Caux, the Melon, the Mother Apple, Newtown
Pippin, and Calville Blanche.
For Pyramidal, Bush., and Espalier Trees the following are among the
most suitable varieties : Early Harvest, Cockle Pippin, Ashmead Kernel,
Wormsley Pippin, Adams’ Pearmain, Braddick’s Nonpareil, Boston Busset,
Court of Wick, Hughes’ Golden Pippin, Bibston Pippin, Cox’s Orange
Pippin, Court Pendu Plat, Early Julien, Pearson’s Plate, Beinette du
Canada, Scarlet Nonpareil, Golden Beinette, Keddleston Pippin, Kerry
Pippin, Oslin, Scarlet Crofton, Claygate Pearmain, Bed Ingestrie, Yellow
Ingestrie, Sam Young, Sykehouse Busset, Sturmer S;Pippin, Irish Peach,
Bed Quarrendon, Cornish Gilliflower, and Downton Pippin.
Of kitchen sorts, well adapted for either of these most popular styles
of training, the following are among the best and most telling : Cellini—
this is among the finest and most beautiful of all apples—New Hawthorn-
den, Keswick Codlin, Manks Codlin, Nonsuch, Jolly Beggar, Lord
Suffield, D. T. Fish, Cox’s Pomona, Duchess of Oldenburgh,Boyal Busset,
Dumelow’s Seedling, Waltham Abbey Seedling, Bedfordshire Foundling,
Gooseberry, Warner’s King, Calville Blanche, Alfriston, Brabant Belle-
fieur.
Apples for Cold and Exposed Situations.—Some of the hardier varieties
for unfavourable localities and exposed sites are the Nonsuch, Claygate
Pearmain, Sturmer Pippin, Winter Strawberry, Greenup’s Pippin, Grey
Leadington, Wormsley Pippin, Bess Poo), Carlisle Codlin, Keswick
Codlin, French Crab, Tower of Glammis.
For Cottage Gardens.—Among the most profitable apples for a cottage
garden are the following: Blenheim Orange, Manks Codlin, Bibston
Pippin, King of the Pippins, Beinette du Canada, Sturmer Pippin, Down-
ton Nonpareil, Waltham Abbey Seedling, Bedfordshire Foundling,
Warner’s King, Alexander, New Hawthornden, and Wormsley Pippin.
If one apple only can be grown, the Blenheim Orange should be the one.
If two, the King of the Pippins should be added. Of course, in favour-
able localities, the Bibston Pippin ought to stand first; but in ordinary
positions we would only place it third. The fourth would be Cellini,
the fifth Dumelow’s Seedling, and the sixth the Boyal Busset.-
PROPAGATION.
15
Propagation.
There are but two general methods of propagating the apple—by seeds
for new varieties and for stocks, and by grafting for the multiplication
of the numbers of any and every established sort. Budding and
inarching are but varieties of grafting, the latter being but little resorted
to in the case of the apple, and the former seldom practised unless
for the rapid increase of novel or scarce varieties. A few sorts of
apples are also propagated by cuttings, layers, and suckers; but these
methods are seldom resorted to unless for the manufacture of stocks.
The fact is, the ease and facility with which apples can be grafted has
tended to set aside all other modes of propagation. There is also a
waste of time, as well as material, incident to most of the other modes
of increase. Take, for instance, that of propagation by layers; the
branch long enough to form a layer would make, probably, three scions
at the least. Again, very few apples produce suckers in any quantity;
and those that do, such as the Burknott and some of the Codlins,
maintain the troublesome tendency of producing suckers rather than
growing into nice fruitful trees all through their lives. Practically,
therefpre, the propagation of the apple by suckers may be dismissed
from consideration for the foregoing reasons, and also for the far more
powerful one that hardly any apples are grown on their own roots, and
consequently few rooted suckers of popular varieties are obtaihable.
Suckers are useful for increasing the number of stocks, but some growers
even reject them for this purpose, for unless the dormant buds in the
buried portion of the stem are carefully removed, stocks raised from
suckers are almost sure to betray their origin by growing suckers after
grafting. Still, suckers from the Boucin and Paradise stock, and also
those from Codlins and Nonsuch varieties of apples, are often used for
stocks.
I—By Cuttings.
Propagation of the apple by cuttings used to be much more practised
than now. Before the theory of what are termed dwarfing stocks was
either discovered or reduced to practice, it was useful and interesting,
as enabling cultivators to have apple trees of almost any size. By a
careful selection of medium-sized wood for cuttings, and skilful culture
afterwards, it was found that the propagation of the apple by cuttings
tended to limit the size of the tree and hasten and augment fertility.
Some varieties, such as the Butch or German creeping apples, the16
THE APPLE.
Burknott, the Keswick, and other codlins, rooted freely with little' if
any more care than that bestowed on currant, or gooseberry cuttings.
Cuttings of one, one and a half, or two feet in length of the current or
two-year-old wood were placed in the ground during the winter, and
expected to grow during the next spring or summer. The cuttings
were generally dug in and placed in rows from a foot to 18in. asunder,
and from 4in. to 9in. in the rows. A few of the bottom buds were
removed from the cutting, which was cut level across under a bud at
its lower extremity. A point was also often made of cutting the lower
ends of the cutting over half an inch or so below the junction of the
current year’s and last year’s wood. This left a heel, as it was called,
on the cuttings, and it was generally from this heel that the roots
protruded. A small trench was then taken out at one end of the ground,
and a foot or so of the soil dug over. A straight line was then cut out
along the front edge of the dug ground. The cuttings were set in the
trench, slightly sloping against the newly-dug ground ; a small spit of
earth was laid up against them, which was firmly trodden down with
the foot on to the base of the cuttings. The digging then proceeded until
the distance was reached for another row, which was inserted and treated
as before until the whole were inserted. This rough and ready way of
treating apple cuttings led, however, to a good many failures, and the
latter again resulted in the general disuse of this mode of propagation.
The freer rooting varieties did well from cuttings ; but some of the
more shy rooters gave but a small percentage of plants to the number
of cuttings. In many cases, too, the cuttings were far too large—in
more, perhaps, they were too strong. Some even went so far as to try
to root good sized branches covered with flower buds, and to have them
rooted in time to carry the crop through on their own roots the first
season. Failing in this, and in rooting many varieties with any certainty,
the practice of propagating the apple by cuttings has been generally
abandoned. This is, perhaps, to be regretted, for there can be no
doubt that with more care in the selection of cuttings and greater skill
in their management, the larger number of apples may be propagated in
this way. Having our apples on their own roots would enable us to avoid
the battles and difficulties and failures of the stocks, and perhaps, at
times, to command a larger amount of success in what is known and
designated “petit” culture.
It is found, for instance, that moderate sized and horizontal branchlets
of the apple root in less time and with more certainty ~ than stronger and
more vertical shoots. Not only this, but such branches also fruit sooner
and more abundantly, while of smaller size. Thus the way to early and
plentiful fruit bearing may be found in the selections of the properPROPAGATION.
17
apple cutting. The same results follow the selection of similar scions—
a point too often overlooked in the practice of grafting. Moreover,
propagation by cuttings was held at one time to be a remedy for
canker, and probably it was in this way: apples raised from cuttings
had no tap roots; and if canker, as many held and still hold, is the
result of the tap or other deep boring roots touching clay or other
ungenial earth or water, of course it follows that if we deprive the
tree of such roots as can reach such strata canker is avoided.
The plan of propagating apples by cuttings is mostly reserved now
for pot culture, and also as a most interesting amusement for amateur
pomologists.
The cuttings may be inserted from November to February, the former,
however, or December, being the two best months. Choose and insert
the cuttings as already directed; but, in addition, cover them overhead
with a close frame, or put each sort in a group or patch to be inclosed
under a cloche or handlight. Water when dry, which will not be often,
as evaporation is checked by the glass. Shade the cuttings from the
midday sun, and about midsummer the majority of them will be found
rooted. As soon as this is found to be the case give air freely. As
the plants get hardened off, remove the protection of glass and generally
plant out in nursery lines early in August, so as to get them established
in the open air before winter. Before insertion the top bud of the
cutting, if it were a terminal shoot, should always be removed, for were
that left on it would start into growth long before any roots could be
formed, and so empty the cutting of its stored up juices, or, in fact,
starve it before it could possibly refeed itself.
There is yet another method of raising apples from cuttings : this may
be called the summer striking of half ripened wood. It is but rarely
resorted to, though there seems no reason why thej summer striking of
apples should not prove as successful as the summer rooting of the
half ripened wood of perpetual and other roses. June or July is the best
season for this purpose. Choose cuttings of the smaller shoots of
the current year, and remove them with a heel of the previous year’s
wood; form exactly as other cuttings, but leave the whole of the leaves
intact. Insert the cuttings in sandy soil in pots, and place them in
a close frame plunged in a bottom heat of 60° to 65°; shade from the
mid-day sun, and keep a moist atmosphere, so as to prevent the cuttings
from flagging, and the result will be successful or otherwise in the ratio
of the skill and care with which the cuttings were selected and managed.
It must also be admitted that some varieties refuse to root by this
method. But the modes of propagating apples by cuttings are worthy
of reconsideration, and the practice may deserve revival as a means
C •18
THE APPLE.
of delivering cultivators from the risks of being misled by the wrong
stocks, and also of superseding to a great extent at least the necessity of
root pruning.
II.—By Seeds.
Apples are still largely raised from seeds for the multiplication of
stocks, and also, but very sparingly, for the origination of new and
improved varieties. Though it is a singular fact that the majority of our
best modern apples have been chance seedlings found in woods, hedge-
rows, or on the sites of old orchards, the raising of seedlings expressly
for the origin of better varieties has been but little practised. The
custom of sowing the seeds of cider apples in bulk for the manufacture of
stocks has not favoured improvement, while the practice of grafting seed-
ling stocks unproved renders it probable that many a stock may carry a
head inferior to itself.
To insure a fair amount of success in the raising of superior apples
from seeds, it is needful to choose both parents with care, and to prove
before discarding or grafting the seedlings. This need involve but little
loss of time ; it would cause no loss of material, for the young seedlings
would be as good stocks after proving as before. By root pruning, graft-
ing, and other means to hasten fertility, the seedlings might soon be
forced to reveal their true characters by bearing fruit. The first fruits
might not in all cases be perfect, but they would be sufficiently so to
exhibit the chief characteristics of the variety, and to show whether
or not it was worthy of a further trial; if not, the seedling would at
once be used as a stock for other and better varieties.
The first step to success in the raising of seedlings must be taken as
soon as the trees are in flower. The stamens of the seed-bearing variety
must be carefully clipped out, to prevent self-fertilisation. The blossoms
thus denuded of their male appendages should also be protected with
thin gauze or muslin from the influence of the wind and the visits of
bees or other winged insects. These precautions are absolutely necessary
to prevent the flowers from being chance fertilised. The latter mostly
leads to degeneracy rather than improvement, and in either case it baffles
the design of the cultivator. When the pistil reaches perfection the
pollen of the male parent should be carefully collected, either on tissue
paper, or, better still, on a camel hair pencil, and immediately applied to
the pistil. It is well to repeat this process on two or three consecutive
days, to make sure that the ovary is fecundated. To prevent the risk
of mixing the pollen of different varieties, a separate pencil should be used
for each two apples the cultivator wishes to cross.PROPAGATION.
19
Judgment should also be exercised in the election of parents. Little
good, for instance, could be expected from the intermixture of apples of
such widely different qualities as the Ribston and the Beaufin, the French
Crab and the Blenheim orange, while the crossing of the Golden Pippin
and Devonshire Quarrendon, Cox’s Orange Pippin with the Ribston or
Golden Pippin, and the Kerry Pippin with the King of the Pippins could
hardly fail of good results. Again, the qualities of the Ribston might be
imparted to our earlier and late apples by skilful intercrossing, while
our kitchen apples might be further sweetened by Ribston Pippin,
Nonpareil, and other good dessert blood to such an extent as to need
little or no sugar in tarts or pies. Already we have a fine kitchen apple
that almost realises the necessary sweetness in the Cellini. The raising
of apples from seeds with a view of obtaining new and improved varieties
thus requires a good deal of nice manipulation and painstaking skill. But
care and skill only give zest to a delightful pursuit, as well as add to the
pleasures of success, and when they are taken they promise the cultivator
a fair amount of success. A note of the proceeding should be made on
the plants, and also in a book. Thus Ribston Pippin X with Blenheim
Orange, Cellini X with Ribston Pippin, &c. Such data will prove of much
interest to the raisers of new apples, and also possess a high scientific
value in determining the potency of certain varieties and the success or
failure of our attempted crosses. Without some such record the whole
theory and practice of artificial impregnation become a mere maze or
game of chance. It is also important to choose healthy parents on both
sides. It is probable that canker and other diseases in fruit trees are
hereditary; and it is better to steer clear of all disease and of constitu-
tional weaknesses in the raising of new varieties of apples and other fruits.
Pedigree also often proves a useful key to treatment and a guide to
culture; and, for this reason also, careful notes should be made as to
the origin of all new varieties. Some raisers adopt a somewhat rough-
and-ready method of proving seedlings. All that have narrow leaves are
at once used for stocks. Experience shows that nearly the whole of such
are closely related to crabs, sour and worthless. On the contrary, broad-
leaved seedlings yield a large percentage of sweet and good apples. The
rounder the leaf the more chance of quality. This is a simple rule, and
may safely be acted upon. There is another sign almost equally, per-
haps more, certain—the presence of thorns on the trees is generally a sure
proof of acidity or sheer worthlessness. Round leaves and few or no
spines combined promise quality, though they may not always give it.
Of course, little of this care is needed to raise seedling apples from
crabs, Nonsuch, or other seeds for stocks. Crabs and cider apples are
still much used for the stocks of apples for orchards. The seeds are
C 21 20
THE APPLE.
easily procured in bulk and the seedlings grow fast—two great merits
to the raisers and sellers of trees. The apple seeds collected from the
residuum of the cider press, and cleared of the mucilage adhering to
them, are either sown at once or dried and stored in bags till the following
March or April. They should not be kept later, as they do not retain their
vitality long. In the former case they are often sown in pots or boxes, or
in cold frames in a temperature of 45° or 50°. As soon as the plants
are fairly up, prick out or pot off singly, and keep the plants near the glass
to prevent them spindling up weakly. By the middle or end of May such
plants will be nice stuff to plant out in nursery lines two feet or a yard
apart, and from nine to eighteen inches from plant to plant. Here they
will make a free growth throughout the summer if planted, as they
should be, on a good sweet bit of mellow soil in a sheltered spot, and
kept clear of weeds. In the autumn they may either be transplanted to
wider distances or allowed to stand a second year in the same place. If
the seedlings are those of superior varieties they will, of course, be
transplanted in the autumn to make them fruit sooner.
For the mere raising of stocks in quantity the extra labour and pro-
tection of glass in winter, necessitated by autumnal sowing, scarcely pays,
and the seeds are mostly sown in the open air at once in the spring, either
thickly in nursery beds or in lines. The latter is the best mode, as, when
sown in beds, unlesg sown very thinly, the plants are apt to fog off almost
before they are large enough to handle or be pricked out in rows or beds
further apart.
At the end of the first season’s growth the seedlings should be put out
in rows four feet asunder, and the plants from a foot to eighteen inches
from each other. Here they may remain until they are fit for grafting,
which most of them will be the third or fourth season. Tittle is gained by
working the plants too soon. As a rule the stocks should reach a diame-
ter of from three-quarters of an inch to an inch before they are grafted.
Much, however, turns on the sort of tree required. Cordons, which,
however, are generally worked on Doucin stocks, raised from layers or
cuttings, can hardly be grafted too early; while stocks tall enough for
orchard trees need time to reach the proper stature and enlarge into suit-
able sizes. These are generally worked at heights ranging from four to
six feet from the ground. Some, indeed, prefer working orchard trees
low, and either growing large dwarf trees, or carrying up the first
shoots of the scions to form the stem of the future trees. But this
involves a loss of time as well as fruiting force, and possesses no
advantage in strength or stature over the crab or seedling apple stock.
It is better, therefore, on the whole, to allow the seedling or crab to
form the stems of the future apple tree, and to graft at such height asPROPAGATION.
21
the branches are required to diverge from the main stem into fruit-
bearing boughs. For the different kinds of dwarf trees the stocks are
generally worked at heights ranging from a few inches to a foot high.
The plan of grafting so low down on the collar of the stock, so as to allow
the uniting parts to be covered with earth, and the scion, if so dis-
posed, to root into the soil on its own account, as recommended for pears
on the quince stock, is not advisable nor needful for apples.
On any of the stocks we have specified the fruit-bearing heads can find
enough sap or food and to spare alike for the making of wood and the
development of fruit. However, there can be no doubt that apple
stocks might be vastly improved were more attention bestowed in the
selection of seeds for this special purpose. The refuse of the cider press
is hardly the place to find the finest seeds of apples. This can only be
expected from the finest fruit gathered off the healthiest trees. These
would produce stocks of the highest quality and greater longevity. There
can hardly be a doubt that one cause of the sudden breakdown of many
apple trees and the weak and debilitated condition of others arises from
the constitutional weakness of their stocks. There are even crabs and
crabs, and not a few of them are unhealthy. In a fruit so universally
mounted on stocks as the apple, too much care can hardly be exercised in
the raising and propagation of only stocks of the best quality.
Ill—Grafting,
Having thus, by the raising of seedlings from only the finest fruits of
the best kinds, and by other means, provided a sufficient number of stocks
or enough root force, the art of grafting, which is our next step in
propagation, may be defined as the appropriation of the roots of one
plant by the tops of another and better. Hence all the other means of
propagation seem but preliminary to this. Without root stocks there
would be nothing to graft upon; by grafting these we convert wildness
or worthlessness into fruitful trees laden with the best varieties.
Grafting may be performed at any time during the growing season ;
there is no mystery and almost as little difficulty about it. Place the
growing parts of two plants or parts of plants together, exclude air and
prevent disturbance, and they unite and become one. If both parts,
the scion as well as the stock, have independent sources of support
during the progress of the union, failure is impossible. This is why
grafting by approach, as it is correctly called, must succeed. Each of
the two parts is nourished by its own roots during the progress of the
union; they therefore unite, as it were, at leisure, without any risk ofTHE APPLE.
Fig. 1.
scion and 6 the stock.
failure. This mode of grafting is, however, but seldom used for the
apple or such-like trees. It is useful with such hard-wooded brittle-
barked trees as the orange and others that are slowly united. We offer
an illustration here rather to set forth our
meaning than as a mode of grafting apples.
Two stocks, each furnished with independent
roots, are brought together, a small portion of
the wood and bark are cut off each at the
point of union, and both are firmly tied together
until they grow into one. (Fig. 1.)
Throughout the remainder of these notes on
grafting we wish to be understood as writing of
a detached scion of one tree or branch, to be
inserted into the branch, stem, or, as it is tech-
nically called, stock, of another distinct branch
or plant. See Fig. 2, in which a represents the
It is needful to be thus explicit, as we find that,
even after all that has been said and written and illustrated about
grafting, there are intelligent men and
women who do not yet know the dif-
ference between the scion and the stock,
nor understand which is which.
It will be obvious, at a glance at
Fig. 2, that the complete detachment
and isolation of the scion (a) must of
necessity introduce a new element of
danger into the art of grafting. The
scion is small, and consequently liable
to speedy exhaustion alike of sap and
growing force. Time, therefore, becomes
important, for it is obvious that if the
detached scion is to live in a new posi-
tion, it must soon be reattached to
some other plant that will refill and feed
it with fresh supplies of food. For this
■ reason the time to graft becomes a
matter of great moment. It has been
stated that the growing parts of living
plants will unite at any season. But
there are seasons when the union is more rapidly effected than at
others. The spring time is such a season ; therefore, from the middle
of February to the beginning of April is the best time to graft. ThePROPAGATION.
23
season is favourable to growth and also to the conservation of force.
Early in the spring the earth and air are moist and cool, and there is
little or no waste of the stored-up juices of the scion by evaporation.
The early sunshine excites rather than exhausts the sap, and the gentle
excitement and motion of fluids thus originated is favourable to the
joining together of the scion and the stock. The spring is also a time
of rapid growth, and thus it happens that long before the scion has
exhausted its stock of fluid a fresh flood of sap is forwarded by the
roots to hasten and complete the union of the two parts.
The chief art of grafting may be briefly defined as choosing the righ^
time for uniting the parts and the making of a good match. The two
parts of scion and stock must have strong points of affinity. The apple,
for instance, should be grafted on some species of apple, or, at the
furthest remove, on thorns ; and so of other plants. The idle tales
we have heard of grafting peaches on willows, and so getting rid of
their stones, are as false as they are wild. Apples even on pears speedily
die, their natural affinities not being close enough for a permanent union.
But not only must family affinities be studied, but the uniting parts of
the scion and the stock must be placed in contact. The uniting power
reaches its utmost force neither in the wood nor the bark, but in the
border land of cambium, or young wood between the two. This cambium
is really wood in the process of forming or consolidating, and, as might
be expected, if the wood-forming principles of the scion and the stocks
are placed in near contact, the two consolidate their power and make
one common and indivisible wood between them.
Possibly vegetable physiologists may object to this definition, as very
often a union is effected without the wood of the scion and the stock
amalgamating into one. All, however, will agree that the most active
uniting parts of the scion and the stock should be placed and kept in
close contact till the two are united. Both have an important and,
perhaps, an equal share in forming the union. It is common, indeed,
to speak and write as if the stocks take the scions on, the latter being
almost passive agents in the matter. This is, however, by no means
the case. The action is reciprocal between the two, and each assists
the other in the making or perfecting of the union. If these general
principles are recognised and acted on, it is of far less moment what
particular mechanical device or mode of grafting is adopted to carry
them into practice.
The simplest methods of grafting are mostly the best and the most
successful. This is the reason why splice or whip grafting has acquired
so much popular favour. Anyone who has spliced a broken walking
stick or whip handle, to make either strong, can understand and practise24
THE APPLE.
this mode of grafting. An equal slant on both portions, provided they
were of nearly equal diameters, and these two firmly bound together, the
two would look again as one. Whip grafting proceeds on the very same
principle. It is strong mechanically, besides presenting the uniting
surfaces of the scion and the stock to each other in the best possible
form for promoting their speedy union. For it will be observed in Fig. 3
that the cambium of the scion is laid parallel with the cambium of the
stock along its entire length, and also at the top of the one and the
bottom of the other. Of course when the two, as often happens, are
of unequal diameters, the cambium of the two can only meet along
one side and also at top and bottom. It is quite a mistake to place
the scion in the middle of the stock when
the latter is the. larger in size. To do so
is to invite failure along the entire length of
the uniting sides. By placing a scion of
small diameter in the middle of a stock of
larger size, we place the cambium of the
one beyond reach of the other, and thus, as
far as possible, prevent their union.
By whip grafting with a tongue, as in
Fig. 4, greater mechanical security is gained,
and a speedier union promoted.
Next to the proper preparation of the
scion and stocks we would place their being
promptly united as soon as prepared. The
union should follow the cut with the knife
with the utmost celerity.	If wind or
weather comes in contact with the raw cut
of either scion or stock it hinders the
union. It will be observed often that the
sap follows the cut and oozes out from it.
3*	Then the parts should at once be pressed
together without a moment’s loss of time, the scion and the stock being
instantly joined and firmly bound together. There is at once a con-
servation of force and a mingling of fluids, which directly invites and
helps the two surfaces to grow into one. Prompt placing of the raw
surfaces together, a good fit, firm and secure tying, and complete
exclusion of the air by the usual grafting clay or wax, are the only
mechanical aids which the cultivator can render to the vital force of
the plants in their efforts to become one. These remarks, of course,
apply to all kinds of grafting as well as that of whip or splice now
under consideration; though, of course, in crown or bark and cleftPROPAGATION.
25
grafting there is less of the wood of the stock exposed, and the import-
ance of dispatch is not so urgent. It is, however, most important in
all methods of grafting, for, if the bark is injured, or the juices under
it dried up, or the wood of the scion air dried, success becomes uncertain
in proportion to the length of time they are rain washed or weather dried
before the operation of grafting is completed.
The other most common modes of grafting the apple are crown
or bark, cleft or saddle
grafting, of each of which
we give a brief descrip-
tion and illustration.
In crown or bark graft-
ing (Fig. 5) the most sim-
ple method is to remove
the top of the stem or
branch. This should be
done in a sloping direc-
tion, so that no wet can
lie upon it. Then at the
upper or highest por-
tion of the stock make a
slice down the bark an
inch and a half or so in
length, and open the
edges with the handle
of the budding knife, as
in the budding of roses.
Then take a slice off the
side of the scion of al-
most the same length
as the slit in the bark,
and run it down from
Fig. 4.
the top of the stock to the bottom of the slit; tie in position and wax
or clay over, and the work is finished. When the bark of the stock
rises freely, it is often not necessary to do more than merely run the
knife down through the bark and slightly raise it at the top. Then
use the scion itself to make its own way down into its proper position.
This secures a better fit, and has the merit of not raising more bark
than is needful to give it sufficient room. Sometimes in grafting large
trees on this method several scions of largish size, two or more years
old, are used. These are cut away considerably as far as they are
placed under the bark, and the upper portion kept as a shoulder to26
THE APPLE.
rest the scion upon and cover the top of the stock. By such means the
bare portion of the stock gets quickly covered over with the growth of
Fig. 5.
the two should meet. In this mode
the scions, and one cause of weak-
ness and disease, the exposure of
wood unprotected by bark, is thus
obviated.
Cleft grafting (Fig. 6 and 7) is
not much practised now. The
stock being cut over in the usual
manner, is split with a large
knife or chisel and held open by
a wedge, until the scion, cut away
to a wedge form, is pushed into
the slit. The wedge is then re-
moved, and the scion closed upon
and held fast by the stock. Of
course it is important the scions
should be placed at the outside of
the stocks, so that the alburnum of
of grafting it is well also to leave
Fig. 6.
a shoulder on the scion, to assist in
in protecting it from the weather.
covering the top of the stock andPKOPAGATION.
27
Saddle grafting (Fig. 8) is one of the strongest, most secure, and scien-
tific methods of any. It also succeeds well, presenting a large uniting
surface. It is easy to cut the stock into a wedge shape, but rather more
difficult to cut the scion into a good fit for the saddle. The latter is
essential to success. Properly performed, however, saddle grafting is
worth any extra trouble in its careful performance, as it generally proves
successful, and leaves no exposed portion of the stock to form a source
of weakness or disease. The protec-
tion of the vertical parts of the stock
with the young wood of the scion is^
only of secondary importance to the
effecting of a speedy and complete
union between the two parts concerned
in grafting. During the whole time
the two parts are uniting the air and
light should be jealously excluded.
Should the clay crack, or any fissures
appear in the wax, these must be at
once made good. Supports must also
be tied to the stock in the form
of small stakes, to which the scions
should be tied as soon as they break into leaf, for fear the wind pur-
chase on the end of the leaves should blow them out. After the union
is perfectly effected, the ties will generally require loosening, to allow the
parts to swell and grow freely. It is safest, however,
to keep a loose tie on the parts during the whole of
the first season. A little clay or wax also assists the
young wood of the scion and the stock to overlap
each other, to cover the raw edges of both, and heal
all wounds.
Security and the thorough exclusion of light, air,
and all other disturbing forces, are of so much im-
portance that the tying and claying or waxing round
of the point of union between the two parts ought to
follow immediately the insertion of the scion. In
tying it is needful to give sufficient compression to
keep the parts steady without, however, injuring the bark or young
wood under it by excessive tightness. Amateurs mostly err by an
excess of tie; it is no advantage, but the reverse, to use a tie either
too thick or too long. It is not needful even to make the tie con-
tinuous, far less overlap. A far neater, easier method is the simple one
of crossing, as shown in Fig. 9. Strong bast or strands of Russian mats28
THE APPLE.
or Cuba bast form the best and most useful ties. Next to these cotton
and woollen thread are best. All sorts of hard cord or twine are to be
avoided. Some also employ short lengths of gutta percha or indiarubber,
and others narrow tape. Whatever is employed should be strong enough
to hold the scion in its place, and to bind the edges of the wounds of
the stock pretty closely together, and durable enough to keep them so
until reunited by fresh growth.
Various compositions or mastics are now fast superseding clay, for the
exclusion of the air from the uniting parts of the scion and the stocks.
These mastics or waxes are much more simple and cleanly to use than
the old-fashioned clay, composed of equal parts strong loam and cow-
dung, with a little chopped straw to make it work better. The indis-
criminate and excessive use of this led to many failures. Now the
different kinds of grafting waxes can be had of most nurserymen. A
very simple one is that formed of equal parts of
beeswax and resin, with a sixth or eighth part of
lard, to give it softness. But, on the whole, many
prefer clay, and if properly used, as in Fig. 10, it
answers the purpose well. Of course, far less graft-
ing wax than clay is needed to exclude water, wind,
air, and light from the wounds incident to grafting
until they are healed. Great care is needed in
the application of these materials, so as not to
displace either the scion or the bark. And in any
cases where the wax or clay cracks off before the
union is effected or the wounds are healed, it
must be carefully replaced, as a fracture in the
plastering matter around ^the grafts would often hinder or prevent a
proper union.
As we have seen, much of the success of grafting depends upon neat
and expert manipulation, and the careful adjustment of the growing
points to each other, and keeping them in contact without interference
till the two grow into one. But much also depends on a wise selection of
stocks and scions. Of course only good varieties will be chosen, and
wood in the best condition. The latter may be said to be that of mode-
rate strength, of horizontal rather than upright growth. Scions should
also be a week or fortnight later than the stocks. If the scion is abreast
or ahead of the stock in the matter of growth, most of its sap or growing
force will be exhausted before the stock is sufficiently advanced to flood
it with sap, or the scion has had time to do its proper part to form a
union with the stock. The amount of vital force in the scion is neces-
sarily limited. Whether large or small, it is, consequently, soon exhausted.TRAINING.
29
If this happens before it unites with the stock, of course union afterwards
becomes impossible. Hence the importance of the scion being in such a
semi-dormant state that its juices can neither be speedily dissipated by a
dry atmosphere or bright sunshine, or wasted by premature efforts at
growth.
The stocks should be healthy and vigorous, well rooted, and, as far
as possible, of suitable size. They should also be chosen with a due
regard to the future size and uses of the trees grafted on them. For
example, for orchard trees there are few better stocks than seedling wild
crabs, or seedling apples of strong growing varieties. For half-stan-
dards, or orchard trees of smaller size, the Siberian Crab forms a good
stock. For espaliers, pyramids, wall trees, or large bush apples, the
English or Nonsuch Paradise or codlins, raised from layers, make the
best stocks, and for all smaller plants for pot culture, cordons, and very
dwarf bushes, the French Paradise or Doucin form the most suitable
stocks. It is possible, by repressive culture, root pruning, severe pinch-
ing, and a poor soil, &c., to starve even the freest stocks, so as to produce
dwarf trees, but the process involves a loss of time, skill, and material.
And it is important in the culture of the apple to choose the best stocks
for specific purposes; the trees then naturally, as it were, assume the
forms and sizes wanted, and fall into the cultural grooves and niches
appointed for them. So important is this matter of a wise selection^
of stocks, and so seriously does success or failure depend upon it, that
growers for sale ought to warrant their stocks as horse dealers give a
warranty with their animals ; and an action for compensation in case
of a false warranty ought to lie in the former case as in the latter.
Training.
“As the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.” In this common proverb we
have the philosophy and vindication of training in a nutshell. Nature’s
methods are not always those of the cultivator. Nature is seldom in a
hurry; she can afford to wait. Neither is she cramped for room. The
wide world is her garden, the long ages her seasons for furnishing
the same. If cramped for space, her remedy is extirpation, her short
cut to it the survival of the fittest. Might is Nature’s canon of right;
and she enforces it with inexorable firmness and unflinching persever-30
THE APPLE.
ance. Training is often condemned as an unnatural proceeding, and
so it is. But so likewise are most of the cultivator’s aims and con-
ditions. Primarily, we may be said to train for two purposes—to
save time and economise space. These two are, perhaps, the most
important factors of profitable culture. All things are possible to time
and space, worked with diligence and skill. Nature’s mills, like those of
the gods, grind slowly: they also grind small. A slow rate of speed and
small or doubtful results at the end thereof means poverty or ruin to
cultivators. Hence the immense importance of training as a time saver.
The skilful trainer takes growth, as it were, in its raw and half-formed
state, and moulds it into usefulness. He is a utilitarian philosopher
in theory and practice from the first. True, he may try and likewise
succeed in gilding utility with beauty; but, however much he may affect
beauty of form, his main object in training the apple and all other fruit
trees is profit. The skilful trainer arranges more fruit-bearing wood into
a given area than the unskilful. The object of all good training is con-
servative and constructive, not destructive. Those who train least often
prune most, and this of necessity. Once allow the production of useless
wood or branches in the wrong place, and they must of necessity be
destroyed to get the right material posted in the right place. Skilful
training will almost supersede pruning. Here we have placed training
first, to give practical emphasis to this lesson. Much of our prunings
are simply the outgrowth of our neglect of or mistakes in training. Tor
not only can the form of growth be changed by training, but its character.
We can train for timber ; we can also train for fruit. Even the mere
position of a branch may cover the whole difference between the one and
the other. It may seem a small matter whether a tree shall grow erect or
horizontally, or whether it shall droop or weep from the horizontal line.
And yet, on such alterations of the main positions of the growth of its
shoots may hang all the difference between sterility and fertility. The
natural bent of all young apples is enlargement. Hence most of the
shoots are sent straight up as high as possible into the air. Those who
break and start on other lines turn up as soon as they are fairly free of
the parent stem or branch. The majority of buds point at a more or
less acute angle skywards. Besides, only the upper buds on most shoots
break into fresh shoots the following year. All this is in harmony with
Nature’s ordinance, that the tree was formed to mount as fast and as
far into the air as possible. The result is height at the expense of
symmetry and compactness. In giving free room to this natural ten-
dency time and profit are both sacrificed, and form also. Eig. 11 is a
fair illustration of this natural tendency. If left as shown, only the top
buds would break the following season, and all the others would re-4
TRAINING.
31
Fig. 11.
main dormant. More, these top ones, if left untrained, would pro-
vide probably from three to six duplicates of Fig. 11. They would be
equally vertical, as far as their numbers would allow, and almost
equally strong and thick. The skilful trainer, however, may easily
manipulate Fig. 11 into Fig. 12. The change in the size of the buds is
in such cases simply the result of the change
from the vertical to the horizontal position.
Each bud along the whole line of the shoot
or branch is stimulated to swell by its altered
position. This result would be even intensified
if the growing end of Fig. 12 werejmade to touch
the ground. The stimulus on the buds and their
efforts to swell out into full size or even be trans-
formed into fruitfulness would then be greater
than when the shoot is run along horizontally
with the ground, as shown in Fig. 12. Pruning
is often used as a substitute for training in
regard to these two forms; thus many allow
Fig. 11 to grow as here shown—in fact, it is the
common normal style of maiden apple or other
fruit trees. It would, however, have been better
to have grown it in the form of Fig. 12 from the
first. But that not being done, then, instead of
cutting back Fig. 11 to within a bud or two of the
bottom or ground line, the whole of the top should
be left at length and tied down the second year,
as in Fig. 12. It will make little or no wood, but many fruit buds, so
that at three years from the grafts a fruit-bearing tree will be produced.
And this is one of the greatest triumphs of the saving of time and jthe
Fig. 12.
securing of profit by skilful training. For by it alone fertility is alike
hastened and augmented. In Fig. 13 the same principle of training is
carried over a larger area. By allowing the young tree to describe a
spiral movement, Nature’s desire to mount is gratified, while the buds
are also forced out into prominence or converted into fruitfulness by
their semi-horizontal position. In these, and other methods that might32
THE APPLE.
Fig. 13.
be named, the tree has received no check or stop. There has simply
been a modification of growth and fruition by altered positions, rather
than changed condition. The trainer has
effected much with little or no inter-
ference with Nature. We give a simple
illustration of this in Fig. 14. This is the
result of stopping Fig. 11 above the first
two wood buds formed on it. Fig. 14
may then be produced in the same time
needed to grow Fig. 11. Maidens, with
two arms at right angles, might just be
as common, under skilful training, as
vertical one-shoot trees. To grow Fig. 11
into a fishing rod, to be cut off for a flower
stake in winter, and produce Fig. 14 the
following season, is simply to waste a
season’s sun and shower and to lose
a whole year. Diagonal training pos-
sesses the merits of horizontal training,
though in a lesser degree. Maidens may
be trained into this form and crossed, so as to make diamond cordons, as
Fig. 14.
shown in Fig. 15, or single lines laid parallel to each other at any angle
diagonally. The more obliquely they are placed the more will the buds be
developed throughout their whole length, a point of much importance to
the beauty and usefulness of the apple. If any of the buds remain dor-
mant near the ground lines, such buds are a sheer loss of productive or
feeding force. Cordons should be fruitful from base to summit, and all
unfurnished parts represent a loss of produce as well as of time and
space. An unfruitful tree, or one carrying half a crop, absorbs as
much of the former and occupies as much ground as one in full bearing
throughout its entire area or length.
Fig. 16 is a modification of horizontal training, well adapted for apples.
Horizontal trees used to be almost universal in kitchen gardens. In
most of these the side shoots proceeded from the main stem, at right
angles with it. The circular bend at the point of departure, as shown inTRAINING.
33
Fig. 16, not only looks better, but is of great service to the tree. The
sap is slightly arrested in flowing round the curve, and that resistance to
growth is sufficient to fully develope the buds on the curved part. After
a time the sap possibly flows round the bend just as freely as along a
straight line. But that is of no consequence. It is the first flow round the
Fig. 15.
curve that needs a check, to give abnormal prominence to the bud near the
stem, and these, once fully developed, can take care of themselves.
Such a tree as Fig. 16 will probably take about four or five years to
form. The best modes of proceeding is to start with Fig. 14, only leave
D34
THE APPLE.
a leading shoot in the centre proceeding nine inches or a foot beyond the
two lower branches. This will break the two upper buds
and produce the second pair of branches. The leader
is then allowed to proceed as before, and so on until
the height of the wall or espalier is reached and the
tree fully furnished. By stopping the leader twice or
three times during the summer, vigorous trees will oc-
casionally produce two or three series of side branches
Fig. 17.	one season; and this skilful training, combined
with free growth, economises time and hastens and augments fertility. At
times, too, the centre or
leader of the tree, in-
stead of being carried
up straight, is trained
in a waving or semi-
spiral manner. This
form will be illustrated
in our handbook on
pears.
The most useful other
forms of training
the apple are per-
Fig. 19.	haps the dwarf
the pyramid or cone, Figs. 19, 20, 21, and 22;
and the standard, or
orchard tree, Figs. 23,
24, 25, and 26. Fig.
17 shows the bush
tree at the end of the
first season’s growth
under proper train-
ing. Left to itself, it
would have been like
Fig. 11. Under judi-
cious management,
the growth is so di-
rected as to form the
basis of the future
bush tree. With but
little attention the
same tree would deve-
Fig. 21.	lope into Fig. 18 the
The great use of early training is to form good habits.
Fig. 18.
bush, Figs. 17 and 18 ;Like produces like in wood making and fruit growing, as in almost
everything else. The trainer has
only to show the tree what sort
and form of wood it is expected
to make, and Nature will speedily
better his instructions. A mas-
terly inactivity often represents
the highest skill in the training of
apple and other fruit trees. The
foundation, again, of the pyra-
midal apple tree is shown in Fig.
19. This, again, is the much
cited Fig. 11 stopped once, say,
in the middle of June. The stop-
page developes the lower buds,
and prepares it for growing into
Fig. 20 the following season. If
will at once be obvious that the
natural results of Fig. 20 are
Fig. 21 and Fig. 22. The art of
training, like that of building,
largely consists in the laying of a _____
good foundation. This, well and
truly laid, becomes at once a basis and a
tree alike rises up or grows into
proper form as a matter of course.
The same principle
of progressive deve-
lopment is illustrated
in Figs. 23, 24, 25,
and 26. Stop Fig. 11
near the top, and the
rudiments of Fig. 23
may be formed the
first season. Starting
with 23, it needs little
skill in training to
produce Fig. 24; and
Fig. 25 and 26 grow
out of these two
almost as certainly
and readily as twice
two make four. It has been contended that apple trees of the style
D 2
TRAINING.
35
36
THE APPLE.
and character of Fig. 26 will grow of themselves, without any training
whatever, and, no doubt, occasionally such might be the case. Apple
trees vary very much in habit and style of growth. Some are straggling,
others compact; some produce many shoots, others but few; some make
little, others much growth. Hence the necessity of skilful training. What
if a few orchard trees might fruit well and early, and mould themselves
into a good shape without training ? The majority would not, and the
object of the cultivator is to have all his trees well formed and fully
furnished with fruit-bearing wood in as short a time as possible.
Form, it is true, is of secondary moment to fertility ; but it may gene-
rally be made to add to fruitfulness, and also to add to the pleasure
afforded by all fruit trees in gardens. Upon the form of trees also
depends an equal supply of food to their different parts. To ensure
this object the skilled trainer will always, if possible, concentrate the
greatest amount of strength in the lower parts of the tree and thoseTRAINING.
37
furthest removed from the perpendicular with the roots. Remembering
Nature’s partiality for this line, he will try to baulk her, and lead
growing force into the other parts of the tree. This is often done
by bending, weighting, or stopping the vertical shoots, and at the same
Fig. 26.
time fostering, by every possible means, a free growth in the horizontal
ones. The trainer also studies to distribute an almost equal amount of
light, heat, and moisture to every part of the tree. The rule of ther
38	THE APPLE.
strongest is not only Nature’s law in regard to different plants, but the
different members of the same plant or limb of the same tree.
Left entirely to themselves, the strong branches of apples overmaster
and destroy the weak. This results in a lack of symmetry and a loss
of space. The trainer, by generalising growing force to the utmost, gives
to each part its due portion of food in season, and ends the rivalry of the
boughs by satisfying all. He also prevents them from crossing, over-
shadowing, or injuring each other. No dense shadow of leaves and
spray here, no waste vacant area there. All the space allotted to the
tree is fully occupied, without injury to other trees or to any part of
the same tree. The tree is also so formed and trained that the showers
can refresh and the dews nourish the whole of it.
Untrained trees suffer incalculable injury from the upper portions
shedding off the rains and the dews from the under ; growth is weakly,
fruit small and worthless on the lower parts of apple trees, very often
from this unsuspected cause. By developing the lower limbs the most,
the whole tree is equally watered and nourished, and the produce alike
good over its entire area. Light, heat, and moisture have free access
to every part of the tree; and hence each one, of whatever form, grows
up under skilful training a model of health, beauty, and fertility. Of
course this perfect model is not always reached in practice, but nothing
else and nothing less should satisfy the cultivator and lover of apples.
Pruning.
Pruning differs from training, inasmuch as all pruning removes growth
already made. It is the removal of part of the stem, branches, leaves, or
roots. Much of the necessity of pruning arises from the neglect of early
and better training. What correction is in moral training, pruning is to
plant life and growth. Bad habits, principles, diseases, can only be
eradicated by suffering. So wrongly-placed, useless wood has to be
removed by pruning. It is cut away in order that better-placed or
different and better growths may come in its place. Nevertheless,
pruning, though needful at times even to perfect training, represents
a waste of force. Had the growth been properly watched and moulded
in the making, the probability is that none of it would have had to be
removed. But, taking things as we find them, a certain amount of
pruning may be held to be needful. The fancies of trainers, the limi-TRAINING.
39
tation of space, the craving for early maturity, all have to be met and
gratified, often by the use of the knife. As the knowledge of the laws
of life and conditions of growth extend, cultivators will, no doubt, train
more and prune less. But the time is probably yet far distant when
the pruning of such trees as the apple will be abandoned. The place
of pruning has been changed, the extent of it much reduced, but the
practice is yet general. In fact, unless we could sow the seeds of our
trees where they are to remain for life, and graft them where sown,
we cannot, if we would, avoid root pruning.
I.—Hoot
Boot pruning, which is necessarily practised at each removal of the
trees, is by far the more potential sort of pruning. Prune the tops, and they
grow again with perhaps as much as or more vigour than before ; prune
the roots, and the entire character of growth of root and top is modified
and changed for life. So much is this the case, that, if once a fibrous
habit of root is established by pruning, apple trees may need no more
pruning throughout their lives, where they have room to develope them-
selves, as, say, orchard apple trees. Boot pruning may thus render top
pruning wholly unnecessary. Trees are often thus said to be unpruned,
that have been pruned in the most effectual way, and once pruned so
well as to need no further pruning.
Great mistakes are also made in regard to root pruning. So long as a
certain number of roots are removed, some seem to think it of little or no
matter what roots are removed or where they are cut from. This is
quite a mistake. It often makes all the difference where the roots are
cut from. Those nearest the surface have a tendency to form fibres
if not root-pruned. As a rule, the more fibry the roots, the less pruning
they need. In j Pig. 27 the horizontal roots may be left, and the40
THE APPLE.
vertical ones cut off where marked. Boot pruning, when properly-
practised, is less an expedient for reducing the number than a means
of modifying the character of the roots. Perhaps few trees have an
excess of roots, if posted in the right place and of the right sort. As
far as the making of wood is concerned, the more roots, and the stronger,
the more and finer the timber. Root pruning would be altogether a
mistake for the wood grower; but where fruit is the main object, root
pruning is assuredly a safe and short cut to early and permanent
fertility. Root pruning changes the character and the place of the
roots, and so revolutionises the entire tree. It compresses fertility
into less space, in less time, and produces a larger aggregate. Some
condemn root pruning as unnecessary and unnatural; it is neither.
In fact Nature herself root prunes. The hardness and shallowness
and poverty of natural strata prune the roots by wholesale, or effect
similar results to actual pruning. They are stopped perforce, and
compelled to break the one boring root into many fibrous ones. The
roots overcrowd each other also to such an extent as to produce
analogous results to root pruning. Root, in fact, is the most impor-
tant, and therefore the most general mode of pruning.
The perfect pruning of the apple is a chain of three links, only of
unequal length and strength. Root pruning is the largest and strongest
of the three; the second of most strength and value, is summer pruning ;
and the last, which in fact may at times be altogether dispensed with, is
winter pruning. The three are mutually dependent, and give to pruning
a unity of purpose and design. In general terms, it may be stated that
the more skilfully apple trees are root-pruned, the less summer pruning
will be needful; and if these two are properly managed, the winter
pruning will be of the lightest. This, too, ought to be the aim of the
skilful pruner, to modify the issues of growth to such an extent by
his action on the roots that the least possible amount of useless growth
shall be produced as food for the knife, the most unprofitable product
within the whole range of horticulture.
The time to root-prune is important. As a rule October and November
are the best months for the operation. Roots may then be sufficiently
exposed to reveal their character without too severe a check to the
tree, and barren or sterile roots shortened back at that season quickly
develope into a network of fibres as shown in Fig. 28. The season is
also one of more leisure in the garden than perhaps any other. For
these, and other reasons, October and November seem the best months
for root pruning. But some prune much earlier. As soon as the crop
is harvested, apple and other fruit trees may be root-pruned with safety.
The check is more severe when root pruning takes place earlier. Apple1
41
Fig. 28.
and other trees have even been root pruned ’in July with great benefit.
It is needful to be cautious in root pruning so early, alike as to the
manner and extent of it. And root pruning should at no season be
carried to extremes, nor done in a reckless manner. It is such modes
of performing a most de-
licate surgical operation
that has brought by far
the most successful and
scientific mode of prun-
ing into disrepute in
not a few cases. If the
object of all proper
pruning is to limit the
size, improve the form, and hasten and heighten the fertility of trees,
then root pruning is the best for all these purposes. It prevents
overgrowth, regulates and equalises its strength, and turns the growth
made into fruitful channels.
Top pruning ought to be adapted to root pruning as the key fits the
wards of the lock for which it was made. Mere routine or empiricism
must never be allowed to wield the knife on the roots of trees. The
root pruner may do his work so well that no top pruning may be needed,
for fertility is a far safer, better, more effective pruner than the knife.
Give an apple tree a good load of apples to carry by means of skilful
training or root pruning, and there will be little fear of any excess of
wood to need cutting away. Fertility is the best antidote to excessive
growth, and the surest and most permanent remedy for sterility.
The mode of root pruning is simple. Some adopt the savage practice
of describing a circle a yard or so in diameter round the tree and cutting
everything off at that radius with a sharp spade. This removes all the
best roots, and leaves all the worst ones intact. The proper mode is to
remove all the earth from the chief roots of the tree to a distance from
the bole ranging from a foot to a yard or more, according to its size,
and shorten them back according to their condition—those that are
thickest and have fewest fibres most, those that are weakest and have
most fibres least or not at all. Meanwhile all vertical roots within a foot
or eighteen inches of the collar of the tree are cut off. The soil, or fresh
earth if needed, is then replaced, the surface of the earth mulched over
with a frost and drought proof covering, a strong stake if needful put to
the tree to keep it immovable against wind and weather, and the opera-
tion is completed.
The condition of the tree and the roots will mainly determine the
amount of root pruning; but, of course, regard will also be paid to42
THE APPLE.
modifies growth m
Tig.29.
the size of the tree. If it is small, as a cordon or bush, and the space
set apart for it is correspondingly limited, and the roots are strong
or numerous, the root pruning will be correspondingly severe. If these
conditions are reversed, the pruning will be light in proportion.
On no account should the roots and top be pruned simultaneously;
root pruning gives sufficient check for the time. To prune top and
roots together is to cripple life and vitality at both ends. Possibly
part of the elaborated sap in the branches may find its way down to
hasten the formation or quicken the growth of new roots. Be that,
however, as it may, experience shows that it is as impolitic as it is
unprofitable to prune the tops and bottoms of plants at the same time.
II.— Summer Pruning.
Summer pruning is next in importance to root pruning. The former
the making; the latter moulds it into new forms
or removes it. It will be seen at a glance
which is the more important. Summer
pruning operates, of course, on the young
wood, technically called breast wood. Each
wood bud that breaks grows into a shoot,,
and these, if all left to grow at will, change
the well-ordered, skilfully trained trees into
a tangled forest in miniature. A certain ex-
tent of growth may be permitted to most or
all these shoots. They stimulate the roots
and flush the tree with sap and life. But
it is needful to remove some and stop all, or
nearly all, of these young shoots of the cur-
rent year, or breast wood, to compact fertility
into smaller areas, post it in the best places,
and produce it in the least time. That sys-
tem of pruning that concentrates the greatest
amount of fruit in the least space consistent
with the health of the tree must have many
merits, if it be not the very best. Leave
young wood unpruned in summer, and tho
fruit buds, if any, would be found on the end
of the growing shoots. Not only this ; but where the best buds are found
on the highest point of the shoots, the lower ones either do not break at
all, or are worthless if they do. Thus the fruit buds are found on the
highest points, and the tree occupies a larger space, without being more
productive, as is shown in the unstopped branch of Fig. 29.PRUNING.
43
Summer pruning also puts the fruit in the best places. It probably
makes no inconsiderable difference to the perfect swelling of fruit
whether it is placed near or far from the main branches. Placed on
the highest point of the branches, the fruit no doubt gets more fully
exposed to light and air. But the advantages arising from this are
probably largely neutralised by the distance of the fruit from its main or
leading supplies. By a proper system of summer pruning the fruit may be
as fully exposed to light and air as is possible, while it is posted
near to the main currents of the sap or leading branches of the tree.
But summer pruning is also a time-saving as well as space-husbanding
expedient. A year or more is often saved by judicious summer pruning
or stopping. It accelerates as well as augments fertility. It converts
mere growing force into fruitful condition, and more is done in a few
months to establish and perpetuate fertility by summer pruning than
is often done in as many or more years by winter pruning.
The success of summer pruning depends a good deal on the time when
it is done, and the extent to which it is carried. Prune too soon, and all
the buds left will break into wood, instead of being transformed into
flower buds. The buds left may also break too soon during the current
^year, instead of the next. Shoots thus produced out of season cannot
be ripened before winter, and immature wood makes the trees tender, and
causes them to suffer from frost. Summer-prune too late, and the buds
are not sufficiently filled before the end of the season. The best time
is from the middle of June to the middle of July, according to the
earliness or lateness of the season. The extent to prune back the
young wood also requires skill and expe-
rience; for apples from four or eight buds	&
may often be left on the young wood (Fig. 30).	fey
If the wood is weak, two or three buds may be
sufficient; if strong, perhaps four or more
buds had better be left.
One summer’s pruning should suffice; a	W,
second or more prunings or stoppings are to	\\
be avoided. These interfere too much with
growth, and prevent alike buds and shoots from /
arriving at maturity. The leading branches are. generally better without
much summer pruning, unless in those cases in which no extension of
growth is needed. When trees have attained full size, the leading or main
shoots, as well as the side shoots or breast wood, may be summer-pruned.
But when the trees are still to be enlarged ijp. size, the leading shoots
should not be summer-pruned, and this unchecked growth of part of the
tree tends to augment its strength as well s enlarge its fertility.44
THE APPLE.
Fig. 31.
III.— Winter Pruning-
Were [summer pruning perfect, and carried far enough, little or no
winter pruning would be needed, and the less the better. Winter
pruning ought to be the shortest link of perfect
pruning. It is impossible, however, to estimate growing
force with sufficient exactness to regulate the extent
of summer pruning required ; therefore the amount
is roughly guessed at, and the winter pruning removes
any redundancy of wood left. (Fig. 31.) Sometimes,
too, the fruiting spurs get too far from the leading
branches, and should be cut back. (Figs. 32 and 33.)
But beyond this, under a proper system of root and
summer pruning, there will be little or no removal of
wood. Winter pruning is, in fact, a mere removal ofj useless matter. It
can change but little, and exerts no transforming force. It is useful at
times in improving the form of trees
Fig. 32.

Fig. 33.
(Figs. 34 and 35), and in producing
shoots or branches where wanted.
Occasionally, too, winter pruning*
becomes a means of reducing excessive
fertility. Fruit buds may be thinned,
fruit spurs removed, and in their
stead wood may spring forth. This
is occasionally one of the chief objects of winter pruning. When trees
are weak and exhausted, as apple trees often are, by
over-cropping and starvation, then severe winter pruning
may revive their growth, flush them with sap, restore or
re-establish their exhausted powers. But this belongs
rather to cutting in or back than to mere pruning. How
this operates to concentrate, and therefore restore force,
is shown in Figs. 36 and 37. Trees well-nigh hopelessly
weak are often thus again made strong.
But the greatest art of all pruning is to know when to stop. Mas-
terly inactivity often demands far higher skill than the most dexterous
use of the knife. Trees may be pruned into fertility and out of it, and
the best remedy for excessive fruitfulness is not seldom a free use
of the knife ; but it is better to thin the crops down to moderate dimen-
sions than have to prune trees out of excessive fertility. And with
skilful pruning and a careful adjustment of the load of fruit to the
strength of the trees, these will continue long in robust health and

Fig. 31.	pIG< 35,
46
THE APPLE.
full bearing, with but little pruning. Pruning, in fine, should be looked
upon as an exceptional surgical operation, rather than as an every-day,
matter-of-course affair. With higher skill it may become unnecessary,
and at present winter pruning especially should be indulged in to as
limited an extent as possible. It may be useful for limiting the number
and shortening the length of fruiting spurs, for the shortening of leading
shoots, for the removal of misplaced boughs, the thinning out of over-
crowded branches, and the reduction of their numbers. In a word, we
prune for fertility, symmetry, size, quality, and as an aid to perfect
training rather than a substitute for it. By admitting more light
and air to all portions of the tree, its uniform strength and vigour
are maintained. The whole produce, being fully exposed to light and
air, is also almost all good alike. This uniformity of high quality in
apples is worth all the labour involved in skilful pruning; and, as one
of its results, perfection of form leaves an equality of like favourable
conditions for all the fruit — a result impossible generally without
pruning, and that of the most skilful sort.
The best time for winter pruning is from October to January. Imme-
diately before or as soon after the fall of the leaf as possible the plant is
in that state to heal wounds with greatest certainty and despatch. The
descending sap is the great healer of breaches, and a cut made at the endPRUNING.
47
of October will be so far towards .healing that the severe frost which
mostly comes with the new year will do it but little harm. On no
account should winter pruning be proceeded with during severe frost.
The knife bruises and breaks rather than cuts frozen wood, and leaves
wounds that are long in healing, if ever they do heal soundly. The
cut should be clean and at a sharp angle, with its lower edge nearest
to the bud, so that the new shoot or growth proceeding hence should
the more speedily cover it with new wood. Very much of the success
of pruning turns upon such minutiae as the time and place to cut; and,
in fact, in pruning nothing is too small or minute to claim and receive the
Pig. 37.
most careful attention. In horticulture generally, and pruning in parti-
cular, it is the master of trifles who commands success.
;Plan ting.
I.—Time.
Time, soil, and site, are the three most important points to consider in
regard to apple planting. The best time to plant is from the middle
of October to the end of December. No doubt apples will grow, even
if planted up to May, or, in fact, at almost any time; but they will thrive48
THE APPLE.
best and lose least time in looking behind them if planted at the season
here recommended. The earth is then warm from the stored up summer
and autumn sunshine, and the trees are assisted to re-establish them-
selves by the root renewing power of the descending sap. The roots are
also in an abnormally active state in November. Trees moved at that
season form fresh roots faster than at any other time. This is of the
utmost importance, for the sooner the roots lay hold of the new soil the
sooner is the tree safe. Boots unattached to the soil are in an unnatural
and, consequently, dangerous state. Having nothing in particular to do,
they may set about growing afresh, or they may also wither up, rot, and
utterly perish. Set them to work earth boring, food collecting, or con-
veying, and they are comparatively safe. The shorter the interregnum to
growth between the old quarters and the new the better for the well-
being and. safety of newly-planted trees; and hence to a large extent
the success of November planting. The roots at this season make haste
to run into the new soil, and, having done so, the safety and success of
the newly-planted tree is insured.
II.—Soil.
The soil to plant in is of equal, or more, importance to the time to
plant, though the apple can hardly be said to be fastidious about soils.
It thrives more or less on all surface strata and on any geological forma-
tion, and, in fact, can be found in more or less robust health from Land’s
End to John o’Groat’s. Yet it thrives best on the richest alluvial loams.
On these, if of sufficient depth, the apple may be said to take care of
itself. It grows with an energy, and fruits with a profusion and a
quality, altogether unknown on thin, poor soils or heavy tenacious clays.
On suitable soil the apple may be said to be free from disease. No canker
eats into the heart of its stems or branches, no bug swells its boughs
into gouty-like limbs, or weakens and shortens its life. No yellows
destroy its healthy verdure, as often happens when the apple is planted
in wet soils ; no stunted growth cripples its energy, as when thrust into
soils too poor to support its strength.
So important is soil to success that, where the natural soil is unsuit-
able, it should be supplemented with other and better before planting.
It is almost better not to plant at all than to plant on unsuitable soils.
The first point in the preparation of soils is to see that they are well
drained. Stagnant water will ruin the finest soils in the world. Give the
water a free exit at the bottom, and its passage through will improve all
soils and render good loams even more perfect for apple culture. The
mistake must not, however, be made of draining land twice. This :sPLANTING.
49
injurious, and is often done. Because drainage is good for some lands, all
are drained. It thus happens that soils lying on porous strata, already
perhaps almost over-drained by nature, are injured by being drained again
by art. Stagnant water must, however, be got rid of. It is disease or death
to apple trees, and sure and certain disappointment to cultivators. As the
soil should average from 18in. to 30in. in depth for apples, it follows
that draining to be efficient should be -from 3|ft. to 4ft. in depth. Shallow
drains are of but little use in an orchard or apple garden, for not only will
the roots bore beyond them and so reach wet soil, but they will also get into
them, and so block and utterly ruin the drains, and render them, in fact,
of no effect. This incessant seeking and finding of drains by the roots of
trees is one of the most mysterious natural occurrences, which is fraught
with stultifying results to the shallow drainer. On the other hand, how-
ever, deep drains are not found to draw the roots down to their destruc-
tion or to that of the tree. Placed a certain distance below the main
roots, the latter keep near the surface, seemingly unconscious of the
drains.
Having thoroughly drained the ground intended for the cultivation
of apples, or at least carefully examined it to see if it needs artificial
drainage, its quality will be revealed by either process. If of a light
gravelly or sandy character, it may be much improved by clay, marl,
strong burnt earth, and manure. Though rich loams would be injured
for apple culture by the addition of manure, that is no reason why
poor lands would not be improved by it. But the more durable con-
stituents, such as clay, marl, &c., are more useful for changing light
soils into earths heavy enough for apple culture. Occasionally trenching
and carefully admixing the surface soil with a portion of the stiffer
subsoil, will convert light lands into good soils for the apple. These
strong earths give to light lands those binding and holding qualities
so essential to the successful cultivation of most fruits. Heavy soils,
again, may be ameliorated, lightened, and warmed by drainage, the
addition of sand, lime, chalk, vegetable refuse, burnt earth, and other
matters. But, where the soil approaches to sheer clay, it is often the
cheapest course in the end to remove masses of it bodily in circular
spaces, 6ft. or 9ft. in diameter and 2ft. deep, and replace the stiff
tenacious clay with good rich loam from a neighbouring pasture. Loam
can also be purchased at reasonable prices by those who have no pastures
of their own, or manorial rights over waysides or commons. Where so
much good soil cannot be had, it is well to give the trees a start if
only a yard of good earth could be provided for each. By the time the
roots reached the extremity of the artificial soil, the ameliorating influence
here recommended would have gone far to render the most ungenial
E50
THE APPLE.
and unsuitable soils fit for apple culture. Some contend that the nearer
the surface the root can be kept the better for the health and the fer-
tility of the trees. There is, no doubt, much truth in the statement, but
it is not the whole truth. It is quite possible to have roots too shallow
for the welfare of the trees. The character of the roots, much more
than their place in the ground, determines their measure of useful work.
During long spells of drought it is well to have roots so far removed
from the surface as to run little or no risk of exhausting the supplies of
food or moisture. It takes much of both to support an apple tree fully
furnished with leaves and growing boughs, and heavily laden with fruit.
It is at such times that deep, large, rich root runs reveal their im-
portance. A deep soil is seldom injurious if it rests on a dry bottom. It
is not depth but wet that causes late growths of wood and fruit in
the autumn, and the maximum depth here recommended will not be
found excessive to the successful cultivation of the apple for a series of
years.
III.—Site.
The site is also important. Planters, however, have seldom a very
extensive choice of sites. But natural sites may be improved as well as
natural soils. Shelter alone will change a bad site into a good one.
Neither is it needful to crowd the shelter right up against the apples.
This is often done, to the robbery of their roots and the weakening of
their tops. A shelter is often more efficient at the distance of 50 or
100 yards than close at hand. Apples like a warm, cosy spot, but hate
to be overshadowed or overhung. Again, apples delight in a gentle
slope, if it can be provided for them. This insures more thorough
drainage and a warmer, more genial atmosphere. Apples should never,
if it can be avoided, be planted in the bottom of a valley. That is
the coldest place in the locality, and the spot where the spring and
autumn frosts work most mischief among the apples. Gentle declivities
to the east, south-east, south, south-west, west, are the sites best adapted
for apple growing. On the whole, as the frosts now mostly run the
severities of winter almost right through our fruit blooming season, a
south-west or western aspect would be likely to insure more crops than
any other. A site or aspect with any point of north in it is too cold
for superior apples in all but the extreme southern counties. Some of
the most successful orchards, it must also be admitted, have sloped to the
east and caught the morning sun. Of course, too, thousands of tons of
good apples are grown on the level, and have been planted and culti-
vated with little or no regard to site. Still, site is a point worthy ofPLANTING.
51
consideration, and it is always worth while in planting apples, either
*	in the garden or orchard, to give the trees the most favourable site
that can be chosen for them.
IV.—Method of Planting.
Apples may be placed in the most favourite sites, planted at the
right time and in the best soil, and may yet fail for lack of promptitude
and skill in the act of planting. A tree out of the earth is like a fish
out of water. Air is suffering, disease, and death to root and fish alike.
But the root expresses no suffering, it can only dry and die. Hence
it is often exposed for hours, while minutes are all too much for it.
This arises from want of thought and due preparation. All borders
should be made, holes dug out, stakes, ties, mulchings, &c., provided
before any trees appear on the planting ground at all. If ordered from
a nursery, special orders should be given concerning the covering and
keeping moist of the roots on the journey. Excellent as are the packing
arrangements in most nurseries, the roots not seldom get frozen or
dried on the journey. When the trees arrive they should be immediately
unpacked under cover or in a sheltered spot. Especially should these
precautions be taken should the air be harsh, dry, or frosty. If the
roots are found dry, they should at once be sprinkled, or plunged into
water. Each tree ought then to be carefully examined, bruised roots
cut clean off back beyond the bruise, and strong ones also pruned in if
needful. In all these processes every care must be taken to preserve the
fibrous roots. If the ground is near, each tree should be planted as
soon as examined and trimmed. Should the orchard or garden be a
considerable distance off, the trees may be laid on hand carts or barrows,
and their roots protected from sun, wind and air on transit to their
growing ground.
The bottom of the holes for the trees should be made level, smooth,
and somewhat hard. The roots are thus displayed horizontally, which
gives them a fair start towards the best and most genial soil. An
irregular or uneven soft base for the roots is apt to tempt them down-
ward, and the pressure of the covering earth may readily rupture tender
roots displayed on a rough uneven surface.
It also greatly facilitates the planting if a stake proportioned in
•*	strength to the size of the tree is placed in the centre of each hole as
soon as formed. The tree is then set down and looped on to the stake
with a loose tie, which leaves both hands of the planter at liberty to
attend to the regular and systematic display of the roots. It is asto-
E 252
THE APPLE.
nishing how systematic attention to these minute matters forwards the
planting of apple and other trees, and helps and perfects the process,
which is rather a trying one to novices in horticulture. Where a number
of trees are to be planted, it is a good plan to partially plant all before
finishing any.
As soon as the roots are thoroughly covered over with soil the tree
is out of danger. The levelling in of all the earth, smoothing the sur -
face, and other final processes of planting, may then be proceeded with
more leisurely. It used to be a common practice to tread the trees in.
This is a dangerous practice. No one hardly would think of treading
over exposed roots, and it does not mend the matter much though these
roots be covered over with a thin layer of earth. The mischief is hidden,
but the treading ruptures the roots all the same. The weight of the soil,
followed by the winter’s rains and snow, consolidates the roots sufficiently
without treading them in. Others, again, flood the roots home. This
means something more than a common watering. It is, in fact, to drench
the earth till it becomes something like mud, and the soil in this wet
state settles down around the roots and holds them firm. This is
very useful for late planting, but is seldom necessary for the planting of
apple trees in November. Secure the tree to a stake, plant it suffi-
ciently deep, cover the roots with fine soil, and leave time and weather
to do the rest.
The question of depth to plant is rather a vexed one, and may be
considered as of vital importance. As in most matters, so in the planting
of apples, a medium depth is best. With the roots all on the surface
growth is weak and life mostly short. Roots running too deep result in
huge boughs and sterility. Practically, too, most trees decide the proper
depth for themselves. However trees are raised, whether from seeds,
cuttings, grafts, buds, or layers, they speedily reveal a ground line or
cellar, all above which is stem, all below roots. This line can only
be altered at the peril of cultivators. Raise it higher out of the earth
than nature intended, and you unduly and injuriously check growth;
sink lower, and you invite disease and kill the plant. The planter has
only to observe the natural ground line and plant up to it, and he is
sure to be right ; ignore it—bury it or hoist it up into the air—and the
tree suffers in the ratio of the interference with the collar of the plant.
Cover apple roots at planting time with from 6in. to 9in. of soil, and
the majority of them will be found permanently within a range of 6in.1
to 24in. of the surface.
Starting from a level base, the roots will have little inducement to bore
into the subsoil. Many of the older practitioners erred in raising the
base of the root run in the centre; they were anxious to keep up thePLANTING.
53
bole of the tree and its main roots. These were set on a J hillock in
the centre of the root run, and all the roots ran down hill towards the
sides of the hole; the consequence was that all the best roots made
immediately for the subsoil.
To counteract this, others reversed the form of the base line for the
roots. The centre of the tree was placed lowest, and the horizontal roots
led up hill. This resulted in bringing the best roots too close to the
surface. There is no form for the base equal to a level line. The roots
then stand in the exact direction where they will find the most and best
food. If care is taken, too, to bury them in layers separated by a few
inches of earth between, much overcrowding and useless matting together
of the roots is avoided. Roots feed best, not in huge matted masses,
but in solitary isolation.
It is also important that the holes be large enough. Many attribute
much importance to the form of the holes, some cultivators preferring
round, others elliptical, square, or other shaped holes. The form is of no
moment, provided the hole at all points is a foot or so wider than the
sweep of the roots. In stiff soils 2ft. wider than the longest root would
be better still. It is important that each root should find loose soil ahead
of it, so that it may penetrate it easily, and not be bent back upon
itself by meeting with hard and unbroken soil.
When it is found impossible to plant early in winter, and the trees to
be planted were grown in a warm soil in a warm situation, it may at
times be desirable to remove them thence in November, and inlay the
trees by the heels behind a north wall till the new quarters in garden or
orchard are ready for them. This practice, however, is recommended as
a choice of the lesser of two evils. But, if apples must be planted as late
as March, and the trees are moved from warm and forward nursery
lines, they will suffer more than they would by the double removal.
After planting, whether early or late, the surface of the ground
should be rendered frost and drought proof by a covering of some non-
conducting material, such as stable litter, moss, cocoa-fibre refuse, or spent
tan. This prevents the roots being arrested in their growth, either in
summer or in winter—a point of immense importance to all roots under
all circumstances, but, of course, specially so to those that have been
newly planted, and that, consequently, have to make sure of their new
hold of the ground, as well as to supply all the demands of the tops of
the trees for food. This mulching, as it is called, of newly-planted trees
is one of the most important points in modern culture, and exhibits a
striking advance on the older and rougher expedients. But when all
roots were buried deeper in the earth there was less necessity for
mulching, as the earth itself protected the roots from the severities alike54
THE APPLE.
of frost and drought. As we bring the roots nearer to the surface, it
is of the more importance that they should be protected by a super
covering, to protect them from the extreme vicissitudes of climate.
The distance apart to plant apple trees must be determined by the
size of the trees, the conditions of soil, site, climate, habit, and the
object of the cultivator. The distances may range from 2ft. to 40ft. The
first may not be too close for oblique cordons, and the latter may not
be too much for permanent orchard trees on good soils. Much also turns
on the habit of different varieties. Such wide-spreading sorts as the
Nonsuch and Beefing require a far wider area than the closer-growing
varieties, such as most of the codlins and pippins. Hence, even orchard
trees may have a wide range of distance, from 15ft. to 40ft. Soil and
climate must also be allowed for. Taking 40ft. as the maximum distance
for orchard trees on good soils, 20ft. would be ample on thin and poor
soils. It is also good practice, and pays well, to plant supernumeraries,
to be cut out after a few crops to make room for the permanent trees.
Hence most orchards are planted at first with about three times the
number of trees that are to remain permanently; that is, every other
row and every other tree are cut out as the space is required by the
permanent trees, The distance between pyramids, again, may range
from 5ft. to 15ft., according to their sizes; and similar distances will be
found useful for bush trees.
Horizontal cordons may be planted from a yard to 4ft. or 5ft. apart,
and it is a good plan to graft the heads of one tree into the root end of
the other, when it reaches it, thus making a continuous and self-sup-
porting rope of fruit from one end of the line to the other. Oblique
and diamond cordons may be planted as closely as from 15in. to 30in.
In general terms, it may be stated that the better the soil and the
more favourable the climate the wider apart for all sorts of trees; the
worse the soil and the more ungenial the climate, the closer should they
be planted.
Cropping.
I—Thinning.
Many crops of apples are wrecked between the setting of the fruit and
the time they reach the kitchen or dessert. Overloading is the cause of
fn.11 half the apple failures one sees or hears of. In favourable springs
almost each blossom sets and each apple tries to grow into full size.CHOPPING.
55
But being too thickly arranged in clusters to allow of this, and being
also far too numerous for the resources of the tree, the result is a host
of small apples little superior in size to crabs, instead of handsome,
full-sized samples. The tree can neither furnish area enough nor
strength sufficient for so many apples, hence the whole are of necessity
dwarfed. Neither does the evil end here. An overcrop one year exhausts
the strength of the tree and leaves no residuum of fruit-bearing force
for the next. Hence seasons of scarcity alternate with seasons of plenty
and a heavy crop is, as a rule, succeeded by one or more years of scant
supplies. By judicious thinning we do much, notwithstanding our
capricious climate, to obtain the most useful desideratum of households,
an annual crop. The fruit is also much finer when the crop is thinned;
and, weight being equal, fine fruit is far more profitable to eat or cook
than small. The percentage of rind and waste inside is so much less
in fine fruit. Besides, large fruit are so much more handsome in appear-
ance and easier to use and prepare for use than small. But weight
as well as size must be taken into account, otherwise it would be easy
to overcrop apple trees with large fruit. The weight of these is, in fact,
very deceptive, and ten large fruits will often be found to have as
great, or even a greater, weight than a hundred smaller ones, though
the latter make by far the greater show. The judicious thinner will
apportion the load to the size of the trees. The tree started with a load
far beyond its strength often drops them all before any reach maturity.
Few things are more trying than having the ground strewn with useless
apples throughout the season. This continual dropping of small and
quite useless fruit is simply Nature’s way of thinning. She sacrifices a
crop to save the tree. The cultivator, by thinning his fruit in time and to
sufficient extent, would have saved both.
II—Swelling.
Properly thinned, it may be thought that apples would swell without
further trouble, still they may be assisted much in this important matter.
The trees should be well fed and carefully watered, if needful, during
the swelling period. The difference in the sizes of apples in different
localities is mainly a matter of scarce or plentiful supplies. Allow the
roots of apples once to become dry during fche swelling of the crop,
and the fruit will be the smaller in consequence. Attention to water
is most important in the case of small trees. Large orchard or other
trees have their roots running deep and wide. Hence, if one part of
their root run is dry, another is likely to be sufficiently moist to supply56
TIIE APPLE.
the wants of the fast swelling apples. But in the ease of cordons,
pyramids, and bushes the roots are often cramped into small areas, and
also kept very near to the surface. The drought speedily tells upon
them and cuts off their supplies, and the fruits are arrested in growth.
These forcible stoppages for lack of water not only lessen size, but lower
quality. They are a chief cause of grittiness and largeness and hardness
of core. It is therefore most important to water apples during dry
weather; house sewage or other manure water is admirably adapted
for this purpose, the roots being thus simultaneously watered and fed.
It is also good practice to sprinkle the swelling apples overhead on the
evenings of bright days. This is easily done in the case of small trees
or choice apples on espaliers or walls. In cases, too, where a water main
passes near to an orchard, a hydrant, hose, and s'preader would speedily
give all, the apple trees a most invigorating cleansing shower, which
would help the small apples to swell fast into large ones. A powerful
garden engine would reach to the tops of most apple trees, and would
pay as a preventive or remover of insects during droughts, as well as
promote the swelling of the fruit.
But the roots should be fed as well as watered during the swelling of
the apple crop. Nothing is so useful for this as a mulching of good dung
on the surface of the soil. From Sin. to 6in. of sheep’s, pigs’, or cows’
manure spread over the surface of the roots of apples—the strength being
watered in either by the rains or artificially—will swell off the crop
to full size better than any other prescription whatever. Of course,
apples planted on good rich soils will swell off many a crop to creditable
dimensions in average seasons without any such extraneous aids to
growth. But on poor soils, and in the case of small trees heavily laden
with fruit, or in others where the utmost limits of size attainable by
varieties is desiderated, these root and overhead waterings and manurial
mulchings will be found of the highest service.
Ill—Ripening.
The ripening of the crop must be accomplished by the tree and the
weather. The cultivator may hinder, but do little to help, it. From the
time fruit reaches full size, all stimulating treatment, such as recom-
mended during the swelling period, must cease, and unless the drought
should be unusually severe, no water must be applied to the roots.
Should the leaves overlie the fruit very much, a few of them might be
removed. Occasionally, too, the breast or young wood, if stopped too
early in the season, may have made a second growth, which may partlyCHOPPING.
57
overshadow the ripening fruit. When this happens the young wood may
be removed, and some of the leaves also. This defoliation, however,
must by no means be carried to excess, and is, in fact, seldom necessary.
Unless performed with much skill and care, it had better be let alone.
Neither must the leaves be removed at all unless they are nearly ripe, and
the buds in the axils full and plump ; for unless this is the case, our
attempts 'to ripen more perfectly the fruit of one season would but ruin
the crop for the next.
During dull, cold seasons, too, various expedients may be used to
hasten the ripening of apples on small trees. Tiles or slates are some-
times placed under horizontal cordons, to reflect back more heat on to
the fruit. Plantations of dwarf, bush, or pyramidal trees are cleared
of ground crops and raked smooth, so as to throw back more heat.
Arable orchards are also more favourable to early and perfect maturity
than those on grass. Glass lights or frames are also at times used to
place over Ribston Pippins, Nonpareils, and other choice apples on walls
in cold seasons or northern latitudes. But in general the cultivator
attempts but little in the way of direct efforts towards ripening the
apple crop. He is careful, as we have seen, to choose favourable sites
and situations; to plant sorts suitable to his locality in the best soil
he can command, and then he trusts to the seasons to ripen his crops
sufficiently for gathering.
There is, however, a wide distinction—often lost sight of by amateurs
—between fruit ripe enough to gather and fit to eat. It is only in the
case of a very few varieties that the two terms are synonymous. Most
of our finest apples should be gathered long before they are fit for
table. The ripening goes on, and is consummated, it may be, months
after the fruit is detached from the trees. Ripening is, in fact, as much,
or more, a chemical than a vital process. It is a thing of many stages or
degrees. There is a stage of ripeness which is the best for gathering,
another the choicest for eating, and others beyond that, and yet others
again, until maturity merges into mellowness, and finally runs into
rottenness.
IV.—Gathering.
How can the cultivator know when to gather his apples ? Chiefly by
experience. The earlier varieties drop as soon as ripe. They alone
ripen up to the eatable stage on the tree. Eye, nose, palate, touch, all
tell us they are ripe. But late sorts give little or no sign. It is also
quite impossible to construct a time table for the gathering of different
varieties. The difference [of a few miles—sometimes often of only a few58
THE APPLE.
yards—or a mere change of site or inclination of ground may make a
difference of a month or more in the time of gathering. Again, seasons
vary from each other often as much as a month or six weeks in their earli-
ness or lateness. Neither do appearances help the cultivator much in
regard to the time to gather late fruit. Some sorts do reveal maturity
by certain changes of colour or degrees of semi-transparency; but it
needs much experience to read these signs of ripeness, and they also vary
much with seasons, and are at times altogether hidden or wanting. How,
then, shall the amateur know when to gather his apples ? Chiefly by
three simple tests within easy reach of all. The apples will begin to
fall of their own accord ; their seeds will be plump and brown in colour;
and the fruits will separate with a mere touch from the trees, without
removing either leaves or buds with them. The first test is not always
to be trusted. Some seasons a great proportion of a crop may fall before
the apples are really fit to gather. It may do so from overcropping;
from weakness or disease of the tree ; from insects in the fruit; from
sudden checks, or other causes. Therefore, when apples begin to drop
it is well to apply the seed and other tests before gathering the main
crop. Experience, however, will soon teach growers whether the crop
is dropping from accidental causes, or from ripeness.
The seed test is also a pretty safe criterion. All that is needful is to
halve a few apples with the knife and test the seed. The hardness and
colour together form sure symbols of maturity. The seed may be large,
and brown also ; but unless they cut rather hard, and seem mature and
almost free from juice when cut across, the probability is that the apples
are not fit to gather. The last test is the surest and most infallible
one. If the connection between the fruit and the tree, the fruit stalk and
the buds near its base is so slight that it can be severed by the merest
touch, then the crop may be gathered with confidence, for the connection
between it and the tree is already virtually severed. The lines of com-
munication being so weak, the apple can draw no more strength and
support along them, and therefore may be safely separated from the tree
at once. However, it is not always possible to wait until the trees thus
dismiss the fruit into the gatherer’s hand, and in late seasons another
test may sometimes be employed with great practical advantage. The
fruit may be suddenly lifted up to form almost a right angle with its
line of growth. If it then comes off readily, it may be gathered, if not
it may be left to hang as late as is safe for fear of the frost. All apples
should be gathered before the end of October, for none will bear frost,
with impunity. A few degrees of frost may not cause decomposition,
but is fatal to the flavour of apples, and should never be allowed to
touch them.CROPPING.
59'
Apples, however, should be left on the trees as late as may be in safety
until they prove fit for gathering by the simple tests here given. It is
almost better to leave them too late than to gather them too soon. In
the latter case their beauty is quickly marred by irrevocable shrivelling
which also lowers their quality and destroys their flavour.
The mode of gathering apples is hardly of secondary moment to
the time. They should be gathered in dry weather, and handled as
gently as if they were balls of blown glass. It is not always possible
to gather apples dry, and some contend that they keep equally well
when laid up wet. Others, again, recommend them to be spread out
to dry before being placed in store. The injury of frequent removals is
so great that, when gathered wet, as the least of two evils they had
better be stored wet. The rubbing of apples dry, or drying and a
second removal, would injure them more than the little wet that would
adhere to their smooth surface in store. But always, when possible,
they should be gathered in a dry state in fine weather. They are less
easily injured when gathered dry, and also keep better. It is impossible
to go to extremes in the matter of gentle handling in gathering. Could
each fruit be touched softly and laid singly on a soft, elastic base, there
would be few complaints of imperfect keeping. All choice applies
should be gathered carefully and laid gently in baskets or trays in singlp
file only, and so conveyed to the store room. If anyone wants to know
how not to have his apples keep, here is a sure recipe : Shake the fruit
from the tree to the ground, gather it up into deep baskets or wheel-
barrows, convey it roughly to the fruit room, and then pitch it up on to
the shelves. Full half of it will have rotted within the first two
months.
V*—Storing.
There is an almost endless diversity of modes for storing apples.
Some recommend casks, others boxes, jars, flower pots, pits in the earth,
&c. The packing material prescribed is as various as the methods of
storing—sand, sawdust, dry earth, charcoal, paper, shavings, moss, chaff,
cotton wool, malt coombs, hay, straw, &c. Every variety of place, from
highest garret to the lowest cellar or cave, has also been recommended
for storing apples. It must also be admitted that all the places, methods,
and accompaniments have proved more or less successful. It may, how-
ever, be stated that the simplest way is the best, and perhaps there is
no simpler method than the choosing or forming some room or place,
free from all extremes of heat and cold, dryness or damp, where a tempera-
ture as near 45° as may be is maintained for the apples. A plan of a fruit60
THE APPLE.
room will be found in the succeeding treatise on pears. Meanwhile it may
be observed that a steady temperature is the chief consideration. Some
make much of a circulation of air. This is by no means important.
On the contrary, it is likely to be injurious. The fruit, too, is best
laid on wooden shelves. These should be made of poplar, sycamore,
lime, or other white wood. Deal, oak, ash, elm, and almost all other
woods give a taste to the fruit. Nothing should be laid under the fruit,
unless it be a few sheets of tissue paper. Hay, straw, and such sub-
stances are injurious, and almost sure to flavour the fruit, and induce
mustiness and hasten decomposition. Neither should apples be covered
over above, any more than padded below. They ripen best, and are of
the highest flavour, when left fully exposed to the free atmosphere of the
fruit room or store. The light should also be shut out. Exposed to
light, apples ripen sooner, and also develope a stronger tendency to shrivel.
A more even temperature is also possible with the light shut out. Apples
gathered at the proper time and stored in the right way finish best
without any external help. They have all the elements of the highest
quality within themselves, which they will be sure to develope if time
only is given to them.
In storing apples, too, a careful selection should be made between late
and early varieties. If these could be stored in separate places it would
be desirable to do so ; if not, they should be placed as far apart as
possible. For ripeness and rottenness also seem rather catching. Good
keepers seem to be partially affected by the bad, while decomposing
apples are positively infectious to sound ones, therefore the decayed
fruit should be constantly removed, and early and ripe sorts be kept as
far from the sound and long keeping varieties as possible. The classifi-
cation of fruit at storing saves time as well as assists good and long
keeping, and can hardly be too carefully attended to. All inferior or
injured fruit should also be stored by itself. Few things give more
trouble or mar the appearance of fruit stores more than the packing away
of inferior fruit with the best, and the placing of small, pecked, or bruised
specimens with those that are sound and perfect. The plan of isolating
each fruit by packing in tissue paper, sand, burnt earth, or other sub-
stances, though favourable to long keeping by excluding the air, also
injures and often entirely destroys the flavour of fruit, for the air seems
essential to the perfect maturation of apples after they are gathered.
Stored on, latticed shelves in single files, looked over occasionally to
remove any specked fruit, each variety will keep its appointed time
without further trouble. That time, however, varies according to
seasons, and is seldom according to timps given in fruit lists or
catalogues. Each fruit has, in fact, a wide range of season according toCROPPING.
61
season, soil, local climate, modes of culture, temperature of fruit store,
and other influences. It is, therefore, important to have an eye on the
fruit store, and to occasionally test the varieties so as to catch them
at the right time for table or kitchen use. Used too soon, apples are
too acid; kept too long, they degenerate into sleepy mealiness, and have
lost all their sparkling briskness and delicious aroma and freshness for
which they are mostly valued. Apples should neither be handled nor
rubbed in store. These but tend to hasten decay and mar their beauty.
In a regular temperature the fruit will seldom sweat, and if it should,
from extreme atmospheric changes, it should be left to dry again of its
own accord.
VI—Serving.
The last point to be noted now is the serving or use of apples. In
regard to kitchen apples, it is practically too often forgotten that each
variety has its proper season for use, as well as dessert sorts have
their appointed time for table. By paying attention to use each cooking
apple in proper season, not only will all its best qualities be developed in
tart, pie, fritter, sauce, or what not, but an immense saving of sugar will
be effected. The majority of kitchen apples have almost sugar enough
in them to eat pleasantly without any addition if only kept till their
proper season. But cooked, as they often are, in a hard, green condition,
they are sour as crabs, and have no particular flavour but intense acidity.
Many apples are also utterly spoilt by an excess of sugar. The way
to thoroughly enjoy good cooked apples is to use no sugar until they come
to table, when each person may sweeten to his taste. The question has
lately been mooted whether it is worth while to grow many kitchen
apples at all; a few of them may be almost indispensable for sauce.
But as they take up the same room and can hardly be said upon the
whole to be more productive than dessert varieties, and as the latter,
moreover, are far superior cooked to the sub-acid sorts, it may be
wise to use chiefly dessert varieties for kitchen purposes, and thus,
at least, save or reduce our sugar bills.
Dessert apples, unless served at the proper time, are nothing. They
should be carried from the fruit room to the dessert table in flat baskets
only one apple thick. Should the distance be great and the weather
frosty, the fruit should be covered over with a layer of cotton wool
in transit. A mere sting of the frost in passing injures the flavour
of apples. The best way of serving up apples for table would be in
single file. But custom builds them up in the form of a pyramid of
three or four layers, tapering to a single fruit in the centre. They are62
THE APPLE.
generally dished up with vine or other leaves. Some, however, use
coloured paper. Different coloured leaves, such as those of such vines
as the Claret, Barbarossa, West St. Peters, are among the most
striking. The Liquid Amber and Virginian creeper also brighten up the
yellow or orange varieties of apples nicely. For the red-cheeked sorts
leaves of the variegated Cobea scandens, Acer negunda variegata, or
silver variegated kale, afford a nice contrast. Extra curled parsley,
tansy leaves, asparagus tops, and other elegant foliage, such as maiden-
hair or other ferns, some of the finer lycopodiums, &c., give grace and
beauty to dishes of apples on the dessert table. Some of these garnishes
are, however, objectionable, on account of their scent, or the flavour they
impart to the fruit, and ivy and even laurel leaves are objectionable
on the same grounds. There are few more effective dressings for
apples than that of leaves and tiny branchlets of holly, either with
or without berries. Among the wide choice of green and variegated
hollies, sufficient variety may be found to suit every coloured apple, and
the holly neither scents nor flavours the fruit. Brought to table at
the right time, and disposed to the best effect, there are few fruits more
prized for dessert than first-rate apples, which might be eaten by every-
one, if not absolutely all the year round, at least nine months out of the
twelve.
Diseases and Insect Pests.
The apple grown on good soil and skilfully cultivated is but little attacked
by disease, and seldom seriously infested by insects. Both alike are
generally proofs of something wrong, either in the soil, the climate, or
the management. With these three what they ought to be, most apples
are proof against disease, and afford but little shelter or food for insect
pests. But as climate is beyond control, and apples are often planted
in ungenial soils, disease frequently breaks out among apples alike in
garden and orchard.
I—Canker.
The most destructive and most difficult to prevent or cure is canker.
This is something akin to cancer in the animal kingdom—a something
that eats in to the tissues, consumes or dries them up, and so kills
large branches or main stems. It first blotches and kills the bark,DISEASES AND INSECT PESTS.
63
arresting the proper passage of fluids, then eats its way into the wood,
and finally utterly destroys the affected parts. There can hardly be a
doubt that the seat of canker is generally iii the soil. The roots either
absorb or touch something deleterious to the tree, and there is a stoppage
or derangement of fluid, and perhaps a deposit of granular matter, and
canker results. A change of soil, or rather the uplifting of the roots
into new and different and warmer earth nearer to the surface, is
generally the best remedy for canker; and this is the sooner effected if
the cankered parts are reduced and dressed with oil or other oleaginous
compound.
Excessive growth may also produce canker, especially if it is prolonged
late in the season. Gross wood hit by the frost before it is matured
results in a sort of canker, very similar to that produced by a mere
mechanical bruise or abrasion. The cold ruptures the cells when full of
sap, and this immature wood becomes blotched and cankered. This
sometimes happens on the best of soils, and especially in low-lying
localities. When apples are grown in these care should be taken by
root pruning, surface planting, and other expedients to check growth
and hasten its maturity before the frost comes upon it.
Another cause of canker is severe and careless pruning. It should
never be forgotten that all pruning is unnatural, and, therefore, that
as few wounds as possible should be made, and these of the smallest
area. The fluid or sap of plants is apt to ooze out of all the fresh
wounds made; and such diversions of sap not seldom form the nucleus
of canker and other diseases. The mere interruption and accumulation
of fluids in places where there is no outlet for them, one of the necessary
results of pruning, often leads to gangrene or canker. The concentrated
sap seems to undergo a species of decomposition and canker—that is,
decayed, dying, or dead tissues of wood—is the result. All pruning should
be done as early in the life of stems and branches as possible. Pruning
should also be done chiefly in the growing season, so that the wounds
made may be quickly healed, and not left long in a raw state with the
risk of degenerating into canker. Sudden changes of temperature, great
extremes of dryness or moisture, and severe checks or arrestments of
growth are also frequent producing causes of canker.
During severe drought, the roots of apples often become parched,
the sap almost viscid, the bark what is known as hide bound. Suddenly
a rainy season sets in, the plants are flushed with sap, the vessels, being
so long scantily filled, either burst or are disgorged, and canker follows.
It is also possible that canker arises at times from American blight,
scale, or other insect agencies. These injure or destroy the bark and
woody tissue, there is a derangement of fluids, and canker is established.64
THE APPLE.
In a word, canker comes through many channels, the chief of which
are doubtless an unsuitable soil, an ungenial climate, extreme and
sudden changes of condition, unseasonable frosts, and insect pests. It
may generally be prevented, seldom wholly cured. The favourite remedy
used to be to cut out canker; and to some extent the remedy was
successful. The strong growths that followed severe prunings continued
free for a time, but they generally succumbed to canker in the end.
At times canker seems developed from the action of lichens on the stems
or branches. In such cases a thorough cleansing and a smearing of
quick lime made into a wash proves useful. A wash of strong tobacco
water or a weak solution of sulphuric acid is also fatal to lichens and
mosses, and, so far as they destroy the latter, prevent canker originating
in that way. But, in general, canker may be almost held to be incurable,
and the best and safest course is to avoid, as far as possible, every
producing cause of this troublesome and, some hold, infectious disease.
II—Mildew.
Mildew, even more than canker, is a proof of an ungenial site or
mismanagement somewhere. A wet soil or subsoil, an excess of manure,
a deficiency or an excess of water, or any sudden check, will also, at
times, produce mildew. Overcropping by exhausting the trees also some-
times invites or aggravates this troublesome disease. Sulphur dressings,
or dredgings with equal parts quick lime and dry sulphur are useful
checks to the ravages of mildew ; but drainage, a renewal of the soil,
or surface planting on raised hillocks, or an entire change of site are the
only radical cures.
Ill—American Blight.
The American blight is both a disease and an insect pestof the very
worst description. This is at once the most mischievous and difficult to
eradicate of all apple pests. It attacks the tree at all points, root and
branch—strong trunk or delicate twig—gnarled bark and juiciest young
wood—no part, above or below ground, is safe from the ravages of
the American blight. It resembles at first sight a short tuft of fine
cotton wool, slender as finest threads, laid into the crevices of the
bark, or arranged in tufts around the buds or gnarled knots on the
stem. On examination it is found that these flowing filaments are but
the external fringes of hosts of wingless insects that prey upon the
juices of the tree, and, in consequence, produce gouty-like excrescences
on root and branch that destroy their tissues, and not seldom sacrificeDISEASES AND INSECT PESTS.
65
the life of the apple trees. One of the simplest remedies is to touch
each white thread or solitary insect with turpentine the moment one is
seen. This destroys them at once. So will pure spirits of wine. And
neither of these applications will injure apple trees in a dormant state.
Train oil also smothers the insects, and destroys and deranges their
filamentaceous appendages, so as to Tender them harmless if not quite
destroyed. Tobacco water also destroys them, if applied sufficiently
strong; as also do solutions of carbolic and sulphuric acids. Benzoline,
paraffin, petroleum, and other mineral oils also penetrate and kill the
blight; but these must only be applied to the infected parts, as they
are apt, when used neat, to blister the bark, and so lay the foundation of
canker. One of the cheapest and most effective remedies is the am-
moniacal liquor from the gasworks; but as this varies immensely in
strength, it is peculiarly dangerous in use without some means of
testing its power. Of ordinary strength, it may be applied to the
infected parts only. Reduced with equal or more parts of water, the
trees may be brushed over with it immediately after the fall of the leaf
with advantage. At that season the buds are hard, small, and dormant.
Later on the liquor would penetrate and destroy them. Boiling water is
also a certain cure, but, of course, must be confined to the pests.
Smears of almost any kind are also useful, as they smother the in-
sects in. They are generally, however, made nauseous or poisonous, or
both, so as to give them a compound power. Hence the use of lime,
cowdung, soot, with tobacco water, sulphur, nux vomica, soda, soap,
turpentine, grease, oils, &c., as component parts of paints and smears.
As far as the mechanical action of such kill the pests, adhesive clay or
cowdung and water made to a thick paste are as effective as any.
But add tobacco, turps, ammoniacal liquor, oils, soap, soda, to convert
soot, sulphur, lime, &c., into paint, and the mixture is poisonous as well
as suffocating. But the great difficulty with all these remedies is to
apply them all over large or orchard trees, and it must, therefore, be
confessed that they are more useful in gardens than in orchards. For the
latter, and also for large trees in gardens, there is no remedy for
American blight equal to the cold water cure. Applied with sufficient
force and frequency, the pest cannot long stand against well-directed
streams of cold water from the hose of a water main or the distribution
of a powerful garden engine. This dashes the filaments to atoms, and
these seem not merely useless ornaments but an essential part of the
insect’s life. It seems unable to live to any destructive purpose when
these are washed off or persistently smashed into masses by a powerful
stream of water.
For the cure of the blight on the roots water is also the only remedy.
F66
THE APPLE.
Dryness originates, or, at least, invites it there, and, fortunately, it can
be watered out. In bad cases, the affected roots, which are generally
near the surface, should be uncovered, the blight washed off with soap
and water, the roots dressed with train oil, the old soil removed and
burned, new and clean applied, and then the entire root mass soaked
with strong sewage, and kept more than usually wet until there is an
end of the blight.
IV.—Scale and Aphis.
The Mussel, or brown scale, also frequently attacks the apple ; it
clings to the bark so closely, and is so like it in colour, that in a small
state it often escapes detection. It injures the tree by feeding on the
bark, and prevents the latter from performing its proper functions or
continuing in good health. A common plan of removing the scale is
to scrub it off with hot soap and water or paint the trees with* lime
wash, and so smother it in, or suffocate it with a dressing of train
oil. Benzoline and other mineral oils have also proved effective in
killing the scale. All young trees should be carefully examined for
scale, &c., before planting, as it is obvious that few of those remedies
could be applied to large orchard trees, however effectual they might
be for the smaller trees of the garden.
The common aphides occasionally attack the apple in such numoers
as to prove very injurious. Their chief point of attack is often the
extremities of the growing shoots, and if this happens late in the
season, say in the middle of June, the simplest remedy is to cut off the
whole of the ends on which the aphides cluster, and carry them away
in baskets to be burned. If the aphides attack earlier in the season the
garden engine, with either clean or tobacco water, or hot sewage at a
temperature of 130°, is the best remedy.
V—Caterpillars, Weevils, and Maggots.
Various caterpillars and grubs also feed upon the leaves, flowers, and
young fruit of the apples. It would unduly burden these pages with
entomological matter to describe them all or prescribe remedies for each.
Most of them are large enough to be seen by the cultivator, and every
opportunity should be taken to pick them off, either in the moth,
caterpillar, grub, or chrysalis state. All webs should be picked off apple
trees as soon as seen. The trees should frequently be shaken, and any
grubs or caterpillars that fall to the ground should be instantly destroyed.
Trees that suffer from the apple borer or other insects should also haveDISEASES AND INSECT PESTS.
67
a few inches of the soil removed from the roots in the winter, and fresh
earth applied in its stead. It is also a good plan to surface round the
stems and roots with wood ashes, cement, burnt earth, and tanners’ bark
fresh out of the steep. The latter proves fatal to most of the moths,
caterpillars, or weevils that prey on the wood, bark, leaves, or fruit of
the apple. Hand picking, thrusting an iron pin into their holes,
plastering them in with nauseous or poisonous compounds are among
the best remedies for the stem boring weevil (JRhynchites alliarice),
the caterpillar of the goat moth (Cossus Ugniperda), the apple borer
(Saperda bivittata), the caterpillar of the winter moth (Hybernia
brumatd), and many others.
The apple weevil that does most mischief, though there are several of
them, is perhaps the one known to entomologists as the Anfhonomons
pomorum. This beetle, having slept in the ground or in a crevice
of the bark throughout the winter, comes forth in the spring, just as the
apples are in bloom, and hastens to deposit an egg in each flower bud.
This egg is soon hatched into a small white grub, which eats up all
the vital organs of the flower, fattens upon the future apple, and as soon
as it has totally destroyed it, it is transformed into a beetle, strong
enough to digest stronger food. Henceforth it preys on the leaves of
the tree till autumn. At the fall of the leaf it either drops to the
ground and hides away in the earth, or finds a winter’s shelter in the bark
till next spring, when eggs are again laid in each flower bud and another
crop destroyed. From this account of the life of the apple weevil it
will be obvious that the white grubs may be squashed as they feast on
the tender flowers, and that the cleaner and smoother the trees are
kept the less storage for the weevil. Scrubbings and smearings will
also clear off a good many, and surfacings of tan would possibly either
kill the weevil or bother them to get through in the spring. It will also
be obvious that by removing a few inches of the surface soil bodily and
burning it, it would probably go hard with most of the weevils and
other pests which had sought safe winter quarters under the sheltering
boughs of the leafless apple trees.
The apple maggot or codling moth (Carpocampa pomonella') is the most
destructive and provoking of all apple pests. It is bad enough to
*	have the shoots eaten through by stem-boring weevils, the flowers
devoured by the apple weevil, and the wood tunnelled in all directions
by the wood leopard moth and apple borer; but it is even more
tantalising to have the apples bored through by the above and other
*'	maggots after they reach a promising size. The moth of the apple
maggot generally deposits its eggs in the eye of the apple, or near
the stalk. Either place is chosen according to the position of the apple
E 268
THE APPLE.
and either suits the insect equally well. There is a hollow to receive
the eggs, and the skin of the apple is thinner near the stalk or the eye
than on either of its sides. In a few days the eggs hatch, and bring
forth white grubs. These instantly bore their way into the fruit, and
feed upon their substance for three weeks or a month. After a time the
grub, enlarging in size and growing in strength, eats its way into the
centre of the apple. Here it finds more space and a change of food.
From the time it reaches the core of the apple the maggot turns its
attention to the seeds, and consumes them. No sooner does this happen
than the apple, recognising that the purpose for which it was swelling
and ripening its seeds has been frustrated, loses its hold of the tree,
and falls to the ground. This exactly suits the design of the maggot,
which, on the destruction of the seeds, at once begins to eat another
tunnel, or enlarges one previously made, out of the fruit. Finding
this already fallen, it creeps along the ground until it reaches the bole
of the tree, in a crevice of which it securely hides itself until it passes
from a grub into a chrysalis, and sleeps soundly until next spring, when
it awakes to find itself a beautiful moth to lay its eggs, and begins the
course of destruction so well known to apple growers. Perhaps the best
mode of destroying these maggots is to collect and burn or otherwise
destroy every apple that falls prematurely, or better still to examine the
apples on the trees, and wherever the smallest sign of aperture is
visible, gather and destroy the fruit at once. If allowed to fall the
grub may make its escape before the fruit can be picked up. But if
the affected apples are picked off the trees, the maggot will at that
time be feasting on the seeds and has not yet tunnelled an aperture
large enough for its escape.
Various traps have been recommended to decoy the grubs to their
capture and speedy despatch on their way from the fallen apples to a •
hiding place. The simplest of these is to twist a few hay bands or pieces
of old cloth, or fix laths of wood against hoops round the trees. The
maggots, exhausted by the least effort after leaving the fruit, gladly
rest in the first shelter they find, and thus if the traps are examined
every second day or so many of them may be found lurking between
the decoys and the bark, where they may readily be destroyed. A
thick smear of lime or soft soap and grease on the boles of the trees
also- hinders the maggot from climbing them or transfixes them on
the spot.
Some also recommend catching the moths in the spring, but this is	*■
slow and difficult work. It is a good plan, however, to collect heaps of
wood, green spray, and other rubbish, and to light and maintain fires
for several days, at different seasons, when the different moths showDETERMINATION OE VARIETIES.	69
in orchards. Smothered fires spread abroad huge clouds of smoke and
ward the moths off, besides suffocating a few of them.
The ministry of the birds should also be invoked to keep down
nsect pests by devouring eggs and grubs. The tom-tits and woodpeckers
are of great service in this matter, and the bullfinches and chaffinches
that devour so many buds, possibly also season their vegetable diet with
a few caterpillars, grubs, and maggots at times.
But the best remedy against diseases and insect pests is superior cultiva-
tion. Establish and maintain apple trees in robust health, keep the
stems free of parasites, including even the beautiful mistletoe bough
where these abound. Leave no residuum of dirt or decomposition on
trunk or branch to afford a foothold or breeding ground for vermin.
Avoid overcropping, over or under feeding, and the chances are that
the apple trees in garden or orchard will continue in good health, and
yield full crops for a generation or more.
Determination of Varieties.
No one who has grown an extensive collection of apples but must have
longed at times for some sure and certain method of determining different
varieties. Apples, as everyone knows, differ greatly in form, size,
character. Are these differences sufficiently constant to enable a careful
observer to determine one apple from another ? Various attempts have
been made (chiefly by foreign pomologists or botanists) to seize upon
certain characteristics of wood, habit, leaf, flower, or fruit, to form a
basis for the determination of varieties.
Dr. Hogg (to whom British pomologists are already under great
obligations) has recently advanced the most feasible theory on this
subject. Taking the most constant and structurally important charac-
teristics of the apple—such as the stamens, the calyx tube, the core
h	cells, and the eye—Dr. Hogg shows that these features are sufficiently
constant to form the basis of a useful classification for the determination
of particular varieties. Of course, they are modified by seasons and
t	circumstances, and it is seldom that each distinctive characteristic is
found in the same degree of perfection. But in many cases one or two
of the features being constant may suffice to determine varieties. The
primary object of all classification is sure certification and—if this can70
THE APPLE.
be assisted, or in many cases absolutely secured—perfect constancy of
character is of less moment, and can hardly be looked for in a fruit so
given to change as the apple.
Dr. Hogg bases his classification on a fourfold basis. The first is
taken from the insertion of the stamens in the tube, the secondary from
the tube itself, the tertiary from the cells of the core, and the sub-
ordinate from the eyes, form of the fruit, &c.
Of course there would be difficulties at first in using this or any other
system of classification. It would also take considerable practice to-
become expert in the use of the signs employed to denote the different
characters. But these once mastered, there can hardly be a doubt
that Dr. Hogg’s new classification of apples would prove of the greatest
service in determining the different varieties, and would greatly facilitate
a more intelligent knowledge of distinct sorts.Table of Contents.
Introduction and History ......................................
Varieties .....................................................
I.	Dessert Apples .....................................
II.	Kitchen Apples .....................................
III.	Apples for Particular Purposes .....................
Propagation....................................................
I.	By Cuttings ........................................
II.	By Seeds............................................
III.	By Grafting ........................................
Training ......................................................
Pruning........................................................
I.	Root Pruning........................................
II.	Summer Pruning .....................................
III.	Winter Pruning .....................................
Planting ......................................................
I.	Time ...............................................
II.	Soil ...............................................
III.	Site ...............................................
IV.	Method of Planting .................................
Cropping ......................................................
I.	Thinning............................................
II.	Swelling ...........................................
III.	Ripening............................................
IV.	Gathering ..........................................
V.	Storing ............................................
VI.	Serving ............................................
Diseases and Insect Pests .....................................
I.	Canker..............................................
II.	Mildew .............................................
III.	American Blight.....................................
IV.	Scale and Aphis.....................................
V.	Caterpillars, Weevils, and Maggots.................
Determination op Varieties ...................v................
'AGE
1
5
6
11
13
15
15
18
21
29
38
39
42
44
47
47
48
50
51
54
54
55
56
57
59
61
62
62
64
64
66
66
69
■


t
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HAWLEY^ SARDEN MANURES.
HAWLEYS P»W UNIVERSAL
GARDEN	MANURE.
REGISTERED.
This Manure is composed of the most powerful fertilizers known.
It is devoid of offensive smell, and may be, therefore, used in the Con-
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full directions for application at the following rates—281b., 4s.; 561b..
7s. 6d.; cwt., 13s.
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AND
SEED MERCHANT,
WORCE8T ER.
In these NURSERIES, Twelve Acres are devoted exclusively to
the Cultivation of ROSE TREES; Fifty Acres to CONIFERS, EVER-
GREENS, and ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS ; Fifty Acres to FRUIT
TREES alone ; a/nd a proportionally large space to each other
Division of Useful and Ornamental SHRUBS, FOREST TREES,
fyc., requiring Thirty-two Miles of Walks for the convenience of
attending to the Stock ; and Two and a Half Acres of Glass to rear
the Young Plants.
DESCRIPTIVE LISTS
Of THE FOLLOWING, TO BE HAD ON APPLICATION:
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DUTCH FLOWER ROOTS. FRUIT TREES.
ROSES. CONIFERS.
EVERGREENS and CLIMBERS.
STOVE, GREEN-HOUSE, and BEDDING PLANTS
Herbaceous & Alpine PLANTS, & Hardy PERNS.